The Woman She Was

by Rosa Jordan

  The whole situation angered and depressed him. It hadn’t been that easy to disengage from his Cuban family in the first place, and it had cost him a year and a small fortune to disengage from his American family. Yet back in Cuba not ten days and already he was up to his eyeballs in a family drama in which, without even auditioning, he had landed a leading role.

  He blamed Luis, and Liliana, of course. At the same time he felt guilty. Or no, not guilty. What he felt was trapped. Once on a trip to Los Angeles he had visited the tar pits in Hancock Park, had seen mock-ups of mastodons and sabre-toothed tigers stuck in the tar that lay beneath what appeared to be a pool of water. In the Page museum he had marvelled at the bones of once-powerful creatures pried from the tar that had held them fast to and beyond death. That’s what family is like, he thought grimly. Something that seems to offer sustenance and turns out to be a fucking tar pit.

  He pulled up to the wrought-iron fence in front of his mother’s place and got out to unlock the gate. There was a garage, or what had been a garage back in the 1920s when the mansion was built and horseless carriages were the newest toys of the rich. Luis’s car could have fit into the garage had it not been converted into an apartment for another family long ago. As it was, Luis parked in the postage-stamp-sized front yard. By moving aside Alma’s potted plants, they had made room to squeeze the rented Daewoo in next to the Fiat.

  Joe had to pull up till the bumper touched the house in order to get the gate locked behind. A pointless gesture. Petty thieves—and there was no shortage of those in Habana these days—could easily scale the iron pickets and take hubcaps or whatever they fancied from either car. Luis said they never had. Neighbours watched out for each other in Cuba. Whether you liked being watched or not, it definitely cut down on theft.

  Light shone through the living room window. Somebody was still up. To avoid going in, Joe took a slow walk along the tree-lined street where he had spent the first twenty-four years of his life. All of the old homes were two-storey, designed by architects who tacked on balconies, turrets, towers, friezes, and ornaments without apparent concern for cost or utility. Not one had been painted in his lifetime.

  They had once been honest-to-God mansions. Even in their decrepit state they had dignity. In the right hands, all that former grandeur could be reclaimed. Joe picked out the house on the street he liked best and played with the fantasy of restoring statuary and stained glass windows, replacing broken tiles, painting it top to bottom, and landscaping the yard. Or hiring other people to do it for him.

  He stumbled over a bit of sidewalk pushed up by the roots of a great old tree and cursed. Neither the sidewalks nor the grassy strip alongside them were maintained. Private yards were just as bad. He could understand the lack of paint; the embargo made it hard to get, and what little became available was expensive. But what was it with Cubans that they couldn’t be bothered to plant a lawn, put in flowers, and trim their hedges? Small as front yards were, most were untended patches of bare dirt, grass gone wild, or weeds, the latter sometimes so high that they obscured the one gardening passion Cubans had: potted plants.

  It wasn’t that Joe himself had any interest in gardening. Right after his arrival in Miami he had worked briefly as a below-minimum-wage gardener’s helper, running a leaf blower until he thought he’d lose his hearing. However, once he got past dead-end jobs and had a home of his own, he had never touched a lawn mower or a gardening tool.

  “Leave it to the peons,” he had told Vera sharply, and she did, employing ethnic gardeners every bit as low-paid as he had been. He’d done it; now it was their turn. Maybe that was how island Cubans felt; like they’d done their time as peasants, fought the Revolution to put an end to grubbing in the dirt, and weren’t about to go back to it even for the sake of neighbourhood beautification.

  Standing under the dim streetlight, Joe smiled sardonically at the direction his fantasies had taken him: boy returns to hometown, restores classy mansion, and lives a life of elegance and refinement in old neighbourhood. As if such a thing was possible in Cuba. What you got when you came home to Cuba was just what he was getting: a cream pie mess of family responsibility right in the face.

