The Coconut Latitudes: Secrets, Storms, and Survival in the Caribbean

by Rita M. Gardner

  Chapter Eleven

  First Sight

  It’s fly-swatting weather, muggy and still. The trade winds are holding their breath for a change, as if waiting for a sign they can exhale. It’s the summer before Berta will leave for high school in Florida, since she’s now finished all the correspondence courses available. We make a trip to the capital to buy her some new clothes and finish preparing for her trip to the US. We’ll meet with my parents’ friends, Norma and Ed Breeden. Expatriates like us, they live in Ciudad Trujillo in a house on a street with shaded sidewalks in the American colony. Colony children go to the American School and wear pretty clothes. I think this is what life in the States will be like for Berta too.

  With Berta gone, I’ll have our bedroom all to myself. I wish I could go with her. But I’m only twelve, and I have to wait before I get my chance—a lifetime away. I make her promise to write me often, so I can imagine my way through the years I have to endure. It will be like when I used to play with my doll Diana and I’d make up another childhood, the one I wanted to have but didn’t. I’d spend hours under the bunk bed, where I made a dollhouse from a box. I named Diana after the goddess of hunt from an old book on mythology. I’m too old for dolls now.

  When we enter Ciudad Trujillo the público honks its way to the Hotel Presidente, where a large portrait of Trujillo stares down from a wall. El Jefe’s chest is a blur of medals, from his shoulders all the way to his waist, and he looks like a picture of a medieval king from one of my history books. When I squint, his face comes into focus. El Jefe’s eyes gaze out across the room as if he’s watching us. His lips are smiling, but his eyes look dead, like the fish I caught after it writhed and then became very still. Mama pulls me away and we take the creaky elevator up to our rooms. These trips to the capital are the only times that Berta and I are in a room with a real door instead of a flimsy curtain between us and our parents’ room. Berta opens the window and we look down two stories to the street, where men in guayabera shirts carry briefcases and women click along in high heels. I imagine they’re window shopping at stores where mannequins model the latest fashions direct from Nueva York. Peddlers hawk lottery tickets on street corners, competing to sell winning numbers. A fruit vendor pulls a cart full of peeled oranges and chunks of pineapple, calling out “Naranjas dulces, piñas.”

  After we’ve unpacked, we have lunch at a Chinese restaurant across the street. Daddy orders a variety of dishes so we all can try something different. Dessert is a very un-Chinese dish of watery flan. Daddy and Mama are talking about new political unrest here in the capital, where students from the university are staging anti-American rallies. Apparently the US government recently spoke harshly of the Trujillo regime, and the local papers are filled with letters to the editors denouncing the Yanqui imperialistas and their lies about the beloved Benefactor.

  We take a taxi to the Breedens’ apartment. When Daddy gives the driver the address, the man frowns and says we should be careful; there’s been some trouble near the US Embassy. Ed Breeden greets us and waves to his wife Norma, who’s sitting with a group of other Americans around a television set. No one is smiling, but she leaps up and gives us hugs. Norma is a nervous and jumpy type, pretty in a sharp Joan Crawford kind of way—all edges and angles. Ed is large and quiet and speaks softly.

  Norma says Trujillo is furious that President Eisenhower has made a statement condemning his actions and charging the Dominican government with corruption. So now El Jefe is on television, his voice high and angry, his arms pumping up and down and making his medals shake.

  He looks like the hotel portrait, but smaller and fatter. The adults are paying attention to the broadcast, but I’m intrigued by the television itself, the first one I’ve ever seen. I worm my way through the chairs and find a spot on the floor directly in front of the cabinet and settle down to watch. Mama tugs at my arm and pulls me aside. “You’re blocking everyone’s view. Come back and sit with your sister.”

  I retreat to the back of the room and Norma comes over, fussing. “Rita, you’re welcome to join us—why don’t you sit in one of the chairs?”

  “Because I can’t see the television from here.”

  “What do you mean?” Norma’s voice rises. “Emily, have you ever had her eyes tested?”

  “No, of course not,” Mama says. “She does her lessons just fine, and reads all the time.” I suddenly remember the beach game we play in Cocoloco, the one where Daddy tells us to count the number of boats we see on the horizon. I can never see any of them unless they’re right near shore, so my answers are always wrong and Daddy gets mad at me.

  Norma and Mama move into the kitchen to talk, and I sink into a Life magazine, full of colorful ads for new Chevrolet cars, Camel cigarettes, and other exotic things to buy. Norma comes out with a tray of cookies. “I’ve talked your mother into letting you go to our eye doctor tomorrow. I think you just need glasses.” I take a cookie and nod politely, but I don’t like doctors because they give you shots that hurt. I hope Mama forgets to make the appointment.

  The Breedens take us out to dinner that night to a restaurant famous for Spanish paella. “It takes an hour to prepare,” Norma says as we’re seated, “but oh God is it good!” She often talks in exclamation points.

