I was nine years old when my mother, Mayda, left me at an orphanage run by Catholic priests. It was the year 1946. When she and I walked into the building holding hands, I did not know what was about to happen. I caught a whiff of her perfume as she kissed my forehead. “You better behave, Rio,” she said. She smelled like a garden of roses and violets, not strong. I didn’t care for her perfume, as it always made me sneeze. She wore dark glasses and the black dress she had begun to wear after my father and brother died, two months apart from each other, leaving her with only me, her youngest son. She walked away without looking back, the sound of her heels resonating through the empty hall, followed by her words, “I’ll be back later,” words that lingered in my ears without my knowing why.
A hand touched me on my shoulder; I turned and saw a tall man all in black, except for the white collar around his neck. He looked neither angry nor concerned. He told me to follow him and led me to the sleeping quarters, a room with about two dozen metal beds distributed evenly on each side, two feet apart from each other, each covered with white sheets that hung down uniformly, and with a thin pillow at the head. Our footsteps echoed on the tiled floors as we walked, an echo I could hear everywhere we went. An antiseptic smell tickled my nose and made the room feel cold and impersonal, so different from the smell of freshly brewed coffee, oregano, saffron, and cumin at home. He pointed to one of the beds, and, in a hushed tone, said, “You can use this one.” I did not understand why I needed a bed. He then gave me a set of confusing directions. I was to go down the hall, turn right, go down again, and turn left. Another director would provide me with a schedule of chores and additional information. I did not understand what was happening.
Gradually, all became clear to me when my mother did not return.
Fifty years earlier my paternal grandmother, whom I’d never met, had left my father in this place, which was called Casa de Beneficiencia y Maternidad, or La Beneficiencia as most people called it. The massive building that housed La Beneficiencia was located in Old Havana on an avenue called Calzada de Belascoaín. On the side of the building was a large drop-box where an unwed mother could leave her infant and ring a bell to alert the nuns of a new arrival. This method allowed unwed mothers to conceal their identities.
La Beneficiencia had been founded during Cuba’s colonial times. In honor of Bishop Gerónimo Valdés y Sierra, the founder of La Beneficiencia in the 1700s, most male children of unknown parents who were cared for by the orphanage were given the last name Valdes, without the accent on the “e.” My father’s name, like mine, was Rio Valdes. Like my father before me, I wandered these hallways feeling rejected.
I missed my father and my brother. My father had been a high-ranking police officer for the Carlos Prío Socarrás government. I would later tell people that my father had died in the line of duty. I thought it was more fitting of the tough persona he had demonstrated, as opposed to the truth: “He died from a freakish virus that killed him in days.” That, in my eyes, made him appear weak, the opposite of whom he was. A similar virus, which caused dysentery, killed my brother a couple of months later. It made me wonder whether it was true what people in Cuba said, that “there is nothing one can do to fight one’s destiny; it is written.” Where is it written? All I knew was that one day, I was at a baseball game with my father and brother, and practically the next day I was in this place. Just like that, two of the people I loved most had been erased from existence. My father often told me that men did not cry or let their feelings be known, no matter how much pain was inside. Following his logic was not easy; carrying it all inside proved to be a heavy burden.
When I first arrived at the orphanage, I did not seek the company of other children. I attended school and Mass, did schoolwork and the chores assigned by the priests and nuns (mopping floors and cleaning toilets), and primarily kept to myself.
The priests taught me to believe in a merciful God and showed me how to pray. Every night, I waited until the lights went off. I hid under my sheets, hands pressed together over my chest, and prayed for my mother’s return. It was either a whispered prayer, one that even I could hardly hear, or a silent one inside my head. I was not sure which method would be more effective or whether my eyes had to be open or tightly closed, so I often switched. Once, I tried it with one eye open and another closed—just in case. It was the meticulous person inside me (or the obsessive one); I did not want to leave anything to chance, not then. As months passed, I began to lose hope. I did not understand why God had abandoned me.
I thought my prayers were answered when my mother reappeared, six months after she had left me at the orphanage. It was a Sunday. I was mopping the floor for the second time that day. I had mopped it earlier, but when Father Rogelio came to inspect my work, he told me that the floors were not clean enough. He lifted the gray bucket of dirty water and threw it on the floor, causing a splash that sprayed my black shoes and white socks up to my knees. He told me to do it again, and to do it right this time or I would spend the day cleaning.
Father Rogelio returned and instructed me to put down the mop and follow him to the entrance. When we grew close, I saw my mother’s figure in her black dress, and I noticed her dark glasses. I ran as fast my legs allowed me, and I threw my arms around her. I recognized her perfume. I sneezed. It was the first time I had smiled since she left. She asked me how I was doing. I told her I did not want to stay. I missed her, my room, my things. “Can we go home now?” I asked with exasperation and hope. She said she was only there to check on me. I was begging her not to leave me when she signaled to Father Rogelio. He grabbed me from behind, anticipating my next move. I tried to free myself from him by kicking and squirming. “Please don’t leave me here! Please take me home, Mamá!” In violation of my father’s rule, tears swelled and rolled from my eyes. My mother turned and walked away, again, without looking back.
I stopped praying after that day, but I always dreamed about the day when I could have my own big family. I would never do what my mother had done, and what my father’s mother had done. I would always be with my children.
In La Beneficiencia, I was taught a trade. Early on, I had shown I was good with my hands. I liked to break things apart and put them back together. The priests noticed my abilities and, in addition to the standard school curriculum choices like math and science, they assigned me to work as a mechanic’s apprentice. I learned how to fix all kinds of things: car and motorcycle engines, bicycles, television sets. I was detailed, curious, and inquisitive, with a natural ability for understanding how the guts of machines worked. The teachings I received eventually led me to become an industrial mechanic.
When I finally realized I was not going home, I no longer preferred to be alone and I sought the friendship of other boys—although “friendship” is too strong a word. I sought their conversation and the sharing of ideas; friendship required more of a commitment, one that I was unable or unwilling to offer. Besides, I never thought I belonged to this place. I had a real mother and a real home. The other boys thought I was full of it and that I was just like them. That pissed me off and got me into trouble more times than I wish to remember, as my anger turned into punches and bloody faces.
Once it was known I understood the language of fists, the other kids stopped bothering me—for the most part. There was one red-headed kid who was the school bully and much stronger than me, three or four year older. He had blue eyes and a round face and was big and tall like a giant. What he had in strength, he lacked in smarts. Some kids said he was slow because he fell on his head as a baby. He and his small circle of friends laughed at me sometimes. I knew I could not take him on, so I tried to stay away. If he laid a hand on me, I always defended myself; I didn’t care if I got hurt. But mostly I avoided him. He got away with laughing at me many times . . . until the day he mentioned my mother.
I was a few steps in front of him in the cafeteria, refilling a glass of water. He walked up to me and said, as he clutched the crotch of his pants: “I saw your mother last night. She told me she would start to come more often to see me.”
Without any thought, I grabbed my glass and swung at him. Water flew across the cafeteria and the thick bottom of the glass hit him on his right cheek. He fell to the floor and emitted a sound of agony. I threw the glass on the table and proceeded to stomp on him while yelling at him, and to everyone: “Don’t you ever talk about my mother; don’t you even think about talking about her!” No one could talk bad about her, no matter what she had done to me. Father Rogelio grabbed me and pulled me into his office, sitting me roughly onto a chair. He told me, while shaking my shoulders, that I needed to learn how to turn the other cheek. This was a lesson I never learned.
The months at La Beneficiencia slowly turned into years. I did not like the priests; the feeling was mutual. I lost count of how many times Father Rogelio made me clean floors and toilets over and over again or how often I was spanked, first for punching kids when they told me my mother did not want me; later, for playing practical jokes on the nuns—like the day I brought a mouse to class and tiptoed to the front of the room, leaving it on Mother Rosaura’s dark wood desk when she was writing on the blackboard. She was a plump, middle-aged woman who wore thick glasses. She had a high-pitched voice and was very strict. I do not believe there was one child in the class, or one priest, who liked her. When she saw the mouse and started screaming and jumping up and down, raising her black uniform slightly to reveal her black shoes and white socks, everyone laughed. Her screams could be heard all the way to Father Rogelio’s office. He was not happy.
Playing jokes on the nuns made time go faster; at least it felt that way.
I was thirteen when my mother returned to see me. By then, my voice had begun to change. I had already discovered girls, and I had a girlfriend, a twelve-year-old with ghostly white skin and long, black hair. She and I hid behind the church’s podium once to kiss. My discovery of girls put an end to my desire to make practical jokes. When Father Rogelio told me that my mother had come to see me, I was ambivalent. I still remembered her first visit. I followed him almost reluctantly through the expansive halls of La Beneficiencia. My steps grew heavier the closer I came to the reception area.
I saw her. She did not wear a black dress, but one of a blue-and-white floral print. She opened her arms as I walked toward her. I showed no emotion, nor was I interested in running to her. She smiled, told me how much she had missed me, and kissed my cheeks. She was surprised about how much I had grown and said I was handsome, like my father. I had inherited his café con leche complexion and brown hair, but I had my mother’s amber eyes. We sat at a bench along the wall, and she told me about her success as an entrepreneur. She took her glasses off, and I saw her eyes sparkle when she spoke about her business. Her eyes were brought to life with a thin, brown line drawn along the edges of her lower lids in eye-pencil, making her look like a lioness. Her nails were long and pink, unlike the short and pale nails she had had when she left me at the orphanage. My father had left her two houses when he died. She had rented them out, even our own home, and moved to a one-bedroom house in the municipality of Marianao. She had gone on to buy a couple of apartments and had amassed a small fortune. She was as passionate about her business as I was about fixing things.
She said she had a surprise for me and took a small box wrapped in red glossy paper out of her purse. I unwrapped it slowly, watching the excitement in her eyes as I did.
“Well, do you like it?” She asked. It was a black-faced watch, with a black leather band.
I nodded approvingly. She smiled and squeezed my face hard between her hands, telling me again how much she had missed me. Throughout her visit, she did most of the talking. This time, before she left, I did not ask her whether she was taking me home. By then, I had adapted to my new life and realized she was busy with her business. I did not want to be an obstacle for her.
I did not leave La Beneficiencia until I was seventeen. By then, I did not want to go home. My mother transferred the title of one of her apartments to me and bought me a used red Chevrolet when I left the orphanage. She showered me with gifts, as if each one would serve to slowly erase the years she had spent apart from me.
I had my own apartment, a car, and a motorcycle. The motorcycle, I bought myself. I was afraid of nothing and liked to drink and to drive fast cars. The weights I did kept me in shape and gave me a tough exterior that women appreciated. I changed women like I changed my shoes: blondes, brunettes, redheads, it didn’t matter. Those with whom I slept were typically older by about ten years. They knew what they wanted. Women my age were into Elvis Presley and liked to dance. I was okay with the music but not the dancing, maybe because the couple of times I tried to imitate the moves, I looked like an idiot; I was not very coordinated, not in that way. I never understood why the young women melted when they saw the rock ’n’ rollers on television. The older women taught me things about a woman’s body I would not have learned with someone my age, at least not as quickly. I was not ready to find a nice girl and settle down, not yet.
After a while, I wanted more out of life, an adventure. My opportunity came in 1959, after Fidel Castro’s rise to power. I didn’t know anything about politics, nor did I really care, but in my search for adventure I joined the militia—a paramilitary group trained to respond if Cuba was attacked by a foreign invader. Like my father, I liked guns, and with the training I received, I became an expert shooter. The idea of fighting in a war was exciting to me then, out of ignorance. I did not have first-hand knowledge of what wars did to men. At the time, joining this group made me feel I was part of something bigger than myself; it provided the opportunity to be more like my father. Little did I know that my support of Castro’s government would one day have far-reaching consequences, not only for my country, but for the woman who would become my wife.
This is her story, which would become our story.
My sister, Berta, who was two years younger than me but was far more pragmatic, used to tell me, “Laura, get your head out of the clouds.” This is exactly where I was after I first saw him.
I was late for work again and had missed work the day before. When I came into the office earlier that morning, my manager, Compañera (Comrade) Fernandez, asked me to report to the manager of personnel. It was January 1961, two years after the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution. Up until the end of 1958, I would have called my manager Mrs. Fernandez, but in the new Cuba, employees could no longer refer to their bosses using terminology from the capitalist economic system that had existed prior to the revolution. I worked at Panam, a window factory that was nationalized by the government after Fidel Castro came to power.
Outside the office of the manager of personnel, on the wall next to the open door, was a black plate with silver letters: Rio Valdes. I peeked in. He was leaning back in his black leather chair, legs on top of a cherry-wood desk. On the wall behind his desk was a picture of Fidel Castro and a Cuban flag: a red triangle with a solitary white star, three blue stripes, and two white stripes.
“Please come in. You must be Laura Ocampo.”
I nodded and began to walk toward his desk. I noticed his brown boots and the close-fitting white shirt that revealed his thick biceps. He put his legs down and approached me, extending his right arm and offering me his hand, which felt callused and strong. As we stood close to each other, I noticed his amber eyes, so beautiful against his tanned skin. I felt the blood rushing to my face.
“You’re blushing,” he said, and smiled. “Please sit down.”
I was embarrassed. “I don’t know why I was asked to come here, and I’m a little nervous. That’s all,” I said.
He pointed to a chair across from his desk and took his place behind it. He assured me I did not need to be nervous. He had received complaints about several absences and wanted to understand what was going on. I looked down.
“Tell me,” he said, “why are you missing so many days? I reviewed your file. Five absences in two months.”
I could feel my tears coming. Before I was able to control myself, I was sobbing.
He stood up, came around his desk, and placed his hand on my back, trying to console me. He asked what was wrong. “My mother!” I said, raising my head slightly, to immediately bury my face in my hands as the tears kept flowing.
“Is she ill?” he asked. I nodded.
“Look, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, and let’s talk tomorrow. Don’t worry. I will not deduct anything from your pay.”
He took a white handkerchief from his pocket. I took it to wipe my face and smeared it with my makeup. I could do nothing right. This was a disaster.
“I’m so sorry about everything, my absences, and your handkerchief. I ruined it!” I said after my tears stopped flowing. “I don’t need to go home. I’ll be fine. Today, after I leave work, I’ll buy you a new one.”
He said there was no need. I took a deep breath and, with eyes still moist, explained that my mother, Angelica, had been in and out of hospitals for the last two months. “It’s her heart,” I said.
He told me not to worry about it. He would write a note in my employee file. When he said this, I realized that not only did he look incredibly handsome, but he was kind and gentle. I thanked him for his consideration.
“Is there anything I can do to repay you for ruining your handkerchief?” I asked.
“There we go again with the handkerchief,” he said, somewhat amused. “Well, if you insist. Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course,” I said willingly.
“My girlfriend, Alicia, has a birthday coming up, and I can’t think of what to buy her. I’ll give you some money. Could you help me?”
I should have known someone as handsome as Rio Valdes would be loved by someone else. Disillusioned, I told him not to worry. I would help him.
The next day, I brought him a popular perfume handsomely wrapped in red paper. He was not in his office when I came in. I left the perfume on his desk with a note: I hope she likes it. I did not see Rio again until two days later, when he came to my office to thank me. Alicia had loved it. From that moment forward, we became friends. We would go out to lunch sometimes, and he would ask me how to handle situations with his girlfriend. It pained me to see how he talked about her, the way his eyes glowed when he pronounced her name. He felt about her the way I was beginning to feel about him.
At lunch, or during breaks, he would ask about my family. I told him that my mother was a seamstress who had sent my sister and me to a day school run by nuns. She wanted us to have a good Catholic education. I treasured the years I had attended the school; he was curious as to why. “The nuns spoiled me very much: cookies, toys. I grew to love them like family,” I said.
Rio did not tell me about his childhood, not at first. He did ask questions about my involvement with the revolution before Fidel Castro came to power. He said, “I heard a rumor. Is it true that you were a member of a revolutionary student group?”
I nodded and he wanted to know more. It took a couple of lunch breaks for me to tell him the story. I had inherited my political inclinations from my mother, who had become politically involved a few years after Fulgencio Batista’s 1952 military coup. Batista’s assumption of power without democratic elections had frightened and angered many Cubans, and their fear and anger grew into civil unrest.
My mother had worked hard day and night sewing for her private clientele to give my sister and me a good education. Under Batista’s government, my mother thought, Havana had become a cesspool of gambling, prostitution, organized crime, and corruption, and she wanted a change. This led her to dabble into political groups as her time allowed. She wanted her daughters to live in a better place.
