The Woman She Was

by Rosa Jordan

  José came out of the bedroom and greeted them casually. Liliana turned her cheek to him for a kiss, then deliberately walked over to Luis and presented a cheek to him, as she had been taught to do as a child. He kissed the air next to it and without speaking, went back to his newspaper. He was, Celia saw, irritated about something. José must have seen it too because he motioned them toward the sofa and said, with rather too much cheerfulness. “Sit down, sit down. Where’s the coffee, Mamá?”

  “What do you mean, where’s the coffee? Since when do I need reminding to serve coffee to my own guests? You want it on the table quicker, go tell your fancy coffee maker to perk faster!” Alma scolded, but smiled as she headed for the kitchen.

  “Wait!” Liliana grabbed Alma by the hand. “Sit down, Tía Alma. I have something to tell you. All of you. Something really exciting.”

  “Ha! You think I can’t hear everything that goes on in this house from my kitchen?” Alma protested. But she allowed Liliana to lead her to a chair at the old wooden dining table.

  “Ven, Tío Luis and Tío Joe. Tía Celia?” Liliana looked beseechingly at her aunt.

  Celia moved toward the table uneasily, having glimpsed something in Liliana’s eyes that contradicted her gaiety.

  Only when the other four were seated did Luis, with the air of a busy adult being asked to participate in a child’s tea party, lay aside his newspaper and join them.

  “As you know,” Liliana said, “this time next week, Tía Celia and I will be on our way to México. That’s because Tío Luis”—here she paused and blew a kiss across the table to Luis—“got me a visa.”

  Celia barely had time to wonder why she hadn’t simultaneously thanked José when Liliana continued, “And Tío José has bought me a ticket to Miami.”

  All faces swivelled toward José. “You what ?” Celia gasped.

  “Like she said, I gave her a ticket to Miami. In addition to the one to México.”

  “Behind my back!” Celia shrieked.

  “Not behind your back,” Liliana and José responded in unison.

  “He made me promise to tell you,” Liliana said. “So I’m telling you, Tía. Telling all of you.”

  “That was the deal,” Jose explained. “I’d get her a ticket—and it’s a round-trip ticket, by the way—but she had to work the rest out with you. Which as far as I can tell is what she’s trying to do.”

  Luis, who had taken the chair that had been his father’s, gripped the wooden arms as if to keep from slugging his brother. “You treacherous bastard!” he hissed.

  “No call to insult our mother,” Joe snapped.

  “You’re the fucking insult! Is this what you came home for? Didn’t do enough damage when you ran out on us? You have to destroy the family we have left?”

  “I’ll come back!” Liliana cried, clearly having not anticipated the turn things had taken. She grasped Celia’s hand. “Tell them, Tía. I just want to . . . oh, don’t any of you understand ?”

  Tears filled Liliana’s eyes. Celia recognized them as not of manipulation but desperation. She did not think that she herself had ever wanted anything as badly as Liliana wanted this trip, unless it was for the notice of her own sister’s death to not be true. But that was different, that was unattainable. What Liliana wanted, with a passion that none of them, with the possible exception of José, could understand, was a chance to travel abroad. The very thought of Liliana making such a trip terrified Celia. But even more terrifying was the gulf that she was certain would open between them if she should be the one to prevent it. In a voice so steady Celia could not believe it was her own, she said, “If Liliana says she will come back, she will.”

  Luis looked at Celia as if she was the biggest fool who ever lived. “From México maybe. But from Miami?” His mouth twisted into a sneer. “Or will you end up there?”

  Celia knew the possibility, had looked long and hard at it before this moment. She squeezed Liliana’s hand tightly, an unconscious promise, or plea, that they would not be separated. She looked beseechingly at Alma. “Madrina! Give her your blessing. Give us both your blessing. We will come home!”

  “Let me give my blessing at your wedding,” Alma begged. “To one of my sons!”

  Celia sighed. “I will get the coffee.” With that she got up from the table, leaving her niece to fend for herself. From the kitchen she could hear Liliana attempting to do just that. Surprisingly, she was doing a credible job of it under the circumstances.

