I’d had enough! This was pointless, fruitless. It was time to stop this spiritual sojourn. What did it even matter? There may have been a son, but there was no daughter. I had found absolutely nothing to answer my questions. No clues to any of this. And this latest insight only reinforced a strongly held belief: I didn’t want to have children. I was a writer. A critic. A dweller in the land of argument. An insurrectionist against Revolution. I had no interest in being a mother and for good reason.
My journey was nearing its end. I felt it conclude as I closed up the Bible and that inner tube came floating back to shore. But it was not some distant coast I would soon be landing on, just old familiar terrain. As I drifted somewhere in that sphere between sound and silence, a familiar voice called out to me, a familiar knocking rapped on the door. I tried resisting. I tried fighting that current, but it was too strong for me, too powerful. It kept pulling me back until I came crashing into consciousness—the full throes of it! No longer was I stuck in a time warp. Minutes were separating from Hours, and Day was dividing from Night. Everything seemed familiar again except for this knocking on the door and the voice that accompanied it. The knocking was a pounding. The voice an urgent pleading.
“¡Clara!” it called out to me, the insistent voice of my Cuban mother. “I demand you open up this door, hija! Open it right now! Do you realize you’ve been in there for three whole days now? Please, hija! There’s someone here to see you.”
Three days? No! Had it really been that long? Three whole days! I couldn’t believe it. Not when it had only felt like hours. Not when that candle by my bedside continued burning fluidly, eternally. Who was here to see me? Who and what was Mamá talking about?
“¡Clara, hija! ¡Open up, hija! There’s someone here to see you and you need to come out at once! I’m not letting one more day go by without you eating! You hear me?”
I sprang up in bed. I jumped to the floor and headed over to the mirror. I was too scared to look at my own reflection, but I forced myself, glancing at the image of a frail and gaunt creature. I really didn’t look that bad anymore. I seemed improved somehow. I even felt better. My face no longer appeared red or blotched. My eyes no longer sunken or lifeless. And it really must have been three whole days because I was starving, ravenous. I no longer felt nausea or motion sickness, but the ruthless pangs of hunger ripping through my abdomen!
“¡Clara, hija!” the voice called out again, the doorknob rattling and growling hungrily. “Open up, hija! Please don’t make matters worse and open up!”
Oh, that Cuban mother of mine and her sneaky ways—bless her. I had always loved her with all my heart and always would. I had always shown her nothing but the highest respect and would continue doing so. But now I would manifest my affection all the more: love her all the more, appreciate her all the more, and heed her frantic beckoning at once! What was the matter with me? That was my mother calling me! But first, I must take care of something. Before heeding that rattling doorknob, I had to unseal this vault.
I went to remove the chair, the one wedged tightly underneath the door knob. Mysteriously, I no longer had to. The chair had dislodged itself and lay flat against the floor. How? How had this happened? Had someone or something come into my room? Had some otherworldly force visited me again? I looked up and down and all about the room and, in so doing, caught sight of my reflection again. I suddenly wanted to undress. I wanted to strip down and discard my drab and dirty clothes. My skin felt insufferably oily. My hair intolerably greasy. And a stench so unpleasant rose from my pores that I couldn’t stand the scent of my own flesh. I removed my garments and let them drop to the floor. I was also starving and wanted something to eat. I had never eaten any, but I craved that Middle Eastern bread I had heard my father talk so much about: that soft, warm bread dipped in salt and oil and a hint of vinegar. My mouth instantly watered at the thought.
“¡Clara, hija,! Open up, hija! There’s someone here to see you, someone you need to see! Not to mention you must be starving. Are you even alive anymore? Have you passed out again?”
“No, Mamá,” I replied. “No, chica, I haven’t. Just give me a moment, will you?”
What could I do? I had to go out there and face whoever was there to see me. I had no choice but to throw my drab and dirty garments back on, insufferable as they would feel against my flesh.