The illegitimacy of Batista’s government and the rampant corruption of the police and politicians created the conditions for the revolution that was brewing under Batista’s nose. A young lawyer named Fidel Castro began to gain popular momentum with his nationalist rhetoric, and his failed attempts against the Batista government gained media attention. His release from jail two years after one such attempt only increased his popularity and resulted in widespread support.
I was in high school when the winds of revolution invaded Cuba. Although I was an innocent young woman growing up in the 1950s, as soon as I started to attend the University of Havana, I joined a group of revolutionary students. It was 1957. Cuba was boiling with numerous attempts against the Batista government. On the “night of one hundred bombs,” which is how I termed this particular night, the youth organized against the regime and placed pipe explosives on the doors of business establishments. Acts like these would eventually lead to the success of Castro’s rebels.
As a result of the civil unrest, the government revoked constitutional rights. We lived back then in the second story of a house located across from Los Angeles Theater, and at night I could hear the screams of neighbors being removed from their houses by officials of the government. It was rumored that many were tortured in the Fifth District of Havana in unimaginable ways. Whether these claims were real or manufactured, many young people like me believed them, and the number of rebel supporters erupted. In my desire to make a difference in the political transformation of my country, I distributed letters from the people fighting in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, in the eastern part of the country, to their relatives, and I procured medicine for the fighters.
The efforts of young revolutionaries like me inevitably led to events that radically transformed the country. On December 31, 1958, when my family and I went to bed, Fulgencio Batista was in power. While we slept that evening, he fled the island, and when we woke the next day, Cuba had no government. Looters invaded business establishments. The police disappeared. Anyone with ties to the government either left or went into hiding. By then, I was in my second year at the University of Havana.
On January 1, 1959, the sun was filtering through the partially open shutters of our living room when my sister and I went out to watch the thousands of people who had poured into the streets of Havana: men, women, and children, many rejoicing and carrying Cuban flags. Others, like my sister and me, simply observed, not realizing we were watching history unraveling before our eyes. Some looked on from the front porches of the many colonial houses in Santos Suarez or from the balconies of two- or three-story buildings intrusively erected between the colonial homes. A few of the most opulent houses, owned by those with ties to the government, were set on fire—their cars too. Commercial establishments were closed. We watched a group of shirtless teens and twenty-something men as they broke into a poultry store and came back out carrying live chickens in their arms. We heard clucking sounds, saw black-and-white-feathered chickens flapping their wings while trying to free themselves, men fighting each other for chickens, bloody faces, and people screaming at each other.
We walked toward Mayía Rodríguez Street and noticed a house being looted. We looked up at the second story of the colonial-style building and saw two men throwing a refrigerator from the balcony onto the street. They screamed joyfully when the refrigerator hit the pavement. Other men threw the clothes of the family who lived in the house over the balcony: several white long-sleeved shirts, men’s suits, ties, women’s fancy evening dresses, pairs of girls’, men’s, and women’s shoes, a brown teddy bear. When the bear hit the pavement, a shirtless boy with café con leche skin picked it up and ran away with it. Many people carried signs, one with Fidel Castro’s words: “La Historia me Absolverá” (History Will Absolve Me). A man slammed the glass storefront of a clothing store with a crowbar, shattering the glass into pieces, and men, women, and children ran in to loot it. An old man dressed in a white, long-sleeved guayabera shirt tried to reason with the mob as people carried clothes out of the store, but a young, black-haired guy pushed him out of the way and placed his index finger on the old man’s wrinkled face, warning him not to interfere again. I felt sorry for the old man, the way he walked away shaking his head. My adrenaline was flowing as I watched in awe what was happening around me, the generalized madness that consumed the looters. My sister suggested we return home. It was not safe to be out in the middle of so much chaos.
The word on the street was that Castro and his revolutionaries were coming to Havana. Camilo Cienfuegos, one of the most important figures of Castro’s revolution, had advanced to the middle of the island with his forces to clear the way for Fidel Castro. When Batista fled, Camilo continued to advance toward Havana.
The island turned into a giant Cuban flag on January 8, when through the streets of Havana paraded trucks of rebels with crucifixes hanging from their necks. In one of the trucks, Fidel Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and their bearded warriors greeted the millions of supporters who lined the streets. The country was practically paralyzed for a month. A provisional government was appointed, and shortly afterward, the group of revolutionaries to which I belonged received the assignment of taking over the telephone company. We had orders to stay there until we received additional instructions. I did not realize until later that this task was part of a massive government takeover of all industries. For three days, my sister and my mother did not hear any news from me; finally they went looking for me. There was no transportation, so they walked for several kilometers under an unforgiving sun. They finally found me at the telephone company. I was sitting near the reception area when they walked in, their clothes soaked in sweat. They asked me to return home with them. I told my mother I could not leave my post—I was charged with protecting the telephone company. I returned home two days later.
Rio, like me, had witnessed the looting and the demonstrations, as he told me during one of our lunches together. The way he nodded when I told him about my assignment at the telephone company suggested his approval. I had conveniently omitted what happened when I came home.
I found my mother brewing coffee in the kitchen when I walked in. At first, she did not acknowledge me or seem surprised to see me. The smell of fresh coffee dispersed through the kitchen as it brewed. I stood behind my mother, watching her, waiting for her to say something. She calmly served herself one small cup and drank it. Only then did her eyes turn to me. “You don’t realize what you’re doing, and when you do, it will be too late. Government takeover of companies is not the answer. This is communism, and you don’t see it,” she warned me. I remained quiet, thinking I had all the answers when I clearly didn’t. I failed to see the brilliance of her words.
Later, I would regret this naïve incursion into a political environment in which I lacked all the facts, and I would see the revolution for what it really was: a socialist takeover that would eliminate freedom in my country. I began to suspect the magnitude of my mistake a few months following the victory of the revolution when, during a meeting of the Ministry of the Armed Forces I attended, pamphlets of Mao Tse-tung surfaced. But it took more than those pamphlets to convince me that my mother’s suspicion was warranted. Sometime later, the lie uncovered would shock the country; the truth would parade through the streets of Havana through every black-and-white television set and radio station on the island, through the Plaza de la Revolución where Castro would announce his Marxist-Leninist message to the world. The same rumors of torture and killings that had fueled the revolution during the Batista years circulated again, this time against the bearded “saviors” of the people. I had been wrong in supporting the revolution, but I did not share my changed views with Rio, not at first. I needed to understand his political views before confiding in him.
As my friendship with Rio matured, he told me about the years he had lived at an orphanage and his rocky relationship with his mother. I felt sorry for him, and my compassion fueled my love for him. But my Catholic upbringing told me not to interfere. I did not seek his company or let my feelings be known. I fulfilled his curiosity about me when he had questions about my past. I listened to him when he said how much fun he had with Alicia on weekends at the beach or the movies; I helped him select flowers for her, even when doing so was breaking my heart.
One day, when I was eating a pound cake in the break room, he sat across from me and smiled. “You’re an enigma sometimes,” he said.
I laughed. “That’s not a word you use often,” I said. “Why would you say that?”
“You act like a girl from a rich family,” he said.
“Interesting. I see you’re a good judge of character. Guess what? I am the great-granddaughter of a Spanish count,” I said with an air of self-importance, raising my eyebrows slightly. “My great-grandfather disinherited his son when he married my grandmother. She was a poor girl from Sevilla’s countryside. Sevilla is in the southwestern portion of Spain.” After telling him where Sevilla was located I wondered if he would take this the wrong way. It was not my intention to suggest I was intellectually superior. I had to be careful not to offend him. That was the last thing I wanted to do.
He laughed. “Are you serious? You really come from blue blood?”
I nodded. I explained that after three of my grandmother’s eight children were born, they traveled to Cuba, where my mother was born. Rio told me he had Taíno Indian, Spanish, and Chinese heritage.
“I’m a mutt,” he said.
We both laughed.
It was at times like these, when he asked me questions about my family or me, even if I knew it was only out of curiosity, that a flicker of hope would ignite within me, only to extinguish itself when he mentioned her name.
Three months after I started to work at Panam, Rio was promoted from personnel manager to manager of operations, which made him my supervisor. He was a fair boss. He was friendly, remembered his employees’ birthdays, and visited them at the hospital when they were sick. People liked how much he cared for others.
Through my conversations with Rio, I learned that since Castro came to power, Rio had joined the Cuban militia. He wanted an adventure and liked guns, but he didn’t understand the politics or care much about them, something I realized gradually. The militia training led him to become an expert shot. I hoped Rio would never find himself in situations in which he would be forced to use that skill.
It was April 17, 1961, when a group of antirevolutionary Cuban exiles arrived on the southeastern coast of Cuba. Immediately, Fidel Castro mobilized the military and the militia. Rio was still at home when he received deployment orders. We heard about it later that day when his girlfriend called the office to say she was not sure when he would be able to return to work.
My sister, Berta, was working at that time in the Ministry of Labor. A few days earlier, pamphlets had circulated in her office stating that the government planned to take the children away from their parents. She had read one of the pamphlets and passed them along to other coworkers. Now, after the Bay of Pigs attack, Berta’s purse and those of every other female employee at the ministry were searched. As the day wore on, the government rounded up and detained anyone who was thought to be an antirevolutionary. A neighbor came to our house with a message from one of my aunts; her son had been jailed. He was one of the hundreds of people who were taken from their jobs or homes.
I had left work early that day and was mopping the floor when Berta returned from her job. She threw her black purse on the sofa and pulled me by my arm. “We need to talk. Now!” she said. She practically dragged me to the room in the back of the house, the only room without windows, and closed the door.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “Don’t repeat what I’m about to tell you.” We stood in front of the bed, which was covered by a pink bed bedspread. Berta was always tougher than me. She had been very sick with diphtheria when she was growing up was in and out of hospitals frequently. Being near death so early in life made her strong. I was not used to seeing her scared. Despite being shorter and thinner than me, she always took control of situations, no matter what obstacles she found along the way. This time, she did not know what to do.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I have done something that can put me in jail,” she said.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I had no choice. I had to help them. If the government finds out, they’ll put me in jail.”
“You’re not going anywhere, but please tell me, who did you help?” I said with exasperation.
She stayed silent for a moment, then placed her hand behind my head to bring my ear close to her lips and whispered: “I have been helping families of jailed antirevolutionaries.”
“You have done what?” I asked. I took a deep breath, pulled away, and shook my head. “Are you crazy?” I asked.
“They don’t deserve to be in jail! You know it,” Berta said.
I knew she was right but didn’t tell her so. I had to think. In the new political environment, where people who reported those involved in antirevolutionary activities were rewarded by the government (through better jobs or the right to purchase goods not accessible to others), I could not trust anyone. This is not what my sister expected to hear. She needed me to alleviate her fears. Finally, I told her, “Don’t worry. Keep a low profile for now. If anything happens, I’ll find a way to help you,” I said.
I paid close attention to the news throughout the day, worried about Rio and my sister. At night, I could not sleep much and prayed for my sister, for Rio, and for the men on both sides of the conflict. Luckily, the fighting ended within a couple of days. The 1,400 brave Cuban exiles who had come to Cuba’s coast to save their country had stood little chance of success against approximately 20,000 Cuban troops deployed by the Castro government. The victory was publicized via the radio and television. The Cuban people were celebrating without fully comprehending the implications of this victory. While the win strengthened Castro’s government, it set the stage for Cuba’s formal alignment with the communist bloc.
When Rio’s deployment ended and he returned to the factory, the workers welcomed him back with a party. I sat on a metal chair in the back of the conference room behind several rows of factory workers. Rio stood by a long table in the front of the room wearing white slacks and a blue shirt. A large blue-and-white cake I had purchased at La Gran Via Bakery sat prominently in the middle of the table; on either side stood bottles of soft drinks and two bowls of fruit punch provided by the workers. Rumba music played in the background, while some of the workers danced on one side of the room. As people lined up to shake his hand, he smiled, overwhelmed by the response. I was happy he had returned but saddened I could not tell him how I felt about him or his involvement with the militia.
Not long after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Castro lifted the false veil of crucifixes and replaced it with the hammer and sickle of communism. One day, as I stood on a street corner, a Federation of Cuban Women truck passed by, its passengers chanting, “Somos comunistas, pa’lante y pa’lante y al que no le guste que se tome un pulgante”—“We are communists, we are communists. Go forward, go forward. Those who don’t like it should take a laxative.”
I ran home and told my mother about what I had witnessed. She had warned me before, and her suspicion had become a reality. One thing was to see Maoist pamphlets surface in a meeting, but something very different to hear the Federation of Cuban Women clamoring for communism. It was all very clear to me now. Castro was turning Cuba into a socialist (or even a communist) regime. My mother had read enough about communism to know what those words meant: the intolerance for religious freedom and the decapitation of freedom of expression that came along with it.
“I told you! I told you not to trust them. You and your sister need to leave Cuba now, before it’s too late,” she said.
I was ashamed of my actions, but the damage was done and there was nothing I could do. Pressured by my mother, and realizing that Rio would never leave, I went with Berta to file the forms necessary to leave Cuba. Soon afterward, however, emigration was prohibited. I felt betrayed by the revolution, and despite the small chance of eventually leaving the country, I severed all relations with the new government. I no longer attended government meetings, and I concentrated on completing a bachelor’s degree in Arts and Letters at the University of Havana, while working at the Panam factory. The situation in Cuba worsened, especially after the October Missile Crisis. Additional arrests were made, including another one of my cousins. These arrests were hitting too close to home, and I was afraid for my sister. My regrets about having helped the revolutionaries grew with each passing day.
Rio and I remained friends as the months passed. One day, after being on vacation with Alicia for two weeks, Rio asked me to come into his office. He had a private matter to discuss with me. By then, it had almost been three years since Rio and I met. He and Alicia were engaged to be married and the day of their wedding was approaching. I sat down across from him, not knowing what to expect. He rubbed his face a couple of times as if something were bothering him. I asked him what was wrong.
“I’m sorry to bother you about this,” he said. “I trust you and value your friendship.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It’s about Alicia,” he said. “She went to the doctor for some tests. I don’t know what to do. She knew how much this meant to me.” He rubbed his face again and took a deep breath. “I don’t understand why she waited so long to tell me there was a possibility she could not have children. If she can’t give me family. . .” Rio paused. There was no need for him to continue, but I could not advise him. All I could do was to listen. I knew he had dreamed about having a family since he was at the orphanage.
“Am I being too egotistical?” Rio asked.
I did not know how to answer this question. In reality, I could understand Alicia’s position as well as his, but I realized he expected me to take a side, and I did.
“No, you’re not. I understand. I too would love to have children one day, when I find the right man.”
“I think you’ll make a great mother,” he told me. I smiled sadly.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
Rio thanked me for being supportive. I wished him luck and returned to my office.
On the day Alicia was supposed to have her test results back, Rio did not show up for work. I was worried. No one knew anything about him for two days. Then, on the third day, I was leaving some reports in Rio’s new office, which was a few feet away from my desk, when his telephone rang. I picked it up. It was Rio’s mother. I introduced myself. She said Rio had told her about me. As I listened to her, my eyes filled with tears.
When Rio had learned Alicia could not have children, he told her that as much as he loved her, he could not go on with the marriage. He was deeply hurt. He went to a bar, had a few drinks, and rode his motorcycle to the Malecón, an avenue that stretched about eight kilometers along Havana’s northern coast. He was driving fast, too fast, and lost control of his motorcycle near the Hotel Nacional. Rio was dead.
I put the telephone down. The workers came over when they heard me cry out, and I delivered the news to them. Everyone was in shock. Both men and women wept. When the other workers left Rio’s office, I stayed there alone. I ran my fingers over his empty leather chair. I picked up the picture he kept on his desk of himself and his fiancée. My eyes focused on him, on his smile, on the eyes I adored. How could he be gone, just like that? No one was able to work after that. For the rest of the day, I organized a collection to give him the funeral he deserved.
At supper I did not want to eat, and I could not sleep that night, still in disbelief. I wept throughout the night thinking about him. The next day, I forced myself to get dressed and go to work.
I arrived early and sat at my desk, not really knowing where to start. I was typing a letter when, around 8:30 a.m., the telephone on Rio’s desk rang—loud, continuous rings that reverberated throughout the office. I slowly walked toward the telephone and picked it up. It was Rio’s mother. Rio was badly hurt, but he was alive. My heart glowed with happiness, but I didn’t understand. I asked her where he was, picked up my purse, and dashed out of the building.
When I arrived at the hospital, I found Rio with his legs in casts, and most of the rest of his body bandaged. His face was scraped up; he seemed to be sleeping. His mother sat on a chair next to him when I arrived, her face down on the bed. I could see only her wavy, light brown hair. When she raised her head and saw me, I introduced myself and asked how he was doing. She said he had been in and out of consciousness the first couple of days after the accident. At one point, his heart had stopped and the doctors thought they had lost him. That was when she called the office. She needed to tell someone. When she returned, the doctors had been able to restore a pulse. He had been fighting for his life ever since and she had been afraid to leave his side, even to call his coworkers with the news. We stayed silent for a moment, watching him sleep.
