Broken Paradise

by Cecilia Samartin

  I heard Lucinda’s voice first. A soft sweet melody, floating as if from the sky and when I turned to the sound of it, I almost fell to my knees. She walked confidently, smiling to herself as she chattered, holding onto the handle as Berta wheeled Alicia in the wagon. Berta was the first to spot me and she looked grim.

  When I reached them I held Lucinda tight. “We climbed out the window of Berta’s room,” she said excitedly. “It was so fun, Tía Nora. Berta just made up this game and we were pretending to be secret spies and we had to escape the bad man. Mami said she used to play this game with you when you were little girls. Maybe next time you can play with us too?”

  I studied Alicia’s expression. She seemed relieved and grateful for my understanding, but there was a resignation settling into her I’d never seen before. I turned my attention back to Lucinda. “Guess what? I just saw Pepe, and he told me the bad man is gone so we can go home now.”

  Later, when Alicia was sure Lucinda wouldn’t hear her she whispered to me, “I saw the man when he was down the street. I’m sure he’s from the Ministerio de Educación and he was coming to take her.”

  “Don’t worry about that now,” I said, startled by how much she’d weakened practically overnight, her eyes shadowed and hollowed with fatigue.

  Alicia awoke later that afternoon to the company of Beba who’d stopped by to see how she was doing. Beba was concerned to hear about the day’s events, but even more so to see Alicia’s physical deterioration.

  She spoke with gentle authority. “If you come to my house tomorrow I will help you with your pain.”

  I could see Alicia ready to protest that she felt fine, but Beba raised her long bony finger to silence her. “Your eyes are full of pain. Come see me tomorrow and you will feel better.”

  31

  LUCINDA AND I SAT IN METAL CHAIRS AGAINST THE WALL. THE thin curtains were drawn and, since sunlight had difficulty making its way down the alley into Beba’s window, the room was almost as dark as it would’ve been in the middle of the night. Numerous candles provided the only light necessary. Beba wore a white turban, the one she’d worn before the revolution, twisted high on her head, and colored beads of red and yellow clacked around her neck as she moved about the small room.

  She’d placed a large metal tub in the very center of the room where Alicia now sat. Eyes lowered, Beba passed her hands over Alicia’s head and body without touching her. This went on for several minutes before she began to chant softly as she poured fragrant oil on Alicia’s head.

  At first, Alicia had been reluctant to participate. When she’d woken up she said she didn’t feel well enough to do anything but lay in her bed and look out the window. Every breath caused her to wince with pain and she looked like someone waiting, simply waiting because there was nothing else she could do. Lucinda sat next to her in the bed and tried to persuade her to eat, but Alicia refused even a little water and a few crackers. In just one night she seemed to have slipped further away from life. Her skin was yellow and tight over her beautiful cheekbones, the skin on her shoulders like gauze.

  “You should go,” she said with a cough. “You should go out and enjoy the day.” She said nothing about Lucinda joining me. It was clear she wanted to keep her daughter by her side. She closed her eyes and lay very still. Then she opened them wide and looked at me with sudden alarm. “Why do you say that Beba is always right Nora?”

  “She’s always been right. She knows things; she sees things.”

  Alicia closed her eyes again. “I’ll go see her then. I’ll go and see if she can make this pain go away.” It was the first time Alicia had admitted to feeling any pain at all.

  Beba scooped warm water out of the tub in a perfect pink seashell and poured it over Alicia again and again. Alicia closed her eyes, and Beba chanted a song deep in her throat that seemed to emanate deeper still from the pit of her belly until the music filled the room and all the spaces within us. The words weren’t Spanish, but Yoruba and the sounds were round and liquid and beautiful. We began to sway with the flickering candlelight until we were all quite relaxed. I had closed my eyes, but opened them every now and then to check on Alicia who was crouched in the tub, shoulders stooped, looking as if she had drifted off to sleep which she tended to do more and more. Suddenly she sat up straight as though a current of electricity had shot through her spine, but Beba didn’t change the pace or rhythm of her chanting. She didn’t even seem to notice this profound change.