  “Excuse me!” Liliana wrapped her knuckles on the table as if bringing an unruly meeting to order. “I’m the one going. Yo. Moi. Me. So how come this is all of a sudden about Tía Celia?”

  Another snarling expletive from Luis was followed by another rap on the table by Liliana. “Tío Luis, this is about me. So will you please stop bickering with Tío Joe?” She turned to Alma. “They are so dense! You’d think by now they’d have twigged to the fact that my tía is never going to marry either one of them.”

  “Why?” Alma wailed. “They are such good boys! The best!”

  Celia served the demitasses of coffee, then laid a consoling hand on Alma’s shoulder. “They are, Alma, and I love them both.”

  “Yet you won’t choose! Why, mi hija? Why?”

  Celia sat down without attempting to answer. Then she saw that Liliana, Alma, Luis, and José were all looking at her, waiting for a reply to exactly that question. Staring into her steaming coffee, Celia said softly, “They do not know who I am.”

  “Corazón de Jesús!” Alma stood up, anger stanching her sobs. “How can they? Did Saint Joseph know he was betrothed to the mother of Jesus? There is not a man alive who knows a thing about women!”

  Alma stomped into the kitchen and returned with spoons, which she practically flung onto the table. She sat down and stirred an excessive amount of sugar into her coffee, clinking metal against the china cup until it was in danger of breaking.

  “I’m ashamed of you kids!” she shouted. “Middle-aged you are and still believing in fairy tales!” She glared at Luis. “Communism!” And at José. “Capitalism!” And at Celia. “Romantic love! May La Virgen help you all!”

  José rolled his eyes at Luis. “You hear that, hermano? She calls on the Virgin every second breath, and we’re the ones hooked on fairy tales!”

  For once, José’s trick of defusing Alma’s anger with humour did not work. Pointing a spoon at him, Alma hissed, “Just wait till you are on your death bed and see how much comfort your money and political ‘truths’ bring you. And you!” She aimed the spoon at Celia, “When you’re an old lady, alone with your romantic nonsense!”

  Liliana laid her head on Alma’s shoulder. “Let’s go to church tonight, Tía.”

  “Preciosa! You have more sense in one curl than the lot of them!” Alma stroked the girl’s hair with a trembling hand, apparently having forgotten that it was Liliana’s startling announcement that started the whole thing.

  “No need to act like she’s going to the moon,” José said to the table at large. “It’s just a trip, for God’s sake. I travel all the time. Celia, Luis, so do you. The only thing unusual about this one is that it’s Liliana’s first. So how about we celebrate? Would you like a going-away party, Liliana? Not like that bash at Magdalena’s, but you know, just family? Dinner at one of the new hotels, maybe?”

  Celia did not catch Liliana’s answer because at that moment Luis leaned across the table and snarled at her, “Do you really expect me to go along with this?”

  Celia knew that whether Liliana would be allowed to leave Cuba would depend on what Luis decided to do—and that in turn would depend on her answer. It was a long moment before she answered.

  “Trust,” she said softly, “is all we have left. If we stop trusting each other, what else is there?”

  There was a stillness, as if everyone was holding breath, waiting for a vibration that would reveal what Luis would do. Looking into his eyes, Celia saw that he himself did not know.

  It was José
who spoke. “Face it, Luis. Our charming niece has a mind of her own. And from all appearances, not a socially responsible bone in her body.”

  Luis laughed ruefully. From that laugh, Celia guessed that whether Luis knew it yet or not, he would not prevent Liliana from leaving.

  Liliana, apparently confused by what she took to be a compliment followed by insult, moved her chair closer to Alma. Alma patted her hand and whispered something, probably words meant to reassure them both, and which seemed to do just that.