“Do you mind staying with him while I have something to eat?” she asked.
I told her I didn’t mind. After she left, I sat next to him and looked at him, so happy he was alive. I wished I could heal his wounds and make his pain disappear. If he only knew how much I loved him. I began to pray in silence and placed my hand on top of his. My prayers accompanied my tears. “God help him, please. I will do anything, even walk on my knees to thank You if You save him,” I whispered.
I spent the rest of the day at the hospital. During the following days I went back to work but spent many evenings with him. Luckily, by then, I had completed my degree at the University of Havana. His mother was thankful she had some relief. Rio’s ex-girlfriend had called to check on him, but she was too hurt to come see him. The workers sent flowers and came to visit. Everyone had noticed my concern for him, and the rumors began to circulate around the factory.
It was Saturday, three weeks after the accident. I arrived at the hospital early to relieve Rio’s mother, who had spent the night at the hospital. I brought fresh yellow flowers in a glass vase and placed them near Rio’s bed to brighten the room. After his mother left, I took a fresh white towel to wash his face. When the warm, wet towel touched his skin, his eyes slowly opened.
“Laura?” he asked with a hoarse voice. I smiled. “You’re awake!” I said cheerfully. “I’m so thankful my prayers were heard.”
Rio was confused and asked me how long he had been out. I told him.
“I’m very thirsty. Can you give me some water?” he asked.
“Let me get the doctor first,” I said and left the room. A nurse dressed in white came and checked his vital signs. Before she exited the room again, she said she would alert the doctor and told me I could give him a sip of water, enough to moisten his lips and mouth. When the doctor came in and examined him, he seemed pleased. “A few more days, and you will be able to go home,” he said. I looked at Rio and smiled.
I continued to visit Rio at the hospital, occasionally bringing his favorite foods from the house, like pork tamales, or scrumptious señoritas—flaky pastries filled with layers of vanilla custard—from La Gran Via Bakery. I would tell him about how things were at the office, the latest gossip. He laughed about my stories and seemed to enjoy my company. Only once, he mentioned Alicia. He had loved her very much. It had been difficult to learn she could not give him a family. But as much as it hurt him to leave her, he could not stay with her.
Within another two weeks, Rio left the hospital, and a few days later he returned to work. By then, all his bandages had come off. Rio was alone now, but I did not feel good about it. I knew he was hurting. I would see him come in with sometimes a serious expression on his face, distraught. Leaving Alicia had clearly affected him.
A couple of weeks after his return, he called me to his office because he said he needed me to help him with a project. When I walked in and asked him about it, he was blunt.
“Can I take you to dinner tonight?” he asked.
I acted surprised. “Why?”
“I want to talk to you,” he said, acting more seriously than he typically did around me. “I will pick you up at seven. Is that okay?
I agreed, not knowing what to expect.
Someone knocked on the door a couple of minutes before 7 p.m. I was in my parents’ bedroom applying red lipstick in front of a mirror when I heard my mother’s footsteps and a slight creaking sound as she opened the door. She had on her brown, plastic-frame glasses and that day was wearing a light blue housedress with little white flowers, appropriate for a much older woman. She was fifty-seven, but her shoulder-length curly hair had turned completely white, making her appear older than she was. I heard Rio’s distinctive voice saying a cheerful buenas noches. Rio wore all black, including a lightweight, black-leather jacket on this cool December evening.
“What do you want?” my mother asked sternly. Her dislike for Rio was evident, judging not only by her rude response but by the rapid firing of her words. I picked up my purse from my parents’ bed and walked from the bedroom to the adjacent living room.
“I’m here to pick up Laura,” he said happily. “We’re going to dinner,” he added.
She crossed her arms and asked him, with a suspicious look, “What are your intentions with my daughter?”
She had not asked him to come in. She stood partly in front of the door, like a soldier guarding the entrance to a palace, and had opened it just enough to show her face. She acted as if he were a complete stranger. I approached my mother from behind and said: “I’m leaving, Mamá. I won’t be long.”
Before she had a chance to respond, I kissed her cheek, embraced her, and went outside. Rio realized we had no time to exchange pleasantries and walked me to his red 1955 Chevrolet waiting at the curb. He opened the passenger door and helped me in. When I sat down, I noticed my mother standing on the porch, frowning, and her arms crossed. I had told her I had a business dinner with Rio, in part because I really did not know why he was taking me out. If the dinner had been for any other purpose, she would have tried to make me take a chaperone. It did not matter that I was well into my twenties. I could have been forty and it would not have mattered.
I waved goodbye to my mother, and Rio drove away as he said in a matter-of-fact tone: “She doesn’t like me, does she?” I smiled and shook my head. When we reached the corner of Zapote and Serrano streets, Rio casually looked at me, “You look beautiful tonight. I have never seen you in that dress. Nice lipstick.”
I smiled and thanked him. I had changed several times, not knowing what to wear. I selected a simple, sleeveless black dress, a sheer black shawl, and black heels. I borrowed my sister’s pearl-necklace-and-earrings set and had let down my hair after keeping it up in plastic curlers most of the day.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“A restaurant in Miramar. I promise you’ll like it.”
On the way, I was not as talkative as usual. I felt strangely nervous around him this evening. While he drove, I looked at the city. The streetlights had turned on now. An old man walked a small black dog in Santos Suarez Park under the yellow glow of lights. A couple kissed under a tamarind tree. Another couple sat on a bench, while their two children, a boy and a girl, played.
Later, as we left my Santos Suarez neighborhood, the murals of the revolution began to surface, intrusively scattered among the city streets. I noticed one, painted like graffiti on the side of a building: a Cuban flag—white-and-blue stripes, red triangle, and a solitary white star—with Ché Guevara’s face superimposed over the flag and the words “Hasta la Victoria Siempre” (“Until Victory, Always”) beneath. The murals were like silent soldiers watching over the city. When we approached El Vedado, the central business district, the face of the city transformed. Miramar, the place where the restaurant was located, was to the west of El Vedado. With its wide avenues and modern buildings, El Vedado was one of the most beautiful sections of Havana.
Rio did not want me to walk too much on heels; he dropped me off in front of a striking building with the large numbers 1830 on the wall, while he went to find a place to park. The neoclassical building was astonishing, with its large, arched windows and their exquisite stained glass: red, green, and blue. I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders, while the wind from the sea played with my hair. I noticed other couples enter the restaurant. They smelled of cologne and dressed mostly in black, which made me feel good about my attire. I waited for a few minutes, becoming a little impatient as time passed. At last, I saw Rio in the distance.
He offered me his arm before we entered the building. I blushed and held on to him. Once inside, we walked to a brown wood podium at the entrance and Rio gave the attendant the name on the reservation. The black-suited maître d’, who was standing near the attendant, took us to our table. He graciously pulled my chair out, and once Rio and I sat, he announced that a waiter would be with us soon. Our table, covered in white linen, was located in an intimate setting by one of the arched windows. I admired the iron railings and the stained glass. When the waiter came to take our drink order, I asked for water.
“Come on, Laura,” said Rio. “Let me order you something I know you’ll like.” Rio did not wait for my response, ordering a mojito for himself and a piña colada for me.
“I have never tried an alcoholic beverage before,” I said after the waiter left.
“Seriously?” he asked. “But you are almost twenty-four! That’s right. I forgot about the nuns.”
We both laughed.
“The drink I ordered you is not very strong. You’ll like it,” he said.
I looked at him as if I didn’t believe him but proceeded to explore the menu choices. I had never been to this restaurant before. “Any suggestions?” I asked.
He responded with a question: “Would you rather have shrimp or steak?”
I opted for shrimp. When the waiter returned with our drinks, Rio ordered an enchilado de camarones for me and a filet mignon for himself. The waiter disappeared with our order, and we sat in silence for a moment. I looked down at the table first, then at my surroundings, admiring the elegance of the place and feeling like a princess. I then slowly met his eyes, afraid they could read mine. My palms were sweating. I took a sip of the creamy drink.
“It’s very good,” I said.
“I knew you would like it.”
I drank some more.
“Careful now,” he said. “You don’t want to drink too fast, especially if it is your first time.”
I was a little embarrassed and put the glass down. I was becoming anxious. Rio had not said a word about the purpose of his invitation. Finally, I built up the courage to ask him.
“Well, what did you want to talk about?” I asked.
Rio took a taste of his drink and glanced at me in silence for a moment.
“I think you already know.” He paused. He eyes sought mine. My palms turned cold as he continued. “How could I have been so stupid not to see it?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, feeling uncomfortably warm.
“Laura, Laura,” he said, shaking his head and taking a deep breath. He calmly put his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers and placed them under his chin as he continued. “I know what you did when I was in the hospital and how you feel about me.” He paused again and reached for my hand. He placed it between his, looking into my eyes. “There I was talking to you about another woman, hurting you without knowing I was. It has been you, Laura. It has been you all along.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, looking down and gently retrieving my hand.
“You have been there for me, through my best and worst times, patiently waiting for me to notice you. I’ve made a fool of myself,” he said. My eyes met his. He seemed truthful. I stayed silent at first, not knowing what to say. He took a sip of his drink.
“You’re not thinking straight,” I finally said. “You need to let time pass.”
“All I have done over the past several weeks was to think,” he said. “I’m done thinking.”
He took my hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. His lips ignited a fire I had managed to control long ago.
“It has always been you,” he said, again, caressing my hand. I let him. My eyes filled with tears. I had waited so long for his touch, for his words. My heart was beating fast. I was burning inside—but I needed to be careful. I didn’t want to be hurt. We stayed in silence, our eyes telling each other what we felt.
The waiter came with the food, and I retrieved my hand, as if I were a child who had been caught doing something wrong. We ate in silence at first.
“The food is delicious,” I said. “This will cost you a fortune. You should not have done this.”
“You deserve this and more,” he said.
“You really don’t mean that.” I blushed.
“I have never been more serious in my life.”
He looked into my eyes. I loved the way his beautiful amber eyes sparkled in the soft glow of the candlelight and how they enveloped me with their gaze. We ate our meal and engaged in small talk. We recounted my mother’s reaction when he picked me up. I asked him about his mother, and we shared stories of people in the office. I did not acknowledge or deny the validity of his observations.
After we finished our dessert and coffee, he had an idea: “Let’s take a walk by the Malecón.”
“I have to go home,” I said. “My mother will kill me if I’m late.”
“Your mother will be fine; she may want to kill me, but she’ll need to catch me first,” he said, moving his arms as if he were running. “Come on! You’ll love it.”
I accepted, and we laughed like two kids. When I stood up, I felt a little dizzy. He noticed and placed his arm around my waist to help me regain my balance.
“Careful there. See? Another good reason why we should take a walk,” he said.
He took me to the ample promenade by Havana’s waterfront, an eternal place of lovers and dreamers. He held my hand while we walked. We laughed about silly things: a couple locked in a kiss, my lack of balance when I walked. We stopped by the seawall and he pointed to all the stars in the sky.
“From now on, every time you see a sky full of stars, think about me,” he said.
He was as romantic as I had dreamed he would be. We watched the starry night and smelled the ocean salt, while a mild breeze caressed us. In the distance, on the rocks beyond the seawall, we noticed the glow of a lantern by the silhouette of a man who was fishing.
Behind us, the city sparkled with yellow lights, while the engines of passing cars roared in the wide avenue. In front of us was the immense darkness of the sea and the water splashing against the rocks. He placed his arms around me and brought me close to him, my body pressed between Rio and the seawall. His lips gently kissed my face, again, and then again, as they came closer and closer to my lips. We were both breathing heavier now, and when he reached my lips, his kiss took me to a place beyond the stars.
Our lips could not get enough of one another. He caressed my body and brought me even closer to him, until there was no space between us. I felt his body react to mine, as mine was reacting to his. We were in our own heaven. Nothing around us mattered.
He freed one hand and began to explore my body. Suddenly, the reality of the situation hit me.
“No, Rio,” I begged him. “I can’t.”
“Don’t you love me?” Rio asked.
“People will see us, please don’t.” I said.
His hand touched my breasts. I had never been touched like that.
“Please, Rio, stop. I can’t.”
As difficult as it was to pull away, I did. It was as if, all of a sudden, I could hear my mother and the Catholic-school nuns scolding me about the pleasure I felt.
“Take me home, Rio. We’re not married. I can’t do this.”
Rio stopped and smiled. “My little adorable Laura,” he said. “Is that the problem? Okay, let’s get married.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I protested. “This is the first night we’ve gone out. You have not even formally asked me to be your girlfriend, and now you are asking me to marry you?”
“Do you love me?” Rio asked.
“That is not the point,” I said.
“Would you like to be the mother of my children?”
“I would love to have a family. You know that.”
“Then, it’s settled. We’re getting married,” he said.
He kissed my cheeks and lips and then said happily: “Yes, let’s do it. I will talk to your mother tonight.”
“You’re insane,” I said. “No, you will not talk to her tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yes, I am. Marry me, Laura,” he said, taking my hands between his. I tried to read his eyes to assess if he was truthful.
“If you are serious, I have an idea. Let’s wait a week. During that time, we will not go out again. If a week from now you still feel the same way, then I will accept, and you can speak to my mother then. Agree?”
“Agree, my beautiful princess,” he said.
“Please, take me home now. It’s late.”
He agreed. I did not believe what had happened. I thought I was going to wake up at any time and realize it had all been an amazing and beautiful dream. I could still feel Rio’s lips on mine. I was immensely happy but felt guilty. My thoughts were betraying my sense of morality, and I feared being alone with Rio again.
As we had agreed, we did not go out again that week, but we could not stay completely apart. At my request, Rio and I kept our relationship secret. Sometimes, he would ask me to come to his office, close the door, and kiss me on the lips. I always protested and he laughed. He was playful and seemed happy, the way he had been before he learned Alicia could not have children. As much as I had been waiting for Rio to notice I loved him, now I was afraid he was not thinking things through and would wake up one morning to realize his sudden proposal was a mistake. We also had an outstanding issue to discuss: our views on Cuba’s new government. That week, I suggested we take a late lunch. I had something important to tell him that I did not want others to hear. We ate our sandwiches in his car, where we could speak in privacy.
“Is anything wrong? You seem mysterious,” he said.
“I just don’t know how you are going to take what I’m about to tell you. That’s all. It may surprise you a little. But you have to promise. You can’t tell anyone this. Nowadays, saying something negative can put you in jail. “
Rio took my hands and kissed them.
“Now, I’m curious. Don’t worry. Anything you tell me will stay with me.”
I took a deep breath.
“Fine. I will tell you what I have been wanting to tell you for some time. You already know that I supported the revolution, thinking it would improve things. What you don’t know is that I’m not happy about the path the revolution took. I never wanted communism,” I said. He remained silent, while I continued. “I don’t want to live in a place where expressing my views can put me in jail. When I supported the revolution, I never thought I was supporting this. Think about it—you can see it everywhere. The government has no place controlling our businesses. This is only going to get worse, so my mind is made up. One day, I want to live in the United States. This country is not for me anymore. Is this a problem?”
“It’s not,” he said without hesitation. “You know I don’t care much about politics. I’m not happy either. My mother lost her houses to Urban Reform, but I thought that maybe one day things would change.”
“They won’t. Not for the better,” I said. “You need to think about what I’m about to ask you. Would you be willing to leave Cuba with me one day?”
“I’d follow you anywhere in the world,” he said.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I did not want to start a life with Rio without making my views clear.
Later that week, on Friday afternoon, Rio confirmed he was going to speak to my mother the next day. I asked him if he was sure.
“More than anything else in the world,” he said.
On Saturday morning, Rio arrived a few minutes after 9 o’clock. My hands were clammy. I didn’t know how my mother was going to react. I opened the door, asked him to sit down, and went to the kitchen where my mother was brewing coffee.
“Mamá, Rio is here to see you,” I said.
She stared at me inquisitively. “Why? I have nothing to discuss with that young man,” she said as she continued to focus on the coffee.
“Mamá, please. It will not take long,” I said. “There’s something important he needs to tell you.”
She breathed deeply and followed me. I did not bother to call my father; he stayed in his room. Since his stroke a few years earlier, my mother had been in charge of the house’s affairs. His mind was stuck in the past, in a convoluted labyrinth of mixed-up events.