  I sensed Lucinda shiver next to me and took hold of her hand. It was warm and dry, not sweaty and clammy like my own. Beba’s eyes opened a sliver, and she sprinkled a variety of sweet smelling herbs into the tub. Her chanting grew more intense, and her face began to contort as though there were invisible hands pushing at the loose flesh of her cheeks and forehead. Producing a butcher’s knife from the pocket of her skirt, she held it out so that the blade gleamed in the flickering candlelight. She then proceeded to slice away at Alicia’s dress one piece at a time until Alicia was quite naked, with strips of wet fabric clinging to her, to the tub, and to Beba as well.

  Even in the dim light it was difficult to look upon Alicia’s emaciated body, and I was grateful that Lucinda couldn’t see her. She was a whisper of human form, a fragile collection of bones spotted with sores the color of raspberries. In that instant, my once beautiful cousin became aware of her nakedness, and covered herself where breasts had once graced her sensuous figure. She glanced shyly at me and saw my eyes filled with tears.

  “The pain will leave you, child,” Beba said in her singsong voice, eyes closed once again. “Ask me what you want to know.”

  I had no idea what Beba meant by this, but Alicia did. “Will I see my Tony before I die?” she asked, her voice full of courage.

  “Not as you hope to see him.”

  “I hope to see him healthy and well.”

  Beba began to sway and then she knelt and placed a hand on Alicia’s shoulder. “He is well. You will see him well, and you will see him free.”

  “How about Lucinda? Will my Tony and Lucinda live together free in America?”

  “It is not mean to be; it cannot be,” was Beba’s quick reply. Too quick for the cruel blow it delivered.

  “Why can’t it be, Beba? I have the money. Why can’t it be?”

  Beba opened her eyes and stared straight through Alicia. “Tony cannot be free with both you and Lucinda.”

  Alicia began to whimper and tremble and I stood up to go to her, but Lucinda squeezed my hand and I held back.

  Beba raised her gaze to the ceiling. “Tony has been waiting for you for a long time. Almost two years. He sees you now and he’s waiting for you to cross over and be with him.”

  “That can’t be. Tony’s here and…” Alicia let her words and thoughts float and dissolve in the warm water that surrounded her. “Tony is already dead.”

  “He’s been waiting for you, my child,” Beba said.

  Alicia slept soundly as Lucinda and I hovered about Beba’s apartment whispering for the rest of the day. We were both shocked by Beba’s revelation, but when I questioned her, she was vague.

  “When I’m in trance I don’t plan what I’m going to say, Nora.”

  “But what if Tony isn’t dead?”

  Beba was not in the least bit concerned about this possibility. She blew out the candles one by one and shook her head resolutely. “What is done is done,” she said.

  I turned my attention to readying Alicia for our short walk home. With blankets tucked in and pillows adjusted, the three of us headed down the hall for the street.

  “Let her sleep as long as she needs to,” Beba said, her white turban gleaming in the darkened hallway. “She’ll wake before midnight, and things will be better.”

  Alicia woke up at precisely 11:45 P.M. Her eyes opened suddenly and they were bright, as if she hadn’t been sleeping at all, but engaging in the most animated of conversations. She placed her hand on Lucinda who was lying next to her, and Lucinda woke up as w
ell. She’d refused to leave her mother’s side since we arrived and asked constant questions about her father and if he was really dead and what the whole thing with Beba meant. I hardly knew how to answer her.

  “I’m thirsty,” Alicia said. “May I have some water, please?”

  Lucinda sprung up from the bed and scuffled to the kitchen.

  Alicia beckoned for me to come and sit next to her. “I feel as light as a feather. The pain that used to tightly wrap around me, squeezing the life out of me, is very far away, like a little star that blinks at me, but can’t do me any harm.”

  “I’m so glad, Alicia.”

  I took hold of her hand, and she squeezed it with amazing strength. “And Tony’s eyes are closer than the pain. I know he’s there, and I can see them. I dreamt about him just now. We were dancing on the sea together. We were floating up above the palm trees, and we saw Cuba down below us flowing like a fragile leaf in the river. She was floating toward a giant waterfall and then she rushed over the top and landed at the very bottom far below.” Alicia smiled and closed her eyes. “She was fine when she landed, just fine.”

