She returned with an interpreter—a Spanish- speaking man who talked a mile a minute in English and then very slowly to me in Spanish. While the man talked to me in Spanish, the American woman nodded and smiled at me, which was funny, because I knew she didn’t know what he was saying but was trusting that her words were being passed on correctly. What could I do? I kept my eyes on her and nodded and smiled.
When it was all over, she extended her hand to me. “Hasta mañana, Señora Rodríguez,” she said with an accent, and I was happy to hear those words no matter how strange they sounded.
“Hasta mañana,” I said while my stomach tightened, because I dreaded mañana more than she could ever imagine. I had never worked a day in my life. Now I was to be a factory worker in a strange country and in a foreign language.
As I walked into our apartment that day I felt surprisingly victorious and triumphant. I was Mrs. Rodríguez, a woman with a job. It was a feeling that would not last for long. Everyone who worked at that factory was one hundred percent black. All black ladies. Not that I have anything against los negros, but I knew enough to know that in America this placed me at the bottom of the heap. Not one of them welcomed me in any way, no one said a word to me. They just looked at me like I was bicho raro. The foreman was the same man who had been at the interview, and that was lucky for me, because I had a lot to learn. I was given a light blue smock to put over my dress and a shower cap for my hair. Then they seated me on a stool at a big white table where many other ladies were seated and each one of us had a huge magnifying glass in front of us. On the table were tiny little parts and tiny little screws and tiny little screwdrivers, and the idea was to look through that magnifying glass and screw everything together.
Olvídate de eso. My hands were shaking and sweating and the screws kept falling to the floor and the black ladies kept looking at me and then looking at each other and the more that happened the worse it got but this was going to put food on the table and pay our rent so I kept trying and trying and finally one of the black ladies left her post and stood next to me and placed her black hands on mine and steadied me and helped me do the first one while the rest of them watched but then my eyes started to fill with tears and I couldn’t see anything and I just dropped my chin on my chest and cried and cried I couldn’t stop I was so embarrassed I just wanted to die the more I cried the more my hands shook and then the Spanish-speaking man came and said something to the black lady and she went back to her stool but no one was working everyone was watching the spectacle. Me.
“Vamos, señora,” the man said kindly, and he led me to the women’s washroom, where I threw up. Then I returned and I sat on my stool and looked through the magnifying glass and grabbed the screwdriver and the little screws and I got to work. I don’t know where it came from, but I did it. When I looked up, the black ladies were looking at me again, and I found the eyes of the one who’d tried to help me and I smiled, and she nodded like she knew.
The job didn’t get any easier. Looking through that magnifying glass gave me headaches and my vision was getting worse. Sometimes I would look at my fingers through the magnifying glass and see the ravaged cuticles and the bare nails where once a glorious half- moon had existed, and it just made my heart sink. I was bringing home a paycheck every week, and that was the only thing that kept me coming back. Same as everybody else. It was then that I started taking a few dollars out of every paycheck to buy hand cream and lotions. I may have been reduced to working in a factory, but some dignity had to be maintained.
Yes, Imperio had it easy compared to me. By the time she arrived I had already met Leticia and switched to the toy factory, where the job was much easier, even fun, and it paid better. Mr. O’Reilly had shorter hair then, and even wore a tie—one of those you clip on.
Best of all, I didn’t have to take the bus anymore. Leticia bought a van and she asked if I wanted a ride. I accepted immediately. Only later did she tell me there would be a fee. Every day I just climbed into Leticia’s van with Raquel and Berta and pretended I didn’t mind paying, but I felt like she had tricked me.
*
YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK on Imperio’s face when she first arrived in Union City. I don’t know what she was expecting, but it certainly didn’t please her.
“This is where you live?” she said, sniffing around my little apartment with a look on her face like the beans were burning in the kitchen.
Imagínate! I sat her down and explained things to her. And I was very clear about everything. Of course she denied having grand expectations, but inside her words was an apology and I let her get away with it. Her reaction wasn’t all that different from mine. The first night we stayed up all night talking.
She and Mario lived with us for a few weeks until they could get an apartment of their own. Fortunately it was in our building.
And they got that apartment just in time, because Salud and Mario were not getting along.
Mario complained to Imperio that Salud acted like he was still a doctor, when he wasn’t anything like that. Imperio told me about it because she tells me everything, and I had to mediate between the two men. I’ll admit, Salud tends to be a little arrogant. But that arrogance is all the poor man has now.
Mario called him El Médico, just like everyone used to back in Palmagria, but he said it with an ugly sneer, like a burla. My poor husband hadn’t been able to get a job, and he was so successful once. He was not used to watching his wife go off to work every day and control all the money. But he was good with Celeste, and I knew that sooner or later he would find his way.
“Salud, por favor, just ignore him,” I said. “You know how Mario is. He’s still recovering from that Santero’s curse.”
