Tomorrow They Will Kiss

by Eduardo Santiago

  “And forget about Miami,” Mario went on, his annoying voice getting louder and blurrier. “All the gangsters from Havana control Miami. You can’t open even a tiny business there without greasing somebody’s hand. The only way to make any money is with la bolita.”

  My boys were out in the hallway playing with Celeste, Caridad’s daughter. I could hear them running the length of the narrow corridor and up and down the stairs, laughing and shouting at each other. Twice, Leticia’s neighbors, Americans in red- and- green sweaters who were still getting used to having Cubans in their midst, had come to complain about the noise.

  “Graciela,” Mario shouted from the living room. “Do something about your monsters.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Tie them to the couch?” I shouted back.

  I wasn’t going to let Mario ruin Christmas for me. Even with a gut full of beer, he knew better than to push me too far. He was lucky I didn’t march into the living room and slap his drunken face—after what he put me through.

  I had already talked to the boys about being too loud; there was nothing else I could do. After all, it was Christmas, and Christmas was for the children.

  “Por Dios, Graciela,” Imperio said. “You let those boys run wild.”

  “Celeste is out there too,” I said. “Why don’t you say anything to Caridad?”

  “I doubt that it’s Celeste who’s bringing the neighbors to the door,” Imperio said with a quick look to Caridad.

  “Niiiiñas,” Leticia said to no one in particular. “Don’t start.” Then she dumped the yucca out of the pressure cooker and a cloud of steam filled the small kitchen.

  I let the subject drop. Celeste ran in and her father jumped up off the couch as if he’d been hit by an electric current.

  “There’s my tesorito,” he said. My little treasure. Celeste was red- faced and sweating. She sat on her father’s lap, even though she was getting much too big for that. Her ruffled skirt hiked up over her thick, hairy thighs. I watched Caridad as she took a sideways look at them.

  “Celestica,” Caridad said, “no more running for today. Me escuchas?” You hear me?

  In response, Celeste jumped off her father’s lap and ran back outside, slamming the door. Caridad shrugged as if she didn’t care, but she gave her husband a look that would kill a goat. Reluctantly he got up and followed Celeste.

  The front door opened again, and I was relieved to see Raquel and Berta. Raquel’s little girls looked adorable in matching corduroy dresses, but Raquel looked as if she’d just fallen out of bed. Even her orange lipstick seemed pale and lifeless; her complexion was greenish. Still, she came into the kitchen with hugs and kisses and a “Feliz Navidad” for everyone.

  Berta also squeezed into the small kitchen, and for a few minutes it was just like being in the van, except we weren’t being tossed from side to side, no one was honking at us, and it smelled like delicious roast pork, not raw.

  “What are we going to do about presents?” Raquel asked. “I can’t give the girls headless dolls.”

  “I can lend you a few dólares,” Leticia said, but she kept her back to us, which meant she didn’t really want to. “Go buy them a little something.”

  “I can’t do that,” Raquel said in a whisper that only Leticia was supposed to hear. “You’ve already done enough for us. I can’t go deeper into debt right now.”

  I had suspected that for the past few months, Raquel had been riding in the van on credit. Leticia didn’t want anyone to know about it because she was afraid all of us would ask for a free ride, or credit, or a discount.

  “Por Dios, Raquel, don’t be a martyr,” Imperio said. “Take the money. You can pay her back.”

  But Raquel wouldn’t hear of it. She just shook her head, her ponytail bobbing like she was something you’d hang from the rearview mirror of a car.

  “I can’t afford postage and gifts,” Berta said, rolling down her knee- high orthopedic stockings. “It’s one or the other. Do you have any idea what it costs to ship a package to Venezuela? I sent them a nice card, the kind with the fake glittery snow pasted on it.”

  “That sounds nice, Berta,” I said. I glanced down at her exposed legs; the blue veins were swollen and knotted.

  “Why are you all driving yourselves crazy?” Imperio said. “Just move Christmas to January.”