  “Rest more, Alicia. That’s what you need to do right now.”

  Her eyes flew open and she was a child again, bright and amazing with a mind as quick and agile as a tiny zunzún bird flittering among the flowers. “Everything’s going to be OK, Nora. Don’t worry anymore.”

  The next morning I set out early to find Ricardo. It wasn’t the usual meeting day and I had no idea whether or not he’d be at his post, but I decided that if he wasn’t there I’d inquire about Tony at the prison office myself. I had nothing to lose, and nothing to hide.

  When I arrived, I saw no one at the guard post, but then Ricardo emerged from behind the building zipping up his fly. I shuddered to think of how many times Alicia had seen him in a similar situation. He straightened when he saw me, sniffed loudly and flicked his hairy hand over his revolver to make sure it was still there.

  “This isn’t the entrance for visitors,” He informed me gruffly. “You have to go around the other side.”

  “I’m not a visitor. I’m Alicia’s cousin. We met before.”

  Ricardo eyed me closely under bulging sweaty brows. He rolled his tongue over something in his mouth and spat it out, leaving a wad of spit glistening on the dirt. He spread his legs, his hand firmly on his revolver. “What do you want? This isn’t the day to come.”

  “I have reason to believe Tony Rodríguez is dead and has been for some time.”

  Roberto blinked the sweat out of his eyes, but said nothing.

  “You can tell me the truth yourself, or I can go inside and find out myself, but I don’t think you want any trouble.”

  Ricardo bared his big yellow teeth and his lips twitched. “What kind of trouble can you make for me?”

  I stepped forward. “I can tell them you’ve been extorting a helpless widow, and forcing her to bring you food and perform sexual favors.”

  Ricardo’s grin widened into a dry laugh. “How are you going to prove that, huh? Nobody gives a shit about things like that. They won’t do nothing to me.”

  I had no doubt he was right and the helplessness I felt in combination with the hate I had for Ricardo was almost too much to bear. Suddenly a thought occurred to me, prompted by my memory of Ricardo’s face during our last visit when Alicia mentioned Berta might be making the next delivery.

  I lifted my head high. “I believe the prison officials will be interested to know you may be sick as well.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ricardo’s black eyes ricocheted in their sockets. “Alicia said she was sick after…”

  I took another step forward and captured his darting eyes in my steely gaze. “I’m not talking about Alicia…”

  His beady eyes flew open, and he stammered for the first time. “Berta’s healthy, like a young cow and I…I feel fine.”

  “Then how do you explain the sweat running down your face, and the yellow color of your eyes?”

  Ricardo’s hands fell limp to his side as he considered the possibility of detainment and death and he leaned on the guardhouse, a man suddenly aware of his impending doom. “Tony Rodríguez died about two years ago. He was caught trying to escape and they shot him.”

  “Don’t they send notices to the family?”

  “It’s easy to intercept the mail. I paid a friend to help me out.”

  I clenched my fists hard upon hearing this and my nails bore deep into the palms of my hands. “You took advantage of the love and faith of a good woman. You’re worse than a rat in the sewer.”

  “It was a good thing and I didn’t want it to end,” Roberto said, pumping up a bit. He licked his lips. “She got something out of it too.”

  “You’re a pig.”

  “I’m a survivor,” he corrected, glaring at me from head to toe. “Look at you standing there with your plastic shoes pretending to be one of us. You don’t know what it’s like. In a few days you’ll go home to your easy life, but the rest of us will still be here rotting away. We do what we have to do, just like you would.”

  My eyes became blurry and hot, and my ears began to hum and pop to the erratic pace of my heart. I wanted to run and beat my hands against a wall until bloody, I wanted to feel the pain Alicia had been suffering. Most of all, I wanted to kill Ricardo.

