I Was Never the First Lady

by Wendy Guerra

  NADIA: Did you expect punishment from him because you were defiant?

  ALINA: Well, there are things he considers weaknesses and he rejects them, but that idea that exists in Cuba—that he’s somehow implanted in us—that he’s responsible for absolutely everything, is not really true. I believe if you’re close to his loved ones, you’re part of a strict surveillance because it’s about taking care of his life, and that’s a fact. I wasted a lot of time in my life trying to avoid that circumstance, but you can’t really avoid it in any way.

  NADIA: You have something to talk about with Fidel. Do you want resolution?

  ALINA: No, I have resolution.

  NADIA: Would you ever go back to Cuba?

  ALINA: I had a really hard time there, especially the last few years, for many reasons. It’s not a question of pressure, but eventually I’ll return. Where else am I going to go? That’s my country. I hope it’s not because of a tragedy, really, because I’ve realized places don’t get redeemed. There are people who say, “I’m going to go back to this place where I wasn’t happy, but this time the place is going to give me an answer” . . . but it’s not always like that.

  NADIA: Could that be your fate?

  ALINA: Fate has nothing to do with happiness. It’s a task you take on. I imagine even European princes feel an enormous weight and some even abdicate. Well, I was the daughter of a Cuban prince, because at the beginning, that was his kingdom.

  NADIA: So will you go back to say goodbye to your father?

  ALINA: No, going back to say goodbye doesn’t sound like a return.

  NADIA: Would you redo your childhood?

  ALINA: No, but I would rebuild my house, because it’s falling apart.

  AT THE NORTH OCEAN GRILL

  I WALK alone in this city of no sidewalks. I look for areas where I can get places by myself. I try to get from one place to another, but I can do that only at the beach. I take notes about what’s happening around me. Cuban phrases burst out and blow English away. Cuban music blasts through the walls. The smell of fried pork and black beans is very difficult to disguise. Cuban coffee, guava cakes, and a whole world unknown to me opens up at the Palacio de los Jugos, where the memorabilia of our food has made its home, food that’s almost extinct on the island due to the endless crises.

  I knew, from younger members of the family, that Chela, Celia’s sister, couldn’t grant me an interview because she’d lost her memory. Every family engagement drains her, and after a party, her memory had deteriorated considerably. She’d lost her son when the boy tried to go back to Cuba in a speedboat to attack the government. The boat was intercepted and blown up, and since then her health has been very fragile.

  There’s a concentration of pain in Miami, an intensity of what could have been, an obsession with nostalgia for what was lost. There’s a certain sadness even when dancing. There’s everything, but nothing tastes the same. Almost everyone’s here, but no one’s the same either. In Miami, our entire memory is a spare part. It’s incredible to see that most of Celia Sánchez’s family lives here, in the very heart of the “enemy.”

  The dark of the sea, the depth of the blackness, the humidity, and the heat reminded me of my nocturnal escapades to the beach at Santa María, or my perennial view of the Malecón. For a minute, I narrowed my eyes, and it seemed to me I was back in my usual place. But no. Time flies. I had only twenty-four hours left.

  I could hardly sleep that night. “I want to know everything!” I went over what I’d talked about at the table with Celia’s family. I hadn’t been aware of a lot of it. I pondered: Are we happy where we choose to be? Is seeking happiness the right thing to do? The things I’d been told about my mother were not very different from what I already knew. That afternoon Arturo had called me. What he’d said about her made me think. “Your mother didn’t love anyone; she couldn’t because we didn’t let her. We all fought over her love and left her empty.” This will be good work, my literary effort, about the world in which Celia’s, my mother’s, and all the other women’s contributions were erased in the name of the machismo Leninism instituted in Cuba.

  FINAL PARTY IN MIAMI

  CHONGO, THE youngest in Celia’s family, suggests I have a party at his house with the people who were closest to Celia. There are so many things I still want to know; I accept his invitation because it’ll be my last chance to talk to them. The apartment is spacious, glassed in, above the sea. You could jump off it like a diving board. The whole family came to say goodbye. I talked about some things with Acacia, and then, little by little, the brothers joined in.