  Besides, he had already made his choice as to cultures, opting for one where other people’s problems did not so easily become his. In Miami you could die a lingering death in your apartment, your suburban home, or your walled estate, and if you didn’t have live-in family or live-in servants, few would notice and even fewer would care. That kind of disconnect between people made Joe uneasy, but it was vastly less complicated than the overshared quality of Cuban life.

  He consoled himself with the reminder that he’d probably have things wound up here in a few days. All he had to do was skate on the surface a little longer, pretending concern but staying uninvolved. The tricky part was to not break through the thin ice, beneath which lay all that emotional tar.

  He trudged up the broad marble steps and pushed open the door to that portion of the old mansion that his family had called home since before he was born. Luis sat on the sofa in a circle of lamplight. He looked drained, as if he had been crying. Muffled sounds from Alma’s bedroom said she hadn’t gone dry yet. If there was any way Joe could’ve decently got the hell out of there, he would have. Of course there wasn’t.

  Joe dropped into a rocker. “So. Any idea where the little shit might’ve gone?”

  Luis seemed shocked but pleased with the way he had characterized Liliana.

  “Varadero, I suppose. Or some other resort.”

  Joe nodded. “I suppose Celia will have notified the police by now.”

  Luis gave him a startled look. “The police? Why?”

  “Well, missing kid, isn’t that what you do?”

  “Man! You forget you’re back in Cuba? We don’t criminalize our kids. This is a matter for social services.”

  Joe tried to remember any kids he had known growing up who got into serious trouble, but only recalled ones who’d been called on the carpet by neighbourhood watch groups for failing to show up for some “voluntary” community service, and getting assigned more of same. “But well, you said Varadero. Guys on the lookout for a babe, her being a minor—that must be a crime.”

  “For the foreigner, sure. Any neighbour seeing a foreigner going into a private home with what looked like an underaged girl would call the police. And if the police thought a kid was involved, they’d show up with a social worker. Same thing if a hotel employee saw some jerk trying to sneak an underaged girl into his room.”

  Remembering the ease with which he had taken Liliana into Hotel Pinar del Río, Joe raised an eyebrow. Luis quickly amended, “Of course, there’s the odd hotel employee who’ll accept a bribe to look the other way.”

  “Or just doesn’t want the hassle,” Joe added.

  Luis nodded, a little reluctantly. “But people can lose their jobs over shit like that. It all goes back to when the island first opened up to tourism in, well, just about the time you left. Before we could turn around there were charters from Spain, Italy, México, and God knows where else, to joint-venture resorts managed by the foreign partner. Whole planeloads coming for sex! And to tell the truth, we were a little slow on the uptake. Fidel especially. He thinks the younger generation is God’s gift to Cuba and wouldn’t believe kids raised with Che as their model would sell their bodies.”

  Joe snorted. “They didn’t have any trouble believing it in Miami. I was barely off the boat when I started seeing articles about how Castro was turning the whole island into a giant brothel and—”

  “—depositing all the money in a Swiss bank account,” Luis cut in. “Total crap, of course, but it was a wakeup call he—well, all of us—needed. The minister of tourism was thrown out on his ear and in my opinion should’ve done jail time. The court ruled that there was no evidence that he knew about the resorts being used for sex tourism, but if he didn’t know he should have. Either way, he disgraced himself and his country.”

  “But
it’s still an issue, right? Didn’t you say that day we went to Varadero that the authorities were on the lookout for girls like Liliana?”

  “Oh sure. But laws are in place now and police have the authority to stop couples on the street when they think prostitution is involved. Preventive policing, they call it, and I’m all for it. They’d ask for her ID card, and if she was underage she’d be handed over to social services. Which,” he added bitterly, “is exactly what I was trying to do when I brought the youth authorities to pick her up.”

  Joe refrained from reminding his brother where that had got them and offered a more hopeful scenario. “You know, bro, we’re assuming she headed for Varadero, but maybe she’s just holed up at a friend’s house. The way we used to go to Joaquín’s place when we thought Mother was keeping us on too short a leash.”

