Broken Paradise

by Cecilia Samartin

  “That’s a really strange thing to say. Have you taken a good look at how weird you’re getting? I’m embarrassed that people know you’re my sister sometimes. I feel like telling everyone my sister is a nun or that she’s dead.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly what you should tell them; that I’m dead.”

  I couldn’t explain very well in any language this peculiar pain that refused to heal. It was always there, and I had eventually grown to love it as the only reminder I had left of who I was, the only certitude that I had once belonged to my life and my world.

  Marta’s eyes filled with tears, and she switched to Spanish. “Nora, don’t talk about being dead. It makes me sad, and I hate feeling sad.”

  I waited for her to wipe her eyes. The sun had started to set and because the window of our room faced west, for just a few minutes every afternoon, the walls were bathed in golden light and we became translucent.

  Marta’s dark eyes opened wide as she absorbed the golden light. “I miss the way you used to be, Nora. You were so happy and fun, and all I wanted was to be with you. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Why can’t it be like that again?”

  I couldn’t think of an answer to this question that would make any sense, so I stayed silent and we watched the golden light slip from the room, and the quiet gray of twilight fill the space of our dreams.

  The envelope, worn and creased at the corners from its long journey, was propped on my pillow when I arrived home from school. I immediately recognized the writing on the outside, always graceful and neat, but slanting to the left instead of the right. My fingers trembled as I eased open the seal, and Alicia’s voice floated up from the pages like a beloved melody from long ago.

  Dear Nora,

  I finally found the strength of heart to write you back. I also found a way, through an old friend of Papi’s, to send you this letter so that words aren’t cut out here and there as the government does. And believe me, if not for that there’d be only one big picture window, a frame for your beautiful face that I miss so much.

  It’s been nine months since they killed Papi. We were allowed to send one telegram after his death. Those words, “Traitor to the Revolution” were not our words, but considering the choices we were given, “Traitor to his country and his people” and others just as bad, it seemed like the best option. The truth is that Papi would’ve been proud to be considered a traitor to the Revolution. Soon after you left, he came to understand that Castro was never going to allow for free and democratic elections.

  Papi was gone for weeks at a time when things got bad. He wouldn’t tell us what he was doing, or where he was going, but we knew it was more dangerous than before. Mami became very sick during this time. She had to go to Abuela’s again. We both went. Toward the end we hardly ever saw him anymore. We’d hear how he was doing through friends who’d come to our door in the middle of the night and leave us whispered messages or scribbles on scraps of paper. Mami burned them in the ashtray right after she read them, crying all the while. She was unable to get out of bed after we heard Papi was captured.

  I couldn’t help but imagine his execution. He must have stood together with the others, so thin, I wouldn’t have recognized him. During that last moment of his life, he turned his face to heaven and called out, “Viva la libertad, viva Cuba!”

  I screamed it with him and for hours after they killed him. I screamed until my voice was hoarse and I could hardly breath. Abuela closed all the windows for fear of the spies that are everywhere, but I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. Even after so many months have passed my heart is still screaming with him, Nora. They’re silent screams that become great hurling sobs in the middle of the night when no one can hear. Every day I have the feeling he’ll be home any minute and then I realize I’ll be waiting for my father the rest of my life.

  I can’t explain the sadness that’s lodged itself in my heart. I no longer feel the need to function as a human being, to bathe, to eat, to brush off the flies that land on my face and arms. I’m a paper doll, flat and empty, pretending to be like everybody else only because I’m tired of explaining why I’m not.

  Mami stopped speaking altogether after Papi died. The doctor sent her to a Sanitarium, but I’m not sure there’s any cure for what she has or that she wants to be cured. Tía Panchita sent for me after Mami went away. She thought it would be better for me in the country, away from the madness of the Revolution, but there’s no getting away from it. This disease has infected every person, every bird, every grain of sand. The island has detached from its usual place and drifted to some other spot on earth where life means something different from what it used to mean.

  I have read your letters, each one a thousand times, and pretend all the while that you are here with me still. Please keep writing and don’t interpret the length of time it took me to write back after Papi’s death as anything other than the weakness of a frail heart.

  Alicia

  I refolded the letter and tucked it underneath the picture of Alicia and me in my nightstand drawer. Every night for weeks I took a moment to visit it. It was no longer necessary to read the words, for I’d memorized every one. Instead, I studied Alicia’s script and felt the pain in every curve of the line, every tenuous crossing of the pen. Although thousands of miles away, we were together again and the understanding between us was stronger than ever.

  I began to feel more like myself, and more alive than I had since leaving my country. And with every letter that arrived, I thanked God for granting me the peace of yet another sanctuary.

  Dear Nora,

  I’m going to write to you about the day I came back to life. I pray with all my heart you understand how close to death I actually was and that my will to live goes beyond politics and fear and even the memory of my father, may he rest in peace. I don’t understand all that is happening to me, but writing to you about it and imagining your quiet way of listening helps me beyond what I can express.

