And then finally someone answered. Graciela spoke in English, holding the telephone firmly, using a professional tone of voice I had never heard before.
“Good evening,” she said. “We are calling to arrange the shipment of a body to Havana.”
From the frown on her face we could tell what she was getting from the other end of the line was not good.
“I knew it,” Caridad said as soon as Graciela hung up.
“Didn’t I tell you this was crazy?” I said, and meant it. “Piénsalo bien, Graciela. Berta was not in her right mind when she wrote that letter.”
But Graciela would not listen to me.
“I don’t know why you keep saying that,” Graciela said, with no small amount of irritation in her voice. “Berta never seemed crazy to me. Certainly not any crazier than anyone else I know.”
In the silence that followed, she looked at me, and then at Caridad, and I can’t speak for Caridad, but I felt insulted.
“Bueno, that’s that, there’s nothing else we can —” I said, but didn’t get to finish.
“We’ll have her cremated and send the ashes by mail!” Graciela said as if it was the most brilliant idea anyone had ever had.
As much as we tried to talk her out of that absolutely insane plan, Graciela forged ahead. It was as if Berta’s body now belonged exclusively to her and she could do whatever she wanted.
Exactly two days later, Berta was delivered to us in a waxy box. That was it. All that life, all that pain, all those men, all that dancing, was burned down to a box of ashes. I didn’t want to touch it, not that Graciela would have let me. She took possession of that box and carried it around ceremoniously, like it had the crown jewels in it, her face flushed with a look of accomplishment, even excitement. Gone was the sad, worried look of the past two days. Graciela had set her grief aside so that she could properly carry out Berta’s wishes and claim victory over common sense. Por Dios, it was almost as if she was happy to do it. Happy.
Graciela had a crazy plan. She had scissors, string, boxes, tape, and plastic bags all set out on her kitchen counter. We reluctantly sat at her kitchen table and helped her distribute the ashes into four clear plastic bags. Graciela used a soupspoon while we took turns holding the bags. It was like dismembering a person. For all I knew, her face was with her feet—the thought of it made me queasy. The air in the room filled up with Berta’s dust. We were breathing her in, and Caridad sneezed so many times she had to go sit in the living room. I stayed and helped Graciela place the plastic bags in small boxes. We taped them shut, wrapped them with string, and addressed them all to Berta’s aunt, a certain Niurca Gómez Castillo, in Formento.
I knew those little boxes were never going to reach any such Niurca. The post offices in Cuba were much too suspicious of little boxes, particularly four of them coming from New Jersey and addressed to the same person. Berta’s ashes were most likely going to be mistaken for some sort of drug and flushed down a toilet. Or worse, mistaken for Russian flour, which tended to be gray and lumpy, and baked into a cake.
But I was through trying to talk Graciela out of what she was determined to do, as sacrilegious as I felt it was.
When we were finally done, Graciela placed the boxes in a shopping bag and we walked outside and headed to four different post offices to mail the boxes.
“This way,” Graciela explained, like she was the smartest person in all New Jersey, “we’re sure that at least a little bit of Berta will reach its destination.”
The day was cool and very windy. We had to squint to keep the dust out of our eyes, and bits of trash, mostly candy wrappers, stung my naked legs like bees.
“Let’s just get this awful business over with,” Caridad said.
Graciela led the way. It was as if she had suddenly appointed herself the Cuban mastermind of clandestine activities. She was determined and forceful, and all we could do was follow. She was dressed in tight black slacks, a revealing, low-cut sweater, and white, high- heeled shoes. I was greatly relieved when everything but the shoes vanished under a loose- fitting brown trench coat.
Leticia, smart woman that she was, wouldn’t have anything to do with it. She had refused to drive us, even though we offered to pay.
“No,” she said. “I’ve had enough with the stolen dolls, the no paying, the insanity. I’m done with crazy people. I’ve worked too hard and too long to get the little I have, and I’m sick and tired of putting it all in danger. From now on it’s going to be different. No more stealing, and I want your payments in advance.”
