by Achy Obejas
“Juani, raise your hand,” Nena whispered to me. She poked me in the ribs with her elbow.
“Huh?”
Nena nodded in Gina’s direction. “They’re stuffing envelopes at her house for a mailing,” she said. “Raiseyour hand.”
I was still deciphering what this meant, and taking in the fact that my sister was actually trying to set me up, when Gina walked right up to us, all business-like, and, without glancing up, began scribbling on her clipboard.
“Juani Casas,” Nena said, volunteering me by pointing at me and nodding at Gina.
I started to raise my hand ever so meekly when Gina glanced up. “Don’t worry,” she said with a wink, “I already got you down.”
It was funny how it happened, how one minute Nena and I were concerned citizens up for grabs in the political game—a couple of loose Cuban-American votes that could have gone to Rudy Canto or any other candidate in our ward—and the next we were passionate partisans doing campaign work for Rudy. I really don’t know how Nena justified it for herself (she got drafted into working the phone bank)—it seems pretty clear to me that the only reason I had for ringing Gina’s bell that Sunday was that I was falling in love with her (although I really didn’t understand that at the time).
That Sunday, those few seconds between pushing the button on the bell and hearing her on the speaker were an interminable hell. I’d misjudged the temperature and overdressed, with too many layers that now threatened to drown me. It was a lovely morning, about seventy degrees, with the birds chirping, squirrels rustling through the trees, and the vague sounds of a gospel choir from a big church a block or so away. I was wearing a sweater over a T-shirt, long black jeans, and boots. I could feel perspiration running from my arm pits down to my waist.
“Juani Casas,” Gina said when she opened the door, wearing a smile as sure and warm as if we were old friends. “You’re late,” she said while leading me up the stairs to her apartment, but I could tell she wasn’t mad.
“Am I too late?” I asked as we reached her door and were greeted by two other volunteers, both dressed in light summery prints and loose fabrics. I could tell by the spent, golden glow on their faces that they were leaving rather then arriving.
“We’re working in shifts,” Gina said, then turned to the others and hugged and kissed them good-bye. Suddenly, stuffing envelopes didn’t seem like such a waste of time.
I looked around. Gina’s apartment struck me as a museum dedicated to Puerto Rican independence and Latin American liberation movements. There were posters of Albizu Campos, maps of Puerto Rico, bookshelves stuffed with tracts by Oscar Lopez Rivera and poetry by Amparo Maure, worn out records by Lucecita Benitez, Pablo Milanés and the whole Nueva Canción/Nueva Trova gang. Over her desk in the dining room, I noticed a picture of Harry Truman outiined in a bull’s eye, a macabre allusion to the 1948 attempt on his life by Puerto Rican independentistas, martyred when most of them ended up spending the rest of their lives in jail.
There were, of course, lots of tributes to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua—a signed photograph of President Daniel Ortega as if he were a rock star, one of poet and minister Ernesto Cardenal (embracing the American singer Holly Near, the once and future lesbian). Posters commemorated celebrations of the fifth and tenth anniversaries of the Sandinista triumph, of debuts of revolutionary plays, of sports achievements. Nora Estorga, who allegedly slept with one of Anastasio Somoza’s generals to get information for the Sandinistas then slit his throat, obviously held a special place of reverence for Gina, who placed votive candles under her image. Scattered on different walls were photos or drawings of César Chavez, Angela Davis, Frida Kahlo (lots and lots of Frida, actually), and Ché Guevara.
Eventually, I came upon the one hero I knew Gina’s museum couldn’t exist without: Fidel Castro. There was a collage featuring pictures of Fidel grinning, a cigar in his mouth clenched between strong, white teeth; Fidel with a pigeon or dove on his shoulder while giving a speech; Fidel surrounded by a bevy of bathing beauties, a photo taken, I later learned, by Gina Lollabrigida, the Italian actor, for her World’s Most Interesting Men series. There was a framed photo, obviously cut out of a magazine, of a young Fidel wearing sneakers and chinning himself on the support beam of a bohío in the Cuban countryside. It’s a silly photo: In it, Fidel is shirtless, you can see the roundness of his body, and that his tummy is soft and practically hairless.