“Oh, hija! Thank God you’ve spoken! ¡Gracias a Dios! It’s so good to hear your voice, hija. Are you all right?”
The door to the vault finally opened. I flung it back all the way so she could judge for herself. All right? Was that what this woman had just asked me? Could she not behold I was all right? What was her problem? What was she so worried about? Didn’t she know there was a reason for sequestering myself from the world for three days? A reason why I’d taken this necessary journey? Didn’t she understand I had only been conducting my daughter’s business?
With the door to my room wide open now, I felt greatly at peace again. Despite all I had learned and not learned and the frightening insights I had gained, I felt a semblance of solace. The long biblical journey of the last three days had alternately clothed and stripped me of calm and equanimity, but I felt my spirit immersed in solace once more.
But it wouldn’t last long. I’d be stripped of all this comfort once more, much as someone is stripped of his garments before a taunting crowd. Before I ever stepped out of my room armed with the knowledge I now possessed, I knew who had come to see me. I could hear that siren’s voice all the way from the living room as it intermingled with the much softer voices of Pilar and Angélica. I could hear the righteous indignation in her tone as it declared she would not be leaving until she spoke to me and saw me face to face.
Mihrta. My motherin-law. The woman whose influence had reached far and wide into my marriage and who had made it her mission to destroy me. If anyone ever doubted the importance of the relationship between mother and son, there was no denying that significance when it came to my motherin-law. Father and son meant absolutely nothing when it came to her. Thank God she would have nothing to do with my daughter. Thank God she was not related to her in any real way.
I might as well forget about showering. I doubted Mihrta felt like waiting. Besides, the sooner we got this over with the better. And what did showering matter? Such comfort was only temporary. Such solace was only secondary. What consolation was there in knowing that sure, you could wash and shower in the morning, but by midday you’d be drenched in sweat again? It mattered not the dirt that one carried on the outside, but that which one harbored within.
It had finally all caught up with me. I was so drained, so exhausted, I thought I would collapse right there on the floor. But I might as well forget about sleeping. And since washing was no real form of cleansing, I would go out there covered in sweat and grime and sand and clay. For not only had my motherin-law come to pay me a visit, she’d come bearing momentous news. I could hear it down the hallway as she broke it to my sisters. I heard it loudly and clearly even as I stood distant shores away. Rigo had arrived safely in the United States and was doing just fine. So had Amalia and Henry and some fourth individual whom she knew not.
So the Maloja had made it. It had sailed triumphantly after all. But in just an instant of hearing that woman’s voice and picturing her solid frame before me, it was I who found myself violently capsizing and sinking fast. That’s what it felt like: that I was drowing, that I was dying. And in a way that’s what I hoped for: that this world I had always known and callously been tossed about in would come to a quick and painless end, that it would all dissolve and I might know peace at long last. Yes, for just an instant it felt as if this impending moment might finally be the end of the world for me, and I was more than eager to emrace it, I was ready to die. But something kept pulling me back, a force greater than I who would not extinguish my life source. Not until I had answered each and everyone one of her questions to her full satisfaction.
What would I say? What would I p
ossibly tell her? Every ounce of solace evaporated at the prospect of having to face this mother of all mothers and answer the swarm of questions surrounding Cojimar: why her son had left Cuba but I had not. Why I had prodded and coaxed my husband into fleeing his homeland, only to deprive a mother of her favorite son. She may have been overjoyed that he was graciously alive and intact on American soil, but it was hardly joyous words she had reserved for me.
It felt like the end of the world alright, but I did not need a last meal. I was no longer hungry. I no longer craved that Middle Eastern bread dipped in salt and oil. I felt sick to my stomach again, nauseous to the point of throwing up. I felt fatigued like never before and grimier than ever. I needed to scrape all the grunge of the last three days off every square inch of my body, even if it meant rubbing it all off with my bare hands. I needed to sanitize myself. I needed to purify my body against Rigo’s scent and the way it clung to me so perniciously. At the mere mention of that name all the feelings of loss and pain came bearing down on me. Not like a cleansing wave of water, but a crushing wall of water. Sure, I was the one who had refused to leave, but Rigo was the one who had callously stranded me. Rigo was the one who had brought about the end of us—the end to everything.