The moment Rio saw my mother, he stood up and greeted her. She did not reciprocate; instead, she looked at him, up and down, as if examining his attire. He wore a red shirt and tight-fitting white slacks. She looked outside the open window. Rio had parked his red Harley Davidson motorcycle by the curve. Typical of Rio, wanting to make a big splash. Her instant frown told me this had been a very bad idea. She reluctantly asked Rio to sit down, but did not offer him coffee or water. I sat next to him. Her eyes continued to explore his attire with clear disgust.
“My daughter tells me you need to talk to me,” my mother said, getting right to the point. Rio did not waste time either. It was clear my mother had met her match.
“Yes, Angelica. I’m here to ask for Laura’s hand in matrimony,” he said.
I nervously looked at my mother. She had crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly.
“We want to get married in three months,” he added.
“Three months?” My mother asked and turned her head toward me. I looked at Rio. Three months? I was as shocked as she was. We had not discussed the timing of the wedding. I opened my eyes wide as I looked at him inquisitively. He smiled.
“Yes, three months. We discussed it, and we hope we have your blessing,” he said.
He continued to deepen the lie. Discussed it? My mother angrily looked at him, then at me. I avoided her eyes and focused on Rio.
“Where is all this coming from?” she said, raising her voice. “Marry her? Laura is still a child. She’s too young to be married. Besides, you broke up with your girlfriend only a few weeks ago, and all of the sudden you want to marry my daughter?”
My mother shook her head and looked at Rio with a serious expression. Rio glanced at me, surprised that she knew about his girlfriend. I shrugged. Apparently my private conversations with my sister had not been as private as I had thought. Rio took a deep breath.
“Angelica, look, Laura and I have known each other for a while,” Rio said. “I know I may not be exactly the man you wanted for your daughter. I love her, and she loves me. That’s the most important thing.”
She remained silent for a moment, then turned to me. “Well, Laurita.” She used the diminutive version of my name, as if I were a child. “It appears you have already made up your mind, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
She stood up and walked to the back of the house without saying another word.
“I guess I will not have a very happy mother-in-law,” Rio said as she walked away. I apologized for her behavior. He told me not to worry. We had a wedding to plan.
Later, after Rio left, I sat in the living room with my mother and tried to reason with her. She was fuming and said she could not tolerate my impulsiveness. She disapproved of the way he dressed, his manners, and his lack of a formal education. She told me she had raised me to marry a lawyer or an accountant.
“I love him,” I told her.
“You’re making another mistake, like you did when you became a revolutionary,” she said. “Mark my words, Laura. This is a horrible idea.”
I remained silent to avoid upsetting her any further.
On March 14, 1964, three months after Rio proposed, we were married against my mother’s wishes. The workers at the window factory helped us with the arrangements, as if they were part of our family. We had a relatively small wedding that included family, friends, and several coworkers. Following the church ceremony and reception, we departed for the Hotel Jagua in Cienfuegos, a town to the east of Havana. The hotel was fairly new, and a favorite of government officials. When we walked into the building, I thought we had reached paradise—the openness of the lobby, the shining floors, the subdued opulence of the place; everything was perfect. The service was splendid. I was happy, like never before, and filled with anticipation.
“Newlyweds?” the man at the front desk asked.
“Yes,” Rio said proudly. We looked at each other and smiled. The way Rio looked at me in front of the male clerk made me blush. The clerk gave us our key and directions to our room. He asked whether we needed help with our luggage, but Rio declined and carried our two large bags himself.
We did not unpack when we entered the ample and nicely furnished room. I could see the ocean through the glass doors that led to the balcony. He put down the luggage, walked up to me, and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“The room is beautiful,” I said. “I have never been in a hotel before.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “Every day since I asked you to marry me, I have been thinking about this day. I even dreamed about it.”
“Was it a good dream?”
“It was a great dream,” he said, and kissed my lips. “Now, let’s make my dream come true.”
He kissed me again. He then turned on one of the lamps and pulled the curtains shut. At last, Rio and I were alone. I was nervous. He sat on the bed, caressed my face, played with my hair.
“I love you so much,” he said.
I loved to hear his words. I told him I loved him and smiled.
“I’m sorry. I did not ask you. Are you hungry? Do you want me to order you something?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said.
“We can find a good place to eat later, then.”
“I would like that.”
He passionately kissed my face, my lips. I could feel my hands getting sweaty. He unbuttoned my blouse. The slight touch of his fingers against my bare skin sent shivers down my body.
“I’ll go change in the bathroom.”
“You can undress here,” he said.
“No, please, I’d rather change in the bathroom.”
He smiled and let me go. I was thankful he did. I was shaking when I removed my clothes and changed into a sheer white baby-doll nightie, a wedding present from one of my friends. I looked at myself in the mirror. I could not believe it was happening. Rio had turned on the radio, and I could hear bolero music playing. Before I left the bathroom, embarrassed to go out dressed in my revealing attire, I asked him to turn off the light. He laughed, but he listened and sat on the edge of the bed waiting for me. I approached him slowly and when my eyes adapted to the darkness, I noticed he was fully undressed. I was trembling. The room was dark, except for the hotel hallway light seeping in beneath the door. I was finally in front of him.
“Don’t be nervous. I’ll be gentle,” he reassured me. He placed his arms around me, then raised my clothes and kissed my exposed body. His lips slowly moved lower. He pulled my lace panties down and touched me, pleasuring me, lighting a volcano within me. I closed my eyes and moaned, afraid and accelerated at the same time.
He stood up and showed me his body, then taught me how to please him bringing my hands to him. He removed my lingerie and we lay down together. My bare body was there, completely at his disposal. The warm wetness of his lips on my breasts, his fingers inside me. I had never felt like this before. Oh yes, yes, just like that, Rio. Oh dear God, yes! That is what I was thinking, not what I said. I was breathing heavier now.
He went on top of me, aroused. Slowly, he began to move inside, bringing his world into mine, showing me what it was like to be a woman, his woman. Pain and pleasure fought an endless battle as he rocked my body, faster and faster. I could feel something changing inside me again. Oh yes, Rio, it was happening again. Yes, yes. He screamed. We both did when his essence filled me in an endless array of fireworks that aroused every portion of my being. At last, we had reached heaven, together.
Rio and I were at the Hotel Jagua for two amazing weeks. From our balcony, we enjoyed the breathtaking views of the bay, the majestic palm trees standing tall, like soldiers, over the town, and the miniature boats sprinkled on the water. Every night, we walked to the beach, near the pier, to watch the sun hide behind the sparkling waters of the bay while we listened to a band play. During the day, we freshened up in the pool or on the beach, while enjoying a cool drink. We felt happy, energized. He brought me breakfast in the mornings. When we strolled around the town, he picked flowers for me. He liked to see me blush when he kissed me in public and I protested. He said he loved to see me laugh. When I was with him, time moved much faster and my love for him grew stronger. Even when I slept, he filled my dreams.
After Rio moved in to our house on Zapote Street, he and my mother argued constantly. Despite her illness, she wanted to control the money Rio and I made at the factory. She said we needed to save enough to leave Cuba, and that if she managed our finances, we would save faster. Rio told her we were capable of managing our own money. He was not happy he had moved in, but there were no other options. There was no housing available for new couples. The transition to socialism had resulted in the loss of private property rights.
All the arguments ended two months after our wedding. I had taken the day off to take my mother to the doctor, and I, too, had received a regular checkup. Rio and I sat in rocking chairs on the front porch that evening, watching the people go by. The lights of the porch were turned off, but the full moon and the yellow glow filtering from inside the house, through the partially opened shades, illuminated our surroundings.
“I have a question,” I said. “If you could have anything at all, what would it be?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“It’s not. Well?”
“Do I need to tell you?” he asked.
“I want to hear it.”
“Fine, then. I would like for you and me to leave this house right now and go on a two-month vacation.”
“Come on! That’s not what you were supposed to say!” I protested.
“Okay, okay. A family. Are you . . . ?”
I smiled. He got up and looked me in the face inquisitively. “Are we going to have a family?”
I laughed and nodded.
I had never seen Rio so happy before. He kissed me, kissed my torso. He went inside and after telling my mother the news, he kissed her and ran out. He came back an hour later with a bouquet of red roses he had picked from his mother’s garden. I could not believe he had driven to her house. At last, he was going to be a father, a dream of his since his time in the orphanage.
After that, Rio became overprotective of me. He did not want me to do anything at home or to go to work, insisting I needed to rest. “Pregnancy is not a disease!” I told him one day. “Stop acting like it is.” He backed off a little, but when I was seven months pregnant and my belly had grown bigger, he suggested I stay home for the rest of the pregnancy. This time, my mother supported him, and neither one of them left me alone until I stopped working.
On the day I went into labor, Rio was at work. When my mother called him from the hospital to tell him, he hardly allowed her to finish and ran out of the office. My mother later told me that from the moment he arrived at the hospital, he was driving the nurses and doctors crazy by asking them the same questions every twenty or thirty minutes: “How is my wife? Did she have the baby?”
At last, six hours after Rio arrived, a young mulatto doctor in a white coat entered the waiting room and called his name. Rio rushed to him. The doctor acted enigmatic at first. “Are you the husband of Laura Ocampo Valdes?” he asked. Rio nodded hastily, and then the doctor turned to my mother. “And you?”
“I’m Laura’s mother!” she said angrily. “Why so many questions? Are you going to tell us what’s going on?”
The doctor stayed silent for a moment, maintaining a serious expression at first. He then transformed his seriousness into a smile as he said: “Well, I have good news. Mother and child are doing well. It’s a girl!”
Happiness was flowing from Rio’s face. He embraced the doctor and my mother. “Can I see her?” he asked. The doctor nodded. Rio hurried to my room like a happy child, carrying with him a white teddy bear he had purchased from a woman who was leaving Cuba. He had hidden it in a bag in the trunk of his car. When he saw me, he rushed to me and kissed my cheeks and lips. “I love you,” he said, placing the bear next to me and tucking it in with my blanket, which made me laugh. He always managed to find the laughter within me, even when I was tired or sick.
I could hear our daughter, Tania, crying. “Thank you for making me the happiest man in the world,” he said.
A nurse dressed in white walked toward me with our daughter wrapped in a pink blanket. “Here she is,” she said and positioned her in my arms. I uncovered her little body. For the first time, I saw Tania’s pinkish face, her tiny hands turned into fists, her little skinny arms and legs, the fine, silky-smooth hair on her head. I felt the warmth of her cuddly body. My connection with her was instant. I had never loved anyone so intensely as I loved my daughter from the moment I saw her. My mother used to tell me that it was difficult to understand the love a mother feels for her child until one becomes a mother. I understood now. I knew the moment I saw this beautiful gift of God that I would do anything for her. Rio watched me examine every little part of her body to make sure all was there, and it was. The love Rio and I shared had evolved into a beautiful new life, and from this point forward, I would not look at Rio the same way. Our love had grown deep roots in front of my eyes.
“Can I hold her?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
The nurse took Tania from my arms and turned to Rio. By then, the doctor had already left the room, and the nurse had been a silent, smiling witness, a facilitator of this wondrous moment. Rio seemed nervous by the way he moved his arms, trying to find the correct position. When the nurse placed our daughter in his arms, he cuddled her and looked at her with tenderness. He kissed her forehead and told me she was beautiful. “She is as perfect as you,” he added, as his eyes, like mine, flooded with joy.
Rio loved his daughter, Tania, very much. She made him transform from a tough man into a silly clown when she was near him, but like many fathers, he wanted a boy. A little over a year later, Lynette was born. We were both very happy about the new addition to our family. “Let’s try one last time for the boy,” I told him. At last, Gustavo came into our lives. Not only did Rio have a boy, but he also had the big family he had wished for during his years at the orphanage.
After our son was born in 1968, my parents’ three-bedroom, one-bathroom home became much smaller. I had lived in this house, located on Zapote Street between Dureje and Serrano streets, since 1958. The house used to be a small clinic, and my father, with the help of a neighbor, had fixed it up. It had green walls, tiled floors, a decent-size living room, a separate dining room that only fit a table for six, and a small kitchen in which two people could hardly fit. The front porch was the same width as the house—it was colonial-style, with six tall, round columns. It was located a short walk from Santos Suarez Park, the beautiful neighborhood park where Rio and I took the children every weekend. The boy was still too small, and I either carried him in my arms or pushed him in a stroller while Rio played hide-and-seek with the girls. Sometimes he tried to play catch with them, using the nuts that fell from an almond tree. They were too small and could not catch anything, but he kept trying. “Rio, stop playing catch with the girls. Girls should play with dolls!” I would tease him. He loved to spend time with the children, and I enjoyed seeing his happiness when he did.
My oldest daughter, Tania, was very close to her father, while the second daughter was more attached to me. He had taught Tania how to walk and how to go to the bathroom in a small portable unit he built for her. She loved to jump on top of Rio when he rested in his hammock on the front porch. “I was asleep!” he would complain and she would laugh the laughter of innocence. Other times, when he was asleep in bed, she would run into our bedroom and pull his eyelids open as she asked, “Papi, are you awake?”
One day, when we sauntered through the park with the children, Gustavo in my arms and the girls holding their father by the hand, one on each side, a young woman approached us. She had a pretty face, long blond hair, and a white dress that complemented her curves.
“It is so nice to see you, Rio!” she said as she approached us.
I looked at him inquisitively, and he introduced her to me. It was Alicia, Rio’s ex-fiancée. It was the first time we had met. She looked at me and then at the children, her sadness hidden behind her smile.
“Are these your children?” she asked. I nodded.
It was an awkward moment, and one for which I was unprepared. I felt sad for her. Here I was with our three children in front of a woman who would never feel the joy of becoming a mother. She asked if she could hold my infant son, and I let her. She held him in her arms and caressed his hair.
“He is precious; he looks like his father and the girls are very pretty too. They are a mixture of the two of you,” she said. “You are a very lucky woman.”
I did not know what to say other than thank you. Rio asked her how she was doing. “Fine,” she said. An uneasy silence followed and Gustavo began to cry. “He wants his mother.” Alicia said, and handed Gustavo to me. “Well, I’d better go now. It was nice to see you, Rio,” she said, and walked away without looking back. Rio and I glanced at each other in silence. That was the first and last time I saw her. Without fully understanding why, I was riddled with guilt.
It was July 1968. The government takeover of all means of communication (radio, television, and the press) and the killing or incarceration of hundreds accused of conspiring against the revolution had solidified Castro’s rule. The nationalization of all means of production led to a deepening of food shortages and to further rationing, which had started soon after the victory of the revolution with the introduction of ration cards. The amount of food the cards provided was not enough to feed a growing family. Urban Reform laws limited available housing, forcing several generations to live together. Rio could not turn to his mother for help because she, too, had lost her houses to the new laws. Rio felt betrayed by the new government. This was not the Cuba he wanted for his family.
Although emigration had been discontinued after the Bay of Pigs, it was reestablished sometime later. Rio knew of my desire to travel to the United States; this imperative solidified after our children were born. I was afraid that if we did not act soon, the control measures would worsen, and we would once again lose our freedom to travel. We discussed our options. This is how we understood the process would work: Due to special bureaucratic provisions for the children and grandchildren of Spaniards (both Rio and I had at least one Spanish grandparent), the only way to move our family to the United States was for at least one of us to travel to Spain first. The expense of sending both of us on such a journey was too great, and we felt one parent should remain with the children; and since my mother’s health was fragile, it was decided that Rio would be the one to go. After residing in Spain for a certain amount of time—we did not know how long—he would file for permanent residency in the United States. Then, upon arrival in the United States, he would claim our family and file the papers for our visas. It was a complex plan with a lot of variables, none of which we controlled.
Rio’s trip was originally scheduled for October 2, 1968. That day, when we arrived at the airport, we noticed a woman with black hair and a red dress who was desperately approaching every family. She was hard to miss; the anguish in her face was compelling. The rumor was that the government was going to take the children away from their parents, so many parents who had relatives in the United States had rushed to the airport to send their children to their relatives, with the goal of joining them later. I did not know whether I truly believed those rumors. Even if I did, nothing would take me away from my children. I had Gustavo in my arms when the woman fought her way through the crowd and approached us.
“Sir, are you traveling alone?” she said. I noticed the desperation in her eyes.
“Yes,” Rio said.
“I beg you please,” she said with tears in her eyes, her hand resting on her son’s shoulder. “My son will turn fifteen tomorrow. If he doesn’t leave today, he won’t be allowed to leave because of the military service rules. You’re a parent like me. Help my son, please.”
Rio looked at me first, then at our children; finally his eyes turned to the woman’s brown-haired, brown-eyed son, who looked younger than his age. He seemed confused and scared. He had to remind Rio of himself at that age, a few years after his mother had left him at the orphanage. He knew that giving up his seat to this boy would separate the child from his parents, which in Rio’s mind was the same as making him an orphan. But as a parent, he also understood the woman’s plea and the unselfishness of her actions.