“Curse,” Salud said. “What do I care about a curse? Why should I listen to garbage from a man who lost everything to a Santero? Carajo! I could be bitter too, but why should I have to pay for his superstition and bad judgment? While he’s in my house, eating my food, he should at least show some gratitude. And he drinks too much.”
“All the gratitude we need I get from Imperio,” I said, and I meant it.
Shortly after they moved out, and much to Mario’s frustration, Salud got a job at a hospital. He worked nights cleaning up blood, vomit, and quién sabe qué, and we hardly saw each other, but we had a little more money coming in and he was still able to watch Celeste during the day while I was at work. I was suddenly filled with optimism. I started to feel a little happier with Imperio at my side. I no longer woke up with that horrible desire to weep. I had my friend back. Together we would make it through this difficult time, until things in Cuba went back to normal, until we could return and claim what was ours. For now, it would be like old times again, if in a different language, with a different last name, and in different surroundings. I got her a job at the toy factory, and of course she rode to work in Leticia’s van. Leticia was only too glad to have the extra money. Yes, the situation was getting better. That was back when it was just us. Graciela arrived three years later, and everything started to change.
chapter nine
Graciela
I never believed we were going back. I was not like those other Cubans who looked at the horizon every day with tearful eyes, who carried poison in their souls, who refused to learn English or move forward. There was nothing for me back there. But because my heart is treacherous, sometimes my thoughts drifted to a distant future and I saw myself back in Palmagria, with a soft breeze blowing through the narrow streets. And the streets full of strangers. My boys didn’t figure in my daydream; they were grown and gone, most likely married, and hopefully happy.
When we first got to Union City, I made Ernestico write a letter to his grandparents. I knew both my parents were furious with me, but thought that if they heard from the children, who knows, maybe it would soften them a little.
I sat him down at the aluminum dining room table with a clean sheet of paper and a well- sharpened pencil.
“What do I say?�
� he asked me.
“Just tell them about your life here; your school, your new friends.”
“I don’t have any friends here.”
“Well, then just tell them that you miss them.”
“But I don’t.”
“They love you. Don’t you remember how nice they were to you?”
He didn’t say anything. I could see memories and doubt cloud his face.
“Do it anyway,” I said. “Sometimes we have to say things until we mean them.”
“Isn’t that like lying?”
“Just do it.”
So he hunched over and created a list of lies that ended with, “We miss you very much, your loving grandson, Ernestico.”
“Here,” he growled, handing the sheet of paper to me as if it was on fire.
As much as he hated writing that letter, afterward he was anxious to receive one back from them. Every day he asked me if they’d written. The answer was always no.
“Maybe it got lost in the mail,” I told him. “Write another one.” Which he did, this time with a little more sincerity. But when they still didn’t write back, we stopped doing that. He never mentioned it again, but I sensed his disappointment, like only a mother can. Ernestico was the sort of boy who hid his feelings very deep inside, but I knew he was hurt. I could see it in his eyes.
I talked to Raquel about it because she had children too. I waited until we were in the clock- out line at the end of the workday.
“The reason you don’t hear from them,” she said, “is because the mail is censored.”
“I think they were happy to see us go, and are happy that we’ve stayed gone,” I said as I slid my time card into the clock for a stamp.
After Raquel had clocked out, we walked across the parking lot and took our seats in the van.
“It worries me,” Raquel said, “that hardly any mail goes into Cuba unopened.”
Imperio and Caridad had been walking closely behind us and now joined in the conversation as if they’d been invited.
“I hear they open everything,” Imperio said. “Every letter, every package. And if there is anything suspicious or that they think could be code for something counterrevolutionary, they burn it.”
“Just the thought of those grubby hands touching my envelopes makes me crazy,” Raquel said.
“It’s the mail from us to them that gets all their attention. You know they take the money out and keep it,” Caridad said. “And they read everything you write out loud and laugh. Imagínate. It’s like a party there in that post office when they get hold of a letter from one of us. The more you talk about your life here, the louder they laugh. They pocket your money and they laugh.”
“Especially if you say you’re working in a factory,” Imperio said. “Por Dios, I hope you don’t write to them about that!”
Raquel didn’t say anything, because that was exactly what she was doing. Writing letters that described her shabby life in Union City, and along with the twenty- dollar bill she enclosed, she was also apologetically telling her relatives how hard life was here, how difficult it was working in a factory, and how she wished she could send more. I could see her sealing the envelopes with her tears.
Leticia turned the key and the motor started. While she waited for it to warm up, she said, “I tell them I drive a big yellow van, that I eat steak every night, and that I have never been to the shoe repair. When I wear out a pair, I buy new ones. Let them eat their hearts out.”
And with that she shifted into reverse and maneuvered us out of the parking lot without looking back.
“So you never write to anyone in Cuba?” Imperio asked me.
A simple question if it had come from anyone else.
“No,” I said.
“No one?” Caridad asked. She didn’t dare look at Imperio, but they were dying to exchange a knowing glance. She kept her tone light and curious, as if this was just a simple question she would ask anyone.
