Broken Paradise

by Cecilia Samartin

  She whispered to me as we waited for the meal to be served. “Mami’s happy because she found three fresh tomatoes yesterday.”

  “That’s wonderful. I love tomatoes.”

  “I’m lucky that I love bananas best ’cause they’re easier to find than tomatoes. Is it hard to find tomatoes in California?”

  I took her hand. “Not as hard as it is here.”

  Alicia and Berta emerged from the tiny kitchen beaming and dripping with perspiration. Between them, they brought a meal that was simple, but delicious. A whole chicken had been slowly stewed in its own juices with onions and garlic. The black beans were the best I’d tasted since leaving Cuba, and the rice was fluffy and perfect, with lightly salted tomatoes sliced on the side in thick rounds.

  Berta turned on the radio, and we listened to the crackling sounds of Mambo music as we ate. The breeze from the ocean circled the apartment and settled upon us like an old friend. I closed my eyes. We could’ve been at Abuelo and Abuela’s house at Varadero eating arroz con pollo after a long swim. After the meal we’d take a leisurely stroll and reward ourselves with coconut ice cream or a freshly cut mango.

  I opened my eyes to find Alicia studying me. She appeared more tired than worried, and although dark circles were evident beneath her eyes, she was still beautiful. The weight she’d lost only accentuated the chiseled perfection of her cheekbones, the perfect line of her nose, and the delicate sweep of her jaw that flexed as she chewed. Seeing daughter and mother side by side was quite astounding. Lucinda resembled her father, there was no doubt about that, but her aquiline features were almost an exact replica of her mother’s.

  “You’ve come so far and this is all we have to offer you,” Alicia said, setting down her fork as her eyes filled with tears. “I’m ashamed to tell you how long it took us to find this chicken…” She shrugged off her sadness and winked in Berta’s direction.

  “Well, I sure don’t mind telling you,” Berta countered with a flick of her head that swung a shock of black hair across Lucinda’s startled face. “What we should’ve done with this chicken was dress it up in new clothes and take it dancing for the evening. It’s almost a shame to eat it.”

  We all laughed and I realized that Berta helped Alicia with much more than her talent for finding chickens and toilet paper. In some ways, she reminded me of Beba. Her no nonsense humor seemed to beckon hope and forward thinking as resolutely as a good strong heat could boil water. There was no time or energy to worry, when you knew that day would follow night and that you had to continue breathing and living and laughing and crying today just like any other day.

  After dinner, Alicia collapsed on the couch while Lucinda did the dishes in the bathroom sink. I offered to help, but she refused with a casual wave of her hand as though she were a middle-age lady quite territorial about her work in the kitchen. Berta retired to her room with complaints that she would need to get up early the next morning. The radio was hers and she took it with her.

  Alicia insisted we go for a walk while Lucinda finished the dishes and in less than a minute we were walking arm in arm toward the malecón. We were silent as we walked, listening to the sounds of the city, children being called in from the streets for the night. Pots and pans clanging as they were washed after dinner, the scuffling of brooms sweeping the grime of the day out into the streets. Few cars could be heard or seen. Alicia explained that it was next to impossible to find headlights for them so they couldn’t be driven at night. If you saw a car at night, it was almost always a taxi or a Russian-built government car.

  We reached the malecón in a few minutes, at almost the same spot where I’d stood earlier that day, but the difference was dramatic. A blinking necklace of lights spread out before us, tracing the line of the shore. The exact curve and sweep of the lights conforming perfectly to the memory I cherished. The music of the sea, the mist against my cheeks, Alicia’s voice speaking to me, telling me whatever came into her head, as she was prone to do. I held on to the concrete wall for support. My eyes were aching from the effort of crying and trying not to cry as tears sprung to my eyes for the third time that day.

  I heard Alicia’s voice carry on the breeze behind me. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

  “We shouldn’t have come when you’re so tired. We could’ve come tomorrow.”