  I hadn’t been outside of the house for weeks. I feared that if sunlight touched my skin I’d be turned to dust, or if it hit my eyes I’d go blind. I was so weak that even thinking about whether or not I should eat made me tired, and often I’d go back to bed for the rest of the day when I’d only been up for an hour or two.

  I was sitting in the shadows of the kitchen when Tony came in. He was even more beautiful than I remembered him. His manhood is full upon him, and he wears it like a splendid cape of gold. The tropical skies live in his eyes, and I felt my heart move the instant I saw him. For the first time since Papi died, I became aware of the breath entering my lungs and the mild aching in my legs that were folded underneath me.

  He sat down and told me Panchita and Lola were worried about me and that I needed to eat and get well for many reasons. His voice was like warm honey and right away I felt the rumbling of hunger in my stomach. He took a loaf of bread from the cupboard, broke off a piece, and handed it to me. I ate it completely and the next, and the one after that. Then he peeled the last banana Tía had, and I ate it straight from his hands. A delicious energy coursed through my veins, and I felt how a little baby must feel when he’s born fresh into the world.

  He came to see me every day after that, and every day I got stronger. We went for walks into the forest, he read to me from his revolutionary books, and I listened to his voice and tried to ignore the words. Tony believes in the revolution with all his heart and soul. He’s taken me to his village and I’ve seen the way the poor children live, without shoes, without food and clean water. Most of them can’t read or even write their own names. Tony believes all children should be taught how to read and have the chance for a decent life.

  He tells me these things while we rock on the porch or walk through the sugar cane fields, hand in hand. He also says that he’s loved me since the first day he met me and that I’m the most beautiful woman he knows. He doesn’t say this as I’ve heard other men tell me, Nora. I can just see you sha
king your head. He says it with true light in his eyes so I know he sees beauty in my heart the way I see it in his. And because of this, when we stroll beyond the grounds of Tía’s house and wander behind the trees, I let him kiss me on the lips like we did so many years ago. I press my body against him so that my chest melts into his, and I feel the strength of his desire for me right on my belly. The only nourishment I need is to drink from his lips and to feel his arms around me. I’m not ashamed to say that I want nothing more than to lay with him and give him all that I am. I never knew I could love a man or any one the way I love Tony. He has become my life Nora, and I have become his.

  He wants me to go with him to work the sugar cane fields when I’m stronger. The party is asking people to sign up in support of the revolution, even pregnant women and sick old people. I can’t imagine supporting anyone or anything that killed my father, but I can’t bear the thought of being away from Tony even for one day. I haven’t told Tía Panchita yet, but I’m sure I will go with Tony to the sugar cane fields or to the ends of the earth; it’s all the same to me.

  Do you suppose Papi would forgive me? Sometimes I imagine him up in heaven watching me and weeping for the decision I’ve made to love Tony. At others, I believe he’s happy that I’m alive again and able to love when I was sure my heart and soul had died. Perhaps he can see from heaven that right and wrong isn’t as important as happiness and love. Or perhaps I’m simply a fool, too weak and shallow to care about anything but my own survival.

  You wrote before that you didn’t think me capable of betrayal. Yet, isn’t this the worst betrayal of all? Do not spare my feelings. I’ve always been able to hear the truth from you if from no one else. Please write me again soon. I’ll be waiting.

  Alicia

  15

  MAMI TOSSED THE PAMPHLET I GAVE HER TO REVIEW BACK ON the kitchen table. “What’s this Peace Corps business?” she asked, pronouncing Corps as if it were a dead body and with the same disdain as if she could smell it rotting.

  “It’s a government organization that trains people, mostly young college-age people to go to other countries and help with….”

  “Oh yes, I remember hearing about this now,” she said, getting up from her chair to attend to the stew she had on the stove. “Kennedy started all this, didn’t he?” She nodded severely like a detective who just figured out who committed the murder.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it, Mami. It’s a very good cause, and poorer countries benefit from the help.”

  She stirred with one hand and the other she placed squarely on her hip. “When do you go to college? What happens to your scholarship?”

  “I won’t lose my scholarship if I wait a couple of years and then I’ll have more life experience. When you have life experience, it helps you do better in college. That’s what my counselor told me.”

  She started to mutter which I knew wasn’t a good sign. It meant she was trying to keep the kettle of anxiety she always had simmering in her heart from overflowing. “Life experience, eh? Why don’t you go down to skid row and take a good look at what life experience can do for you?” She waved her spoon in the general direction of where she thought skid row would be.

  “That’s hardly a fair comparison.”

  She turned to face me, her cheeks flush from more than the steam rising from the stove. “Don’t talk to me about what’s fair because I know better than anyone that nothing’s fair in this life. Is it fair that you have an opportunity to go to one of the best colleges in this country and that you’d rather go traipsing through the jungle instead? Is it fair that you sleep on clean sheets every night with a full belly, when other young people your age can’t be sure where they’ll sleep for the night or where they’ll get their next meal? They make it sound real glamorous,” she said with that all-knowing roll of her eyes, something she’d recently picked up from Marta. “Taking young people from their comfortable lives and out to the sugar cane fields, putting guajiro hats on their heads, machetes in their hands, and making them believe they’re supporting some great cause for humanity.”