  I had taken the opportunity to invite some friends of my mother’s too. I wanted to meet them. I had so many questions about my parents, issues I’m still processing; I don’t know where they’ll take me. Every Cuban is carrying a potential diary under their arm. Our lives are part of a book of silence we’ve been forced to write without words.

  Acacia lent me her cell phone. I tried to call Lujo in Cuba, but it was impossible; the lines weren’t working. I called Diego to tell him everything was in order. He’ll be waiting for me tomorrow at the airport in Havana. We land at almost the same time. “I have so many things to tell you.”

  I invite my friends and my parents’ friends. Arturo arrives at last, and when I open the door, I see we’re wearing almost the same outfit.

  I throw myself into his arms and we dance the night away.

  Arturo is very upset he had to abandon his career in Cuba, his family, his previous life. I think this long distance is a feeling we all share, but there’s no consolation, much less for me; I just feel more and more alone.

  Arturo, who doesn’t remember the Arturo of the ’80s, when he danced at all the parties in Havana, was an exotic character who illuminated and inspired a huge group of artists. I adore him, and it’s very hard for me to say goodbye. When will we meet again? Where? When I was a teenager I thought I’d live close to someone like him all my life, that nothing could separate us. We’ve had to let go of our loved ones; people who seemed eternal are far away today, lost, out of focus, with obsessions similar to our own. We’ve had to postpone what we most want—affection—on behalf of a society that’s never understood or supported us.

  Crazy and sensual, Arturo flew out of Blade Runner into Miami.

  There was a great confusion in my head: interviews, words about my mother, questions about the history of Cuba, shops, dinners, purchases . . . I was going back more off-center than when I got here. Miami was much, much more complex than I had thought.

  If I’d come to live here, who would I be today? Would I have married? Who? Would I have children? What would they look like?

  I wonder if we’d married right, if our relationships made sense, if we’d created the unions we were supposed to. The Revolution had upset everything for its own sake. Our ties, here or there, were emergent, forged in times of war.

  Suddenly the lights went down, everything went dark, and we started dancing to the Beatles, then Celia Cruz, and, finally, Los Van Van, with their usual chorus: “Chirrín chirrán, chirrín chirrán que ya terminó, chirrín chirrán que ya no te quiero, chirrín chirrán te digo hasta luego, chirrín chirrán no, no, no.” Everything was spinning even though I hadn’t had any wine. I wanted to be lucid to register it.

  I was already drunk on Cuba and myself. We turned, dancing in the dark, changing partners and not knowing who was who. Hands on my waist, bodies against bodies, without distinction. In a rush, I thought about the conflicts my father always told me about between here and there. Between Miami and Cuba. Between Havana and its reflection. Now everything seemed to have stopped so we could dance: either there was a truce or the war was over, because everyone in the house was dancing, everyone in the house was singing. I felt happy knowing I wasn’t outside this world, that I was well received here, and although I was passing through—because I hadn’t come to stay—they didn’t make me feel like an outsider. Part of me was with them, despite the fact that my home was w
aiting somewhere else, in front of the Malecón in Havana, on the curve of the seawall, where I’d return to at the end of this song and its “chirrín chirrán,” which was endless in my head.

  I ran out of the party to pack. I didn’t want to say goodbye; I’d rather say “See you tomorrow.” Everything will seem like a dream once I’m back home. When will this absurd distance end? So close and yet so far.

  Journey to Havana

  We fly over the Florida Keys and see boats gliding on waves, people fishing. There’s real life down there. The flight back is more relaxed, less tense.

  When we spot Cuba, people who live in Miami crowd the windows. We fly past the Santa Cruz del Norte thermoelectric plant, over the oil wells and the fires. Lots of excitement, applause, shouts of joy.

