Life, After

by Sarah Darer Littman

  Mamá and I lay on the floor in the empty living room, after Sarita had gone to sleep and we’d finished packing the last suitcase.

  “Ay, my back,” Mamá sighed. “I’m not looking forward to heaving those suitcases through the airport tomorrow.”

  “Well, Papá should carry them. It’s the least he can do since we did all the work.”

  “Dani, that’s enough. Don’t speak to me about your father in that tone of voice. It’s been a hard enough day without having to listen to you snipe at Papá.”

  It drove me crazy how Mamá defended Papá all the time, how she expected me to respect him when he’d done nothing to make himself deserving of my respect. We had been doing most of the work, she and I. Papá just…went to sleep. Why couldn’t she acknowledge that?

  “I can’t believe it’s here already. That we’re leaving tomorrow,” Mamá said. “It’s been like a whirlwind, getting everything ready in such a short time, that I haven’t had much time to think. But today…today at Pasteur Street, it really hit me that we are going—that we won’t be there next month or next year or the year after.”

  So Mamá had felt it, too.

  She grasped my hand. “This is hard, Dani. So very hard. But I know in my heart that we’re doing the right thing by leaving.”

  “How do you know, Mamá? How can you be so sure?”

  “Faith, Dani. I have faith.”

  I wish I shared it.

  “Trust me, querida. Things are going to be better for us in America. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, I guess I better try to get some sleep,” I said, dragging myself off the floor. “Do you want a hand getting up?”

  “No,” Mamá said. “Your father is probably snoring. I think I’m just going to lie here for a while.”

  I lay awake for hours, listening to Sarita’s even breathing and the faint but familiar noises from the street below.

  It was hard to imagine that the following evening I’d be sleeping in a strange bed in another country. I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or the chocolate cake, but my stomach was churning. When I finally did manage to fall asleep, my dreams were filled with bombed buildings and yahrtzeit candles, with airplanes and American flags and Roberto and the ombú tree.

  Chapter Six

  THE LAST DAY. The last morning in my own bed. Mamá’s brother, my tío Arturo, had woken up at dawn to travel from Córdoba so he could drive us to the airport and then help dispose of what little furniture we had left after we’d gone. My feet felt heavy against the floor as I got out of bed, my heart equally heavy in my chest as I brushed my teeth and hair. It was the last time I’d see my reflection in the mirror that I’d watched myself grow up in; it was the last time I’d spit in that sink. Every little thing seemed to take on a disproportionate importance because it was the last time I’d do it in the place I’d always known. From that day on, everything was going to be different. A different apartment, a different school, a new circle of friends (hopefully), a different language, a different country. All change.

  I wondered if this was how a snake felt right before it shed its skin and slithered along without everything that identified it before. Does a snake worry about missing that skin? Or does the snake not even notice as it just keeps moving forward?

  Mamá shouted for me to hurry up in the bathroom, so we weren’t late for the airport. I took one final glance at myself in the old familiar mirror, fingering the heart necklace that Beto had given me, and whispered, “Adiós, amiga.”

  Then I hurried back to my room to get dressed and finish packing. I slid the photo booth portraits of Beto and me and all of his and Gaby’s letters into my suitcase. Then I saw the sign I’d made the night before, and made sure that Baba was packed in Sari’s backpack.

  I’d never been to Ezeiza International Airport before. It was thirty-five kilometers out of the city. I sat staring out of the window, my feet on top of my hand luggage in Tío Arturo’s packed car as it wound its way through the traffic, out of Villa Crespo, away from the familiar streets.

  We passed landmarks I’d known all my life, and I wondered if I would ever see them again, if this was a permanent good-bye, or if some day we would return to Buenos Aires, even if just for a visit.

  Sarita was excited and chattering nonstop, squeezed in the backseat between Mamá and me.

  “Can I sit next to the window in the plane since you got to sit next to the window in the car?” she asked, squirming and leaning over me for a better view. “That’s fair, right? What do you think it’ll be like in America? Is the weather warmer or colder than it is here?”

