Tomorrow They Will Kiss

by Eduardo Santiago

  That summer everything took on a military tone, as if the entire town had been enlisted. As if the Revolution wasn’t really over, as if we were now in a new and confusing war and the enemy could be just anyone.

  “Take back your country!” people shouted on the radio and from street corners.

  There were marches and speeches almost every day.

  Too many took the slogans too seriously, and a rash of crime erupted almost overnight in a town where, before the Revolution, people had rarely locked their doors. Por Dios, our windows were always wide open, and everyone knew everyone else.

  Guajiros were being told that everything belonged to everyone, and that it was theirs for the taking. Those with nothing, who just needed an excuse, started to help themselves.

  Those of us who had even the tiniest bit more than others became their targets. Poor families trained their children to sneak into our homes during the day and hide. Then at night they quietly unlocked the front door while we slept and the adults then tiptoed in and cleaned us out. Many families woke up to empty houses; everything that could be taken had been. Fear took hold. I’d see people sitting on the front steps of their house waiting for the authorities, their heads in their hands, and I knew without asking that they’d been hit. There were serious reports and investigations, but olvídate, forget it, once you were ransacked, you stayed that way. And it wasn’t as if you could just go to the store and replace what had been stolen.

  Caridad, who had the courage of a goldfish, stopped sleeping.

  “Imagínate,” she said. “People are afraid to go outside. They’re getting guard dogs, the most vicious ones they can find.”

  She was right. Our town was now overrun with guajiros, who came down from the mountains like a swarm of locusts to seek their fortune. You could see the hunger in their eyes, their desire for more. This was their moment after a lifetime of poverty, and they were going to take full advantage of it. They were dark and weathered and ill- mannered, these people. Their children, used to life in the fields, would shit on our sidewalks. Not that Palmagria was the most elegant place on earth. But there were certain things we did not do. Dios mío! Shitting on the sidewalk was definitely one of those things. Definitely!

  “Isn’t it enough,” Mario said, “that the Land Reform Act has given them all the land the Americans left behind? Free land just for the taking. Isn’t it enough that schools are being set up for them, that they’re being taught to read and write? Isn’t it enough that they’re all being vaccinated? Why do they have to come here? What’s here for them?”

  I told Mario again and again to keep his opinions to himself. But after a few drinks, he always forgot. Always.

  *

  THE ONLY OTHER TIME that Palmagria had been invaded by these primitives was during hurricanes, when the rivers overflowed and flooded their houses. Guajiro families came into town cold, wet, frightened, and useless, not with that air of entitlement they had now. We gladly took care of them, gave them shelter, food, dry clothing, and blankets, because we knew it would all be temporary. Once the water drained out of their fields, they always returned, in slow- moving caravans: wooden carretas filled with donated supplies, pulled by oxen and mules. Back they always went, if reluctantly, to rebuild their lives as best they could. Sometimes one or two families remained in town. Even if they weren’t immediately welcome, with time they were absorbed and eventually forgotten.

  Por Dios, now they were everywhere, and they were not going back. Now they had it better than at any other time of their lives. The homes of the wealthy, houses that had been in the same family for centuries, were being vacated and handed over to these so- called Heroes of the Revolution. Families that had been living in shacks with dirt floors found themselves in ornate mansions with swimming pools and servants’ quarters. Venerated buildings now housed reinvented organizations. Instead of Boy Scouts we now had the Young Pioneers, which everyone said was dedicated to brainwashing the young into the communist way of life. All children were forced to join, regardless of what their parents felt. The new government was focusing as much on the young as on the poor. It was, they trumpeted, their “investment in the future.”

  I had never cared too much about politics. I always figured things would take care of themselves. That day when Graciela turned off the radio, I knew that what she’d said was true. There had been revolutions before, assassinations, and crazy elections when even the dead could cast a vote. But I could tell that this was different, this time there was a solid plan. Por Dios, they were going after the most ignorant and impressionable segment of the population. There was a plan, a design, and it seemed to me that the aim was to destroy what we had managed to create for ourselves through hard work and determination. To take away what little we had.

  People like me were putting up a fight. Not a loud one, because we knew that would immediately land us in prison. But small things. We started withdrawing into our own little ways. Many parents kept their children from attending the mandatory Young Pioneer meetings. It was the revolt of the middle class, which was curious, because up to that point the world didn’t think Cuba had a middle class. Por Dios, according to the Revolution, the country consisted of those who lacked nothing and those who had nothing, but that was not entirely true.

  Yes, there were very rich people who owned just about everything, and they were foreigners, mostly Americans. Yes, there were a tremendous number of peasants who owned nothing, not even the tiny square of land they slept on. But there have always been people like that in every country in the world. Who ever said life was fair? In Cuba there were also plenty of families who owned their own homes and their own businesses, even if it was just a greasy mechanic’s shop or a seamstress’s workshop. People had a very definite way that they wanted to raise and educate their own children.

  When the private and religious schools started to close down because they refused to change to Marxist textbooks, many decided to keep their children home instead of sending them to public schools, where communist indoctrination had already begun. When the officials started to notice that there were many children who were not completely taken in by their propaganda, that parents were keeping their children out of school, a terrifying rumor began to circulate, throwing everyone into a frenzy. A frenzy!

