The Woman She Was

by Rosa Jordan

  He literally could not answer. Walking away, he heard the girl say to the cashier, “He must be Number Two. Number One’s supposed to be really good-looking.”

  Luis stumbled past the pool and across the grounds to his car. Ten minutes later, back on the Vía Blanca, he was still shaking.

  FORTY

  CELIA’S reaction to Magdalena’s revelations was not entirely rational. Rational would have been to drive from the campismo on to Varadero and search for Liliana there; either that or go home and wait for her to call. But she could not bear to spend another day waiting by the telephone, and should she encounter Luis in Varadero, she doubted she could swallow her anger and show the gratitude he deserved. The two places Magdalena had named tugged her like magnets: Playa Girón and Trinidad. They were what—three, four hours away?

  Thus, instead of turning west toward Habana, she turned east. She left the Vía Blanca at Matanzas and angled southeast toward Playa Girón. Soon the hilly landscape levelled out into mile after mile of citrus groves. South of that she entered the Parque Nacional Ciénaga de Zapata, a great wild swamp cut in half by the Bahía de Cochinos.

  The highway was lined with memorials to Cubans who had died during what North Americans called the Bay of Pigs invasion and Cubans called la victoria. The small cement monuments were mute reminders of how many had fallen and, if one stopped to read the inscriptions, how very young most of them were. The shame of it, Celia thought sadly, was that it had been a war of Cubans against Cubans; wealthy ones who had lost their holdings following the Revolution against poor ones who had gained, among other things, hope for a better life. But as in any war, many of the poor had not lived to enjoy that better life, had not lived past this brief, bloody struggle.

  They had not even lived to see how complete the victory had been, how after La Victoria most of the captured invaders—some 1,175 men—were traded back to the United States for 53 million dollars’ worth of medicines and food, thereby saving the lives of countless other Cubans. Celia smiled at the sheer audacity of the ransom demanded, and was certain, although no one had ever said so, that it had been Celia Sánchez’s idea.

  She was on that part of the highway that closely followed the eastern shore of the bay when she passed a familiar place. Campismo Victoria de Girón was a row of cement block cottages strung along a beach that alternated white sand and sharp black rock called diente de perro—“dogs’ teeth.” As a Young Pioneer, Celia once spent a holiday here. There had not been enough snorkelling equipment to go around, so they had taken turns donning masks and diving into the crystal water to see a barnacle-covered landing craft, remnant of a brief but decisive battle that ensured that she was born into this Cuba, not some other.

  • • •

  At Villa Playa Girón, Celia asked the manager to circulate the notice among hotel employees. He looked uneasy but agreed to do it. Walking through the lobby to the pool area, Celia saw what may have accounted for his uneasiness. The Cuban women among the guests may have been vanguardia, model workers here on a government-paid holiday, but their youthful beauty and the fact that they were with much older foreigners suggested otherwise. She thought it likely that the hotel was in violation of a law that prohibited Cubans and foreigners from sharing a hotel room unless they had documents showing they were married. Celia’s gaze moved from one guest to another as she made her way down to the beach but saw no familiar face.

  Guests were lodged in individual cottages lined along the beach for about a kilometre. Celia pulled off her sandals and walked west along the smooth sand. There were not many people on the beach, and the lounge chairs in front of each cottage stood empty. Most seemed to have forsaken sunbathing in favour of the cool interior of their air-conditioned cottage. By the time Celia reached the last cottage her feet felt blistered from the hot sand. Discouraged and feeling foolish for having imagined she could find Liliana by searching resort to resort like this, she walked to the water’s edge. Her gaze fastened on the horizon, but not really on the horizon, for what she saw was an invisible island just beyond the curve of the earth. She sat down at the edge of the gentle surf and wiggled her toes in the warm water.