  In Cuba, January 6 was when the Three Kings delivered the gifts to the children. We didn’t have Santa Claus like they do here. Our presents came by camel, brought by the Three Kings, the same way frankincense, gold, and myrrh were brought to baby Jesus. So Imperio, who has always been practical to the extreme, changed the tradition back to what we had always known.

  Over the screaming protests of the children—and I hate to admit it, but my boys complained the loudest—we postponed the gift exchange until January 6. Which was fine with me, because all I had purchased for the boys was two drawing pads and two boxes of coloring pencils, far from what they wanted. Their letter to Santa Claus was long; the toys they asked for were expensive. They wanted a Tru- Action electric football game, a Dick Tracy Copmobile, a Tasco deluxe microscope, a View- Master projector. I was more than willing to put off their disappointment for a couple of weeks, hoping their father would remember to mail them a few extra dollars for the holidays. Yes, January 6 was just fine with me.

  *

  THE SKY OVER UNION CITY turned even darker, and the winds grew colder. Christmas came and went, and still no heads for the dolls.

  It seemed to me like we’d just celebrated New Year’s Eve the way we always did—eating a dozen grapes, one for each month of the year, and singing Cuba’s national anthem (“que morir por la patria es vivir”), and weeping from homesickness into a glass of Spanish cider—and when we came to, it was already the sixth. The day came with icy winds and freezing rain, followed by a snowstorm that we thought would last forever.

  Once again we gathered at Leticia’s. Berta’s grandchildren only received a card, and Raquel’s little girls got headless dolls.

  “What good is a doll that doesn’t smile?” Berta asked. She had her swollen legs propped up on a dining room chair, and I noticed that some of the varicose veins had popped open, and where there were once blue ropes and knots there were now bandaged sores.

  “Listen, Berta,” Imperio said. “I think you need to worry less about toys for those grandchildren of yours and pay more attention to what’s happening to your legs. You want to end up in a wheelchair?”

  Raquel’s girls didn’t seem to mind the headless dolls, but it was a sad day for us all, watching them play with what looked like plastic victims of unspeakable crimes. The only one who had a normal reaction was Caridad’s daughter, Celeste, who took one look at the dolls and ran screaming like the devil.

  “In Cuba, children get no presents at all now,” Raquel said, her voice coming from a great distance. “In Cuba, Christmas has been canceled.”

  *

  FOR THE REST OF THE WINTER, we offered each other solemn faces as we sat in the overheated van day in and day out.

  I mostly stayed huddled inside my tiny apartment and never opened a window. I disappeared into a thick, dark overcoat and layers of wool, scarves, gloves, hats. My face turned dry and ashen, my hands red and raw. My lips became so chapped and cracked that I was reluctant to smile. The air inside my apartment was oily, dust stuck to every surface. Fortunately the outdoor furniture was easy to keep clean. It was so different from winters in Palmagria, where the windows stayed open to the cool breeze and the scent of gardenias perfumed the houses, even in January.

  I was beginning to think spring would never come. Everything green had vanished. Then early one morning, I stepped out onto the sidewalk. The freezing weather had subsided a little, and while waiting for the van to arrive, I heard a strange sound. It was a tiny sparrow, all alone, perched on a tree branch and chirping feebly. It was the first sign of spring and a pathetic one at that—just a speck of life on a bare branch. I looked up at that tiny, gra
y creature singing its little heart out, trying to convince me with all its might that things were going to get better, and suddenly I appreciated our big, annoying, loud Cuban wildlife so much more.

  Our house in Palmagria had always been surrounded with sounds that I had taken for granted. Every day I turned a deaf ear to the early morning call of the roosters, the gruntings of the pigs, the lewd calls of the talking parrots, the mangy dogs that barked at everyone who walked by.

  In Union City those sounds had been replaced by the constant, monotonous humming of traffic, interrupted only by an occasional car horn or the razor- sharp sound of a speeding train as it cut through the winter gloom.

