Except Graciela. Could Graciela be the one behind this curse? Or her crazy mother?
I asked El Haitiano before we started back for the road.
“It could be a woman,” he said, “or a man.”
It was one of those infuriating answers that most irritated me about Santeros.
“What do you suggest I do?” I asked, but never imagined I would get such an answer.
“You must get out of Cuba.”
“Leave Cuba? Nunca!” I said. Never. “I will not be run out of my own country. And do what, go clean toilets for American tourists in Miami Beach?”
Grateful as I was to El Haitiano, I was shaking with anger. How dare he put those thoughts in my head!
I admit I had voiced my opinions here and there, but never in my wildest dreams did I suspect that one of those people, those idiots, would try to do us harm. I have learned over the years that desperate people are capable of anything.
I didn’t know what to believe. I felt my world turning upside down. And I no longer had Caridad to talk to. She was gone for good. Vanished in the middle of the night without a word. All she left was a jar of mentholated cigarettes, and they were gone too. What was left of our friendship had gone up in smoke. In smoke!
I couldn’t blame her for being secretive. No one knew who to trust anymore. And it was clear that we had to protect ourselves too. There no longer was a place for us in Cuba.
Mario would never be the same again. It took some time for him to get back on his feet. Something had been taken from him. But as soon as he started feeling stronger, we began to plan our escape.
Truth is, we didn’t plan to be gone very long, convinced that Castro’s hold on the island, gained through lies, couldn’t last. He had captured the imagination of the people, not just the very poor—for those people anything would be an improvement—but also the working class and the middle class. People like us had the most to lose, because our money had not been handed to us. We had worked for it day after day. So we decided to leave until someone knocked him out of power. It wouldn’t be long before the American government or the American mafia stepped in. I knew it was just a matter of time.
I asked for a sign and I got it. And I’m not a big believer in signs, but how else do you explain the letter from Caridad? She had been gone for months with no word. And then the letter arrived. It had been opened and read and then sealed back again with Scotch tape. Whoever opened it at the post office had not been very careful. The envelope had not been steamed but torn open, and then the letter had been read and carelessly stuffed back in, as if someone wanted me to know, without a doubt, that I was being watched. I’m not much for miracles, but it was a miracle that it had reached me at all. The message inside was very simple.
“Aquí tienes tu casa,” it said. You have a home here. And then an address and phone number. I was impressed.
“She already has a telephone,” I said to Mario.
I called her immediately, but it took two days for us to be connected. And it was sweet as sugar to hear that voice again. She sounded like she was right around the corner.
But she was in a faraway place called Union City.
Liliana wouldn’t hear of it. We sat her down and tried to explain the situation to her. She sat on her rocking chair, but she didn’t rock. She kept the chair steady, both feet planted firmly on the floor.
“But we want you to come too,” Mario said.
Liliana stood up, her face turning red with anger.
“I’m not leaving my house or my country,” she said, and started for her bedroom.
“Liliana, are you crazy? What are you going to do here all alone?” I said. I was ready to wring her stubborn, wrinkled neck.
Mario started to follow her, but I held him back. Mario didn’t know what to do. Does he follow his wife or stay and protect his mother?
“Mira,” I said to him. “We go first, and then we send for her. A few more months here and she’ll beg us to get her out.”
Liliana stopped, turned, and looked at me with hatred.
“Union City,” she said, and spat on the floor. “That’s what I think of your Union City.”
A few months after we had left Cuba, Liliana wrote to us that El Haitiano himself was the one who moved into our house. But by then it was far too late. He had kicked her out of her own house, those were Fidel Castro’s rules. “A little old lady doesn’t need such a big empty house,” they said. “Give it to someone who needs it, someone with children and in- laws.”
It never crossed my mind that the whole thing had to do with our house. The idea that someone would put a curse on a family just to get their house was crazy! Por Dios, it was just a simple old house. Sure, it was in one of the nicest parts of Palmagria, but it was still in Palmagria, which was like being the prettiest girl in an ugly contest.
Liliana had to pack up her radio and go live with relatives in Palma Soriano. If you ask me, she got what she deserved.
chapter eleven
Caridad
Iwouldn’t dream of telling others how they should raise their children. No one knows better than me how difficult it is. It was just that I worried. Graciela left the boys alone at night to fend for themselves and went who knows where. Imagínate! What sort of mother is that?
She said she was going to school; she said she was studying English and fashion design.
“Por Dios!” Imperio said. “She’ll design the ‘easy to undress’ dress. For ladies who need to take it off and put it back on quick before the husband comes home.”
Those kids of hers were growing up wild! Ernestico looked like a little thug. There was something angry about him, something hidden, as if he was waiting for just the right moment to do something crazy. And in this country children his age did crazy things all the time. How could any right- thinking person trust him? There was something about him—he wouldn’t look you in the eye, and he answered all questions with a shrug, like he cared not one bit about anything in the world. I kept my Celeste away from him.
Imperio predicted a problem.