  “Any neighbour would have called Celia by now, and she would have called Mamá.” Luis spoke with a certainty that Joe knew was justified.

  “What about family?”

  “Family? We’re all they’ve got. You know that.”

  Joe did know that, but until Luis said it, it hadn’t registered. Close as the two families had been when they were growing up, they were separate entities; Alma Lago and her sons; Kristina Cantú and her daughters. He supposed that with the death of most of the Cantús, Celia and Liliana had folded into the Lago family. Or had they?

  “How come Celia moved out of this neighbourhood?”

  “She was working in Habana del Este and didn’t want to commute.” Luis paused. “At least that’s what she said. Personally, I think she couldn’t stand living here after all the others in her family died. Except Liliana, of course.”

  “Pretty grim,” Joe agreed.

  “It was the year after you left that her mother was diagnosed with cancer and went into a hospice. Then Carolina and her husband were killed, leaving Celia alone with Liliana. Celia said the place was too big for just the two of them and traded it for the apartment she has now. We have stayed close, though. This is the first time . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Joe rose and gave Luis’s shoulder a squeeze. “Rough patches with teens, comes with the territory. We just need to figure out how we can help Celia till it blows over.”

  As he stripped for bed, Joe wondered why he’d said “we.” What he had meant to say was “how you can help her.” Not that he necessarily considered Celia his brother’s woman. But he certainly considered Liliana to be Luis and Celia’s problem.

  TWENTY-SIX

  CELIA paced all night, around the apartment, out onto the balcony, back inside to stare at the silent telephone. She was frantic to find Liliana, to physically search for her. But she had no idea where to start and it made no sense anyway. Since Liliana knew where to find her, reason insisted she stay put. She would, as long as she could bear the inaction.

  Toward morning Celia stopped prowling the apartment. She went out onto the balcony and sat waiting for daylight. Soon after sunrise the street filled with people. Those who worked nearby either walked or biked to work. Others strolled toward bus stops.

  By eight the morning rush was over. Primary school children clad in red-and-white uniforms and secondary school children in gold skirts and white blouses had been absorbed into neighbourhood schools. There were no children in the fifteen- to eighteen-year-old range, of course; pre-university students in their blue-and-navy uniforms and technical school students in tan-and-brown outfits had left for their boarding schools a week earlier.

  Celia had often wondered who felt the greatest relief: parents seeing teenagers off to boarding school or teens escaping from close parental scrutiny into peer groups that were like a second family. And conversely, who was most delighted to see whom when they returned: children not quite as ready to be free of family as they had appeared three weeks earlier or parents who all during that time had felt the same aching absence for their almost-grown children that she now felt for Liliana.

  When the last child had disappeared from the street and Celia was sure that the school secretary would be in her office, she telephoned.

  Emily Solana was a thin woman with a small voice pitched high by the tension in her vocal chords. “Good morning, Dr. Cantú,” she chirped. “I was just about to call you. How is our Liliana?”

  “She—” Celia paused. She had been clinging so hard to the hope that Liliana would be there that she had not prepared an answer. Only when Emily asked did she realize that she was not ready to spill out the whole story. “—will not be in for a few days,” Celia finished lamely. “I plan to stop by later. To discuss the situation.”

  She had almost said “with Compañera Campos” but held back the name of the woman who headed the pre-university program. On several visits to the school she had observed that the large black director had a tendency to bully her frail white secretary. She did not know whether it was racial, personal, or merely a matter of the one physically overpowering the other, but it grated on her nerves. To have said that she specifically needed to speak to the director without responding to Emily’s expression of concern would have implied that she was too lowly to warrant a confidence. The truth was that whenever possible Celia dealt with the secretary rather than the overbearing director.

  “We can talk then, Emily. When I have more time,” she promised.

  “Of course, Dr. Cantú,” Emily said quickly.

  Celia wanted to hang up before the secretary could ask questions but realized that she did need more from her.

