The Woman She Was

by Rosa Jordan

  She awoke in the heat of the afternoon, drenched in sweat. Something had wakened her but she was not sure what. She listened intently and heard footsteps in the hallway. They were going away from her apartment. She went to the door. The person she had heard in the hall was already out of sight, but it was easy to guess who had been there. At her feet sat a cardboard box that smelled strongly of fresh-cooked food.

  Celia carried the box inside and put it on the table, then went to the balcony and looked down on the street. José’s rental car was at the curb. Alma came into view, walking slowly, shoulders bent in a way that made her seem older than her sixty-three years. It was not that Celia lacked sympathy for the woman who had been like a mother to her since her own mother’s death. It was just that, drained as she was by worry and waiting, she had nothing to offer.

  Celia returned to the kitchen and opened the cardboard box. It contained a thermos of soup, a dozen cartons of fruit juices, and a pot of black beans and white rice. She put the moros y cristianos in the refrigerator and poured some of the soup into a bowl. She wondered where the thermos had come from; it was not a household item Alma would have had, or would have had use for. She suspected José had bought it. She felt sure of it when, reaching for a carton of juice, she saw that they were all mango. José knew she preferred natural fruit juices to soda, and must have remembered that mango was her favourite. Luis might have known too, but he would not have been able to buy the brand or, at any rate, not so many cartons, which cost two Yanqui dollars each.

  Once Celia had eaten the soup and drank most of a carton of juice, she felt better. More importantly, the chemistry of grief abated sufficiently for her to focus on the problem at hand. It was now late Tuesday afternoon, thirty hours since José had dropped Liliana off outside the apartment. Where was she?

  She had not gone to Alma’s because Luis, the person from whom she was fleeing, lived there. If she had gone to a friend’s house, why had the parents of that friend not called? Celia was certain that none would put up a child for more than a day without letting the family know—and even more certain that none would let a child skip school. But Liliana was not at school. What was at school were her attendance records and a list of classmates. There were students there who did not live in Habana del Este and some friends Celia had not met. But the school was at least two hours away by bus, and the office would be closed already. So that would have to wait for morning.

  Celia also needed to speak to her supervisor at the hospital. She could not very well go roaming about the countryside while claiming to be sick. Mentally, she made a short list: hospital, see supervisor. School, see director. Find Liliana’s friends outside this complex, whoever they are. Celia felt fairly sure that families of Liliana’s classmates from other areas would be as unlikely to support truancy as those in their own neighbourhood. So who did that leave? Older, non-school-aged friends? Strangers?

  Celia’s heart skipped a beat. By an act of will, she blocked further speculation. She also blocked out two potentially helpful facts: that Luis had high-level contacts and could cast a net farther and faster than she could, and José had a car that could take her wherever she wanted to go quicker than the bus.

  However sensible Celia tried to be, her anger at the two of them burned with such irrational intensity that there was just no way she was about to ask either for anything.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  LUIS struggled to get through the day. Serious things were afoot at work, not on the surface but leading up to changes he suspected would involve him. What they were he did not know and at the moment did not care. His mind was too muddled with negative emotions about how he had failed Celia—and she him.

  When he got home he saw that Alma was not in much better shape, but he lacked what it took to help her. José, who could have cheered her, was avoiding the apartment as if its occupants were inflicted by something contagious. Alma said he had called to let her know he would not be home for supper. That was his style, all right. When things get tough, disappear.

  As soon as she cleaned up after supper, Alma, instead of turning on the television to watch her favourite Brazilian soap opera, went to her room. Luis did not feel like television either, nor like sitting out on the porch talking with neighbours as he often did in the cool of the evening. He took a shower and wondered where José was. Probably shacked up with a whore. Luis forced himself to visualize exactly that, mainly as a means of keeping Celia out of the picture. He had allowed himself to imagine his brother fucking her once and was not about to knife himself in the gut like that again. He willed himself to picture Celia alone, hurt, angry, and frightened. If only he could help her! Towel wrapped around his waist, he sprawled across his bed, sobbing. Not from his eyes but, it seemed, from all his internal organs.

  He heard the front door open and close and footsteps to the bathroom. Ten minutes later José entered the bedroom. He undressed without turning on the light. Luis did not move, but José must have sensed he was awake because he asked, “You talk to Celia today?”

  “I tried. She hung up on me.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really?” Luis was ashamed that her having also hung up on José made him feel better, but it did.

  “Don’t let it get you down. Things will get sorted out.”

  If Luis had not been in so much pain he would have laughed. His brother the divorced man assuring him that this was a temporary problem? His brother who had lost this very same woman? A wave of hopelessness as uncontrollable as retching forced out questions that were driving him loco. “How is that going to happen when she refuses to speak to me? How can anything get sorted out when we are so different?”

  José lay down and pulled the sheet up over his lanky body. “Naturally you’re different. You’re male. She’s female.”

  Luis snorted, something between laughter and derision. “What a help that is, hermano. You ought to become a couples counsellor.”

  That elicited a chuckle from José, but when he spoke, Luis could tell that he had been thinking about the break-up, and maybe had some ideas about why it had happened. He did not want advice from his brother, but he needed it.

