Remember Me

by Mario Escobar

  A wave hit us hard, and the force of it drew us seaward, wedging me between two bars of the railing. Ana was dangling in my hands over the storming abyss below, and I didn’t know how long I could hold her. I yanked with all my strength but couldn’t pull her up. She was slipping, and no matter how hard I gripped her, it seemed her wrists were greased with oil.

  “Calm down!” I yelled. She gathered her strength and tried to climb up, but she couldn’t. She looked down and started flailing, which threw me further off balance and made me slip out farther over the railing.

  “Stop moving!” I yelled.

  I could see another wave coming, and I shut my eyes tight. I knew it was next to impossible for me to keep my grip on her after that wall of water hit the boat.

  It rushed at me like a punch in the face. I tried to hold on to Ana, but she slipped out and, a second later, I was holding nothing but air. I kept telling myself it couldn’t be.

  “Hang on!” I heard someone yell from behind me. I looked to the side and saw one of the teachers holding my sister. He managed to drag her up and back onto the deck, then grabbed my shirt and yanked me free. We moved backward before another wave crashed against the boat, then grabbed hold of something jutting out from the wall. We ran toward the door, and the teacher slammed it shut once we were inside.

  “What on earth were you doing out there? You nearly got yourselves killed!” the man said. He had dark skin and a black mustache, and he was completely drenched. I recognized him as one of the Mexicans traveling with our group, but I hadn’t spoken with him before.

  “I’m sorry. My sister—”

  “Don’t bother, kid. The important thing is I got you. Now get back to your cabin.”

  We thanked him over and over, then returned to the cabin, soaked and shivering. The lights were back on, and Isabel nearly attacked us when we came through the door. The three of us were a sopping, tangled mess of arms and tears while Manuel looked on, grinning. The storm raged for two more hours. It turned out that the captain had managed to avoid the hurricane itself and what we had endured was just a miniscule part of its fury, but it was enough to nearly sink the Mexique.

  * * *

  The first few days of June were much less eventful. We calmed down and tried to enjoy the trip. We explored every nook and cranny of the ship, invented a thousand games, and even played tricks on the teachers and other passengers. It wasn’t easy to keep nearly five hundred children calm and quiet in a relatively small space for such a long time.

  One morning in particular the heat had become unbearable. The day before, we had seen birds flying in the blue sky and guessed we couldn’t be far from land. Early in the morning, right after breakfast, they announced that we would dock at the port in Havana. We put on our best clothes for the occasion, eager to walk on solid ground and get out of that huge metal shell.

  “How do I look?” I asked Manuel. I had combed back my hair, which had grown out and usually hung over my eyes.

  “Well, not bad for a gangster,” Manuel snorted.

  We heard cries and ran up to the deck. The sea was a glittering shade of turquoise, and we leaned our heads against the banister, mesmerized by the sublime beauty.

  “So this is the first thing Columbus saw when he got here,” Manuel mused.

  “I’ve never seen anything so pretty,” Ana said. She seemed much older now than she did just weeks ago in Madrid.

  The blare of boats sounded. Several smaller vessels pulled up alongside us. Fishermen and crew members waved and shouted, “Long live the Spaniard children! Viva the Republic!”

  We waved back with excitement. Our boat approached the harbor, and from our distance we could take in the whole bay and Cuba’s beautiful capital city. It looked like a pretty silver cup with its yellows and grays. The lighthouse and a stone fortress were the first things we could see, then we made out church spires and the buildings of Old Havana.

  When the boat docked, a crowd was waiting for us. They waved flags of the Republic and sang some of the songs that had become famous during the war. We lined up in formation to disembark, the teachers and monitors exiting first, anxious to step on solid ground. Then the captain, dressed in brilliant white, approached Don Genaro. “I’m so sorry, but you can’t get off here. We’re not authorized. Only a few passengers, the crew members, and those for whom Havana is their final destination can disembark.”

  “But the children . . .”

  The captain shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  We broke our lines. People kept cheering us from the dock, but several police cars drove up and pushed the crowd back, forming a wider security zone.

  We sat on the floor of the deck right up against the railing, our legs swinging over the edge.

  “Well, I sure hope the same thing doesn’t happen in Mexico,” Manuel said.

  I was staring sadly at the beautiful city in the middle of the beautiful Caribbean Sea. I sighed and answered, “My dad told me there’s a dictator in Cuba . . . Batista maybe? Anyway, he’s probably not real thrilled at the idea of a big crowd cheering on a bunch of red children. For him we’re the enemy.”

  We spent hours up on deck just looking at the city. Eventually we had lunch and then went back to the deck in the afternoon to watch as we departed the port. The captain and other crew members were arguing with some of the Mexican delegation, so we moved close enough to hear what they were saying.

  “We’ve got to go,” the captain said.

  “But we cannot leave Ernesto Madero here,” a member of the Mexican delegation said.

  “He knew what time we were leaving, and we can’t delay any longer. We’ve got to be in Veracruz tomorrow. The Mexican authorities will be waiting for us. Plus, the other passengers need to get to their destinations on time.”