There was nothing else to say. She had made herself perfectly clear, and after she left all I had was a growing desire to vomit. So we climbed from dreaded bus to bus all over New Jersey. We dropped off parts of Berta in post offices in Union City, Newark, Elizabeth, and East Orange.
In spite of the wind, Caridad and I waited outside the final post office, the one in East Orange, while Graciela stood in line inside. I pulled my sweater tighter and wrapped a light scarf around my head. A horrible sadness had come over me. I was exhausted from the wind, the walking, from waiting in endless lines, and the effect it all had on my nerves. Por Dios, what if someone asked to see the contents of one of those little boxes. How would we explain it?
I looked through the glass door at Graciela, who had just handed the last of the boxes to the woman behind the counter, to be stamped and thrown in with all the countless letters and cards of good wishes and regret that flooded Cuba every day. I watched all the people standing behind her, a long line of Americanos patiently waiting their turn. Not one of them pushed or shoved or fought to go ahead of the other. No one talked, gossiped, or complained, no one had brought their dog. There were no children crying, running around knocking things over, or asking impertinent questions. There was none of the heat and sweat that was common in our small, crumbling post offices, none of the constant chatter of neighbors who, for better or worse, had known each other all their lives. No one shouted to a friend across the street. Maybe Berta had a point. I didn’t want to be here for all eternity either. It had not been in my plans.
“What do you miss the most?” I asked Caridad. She knew exactly what I meant, because she answered quickly, without thinking too much—maybe it was something she thought about all the time too. I could see her mind drift swiftly back to Cuba, to Palmagria in particular.
“I miss the stars,” she said. “Every night there were just so many of them. Everything important that happened to me back there happened under a dark sky full of stars. Not like here in Union City, where the sky is always milky, blurry, and low.”
I knew exactly what Caridad meant. I hated that sulfurous haze that constantly hung in the gray air. It came from the smokestacks and refineries that we drove past every day.
“The first time I made love to my husband,” Caridad continued, “the birth of my baby, the night we escaped, all took place under that black, diamond- dotted sky of Palmagria. What about you, Imperio? What do you miss the most?”
Caridad’s eyes were shining from the cold wind and the memories. I looked through the glass door once more. Graciela, having completed her task, was walking back to us, and quickly, before she could hear me, I said, “I miss people like us, and look, here we are, in a post office in New Jersey, mailing one of them back.”
At that very moment we heard the familiar horn and there was the yellow van. Leticia kept one hand on the steering wheel, and with the other she waved to us. The three of us got in without a word. And Leticia drove us home.
chapter sixteen
Graciela
Barry encouraged me to read the newspaper. The New York Times was too complicated and full of big words, but I found the local paper a little less overwhelming. An anticipated cease- fire involving Egypt and Syria dominated the front pages of the Jersey Journal. Also in the papers were stories about the Soviet space program, Israel’s army, the taxicab industry, heart transplants, the Vietcong, and something I was quickly learning about, racial ten
sions. Far from the front pages, on page 8, between an ad for White Horse Scotch Whisky and a book by Norman Vincent Peale titled Enthusiasm Makes the Difference, was this small news item:
CUBAN ASHES FOUND IN POST HERE
Newark, N.J.— Three boxes containing what officials believe to be the cremated remains of a human being were discovered at three separate post offices in New Jersey, including one on Bergenline Avenue in Union City. Union City has a rapidly growing Cuban population, second only to Miami, Florida. The boxes were addressed to Formento, Cuba. Authorities have tried to contact persons at that address but so far have been unsuccessful. Detectives in charge of the investigation suspect the ashes are part of a rite of Santería, an ancient Afro- Cuban religion. A flood of Cuban exiles have poured into N.J. since President Batista fled the beleaguered island in 1959. An investigation is ongoing. At the moment authorities say there are no known suspects.