“Please sir,” the woman begged him.
Rio hesitated for a moment; then he agreed to give up his seat to the woman’s son.
“Thank you,” she said hugging him, then me.
Later, as she walked away with her son, she looked back and said with a thankful smile, “By the way, my name is Ana. I will never forget you.”
Rio’s decision would derail the lives of two families.
Almost four weeks after Rio gave up his seat to the boy, the day of his trip arrived once again. This time, Rio and I agreed to leave the children at home as the airport had become a very sad place, one where families went to say goodbye to their loved ones. No Cubans were coming back. On the day of Rio’s departure, everyone in the house was somber, as if someone had died. Rio kissed the children goodbye, and he and I walked toward his red Chevrolet, which waited at the curb. We had sold it to one of his cousins; it was too expensive for us to own a car anymore. The sale had allowed Rio to leave me some money for the kids. From inside the car, I looked at Tania, my oldest daughter. Berta had picked her up in her arms so she could see her father from the porch. Mayda, my mother-in-law, held Gustavo in her arms; Lynette sat on the floor playing with a doll—I could see her behind the iron gate above the stairs that led to the porch.
The neighborhood was quiet that morning. Our otherwise nosy neighbors seemed unconcerned about Rio’s departure. Their unobtrusive and uncharacteristic behavior stemmed from my explanation of Rio’s trip: “He’s going to Spain to claim an inheritance,” I had told them. The temporary nature of Rio’s absence was less exciting to them than a definitive departure.
Many people had gone to work, and others performed chores around the house or stood in line at the bodega on the street corner, waiting for their turn to buy their quota of groceries. A gigantic framboyán tree, planted on a parallel street directly across from our house, stood impressively over the colonial houses with its orange flowers in full bloom.
Tania, our three-year-old daughter, wearing a pink dress with yellow flowers, waved good-bye to her father using her version of a wave, her little hand up in the air, her fingers flapping up and down against the palm of her hand. My sister wiped the tears from her face while she caressed Tania’s light brown hair. When we drove away, a feeling of gloom invaded me. My mother had always told me that negative thoughts attracted negative outcomes; I needed to remain positive. I comforted myself with the thought that my children would see their father again soon.
It was Christmas Day 1968, but no one talked about it because the government frowned upon the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ (and would go so far as to ban it the following year). I had prepared a modest meal for the family: black beans, rice, and plantains. We had already consumed the meat quota for the month and could not afford to buy meat in the black market as I had resigned from my office job at the factory. My life was consumed by caring for my two sick parents and my three children. My father was in his mid-seventies, and although my mother was seventeen years younger, her health was rapidly deteriorating.
I was trying to give my children a normal childhood by letting them call their father from the telephone company as frequently as I could, at first once a week. Tania would tell him stories she had made up, and Lynette would sing children’s songs to him. Gustavo was still little, but between Rio and me, we would try to show him how to say “Papá.” I did not want them to feel differently from the other children who had both parents together.
During the first several months following Rio’s departure, his letters came often. I kept every one of them. They were romantic and filled me with hope. He wrote in one of them:
When you look at the sky on starry nights, think of me. No matter where I am in the world, I will be looking at the same stars, and through them, we will be united despite the distance between us.
As a hopeless romantic, I was inspired by his letters. They brought me back to the first day I saw him, the first time we kissed. I had never loved any other man the way I loved him, and I cried myself to sleep while reading his letters. Rio had made it to Madrid safely, but life was not as he had imagined. As an immigrant, he had to do odd jobs and work for little money, but he told me that Madrid was a wonderful city. He imagined the two of us walking together at the Parque del Retiro, a park in the eastern portion of the city. It had expansive green spaces, sculptures, statutes, a glass palace, cafés, and a lake full of boats. It was the most beautiful park he had ever seen. He would sit on the concrete stairs by the lake, captivated by the majestic statutes and the splendor of the park, to write me letters.
While working had taken my mind away from these problems, staying at home served only to feed my anxiety. My room felt empty without Rio. Sometimes I opened his cherry-wood armoire: his clothes were there, exactly the way he left them, his slacks on one side, shirts on the other, two pairs of shoes, one black and one brown, on the floor. His clothes still smelled like him. He had taken only a small leather suitcase and told me to sell the rest of his clothes to help with living expenses. I could not make myself sell his clothes, not at first.
Every day, I waited for the mailman. He dressed in blue and carried a large brown bag with thick straps hung over his shoulder. When the mailman left after delivering my mail, I would sort through the correspondence, searching for a white envelope coming from Madrid, Spain. I was happy each time I found one of his letters. I would sit in the living room and read it over and over again. His letters gave me life, transported me to another place—but as the months passed, they did not come as often, and the last two times I called him, I was unable to reach him. At first, I told myself not to worry. He had to save the money for his trip to the United States and then to get us out of Cuba. He was probably busy working.
I did not know how long he would need to stay in Spain before he could travel. The process required a number of complex filings and someone with the expertise to help him through the immigration labyrinth. I rationalized the reasons for the slowdown of his letters until the pessimist in me emerged, turning me into my own worst enemy. At that point, I told myself that he was starting to forget me, and I wondered if our marriage would be strong enough to survive the separation. The long days waiting for his letters played tricks with my mind. It was a vicious circle. If his letters came, I was happy at first, then sank into depression. When they did not come, I was anxious. My nerves were on edge. I was unable to control my emotions and cried often, especially when a romantic song on the radio reminded me of Rio.
During my days at home, sinking into depression, I sometimes imagined him with other women. He was a handsome and tough man with a good heart. Women loved his permanent tan and amber eyes, which made him look like the leading man in a romantic movie. Even after we were engaged to be married, women in the factory had flirted with him in my presence. My mother told me men had needs, and that being in a new country alone for months would eventually lead to uncommitted relationships. I could not let my thoughts trouble me. My role was to be a mother to my children. Nothing else mattered.
In our Santos Suarez neighborhood, there were not too many secrets. Everyone was involved in everyone else’s lives. Once the neighbors learned that Rio’s goal was to ultimately live in the United States and that he had no plans to return, our lives changed. I noticed our home was being watched. Carmen, the woman in charge of the Committee of Defense of the Revolution (CDR), stopped by frequently with the excuse that she was worried about the children and me. My sister and I were convinced her real purpose was to ensure our family was not engaging in antirevolutionary activities. The CDR, which were formed in 1960 after Castro’s rise to power, and its members were the eyes and ears of Castro’s revolution, the success of which depended on close monitoring of those with ties to the exterior. Every evening, our neighbors conducted a neighborhood watch—a government-organized, rotating effort in which assigned groups stood on street corners monitoring activities in the neighborhood. This routine had been in place since shortly after Castro came to power. Those who didn’t contribute to guarding their block were not entitled to certain privileges, such as greater opportunities for promotion. I refused to be a part of this, even though I knew the government would frown on us. It didn’t matter to me. I kept telling myself that soon Rio would meet the requirements to travel to the United States, and then he would claim our family.
While I cared for my parents and children, Berta worked as an architect. Her income was our primary source of revenue, except for the one hundred pesos per month my mother-in-law, Mayda, gave me for the children. It was a lot of money for someone her age to give away. She did not have any obligation to help me, but she did so without hesitation. Some people in Cuba worked two to three weeks to make that amount. I was thankful for her kindness.
My mother’s sewing brought in a small sum of money, which my sister and I refused to take from her. I did my best to stretch the quota of milk, rice, beans, and meat the ration cards enabled us to buy, but Gustavo had a delicate stomach and required blander foods that were seldom available at the bodegas. This forced me to purchase, when available, foods in the black market at higher prices: sweet potatoes, malanga, and yucca. Once I added these foods to Gustavo’s diet, his body responded very favorably; he gained a few pounds and seemed happier and physically stronger.
Since Rio’s departure, we had rearranged our living quarters. Our Zapote Street house consisted, on one side, of the living room, dining room, and kitchen, lined up in a row from front to back; and on the other side, the three bedrooms, also in a row. My parents occupied the first bedroom, beside the living room. Berta and my oldest daughter, Tania, slept in the bedroom adjacent to the dining room, leaving the room in the back of the house for my son, Lynette, and me.
The mornings were chaotic, with everyone rushing for the bathroom at the same time. My father spent an extraordinary amount of time in the bathroom, in part because it was the only peaceful place in the house, and this was a source of daily arguments. Every morning, my father, dragging his feet, made his way to the bread store four blocks away to buy a loaf of bread. The stroke he had had when I was a teenager had affected his walking, and it would take him over an hour to make the trip there and return.
My mother, as her health allowed, sewed for everyone in the house and for some loyal clients. She often had a project at hand. She had a strong work ethic and used to say that the day she stopped working would be the day she would die. Her weak heart affected her circulation and she was too frail to continue to work, but she was stubborn. She enjoyed the feeling of knowing she was contributing to the household in some way. That gave her a sense of independence. I asked her to think about the children. They needed her now more than ever.
Two months before my mother finally decided to stop working, she purchased an expensive perfume called Jade, which was popular at the time. This perfume was the talk of every woman in Havana. She had saved money for months to buy it. My mother was a simple woman who lacked vanity and always thought of others first. This was the only time I recalled her ever wanting something for herself. She treasured her perfume and used it only on special occasions. A month after my mother stopped working, three-year-old Lynette went into her bedroom and grabbed the perfume. She liked the way it smelled and emptied the bottle on herself. Then she walked out of the bedroom quietly and found my mother in the living room, sitting in front of her sewing machine. The familiar musky smell made my mother turn around. There, in front of her, was Lynette, hair and clothes soaked. My mother was livid: she slammed her door and later when she told me about it, she smashed a dinner plate on the tiled kitchen floor. I had not seen her so angry in many years, and it affected her health, leading to episodes of palpitations and, over the course of the next several days, to pulmonary edema and a long hospitalization.
Her obsession with the perfume did not end there. While she was at the hospital, she noticed that a female patient in the bed next to hers had a bottle of the same perfume. My mother offered to exchange a pair of shoes for it. I did not understand why she was making such a fuss. Berta offered to save money to buy it for her, but my mother refused her proposal. She took pride in working for the things she wanted. The woman at the hospital initially agreed to the exchange, only to back off a day later. My mother was angry and stressed. I often wondered why she had become so obsessed, and it was not until years later that I understood: this perfume had been the last symbol of her economic independence.
Berta worked during the day and spent the evenings at the hospital with my mother, extracting the phlegm out of her lungs with a device the doctors had provided. I tried to go to the hospital as often as I could, but it was Berta who dealt with most of the hospitalization.
At last, my mother was released. When Berta brought her home, my mother still looked pale and had lost close to twenty pounds, but the children were happy to have her around. She gave my daughters her fashion magazines, which were among her most precious belongings. The girls were excited. Until then, those magazines had been strictly forbidden, as my mother used them to generate ideas for her sewing projects. They were important to her. I failed to realize at the time that when she gave them up, she gave up part of herself.
Gustavo’s crying woke me up that morning. I walked to his crib and touched his forehead. He was burning up. His long eyelashes stuck together in clumps as if they had been submerged under water.
“What is wrong, my love?” I asked him. His brown eyes glistened as he looked at me with sadness. He stopped crying for a moment as though he were waiting for me to relieve his discomfort, but after a while, his face wrinkled and tears streamed down again. I threw on a pink robe and rushed out to ask Berta for help. While Berta went to look for a thermometer and some ice, I returned to my room and gently rocked Gustavo in my arms. Lynette, who shared my bed, woke up and fussed about the noise. I told her to go back to sleep. She folded my pillow over her ears to muffle the noise and pulled up the sheets.
Moments later, Berta walked in and placed the thermometer in Gustavo’s armpit. We waited a few minutes, and when I checked it I saw the mercury was above the 104-degree mark. Berta and I exchanged glances; there was no time to lose. I did not think it was a good idea to ride on a crowded bus with Gustavo in his condition, so Berta paid a neighbor to take us to the William Soler Hospital. I wrapped Gustavo in a white cotton blanket before we left the house.
When we arrived at the hospital, a doctor in a white coat examined Gustavo and ordered some tests. About an hour later, the results came back. His white blood cells were elevated, but it was not evident why. The doctors admitted him and prescribed antibiotic injections. I stayed with him in a room shared by five other patients and spent the next two nights sleeping on a hospital chair. I had not showered, and I wore the same black skirt and light blue polka-dot blouse the entire time. I felt filthy. Over forty-eight hours had passed since the first penicillin shot. No progress. The doctors were perplexed. On the third day, Berta came to visit Gustavo on her way to work. She held him in her arms and touched his forehead. She noticed he was still hot.
“The doctors are trying to lower the fever and nothing seems to work. I don’t know what to do,” I said.
She hovered over Gustavo’s bed for a while and caressed his forehead. “He seems pale,” she said, and rubbed her eyes. Following a moment of quiet reflection, she turned to me and added: “Staying here the entire time is not the answer. If you don’t take a break, you’ll get sick. You look awful. Go home to freshen up and rest.” She was not asking me, she was ordering me. She could not help herself; it was in her nature to take charge of situations, no matter how little she could do to change them.
“What if something happens when I’m away?” I asked.
“You can’t think that way,” she said. “We have to remain positive. Nothing will happen.”
There was such a comforting conviction in her words, or at least, I thought so then. I needed to believe her. I realized she was right. I would be more valuable to my son if I rested. I left the hospital to go home for a few hours.
While on the bus, I could not take my mind off my son. His small buttocks had lumps on them from the penicillin shots, and he cried often. He looked at me with his big brown eyes full of tears, as if hoping I could make his discomfort go away. I felt helpless.
When I arrived at my house, Martina, one of our neighbors, was there. She was a long-time friend of my mother’s, in her late fifties, a granddaughter of slaves. Martina and my mother sometimes spoke about the time when slavery had existed in Cuba. It angered them both that it had been allowed to happen. And who wouldn’t be? Once, I heard Martina express ill feelings about all Spaniards, not just those who brought black slaves from Africa to Cuba. My mother told her that only a small percent of Spaniards owned or traded slaves, and that she should not label and despise an entire group of people just because of actions taken by a few. This conversation, and similar conversations that followed, made me wonder whether I should trust Martina. After all, my father was a Spaniard. But other than those offensive statements, she treated me kindly. Like my mother, Martina did not have a formal education. She did household work for others for money. When I had my first child, my mother asked her if she wanted to work at our house and help me with the baby, and she was happy about the offer. Not only did she help around the house, she taught me how to cook and iron clothes. My mother had raised me to be the well-educated wife of a rich man, and had not thought things like housework would be important to me.
“A married woman, especially a mother, needs to know how to do these things,” she told me one day as she showed me how to mix the seasonings for yellow rice and chicken.
Martina was ironing some clothes when I arrived. She stopped what she was doing when she saw me and asked about Gustavo.
“I don’t understand; he was fine one day and then this fever came out of nowhere,” I said.
Martina stood by the ironing board looking at me, sweat forming on her forehead. I asked her what was wrong. She shook her head; a long silence followed. She breathed deeply.
“There is something I need to tell you,” she said. “I’m ashamed of what I did. I can’t live with myself if I don’t tell you.”
I looked at her, confused. She looked down.
“My grandson had been very sick, in and out of hospitals for months,” she finally said. “The doctors had given up. I was desperate. I did not know what to do. I didn’t want him to die, not if I could do something about it. My daughter begged me to help her, so I did something I should not have done.” Martina’s eyes filled with tears.
“What did you do?” I said inquisitively.
“My daughter begged me to go see my godfather. He’s a santero. She asked me to bring Gustavo with me. I didn’t know what my godfather was planning to do. He took Gustavo from me and said he would do some magic to help my grandson. He didn’t tell me the truth. He didn’t tell me that his magic would cure my grandson but would make Gustavo sick. When I realized what he had done, at first, I didn’t think it would work. Later when my grandson improved and Gustavo got sick, I wished the earth could have swallowed me.”
“You took Gustavo out the house?” I shouted and looked at her with glaring eyes, eyebrows pulled down together.
“You have to understand my desperation,” she said taking two steps towards me, her hands facing up.
“I trusted you with my child!” I said with a raised voice. “You betrayed my trust. How could you? What gave you the right to take Gustavo out of the house without telling me anything and then hide the fact that you did?” My face felt warm and tense.
“I didn’t think any harm would come to him. I swear,” she said.
“You had no right to take Gustavo to someone like that! And by hiding this from me, you also lied to me.” I could feel my heart racing.
Tears rolled down Martina’s face. “I know I made a mistake. When I saw Gustavo was ill, I did something to undo the harm I caused. Please listen to me!”
“What else did you do?”