  It all started when someone said that Fidel was going to send his twelve- year- old son, Fidelito, to the Soviet Union to be educated by Russians. On the day we were all whispering this rumor, my younger sister, Clarita, ran into my house in tears.

  “They say they’re going to send all children from twelve to fifteen years old to the Soviet Union,” she said through a runny nose and slurpy sobs.

  “It makes perfect sense to me,” I told her. “From twelve to fifteen, they go to the Soviet Union to become perfect little communists. Then they return, and from ages fifteen to eighteen, they are thrown into the military. After that, they’ll be pissing Red.”

  Maybe I am too practical, too sensible, and too realistic. Maybe what they say about ice water in my veins is true. Por Dios, I see things for what they are. Of course, this wasn’t what Clarita wanted to hear, but I can only tell the truth. I felt that if she was going to make the right decision, she needed to have all the information. To just console her with lies would have been criminal.

  In a panic, parents started to send their children to the United States to stay with relatives or with church groups, just temporarily, to keep them safe. We could not imagine what would happen to a child in the hands of the Russians or how they would endure those harsh winters without the comfort of their family. Twelve- year- olds are still very young. My friends tended to pity me because I never had any children. Never to my face, of course, but I could see it in their eyes. Well, I pitied them! And now I felt, not quite superior, but certainly blessed.

  When it came to children, my sister Clarita won the lotería, vulgarly delivering five kids in about as many years, each more annoying than the next. Unlike me, Clarita was voluptuousl
y endowed with wide hips and large, soft breasts. And our natures were at opposites too. Clarita did not possess one ounce of suspicion and could never hold a grudge. Whenever there was something about a neighbor or a friend that I wanted to discuss, she always pushed me away and told me that she was too busy taking care of her family to think about such things. She’s too kind, too softhearted, my sister. Her kids ran circles around her, and her house always looked like a tornado had hit it. Sometimes I thought it would serve her right if they took away some of her damn kids and sent them to Siberia. Maybe an experience like that would pull her head out of the sand. She was trapped. She couldn’t suddenly pick up everything and move with five kids to the United States.

  At the time, though, most of us were sure Castro couldn’t last, and we were determined to continue our lives just as we always had. A lot of people had already left everything behind, thinking that when they returned a few months later, it would be there waiting for them. But I knew that was not true.

  I knew that once one of those guajiros got into your house, you’d have to set fire to it to get them out.

  It was in this time of rancor, suspicion, and regret that Graciela made her biggest mistake. Por Dios, whatever she got, she had coming. If you tied a rope around your neck, there were plenty of people in Palmagria who were more than happy to lead you toward the gallows.

  chapter four

  Graciela

  Most days I didn’t miss Palmagria at all. Palmagria was in the past. It had been raining cold and hard in Union City, and I was almost glad to be inside the factory. Grateful for the dolls that came to me naked, cold, and incomplete. The dolls had perfectly round holes where their legs, arms, and heads should be. They glided by endlessly, reflecting the fluorescent lights that hung above. We assembled them limb by limb until they started to take human form. They came fast and were handled roughly, quickly, by our frantic minimum-wage hands.

  Later they passed through a clear plastic curtain and into a dustless room, where their heads would be added. They moved on down the conveyor belt, to the place where the journey became slower, where gloved hands handled them more delicately. They would be as lovingly dressed and combed as an infant’s corpse. Tiny bunches of plastic flowers were added to their curled and lustrous hair, and then they were carefully placed in boxes without a ruffle out of place. Eventually they would find their way to little girls all over the world. They were given special names and treasured. They listened to sweet confessions and plans for the future, they heard of boys and dates, graduations and wedding plans. They were wept on and held tenderly during dark and frightening nights. They sat on canopied beds fragrant with the carefree smell of little girls. Their unblinking eyes observed the delicate passage from girl to woman. And they lived on, long after they had been discarded, with the complete certainty that they would never be forgotten.

  On the assembly line, day after day, I stood across from Caridad, the ever- moving conveyor belt between us. Imperio stood to her left, Leticia to the left of her. Raquel was on my right, and Berta always stood next to me on my left.

  Beyond was the department that attached the heads. We could see them in there moving slowly, luxuriously. It was like an exclusive neighborhood that we could walk through but couldn’t afford to live in.

  The women in “heads” made more money and dressed better than us, and every Friday they all went to the automat down the block for lunch. They always returned chatting and happy, as if they’d just been on a Caribbean cruise.

  Berta and Raquel eyed the women from heads with scorn while they waited for the day when they could work in that department. Waited for the day when they could start to steal the precious plastic heads that would complete their stolen dolls. Berta and Raquel lived in envy and fear. They were jealous of the white women who not only got to work with heads, but could most likely afford to buy a doll.

  They also lived in fear of Mr. O’Reilly. What if he exposed Berta one day, like he did Calixto? What if a little leg or arm accidentally fell out of Raquel’s skirt as she walked past Jacinto? Berta always stopped and crossed herself as she walked past the warning sign.