I was at peace with myself. I did everything I could, because it was what Berta wanted. You have to honor the dying wish of a friend, no matter how insane it may sound. How could I ignore her request? Of course, the newspapers made it sound as if it had been the act of a demented Santero. My only consolation was that they found just three of the boxes, which meant that my plan worked, that a little bit of Berta would rest in Cuban soil.
Maybe not in Formento, as intended, but somewhere in Cuba.
At first Imperio and Caridad were strongly opposed, but they went along with my plan. Reluctantly. I think they wanted to be there just to watch me fail. After the newspaper article came out, they were full of regret. The morning it appeared, they got into the van with worried expressions, as if a federal agent was going to jump out of a tree. And of course they were more than willing to let me take the blame.
“Por Dios, Graciela,” Imperio said. “We must have been crazy to go along with your plan. It won’t be long before you have the FBI knocking at our doors. At our doors!”
“Imagínate,” Caridad said, “all they have to do is check the hospitals to find out when a Cuban woman died and they’re going to track down everyone who knew her.”
“Prepare your lies,” Imperio said, “because they’re coming, and it’s going to be a nightmare. Worse than anything we’d ever face with the G- 2. Dios Santo, they will probably deport us.”
“Can you imagine the faces if we show up back in Palmagria?” Caridad asked. “Tossed out of the U.S. for doing something so foolish.”
The panic started again. I began to question my actions, my decisions. Had I placed all of us in terrible danger?
And then Leticia said, “Niiiiñas, do you think that’s all the FBI has to worry about? I wouldn’t give it another thought. It’s not like you were mailing boxes of explosives. I’m sure they realize that it was just a sentimental gesture. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
I talked to Barry about it later that night. There were nights when everything looked worse than it really was. I could tell this was going to be one of those nights.
But Barry agreed with Leticia. We sat in my living room watching Apasionada. He liked watching my telenovelas with me. He had his arm around me, but my heart was beating too fast. I kept shifting and moving. So I told him what we had done.
“Baby, I wish you hadn’t done it,” he said. “But don’t worry, this isn’t Cuba with Big Brother looking over your shoulder all the time. In this country, people mail marijuana to each other all the time and nothing comes of it. And to the feds, that’s a real crime.”
He took my face in his hands. The look of terror in my eyes made him smile.
“If you had told me,” he said, “I would have shown you how to avoid the dogs. We could have wrapped that old Berta in so much plastic and tinfoil, no dumb dog was going to sniff her out.”
“I was afraid to tell you,” I said.
His smile faded. His voice remained soft, but it was very serious.
“No matter what you do,” he said, “whether it’s mailing a friend back to Cuba or even just taking another class at the college, I’ll always be on your side. You understand? Please, baby, don’t ever be afraid to tell me anything.”
And I had to kiss him. I kissed him for such a long time that I don’t know how the episode ended that night. For all I knew, Rosalinda got her kiss and I’d missed it.
Barry was unlike any other man I had ever met.
I couldn’t believe how wrong I’d been all my life. About men, I mean. I never thought I would enjoy walking barefoot through a cold pine forest or sleeping in a tent on top of sleeping bags in the arms of a kind man. I guess that was the most amazing thing about Barry O’Reilly. He was kind, and he looked at me with such love and admiration. And I let him. How could I not? I had not told him very much about my past, and he didn’t seem too curious. I also didn’t know very much about him. He once said, “That’s what coming to the big city is all about, baby, letting all the past just go away.”
Later that night, after we made love on my burgundy sofa bed, Barry lit a marijuana cigarette and stood next to the open window, exhaling into the warm summer air. I had asked him not to smoke around the boys, but they were fast asleep in the next room. Personally I liked that Barry had such an exotic vice. Of course I knew that if Imperio and Caridad found out about it, they would have called the FBI, the CIA, and the KGB. The thought of the FBI knocking on my door like Imperio said had been keeping me up nights.