  Berta and I dig into our food, and are surprised when there’s a sudden silence at our table and then Norma’s voice cuts through the quiet. “But of course you will!” she almost shouts at Daddy. Norma is not afraid of Daddy, not at all. I catch my breath when she fires off at him just as loudly as he does to us. He gets a certain glint in his eye when they spar, almost like two roosters at a cockfight. Mama will never talk back to Daddy. I can only remember the one time when she did. I don’t know what Daddy said to her, but Mama’s voice suddenly rose from a squeak to a howling torrent of words that got louder, bouncing back from the metal walls. I hid behind the kitchen door. Daddy turned red and raised his fist as if he was going to hit her, and she stopped, as if a switch turned off.

  Then from Daddy, a chilling, low growl, no yelling, just words bitten off sharply, one after the other. “Don’t—you—ever—do—that—again!” I watched, horrified, as Mama crumpled back into herself, her outrage hanging in the air like a thunderhead.

  But here’s Norma Breeden snapping and barking at Daddy, and he just laughs. She continues to lean right in Daddy’s face. I look at Mama, who hasn’t said a word; it’s almost like she’s scared of Norma, too.

  I hold my breath. Norma is practically yelling now: “You people need a real vacation—for Chrissakes, you haven’t been home for how many years? Get the hell out of here for a coupla weeks. Jesus, Jesse. The coconuts aren’t going anywhere!”

  Right there, that night, it’s decided, just like that. Our whole family will go to Florida and drop Berta off with friends of the Breedens’ who will take her to her new school. Mama and Daddy and I will fly up to New York for a whole week with our relatives. When the Breedens drop us off at the hotel I hug Norma, even with her vodka breath. “You poor child,” she mutters so only I can hear, but I don’t know what she means.

  I barely sleep that night. A pang of worry thunders through my chest as I wonder if Daddy will change his mind about this tomorrow, when he’s sober. But he doesn’t. We extend our stay in the capital, and Daddy scurries to all the proper agencies to get our visas. Mama and I take a taxi to Norma’s eye doctor. After all the tests, he takes my mother aside. When she comes back she says, “Apparently you have extreme nearsightedness. I had no idea.” I get to choose a frame, and I pick black rims that rise to a cat’s-eye point at either side. We return two days later for my new glasses. I don’t know what to expect. I keep my eyes closed when they’re fitted, and then I blink, then blink again, and almost jump out of the chair.

  I can see the pores of the doctor’s skin, and individual strands of hair. I close my eyes again then open them and find I can see all the way to the other side; there’s Mama smiling. Her lips, freshly coated with Revlon’s “Fi
re and Ice,” are bright red.

  I’m speechless and walk gingerly across the floor, almost afraid to take steps, as if I might trip on the air itself. Everything has sharp color and distinct shape. I pick up a magazine and start to bring it up close to my face—but now I don’t have to do that. I open the door to the street and it’s almost too much to bear. No longer just blurs, cars, people, trees all have edges and beginnings and endings.

  Back at the hotel, Berta and I stay up at night watching the square below, brilliant with neon and the red and yellow of car lights. A misty rain comes in and transforms the street into reflections as pretty as Mama’s costume jewelry, facets winking and changing color with splashes and spatters. The next morning at breakfast, Daddy reads an article aloud to Mama from El Caribe. It’s an article denouncing all the lies the Americans are spreading about Trujillo. This article mentions a Dominican writer who supposedly helped the Yankees spread lies. He’s been discovered in a dry riverbed, burned to death in his car. There seem to be an awful lot of burned cars that make the news these days. Just like the article about the American pilot a year or two ago, the paper reports it as an accident, saying Trujillo sent a huge wreath and public condolences to his family. Daddy and Mama say little about this report. Their silence is almost as revealing as the details of a fluttering leaf, or a speck of boat I know I’ll now be able see, far away on the horizon.

  Chapter Twelve

  Flying High

  In August we leave for the airport. Daddy’s foreman will take care of Bobby while we’re gone. Berta has a brand new suitcase, pearl white with brocade designs of flowers and shiny gold snaps. Mama smiles a lot. She’s telegraphed Aunt Libb, her sister-in-law, who lives in the family home in Southampton. Aunt Libb is a widow. Mama’s brother died one night a few years ago when a train struck his car. We learned this by telegram and Mama didn’t go back to the States for the funeral. She said Daddy needed her at home. Berta says it was mean of Daddy not to let her go to see her only brother buried.

  We arrive at the airport three hours early. Mama and Daddy seem nervous, as if maybe the officials won’t let us leave the country for some reason. Mama is shaking as we go through all the different checkpoints, where one piece of paper or another is examined, stamped, or handed back. Guards with guns patrol the lounges and the customs area. Daddy smokes his cigarette with rapid puffs and Mama keeps wiping her forehead. I feel like I’m going to throw up from nerves and excitement. Berta is smiling to herself as if she’s already left on her adventure. The Pan American airplane waits out on the tarmac, all silver and shiny. I jump up and down.