  Her legs dangled over the side of the dock, feet cooled by the dark as it swirls in and out with the tide. Behind her, in the island’s only house, the prime minister’s wife had put her infant to bed and, somewhat slowly grasping the fact that her husband and Fidel were more focused on each other than on her, she had retired. Celia would not have been surprised if the men had talked all night, for they got on well, but perhaps Pierre felt a need to attend to his young wife, because soon after she retired he excused himself. Fidel had gone to speak to the crew about the following day’s activities, a spear-fishing trip to a favourite spot near the mouth of the Bahía de Cochinos. Now the house was quiet. For the first time in the prime minister’s week-long visit, she had stolen a few moments alone. Alone until she heard the creak of the dock under bare feet. He wrapped his arms around her waist. She waited for him to speak, to indicate what was uppermost in his mind.

  “Well, what do you think? Will Canada stand with us?”

  “It won’t join the blockade, no. Trudeau is too proud to let the United States dictate Canada’s foreign policy.”

  “He has a social conscience.”

  “And a flirtatious wife.” She paused. “Was it wise to tell her she has the most beautiful eyes you have ever seen?”

  His breath was warm in her hair, his voice teasing. “What else can one say to a woman who looks only to see herself reflected in the eyes of a man? It’s not as if she’s an intellectual. Besides, it will please her husband to think I find her beautiful.”

  Celia did not respond to that, but thought, It pleases you too that she should be flattered by your flattery, although I know you better, know well what kind of woman you find beautiful. Just as you know I am untroubled by your roving, as long as it doesn’t compromise La Revolución. And know, too, that my question was not prompted by jealousy, that being an emotion impossible between two people as transparent to each other as we are and as bonded by common purpose. I may be right, though, in feeling that it was unwise to flirt with her under her husband’s nose. Then again, you may be right, that it was just the right touch to give them a romantic evening, and Cuba a stronger ally.

  The silence between them was long, not broken until he pressed close behind her and whispered, “Quita la ropa.” Then dove into the water.

  She glanced toward the house and up at the moon. It was a sliver of silver, low in the sky, not casting enough light to make her visible to the sentry at the door of the cottage. If Fidel wanted her to swim with him in the nude, he would have given orders that no one should follow him down to the dock. She removed her shirt, untied the wrap-around skirt, and stepped out of her underwear.

  Fidel had not yet surfaced, although it had been more than a minute. Nineteen years together and she still had not got used to the length of time he could remain underwater. It always alarmed her, perhaps more so tonight because the prime minister’s visit had been so tiring. Fidel, though, was pleased with himself, confident that he had established a genuine rapport with Trudeau. No wonder he was treating himself to the luxury of this midnight swim. She dove. The dark water parted with a flash of blue-white phosphorescence. She surfaced and treaded water.

  Long-fingered hands grasped her ankles, slid upward on her legs and, holding her hips, turned her to face him. She revised what she had just told herself about his need to unwind. He had not been stressed by the social demands of a visit from a head of state; for him the week had been exhilarating. It was she who found social rituals tension-generating, more exhausting by far than a pack-laden march through the sierra. This midnight swim in caressing warm water, beneath his caressing hands, the lovemaking that would melt away the vertical crease between her eyes and relax every knotted muscle in her body—this was not for him. It was his gift to her.

  “Please, do you want to buy a fish?”

&nb
sp; Before she could surface from her hallucination, Celia was surrounded by children. She rubbed her eyes as the dream was replaced by an even more hallucinatory image: that of a large silver fish, held up and flopping just inches from her face.

  “I—no. No fish.”

  One of the children, a boy of about twelve, turned to look across the water in the direction Celia had been staring. “Were you trying to see Fidel’s island? You can’t, not from here. It’s too far. You’d need a power boat. Or a sea kayak.”

  The children fell into an instant debate as to whether Cayo Piedra, although beyond the horizon, was within swimming or rowing distance.

  One wiry boy puffed out his small chest. “I could swim there if I had fins.”