  They say: “It’s Cuba, Cuba, Cuba.” They sing “Guantanamera.” They cry, walk up and down the aisles, hug each other. We haven’t touched down yet, but according to them, we’re already here. I look at the landscape and try to imagine what waits for me below: Diego, in his reporter outfit, asking about the future. Lujo at home with food ready and his endless questions about the past, and as a backdrop, the wet Malecón, because, from above, you can see it’s about to rain.

  The passenger next to me asks if I’m going to Cuba for the first time. I tell him I live in Havana. The flight attendant comes and asks him to sign a record for the pilot. She hands it over and continues on to the cabin. He’s a sweet man, mulatto, short, serene, and friendly. He must be in his eighties. He tries to read what the cover of the record says, but he can’t see very well and looks at me in dismay.

  “Why do I have to sign this?”

  I look at the record and realize he’s Rubén González, one of the greatest Cuban pianists of all time. I lend him the pen with which I’m taking notes, but the man doesn’t see the point of signing.

  “Who’s that?” he asks, looking at himself smiling on the cover.

  “It’s you. Will you sign the record for the pilot?”

  “Yes, but who am I?”

  “You’re a great pianist, undoubtedly the best.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as we’re flying.”

  “Ah! But are we flying?” Rubén puts on his glasses, amazed by the record. He thought it wasn’t real, and he looks at it as if for the first time. It’s a double record, from a few years ago, but he doesn’t remember it anymore.

  “Did I play with them? Most of them have died, haven’t they?”

  “Some have,” I say, a little nervous.

  “And where am I now?”

  “On a plane, going back to Cuba.”

  “Then we’re neither here nor there. We’re in the air.”

  I nod. He looks at the record again.

  “You should sign it and maybe write a little something else first.”

  We are about to land and the passengers shout louder and louder. There is something ambiguous about it, something between laughter and tears. Finally, the elderly pianist signs the cover, just his name, moving a tremulous hand.

  “Forgive me, young lady. Are we coming to or leaving Havana? I’ve been forgetting everything lately. I’m eighty years old. I hardly remember anything at the piano—just imagine.”

  “You were in Miami, but now we’re landing in Havana.”

  The flight attendant serenely announces the details of the complicated arrival, then picks up the record, grateful for the gesture. She kisses the pianist, who doesn’t understand anything, and hurries back to the cabin.

  The plane hovers. It is raining hard in Havana. I see the lights of Cuba through a different prism, a leaden tone penetrated by the sun, diminishing to a surprising violet. I try on the idea that it’s been ten years instead of four days since I’ve left, a good exercise in longing that doesn’t work if you haven’t lived far enough away. I feel I am falling onto the runway like onto a feather mattress, without the rigid ritual of landing, but we haven’t touched ground yet. We circle around because the storm won’t let us descend. Cuba is below, and we slowly enter the eye of the storm to make our way through the dark clouds.

  The old pianist has fallen asleep. His hands play scales on the armrests. The passengers are silent now. We fly over the coast. Soon we are struck by a chilling void. The screams can’t save us. We are still in the air, circling. The old pianist startles awake.

  “What was I telling you?” he asks.

  We hit the runway abruptly. It is pounding rain, and the passengers applaud. The old pianist undoes his seat belt, then shoots up to ceremoniously greet the applause around him. He looks down at me again.

  “Where did you say we are?”

  “In Havana,” I say as I head toward the exit door, which is still closed.

  Without Fidel

  Oh mother, oh mother. Air is a lightness that spins around your head and becomes clearer when you laugh.

  —from Nostalghia, directed and co-written by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983

  HAVANA, NOVEMBER 25, 2016

  The phone rings. I’m in the shower washing off the day’s sweat so I can go to bed. Cubans bathe at five o’clock, but today I needed time to clean up the disaster left by the last tourists and prepare the rooms for those coming to spend New Year’s Eve here.

  What is Cuba to tourists?