  But in spite of the sign, the plastic bags, the overall feeling of mistrust, and the growing disapproval of the others in the van, Raquel and Berta continued to steal doll parts. Fridays were their big days. Sometimes they were so excited that they traded doll parts while the van was still in the factory’s parking lot.

  “You can at least wait until we’re on the road,” Leticia said. “I don’t want to be caught with contraband.”

  As the van made its awkward way down the boulevard, Caridad pointed at Raquel and Berta with her lips. It was a quick, almost imperceptible puckering and unpuckering.

  “Por Dios,” Imperio said. “Look how jumpy you two are. You live as if you were still back in Cuba under the eyes of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.”

  “I don’t dare steal a thing,” Caridad said, “not an arm or a leg,” and turned up her nose as if the thought was too unpleasant to consider.

  “Even if I did have a child,” Imperio said, “I’m not stupid enough to risk my job for a plastic doll.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like, Imperio,” Raquel said. “The girls want things that I can’t buy for them.”

  “Personally, I don’t see the harm in it,” Berta said between her “ay- ay- ay” and the rubbing of her legs. “The factory owners will never miss it. They’re richer than God.”

  “The poorhouses and the jails are full of honest people,” Raquel added.

  “I don’t know why you put up with it, Leticia,” Imperio said. “These two could get all of us fired. Fired!”

  “Or imprisoned,” Caridad added with a tremor. “Imagínate! Then where do we go? Our reputations will be ruined. No one will hire us ever again.”

  “Niiiiñas, calm down,” Leticia said as she took a turn so close to the curb that two wheels of the van bumped over its edge and onto the sidewalk. “No one’s getting fired; no one’s going to prison.” She maneuvered the van back into traffic.

  Raquel wanted dolls for her daughters. And Berta had seven grandchildren from her grown son, who lived in Venezuela and barely kept in contact with her.

  “In Cuba, it would be different,” Raquel said. “In Cuba, families stay together.”

  Sometimes we drove past the department stores where our dolls were sold, and there they were, blond and shiny, smiling through the clear cellophane windows of their pink- and- yellow boxes. We knew how much they cost. We knew we couldn’t afford them.

  “That’s money we can send back to Cuba,” Raquel said.

  “You’re sending money again?” Caridad asked. “Then what’s the point of the embargo?”

  “Raquel,” Imperio said, “how are we going to get Fidel out if you continue to send him money?”

  “It’s just twenty dollars a month,” Raquel said. “They can do a lot with twenty dollars back there. They send me letters. Those letters will break your heart.”

  “Don’t read them,” Imperio told her.

  “Don’t you understand, Raquel?” Caridad asked gently, as if talking to a child. “It defeats the purpose.”

  “Por Dios, Raquel, do you want to stay in this country forever?” Imperio almost shouted, her face starting to flush with frustration. “Do you want to work in a factory all your life and freeze every winter? Do you want to end up old and crazy and eating cat food in a shelter? Think about your girls. Your husband did whatever it was he did without thinking of the consequences.”

  “He did what he did,” Caridad echoed. The words just hung there. Raquel said nothing.

  “Whatever it was,” Imperio added.

  Then everyone fell silent for the rest of the way home.

  Raquel didn’t care. She continued sending money home, and she and Berta continued stealing doll parts.

  It was just a little leg here, a little arm there. Mostly on Fridays, sometimes on Wednesdays. Or Mondays, depe
nding on how things went that day. Sometimes they felt particularly lucky, or safe. They played a careful game. But not everyone was as careful. Some people always went too far. Calixto Guiñón’s sad example haunted us.

  *

  ON CHRISTMAS EVE, what we call Noche Buena, the good night, we gathered in Leticia’s apartment because it was the biggest. She had two bedrooms. Chano got pork at a discount, so that’s what was in the oven, a big, fat hunk of pork. I sat in the kitchen with Imperio and Caridad, sipping from a glass of red wine while Leticia cooked. She was making congri and yucca, and the whole apartment smelled of olive oil, garlic, and laurel leaves.

  The men stayed in the living room. From the kitchen I could hear Mario going on and on, but not a word from Caridad’s husband, Salud, or from Leticia’s husband, Chano.

  “Where are the Americans?” Mario said, his voice getting louder. Salud didn’t answer. His best defense against Mario’s rants was to let him go on and on until he ran out of steam.

  “All I see are judíos, negros, and italianos, viejos.” Mario said. “Fíjate, the Jews own all the businesses, the blacks are enslaved in factories or getting drunk at the corner, and the Italians won’t have anything to do with us. Their skin is the same color as ours but they treat us like negros.”

  From where I sat, I could see him. At first glance you’d think Mario was as white as the Americans he railed against. His hair was the color of copper wire, his eyes a very light brown. But if you looked carefully, you could see his mulatto features, the sinewy body of an African, and the taut, yellow skin of a Chinaman.

  The room was too small for him, most rooms in Union City were, so he just took one step forward and another back, one hand in the loose pocket of his pants jiggling the coins and keys he kept in there. In the other hand he held a beer. Not his first or his second. Salud and Chano had sunk down on the couch; their stomachs looked like someone had stuck beach balls under their plaid shirts.