  “You think it’s you and her?” José asked. “Or is it the kid?”

  “What difference does it make? It comes to the same thing.”

  “I don’t think so.” In the dark, Luis saw José prop himself on one elbow and turn toward him. “Liliana’s away at pre-university three weeks out of four. Another year and a half and she’ll be in university at the other end of the island. At least that’s what Mamá told me. She said Liliana wants to go to the med school in Santiago rather than here in Habana.”

  “Assuming she comes back.”

  “That’s a given. When she does, let Celia handle her however she wants. If you don’t get in her face about it again, it’ll blow over.”

  Luis knew his brother was offering valuable advice—or it might have been valuable if he had heard it, and taken it, six months ago. Now it was too late. He shook his head.

  José misunderstood and elaborated. “Either that or Celia sees for herself that comportment camp is the best option. Because you’re right, Liliana is out of control.”

  Luis felt a rush of gratitude toward José for seeing the situation his way. That may have been what gave him the courage to speak a truth he had always refused to admit. “There is more to it than that. The real problem is us. Celia and me.”

  José dropped back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “Meaning what?”

  Luis did not have to search for words to explain. He had thought about it too many times, rationalized it away only to have it come back looking exactly the same.

  “I am a team person. A ‘committee mind-set type,’ Celia calls me when she is annoyed. I believe in working together as a group. You know, for the common good.”

  “Maybe this particular ‘group decision’ should have included Celia. And Liliana,” José said with heavy irony.

  Luis sa
t up and pounded on his thighs. “Damn it, José, I tried! Liliana ran out on us and Celia wouldn’t discuss it. She always does that! I have no idea what goes on in her head!”

  José sighed. “So why do you want to marry her?”

  “I love her!” Luis leaned forward, trying to see his brother’s eyes in the darkness. “What else, José? What else is there?”

  José turned his head toward Luis and said, without sarcasm, “I guess you have to have something she wants.”

  Luis moaned. “She won’t take it! How do I get her to take what I have to give?”

  José gave a short humourless laugh. “If only I knew.”

  Luis dropped back onto the pillow feeling oddly comforted. For once his know-it-all brother did not know how to make things turn out the way he wanted either.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  CELIA hoped to see the hospital director, Angel Leyva, first thing in the morning and get a leave of absence starting immediately. However, when she reached work she learned that Dr. Leyva was meeting with other hospital directors in Habana and would not return until afternoon. To make matters worse, the pediatrics unit was short a doctor; if she left, it would be short two. So, consoling herself with the knowledge that Liliana knew her number at the hospital by heart, she forced family matters to the back of her mind and went to work.

  She did not stop for lunch. By three in the afternoon the overload of patients had been dealt with; there was only one more child to see. It was a seven-year-old boy with a boil on his back that needed lancing. Celia made reassuring noises as she prepped him, then, with a deft movement, lanced the boil. The same instant that puss squirted from the boil, the telephone rang in the adjacent office. Celia turned sharply, and as she did so her right hand jerked upward, slicing a small vein just where her wrist joined the heel of her left hand. She managed to get her thumb on it with enough pressure to stop the gush of blood, but not before the child had been splashed and, imagining the blood to be his own, set up a howl.

  “Call another doctor,” Celia instructed the nurse tersely. As the nurse obeyed, Celia distracted the child by showing him her cut. Then the nurse was back with a younger doctor in tow, who, casting a puzzled look at Celia, dressed the boy’s lanced boil. Celia understood the look. It took considerable carelessness to cut oneself while performing such minor surgery. She had never done it before, not even as a medical school student.

  The nurse tugged at her, trying to get her to a sink to sterilize the wound, but Celia pulled away and rushed into the outer office. Her secretary, not realizing there was anything amiss, held up the phone, “Dr. Cantú, do you want to take—”

  Celia snatched the telephone and held it to her ear, oblivious to blood dribbling down her arm. “Hello?”

  “Celia? It’s me, Luis. Have you heard—”

  “No,” Celia snapped, hating the voice that was not Liliana’s. “I have not heard. And unless you have, do not call again.” She slammed the telephone down and went to the sink where she relinquished her wrist to a nurse who sterilized and bandaged it. She was shaking.

  “Maybe you’d better—” the nurse began with a diffident murmur.

  “I know.” Celia forced a smile. “I should quit for the day. I am obviously—clumsy.” She turned to the secretary. “Yvette, do you know if Dr. Leyva is back yet?”

  The secretary started to shake her head, then smiled and pointed out the window to the parking lot. “Oh look. There he comes now.”

  • • •

  As the director approached from down the hall, he registered surprise to find Celia waiting outside his office door. Dr. Leyva was not often surprised. For the administrator of such a large facility, he was astonishingly aware of what was going on in the hospital at any given time. “Dr. Cantú? Did you want to see me?”

  “Please, Doctor, if you can spare the time,” Celia said.