  Leticia kept the heat in the van turned up so high that someone was always either rolling down the windows or complaining about the wind. The front windshield fogged up. Whoever was riding in the front seat had to constantly wipe it with a rag. It was a task we performed gingerly, apprehensively, as if at any moment the rag was going to burst into flames in our hands. There were times when we couldn’t wipe fast enough and the van ended up on the sidewalk. Everything was so thick with snow that it was impossible for Leticia to see where the road ended and the walkways began.

  “Slow down, Letí,” Berta said. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

  “You don’t like it, take the bus,” Leticia said with arrogant confidence, because she knew that with all the Cubans suddenly crowding every corner of Union City, any one of us could be easily replaced.

  “Imagínate,” Caridad said, raising a hand to her throat. It looked like a big, flesh- colored butterfly landing there.

  “Por Dios, stop complaining,” Imperio said. “Did you leave your country to ride a stinking bus?”

  It wasn’t so much the buses as the waiting that we feared. Waiting alone for a bus in Union City in all sorts of weather, or in the dark, terrified us. As much as we grumbled, we were grateful to have Leticia and her ugly yellow van.

  Many things divided the passengers of that van. Bickering was almost constant. It was the telenovelas that united us. No matter how bleak the weather, how dangerous the driving, or how annoying we found each other, when the topic turned to the current telenovela, everyone cheered up.

  I liked the telenovelas for their predictability. It was comforting to know something was going to work out, that the dark- haired girl was always going to be good, the blonde was always going to be bad. That if you were born poor, you would end up rich; if you were illegitimate, it would be discovered that you had been switched at birth. But most important, if the love of your life was engaged to marry someone else, he would be yours in the end.

  There was only one thing none of us in the van could ever be sure of, and that was when the first kiss between our favorite new couple would take place.

  Night after night, I watched the destined lovers get closer and closer, until the maid interrupted them, or the hateful blond fiancée made one of her numerous untimely entrances.

  The man’s eyes, big and dreamy, held the woman’s gaze. At first she was shy in his presence. But over time, she started to return his looks.

  Whenever he walked into the room, her lips parted slightly and quivered with the anticipation of that first kiss. Her lips were perfectly painted, meticulously outlined in dark, filled in with light. Because in our telenovelas, everybody wore a lot of makeup, even the maid.

  The shows also tortured us with romantic music. As the music swelled, there were long, simmering silences between the two future lovers. They got closer and closer and closer. And then that spoiled, rich blonde always walked in, big, sculpted curls crowning her arrogant head.

  “Isn’t it highly irregular that you would be in this wing of the house?” she asked bluntly, her eyes narrowing to slits. “I thought it was forbidden . . . to servants.”

  The romantic music stopped. Cymbals crashed. A window blew open.

  I felt the word servant like a sharp slap in my face, because I knew that the dark- haired girl was actually the rightful owner of the finca. That she had been switched at birth. It was just a matter of time before the only person who knew the secret—usually an old lady—took to her deathbed and whispered the truth to the local priest during last rites. But that could take days and days, weeks even! The old lady’s agony lasting forever, the moment of that first kiss promised and then withdrawn or interrupted again and again.

  I sat on the edge of one of the folding patio chairs in my little American apartment, the once- white walls closing in on me. While the boys slept peacefully in the next room, I clutched a pillow to my chest. I leaned in closer as the old woman started to say what I’d been waiting to hear.

  “There’s something I must confess,” she said, struggling to speak, extending a clawlike hand, pointing at nothing with a crooked finger. (The old woman was almost always played by a fat actress who looked healthier than anyone else on the screen.)

  But as I watched, I truly believed she was dying, I believed it with all my heart.

  The old lady struggled and struggled to confess, day after day, episode after episode, she fought between death and the truth. And every time she was about to tell all, the blond one stopped her.

  “Don’t try to speak,” she told her with feigned concern, leaning closer to the bed, making everyone in the room believe that she was good, not evil, as I knew she was. “You must conserve your strength, don’t you agree, Doctor?”

  The doctor looked at the dying woman with wise, scientific eyes and caressed his chin whiskers.