“You’re a fan of the young Fidel,” I said to Gina, noticing there were no pictures of the latter-day Fidel, the gray-templed lion.
She smiled. “Well, I liked Fidel when he was a revolutionary,” she said. “I don’t like Fidel the dictator, Fidel the bureaucrat.”
There was hope then, I remember thinking to myself. There was a possibility we could bridge the gap between us—not because I give a damn one way or another about Fidel, but because I know all too well how the world of politics, with its promises and deceptions, its absolute values and impersonal manifestos, can cut through the deepest love and leave lovers stranded.
Gina’s apartment was excruciatingly hot. As we sat down to stuff envelopes and stick them with little pre-addressed labels, I felt sweat beading up on my brow. Without my asking, she opened a window in her kitchen, but it didn’t much matter. There was no breeze. The heat was like a haze, it hovered around the kitchen table with its stacks of propaganda papers, blurred the revolutionaries on the walls, and made my mouth sticky. Gina offered me an ice cold Materva, which I accepted, but it didn’t help. The bubbles floated into my nose, made me sneeze, and gave me only temporary relief from the temperature.
“I didn’t realize it’d be this warm,” I said, pulling my sweater over my head. I was standing there, in a black T-shirt with its sleeves rolled up, looking, I suspect, like something out of West Side Story. Gina smiled—I saw it—but not too much, for which I was glad. “I dressed all wrong,” I said.
“Do you want to borrow a pair of shorts?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for my answer. She shot up out of her seat, disappeared into her bedroom, and returned with a pair of gym trunks from Northeastern Illinois University, a school notorious for its radical Puerto Rican politics in the 1960s and seventies. “Try these,” she said, holding them out to me.
I was a little taken aback with her efficiency. But more than that, I was really nervous. The fact is that Gina just stood there after I took the shorts from her, staring at me, not exactly showing me the way to the bathroom or bedroom or anywhere I might undress privately. Unsure about what to do, I bent down to pull my boots off. Then Gina made some sort of sound—a gasp, a click—I don’t know.
“God, I’m sorry,” she said, then flew out of the room.
I looked around the kitchen, boot in hand. Everything was cramped, lived in. Worn steel pots and pans with a Rorschach of old burns hung from hooks on the wall. The cafetera was practically black from use. There were potholders scattered about the counter tops, one dangled from a hook on the stove. And yet everything was clean, scrubbed. There wasn’t a crumb to be found. Even the slit of space between the side of the stove and the wall was spotless.
“You ready?” Gina yelled from the other room.
“Ah, not quite,” I yelled back, hurriedly dropping my other boot, pulling off my jeans and stepping into her shorts one leg at a time. They were a little big on me, but comfortable. I hadn’t shaved my legs for months and I wondered if the curls on my ankles would turn her off. “Ready,” I announced.
She came in, tried not to look too hard, and sat down to work while I folded my jeans. “You look good in those,” she said, not looking.
“You think?” I said, standing back, pulling the legs out a little with my fingers. I was trying to give her permission to look, to make the moment as casual as possible. The truth is that I’m a little vain sometimes; I mean, I know I’m good-looking, and solid. “They’re a little big, no?”
She glanced up but didn’t make eye contact at all. “No, no, you look fine, just fine,” she s
aid, her hands continuing to slide papers into envelopes. She pressed the envelopes down on a wet sponge sitting in a small dish, then up, sealing them with a pair of pinched fingers. She tossed each of them into a plastic postal basket under the table.
“Yeah?” I asked, again, because I wanted more and didn’t quite know how to go about getting it.
Gina stopped working, sat back in her chair and laughed. “You’re something, aren’t you?” she said, bringing her legs up on the chair and putting her arms around them.
“What do you mean?” I asked, but I was smiling back, posing with hands on hips.
“You’re showing off,” she said, laughing outright now. “So okay—yeah, you look great, okay? I see the muscles on your arms, I see the muscles on your calves, the cute little hairs on your legs—cool, all right? Now sit your ass down and stuff some envelopes. That’s why you’re here, remember?”