  I reached down for one of many stones that lay on the rough road, but Ricardo had already turned away from me. He believed that he too was dying, that before long he’d be carted around in a wagon, if he was lucky. I threw the stone at him with all my might, but it landed several yards away, not causing enough of a stir to prompt him from his torment.

  This time I was successful in finding gas and Lourdes handed me the keys after we’d shared a quick cup of very strong coffee. “Don’t drive at night if you can help it. The lights don’t work,” she warned.

  The blue Chevy lumbered down the broken road like an old man with a cough. The gas was cheap and the tires worn, but it would get us where we had to go. Alicia had weakened since the previous day, and it was becoming more difficult for her to find the energy to speak. Mostly she watched Lucinda, her impossibly large green eyes trying to take in as much of her as she could. Lucinda was always nearby, within touching distance of her mother. More than once I saw her smile back when Alicia smiled at her.

  Alicia stayed awake once we got on the road, but she asked no questions about where we were going. The three of us sat in the front seat and Alicia clung to her daughter’s hand.

  It took almost two hours along the coast road to get there, but when we did, there was no mistaking where we were. The royal palms welcomed us like old friends, the white expanse of talcum sand fanning out toward the sea. There was a new sparkling hotel crawling with tourists in brightly colored suits and towels slung about their shoulders or wrapped around their waists like sarongs. It was obvious we were not tourists.

  I parked the car a few blocks away from our final destination and settled Alicia into the wagon. Lucinda took her post next to me, one hand on the handle, her eyes straight ahead and unwavering.

  They’d built an impressive fence along the perimeter of our beach with thick curving poles that looked like inverted ribs of a whale. It would have been very difficult to climb by myself, but with Alicia and Lucinda in tow it was impossible. Our only hope was to wait discretely near the entrance of the hotel for a moment when we might pass through unnoticed. We waited on a nearby bench for almost an hour, but the moment never presented itself. I surmised that it was probably easier to escape from prison than it was to get onto our beach. I reminded myself that no matter how many new hotels, or regulations prevented Cubans from using them, Varadero belonged to us, and it always would.

  I was starting to feel that our situation was hopeless when I noticed a group of workmen passing through the gate loaded down with building equipment and supplies. One fellow even carried his bricks in a wheelbarrow very much like mine. The guard never asked who they wer
e and hardly blinked as they passed. I gave Lucinda explicit instructions not to move from that spot next to her mother until I returned, and I ran back to the car. Never was I more grateful to see a pile of dirty clothes in my life. It was obvious that Lourdes’s husband had finally shown up to work, and lucky for us he’d forgotten to take care of his laundry. I threw on a pair of his baggy pants covered in grease and paint and a large tee shirt stained deep yellow under the arms. There were even two hats to choose from. I chose the one with the widest brim and grabbed as many greasy towels as I could hold.

  I bundled Lucinda into the barrow next to Alicia and covered them up with the towels, arranging them this way and that until I was satisfied they could pass for a pile of lumber or bricks. It was then a matter of waiting for the right moment to step in line behind the crew of workmen. My opportunity came soon enough, and I lowered my head and hunched my shoulders up to appear bigger. Momentarily distracted by a group of scantily clad female tourists, the guard waved us by with a flick of his hand.

  We were on the sand almost immediately and the wheelbarrow became extremely difficult to roll, but I couldn’t take the chance of having Lucinda get out from under the towels until I was sure we wouldn’t be seen. Once we were several hundred yards from the gate, I gave Lucinda the word and she scurried out from beneath the towels, surprised to feel the warm sand on her feet.

  “Where are we, Tía?”

  “This is home, mi cielo. This is where your Mami and I grew up. Where we learned how to dream and how to pray.”

  Slowly, we made our way toward the water’s edge where it would be easier to roll the wagon.

  “The sand is so soft here, Tía. Much softer than at the other beach we go to.”

  “This is the best beach in the whole world. Even though I haven’t seen all the other beaches in the world, I can tell you it’s true.”

  Lucinda smiled and tossed her hair to the wind. Her springy curls bounced as she kicked at the rolling waves. Her hearing was so precise that she caught the crest perfectly every time with the tip of her toe.