  “I never said anything about going to Cuba, Mami.” I could hear my voice rising, in spite of my effort to remain calm.

  “Maybe not, but those young people go there too. I saw them on TV not long ago, and it made me sick to my stomach to hear the reporters talk about sugar cane production and increased profits when everybody knows the people are hungry enough to eat their own shoes if they had any.” She pointed the spoon directly at me this time. “If you even think about going back there to help that man, then you’re no daughter of mine. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “I understand perfectly,” I said, almost yelling. “But you don’t understand that I’m not going to Cuba. This has nothing to do with Cuba.”

  She held the spoon steadily at me. “Don’t you forget who you’re talking to, young lady. I’m your mother and you need to show some respect.” I lowered my eyes and she lowered her spoon. After some more muttering, Mami put the lid back on the pot and forced herself to sit back down at the kitchen table to take another look at the pamphlet she’d dismissed so easily before. She turned each of the pages and squinted at the pictures of people raising livestock and digging ditches next to the natives and smiling all the while as if comforted by the knowledge that they were single-handedly saving the world.

  She was making an effort to be reasonable, and she’d made some progress when dealing with Marta lately, but she never expected any trouble from me. “Now tell me honestly, Nora,” she said, studying me with sincere curiosity. “What do you want with all this? I could understand if you always enjoyed camping, or if you had a great love for cows and dirt, but the truth is you won’t even help me plant a rose bush out in the yard when I ask you to.”

  Encouraged by the disappearing crease between her brows, I made a brave attempt at explaining my humanistic sensibilities. I’d even managed to speak for three or four uninterrupted minutes, when Marta came home from school, sniffing about for a preview of that evening’s meal. She only needed to listen for thirty or so seconds before folding her arms and making her declaration.

  “Oh, I know what this is all about,” she said with a self-satisfied smirk. “It’s about that guy who used to tutor you, isn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Mami asked, suddenly alarmed at the mention of some guy she knew nothing about.

  “This has nothing to do with Jeremy,” I shot back.

  “Jeremy? Who’s this Jeremy?” Mami’s cheeks were reddening once again.

  “Oh no?” Marta replied, ignoring Mami’s question. “He’s the only person you know who ever went to the Peace Corps. You wouldn’t admit it, but I know you were in love with him. Not that I blame you….”

  Mami threw the pamphlet on the table for a second time. “Do you mean to tell me that you want to put off your college education for a boy? Is that what this is about, Nora García?”

  I sat red-faced and silenced by my shame. I hadn’t stopped thinking about Jeremy since he left, and I couldn’t deny I’d been nurturing visions of finding him in the steamy jungles of Perú ever since reading Alicia’s letter and about her plans to follow Tony to the ends of the earth, if need be.

  “Really, Nora, I thought you were different. If Marta came up with something like this I’d understand, but you…”

  “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” came Marta’s half-hearted complaint, but she was far too satisfied to see me squirming in her usual role to take it any further.

  With head hanging low, Mami placed both hands, palms down on the table as if ready to conduct a séance. Then she raised her head slowly and glared at me. “I’m not going to tell your father about this, Nora. Because if I did, the disappointment would surely kill him. I don’t have the heart to do it, and I certainly hope you don’t, either.” She turned to Marta, her tone somewhat fiercer. “And that means you too, young lady.”

  University life was as comforting as it wa
s desolate. I sat in huge auditoriums with no fewer than 150 students and took feverish notes, barely raising my head to look at the professor for fear that I might miss an important point. Once again, I was invisible, like the black hole in space described in my astronomy class, absorbing and sucking in everything around it without ever revealing itself.

  And yet, there were some definite improvements in my life. Something about the anonymity of the place made me feel freer than I ever did in high school. Since I was never required to speak in class, nobody heard my accent. I could be whoever I wanted to be. I took to wearing jeans and Mexican sandals every day, varying only a sweater or shirt. Even when it rained, I wore socks with my sandals and carefully avoided puddles. I let my hair go loose around my shoulders without brushing out the waves. One day I caught sight of my reflection in a window and actually liked what I saw. I looked again. Was it really me? It was the same narrow face and serious expression, but there was another presence behind the eyes…my shyness was replaced by a self-satisfied independence that went very well with my appearance. I fancied myself a wild and exotic creature, from nowhere and everywhere. Mami wasn’t much too concerned with my change in style and even purchased a few oversized sweaters for me. She’d seen Marta transform herself so often that my evolution was like the receding of the ice age in comparison.

  My vague dissatisfaction with life coupled with the lack of social distractions gave me a distinct academic advantage, and I managed to land on the Dean’s List at the end of my first quarter. I even received an invitation to attend a Chancellor’s reception at Royce Hall, along with other honorees. Instinctively, I hid the invitation from Mami and Papi aware that my anonymity would be challenged at such an event. I’d have to talk about where I came from and falter in English while my listeners nodded and smiled that obligatory smile of feigned understanding. They’d ask me if I was Iranian or Egyptian because they couldn’t place my accent and they weren’t accustomed to Latinas in their circle of academic excellence.