to spend it.
DANIEL
How will we
ever manage
to raise
so much money?
What if
everyone on earth
is weary
of helping
helpless refugees?
DAVID
So many good hearts
have swiftly
given so much!
Money comes
from other countries
and from people
all over the island—
the Archbishop of Havana
has even made an appeal
to the Cuban government
for mercy.
DANIEL
While those last two
desperate ships
drift in the harbor,
a spirit of charity spreads
like a fever
or a new dance step,
a carnival of sympathy
with money flowing
into mysterious channels,
flowing generously,
buying liberty . . .
although freedom
seems like a gift
that should
be given freely,
without bribes,
in some other way. . . .
PALOMA
Two hundred and ten
exhausted souls
came ashore today.
Jew or Christian,
it does not matter.
The refugees are people
who migrate like birds
seeking a safe place
to rest.
DANIEL
Those two ships
were my last
hopeless
hope,
so I busy myself
handing out Cuban food
and cotton clothes
to the new arrivals.
I teach them
a bit of Spanish.
I move through
the cheerful
island sunlight,
pretending
that I am happy
to be alone.
Will I ever know
exactly where
my parents’ last songs
were sung?
DANIEL
Paloma tells me that old folks
speak of a custom
called el tocayo, “the namesake.”
She says there was a time
when an orphan
could find a home
with any adult
who happened to share
the same name.
I cannot help all the orphans
who arrived on the last two ships,
so I find one whose name is Daniel
and that is where I start—
one lonely child,
one smile,
one small
musical voice.
EL GORDO
If I had known
that my own daughter
would betray me to the Archbishop,
I would have been
more careful.
I would have sent her away
to one of those convents
where girls are taught
how to remain silent and hidden,
practically invisible.
No matter, my wallet is fat.
I convinced the government
that the payments are needed
to buy enough food
to keep all those refugees
alive.
PALOMA
When I was little,
my mother and I drank
from Río Agabama,
a river deep in Cuba’s
jungled interior.
According to legend,
anyone who drinks
those forgetful waters
will fall in love
with this island
and will never
want to leave.
I remember that the river
was streaked with sun and shade.
I drank from a pool of sunlight.
My mother must have swallowed
deep shadows.
Daniel has agreed
to go there someday.
Davíd does not need to.
He already belongs
to his memories of Cuba.
DAVID
I was taught that any story sounds true
until an eyewitness comes forward
to set the record straight.
This is why I encourage the young people
to write their tale of these years in Cuba,
even if they write it in verse, in song. . . .
The time of secrecy is over.
Truth is ready
to sing. . . .
DANIEL
On the ship, German sailors
sang songs about killing Jews.
When we finally came ashore,
they gave all the passengers
postcards of the vessel
to remind us of our journey
and our fears.
I tossed my postcard
into the sea,
a paper ship
made of memory,
floating away
so that I could feel free,
but, until now, that freedom
did not seem real.
DANIEL
I have nothing to give
my namesake,
nothing but time
and hope—
the same simple gifts
I have received
from those who helped me—
so I take him swimming
at the beach, in the evening
when flying fish soar
and the water glows
with red algae.
Together, we watch fish
cross the sky, surrounded
by stars . . .
and we listen to the rhythm
of waves and wind,
this narrow island’s
musical breath.
PALOMA
Daniel and I are still friends,
maybe more.
The secrets have been exposed
and forgiven.
Now we are all free
to tell what we know.
Daniel is putting our tale
into a long ballad, a story-song.
I bring him a flamenco guitar
to help him find the right words.
On the beach
guitar music sounds like a part
of the natural world.
DANIEL
The strings
of the Spanish guitar
help my fingers dance
through our story.
Singing in a world
where my parents have disappeared
is not a betrayal.
I am singing
their story too.
DANIEL
I talk to the younger Daniel
about Carnival
and Cuba’s magical
abundance of oranges.
I discover that this other Daniel
loves music, so I show him
how to make a flute
from a piece of wild bamboo,
and a turtle-shell rattle
filled with beach sand
and decorated with seashells.
Together, we make up songs
in the Cuban style,
improvised décimas
that change as they go along
with words added or altered
each time we remember
sorrows and joys,
bitter losses,
and sweet survival—
any part of life
that seems worthy
of music.
Historical Note
The situations and major events in this book are factual.
The characters are entirely imaginary.
In 1939, Germany’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, sen
t fourteen Nazi agents to Cuba to stir up anti-Semitism. A massive newspaper and radio campaign resulted. The goal of this secret plan was to show the world that even a small, impoverished, racially mixed tropical island wanted nothing to do with Jews. Any ship turned away from Havana Harbor had already been rejected by the United States and Canada. Passengers rejected by Cuba were returned to Europe, where many were transported to concentration camps. The Nazi propaganda campaign had met its goal.
In December 1941, non-Jewish Germans were arrested and held at the prison in Isla de Pinos, a remote island off the southern coast of Cuba. Christians married to Jewish refugees dreaded being forced to share cells with Nazi spies, in a prison where inmates were known to make their own rules.
Throughout the war years, corrupt Cuban officials demanded huge bribes for landing permits and entry visas. Despite tragedies and scandals, Cuba accepted 65,000 Jewish refugees from 1938 to 1939, the same number that was taken in by the much larger United States during the same period. Overall, Cuba accepted more Jewish refugees than any other Latin American nation.
Author’s Note
A few years before World War I, my father’s Ukrainian Jewish parents fled the anti-Semitic violence that destroyed their villages near Kiev. When they found safe passage on ships to “the Americas,” they arrived in the United States, learned English, and became Americans. Some of their relatives who took other ships to the Americas ended up in South America, where they learned Spanish and became Chileans.
My father was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. After World War II, he traveled to Cuba, where he met my Cuban Catholic mother. My parents were not raised in the same culture or the same faith. They did not speak the same language. As artists, they communicated with drawings instead of words. More than sixty years later, they are still married.
I was raised agnostic, but I chose to become a nondenominational Protestant. Even though I did not follow the faiths of either of my parents, I hope I have taught my children to be the kind of people who will help refugees of any faith in times of need.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to God for safe harbors and the kindness of strangers.
Many thanks to my parents, who taught me tolerance, and to my husband, Curtis; our son, Victor; and our daughter, Nicole, for tolerating my long solitary hours of scribbling.
Special thanks to Reka Simonsen for editorial wonders, and to Robin Tordini, Timothy Jones, Laura Godwin, Meredith Pratt, my copy editor, Deirdre Hare Jacobson, and all the other dedicated book angels at Henry Holt and Company.
For historical facts, I am deeply indebted to Robert M. Levine’s remarkable study, Tropical Diaspora: The Jewish Experience in Cuba (University of Florida Press, 1993).
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