“I’m bringing a babalao from Colón to your house. I already told your mother,” she said.
“A babalao?” I asked. A babalao was considered a witchcraft priest among santeros and had the most knowledge about the secrets of Santería. Martina said he had special powers. She had paid him to come from the province of Matanzas to Havana to cure my son, and he was arriving that evening. She already had given my mother the list of supplies he needed: a black chicken, a bottle of rum, a crucifix, and candles. Martina asked me to trust her, even if she knew she did not deserve my trust, but she noticed I did not seem convinced.
“If you don’t do this, Gustavo will die,” she said, looking into my eyes with conviction.
This statement left me with no choice but to place my son’s life in Martina’s hands. I would deal with her betrayal later. I showered, but I was too nervous to eat or rest. I was livid. If it was true this had caused my son’s illness, how could Martina do something like that? I tried to put myself in her position, but I was unable to. I hurried to the hospital and explained to the doctors what had occurred. The doctors tried to talk me out of taking him home, but I would not listen. At my request, they released Gustavo with instructions to return him the next day if he did not improve.
The babalao was already there with Martina and my mother when I walked into the living room carrying Gustavo in my arms. I asked my mother about Berta. She said she was in her room; she was not feeling well. The way my mother looked at me when she said this told me that my sister was not happy about my decision. The babalao sat across from Martina and my mother, drinking a cup of coffee. He was a tall, old black man dressed in white and wearing a beaded necklace. He carried a small, worn-out briefcase. Martina introduced him ceremoniously.
“Laura, this is the man who will save your son.”
He finished drinking the coffee and Martina led him to the room where she and my mother had gathered some of the requested supplies. Martina went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of rum that sat on the counter and a live chicken she had in a brown paper bag, the chicken’s legs tied together with a rope.
“The baby needs to be alone with me. No one else can be in the room. It’s dangerous,” the man said with a scratchy voice. His yellow, decaying teeth made me edgy.
My mother refused to leave Gustavo alone and decided to stay in the room despite the warnings. Nothing anyone could say would change her decision. The babalao closed the door, took my son from my mother’s arms and placed him on the bed. My mother watched from a chair. The man opened his briefcase, and almost at the same time Martina entered the bedroom with the black chicken and the rum. The babalao lit a candle, placed it on the floor. He then lit his cigar with the fire from the candle. The smoke of the cigar spread throughout the small room, provoking my mother’s cough. He waited for her to recover, then took the bag from Martina and signaled her to leave the room.
The chicken flapped its wings, fighting for its life; my mother looked away in horror, anticipating what was coming next. The babalao, with a very quick maneuver, twisted the chicken’s neck several times until it was dead. Then he took a knife and cut its throat. When the room was quiet again, my mother opened her eyes. She was horrified. Her only comfort was that my son was sound asleep. The babalao rubbed Gustavo’s chest with the chicken’s blood and then grabbed a stick with ribbons tied to the end. He held the stick by the handle and moved the ribbons along the length of Gustavo’s body while invoking the spirits. The man twisted his body rhythmically, as if in a trance. After what felt like an eternity, the man completed his magic, which included “fixing” (or giving a special blessing to) Gustavo’s gold chain.
“Take this chain and put it away in a safe place,” the man told my mother. The babalao packed his things and left the room.
When he emerged, I rushed toward him anxiously.
“Well, is my son going to be okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” the man said, and left the house without saying anything else.
Martina left moments later, and my mother, still shaken, explained what she had witnessed. I listened to her while I bathed Gustavo, which woke him up. After I gave him some milk, he fell asleep again and I put him in his crib. Lynette was asleep on my bed. Berta and Tania had slept next to her while the babalao was in the house. After my mother and I cleaned the blood and changed the sheets in their room, where the babalao had performed his magic, they both went back to their bed.
I had difficulty sleeping that night, thinking of the events of the last couple of days. I thought about Rio. I missed him. I missed the sense of security he provided me. I tossed and turned on my bed several times until I finally fell asleep.
The next day, I woke up early to check on my son. His fever had dissipated. I smiled at him when he opened his eyes. He seemed alert and happy. Whether it was a coincidence or black magic, I felt I had made the right decision.
It was October 7, 1969, when I was awakened by my father’s call for help. Lynette and Gustavo were still sound asleep and I tiptoed out of the bedroom to avoid waking them. I left my room almost at the same time Berta left hers, and we rushed to our parents’ bedroom.
My father hovered over my mother, calling her name, shaking her body to get her to respond, but her eyes were fixed and empty like those of a doll, and her mouth drooped on one side. “Can you hear us, Mamá?” I asked. She did not respond and was as pale as the bed sheets. Berta and I looked at each other, both realizing she had suffered a stroke. There was no time to lose. I dashed out of the room without saying another word. Across the street, a white-haired woman wearing a blue nightgown, her hair up in pink rollers, was walking her small white terrier.
“Señora,” I shouted from the porch without thinking. I could not get used to calling people “comrade.” “Please help me! My mother is ill. I think it’s a stroke. Do you know anybody who can drive her to the hospital?”
In Havana at the time, there were no ambulances. There was a cab station a few blocks away, but finding a cab was difficult as they were scarce.
“Don’t worry, mijita,” she said, using an endearing term. “I don’t have a car, but I know who does. The man I know lives around the block. I’ll be right back,” she said.
“Please, tell him to hurry,” I said anxiously.
About twenty minutes later, a blue 1950s Chevrolet parked outside the house. A bald man wearing thick glasses came in, and with the assistance of neighbors who had rushed to our house when they heard what had happened, my mother was lifted and placed in the backseat. Two of the men attempted to accommodate her, but she did not look comfortable. I ran back into the house to get a pillow to support her head. My father was in his bedroom, still shaken. He sat on the bed while Berta rubbed his back and tried to reassure him our mother was going to be fine.
Berta went to the hospital with our mother, and I stayed home with the children and our father. I sat in a chair in the living room, my hands clammy as I recalled the warnings of the babalao. It had been only two weeks since he had performed his ritual. I wondered if his black magic had caused my mother’s stroke. I felt guilty. I should have stopped her from staying in the room with Gustavo.
Berta did not return from the hospital until that evening. The seriousness in her expression when she walked into the living room told me she did not bring good news. “Sorry, Laura. It’s a matter of time,” she said, and went to her room. I did not realize she had left to conceal her tears.
I convinced myself that our mother would recover and return home soon, but I had failed to assess the seriousness of her condition in part because of my fear of death. Berta had more realistic expectations and took time off from work. She spent the next few days at the hospital watching our mother gasp for air, watching her grow weaker each day. She was only 58, too young to have such a debilitating condition. One morning, recognizing the end was near, Berta called the priest to administer the last rites.
In the afternoon, the doctor, dressed in the typical white coat, came to see our mother and said she seemed stable. Moments after he walked out of the room, Berta noticed her pallid face, her rapid short breaths. Something was not right. She ran after the doctor, grabbed him by his arm, and forced him to return. On the way back, the doctor said he had checked her and that she was fine, but Berta insisted. Within minutes of the doctor’s return, our mother took one final, long breath and passed away. Her body stayed very still. Berta told me later that it was as if only a shell of her had remained. The doctor apologized and exited the room, leaving Berta sobbing over our mother’s body.
My fear of death had not allowed me to be at my mother’s side at the time of her passing, something I would always regret.
On the day of the funeral, a female neighbor came in early to help with breakfast and lunch for the children. Another woman ironed my children’s clothes. I had been useless since I had heard the news of my mother’s passing. All I could do was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Berta had to work that morning, but our neighbors stepped in and filled the void. Martina came before lunch and noticed I was still in bed, sheets over my head. She uncovered me and turned on the lights.
“Laura, get up. Come on. Get out of bed and get ready. There is nothing you can do by staying in bed like this,” she said.
I looked at her with no emotion reflected on my face, like I was numb.
“I feel like a part of me died,” I said somberly.
She sat on the bed and took my hand between hers.
“Life is hard, mi niña,” she said affectionately. “My mother died when I was twenty years old. I lost my husband ten years ago. These things happen, and we can’t let them beat us. We have to keep going, not only for us, but for those we love. Your poor mother did so much damage to you.” She shook her head.
I raised my head and looked at her inquisitively. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“She didn’t prepare you to face life,” she said. “She worked so hard to send you to the best private schools but didn’t teach you how to cook or iron clothes, never gave you any responsibility at home. I had to teach you these things when Tania was born. Your mother treated you like a princess. You’re not ready for everything you are facing. Your sister, on the other hand, was in and out of hospitals, fighting between life and death when she was young. This made her strong, much stronger than you.”
“It’s not like I didn’t help her. I tutored students since I was fourteen to help my parents,” I said.
“Only because of your sense of obligation, not because your mother asked you,” she said. “She always imagined you married to a wealthy man, living in a house where maids did everything for you. She told me this. We argued about it many times.”
I stayed in silence and pictured my mother sitting by her sewing machine for hours at a time to give my sister and me a proper education. I regretted arguing with her about small things.
“I miss her, Martina. First Rio leaves, and now her,” I said as I sat up on the bed and embraced her. She held me in her arms and kissed my head.
“Come on, Laurita. Get out of bed. Be strong. Search deep inside you. There is a strong woman within you. You’ll see. This too will pass.”
She caressed my hair. I closed my eyes and imagined I was in my mother’s arms. Gradually, this feeling helped me find comfort. She was right. I had to be strong, and her words gave me the push I needed. A shower would do me good.
By the time the viewing began, at around 8 p.m., over two hundred people had gathered at the funeral home, most of them dressed in black. Seating was scarce and many stood around and mingled. My mother’s body was in a separate room, surrounded by a few rocking chairs for the immediate family. Her beige coffin was covered with red roses and had a glass through which the visitors could see her upper body. Outside the viewing area there was another room for the visitors, also with a few rocking chairs.
My father arrived an hour after the service started. He dressed in a gray suit, wore his gray plastic-frame glasses with thick lenses, and walked slowly, dragging his feet as usual. He was barely five-foot three but corpulent, although he had managed to lose almost twenty pounds during my mother’s illness. Being seventeen years older than my mother, he had never thought she would die before him. He had lived a hard life. His parents died when he was thirteen. He left Spain, the place where he was born, to live with an uncle in Argentina. On the ship from Spain to South America, he lost his uncle’s address and ended up being taken in by the Spanish chancellor in Argentina. He lived with the chancellor until he was eighteen, obtained a job as a merchant marine, and then traveled to the United States. The Great War had started, and my father joined the United States Navy, where he worked as a machinist on a large vessel. Near the end of the war, a grenade detonated near him and damaged part of his skull. Hours of surgery had left him with a metal plate in his head. My father had shared this story with everyone in the family. He was proud of having fought in the war.
After the war ended, he had become involved in the illegal trade of mink. One day, he heard a warrant existed for his arrest, and he left the United States to go to Cuba. His years at sea had turned his skin leathery and dark. Two strokes, Alzheimer’s, and the metal plate fused to his cranium had left him in a robot-like condition.
My father looked at my mother, and for a moment, he seemed to recall the good times. Tears rolled down his face as he lovingly caressed the glass that separated his hands from the face of the woman he had adored, the woman who had dedicated her life to caring for him and for his children. She had worked for years creating art in her sewing machine with her soft, ivory hands. She had seemed so refined to him. She represented everything he never was. And now, she was there, her delicate, fair skin, her angelical face. He sobbed and kissed the glass between them. Berta stood next to our father and hugged him quietly.
“Come on Papá, sit down,” she said.
“I loved her so much, and now. . .” He was choked by his tears.
“Let’s go to the next room, Papá,” said Berta.
Berta accompanied him to the adjacent room, where most of the visitors were, and she helped him sit in a rocking chair.
When I arrived at the funeral home, after waiting until past midnight at Mayda’s house for the children to fall asleep, only a few relatives remained: a handful of cousins, an aunt, and an uncle. They had accompanied my sister through the entire night. They approached me when I came in and gave me their condolences. Moments later, I walked toward the viewing room where my mother’s body rested. As soon as I saw her coffin, my eyes became moist with sadness. It had taken her death for me to truly understand how much she meant to me, to value her strength and determination. Berta, exhausted from the long night, walked up to me and placed her arm around my shoulders. We stood by our mother, watching her rest in perpetual peace. Her hands were crossed over her heart, a rosary wrapped around them.
“We lost her, sister,” Berta said as she wept. We embraced silently.
“Mamá, we promise you that we will take care of each other as long as we live. We love you, Mamá,” I said.
We would always stand by this promise.
Berta had been dating Antonio since June 1967, about two years before the loss of our mother. Antonio, an engineer, was six feet tall, a bookworm, introverted, and exceptionally intelligent. His Spanish heritage was evident in his features, in his black hair and white skin. He worked at the José Antonio Echevarría University in Havana, where he had met Berta as she performed architectural work for the university while completing her degree. Initially, each of them was dating someone else, but their relationships were going through periods of upheaval. For months, Antonio visited Berta almost daily and told her: “If you break up with your boyfriend, I’ll break up with my girlfriend, so we can get together.”
Berta told him repeatedly she had no intentions of terminating her then-current relationship. He was persistent. Eventually, his girlfriend, like many other professionals, left Cuba to travel to the United States. Berta ended her relationship with her boyfriend after an argument, and Antonio and Berta began to date.
The first time Antonio came to our house, Tania was terrified due to his height, and when he walked into the living room and she looked up at him, she ran and hid behind her bedroom door. Lynette and Gustavo were more curious about him. During his first two visits to our house, they sat across from him in the living room and giggled, and I had to take them outside to play. My mother, on the other hand, was not thrilled about Antonio. Although his career choice was appropriate, she wanted Berta to accompany me to the United States whenever I was able to leave, insisting I should not be in a new country without my sister.
Berta was in her fourth year of architecture in 1968, approximately five months before Rio left, when my mother forced her to abandon her studies at the university and prepare to travel with me. Antonio had no say in the matter. Berta and Antonio agreed that if she had to travel, he would accompany her, and he too completed the necessary immigration forms.
Antonio had a difficult time putting books down. He was always reading. One day a woman in the neighborhood came to our house and told Berta he had crossed the street while reading a book and a car had nearly killed him. We all laughed about this story; it became almost like his trademark, the vision he evoked when people described him. Berta talked to him and asked him to be more careful, but she realized that reading was his life. He read engineering books written in English and political books written in Spanish. One was titled Territorial Expansion of the United States. He frequently read passages to my oldest daughter, Tania, and although she was too little to understand, she sat next to him and Berta, paying attention to every word he said. She enjoyed the attention. It saddened me to realize she was beginning to look at Antonio like a father.
Berta was petite, with shoulder-length black hair, black eyes, and a pretty face. She was about five-foot-one, two inches shorter than me. Her frequent illnesses as a child were to blame for her height. Berta was a realist who said she did not live in the clouds like I did. I argued with her when she said these things and never told her I agreed with her assessment. I was a romantic and composed of opposite qualities. I was fascinated by both capitalism and revolutionary ideas, a Catholic who was intrigued by the occult, equally caring and stubborn. Berta looked at life in black and white. She was a problem-solver like me, except she did not like to create melodramatic situations, even when faced with a difficult moment. She took life as it came and did not dwell on things. Antonio liked her matter-of-fact attitude. Berta and Antonio were united by how practical they both were. He had fallen in love with her from the moment he saw her. Although he seldom spoke about his feelings, he showed his love for her by being playful and geeky around her.
Antonio and Berta were scheduled to be married in December 1969, but after the death of my mother, they had to postpone their wedding. Until then, Antonio’s visits to the house had been restricted and supervised due to my mother’s old-fashioned ways (which had always been less effective with me because of how rebellious I was). After my mother passed away, I felt it was foolish to continue to monitor my twenty-eight-year-old sister’s dates.
One Saturday night, Antonio and Berta went out to the movies. Berta had put her hair down and wore a white-and-pink polka-dot dress my mother had made for her, which she wore only on special occasions. She complemented her dress with white heels. Antonio smiled when he saw her. He too was dressed sharply, in a blue long-sleeved shirt and tan slacks.
Berta later told me about the events of the evening. They held hands as they walked through the scarcely lit streets of Santos Suarez on their way to the Los Angeles Theater. He embraced her and tried to kiss her, but she turned her face away. Like me, she had been taught in a Catholic school. She felt it was not proper for a young woman to be kissed in public. She followed these principles with a lot more discipline than I had. Berta and Antonio strolled by the Santos Suarez Park. People walked their dogs and a couple kissed under a park lamp. Noticing how uncomfortable that made her, Antonio squeezed her hand and smiled at her. She shook her head in disapproval of the couple.