  Angel Leyva was a small man, about the same height as Celia. When he bent his head to unlock the door, she noticed that his thick wavy hair, salt-and-pepper grey when she started working at the hospital seven years ago, was now salt white. It had happened so gradually that until this moment, she had not noticed.

  Leyva led her into the office, motioned her to a chair, and slid into his own. He leaned forward, elbows on a wooden desk that was so battered it might have come through the Revolution. That seemed unlikely, though, as this hospital had not existed then, but had been constructed later, specifically to serve the east-bay populations of Habana del Este, Cojímar, and Casablanca.

  “You have been unwell?” He looked at her expectantly, with a flicker of his eyes toward the bandaged wrist.

  “It’s nothing,” Celia said in response to his glance at her wrist. “Just a nick. And no. I was not sick yesterday, Dr. Leyva. I need time off. To attend to a personal matter.”

  “Do you have a date in mind?” His voice was mild, but a subtle change in his grey eyes told Celia that it was not going to be an automatic yes.

  “Now. Today. It is urgent.” She looked down in an attempt to conceal her anxiety.

  “Given the long hours everyone is already working, you must know how difficult it will be to accommodate your request on such short notice. With the current shortage of doctors—”

  Celia’s head snapped up. “Since when,” she asked tersely, “does Cuba have a shortage of doctors?”

  “Since thousands have left medicine to work in tourism.”

  Celia was aware that doctors from this very hospital had left to work as hotel managers, taxi drivers, even waiters. It simply had not occurred to her what the cumulative effect had been. “A real shortage?” she asked stupidly.

  “Not by world standards. But by Cuban standards, yes. A huge number have switched to tourism.”

  “To earn dollars,” she said bitterly.

  Leyva gave a slight shrug. “It’s not only individuals who want dollars. Cuba needs foreign exchange too. So it must be tolerated.”

  From the flatness in his voice, Celia realized that he was not expressing his opinion but repeating the reason he had been given for why doctors, trained by the government at no small expense, had been allowed to switch to a non-medical field.

  Celia shifted in her seat, anxious to have this discussion over, get her leave approved, and be gone. “There are plenty of programs to train people for the hospitality industry. Half the young people—” A sudden flooding image of Liliana and her friends sprawled around the apartment discussing the advantages of going into tourism caused Celia’s words to die in her throat. She could not continue.

  “Yes, but it takes time. Most doctors are already multilingual; that is what made them so—” He paused, searching for the right word. “Desirable.” He attempted a smile. “But the worst is over. The tourism schools are graduating a lot of young people now. A new law is about to go into effect, prohibiting doctors and teachers from wasting their training like that. By the end of the year, perhaps.” He leaned back in his chair and looked at Celia in a way that she recognized as diagnostic. “The long hours are burning you out, is that it?”

  She took a deep breath. “No.” Please, she begged silently. Don’t make me explain.

  The white-haired man behind the desk, who appearance-wise could easily have played the role of family doctor in a television drama, fastened his unrelenting grey eyes on her. Of course he was going to make her explain.

  “My niece, the one who lives with me. She has disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Leyva spoke the word as if it were not part of the Cuban vocabulary. In fact it was not—not in the context Celia was using it. The nearest thing to a child disappearing was an occasional Elían-type situation, where one parent bundled up their offspring and went abroad. Even then there were always family members who knew exactly where the child had gone and with whom. Children never disappeared into thin air, as Liliana seemed to have done.

  “She did not go to school Monday, Tuesday, or today.” Celia spoke rapidly. “She has not called. None of her frie
nds’ parents have called. She is not with relatives.”

  “Have you contacted social services?”

  “No. I—I am going to take time off. To look for her. I know her better than they do and, well, they have other children to deal with, don’t they? I have only her.”

  She did not mention, but he surely knew, the bureaucratic hassles that would be involved if the youth authorities were brought in. How counselling would be required for both of them once Liliana was located and, depending on what mischief she was into when they found her, she might very well be sent to a re-education camp. That last, the possibility of Liliana being removed from her care, Celia did not believe would be best for Liliana. Or bearable for her.

  Leyva’s eyes changed again. To what, a sadder grey? Could a colour be sad? Celia waited for his response, wondering if she looked as desperate as she felt. But he was no longer looking at her.

  His eyes had strayed to a photo on the desk. Celia could not see the picture from where she sat but she had seen it before. It had been there when he first interviewed her. She had seen it again each time he had summoned her to inform her of a promotion—promotions that had been rapid because so many Cuban doctors had left to practise abroad. Or to go into tourism. The picture was not always in the same place or at the same angle, but changed, as if he often picked it up to study it. It was a snapshot of two teenaged girls, arm in arm, waving gaily to the person with the camera.

  “A week?” he said. “And you will return to work sooner if it takes less time?”

  “Of course,” Celia said with quick relief.

  “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “The switchboard. If Liliana calls I would want to know. Day or night.”

  “I shall speak to the head operator personally,” Leyva said. “We will make sure all the operators are on the lookout for her call.”

  Celia stood up and reached across the desk to shake his hand. It was warm and had that quality that some hands have—more often the hands of lay people than medical professionals—of imparting comfort through touch. “Thank you, Doctor.”