  “I wanted to see it tonight.”

  I turned to Alicia who was gazing and smiling at me. “You can see this every night, silly,” I said.

  “No. I wanted to see the expression on your face when you saw it.” She shoved my shoulder playfully. “Silly.”

  We walked on a few blocks further and crossed the street arm in arm. Hardly speaking, she guided me past the corner where the pharmacy had been and on toward the street that I knew we must visit. My senses became enlivened, and I felt like an old horse heading back to her stable. We stopped suddenly, my eyes lifting seven stories up to our apartment, and the years swept away as if we had just been sent on an errand. I expected to see Beba’s white turban out on the balcony at any moment and Mami watching and waving like she did when we went to the corner for an ice cream. “Bring back some coconut for after dinner,” she’d call. “And be careful crossing the street.” My eyes strained against the shadows hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghost or anything that could make it all come back again. Perhaps if I looked at it hard enough and long enough.

  “Who lives there now?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

  “Nobody. The building’s been condemned for years.”

  I looked more closely and saw the windows boarded up and other balconies stripped of their railings. I felt a sudden urge to run up the seven flights of stairs and see it all again; my room, the kitchen, and the chair where Papi used to read his paper. I might even find my Elvis albums where I’d left them by the window. I began to walk forward to do just that, but Alicia held on to my arm. “It’s not a good idea to go in, Nora,” she said softly.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s very dangerous,” she said, leading me away. “More than you know.”

  We walked back home slowly, and Alicia leaned more heavily on my arm. “Have you seen a doctor yet?” I asked.

  “A doctor? For what?”

  “You’re obviously not feeling well, and you’ve lost a lot of weight….”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me next that a woman should be round and plump with a big butt if she wants to look good.”

  I laughed, remembering the traditional Cuban abhorrence of skinny women. “I’d never say such a thing, I just think you should see a doctor. Maybe he can give you an antibiotic or some kind of medicine….”

  “Doctors here don’t have much medicine to give, Nora. Besides all I need is rest and now that you’re here, that’s medicine enough for me.”

  I called Jeremy from a pay phone down the street the next morning. Alicia said it served most of the neighborhood and that I should get up early if I didn’t want to wait in line for too long. Lucinda asked meekly if she could accompany me, and this surprised and pleased Alicia.

  She held my hand tightly and matched her steps precisely to my own, and she never stopped chattering away about her books and how she wanted to be a teacher for blind children one day. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk next to the phone before I’d spotted it and stood close to me, under the shadow of the phone booth, as I dialed and spoke to the international operator. Lucinda smiled when she heard my English, and I believe she was proud.

  It was still very early in the morning, but Jeremy answered the phone before it had a chance to complete the first ring. He seemed delighted to hear my voice, and said many times that he missed me, and asked even more times how I was and how I’d found everything.

  “Have you talked to my parents?” I asked.

  “They called last night wanting to know if you’d made it OK, but I told them I hadn’t heard from you.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “They seemed a little w
orried about you, but they’ll be fine. The important thing is that you take care of yourself and come back soon. I miss you, you know,” he said for the tenth time, but I didn’t get tired of hearing it.

  I felt Lucinda tugging at my sleeve. “Can I say hello to Heremi?” she asked with a shy smile. I passed the phone to Lucinda. “Hello. How are you?” she asked in her best, most carefully pronounced English. Then her eyes flew open and she giggled as she answered Jeremy’s questions in Spanish and gave him a blow by blow account of all we’d done since I arrived.

  “And we’re taking her to our special beach today or tomorrow. It all depends on how Mami feels.” Lucinda nodded. “No she’s been sick for a long time and she needs to rest all the time, but I take very good care of her. She tells me no one can take as good care of her as me.” She nodded again. “Yes, I’ll take good care of Tía Nora too. I’ll make sure she’s always with me, except when she takes a bath or goes to the bathroom. Even then, I won’t be very far away at all.” After several good-byes, she handed the phone back to me quite satisfied with herself.

