I stood in silence. I was almost used to this kind of treatment. But I’d had high hopes for this year, and as I realized it was just going to be more of the same, my heart began to sink. How much more of this could I stand?
Señora Santana, like many Cubans, was of African descent. She wore a ponytail that pulled her hair tight against her skull, and her eyes gleamed with the fervor of the truly brainwashed. Her appearance was made even more terrifying by the electrical tape that held one arm of her glasses to the rest of the frame. Her beloved Communists couldn’t even provide her with a decent pair of glasses. She was so caught up in the glory of the Revolution that she didn’t see the irony in this. Those broken glasses were a subtle sign that even though the Revolution was a failure, she wasn’t going to acknowledge it. In other words, she’d abandoned reason and common sense. What made this most frightening was that she had total authority over me. I was once again in the hands of a zealot.
“Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“I’ll show you who’s a worm,” I muttered.
“What? What was that?”
“Nothing, señora.”
“You were talking back! How dare you! Go to the corner and kneel!”
As I knelt in my shorts on the bare linoleum, Señora Santana roughly pulled my arms out to the sides and turned my palms up. Then she put a heavy book on each hand.
“If those arms fall one inch, I will beat you until you can’t sit anymore,” she said. Then she waddled back up to the front of the class.
“The rest of you, take out your books. No looking at Calcines, unless you want to join him!”
“What happened to you today?” Luis asked.
“Nothing. Just these damn Communists are trying to kill me, that’s all.”
“Señora Santana, huh? I could hear her yelling all the way down the hall.”
“She’s crazy. The other teachers just ignored me, but she really has it in for me. Go on and tell me about how good Communism is while I’m eating hard bread and sugar water to fill my hungry stomach at night. Give me the Yankees and the land of the free any day!”
The boys got quiet after this outburst. I did, too. I was afraid I had gone too far. But then Tito spoke up.
“You’re lucky you’re getting out of here, Calcines,” he said, keeping his voice low.
Abuelo was always telling me to look for the sunbeam among the clouds. With the darkness so oppressive, it was easy for me to forget that light had ever existed. But a couple of days into my new year of hell, I found my sunbeam. Her name was Olga. During the summer, Deborah and I had fallen out of love as quickly as we had fallen in love, and had decided to just be friends.
Olga was half Cuban and half Chinese, a mixture that had resulted in a creature of stunning, exotic beauty. Her skin was light, her hair black as night. She was slender and elegant, and her dark eyes were almond-shaped, like a movie star’s. My embarrassment at Señora Santana’s treatment had been so acute that it had taken me a while to notice her in that class. But once I did, I pushed Santana into the background, until she became nothing more than a yammering recording that played over and over, like one of Fidel’s speeches.
I’d seen Olga before. She’d been standing in line one day in the barrio of Tulipán, the neighborhood where Tío Amado lived. I was on a bus, coming home from one of my panetela runs. Even though I’d only seen her for a few moments, her face had etched itself into my mind, and I’d thought about her all the way home. And now, here she was, not only in the very same class, but sitting right next to me!
It took me a couple of weeks to work up my courage, but finally I approached her on the playground one day.
“Hi,” I said. “You’re Olga?”
“Yes. And you’re Eduardo.”
“I think I’ve seen you before. You’re from Tulipán?”
“I live by the curve in the road with all the mango trees. You don’t remember me?”
“I saw you outside a store once last summer.”
“No, I mean from before that. You’ve been to my house, silly!” She looked around, then leaned over and whispered in my ear: “My father is the one who sells tropical fish.”
I was shocked. This was that girl? Dimly, I remembered meeting a skinny little waif that long-ago day when Papa had taken me to get a fish as a reward. But never in a monkey’s age would I have connected that girl with Olga.
“Wow!” I said. “You’ve changed!”
Olga smiled.
“So have you,” she said.
“So . . . your dad’s a Communist?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “And you’re not.”
I laughed. “You could tell, huh?”
“It’s too bad Santana is so hard on you. Nobody likes her, you know.”
“Ah, she’s nothing,” I said. “I can take whatever she dishes out. Anyway, if you don’t mind my asking . . . do you have a boyfriend?”
Olga smiled again, then blushed.
“No,” she said.
I looked her straight in the eye and smiled.
“Good,” I said. Then I winked, and thank goodness my eyelid didn’t get stuck.
“I can’t believe you have a new girlfriend already!” Tito moaned.
“What can I tell you? I’m unstoppable,” I said.
“Does she know you’re a dissenter?” Luis asked. He sounded worried.
“Of course she knows! The whole school knows!”
“But her dad . . .”
“Ah, forget her dad. I know things about him. He’s not such a great Communist. He’s just playing along until Fidel gets killed, or something.”
“Watch out, Eduar,” said Luis. “There’s no way this can last. Olga’s a Communist, too.”
“Not even Communism will protect her from my manly powers,” I said. “I keep telling you, boys—watch and learn.”
“Oh, we’ll be watching all right,” said Tito.
“Anyway, I can’t walk home with you guys anymore. I have to walk with Olga from now on.”