“That boy’s going to end up in juvenile detention,” she said.
But Graciela didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. And if she did, she never mentioned it. Nothing. It was like the three of them had a secret pact. Some sort of family agreement that no one could figure out.
I was not prying, I was worried.
Manolito was still too young to be left alone, even if it was with his older brother. Who knew what two boys could get up to, alone in an apartment?
Don’t think we didn’t mention it to her.
“Piénsalo bien, Graciela,” Imperio said. Think about it.
“I will,” Graciela said, but there was an airiness to her words, as if they came just from her mouth, not her mind. We knew she just wanted to shut us up.
It was a closed subject with her. The curtain came down as it always did when she did not want to listen to reason.
She refused any bit of sensible advice, after all we had done for her. We were the ones who gave her a hand up, as we had with all the other exiles that came after us. With Graciela we made an extra effort; after all, we’d known her forever—and we knew what she was capable of. Graciela could dig herself into a hole faster than anyone I had ever met. So we tried to guide her, to protect her from herself.
But no, Graciela will be Graciela until the day she dies.
“A palm tree that grows crooked stays crooked forever,” Imperio said. And I had to agree.
Still, we did all we could, foolishly thinking that in this country she could make a fresh start. First we got her out of that horrible hotel room, found her an apartment, and helped her out with furniture. We introduced her to Leticia so that she could get a ride to work, and we got her boys enrolled in school. And how did she pay us back? As Imperio said, “You can paint the stripes off a zebra, but she will never be a white horse.”
Imagínate! After months of giving me the cold shoulder, she showed
up at my apartment as if we were still the best of friends.
“I like your new furniture,” she said.
Little by little I’d been buying furniture, on credit, which made everything so much more expensive. But what else could I do? My apartment was Mediterranean. The new living room set was dark blue with scalloped cushions, and I painted the walls light pink to remind me of my house in Palmagria. Of course it will never be as beautiful as that house. There were no portraits of my family to hang on the walls; we had to leave all that behind. The new lamps were much nicer than what I had in Palmagria, but still I missed the old ones. I missed them every single day.
“Mil gracias,” I said, and sat down on my new couch. Graciela remained standing. I could tell she was charged up about something. She had on a full face of makeup and was wearing a knitted black dress that showed her nipples as if she was standing naked in my living room. Well, what could I do?
“Come in, sit down,” I said. Why is she here? I wondered. After all, I have to see her at work every day. But I acted as nicely as I could. I even offered to make her some coffee, which she refused. She said she didn’t want any, and I could understand why. She didn’t need it. She was already overstimulated enough. You could see it in her eyes—an excitement, or was it desperation? I never can tell with Graciela. I went ahead and made coffee anyway, just to keep moving.
She followed me to the kitchen and stood in the doorway, which seemed too narrow to contain her.
“I’m starting a little business,” she said.
I was glad that I had my back to her, or she would have seen the expression on my face.
“Oh, how nice for you, Graciela,” I said. But I thought, She is crazy! This woman had lawn furniture in her living room because real furniture was beyond her means. No store would give her credit, and she thinks she can start a business? Everyone knew that Ernesto ditched her and the kids as soon as they got to the States; shipped her to New Jersey while he stayed in Miami. We heard that in Miami she had stayed with Ernesto’s cousins only a few weeks and had made their lives miserable. That she tried to turn Ernesto against his own family. As far as I was concerned, Ernesto was a saint, he should have had a monument raised in his honor. After what she put him through, he brought her here. He saved her from a life of darkness and disgrace. Because Palmagria does not forget or forgive. Forever she would have been Graciela the Whore, or Tarros. But she can be ungrateful and selfish. We heard that in Miami she would not lift a finger to help around the house. That Ernesto’s cousins, who already had their hands full with the old man and his cancer, could not wait to get her out of their apartment.
I’m willing to wager that Graciela noticed not one bit. She just sails through life on her own winds. And the winds were blowing full force that night she came to see me.
“And what kind of business is this?” I asked her as I walked past her with my little cup of café, the frozen smile on my face starting to melt.
I wished Imperio was there with me, because I knew that when I told her she was not going to believe what happened next.
Instead of answering, Graciela ran out to the hallway and returned with a huge plastic bag that she plopped down on the floor. She was breathing hard. Her heart must have been going a mile a minute. She dug into the bag and retrieved what looked to me like a big fur rug, and she lifted it over her head. It hung on her like a Mexican poncho. Then she dug into the bag some more and pulled out a hat made out of the same sort of furry rug material, and she put it on and stood there looking like El Doctor Chivago.
“You know I’m taking fashion design classes,” she said with a serious face, a face made out of cement. “At the junior college.”
Her eyes danced on mine as she waited for my reaction.
“I thought it was just that one course,” I said. “I thought you were concentrating on learning English.”
At that moment I wanted to cry and I wanted to slap her. I forced myself to remain calm. I could sort of understand that she needed to learn English, even if it meant that her children stayed at home unsupervised for hours on end. But this frivolous undertaking was much too much.