  “Looks like you have an able little bodyguard there,” he said, still chuckling.

  “She’s precious, Jeremy. I feel as though she’s been with me all my life. I really don’t know how I’ll manage to leave her.”

  “Are you trying to scare me? You said you’d be back in two weeks, and I don’t believe I’ll be able to stand it for a minute more than that.”

  I held Lucinda close to me as I answered him. “I miss you too, and I’ll be home very soon. I promise.”

  As it turned out, Alicia did feel better and we managed to get to the beach several times that first week. Alicia and Lucinda called it their secret beach, and it took some doing to get there. It was at least three miles further than the beach we had frequented near Havana, and we needed to arrive between nine and ten in the morning and enter through an opening in a the barbed wire fence that ran for at least three or four miles further down the road. We took a picnic of bread, cheese, and ham, all items I purchased at the tourist market without difficulty. I was also able to find a beach umbrella, ridiculously priced, but worth the expense, because the secret beach provided no shade whatsoever.

  Alicia eased back on her elbows with an audible sigh. The shadows under her eyes had grown more pronounced, and I wondered if she’d become even more tired since my arrival.

  “Why don’t we just go to the usual beach? It’s so far to come all the way over here.”

  Alicia shook her head and sputtered a dry laugh. Her eyes were on Lucinda who waded in the warm water without a worry in the world. Whenever she stepped on something interesting, she reached down to pick it up and held it to her cheek.

  “That beach is closed to us,” Alicia said matter-of-factly. “You can go if you want.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Alicia allowed fists full of sand to slip through her fingers one after the other before answering. “Ever since they started building the hotels, they closed the best beaches to the people, the Cuban people that is.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Alicia kept pouring her piles of sand. “This beach is technically closed as well. That’s why they have the fence up. They’ll start building the hotel in a few months and then we’ll have to find somewhere else. Right now they don’t really enforce it, but they will.”

  I was silent while I thought about this. “It’s hard to believe that when we left here they called us gusanos and traitors to the revolution. Now they let us have the best.”

  “Ah, well…You may have been worms when you left, but now you’re butterflies and better than that, your wings are made of American dollars. That’s all the Castristas care about.”

  Alicia spoke with little emotion. She’d obviously accepted this reality long ago. But I was angry and had a good mind to march straight to the nearest hotel and complain. I told Alicia this and her eyes flew open in alarm.

  “That’s the worse thing you could do,” she said. “I don’t care about all that. All I care about is Lucinda and Tony and leaving here when we’re able.” She turned to me, her eyes alive with fear. “Promise me you won’t make any trouble at the hotels.”

  I nodded and she relaxed.

  Lucinda called out from the water’s edge that she was collecting perfect shells to give to each of us. Alicia smiled and laid down in the sand. She wore an old smock shirt and a pair of baggy shorts. She looked like a pubescent girl, with barely the suggestion of breasts. Her once shapely legs were knob-kneed and thinner than Lucinda’s, and her skin was so fragile and pale that I could see the delicate tract of veins pulsating in her throat.

  Alicia’s eyelids fluttered. “I wish we could look up at the palms like we used to. Remember?”

  “I remember,” I answered, still startled by her appearance.

  She opened one eye. “Lie down next to me, Nora.”

  I laid down and closed my eyes, feeling a chill despite the warmth of the sun and the sand beneath our bodies. It came from somewhere deep inside me, but I dared not examine it any further. Better to listen to the sigh of the ocean and Lucinda’s giggles floating above it.

  26

  THE HOT WIND CAME IN THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW AND moaned. I had difficulty breathing as I waited for morning. Alicia was sleeping on the couch, and Lucinda slept peacefully next to her on a roll of blankets.