“Yeah, well, you better wear good shoes,” said Luis. “You’re gonna have to do some serious running if you’re coming home alone. Some of those barrios you have to pass through are pretty tough.”
But that didn’t worry me. I would have fought a hundred kids a day for the privilege of walking with Olga.
For the next few months, Olga and I met after school every day. We walked and talked about everything under the sun. Our afternoons together were like a balm for my soul. They eased the pain that Señora Santana caused me in the morning. And the longer I spent with Olga, the more I fell in love with her, and the more I yearned to stay in Cuba.
School let out for winter break and resumed in early January. I hadn’t been able to see Olga all that time, because my parents had wanted me to stay around the house. I didn’t mind. We were a complete family again, and it felt great.
Papa’s hernia hadn’t healed properly, and the Communists had finally decided to give him lighter duty in Cienfuegos. His task now was to walk the streets with a broom and dustpan, sweeping up trash. Far from finding this humiliating, Papa was thrilled. It was much easier than his labors in the cane fields. Best of all, he got to come home every day at five o’clock. Between this and my love affair with Olga, it seemed that maybe life in Cuba might be bearable, after all.
But when I saw Olga again after the break, I could tell that something was wrong. The look on her face was distant, and when I tried to take her hand, she pulled away.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I have to tell you something,” she said. “I can’t be your girlfriend anymore.”
“You have another boyfriend?” I asked. “Who is he?”
“No, it’s not that. My dad says I can’t see you.”
“But why?”
“He’s been getting more serious lately. He wants me to join the Party. I’m going to start going to Young Pioneer meetings. And to be honest, Eduardo .
. .” She paused a long moment, then continued. “I really think you’re doing the wrong thing by giving up on our Revolution. You have to give it a chance. Better days are just around the corner. If only everyone would pull together and allow El Comandante to complete his work without getting in his way . . .”
Her voice trailed off as our eyes met. I shook my head in disgust. Then I turned and walked away.
“I’ll kill him!” I raged to my grandparents.
Abuelo Julian and Abuela Ana were sitting in their living room, listening to me rant. I paced up and down before them, clenching my fists, trying not to cry.
“I’ll rip his liver out and eat it!” I said.
“Who are you talking about?” Abuelo asked.
“Who do you think? The man who has ruined our lives! The man who’s taken over everything and is tearing our country apart!”
“Ah. You mean Fidel.”
“Yes, I mean Fidel!” I said. “And I don’t care who hears me!”
“What happened in school today, niño?”
I told them. As I repeated Olga’s words, their true import sank in—she had chosen Communism over me. I could hardly believe it. Was all that time we’d spent together, sharing our feelings and talking about a future together—was all that just a game?
“Eduar, you are so young. Your heartache will pass, and you will meet the woman of your dreams when you’re ready,” Abuela said.
But I wasn’t having any of it. I ran into the back room and grabbed the picture of Fidel from where Abuela had kept it overturned ever since my late cousin Peruchito had given it to her. I brought it into the living room.
“This is what I’m going to do to him!” I screamed. I raised the picture over my head and threw it to the floor. Then I stomped on it over and over, as tears flowed down my cheeks. “I’m going to kill him!” I began screaming all the filthiest playground language I could think of. I had never spoken this way in front of my grandparents before, but I had reached my breaking point. I couldn’t take it anymore. And they seemed to understand. Normally, I would have felt a spoon on my bottom, but this time they just listened.
When I’d finally calmed down, Abuela went and got the broom, and Abuelo leaned forward in his chair. “Look me in the eye,” he said.
I looked.
“I want you to remember one thing, Eduardo Calcines. Long after I’m gone, I hope you hear these words in your head whenever you start to feel again the way you feel right now. Killing solves nothing. Killing Fidel would solve nothing. There will only be another Fidel to take his place. Fidel is not the problem. Fidel is a symptom.”
I stared at him, not understanding. Fidel wasn’t the problem? How could that be?
“Fidel is a symptom of the problem,” Abuelo said again. “The real problem is not sitting in Havana, smoking a fat cigar. The real problem is here.” He tapped his chest.
“You mean . . . you have a bad heart?”
“No, no. I mean the human heart.”
“He doesn’t know what you’re talking about, Julian,” Abuela said as she swept up the broken glass. “Put it in plain language.”
“I’m talking about evil,” said Abuelo.
“So am I!” I said.
“Yes, I know. But what I’m saying is that if you give in to these feelings, niño, you are no better than they are. Killing Fidel makes you the same as Fidel. Hating the Communists makes you the same as the Communists. Nothing will be solved by killing, niño. If you kill Fidel, or anyone else, the Communists win, because they have made you like them—a murderer.”
“That makes no sense at all, Abuelo.”
“Someday it will,” he said.
“Remember the words of Our Lord, niño,” said Abuela.
“Which words?”