  The others laughed. The boy who had made the preposterous claim laughed too. Celia smiled and ran her fingers through his brown curls. Sure you could, she thought. Just like I could get there in my head. All it takes is being a little crazy.

  “Why do you want to sell the fish?” she asked.

  “To get money to buy candy,” the smallest girl informed her.

  “Why not take it to your mother so she can cook it for supper?”

  The children’s enthusiastic smiles faded. A plump black girl with a streak of red in her otherwise dark hair was quick to invent a criticism-proof answer. “One fish isn’t enough for all our mothers. If we sell it we can buy enough candy to share all around.”

  “We’ll give you a piece,” the smallest girl promised, putting her sandy hand in Celia’s.

  Celia was so touched by the children’s sweetness that she almost gave in. She nodded to let them know she approved of their plan to share, at the same time suggesting an alternative. “Candy is easier to share than a fish. But if no one buys it, maybe one of your mothers can cook it in a soup and another mother can bring an onion and another one a potato, and some cabbage. If everybody adds something, then there might be enough to share, yes?”

  “Okay!” they chorused and raced off down the beach, splashing in and out of the surf like a flock of brown-legged sea birds.

  Celia watched them out of sight, then walked back to the hotel. It was tiredness, she told herself. She had been driving what—four hours? Well, maybe not that long, and maybe she was not that tired. But it had to be more than mere proximity to someplace Celia Sánchez had been that caused her to let go of mind to the point that it went wandering like that!

  What she suspected, and was reasonably sure any psychiatrist she revealed herself to would tell her, was that she was fabricating fantasies out of forgotten memories—not of her own experience but things she had heard or read. She had never been anywhere near Cayo Piedra, had never even seen a picture of it other than as a dot on the map, and was sure she had not been thinking about it when she walked down the beach. But it was common knowledge that Fidel often took visiting dignitaries there. With little security in attendance, they dined informally on fresh fish and lobster. Prime Minister Trudeau and his wife, Margaret, had in fact visited Cuba with their infant son, probably about the time she herself started to school. Had they been taken to Cayo Piedra? Had the visit been discussed in class, considered of interest to small children because of the Trudeau baby over whom Fidel had made such a fuss? Was that where her psyche had got the material to foment—or ferment—this absurdly personal vision?

  A gust of wind blew sand into her eyes, causing them to sting and probably redden too. And didn’t it serve her right! She was supposed to be searching for Liliana, not lolling on the beach. She had gone in search of “the real Celia” once, she reminded herself, and ended up at the Comandancia mired in more unreality than before. That was not what this trip was about and she was not going to let it happen again!

  She almost ran back to the hotel and arrived hot and panting. She again scanned the crowded pool area, then went into the restroom to wash up. Next she called Alma, the hospital, and the school. All reported the same absence of news. She told no one where she was, just said she would call again the following day.

  FORTY-ONE

  LUIS had never been a repressive bureaucrat. In fact, he had gone to great pains to become precisely the opposite—unobtrusive, soft-spoken, and helpful—a true servant of the people. If asked for self-criticism, he would have said that perhaps he took his work too seriously and lacked a sense of humour. He rarely smiled.

  He certainly was not smiling when he arrived in Varadero. Anybody who had dealings with Luis that day might well have described him as exactly the kind of official he had always tried not to be. For the first time ever he used his high-ranking position to intimidate others. He might not be the richer brother or the better-looking one but, by God, he was somebody in his own country. Although he was not conscious of it, he wanted to see that fact reflected in the face of everyone who crossed his path.

  He crested the overpass leading into Varadero and for once did not mellow with pride at its traffic-thronged streets and big hotels. He drove directly to SuperClub Puntarena, the resort at the end of Varadero closest to the mainland, where Liliana had lured him and José into dancing. He knew that only registered guests were allowed on the premises, but when the guard came out of the kiosk with the intention of stopping him, Luis flashed an ID card and kept walking. When the hapless guard hurried after him to get a better look at the card, Luis coolly folded it back into his wallet and snapped, “Call the head of security and the manager. I want to meet with them immediately.”