  Papá finally told her to hush because she was giving him a headache, and she leaned her head against my shoulder. When I dragged my eyes away from the window to look at her, I noticed a tear running down her cheek.

  I brushed it away gently with my knuckles and wondered again if things would be different for us when we got to America. Would being on a new continent magically transform my father back into the Papá of Before? Would he stop moping around the apartment; would he find the energy to be someone again? Someone laughing, kind, and gentle, instead of the unpredictable, angry, bitter man he had become?

  As much as I hated to leave Argentina, as much as I was afraid of what lay ahead of us, it would be worth all the changes, I thought, all the upheaval we were going through, if we got our old Papá back.

  It took a long time to check in at the airport, and Papá was getting more irritable by the minute.

  We had to part with Tío Arturo before we went through security. I could tell Mamá was trying hard to be brave in front of Sarita and me, but when she faced her brother and finally had to say good-bye, she fell into his arms and wept. Tío Arturo had tears in his eyes, too.

  “Estela, hermana, take good care of yourself and my beautiful nieces. Make sure you write to me often. Maybe I’ll even get Tomás to take me to the Internet café to show me how to use the computer so we can e-mail.”

  “You think he can teach an old dog like you new tricks?” Mamá joked through her tears, stroking Tío Arturo’s cheek tenderly.

  “Well, if I’m old, little sister, you aren’t too far behind.”

  Tío Arturo turned to me and hugged me tightly.

  “Be a good help to your mamá, Dani,” he whispered in my ear. “She’ll need all the help you can give her.”

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  “You’re a good girl, Dani. We’ll miss you, your tía Sophia and me, and your cousins Tomás and Mateo.”

  “We’ll miss you, too, Tío Arturo,” I said, feeling my own tears starting to well up.

  “We should go,” Papá said. I think he wanted to get us moving before Mamá broke down crying again.

  Tío Arturo said good-bye to Sari and hugged Mamá one last time. Then we walked into the restricted zone, waving until the doors closed and we couldn’t see him anymore.

  After we went through security I offered to take Sarita to see the shops, to give Mamá a chance to recover and to get Sari away from Papá for a while.

  We tried on sunglasses and tested perfume in the duty-free, until the smell started to make Sarita feel sick. That’s all I needed, to have my sister puke on me on the plane, when I didn’t have anything else to change into. That would definitely not be the way to start my life in a new country—reeking of younger-sibling vomit.

  I dragged Sari out of the duty-free to get some fresh air. Worried that Papá might make some comment about how we smelled like women of ill repute, I searched out a ladies’ room to try and wash off some of the perfume smell.

  We were washing our wrists at the sink when an American family came in, talking loudly. I was trying hard to follow their conversation, but they were speaking very quickly, and it suddenly struck me that soon all the conversations I was going to have to follow would be in English, that I was always going to be having to think about what was being said as I was doing right then, instead of just automatically understanding it, like I would in Span
ish.

  It made my brain hurt.

  “Come, Sari, let’s get back to Mamá and Papá. We don’t want to miss our flight.”

  As I walked back down the concourse with Sari, I kept thinking, This is the last time I’ll be here, this is my last hour in Argentina, I might never be in my country again.

  I wondered if Gaby and Roberto felt this way when they left.

  I tried to sleep on the ten-hour flight, but between Sarita squirming next to me and the snoring man in front of me who put his seat back so far his head was practically in my lap, it felt as if I’d only just closed my eyes before the lights came on and the flight attendants were telling us to place our seats in the upright position for our descent into New York. My eyes were gritty from the dry air and lack of sleep. I felt like I was in a waking dream, that at any moment I might blink and be back in Buenos Aires. Except that everything about my old life was gone, and like the snake without its skin, I just had to keep moving forward.

  Papá had to carry Sarita off the plane because she was so sleepy, so of course I ended up having to carry his hand luggage, as well as my own, like a human packhorse. Tío Jacobo was supposed to be meeting us when we got through customs, to drive us to the suburban town of Twin Lakes, New York, where we’d be living.