“My English will take time,” she said. “Now I’m concentrating on design and cut. That way I can start earning extra money right away.”
I don’t know if she saw the look on my face. I was trying to control my expressions, but it was useless and exhausting. All I could think was, WHAT?
I took a moment, trying to think of the best way to advise her. I mean, she wasn’t thinking clearly.
Not that she ever had.
A person doesn’t just become a fashion designer after a few classes at a junior college in New Jersey. This much I knew, and it was depressing that this wasn’t obvious to her. It would be one thing if she was designing, say, pretty dresses or something practical. That I could almost understand. I could almost forgive that effort, that sacrifice.
But this?
This is why she leaves the boys alone at night? I could have strangled her right then and there.
“Graciela,” I said, the tiny coffee cup feeling heavy in my hand. “If you need to make a little extra money, why not start doing our nails again, like you used to?”
She stared at me for a long time.
“No, I don’t do that anymore.”
Imagínate! I was offering her not just my hands, not just a way to make money, but forgiveness. I was telling her I was willing to put the past behind, to forget the vulgar way she had behaved in Palmagria, the ugly shadow she had cast on my reputation, and on all of her friends. Imagínate, she showed no interest in that. Not one bit. I had to sit down after she left. She really knocked the life out of me with that one. I wanted to be helpful, not unkind, but as I explained to her, “Yes, New Jersey winters are very cold, but I cannot walk around looking like that in that thing.”
I said it as gently as I could, but of course it was not the reaction she wanted. She wanted me to throw that thing on and go parading up and down Bergenline Avenue as if I was a trendsetting mannequin. She frowned at me for a moment, then nodded her head.
“You’re right, it might be too high fashion for you,” she said. With that little insult—don’t think I didn’t get it, don’t think I didn’t grasp it—with that little insult she let me know that she considered me too much of a peasant to ever understand her. She thinks herself so sophisticated, Graciela. She said not another word and neither did I. Without any hurry, she took off her furry creations and packed them back into the plastic bag. Her movements were much slower than when she arrived. She took forever to leave, carefully folding her furry things, turning the plastic bag this way and that, all the while avoiding my eyes.
As Imperio said when I told her the whole story, “Por Dios, Caridad, why are you surprised? Graciela’s always been selfish. And soon she will be selfish in two languages.”
Her English was a constant source of embarrassment for me. Imagínate, she was taking classes three nights a week, and after a few months considered herself an expert. At work I overheard her laughing and talking to the Americanos during a break, and I just cringed. I mean, without abandoning my family at night to take lessons, I probably knew as much English as she did, but I dared not speak it. Especially in front of the Americanos. The way Graciela mangled their language, I was surprised those people didn’t just laugh in her face. She talked to everyone, black and white, even the Puerto Ricans, who would have cut off their tongues rather than say two words in Spanish to us.
She became particularly friendly with a black woman named Cloretta Johnson. Cloretta was not only fat, she was tall too. Tall and fat, a giant of a woman.
One day we arrived for work and were standing in line to punch our cards, and there was Cloretta in front of us, a mountain of cheap fur. She was wearing not just Graciela’s poncho, but the hat as well. Imperio and I pinched each other to keep from bursting out in hysterics. We were choking.
Graciela, who had been standing behind us, jumped ahead,
and she and Cloretta started admiring each other. Cloretta made turns like a model, and all the others, even the men, came up to them saying ridiculous things like “gorgeous” and “preciosa.”
Imperio and I just punched our cards as fast as we could and ran to the ladies’ room, where we almost cried from laughing. I got a pain in my stomach from laughing so hard.
“Qué ridículo,” Imperio said.
“Poor Cloretta,” I said. “And nobody will tell her the truth.”
But who could? Who dared? We didn’t know what we were going to do about Graciela. Other than the time we spent together in the van, we really tried to keep our distance. But I must confess, I did enjoy discussing the telenovelas with her. Thank God we had that in common, or the drive to work would have been torture, because you really couldn’t count on Raquel or Berta for stimulating conversation.
It was right around that time that poor Berta started dropping things at work. First her legs stopped functioning properly, then her hands. What next? At least she wasn’t falling down in a faint anymore. But something was going on. Even Mr. O’Reilly noticed. He asked her into his office and had a talk with her. She was slowing down production and she had called in sick way too many times. Even when she was there she did half the work all the others did. Dolls went by her on the conveyor and arrived at the other end missing an arm or a leg. So we had to run to the end, past the stares of the blacks and the Puerto Rican girls, rescue Berta’s dolls, and fix them.
“Berta, you better shove new batteries up your ass,” Imperio told her. “You have to wake up or you’re going to get yourself and the rest of us fired.”
Berta just looked back with that long- suffering look she liked to give you. Every single day we sat in the van with the motor idling while we waited for her to slowly make her way to us. And then of course she went directly to the front seat.
Tomorrow They Will Kiss Page 15