  Luis’s air of authority was not feigned. He had a job to do and he would do it. The notices would be circulated, Liliana would be found, and she would be sent to a re-education camp for as long as it took her to learn to behave. She could bloody well forget about hanging out with disrespectful, pointy-haired kids like that girl at the campismo.

  The security chief greeted him at the door and led him to the manager’s office. There was no point in asking whether Liliana was there, as they would certainly deny it. Hotel staff well knew the law against Cubans sharing rooms with foreigners to whom they were not married, and that in the case of an underaged girl, all of them, including the hotel manager and the foreigner, might go to prison.

  Luis slapped a picture of Liliana on the manager’s desk. “This girl is missing,” he snapped. “If she comes here, or even tries to get in, call me immediately and hold her until I arrive.” Luis took a pen from his pocket and made a big checkmark next to his own telephone number on the poster.

  There were murmurs of willing compliance. Luis acknowledged them with the barest nod and gave both men a meant-to-be-intimidating look. “I know for a fact that she has come here before, via the beach access. So keep your eyes open.”

  And so it went, hotel after hotel after hotel. It was three-thirty when he reached the last hotel he had time to visit. He had skipped numerous smaller ones, guessing that Liliana would have chosen the larger resorts. At those, not every guest was known to the security staff and she would have found it easy to slip in and mingle—just as she had at SuperClub Puntarena.

  The manager of the final hotel on Luis’s list was in an empty dining room, filling his plate from a picked-over buffet. Luis waited until he was seated, then approached. The man looked to be about sixty, with thinning grey hair. Because he appeared tired, Luis spoke firmly but not unkindly. He produced Liliana’s picture and did not imply, as he had elsewhere, that the management itself might be involved in harbouring a minor.

  As the manager looked at the pictures, Luis’s eyes unconsciously fastened on the food. The manager glanced up and saw him staring. “Would you care to join me?”

  Luis opened his mouth to say no even though his stomach was screaming the opposite. The manager spoke first. “Please. It’s on the house. I hate eating alone.”

  It was common hospitality of the sort Cubans all over the island extended to each other every day of the week. Yet because this was Varadero, where one did not expect generosity, or because he himself had been so ungenerous with everyone he had met that day, or bec
ause he was so in need of simple kindness, Luis felt his eyes moisten. It was all he could do to choke out, “Gracias, compañero.”

  When he returned to the table, his plate heaped with roast pork, chicken, lobster, rice, potatoes, and buttered rolls, the manager was gazing at Liliana’s picture.

  “They drive me crazy,” he said, not seeming to notice or care how much food Luis had piled onto his plate. “They chat up guests on the beach and every time you turn your back they slip in.” He studied the picture of Liliana in a swimsuit. “Good you brought this one. They often show up wearing just this, nothing else, and mingle with guests around the pool.”

  Luis nodded. “I know. I caught this very girl doing that.”

  The manager glanced briefly at Luis, and Luis knew he was wondering whether the girl might be a relative. Luis was not ready to admit how close he was, or had been, to becoming a relative. But the need to confide in someone upon whom he could count for sympathy was irresistible.

  “I tried to persuade the family to put her in a re-education camp. But it is hard for families to accept that their child is up to this sort of thing. And now she is missing.”

  “Making our jobs just that much harder.”

  “Just that much harder,” Luis repeated. The very admission of what a hard day this had been allowed him to feel his own exhaustion. Both men ate quietly, hungrily. Neither spoke again until their plates were empty. The manager signalled a waiter, who brought a silver pot.

  “Café?” At Luis’s nod, the waiter poured coffee for each of them.

  “How long have you been in Varadero?” Luis asked, thinking that the man might be new to tourism, which would explain why he had the hospitable ways of an ordinary Cuban.

  “Always,” the manager smiled. “My name is Jon Madera, by the way.”