  Celia picked up her coffee and walked to the window, unable to see the view for her tears. She did not know if the trip would be the right thing or the wrong thing for Liliana. She only knew what it could mean for her if Liliana should fail to return.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  LUIS stood at the top of the cracked marble steps and watched as his brother backed the convertible out of the narrow space into the street. Luis could not have expressed his feelings as the gusano knight, not on a white horse but in a canary-yellow convertible, carried his former fiancée and her niece off into the sunset. Part of it was emptiness because, in truth, Luis could not remember a time when he did not want Celia Cantú. Yet there was relief too, as if he had been freed from the responsibility of doing something that was simply beyond his ability.

  Of course it helped that there was Emily. He was still annoyed that Alma had insisted he be at home this afternoon when Celia and Liliana came to visit, as that had required him to drive Emily back to the school early, where she probably was as lonely in her room as he felt standing here on the steps of his family’s home.

  To erase the memory of Celia’s firm buttocks under the worn denim of her bottom-tight jeans that lingered after she walked past him down the steps, he deliberately conjured an image of Emily’s fragility. But it was not their physical difference that, for Luis, made all the difference. It was Emily’s transparency. She explained herself in a shy yet straightforward way, but Luis didn’t need the words to read her doubts, her delights, and, above all, how she felt about him.

  He had never been certain of Celia’s thoughts on any subject. He did not even understand her mental process. A lifetime of being around her, two years of which they had been on the most intimate terms, and he was still without a clue as to what she felt. Perhaps that was the attraction of Celia Cantú, why men as different as himself and José had gone after her in the first place. That air of mystery was so powerful that even now he was not released from the desire to know what was going on inside her.

  As these half-formed thoughts and convoluted feelings swirled in Luis’s head, he wandered out onto the street. It was really the only place to go, since he was not about to go back into the house where Alma would be kneeling before her altar to the Virgin, praying for the only thing she ever prayed for: the safety and unity of the family. Luis would never comprehend the triple deception that sustained her: the notion that she, little Alma, could call forth the grace of a non-existent god to protect a family that was a mere pseudo-family to start with, and which, after today, would have no more connection to theirs than palm fronds ripped from the trunk and blown out to sea by a hurricane.

  A child batted a tattered softball in his direction. Luis caught it automatically and whipped it to the pitcher. The boy grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture and walked on. At the end of the block, two neighbours were struggling to unload a sofa from a truck. Luis saw the need for another man and rushed forward. He helped them lower the sofa and lent muscle to the task of lugging it up an unlit stairwell to the apartment for which it was intended.

  Minutes later, back on the street, one of the men called down to him from the balcony. “Amigo, you forgot something.”

  Luis looked up. The apartment owner was holding a can of beer, unopened. Although it was a clear invitation for him to join them on the balcony, Luis held up his hands. The guy read his signal and tossed the beer down to him.

  Luis held the can away from himself to avoid the foam when he popped the top. He took a swallow, saluted his neighbour, and walked on. By the time he had walked a block the beer had been drunk and the can deposited onto a raked pile of garbage that a truck would pick up someday, whenever the gasoline supply permitted. He stopped at a kiosk and ordered a shooter of rum. Luis was not ordinarily a drinker. But this was not an ordinary day.

  “Hola, Luis,” greeted a neighbour standing at the outdoor bar. “Did you watch the game last night?”

  “Didn’t everybody?” Luis replied, although he actually had not because he had been with Emily. “What did you think of it, Alfonso?”

  “It must gall the Yanquis that with twenty-five times Cuba’s population they can’t field a team to match ours,” Alfonso crowed.

  “Sometimes they do,” chimed in a man Luis didn’t know.

  “Yeah, but we cleaned their clock at the Olympics,” Alfonso gloated as if he personally had scored the winning run. “And we’ll do it again at the Pan Am Games.”

  “Not if we keep losing players,” Luis muttered. He swirled his rum and took another sip, noticing, not for the first time, that he didn’t like the taste. “I wonder how many gusanos end up coming home.”

  “A lot,” Alfonso said thoughtfully. “But ordinary people. Probably not that many who get their hands on big money.”