  Would I come to Cuba to spend New Year’s Eve?

  I don’t know. I think for most people this place is still a history museum. They find it curious, exciting; they walk through the detritus of our lives, asking personal questions as if they don’t mind hurting us. Cuba is an unexplored place; even I don’t know what’s happening on the other side of the island. Time and time again I propose to go east, but I never leave Havana; I could never abandon it. Havana has a strange spell: it’s watery, feminine, and sentimental, very difficult to quit.

  The phone keeps ringing. My God, who could be insisting like that at this hour? I hope it’s not a neighbor trying to get me to take in another tourist.

  I try to ignore the ringing, but it’s unbearable. It stops for an instant but immediately continues without remedy, rumbling around the arches in the house and tormenting me.

  I leap wet from the tub onto the marble floor, slip, regain my balance, and grab the phone from next to the hair dryer.

  It’s Maruchi, a neighbor calling to tell me to turn on the TV, but she hangs up without explaining why.

  I step into the hall and turn on the lights that lead to the living room, not worried about waking Lujo because he left for Miami today to look for stuff to decorate a new restaurant some Swedes are opening in Old Havana. If Lujo doesn’t get out of here about once a month and breathe some fresh air, he’ll die. Cuba suffocates everyone except me, who has learned to deeply love this confinement.

  What’s going on? I put on a nightgown and go out into the garden to find out. Cuban TV very rarely tells the truth, so I’d rather find out by just going outside.

  A strange calm has taken over the Malecón. I look over at my neighbors’ house, its doors and windows shuttered. I call Magda; she tries to say a few words, but the connection is terrible, even just to the house next door. I dial again, but an operator’s voice says, “The lines are congested.” I can tell from her tone that things are serious . . . I must turn on everything, everything, everything. I want lights, all the lights.

  I flip on the TV, and Raúl is speaking to the people.

  Fidel is dead.

  I drape one of Lujo’s coats—it had been hanging in the vestibule next to the hats—over my nightgown. I grab my wallet and lower the front windows a little, take my keys and go out to the streets.

  The Malecón is deserted. Not a soul is out. I don’t even see police watching over us. At the US Embassy there doesn’t seem to be anything new to take care of or protect.

  We’ve already been stripped of everything . . . What else can they take from us?

  I walk against the wind. I cross El Vedado like a silk blade. My nightgown beats over my body and, lookin
g like a sailing ship, I scale the hills into the dark. I’m getting thinner and weaker and looking more and more like my mother . . . The salty wind envelops me, this constant curse from the sea. The salt hits my face and clouds my vision. I can’t see what’s happening; the landscape is smoky and it seems like it will rain.

  Where did everyone go?

  As I walk my cell phone rings. It’s Lujo from Miami.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Maniiiiiiiiiii, Manicero maniiiiiiiiiii. He’s goneeeeeeeeeee, he’s gone.”

  “Yes, he’s gone. It’s over,” I tell him.

  “Chirrín chirrán, it’s over now, chirrín chirrán, I don’t love you anymore, chirrín chirrán, I’ll see you later,” Lujo sings.

  “Are you having a good trip?” I ask, trying to make some sense in our crazy conversation.

  “Yes, of course! But I can’t believe this happened while I’m here. People in Miami are out on the streets. How is it over there? I’m worried about you, so lock yourself in and don’t open the door for anyone, and don’t rent to anyone until we see how this turns out,” he begs me, now sounding desperate.

  “There’s nothing happening here. I’m walking on Línea. People are home. There’s not a soul to be seen; the few of us who are out walking are silent,” I explain patiently.

  “But, Nadia, what are you doing out in the streets at this hour?” Lujo asks, a little upset. “What if something happens?”

  “I’m going to Celia’s house,” I answer.

  “Oh, for the love of God. Don’t do that. Look—”

  I cut him off and turn off the phone. I need to walk by myself, to follow my path without worrying. Fidel is dead. I don’t need to follow any more orders.