I dropped with a thud into the chair, my ears burning red, unable to look up. I immediately grabbed some papers, folded them and stuffed them into the nearest envelope.
Gina got up, casually, chuckling. “Juani Casas,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re adorable.”
Then she bent down, kissed my cheek, turned around, opened the refrigerator and offered me another Materva as if nothing had transpired.
This is how it actually happened: We were standing awkwardly by her front door, hours later, our hands smelling of ink and glue. I had my sweater folded over my arm, my boots on my feet. Gina was barefoot, yawning, her eyelids dropping. It was three in the afternoon and it felt like the whole world was taking a nap. We could hear an ice cream truck jiggle-jangling on the street.
I thought about apologizing for keeping her up, except that it was her who’d kept me here long after my so-called volunteer shift. We’d started talking about our lives, about growing up in Cuba and Puerto Rico, about our families, about women, about past lovers and first times and heartaches and everything in between. I’d had two Matervas and an interminable number of cafesitos. I was wired.
“Thanks,” she said, sleepily, “for helping us out.”
I nodded but didn’t move, just stood there. I smiled at her.
“What?” she asked, smiling back.
“I don’t know,” I said, “you tell me ‘what.’ ”
“Do you know why I wanted you to volunteer today?”
“Ah…because you needed another convert to stuff envelopes for the future alderman?” I was pretty cocky.
“Nope,” she said, swaying from foot to foot, playing me now. Her whole expression turned lazy, teasing.
“No?”
“No. Guess,” she ordered.
“Ah…to show off your altar to Nora Estorga?”
She laughed. “I asked you here because I was hoping you’d stay.”
“I have, for hours,” I pointed out.
“I meant, the night.”
Just then, even though my sweater was dangling off my arm, I felt the heat again, like steam rising off the ground. Had I really heard her? Was my mind playing tricks? I re-wound the videotape in my head, played it over and over, all in a matter of seconds that seemed infinite and suspended.
“Well?” Gina said, but she was totally into her rhythm, her skin taut and moist and calling to me across the couple of feet of air between us.
“I’m not very good at this,” I said, which was true. What I meant was that I’m not very good at finessing these moments. When it comes time for the kiss, or the touch, or the sigh, I inevitably stick my elbow in the other person’s ribs, or bite her lip by mistake, or step on her foot when I try to stride up to her. I was sweating again, my T-shirt glued to my back, my jeans like heavy canvas against my skin.
“Well, let’s try this,” she said, pressing her body against mine and pulling me toward her, her hands spread across my back like mighty wings. Her lips were top milk, and perfect, and my own arms went around her, suddenly expert.
When I woke up later that night, I didn’t want to open my eyes. For an instant, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or breathing in the dark. I was afraid if I lifted my lids, I’d look out to the old, familiar view of my apartment, with its toppling bookcases and artless walls. And then, when I realized I recognized the steady heartbeat behind me, the tender flesh that spooned the length of my body, I shut them even harder, wanting the moment to last forever, afraid that I’d break down and just cry.
CHAPTER 9
WHEN PAULI CAME BACK TO TOWN after Tío Pepe died, she stayed with Tía Celia. Then everything changed. Tía Celia, who had seemed so lost those few days between Tío Pepe’s death and the funeral, suddenly came back to life. Mami and I commented on how worried we’d been—Tía Celia had a blank look about her without Tío Pepe, as if she could miss a step and fall down the stairs or forget to eat. But as soon as the burial was over, as soon as the funeral stickers were peeled off the car windows on the way back from the cemetery, Tía Celia emerged from her haze. She was not her old self—not the humiliated wife with infinite patience and blind loyalty—but a whole new person. At the reception after the funeral, we were all awed by her, tossing her hair and rolling her new granddaughter on her lap.
Although Cubans don’t normally have people over after funerals, Father Sean had explained to our family that this was an American tradition that made some sense. At first it sounded too much like a party to us. Cubans prefer to hold an all-night prayer vigil and bury the body immediately. Mami was concerned that Tía Celia would think the kind of gathering Father Sean suggested might be offensive to Tío Pepe’s memory. But Father Sean said, “It’s a healing thing. It’s not a celebration, but a reassurance.” I thought it was a good idea, as did Patricia, who’d actually been to a few American funerals, so we decided to try it.