  It had been three days since I’d spoken to Jeremy. Had he forgotten me? What silly thoughts popped into my head on sleepless nights. He couldn’t possibly forget me in a week. He loved me and had pledged to be with me always, and I was painfully aware of a desire to be with him in our little house. I looked out the window at the stars, the same stars I’d gazed at as a child from this particular angle in the sky. I’d be home in less than a week. I’d be lying with my sweet Jeremy in our king-size bed, his arms wrapped around me as he liked to do before he fell asleep. If it was Saturday we’d go for our morning walk and return to our house for the eggs and bacon we only allowed ourselves on weekends. Weekdays were dedicated to healthier breakfasts of low fat cereal and fruit, with maybe a sprinkle of sugar.

  The little hand on my forehead startled me. It was Lucinda crouching next to me. The moonlight illuminated her angelic features and reflected off her small teeth. She appeared to be looking into my eyes. At first I thought she was smiling and playing a trick on me, but then I realized it was agony I saw on her face, a mature pain not appropriate for someone so young.

  She inched closer to me and whispered in my ear: “Tía Nora, are you awake?”

  “Yes, my love. I’m awake.”

  “I must tell you something, Tía Nora.”

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “Mami is very sick.”

  The elbow on which I supported myself threatened to give way. Perhaps I was still sleeping? I blinked, but Lucinda remained as she was with her little hand on my shoulder, her corkscrew curls catching the moonlight through the window, her wondering gaze quite at home in the dark.

  “Lucinda, you must be having a bad dream.”

  “No, I’m not. They don’t think I know.”

  “Know what exactly?”

  “Mami has a disease.” Her face contorted in pain. “I heard Berta and Mami talking when they thought I was asleep.”

  Her hands reached for my face as she tried to read my expression, her fingertips gently exploring my eyes for tears. Relieved to find them dry, she continued. “They take people who have it far away. They’re keeping it a secret so Mami doesn’t have to go away from me.”

  I sat straight up in my cot and held Lucinda close to me. “Don’t worry. I’ll help your Mami, Lucinda.”

  Her arms reached around and I felt her tremble with sobs, but she quickly recovered and smothered the sounds of her pain for fear that she’d wake up her mother. As I held her, I was hardly able to breathe, as if I’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “Can I sleep with you, Tía?”

  I threw t
he sheet back and made room in the narrow cot for her. She nestled into me like a warm kitten, and fell asleep in less than a minute.

  Alicia explained she’d been making this short trip out of town on a weekly basis for almost five years and for the last year or so, Ricardo hadn’t required any special favors. She’d told me about it in her letters, but I sensed she had a need to tell me about it again. We walked slowly through narrow streets trying to stay on the shaded side, as the heat was suffocating.

  The drying laundry swinging in the hot wind above our heads was the only movement, and our own pace was slow.

  Alicia spoke while looking down at her feet. She allowed me to carry the bag of provisions containing items that were difficult to find such as aspirin, a box of saltine crackers, and the inevitable tube of toothpaste with nothing but the world “Dental” written on it.

  “It gives me so much peace to do this,” she said. “To know that these items can keep Tony more comfortable and safe. Maybe he’ll have a letter for me.” She brightened up at the prospect.

  “Does he write you every week?”

  “No. I wish he did, but it’s not easy to get paper and I suppose that sometimes he’s just too tired. They take prisoners out to work in the fields you know, especially the strong capable ones. One day I sat out in the sun for almost half a day watching a line of men working in the field. I picked one man out of the group and pretended he was Tony. His shoulders were broad and he swung his arms the way I imagined Tony would, and he held his head up high as I hope Tony still does. Then he spat down at his feet and I knew it wasn’t Tony. He’d never do that.”

  We walked for another half-hour in silence, our feet pounding the broken sidewalk like hot pancakes on a griddle. My throat was dry, and I suggested we stop at the next market for something to drink. We sipped lime sodas under the shade of a tattered awning while sitting on the curb. The road was bright with heat, and I wondered if even the ocean was boiling.

  “How long have you been sick, Alicia?”