Berta and Antonio passed by the Pizzería Sorrento. People were waiting in line to go in. The smell of fresh pizza and melted mozzarella cheese was enticing, but, as tempting as it was, they did not have time to wait for a pizza as they were running late for the movie.
The Los Angeles movie theater was located on Juan Delgado Street, approximately a mile away from the house. While they waited in line to purchase their tickets, Antonio placed his arm around her. Although Berta was uncomfortable with this public display of affection, she did not want embarrass Antonio, so she let him keep his arm where it was. Suddenly, Berta heard a familiar female voice call her name. She turned around and froze.
“Tía Sara?” she asked.
My mother’s sister stood in front of her with an angry expression. She was fifty-six years old, with short, red hair, and carried a long umbrella. She scolded Berta.
“You have no respect for your dead mother, do you? What would your poor mother say if she saw you like this? Oh dear lord, she would die again!” she said and shook her head in disapproval.
“Tía Sara, Antonio and I are getting married,” Berta whispered. “Can we discuss this at a later time, please?”
“Right now, I’ll go to see your sister. How can she allow you to go out by yourself?” Tía Sara asked.
Berta, in a low tone of voice, tried to reason with her. She was not doing anything wrong.
Our aunt shook her head and walked away hurriedly toward our house. Antonio had noticed couples around them giggling. He was upset at Sara, but he would not allow her to ruin the night. He told Berta to forget about the incident and enjoy the movie.
Tía Sara walked as fast as her legs allowed her. Despite her age, she was accustomed to walking long distances and was agile as a tigress. She rapped on the door repeatedly when she arrived. “Laura, it’s me, Sara, open up!” she commanded.
“Coming, coming,” I said from inside.
When I opened the door, I noticed the indignation in her face but did not acknowledge it. “Tía Sara, what a pleasant surprise!”
I suspected something was wrong. She had never visited our house after 9 p.m., and it was almost 9:30 when she arrived.
“Surprise, eh? Do you know where your sister is?”
“Yes. She is at the movies. But please come in,” I said, opening the door wide to let her in. I asked her to sit down and offered her coffee. She did not care for coffee and did not wish to sit down. She was fuming.
“They were hugging in public! Can you believe that? If my sister were alive and saw her daughter like that, she would die again. How can you allow this to happen? You are her older sister. You should know better!” she said.
“She’s twenty-eight years old. They’re planning to get married,” I replied.
She disagreed with my reasoning, emphasizing my mother would have never allowed my sister to go out alone, and that it was a disgrace I had disrespected her wishes only a few months after her death. I guessed she never knew about Rio and me. The way she spoke, she made me feel as if I had committed a capital offense. Realizing I would not be able to convince her, I assured her I would talk to my sister when she returned. Sara appeared slightly more satisfied, but she said she would return another day to check on us.
When Berta returned from the theater with Antonio, I was waiting in the living room, and we exchanged our stories of the evening. I suggested they consider moving forward with the wedding. No matter what they did, someone in the family would be offended, either for having the wedding so close to my mother’s passing or for going out alone. They agreed.
“Well, let’s start planning for the wedding,” I said.
Berta and Antonio smiled, and my sister embraced me. The next day, we began to plan every detail.
A bridal shower was planned for the last week of March 1970 at the Copa Room of the Riviera Hotel in Havana. The state of things in Cuba affected our plans for the wedding ceremony, and we had to schedule two separate events: one for the friends who shared the government’s ideology, and the other for those with religious beliefs. Between the two events, over two hundred people were invited. The civil wedding was held at the Palace of Matrimony on the first Saturday of April 1970, and the religious wedding took place the following day at the Pasionistas de la Víbora Church. A small ceremony followed the religious wedding for intimate friends and family.
The wedding ceremonies were very different. The people who attended the civil ceremony drove Russian-made small cars and wore casual clothing. The people who attended the church ceremony arrived in old Cadillacs and Chevrolets and dressed in elegant suits and beautiful evening dresses they had purchased prior to the triumph of the revolution. After the small reception Sunday night, the newlyweds stayed at the Sevilla Hotel in Havana, and the following day they departed to the eastern province of Santa Clara, where they spent ten days.
When they returned from their honeymoon, Antonio moved into our house. He and Berta took the bedroom at the back, and I moved with my children to the room across from the dining room.
Antonio’s first month at our house was rather difficult for him. Our father was starting to lose his balance and he fell frequently. He weighed over three hundred pounds, and I could not lift him by myself. Every time he fell, I had to inconvenience the newlyweds to help me pick him up from the floor.
In no time, Antonio found himself with a new wife, three “adopted” children, a senile father-in-law, and a sister-in-law, who, according to him, saw the world upside down. Berta had hoped they could live on their own, but Cuba’s housing shortage made it impossible for a newlywed couple to do so.
Antonio was heavy into politics and would often listen to Voice of America radio in the windowless room he shared with Berta. My daughter Tania would sit with him listening to the transistor radio, and he would remind her to be quiet. The walls have ears, he told her once. She did not understand the meaning of his words, and for a while she took these words literally. When Tania was older, she realized Voice of America was a prohibited radio station. In a short period of time, Antonio had earned my daughter’s love, and she loved him like a father.
One day, when Antonio and Berta sat in the porch enjoying the warm evening, Lynette went outside carrying a small pillow under her arm and wearing a pink nightgown that was too big for her.
“Tío Antonio. I can’t sleep,” she said.
She stood, waiting, in front of him, her dark hair covering most of her face. Antonio laughed, picked her up, and placed her on his lap. He then rocked her in the rocking chair, while he and Berta held hands. A few minutes later, Gustavo, my youngest son, appeared, wearing animal-print pajamas. He gave his pillow to Berta, signaling he wanted her to hold him. She picked him up and sat him on her lap.
“So much for a quiet time,” Antonio said.
“I’m sorry. They miss their father,” Berta said.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I knew what I was getting into before we got married. I suppose this will serve as practice for when we have our own children.”
They remained silent and rocked the children while they watched the neighbors walk by. When I went out to the porch, I found the children asleep in Antonio’s and Berta’s arms. One by one, I took them to the bedroom and put them to bed.
Antonio and Berta stayed outside on the rocking chairs, holding hands while they glanced at a glowing full moon and a sky full of stars.
I could not sleep and kept thinking about Rio, wondering why he had not written in a couple of months. Tired of staring at the ceiling, I put on a robe and went to the living room. I had several sheets of blank paper and a pen on the coffee table. I turned on one of the table lamps and started to write: “Dear Rio.” I paused, unsure of what I had already told him a week before when I wrote my last letter. I took a moment to gather my thoughts, then began to write again. I had finished the first page when I heard a faint knock. It was about 7 a.m. on a Saturday and everyone in the house was still asleep.
“Good morning,” a strange woman said with a smile when I opened the door. I could smell her flowery perfume. “I know is too early for visits, but I’m in Cuba for only a few days and have to make several stops today. I bring news from your husband.”
Surprised, I asked her to come in. Judging by her clothes and her accent, it was apparent she was not Cuban. Before I closed the door, I looked outside to check if any of the neighbors might have seen her come in, but I did not see anyone.
“Please have a seat,” I said. She sat down on the sofa. “Would you like some coffee?” I added.
“That would be wonderful.”
I went to the kitchen and brought back small two cups of steaming coffee. While the two of us drank, I noticed her attire: a pink dress with one-inch shoulder straps, and several golden bracelets, a little juvenile for her middle age. She had black hair (not natural but dyed) and crimson lips and nails. I could smell her flowery scent from where I sat in a chair across from her, the coffee table between us.
“You have a lovely place,” she said as she looked around the room. A couple of years before, I had restored the living-room furniture myself. At the time, the only fabric available had blue-and-white stripes, which I did not find particularly attractive. It was clear she was only being polite.
“Oh, thank you,” I said. I looked at the floor next to the sofa and noticed Lynette’s brunette doll with a missing arm and Gustavo’s blue car.
We drank the coffee slowly, taking small sips. She asked me about the children. “The girls are fine, growing so much. Gustavo, my youngest, on the other hand, is always sick. It’s his allergies. I don’t know if it is the humidity in this house that makes him cough. He also has food allergies.”
She responded sympathetically. Then the discussion turned to Rio, which was the purpose of her visit. She knew many details about his life. During the first twelve months after leaving Cuba, he stayed in Madrid doing menial jobs, from cleaning floors, to walking dogs, to running errands. Through some friends, he eventually learned that a Cuban actress in downtown Madrid—the daughter of the woman now in my living room—was looking for someone to care for her two children and run errands while she worked. The position paid adequately. Rio liked children, and he needed the money. Her daughter had initially wanted a woman for the job, but when Rio, the only man who showed up for the interview, told her his story, she thought she could trust him. Rio knew how to sell his services. In addition to caring for the children and running errands, he could fix things around her penthouse. A place as big as her daughter’s always had something to be fixed. Rio was charismatic and charming. It was an easy sell.
In order to care for the children, Rio had to move in. “She’s divorced. It’s always helpful to have a man in the house,” the woman said, reaching into her purse and extracting several pictures of her daughter, Rio, and the children. She handed them to me. I looked at each one. Rio seemed happy in his new surroundings.
As the woman spoke so eloquently about Rio, I kept thinking about him moving into a divorced woman’s penthouse. I was very jealous, and who wouldn’t be when confronted with a similar situation? I felt envious of the actress’s beauty. She had long black hair, green eyes, flawless skin. Rio was very handsome too, with a cheerful personality and suave demeanor. I was certain any woman would fall in love with him. My jealousy caused me to imagine them together. I was upset and hurt, but I remained pleasant. I returned the pictures. She put them in her purse and extracted five bills of $20 each that Rio had sent me. She also gave me a pink plastic bag.
“My daughter bought some clothes for your children based on the sizes Rio gave her. Her gift to you. She can only imagine what you are going through,” she said.
I thanked her. She stayed a few more minutes and told me how much Rio loved the children and me. “That is all he talks about,” she said. I wondered if she said this because she realized it was what I needed to hear. After she left, I placed the money and clothes on top of the dining-room table. I could not remove the images of the pictures from my mind. I went to my room and sobbed.
A couple of days later, in the afternoon, I made a trip to the telephone company to call Rio at the new number the actress’s mother had given me. Unlike other days, when I had to spend hours trying to place a call, I was able to get through. Due to the three-minute limit, I needed be brief. Rio answered.
“Rio, it’s me, Laura.”
“Laura, what a great surprise. At last we get to talk. I miss you and the children. How are you and the children doing?” he asked.
I heard children’s laughter through the telephone.
“Tania is at school and Lynette and Gustavo stayed home with my father, but I don’t have time to talk about them now. Tell me, Rio, why? Why would you move in with a divorced woman? I saw your pictures with her and her children. There you are, having the time of your life, while I am here raising our children in this hellish place.”
I was hurt, but I needed to be careful with my choice of words. I was told the government listened to conversations routinely, especially those to the exterior. I did not want them to disconnect me.
“I love you. I swear nothing has happened,” he said sounding convincing. “Don’t you see I’m trying to do everything I can to rush the process? These things take time.”
“Are you sure you are trying?” I asked.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Rio, I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said. I regretted having placed the call without first taking the time to calm down. I was making unfair accusations with no basis.
“I can’t wait to see you and the children,” he said. “You’re the only woman in my life, and I love you.” The seriousness of his tone told me he was truthful, and I felt embarrassed.
“It’s so hard to be away from you. I’m very tired, Rio.” I paused. A long silence followed, interrupted by his voice. “I love you, Laura,” he said.
“I . . .” I said, and heard a dial tone. I was out of minutes. I breathed deeply as I walked out of the booth. “Maybe another day.”
I left the telephone company with an expression of defeat. I felt like a prisoner. I was drowning and was not sure how to save myself.
A few months after Rio moved to the actress’s home, he fulfilled the requirements to travel to the United States and left Spain. I was hopeful again. Now, our opportunity to leave Cuba was closer than ever. Rio filed the necessary papers; the visas and the money would arrive soon. I was happy Rio had been true to his word, but neither one of us could have predicted what occurred. On May 31, 1970, less than two years after Rio had left, the Cuban government abruptly decided to discontinue the emigration of Cuban citizens. The visas and the money arrived on June 3, three days too late. If Rio had not given up his seat to Ana’s son when he was originally scheduled to leave Cuba, I would have received the money on time. Now, our future was uncertain. The invisible bridge that separated us had collapsed.
By then, many professionals had left the island. From 1959 until 1970 approximately 500,000 people left Cuba, many of them in direct flights to the United States. In a country of approximately 10 million people, this massive emigration was of great significance to the deteriorating economy. Castro thought that eliminating the ability of Cubans to leave would help him retain the human capital necessary to allow his revolution to prosper. The move shattered my dream of reuniting with Rio. It also forever changed the lives of thousands of Cubans as families were separated with no hope of reuniting.
After this new development, I realized there was nothing I could do to control Rio’s life, or mine. We had an honest discussion about our situation.
“This could take years, Rio. I can’t ask you to stay alone. It’s not fair to you,” I said.
“Is that what you want?”
“You know I don’t. Do we have a choice?”
“I never asked for this. My only wish was to have a family. You know that. I can’t be happy until I have you and the children by my side again.”
“Neither one of us asked for this,” I said sadly.
“I still don’t understand why you’re fine with me seeing other women. You’re always thinking about others. How about you? Aren’t you lonely?”
“You’re in a big country with no one. I have the children.”
“I won’t stop trying to find a way to get you out. No matter what happens, the moment you’re able to leave, you will be the only woman in my life. That is my promise to you. I only ask that if you decide to be with another man, keep him away from the children.”
I remained silent. We both knew that would never happen. My upbringing, traditional values, and devotion to my family would not allow me to date other men. My children came first, and nothing would change that. In the meantime, I would do anything I could to try to leave. My children’s futures depended on it.
It was early August 1970, approximately two years after my husband had left.
On the surface, Havana, with its music, colorful people, religions, majestic palm trees, and aqua-green waters might look like a paradise to foreigners’ eyes. However, a closer inspection revealed a very different reality. Many of its people felt betrayed and suffered through another dark stage. Freedom of the press, speech, movement, and religion were now part of Cuba’s past. Ration cards increasingly limited the food quotas available to each person. The frequency of electricity blackouts increased. Often, my family and I sat on the porch by the light of a kerosene lamp waiting for the electricity to be turned on. Sometimes, the water did not come out of the faucets, and trucks began to deliver water to the neighborhood. People had to stand in line, each carrying two empty buckets, waiting for their turn to fill them. When they did, they had to balance the buckets carefully, one on each side, to avoid spilling them on their walk back home. The government takeover of industries brought economic development and commerce to a halt. Now more than ever, the evolving economic and social reality made our need to leave an imperative.
It was early September 1970. I woke up early that Monday morning and dressed elegantly in a light blue-and-white polka-dot dress, Berta’s pearl necklace, and heels, unlike the old days, when I had worn a plain white blouse, comfortable slacks, and flat shoes to go to work. I had reluctantly asked Martina to care for the children, but I told Tania, who was very responsible for her age, to help keep an eye on her siblings. I had no other choice. My father was too old, and Berta and her husband were at work. Martina arrived at 9 a.m. as planned. I thanked her for coming on such a short notice. She reminded me she had promised my mother on her deathbed that she would care of her family.
“You and your sister are like my own daughters,” she said, embracing me.
I smiled and thanked her, but deep down, Martina’s prior actions did not allow me to trust her. I noticed the clock on the wall. I was running late and hoped Mayda remembered the appointment at the Immigration Office. I paced around the house impatiently until my mother-in-law arrived.
Mayda looked younger than her age. She wore a white dress that accentuated her curves. Dark glasses protected her eyes from the sun. Mayda and I walked a few blocks to the taxi station and took one to Miramar, a fancy area of Havana where many foreign dignitaries lived. The cab was an old Chevrolet from the 1950s that smelled like burnt oil and was driven by an unfriendly driver, but I was thankful we had found one.
“Where in Miramar are you going?” the driver asked.
“The Immigration Office,” I replied.
The driver wrote something down and we departed the station.
Mayda asked me about the purpose of the appointment. She did not see the point after three previous unsuccessful visits. I said I did not want to give up, but deep down, coming back empty-handed after each successful visit had affected me emotionally. Sometimes I would sit for a long while staring at the floor, with no desire to eat or do anything, hoping I could have wings and fly away.
“Do you think there is a chance?” she asked, to make conversation.
“Frankly, I don’t know anymore. . .”
We remained silent for the rest of the trip.
When the cab left us in front of Immigration, I looked around to watch for demonstrators, but the street seemed quiet, except for an occasional car passing by. As of late, demonstrations, organized by the government in front of the Immigration building to intimidate those who wanted to leave, were a common occurrence.