  “I understand, Captain, but we can’t just leave one of our own behind.”

  We crept away and huddled up in a group. Most of the Spaniard children knew Madero. He was the one who’d saved me and Ana in the storm.

  “I’m sorry,” the captain said with a shrug, lifting his hand to give the order to cast off.

  We had been spreading the word among the children, and they all piled out onto the deck. We started chanting, “We want Madero! We want Madero!”

  The crowd still gathered on the dock started echoing our chant. Then one of the children spied Madero among the policemen. For some reason they weren’t allowing him back on the boat.

  “Look, there he is!” the boy yelled, pointing to him.

  We all started to point, and a few members of the Mexican delegation went to talk with the police. The children grew quiet, waiting. Below, the policemen refused to let Madero board. Finally the captain intervened, and Madero was allowed up.

  We all cheered with joy and sang victory songs while the young man made his way to the deck.

  “What happened, Ernesto?” one of his colleagues asked.

  “I couldn’t find the password for boarding, and the police wouldn’t let me on,” he answered, still visibly upset.

  The gangways were removed, and the ship slowly retreated from the port. The crowd waved goodbye while we shouted to them and sang at the top of our lungs. The thrill of their welcome made us feel like protagonists of our own destiny. Most times we were just puppets in the hands of chance and fate, lost and insignificant in the world. Yet for a few hours that day outside of Havana we mattered to some people. At the very least, our journey would throw into relief the suffering of Spaniard children and the terrible reality of the war we’d left behind.

  Chapter 17

  Veracruz

  Veracruz

  June 7, 1937

  The last day on the Mexique was exciting. We were so anxious about getting to Mexico we could hardly sleep. How would they greet us? Would they be as welcoming as the Cubans on the dock? Manuel lay awake on the pallet next to mine, staring up at the dark ceiling of our cabin and sweating. The other boys were asleep or at least seemed to be, based on the sounds of their
breathing.

  “You awake?” Manuel asked.

  “Yeah.” It came out like a nervous little squeak.

  The arrival at Havana had made me realize how far away we were from our families. An ocean, two weeks of travel, and a war separated us. There was no way for us children to have any news of them. Not knowing anything about how my parents were almost felt as if they had ceased to exist. In Mexico our new life would be so different from our life in Spain that our memories would slowly fade away like dreams after a long night of sleep.

  “There’s not much farther to go. I’m dying to reach solid ground, but I actually thought the voyage would be a lot worse,” Manuel said.

  “Worse? The ship nearly sank!”

  Manuel burst out laughing, and I couldn’t help but cheer up.

  “We can’t get separated, you and me. I don’t know what they’ve got planned for us, but let’s stay together,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m hoping for, friend. Sometimes you feel like the brother I never had. You know I adore Isabel and Ana, but a brother is different. Girls like other kinds of stuff. They’re just different.”

  “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and it’s hard for me—though I can’t remember if I told you I did have a little sister. She was just a few months old, born at the beginning of the war. Some nights I was the one to take care of her because my parents were working in a weapons factory. One night the air raid alarms went off, and I got scared. I ran down to the basement that was our neighborhood’s shelter, and five minutes later I realized I’d left my sister in the house. I tried to go get her, but they wouldn’t let me out of the shelter. We could already hear the planes flying over the roofs and the whistling of the bombs. I curled up in a corner crying and praying nothing would happen to her. The hour in the shelter lasted forever. I dashed out of there as soon as it was clear. Smoke burned my eyes and everything smelled burned. I ran up the stairs two by two, and when I opened the door to our house . . .”

  “What happened?” I whispered after a moment. Manuel had started to cry, reliving the horrible night. He turned to me, and though I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, I heard his sobs and gasping breath.

  “Half the house was gone. The electricity was out, of course, but the fires from the bombing gave enough light for me to see the gaping hole where a wall used to be. I went up to the hole and amid the debris could make out pieces of her crib. It was me, my fault. I killed her.” He barely got the last few words out.

  I got up from my pallet and sat beside him, putting my hand on his shoulder. His body shook with the effort to stop crying.

  “You didn’t drop that bomb. You tried to get her, but it was just too late.”

  “But how could I forget her? Lucía, that was her name. She was so cute. I’ll never forget her.”

  I stretched out beside him and tried to relax, staring up in the dark toward the ceiling, hoping sleep would take us into its magical world where grief and sadness make no logical sense. I was thinking about friendship, about the indestructible ties of love between two people who until a certain time had been complete strangers, but who, somehow, on the solitary path of life, found another soul with whom to share the journey. Soon both Manuel and I were asleep.

  * * *

  The excited cries of the other boys woke us. The promised land was in sight. We got dressed as fast as we could and ran up to the deck. We elbowed our way through to a spot at the railing and stared out at the infinite sea. At first, we could only barely make out a thin line sketched by the wind on the horizon. Little by little it grew to become a lovely brushstroke of intense green, then a thick slash of sand and jungle. While Mexico grew on the horizon, we felt slightly less orphaned in the world since there was a place for us there. We didn’t know then that the kind, welcoming people would open their arms to us, not only the government or the president. The whole nation would open themselves to protect us and give us a new home.