  “Money, shit!” Luis slammed his empty shot glass on the bar. “How can a man put a price on his country? It’s like putting a price on yourself. ‘Pay me and I’ll be somebody else.’” He signalled to the bartender for a refill for the three of them. “They sell their fucking soul.”

  The bartender poured each another shot. Luis lifted his in a toast. “Viva Cuba!”

  “Viva Cuba!” echoed the others.

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  JOE finished stowing Liliana’s bundles in the trunk and put the top down on the convertible, knowing it would please the girls. When he slid behind the wheel, they squeezed into the front seat next to him.

  “This is such a cool máquina,” Magdalena cooed.

  “Joe is a cool tío.” Liliana cut her eyes at him and he grinned back, acknowledging both the compliment and her claim to a special relationship.

  They had not gone more than two kilometres along the waterfront road when they passed four teens coming down the hill from the Estadio Panamericao. “Look!” screamed Magdalena. “It’s Danilo and Osmani and—”

  “Ymildeida and Yipsi!” Liliana finished. “Stop, Tío!”

  Joe applied the brakes and backed up so the girls could chat with their friends. Or so Liliana could show off him and the car, which appeared to be the purpose of the stop. All four teens—two slender Latino boys with well-muscled calves and two tall black girls—were coming from workouts at the stadium.

  “Jump in,” Liliana invited. “We’ll give you a lift. Right, Tío?”

  One boy came to the driver’s side and put out his hand. “You must be Liliana’s tío from Florida. She told us about you. I’m Danilo Silva. Welcome home, compañero.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Joe shook the boy’s hand, pleased to be called compañero for the first time since his return to Cuba.

  The other three followed Danilo’s lead, each shaking hands before piling into the back seat amid the girls’ giggling pleasure, masked by fake complaints, at being squished together in such close physical proximity.

  “Where are you headed?” Joe asked over his shoulder.

  “To the bus stop,” one of the girls answered. “But we’re going to hang out in Cojímar for a while first. You can let us out anywhere.”

  Joe glanced into the rear-view mirror. He could tell from the way they were relishing the rush of wind through their hair that they were having more fun right this minute than anything they might have planned to do in Cojímar. How many decades had it been since North American kids got a thrill out of a simple car ride with an adult at the wheel? On impulse he called back to them, “Where’s a good place for ice cream?”

  Several suggestions were thr
own out, but he drove to where he had intended to go when he asked the question, a small shop a block from Hotel Panamericano that he had noticed the day he picked up snack foods for Celia and Liliana to take on the bus.

  The boys pushed together two tables at the sidewalk café and Joe went inside to order the ice cream. As he waited what seemed an interminable length of time for the simple order to be filled, he looked through the plate glass window to the table where six high-energy teens were trying to sit but seemed physically incapable of doing so. The girls laughed and dodged as the teasing became physical. Osmani picked up Magdalena, carried her to the railing, and made as if to drop her onto the street a few feet below. Others rushed to her aid, and the girl called Yipsi, who was taller than Osmani by a head, picked him up and made as if to drop him over the railing.

  Joe was so caught up in the scene, their exuberance reminding him so much of his own teen years with Celia, Carolina, Franci, Joaquín, and others in their neighbourhood, that the clerk had to nudge him to let him know the dishes of ice cream were on the counter, melting quickly in the afternoon heat.

  “Thanks,” Joe said, but stood there a moment longer, watching the kids, thinking, There’s one thing wrong with that picture. There ought to be two pretty blond teenagers named Keri and Amy right in the middle of it.

  He motioned for help in carrying the ice cream, then sat down at the table with the kids. It occurred to him that in the ten years since leaving Cuba, he probably hadn’t spent thirty minutes in the company of teenagers. What surprised him about their babble was that none of it was about recent purchases or things they wanted to buy. This puzzled him. Even his four-year-old, in a five-minute phone conversation, would have mentioned something she wanted or had just acquired. His girls’ most animated moments revolved around receiving gifts. Surely there were things these Cuban teens wanted to own; they were, after all, human.