  As we waited in the interminable line to show the man our passports, I tried to imagine what Twin Lakes would look like. Even though I knew that New York was nothing like the Swiss Alps, there was something about the name, Twin Lakes, that made me picture a cool Alpine lake surrounded by mountains that were reflected in its crystalline surface.

  I sensed Mamá’s tension as the line moved us closer to the Passport Man. Ever since the Dirty War, Mamá had an almost irrational fear of people in uniform, because of what happened to her cousin Enrique, the one who was “Disappeared.”

  “Stay close to me and don’t say anything,” Mamá whispered as we shuffled up to the yellow line. Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead.

  “Step forward, please,” called the official from behind his desk.

  Of course, Sarita picked that moment to wake up. She lifted her head from Papá’s shoulder and looked straight at the official.

  “¿Donde estamos? ¿Estamos en los Estados Unidos?”

  “Sí,” the man said in American-accented Spanish. “You’re in America now, young lady.”

  He asked us how long we were staying. Papá showed him the visa stamped from the embassy in Buenos Aires, all the papers arranged with Tío Jacobo. Mamá gripped my hand, her face pale. I was afraid she was going to faint or have a heart attack. But finally the man took out his rubber stamp and marked each of our passports with a loud thump before handing them back to Papá.

  “Ay, I thought he was going to send us back to Buenos Aires,” Mamá whispered as we walked toward the baggage claim in search of a luggage cart.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Mamá,” I told her. “We’re in America now.”

  I just wished I could convince myself of that.

  The baggage area was crowded and noisy with crying children and people complaining about their lost suitcases. As we waited for the luggage from our flight to arrive, I silently prayed that my bag wasn’t lost. We were allowed to bring so little with us from home, just one suitcase from an entire lifetime. If that was lost, then I really was starting from nothing, without my photos of Roberto and my letters from him and Gaby. I clutched my heart necklace tightly. At least I had that. I never took it off, ever, not even when I slept.

  Thankfully, all our luggage showed up, although we had to wait quite a while for Sarita’s suitcase, and she was getting very whiny—and Papá very irritable—by the time it came down the conveyor belt.

  When we finally emerged through the sliding doors of the arrivals hall, there was a crowd of people waiting. People all around us were giving cries of joy and welcome, greeting their loved ones with hugs and flowers and balloons and teddy bears. I glanced over at Papá for guidance, but he looked just as confused and frightened as I felt.

  “¿Dónde está Jacobo?” Mamá muttered, pushing through the crowd with the luggage cart. “Dani, hold tight to Sarita. I don’t want her to get lost in this madhouse.”

  There wasn’t much chance of that. Sari was clutching my hand tightly; I could barely feel my fingertips. Her eyes were opened so wide I could see the whites around her irises as she took in the unfamiliar scene around her. I knew how she was feeling. Everything was so different— the sights, the sounds, and the smells. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the familiar pattern on the back of my mother’s flowered shirt.

  “Eduardo! ¡Bienvenido! Welcome!”

  My tío Jacobo was weaving his way through the crowd, holding a bunch of flowers and two small flags on sticks, one Argentinean and one American. He threw his arms around Papá, and when they released each other, their eyes were wet with tears.

  He handed Mamá the flowers, then held his arms open to give her a hug.

  “Estela, querida, bienvenida a los Estados Unidos! Welcome to America.”

  And then it was my turn to be enveloped in his embrace, along with Sarita, since she still wouldn’t let go of my hand.

  “Daniela. Sarita. ¡Que bellas sobrinas! I’m so glad you are here in America now, so we can see each other more often. I’ve missed seeing you grow up.”

  He noticed Sarita eyeing the flags. “And these are for you, cosita linda, now that you are going to be a proper Argentinean American!”

  Sarita smiled shyly and took the flags, finally releasing her death grip on my hand to do so. She waved them to and fro; people around us smiled and one woman said, “Look at that little girl, isn’t she adorable?”