  “Yes, you must conserve your strength,” he agreed, mesmerized by the vile blond beauty.

  The old woman leaned back into her pillow, her expression pained from having to swallow the truth so many times.

  The dark- haired girl cast her eyes up to heaven while the blonde let out a sigh of relief. The music always chose that moment to start again; light piano tinkled like raindrops on a lake. The dying woman glanced feebly at the people surrounding her—from the scheming blonde to the dark- haired girl, over to the handsome landowner, to the priest, the doctor, and back to the blonde, who stared daggers. The music became harder, more dramatic, and voices started to emerge from closed mouths.

  That was the part I liked the best in any telenovela, because it let you hear what everyone was thinking.

  “Please don’t die and leave me all alone in this horrible house,” the dark- haired girl implored with her eyes, her overlaid voice echoing a little.

  “What could she possibly know,” the landowner’s deep, masculine thoughts wondered, “this sweet old woman who has been a servant in our house since long before I was born?”

  And then, so clearly that it felt as if everyone in the room could hear it, the thoughts of the blonde were revealed!

  “Die now, you old witch. You will not ruin my plans. I will marry Francisco, and none of you will ever set foot in this mansion again.”

  After a really good episode, I couldn’t wait to get into the van and talk about it with the others. Week after week, the telenovelas gave us new topics to discuss. They had titles that stayed with me forever: Dear Enemy, which was about twin sisters; or The Privilege to Love, about a half- caste slave. My favorite will always be Cadenas de Amargura—Chains of Bitterness—about an evil spinster with a dark secret.

  It wasn’t always fun and giggles in the van. Some nights, it filled up with the kind of sadness only a group of very unhappy women can generate. None of us ever dreamed we’d come to Union City to work in a toy factory, or any other kind of factory for that matter. After a long day of plugging tiny plastic arms into tiny plastic sockets, we were often too tired to talk, lost in our own thoughts, our own worries. Like on the day when Berta first fell down. One minute she was standing at the line, the next she was on the floor. I was the one closest to her, so I bent down to help her up. But she was out cold. I could hear the others shouting, “Emergency!” And then Mr. O’Reilly was there. Together we helped her up and practically carried her to his office. He guided us to h
is desk chair, which had wheels on it. We tried to get Berta into it, but the chair kept rolling away. By the time we got her in it she was already coming to.

  Mr. O’Reilly was very nice to her. He even got a paper cup of water for her to drink.

  “Estás buena?” he kept asking her in his bad Spanish. What he was asking her over and over was “Are you sexually aroused?” I didn’t have the heart to correct his Spanish. And if I hadn’t been so worried about Berta I would have found it falling- down funny.

  That night, on the way home, I looked from face to miserable face: Berta, Raquel, Leticia, Imperio, and Caridad. I wanted to hear their true thoughts the way I could in the telenovelas.

  The van traveled carefully along the now familiar streets. We had nothing better to do than to look out at the squares of green lawns in summer, or white in winter, and at rows of little houses separated by rusting chain- link fences, the air- conditioning units sticking out of windows like leaking tumors. Just when I thought the van would explode from the unrelenting misery it was transporting, Leticia said the magic words.

  “Niiiiñas, I’m sure of it! Esta noche se besan. Tonight they will kiss.”

  “Not tonight,” Berta said, in a voice that belonged to a sleepwalker. “Tomorrow.”

  “Berta’s right,” I said. “Tonight the old lady dies, and tomorrow they will kiss.”

  “You will not ruin my plans,” Imperio said, imitating the blonde to perfection. “I will marry my Francisco and none of you will set foot in this big mansion again.”

  “Imagínate,” Caridad said.

  After that, we couldn’t stop laughing. And every time we did, Imperio repeated the line and got us going again, until one by one we were dropped off.

  My relationship with the ladies in the van was a strange one. They weren’t exactly my friends, and I wouldn’t trust them, particularly Imperio and Caridad, to take a dog out for a pee. But in a world full of foreigners, all we had was each other.