“Baby,” Barry said, inhaling deeply, “let it flow down the Hudson to the sea.”
I loved the things he said; they made so much sense to me. I loved that he called me baby, that he was gentle and thoughtful. He returned to me and held me close.
“Close your eyes, baby,” he said. “Imagine all that garbage they say about you is floating down the Hudson, to the Atlantic. Let it get lost at sea. Can you see it, just floating away, past the waves, into the horizon?”
I did. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine all that stuff floating down the dirty river and on to the dark blue ocean and beyond, until it met up with the turquoise waters that surrounded my island. Farther and farther, to the shores of Palmagria. I sent it all down, got rid of it all. Pepe’s betrayal, Ernesto’s anger, my mother’s disappointment, my father’s shame and silence, Berta’s death, Imperio’s judgments, Caridad’s accusing eyes, all those fingernails, polished and half- mooned to perfection . . . And, of course, Miami.
*
FROM THE AIRPLANE Miami had looked shockingly clean and orderly. The airport, with its bright white floors polished like a mirror, had the tallest ceilings and the brightest lights I had ever seen. I remember thinking that it looked like a palace from another planet, a futuristic place where dust, hunger, and inconvenience did not exist.
Ernesto’s cousins Marco and Marinela Fonseca were there to meet us, and they greeted Ernesto with hugs and kisses while the children and I stood by, smiling like idiots. Finally Ernesto introduced us, but there were no hugs for us, just a twisted smile from Marinela and a slight nod from Marco, who turned on his heels and led us to the parking garage.
Marco’s car was beautiful, clean, and fast. We traveled along wide, perfectly paved avenues. Enormous buses passed us by, as well as police cars flashing blue and white lights and sounding their loud sirens. Palm trees—but not like ours, for these were thick and almost unnaturally green—decorated the sky, and the sky looked just like ours used to look before the Revolution: baby blue and abundant, with cotton- candy clouds.
We moved into Marco and Marinela’s small, crowded apartment. Two bedrooms, a sofa bed, and a little fold- out cot we call a pin- pan- pun. I slept on the sofa bed with the boys on either side of me, Ernesto slept in the pin- pan- pun.
I can’t even begin to describe how strange I felt that night, brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed with my husband just outside the door. I knew that with a little time it would become routine, that all would pass. I was determined to make myself useful, to make everything all right, if only for my boys.
I tried, I really tried, to be as nice and accommodating as I could, but everyone treated me like a scarlet woman and the kids as if they had a contagious disease. Marinela avoided my eyes and I constantly felt as if I was in her way. She wouldn’t let me do anything.
“Deja eso.” Leave that. She said it every time I tried to do the dishes after dinner. “Deja eso,” when I tried to make the beds or scrub the tub. It was clear that she didn’t want me getting too comfortable in her home, too settled.
When she finally got tired of my protests, she said, “You’re a guest.” She didn’t say this with the slightest hint of sweetness. She said, “You’re a guest.” And with those words she put me in my place. She moved her wide body so that I had to step out of her way.
I did nothing for weeks. Only to have Ernesto pester me about it.
“Give her a hand,” he said as Marinela cleared the table by herself.
I took a deep breath and went outside for a while, until it was late and time to go to bed again.
Everyone called Marinela’s father Papo. He lived with them and was only sixty years old, but he looked twice that age.
Four years before, right after they had all arrived in Miami, Papo had been diagnosed with throat cancer. He had a tracheotomy that had left him unable to speak and very depressed. Or, as Marco said, “a useless burden.”
Papo refused to do anything for himself and was constantly asking for help. He sat on the couch all day long, and if he needed assistance and no one was around, he would fly into a rage, clapping his hands loudly to get attention. All that handclapping was thought to be bad for him, since he could only breathe through a little hole in his throat which had to be vacuumed with an enormous contraption. After one big clapping ordeal, they found him seething with frustration and drowning in his own phlegm.
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