  Sarita had that effect on people.

  “Come, you must be exhausted,” said Tío Jacobo. “This way to the car.”

  He picked up Sarita and led the way through the crowd and out of the building. The heat and steamy humidity hit like a wall the minute we left the air-conditioned terminal. It was hard to believe that it was winter when we left Argentina, and we’d worn our jackets on the way to the airport.

  “Here, let me push that for you,” I said to Mamá, who had sweat running down her face as she struggled with her cart.

  “Gracias, querida,” Mamá said, breathing heavily as she handed the cart over to me.

  “Are you all right?” I didn’t want Mamá to have a heart attack. I couldn’t imagine how we would all survive if anything happened to her.

  “Yes, I’m fine. It’s just so hot.”

  She took a tissue from her bag and wiped the sweat from her face. “And the humidity—ay!”

  We crossed a busy street of taxis and buses and cars. People were honking their horns and a policeman kept blowing his whistle and yelling at drivers to keep moving. It’s not like the airport in Buenos Aires wasn’t noisy and full of hustle and bustle, but this was a strange and different hustle and bustle. Everything was strange and different. Or maybe it was just me that was strange and different.

  I kept my eyes on the back of Tío Jacobo’s head and Sarita’s waving flags, and finally we got to an old sedan car with Argentinean and American flag stickers on the back bumper, and a bumper sticker with the outline of the Twin Towers and “9/11 Never Forget.” As if anyone ever could.

  “Here we are,” Tío Jacobo said, lowering Sarita to the ground and getting out his keys.

  It took ten minutes of pushing and shoving and muttered swearwords with Mamá covering Sarita’s ears before all the luggage would fit into the car. I ended up with a suitcase on my lap and hand luggage under my feet, which made it hard to see anything out of the front of the car, but at least I could look out of the side window.

  At first all I could see were houses and the highway. But then Tío Jacobo pointed out Shea Stadium. “That’s where the Mets, one of New York’s baseball teams, play.” There was a huge sculpture of a globe in a park in front of the stadium, and Tío Jacobo said that it was called the Unisphere and was put there for a Wo
rld’s Fair that was held in 1964.

  Sarita’s head lolled against my shoulder. As excited as she was, she couldn’t keep her eyes open after the long flight. My eyelids felt heavy, but my nerves were taut with excitement.

  Then, as we approached a bridge, the Whitestone Bridge, Tío Jacobo told us to look to the left as we crossed. And there it was—the New York City skyline. Just as Beto and I pictured it as we walked through the leafy streets of Buenos Aires and imagined ourselves somewhere else. I wondered where Roberto was and what he was doing right at that moment, down in Miami. His letters spoke of wide white beaches and palm trees, of buildings painted in pastel shades of blue and pink and yellow. New York seemed washed of all color by a haze of humidity that hung over the city like a translucent cloak. Still, at least we were in the same country, in the same time zone even.

  “Look, Mamá, you can see the Empire State Building!” I exclaimed.

  “And the tall building with the triangular top, that’s the Citigroup building,” Tío Jacobo said. “After it was built, the structural engineer realized there was a design problem and some of the bolted joints might not stand up to winds over seventy miles per hour.”

  “¡D-os mío!” Mamá exclaimed. “What did they do?”

  “Well, without telling the public about the danger, the owners had thick steel plates welded over the joints,” Tío Jacobo said. “They had it done at night, after the office workers had gone home for the day. They managed to keep it a secret for almost twenty years, believe it or not.”

  “Sounds like something that would happen in Argentina,” Papá grumbled.

  I made a mental note to never go up to the top of the Citigroup building, especially if it was windy.

  It was like watching a movie, seeing the skyline as we drove across the bridge. But then, nothing seemed real. I kept thinking that the following morning I’d wake up back in our apartment in Buenos Aires, that I’d go back to school at the Escuela Hebrea with Señor Guzmán and Gaby and Beto. But I had to remind myself that that was no longer my reality; from that moment on, I was going to have to find myself a new one.