“All of them,” she said. “But especially what he said about committing murder in your heart. If you do that, then it’s the same as doing it for real. So don’t commit murder in your heart. I understand you are angry. We have all suffered, my boy. But as your grandfather says, if they make you like them, they win. Don’t become a killer. Don’t become angry. Stay the fine young man that you are. That’s how you will beat them.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but neither of you makes any sense at all,” I said. I wiped my cheeks on my arm and sniffled. “My girl just dumped me because I’m not a Communist! And one of my teachers says horrible things about me every day in front of all the other kids! Papa was taken away from us and now he has to shovel crap in the streets! We don’t have enough to eat! Tell me how killing Fidel wouldn’t help! Explain it in a way that makes sense!”
“You’re thirteen, and soon you will be a man,” Abuelo said. “So it’s important for us to have this talk now, while your mind is still fresh. Let my words sink in, niño. Even if you don’t agree with them, carry them inside you. You will have to make a choice someday, boy. It’s up to you.”
“If it were up to me, I’d truss Castro like a pig and roast him over hot coals!” I shouted.
Then I ran out of the house and climbed the avocado tree up to the roof so I could sob my heartbreak among the birds.
Time passed, and my wounded heart healed little by little. But I became consumed by thoughts of getting Olga back. I had to bide my time. If only she could see me do some of the things I was good at—play baseball, or something! I would have to be on the lookout for a chance to show her what she’d given up.
Meanwhile, my grades plummeted. Señora Santana delighted in pointing this out in her class whenever I failed an exam. Somehow, in her mind, stupidity and dissent were the same thing.
“What an idiot you are!” she crowed one day in March. “You’ll never amount to anything, Calcines.”
But later, on the playground, I checked my exam against one of my classmates’. Although our answers were nearly the same, my score was forty points lower than his.
“I can’t believe this!” I told the boys on the way home. “She’s not even being fair!”
“She really has it in for you,” said Luis. “Lucky for you we’re being sent out to the country for a while.”
I stopped in my tracks. “We’re what?”
“It’s the Schools-to-Countryside program,” Tito said. “Didn’t you hear the announcement?”
“He’s too busy daydreaming about how to get Olga back,” said Luis.
“Shut up,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“We’re all going out to an onion farm for a month to help with the harvest,” said Tito. “It’s gonna be fun!”
“Fun, yeah,” I said. A pang of fear shot through me. I’d never been away from home for that long. “How do we know they’re not just going to keep us there forever?”
“They wouldn’t do that to kids,” said Luis.
“Oh, yes, they would,” I said. “I don’t trust them at all.”
“It’s an adventure,” said Tito. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Suddenly, a sunbeam burst through the clouds. “Are the girls going, too?” I asked hopefully.
“Ha! Listen to him!” Luis laughed.
“Yes, Olga will be there, too,” said Tito.
“Perfect!” I said. “This will be my big chance to win her back. She’ll see me working like a champion, and she’ll fall all over me.”
“Yeah, because every girl wants an onion farmer for a boyfriend!” Luis howled.
Our school had been ordered—or “selected,” as the Communists preferred to phrase it—to pick onions in the mountains around the city of Trinidad, about a hundred miles from Cienfuegos. Mama and Papa packed me a suitcase full of nearly everything I owned. I could see that they were worried and trying not to show it. It was becoming all too familiar for the Calcines family—an enforced separation from loved ones to provide the government with free labor.
“It’s going to be cold in the mountains,” Mama said. “So dress warm.”
“Don’t forget to brush your teeth,” Papa said. “And do as you’re told. Don’t make trouble
.”
“It’s only a month,” I said, hiding the urge to throw my arms around them. “At least we know I can come home when it’s over.”
“That’s right. And you’ll be another inch taller the next time we see you,” Mama said.
The bus stopped and I got on. I waved out the window until we turned the corner. Then I pushed all thoughts of home from my mind. It wouldn’t be so bad in the coming month. I’d have Tito and Luis to hang out with, and maybe another shot at impressing Olga. I began to get excited. Work? I could handle a little work. I was more interested in what kind of fun we were going to have.
It started that very night, after we’d all arrived at the farm and been sent to our bunks. The boys and girls had separate barracks, and Tito, Luis, and I managed to get beds next to one another. This was a recipe for disaster. Also, the temperature was around forty degrees Fahrenheit, which was the coldest weather I’d ever experienced. With only onion sacks for blankets, there was no chance of falling asleep. We laughed and talked until midnight, when some other kids started throwing things at us to make us shut up. This turned into a massive brawl, with the air full of flying articles of clothing and toiletries. The man in charge came stomping in, wearing his pajamas.
“All right!” he shouted. “You want to play games, let’s play games! Everyone strip down to your underwear and fall in! Everyone! All of you! Let’s go!”
We did as we were told, wondering what strange punishment he was about to inflict on us.
“Now! Out the door—march!”
Out into the frigid night the fifty of us went. Luis was in front of me, Tito behind. We cursed as our bare feet encountered soggy, cold mud.
“No slowing down! This will teach you! Double-time! Let’s go! We’ll see how much screwing around you do then!”
We marched for what seemed like all night. I knew before twenty minutes had passed that Luis wasn’t going to make it. He’d begun to wheeze and cough so badly that I was scared for him. By the time we got back to the barracks, thoroughly chilled and covered in mud, he was in the middle of a full-blown asthma attack, and the doctor had to be summoned.
Leaving Glorytown Page 13