  An hour later, we were washed, dressed, and ready for the welcome party. This would be the end of the voyage. We had put on our best clothes and gone up to the deck with our caretakers, and we could see around fifty vessels of all shapes and sizes coming toward us by oar, by sail, or by motor. Most had wooden hulls, but others were a resplendent white metal. From these other boats, people cheered and greeted us in musical accents, almost as if singing. Their toasted brown skin made their bright smiles stand out even more as the wind ruffled their straw hats.

  “Viva the Republic! Long live the Spaniard children!” they called.

  It was thrilling to hear. This welcome was even bigger and more spectacular than in Havana. The throng at the port of Veracruz was so big that some were pushed into the water by the press of the crowd. Instead of getting angry, they just swam toward us, waving and calling out their good wishes.

  “Children, line up!” Don Genaro called out.

  We got into our two long lines. The youngest children went first, then the older ones, and then the teachers. The ship maneuvered into mooring position, and the sailors laid out the gangway. This time the children were the first passengers to disembark, carrying our blue suitcases and wiping our tears from all the excitement. We felt like ambassadors, but not necessarily from our country, because homeland for us was the warmth of our mother and the embrace of our father. We heard “The International” and instinctively raised our left fists and sang along with joy.

  People crowded around us as soon as we got off the boat. Most were poor farmworkers or fishermen dressed in their finest garb. They handed out fruit and candy, and tearful women hugged and kissed us as if we were their long-lost children. Kind words showered down on us.

  “May the Virgin of Guadalupe guard you, my child.”

  “Don’t be afraid, you’re home now.”

  “Viva the motherland!”

  We made our way down the carpet of flowers covering the streets, drying our eyes and enjoying the flavors of the fruits our kindred had given us. They were so different, yet so similar to Spaniards. They were simple folk who had only affection to offer, which is exactly what we needed. We ate up their hugs and kisses, the food that nourishes children into adulthood far more than any king’s banquet.

  Farther ahead of me in line, my sisters seemed to be pleased with the attention. Mexican girls were putting flowers in the hair of the girls from Spain and draping flower garlands around their necks. Some were even giving away their rag dolls and the food they had with them for the day.

  “Look at all of this!” Manuel said. I smiled at him, momentarily forgetting we were foreigners and that, when the euphoria of a welcome passes and monotony installs itself in the soul, loneliness returns in a rage to remind you of all you’ve lost.

  We went through the tunnel of human affection and reached the train station, where nurses waited inside the train cars. We all got in and continued waving to the crowd, some of whom got close enough to the windows to keep giving us things. Off to one side, a group of men strummed guitars and sang happy songs as the train lurched forward.

  I’ll never forget that day or the love gushing out of generous hearts that gave even what they couldn’t afford to make a few lost children happy. For me, Mexico isn’t a landscape, nor is it a way of understanding the world. Mexico is the thousands of faces from that morning in Veracruz: the features all swimming together of children, women, men, and the elderly, the mass of long-suffering people who haven’t forgotten that the greatest gift people can give is their love. That day I lost my identity but gained something I hadn’t expected: another nation to call home.

  Chapter 18

  Mexico City

  Mexico City

  June 8, 1937

  The first time I laid eyes on Mexico City it was through tears. For most of the trip since we’d left France, I had managed to hold back my crying, as had the rest of the older boys. But when we got off the train at Colonia Station, I couldn’t take it anymore. Just a few days before we had been shaking under the bombing o
f Madrid, Barcelona, or Bilbao—children of war and suffering. Now, in the midst of that great city, we were little heroes, the unweaned cubs of the Republic—a wounded lioness defending herself from foes. We left the station crowded with people who had come to greet us and walked down streets packed with Mexicans hoping to see the little Spaniards. We were a battalion of miserable, needy children of poverty. We had left behind everything we had, which amounted to little materially but a great deal emotionally—mothers’ kisses, grandparents’ hugs, and fathers’ hands on our shoulders when they returned home from work.

  We were taken to the Sons of the Army School in San Julia. I never took my eyes off my sisters, who walked with their heads held high, proud to be the cause of so much fuss, though I could see them wiping tears away as well.

  As we prepared to enter the schoolyard where President Cárdenas, his wife, and other officials were waiting for us, we heard an airplane overhead. Most of the Spaniard children crouched to the ground in fear. The younger ones screamed and cried, while we older kids ran to protect our younger siblings. The airplane was only dropping little colored pieces of paper to celebrate our arrival, but for us it was far from festive. The onlooking crowd grew upset seeing how the planes affected us. Yet soon they understood that this was no game for us, that it wasn’t just a welcome party or a nice outing. We had managed to escape the war, but we still carried the war inside us. It tormented our young souls from within, and we were too young to understand that war’s shadow would follow us forever.

  The Francoists had achieved much more than pitting brother against brother. More than anything else, they had robbed us of our future and our inner peace. Our memories could be summed up by hunger, fear, and hatred. We would have to find a way to rid ourselves of them in order to survive.