I had known this day would come, as sure as I knew my own name. They had been dying to bring it up. I could see it in every movement of their eyes, the way Imperio’s and Caridad’s backs straightened whenever I climbed into the van. Sure, they were all smiles and greetings and happy to talk about the telenovelas. But I also knew there was a little topic in their minds that they wanted to discuss. And I wasn’t going to let them have even a little bit of it. I had loved and lost and had no need to repeat it for their amusement.
I felt Berta’s and Raquel’s eyes on me. What sort of heartless person was I that I just severed all connection with everyone back in my country? But of course neither Berta nor Raquel was about to say anything. Berta rarely heard from her son in Venezuela, and Raquel wanted to keep her mysterious circumstances mysterious.
“Niiiiñas, I’m sure Graciela has her reasons,” Leticia said.
Then it was like someone had sucked all the air out of the van.
It wasn’t that Leticia was coming to my defense. Her statement was implying something else. And it was then I knew that she knew about Ernesto and Pepe.
Of course she knew. Of course Caridad and Imperio had told her all the juicy details. I had been discussed with wide eyes and arched eyebrows. Dissected with such excitement that their lips flapped and their mouths watered.
But hearing it from them, secondhand, was not the same as hearing it from me. They had no proof.
Suddenly the van felt hot and crowded. My arm was rubbing up against Imperio’s. That would not have bothered me before. But now it made me nauseous. I moved myself away from her. I didn’t want to be in contact with any of them. Particularly Imperio. I just wanted to get home.
I knew that Imperio and Caridad were not going to give up. That this chismoseo would continue endlessly. They not only wanted me to tell them what really happened back in Palmagria, they wanted more. They wanted to hear how sorry I was that I had done what I did. They wanted a confession and a repentance. They wanted some sort of reason.
They wanted me on my knees.
And this was exactly what I was not willing to do.
I didn’t even want to think about it. I kept quiet for a few minutes, looking out the window, but I could sense their anticipation, as if at any moment I was going to turn back to them and start reciting a very painful episode from my past, like it was an old poem or the plot of a telenovela.
They would have loved that.
Instead I kept my sights on the passing scenery. The bitter winter had given way to an unbelievably beautiful spring. Where there had once been nothing but dirty ice and gray pools of water, now the most incredible violets and geraniums bloomed. They were everywhere: hanging from planters on balconies, growing out of cracks in the sidewalk, filling the islands that divided the traffic.
The trees, thick with leaves, cast cool shadows on the asphalt.
Even the buildings had taken on color. All winter long they had been darkened by the damp air and melting snow, but now the gentle sunlight brought out the warm, dry tones of the russet brick, brown wood, and green patterns of ivy on cement. Rows of windows reflected the blue sky. The air outside was cool and breezy. In the winter months people had dashed from one warm place to another; now they walked the streets leisurely, the women in light pastel sweaters, the children in short pants, the men in light- colored suits of gray or tan. How was I to know that my anger toward Pepe was to be just like one of these Union City winters? That in time the ice would melt and I would find myself as vulnerable and quivering as a spring blossom?
Looking back, I can see how lost I was. How trusting. He made promises and I believed him. “After the Revolution, preciosa,” he said. “After the Triumph, tesoro.” It was always after this happens and after that happens. And I knew how important it all was to him. But I was twenty- two and single. All the girls I knew were married and starting their families. I had seen it happen too many times, women who waited and waited and then one day found themselves gray- haired and bitter. I was not going to let that happen to me.
<
br /> “Pepe, the Revolution came and went,” I said to him. “And what about me? What about us?”
He stroked my naked body, and I immediately forgot what I had asked him.
“Be patient, mi corazón,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
“There’s a man who wants me,” I said. It was a trick and an obvious one, but I was reaching desperation.
“We’ll talk about it when I return, preciosa,” Pepe said.
I was tired of sweet words. No one made me feel the way he did. Every touch was heaven. I adored him, and climbed into his bed every chance I got. Every single time. All he had to do was signal and I was his.
But I also had to think of myself. He went to the sierras again to teach the guajiros how to read. He put them before me. He always would. I had my answer.
Months later, when he returned, I didn’t have the will to resist him. I was a married lady with a good life and I made a horrible mistake. But I’m not sorry. I see no point in regrets. Maybe I’m sorry with the way things turned out. Particularly with Ernesto. But what can I do about that? When I married Ernesto, I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, that he wasn’t the love of my life. But I was willing to move forward, to enter a new life. I made the right choice, as if I could tell my heart how to feel. As if I could tell my soul who to love. As if I could tell my body who to desire. I can honestly say that I thought Pepe Medina Ynclán and I were over and done with. I really believed that chapter had ended. I was so angry at him, I didn’t think I would ever let him back into my life. I thought the anger would last forever, that it would protect me, harden me to his charms.
Tomorrow They Will Kiss Page 12