  “Emily,” she said hesitantly, “in case Liliana does show up at school, be sure she calls me. Or better yet, you call. Please?”

  “Why, certainly!” The secretary’s voice carried pleasure at being entrusted with this small service, but at the same time confusion. “Is she not—?”

  “Excuse me, please, Emily. I have to go. We can talk later.”

  Celia was about to return to the balcony when the telephone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Celia, it’s me, Alma.”

  Celia did not have the heart to hang up on the older woman, but neither was there anything to say. When she said nothing, Alma asked, “No news?”

  “Nothing,” Celia whispered.

  “You’re not going to work today?”

  “No. I—if you don’t mind, let’s not tie up the line. In case she calls.”

  “I am praying for her,” Alma said. “For all of us.” At Celia’s continued silence, she said sadly, “Adios,” with heavy emphasis on the dios.

  The telephone continued to ring throughout the day. Most of the calls were from the hospital, colleagues wanting information or guidance. Was it okay to let a mother take her child home from hospital early? A test had been inconclusive; should a different type be run? They had run out of a particular drug; what substitute would she prefer her patients be given? Celia answered each question and cut all extraneous conversation short. There were afternoon calls from both José and Luis, but she hung up on them. After each call she returned to the balcony and sat there, waiting.

  She strained her eyes to see to the end of the street in each direction, as if catching a glimpse of the spot where Liliana disappeared from sight—had anyone been watching her flight—might cause her to reappear. The day had turned foggy.

  Or maybe it was her mind. She felt that she had known such waiting before, must have, because she knew in her bones that this first phase was the easiest. However anxious, it was filled with moment-to-moment hope.

  Was that a boat on the waves or only a piece of driftwood? How much longer could she keep the trucks waiting on the beach when every hour, every moment, increased the risk of their being discovered by Batista’s soldiers? Where was the Granma? How long could it take to motor from México to Cuba? How could there have been a miscalculation of this magnitude?

  Celia came back from wherever she had been, into the reality of Liliana’s absence. She went inside and pulled a decades-old textbook from the bookcase. She knew the story her emotions ha
d revisited but could not recall why the boat had been late, why instead of making landfall where Celia Sánchez waited with trucks to transport the rebels to safe houses, it had not reached Cuba until two days later.

  The book offered no real explanation, only said that the Granma had got lost and made “landfall” (a nice euphemism for running aground, she thought) at a place that forced the rebels to struggle to shore through a kilometre or more of mangroves.

  Celia did not want to read on, but she did: how the eighty-two men lost most of their supplies and weapons as they made their way through the swamp in chest-deep water. Their difficult march inland was described too, but here it was necessary for Celia to fill in details that the textbook’s authors had found too un-heroic to include: how the hungry men chewed sugarcane to sustain themselves as they marched, and how, within hours, Batista’s army was closing in, following a trail of discarded cane pulp. The book did go into detail about the Alegría de Pío battle that most had not survived: some shot, some burned alive in the cane field in which they had taken cover, some captured and tortured to death. Only Fidel, Raúl, Che, Camilo, and eight others had escaped.

  Celia flung the book aside, unable to read further, unable to think further. The waiting was driving her crazy. Or, she grimaced, driving her more crazy. From one moment to the next, she could not keep track of whether she was Celia Cantú waiting for her niece or Celia Sánchez waiting for Fidel. In both states, the whole of her being cried out against the waiting, the utter helplessness of her predicament.

  She had not eaten since—when? She could not remember. She knew she should eat to keep up her strength, yet felt relieved when she looked into the refrigerator and found it bare. Liliana, she recalled, had been at home on the weekend and had eaten whatever was there. On Monday Celia had not made the weekly trip to bakery, farmers’ market, and ration store; thus the cupboard was as bare as the fridge. She left the kitchen and resumed pacing the apartment. Finally she fell across her bed. “Oh Liliana,” she whispered. “Please call!”