After the burial, after Tía Celia had tossed a handful of Cuban dirt on the casket (brought from the island by Tomás Joaquín for precisely this purpose) and the neat line of cars that had followed Tío Pepe to the cemetery had scattered all over the roads, we gathered at Tía Celia’s house, where the windows and mirrors were all covered with black cloth. People from all over the neighborhood brought plates of black beans and rice, guacamole, yuca con mojo, freshly baked breads, baskets of fruits, flan and tres leches, and about a dozen other kinds of dessert. I realized most of us were Latino, awkwardly trying to perform an American custom, and didn’t really have much sense of what to do. Luckily, Patricia played host to the crowds, directing people to Tía Celia, who sat on the couch as if on a throne. As folks came in, Nena would grab whatever food they’d brought and determine if it needed to go directly to the buffet table, to the kitchen for heating, or into the fridge.
“Do we play music?” asked my father anxiously. “Mozart or something like that, soft?”
“No, no music,” said Ira, Patricia’s husband. He’s a tall, skinny fellow with frizzy hair. “I mean, I think no music…” He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Papi shook his head. “What kind of an American is he?” he asked, incredulously.
“He’s Jewish, Tío Alberto,” Patricia said, as if that meant anything in particular to my father.
While we greeted people and ripped tin foil off casseroles and pulled things in and out of the oven and the fridge, Tía Celia tried on her new role: savvy, delighted grandmother to Rosa, Pauli’s plumb little baby. “Isn’t she beautiful?” she’d ask of everyone who came to her with condolences. “Yes, yes, of course,” they’d say, confused because they’d been expecting a shattered widow and were instead being greeted by this glowing woman. When Rosa grabbed her hair—coils of braids expertly placed on her head—Tía Celia laughed, reached up and undid the pins, letting a cascade of dark brown and gray curls fall to her shoulders. “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Tía Celia exclaimed yet again about her granddaughter, her eyes sparkling.
Later in the afternoon, when the men’s ties had loosened and piles of used paper plates mounted on the buffet table, Tía Celia got up from the couch wh
ere she’d been receiving guests and went from mirror to mirror, window to window, quietly removing the black cloths and letting in the light. All the while, Rosa nestled sleepily on her shoulder.
Although no one would admit it, Tío Pepe’s passing seemed to free Tía Celia. She foundered a bit at first. For instance, she said she wanted to re-decorate the house but didn’t know how, then felt guilty and worried that people might think she was trying to erase Tío Pepe from her life. Eventually, she bought new curtains and painted the bedroom an off-white that showed off the new pictures of Rosa on the wall and on her bureau. Tía Celia hadn’t had citrus fruits for more than thirty years because Tío Pepe was horrifically allergic to them and now, without him to worry about, she gorged on oranges and pineapples, grapefruits and mangoes. When she served water at her house, lemon slices floated with the ice.
But what really seemed to animate Tía Celia was the presence of Pauli and her baby. The two of them gave Tía Celia things to do: cooking and laundry, shopping and cleaning, singing Rosa to sleep, sewing little jumpsuits for her to roll in around the house and the laundromat.
No one was surprised that Tía Celia took Rosa in as her grandchild. No one was surprised that, with Tío Pepe gone and Caridad married, a part of Tía Celia clearly relished having someone new to care for. That had always been her style, to press her loved ones, literally and metaphorically, against her ample bosom for protection and nourishment.
What no one expected was that Tía Celia would become Pauli’s champion and Rosa’s mentor. Suddenly, Tía Celia shone with pride about her daughter, the previously problematic child who had so often embarrassed her. Pauli’s intellect—which no one had ever doubted—became a badge. Tía Celia talked about her as if she were a genius. Even Pauli was a bit embarrassed. And her crazy independence, her sexuality and vigor, all these became medals of honor. To hear Tía Celia, Pauli was a kind of new woman, a pioneer who did not need men or approval. And she was the first to defend Pauli’s right to silence about the identity of Rosa’s father.