We stood in line waiting for our turn. Almost two hours later, a tall, middle-aged man dressed in a blue uniform walked up to us. From his assertiveness, I concluded he was someone with the authority to make decisions.
“What is your name?” he asked, giving me a flirtatious glance. I was not sure why he was picking me out of the line, but I gave him my name. “And you are?” he added, turning to Mayda.
“She is my mother-in-law, Mayda,” I answered before Mayda had a chance to respond.
“Good morning, ladies,” the man said pleasantly. “Please follow me into my office.”
We complied, and we heard people in line whispering to each other, probably wondering why we had been taken out of the line. He led us to small office with a desk and two chairs.
“Please, sit down,” he asked politely.
I explained our situation, but he seemed disengaged. I paused and waited for the officer to make a suggestion on how to proceed with my case.
“You’re a very beautiful, young woman, Laura,” he said while he played with a blue pen. “Perhaps we could work something out.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Listen, let me give you my telephone number,” he said, scribbling something on a piece of paper and handing it to me. “We can meet for dinner one of these nights.”
I placed the paper on his desk.
“What are you suggesting? What kind of woman do you think I am?” I stood up angrily, felt my heart palpitating, the blood rushing to my head.
“I think some things are better discussed over a nice dinner. That’s all,” he said, maintaining his calm demeanor, as if this was not the first time he had been in this situation.
“You’re insulting me! I will never meet with you anywhere outside this office. Here’s the letter I wrote explaining my situation,” I said, placing an envelope on his desk. “If you don’t resolve this problem, I’ll find someone who will. Let’s go, Mayda.”
I left the office abruptly, followed by my mother-in-law.
We walked outside Immigration, thankful there were no protestors. I felt my blood pressure rising, my face turning red as I walked toward the nearest bus station.
“Can you believe what just happened?” I asked.
“Well, Laura. You need to calm down. If I were in your situation. . .” Mayda hesitated. “He seemed like a polite man. I don’t see anything wrong if you could get your way. . .”
“How can you suggest that? You know me. I love my family, but I would never do that. Are you serious?”
“You do what you think is best. I’m not suggesting anything.” Mayda backed off.
We stood at the bus stop for twenty minutes under the scorching sun until a bus, so full that people were hanging from both doors, arrived.
“We can’t get into that bus!” Mayda protested.
“We have no choice,” I said. “Have you seen any cabs in the last twenty minutes? Let’s go.”
I was so angry I was able to transform my anger into strength to push my way into the crowded bus, pulling Mayda along. Finally, we managed to get to a safe spot and held on to the rails. Sweaty bodies surrounded us, all packed together tightly. The sour, pungent smell was nauseating. My hair was ruined, my clothes wrinkled; my shoes had been stepped on. I was hoping the bus would slowly empty with each stop, but that never happened. Some people would get out, others would come in.
When we returned home, Tania was already back from school and was in her room. Lynette and Gustavo were taking a siesta. We had not eaten lunch, but Martina had cooked for the kids and had left some rice and beans in the stove for us. She asked me how it went. I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
“I better go home now. You should eat and try to rest before Lynette and Gustavo wake up.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
I walked her to the door. Once outside, I closed the door behind us to have a chance to talk to Martina in private and pay her for her services. Martina reluctantly took the money, and I told her about the officer’s proposal but not about Mayda’s response. Mayda clearly had more modern ideas than I did, and the last thing I wanted was to speak ill of her. Besides, no matter how different we were, she did more for the children than many grandmothers. The children adored her.
“I don’t know what to do anymore, Martina. I see my life crumbling, and there is nothing I can do,” I said staring at the floor.
“You have to keep fighting. Tomorrow is another day.”
“I don’t know where I will find the strength to do it,” I said sadly, my eyes filled with tears.
Martina hugged me before she left. Her embrace made me think of my mother. I sat in a rocking chair and reflected on the events of the day. I did not want to judge Mayda. She too had faced a difficult life. She had lost her husband when she was thirty-five years old. He was fifty-one. Her oldest son had died a few weeks later. I could only imagine the pain she must have endured, her desolation, when she decided she no longer wished to be a mother to Rio. The loss of two of the people she had loved most had left her empty. She had nothing else to give, and she never remarried. Her success and the small fortune she had built made her suspicious of any man who approached her. Now that my life was so uncertain, I understood Mayda. I could understand how losing control of one’s life felt like. Depleted of energy, I walked back inside with heavy steps while trying to hold back the tears. I felt hopeless and very sad.
Three months after my last visit to Immigration, I decided to return, but this time with the children. I dressed plainly: ill-fitting beige pants and a white blouse, flat shoes, no makeup. As the old Chevrolet approached Havana’s Miramar section, I noticed how the state of decay that now consumed most of the city had failed to reach this luxurious section of Havana. Prior to Castro’s triumph, Miramar had been an upscale neighborhood with spectacular residences inhabited by the most affluent social class. It was so beautiful that, after 1959, when Miramar’s residential properties were confiscated by the government, many were given to high-ranking officials or designated for foreign dignitaries.
The driver did not say much during our journey, and I took the time to organize my papers. Traffic was light, as usual, since people mainly relied on public transportation. Lynette and Gustavo played with their toys, but Tania seemed more concerned with her surroundings—the linear park in the middle of 5th Avenue lined with palm trees and sprinkled with white concrete benches, the well-kept two- and three-story buildings and homes along either side of the avenue, the people walking in the park.
Finally, the driver stopped in front of the Immigration building. Once inside, I stood in a long line of people who waited their turn. I asked Tania and Lynette to sit down and watch Gustavo. The two-hour wait made the children restless, especially Gustavo, who started to rearrange the empty chairs. As people left the building, I observed their disappointed faces and drooped shoulders. At last, an officer signaled me to approach his desk. I asked the children to join me and took Gustavo by his hand, while the girls stood one on each side of me.
“Good morning, sir,” I said. Without realizing it, I used the word “sir,” this now forsaken word no longer welcome in the new Cuba. “Our visas and the money for our trip arrived three days after the deadline. I hope you can make an exception. I have three children who need their father,” I said. My daughters raised their heads trying to see the man behind the counter, while I handed our papers to the officer. He examined the papers briefly.
“Laura, right?” He paused and glanced at the papers again to verify my name. “Why did your husband leave in the first place?”
“We. . .” I hesitated. “The new system is not what we had expected. We want the best for our children.” I finished saying what was on my mind only to realize too late I had been too blunt.
The officer responded in a vulgar tone: “Lady, first, we’re not allowing anyone else to leave. Second, do you think leaving Cuba is good for your children? Get it through your head! Your husband doesn’t care about you, or your kids. Do you think if he cared he would’ve left alone?”
I took a deep breath. “It wasn’t his idea. He did what I asked him to do,” I said, feeling my face getting warmer. The officer smiled sarcastically.
“Lady, frogs will grow hair before you see your husband again!”
His words gave me pause, made me feel as if a brick wall had been suddenly erected in front of me. I took a deep breath and changed my approach. I begged him to let us leave Cuba. I realized I was making him angrier. Disregarding my pleas, he called the next customer. I collected my papers and we left. While we walked to the exit, I thought, again, about the unintended consequences of Rio’s unselfish action when he was originally scheduled to leave Cuba. The officer had made it clear. I would never be able to leave.
As we left the building, I noticed a truck of the Federation of Cuban Women, a government-sponsored organization, unloading some of their constituents. The women gathered across the avenue, directly in front of the building. They carried signs, sticks, and other items I could not identify. When they noticed my children and me exiting the building, they began to yell obscenities and derogatory terms at us. I ignored them and walked hurriedly away from the Immigration building. I looked back and noticed the women had crossed the street to follow us; soon after, they began to throw sticks and rocks at us. A rock nearly missed me. I was terrified.
“Dirty gusanos. Traitors!” they yelled. The women were getting closer. I told my daughters to run as fast as they could. Scared, the girls obeyed. I held my son in my arms, protecting his head and body from the rocks while I ran; he panicked and cried. I turned my head. The women were walking faster.
A cab pulled up to the curb and the driver yelled, “Lady, hurry up. Get in. Quickly!”
I opened the rear door, let the girls in first. When I was inside the car, the driver sped away.
“They are animals!” I cried. I was agitated, out of breath.
“You’re not the first person I have picked up like this. I agree. They’re savages.”
On the way home, I told the young cab driver our story and what had occurred. He shook his head.
“Lady, you’re safe now. Everything’s going to be fine. They can’t keep you here forever. I’m sure that your husband will do something.”
“I’m not sure anyone can do anything for us now,” I said, gazing emptily at the streets.
When the cab arrived at the house, I handed him a twenty-peso bill.
“Don’t worry about it. Use it for your children,” he said.
I insisted, and he reluctantly took it. He wished me luck and drove away. I went inside the house and found Berta in the kitchen. She had left work early. I told her about my unsuccessful visit to Immigration. “I’m so sorry, Laura,” Berta said, unable to find comforting words.
“I’m out of options. There’s nothing I can do.” I said with no emotion, feeling empty inside. Berta didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
I fed the children lunch and went to my bedroom without eating anything. An overwhelming sadness invaded me, and I started to weep. I felt as if pieces of me had been chipped away and there was nothing left. I needed to be alone.
I was in the kitchen crushing garlic when dark thoughts rushed through my head, much darker than other days. I was alone in the house and felt very tired. I had not slept for three days, each passing day sinking deeper into depression. The mailman had not left any letters from Rio for over a month. I missed him and my mother. I felt as if I were falling slowly into a crevice in the ocean floor and everything had gone dark. So many times, I had wished I had wings to fly away from this place.
Several unsuccessful visits to the Immigration Office had led me to realize what I should have known since my first visit. I had been in denial all along, but now, it was clear. I would never be able to leave. I would never be able to take my children to freedom. My husband would move on and forget about his family. Why would he wait for someone like me? I was no longer the person he left. My hair had begun to turn white and sadness consumed me.
I could not breathe. I had tried to save myself from the fire of pessimism time and time again but it was no use. No one could help me. I had failed. It had also become obvious the children didn’t need me. It would be best if Berta and Antonio raised them. The children enjoyed spending time with them. In fact, they seemed more comfortable and at ease with them than with me. I was useless. I could not even be a good mother to my children.
Unlike other times when sadness had invaded me, this time I did not cry. Instead, an immense feeling of dread came over me. Horrible thoughts rushed in. As if controlled by a force other than myself, I reached for a bottle of kerosene we kept under the kitchen counter and walked to my bedroom, slowly, with heavy, monotonous steps. I pushed my bed away and sat on the cold tiled floor. I was done fighting.
When six-year-old Tania came into my bedroom, I had a box of matches in my hand and an empty kerosene bottle by my side. My hair and clothes were soaked. I didn’t expect to see her this early. I didn’t want this sweet, beautiful child to see me like this. I wanted her to go away. I ordered her to leave the room. She didn’t listen. She stood there, her school uniform soaked in sweat from the long walk home. Her smile had turned into sadness, a sadness she would keep inside for years and that would affect every aspect of her life. I felt as if nothing that was happening around me was real, as if I was outside my body looking at a movie of myself. I started to tremble.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do it anymore,” I said as my eyes filled with tears.
As little as she was, she grew before my eyes. She ran toward me, grabbed the matches from my hand and ran out. I sat on the bed and buried my face in my hands. What had I done?
Minutes later, several neighbors rushed into my room. They kept Tania outside. They insisted I should go to the hospital and get help. I needed treatment. I had tried to deal with everything that was happening in my life, but I could no longer do it alone. I was exhausted; every muscle of my body hurt.
The neighbors helped me clean the mess. A woman contacted Berta at work and told her what had happened. A neighbor stayed with Tania, while another accompanied me to the hospital. When I arrived, my blood pressure was very elevated. Various tests followed. The doctors wanted to keep me overnight. I explained I could not leave the children alone. They kept me for a few hours after sedating me. My blood pressure, although improved, had not returned to normal. Following a diagnosis of depression and hypertension, the doctor discharged me with a prescription for blood-pressure medications and a bottle of Meprobamate for my nerves. I returned home late in the evening having slept for a few hours at the hospital. I was still very tired, but I felt more relaxed.
Berta was careful not to reprimand me, and she embraced me when I arrived. My oldest daughter was still awake and ran into my arms in tears. I promised her I would be fine and would always be by her side. She did not want to sleep in her own bed that evening and fell asleep in my arms. I took her to my room, placed her in my bed, and kissed her forehead. My poor angel. Now more than ever I needed God to forgive me. I prayed I could find the strength to continue fighting for my family’s freedom and to face the life that awaited us.
During the days and months that followed, Tania watched my every move. Sometimes, when I was in the dining room writing a letter to her father, I would see her peeking out of her bedroom to make sure I was fine. I tried to smile as much as I could to reassure her. She became more introverted and introspective and took up writing as a hobby. She wrote a story about a prince and princess who lived alone on an isolated island when a powerful storm came. They climbed to the highest peak of the island as the water level kept rising around them. She had not finished it.
From my daughter’s stories, I could see the experiences she had been forced to live through had a far-reaching effect I would never be able to undo.
My treatments for my nerves and hypertension gave me the control I needed to explore my options with greater clarity of mind. Berta and Antonio were thinking about having a family, and it was important that I pull my own weight financially. My economic dependence on my sister and husband sickened me. I needed to work, to do something, but I was not sure what. My children were small, and my father’s health continued to worsen. I felt trapped.
I prayed to the Virgin of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba. My prayers were answered. I was finishing lunch one morning when I heard someone knock. I opened the door slowly and saw a tall black man with salt-and-pepper hair.
“Good morning,” he said with a wide smile, his teeth sparkling white.
I returned his greeting with an inquisitive gaze.
“I’m sorry to bother you, comrade. My name is Raúl,” he said.
“Do I know you?”
“No, you don’t. I live a couple of blocks down Zapote Street. I was wondering if you would be interested in some eye pencils,” he said.
Raúl showed me three crayons wrapped in shiny, colorful paper.
“They’re beautiful. Did you make them?” I asked.
“Sure did. They’re cheap. One peso each,” he said, with pride in his dark brown eyes.
“Can I try them?” I asked.
“Sure, go ahead.”
Raúl gave me one of the pencils, and I drew a thick line on top of my hand. I instantly fell in love with them.
“They’re very soft and pretty,” I said as an idea came to me. “Let me keep these three. Come back in a week with more. I’ll bring you the money for these now.”
I went inside the house and returned with the three pesos. Next, I had to find customers. The opportunity came later that afternoon. While I swept the front porch, Lucía, a woman who lived in the apartment building next door, stopped by. I told her about the pencils. She seemed interested and followed me into the house. She waited in the living room while I went to my bedroom and retrieved the pencils from my nightstand drawer.
“They’re beautiful,” she said when I showed them to her. “They look like something made in the United States. Were they?” Lucía added, wide-eyed.
It was not a good idea to reveal my source. Instead, I responded with a question. “How much do you think I should sell them for?”
“At least ten pesos. I’m sure you’ll find a lot of people willing to buy them at that price.”
“You really think so?” I asked.
“Yes. In fact, let me buy one from you. I want the blue one. I’ll be back with the money,” she said.
Before I had a chance to say anything, Lucía left and came back moments later with ten pesos. Through word of mouth, I sold the other pencils, and when Raúl returned the following week, I asked him for ten more. I told him I would do business with him only if he did not sell to customers in Santo Suarez. He agreed.
Three weeks after my first transaction, sales picked up. At last, I felt like a contributing member of the family, although I was taking a risk. The government had nationalized all businesses. Few remainders of free enterprise existed in our neighborhood. There was a neighbor who acquired guava and sugar from questionable sources, then made guava marmalade and sold it for two pesos a jar. He had contracted tuberculosis, and it worried people to buy from him, but everyone was vaccinated against this disease and bought the jars despite their fears. Another neighbor sold melcocha, a candy made with molasses, and another pirulí, a cone-shaped hard candy, typically orange or red, with a small stick in the base. For a while, one of our neighbors sold peanuts, and another made shoes, but these businesses did not last very long. I heard the peanut vendor and the shoemaker had been jailed for stealing from the government.
The nationalization of all private enterprise meant none of these remaining entrepreneurs had access to materials, which now belonged to the government. Sugar, like other basic products, was restricted to the quota prescribed by the ration cards, and neither peanuts nor molasses were sold to the public. In order to manufacture these products, someone had to either buy stolen materials from someone who worked for the government factories, or steal the materials themselves. Everyone knew this, but no one cared. The need to survive in this environment threw ethical behavior out the window and increased low-tech innovation. This innovative spirit explained why cars that had existed prior to the revolution never died. People found ways to create their own parts in their houses, always with stolen materials. Cuba had become la isla del invento.