I felt deathly ill again: physically, emotionally, spiritually. I felt shaken by a set of complications I had not contemplated. To hear such news, so soon, was to open up a wound much too fresh. Upon realizing that my husband had contacted his mother ahead of his own wife—especially now that I knew I had conceived and was undoubtedly with child—all those feelings of betrayal were instantly revived. It was definitely over between us. I truly couldn’t stand him. And I may have only been three days pregnant, but already I was in the throes of all things maternity. During these last three days I had nurtured myself in a haven of freedom and fluidity and especially simplicity. But at the mere mention of that name, everything felt more complicated and I couldn’t move again: all those feelings of abandonment were instantly resurrected.
… the story continues with …
LUZ
book ii: complications
Now that Clara is ready to face the world again, how will she handle that unwanted visitor of hers in the form of her motherin-law? And how will Clara react when she receives word of Rigo’s whereabouts? Will she divulge what’s truly going on? Why she really stayed behind? Or will Clara keep the secret all to herself? The next nine months will not prove easy. As Clara faces this trying predicament increasingly on her own, it will be a time of trial and tribulation, of conflict and complications. But what about the Creator and the Son of Man? Will the Creator admit He’s up to something and there’s more than meets the eye? Or will He continue to insist the Son of Man is completley off base? Finally, what about Cuba, that magical land where this miracle of sorts is taking place? Will it finally emerge from the turmoil and torment of these tragic days, or will it still be mired down in the swirling suffocation of this Special Period? While book i took us through the days leading up to that ‘frenzied flight across the water,’ book ii will take us through the challenges facing Clara’s family during these troubled times. The story continues steadily and unflinchingly with—LUZ, book ii: complications—the second testament of Clara’s story.
the author
Luis Gonzalez was born in Havana, Cuba, where he spent those all-important years of early childhood. But when his widowed mother of three fled Communist Cuba in the late 1960’s, he found himself next in the Los Angeles enclave of Culver City, California. Though he quickly assimilated his new country and culture, and though he had no trouble mastering his new language, Cuba never left him. Cuba was always with him: inside him, driving him, calling him. He realized this more than ever when, in the 6th grade, he did his country report on Cuba and thus began a love affair with his homeland that continues to this day. It was only natural that Cuba should play a part in his writing, and even from grammar school age, Luis Gonzalez knew that writing was in his blood.
“I always loved to write, even as a young child. And I guess I’ve always been an indie author too because, when I was in the third grade, after only having been in this country a couple of years, I wrote two stories. One was called The Magic Slippers, the other was called The Dolphins. I took sheets of paper that I folded over and stapled and not only did I write the stories, but I illustrated them and made the cover and everything for them. I still have these two first books of mine and I look back on them now and wonder, wow, I really always was a writer. To this day those two items remain some of my most treasured possessions for they provide a glimpse into the passion that helped shape the person that I am, and if I’m anything, I’m passionate, and if I’m passionate about anything, it’s writing.”
It was also only natural that Luis Gonzalez would go on to study something in the language arts, and so he graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature, and a concentration in Spanish composition and literature. As someone who is deeply moved and inspired by politics and religion and the arts, it was no wonder that he came up with the idea for his novel, LUZ, a story that grapples with all three realms. These days Luis Gonzalez calls San Francisco home where he lives with his wife and two of four daughters.
He’s always writing in one way or another, for writing is more than just writing: a lot of writing takes place in your head before the words ever make it down to the paper. So even if he’s enjoying or exploring the stunning Northern California landscape or he’s debating religion and politics with family or friends, he’s always writing, for out of those discussions little snippets always find their way to the surface of the creative page.
Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) Page 27