  “Behave, dear,” Mama warns, but she’s finally smiling as we climb the metal stairs. A pretty woman in a dark blue suit hands me some chewing gum and a silver pin shaped like wings. I’m a Junior Stewardess! She shows us the paper bags we’re to use if we get airsick, which Berta does soon after takeoff. I sit up straight and sip a cup of ginger ale, feeling like a grown-up. Mama and Daddy are holding hands and Berta stares out the window at the cotton-ball clouds.

  The Miami airport is orderly and quiet, even with announcements bouncing off the loudspeakers every few seconds. Everything is so clean, it feels like I must be in a movie or a dream. Berta puts some coins in vending machine, and out pops a packet of cheese crackers. She hands me one of the small squares and I feel like I’m in the Catholic church and this is a communion wafer, a special sacrament. Berta laughs out loud and I join her. We snort and snuffle and hold hands until she is picked by the Breedens’ friend who will drive her to the school. Mama sobs and even Daddy wipes his eyes as we leave her.

  The three of us fly to New York, where Mama practically falls into her sister-in-law’s arms. I can tell Mama has missed her family awfully, even though she never says anything about them. My grandmother’s house on Long Island sits like a picture, under leafy trees and surrounded by lawn. The house seems anchored by the weight of history; a place where generations lived and died. Our New York relatives are not like us who flit about like mosquitoes in warm places, landing here and there and finally settling, if you can call it that, on an island with a dangerous dictator and the constant threat of hurricanes. Casalata now seems flimsy and bare compared to this solid house where Mama was born.

  Inside, the hallway is dark and cool and smells of wood polish. A curve of banister beckons and I climb the stairs, made quiet by faded wool runners. A hint of mothballs follows me upstairs and triggers a faint memory of when Daddy was in between engineering jobs and we moved back to Southampton for almost a year when I was three. So this place is strange and familiar at the same time. My cousins Ann and Mary pull me into their room and suddenly I’m playing in English, talking in English, and eating American food. Memories of throwing snowballs and making snow angels float to my mind and I ask Mary, “Did we really do that?”

  She says yes and fishes out some old photos. “You were the baby.” In the picture we’re all laughing and full of snow, but I can’t remember what that kind of winter feels like.

  We walk down clean streets to Hildreth’s Department Store, where my grandfather worked his entire life as an accountant. Mama shows me the counter where she sold cleaners and dust mops after school. We visit my father’s home a few miles across the island. My grandmother Gardner used to own the Sag Harbor Express, the local newspaper, and my uncle now runs the business. Daddy says my uncle isn’t a good manager, and that really his wife is the one who runs the show. He says it like that is a bad thing. We go for a ride on my uncle’s yacht on the Long Island Sound, just like rich people in magazine photos. Lobster pots are piled up on the shoreline and all the fences seem to be painted a clean bright white. As if nature here is swept and polished just for us. The Long Island days are green and blue and fresh and over quickly.

  Much too soon we’re back in the Dominican Republic, and for several weeks everything seems extra loud and dusty and dirty. I think how very odd our living style must be to any foreigner. But my friends thrill to the fancy soaps and other treats I’ve brought as gifts. I thought I’d be happy to have the whole room to myself, but I feel lonely without Berta, as if part of me has gone with her white suitcase. Bobby seems happy to jump into Berta’s empty bed at night while I lean down and pet him from the bunk above. When he wags his bushy tail and begs me to throw sticks to chase, the loneliness goes away. Mama seems sad for the first few weeks, but then cheers up too. Daddy doesn’t seem to have changed much at all. When he’s drunk at night he still yells and rants, but he stops blaming me for things as much as he used to.

  Soon after we get back, I paste photos of our trip into the album that Mama keeps to highlight special occasions. I like looking through the family albums, especially the one where she chronicles Berta’s and my birthdays. Every year Daddy takes photographs of us individually standing in front of Mama. I flip through the pages; in this year’s pictures I’m the same height as Mama, and Berta is taller than her. For the last three years, Berta and I have worn the same matching turquoise dresses each time. They fit perfectly the first year. In the photos from the following year, mine still fits fairly well, but Berta’s dress is too short. In this year’s picture we hardly fit into our outfits at all and Berta is frowning into the sun. Mama said we couldn’t have new dresses for two years in a row because the copra prices had gone down and they couldn’t afford it. The pictures are curling up and the color is fading already. I try to straighten them out before closing up the album and storing it where the sun won’t bleach it any more.

  But this year everything is going to be different, better and brighter. I close my eyes and imagine next summer, when Berta will come home with pretty new clothes and so many stories to tell. What she actually will bring home I can’t even imagine.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shipwreck

  The wind is high, warning of a hurricane lurking out in the Atlantic. We’re up at Cocoloco today, and I’m playing at the beach with Bobby when I see a man running up from the direction of the Suarez f
inca. I figure he is one of their coconut pickers. He sees me and halts mid-stride.

  “Tu papá?” he wheezes, out of breath. “Donde está?” I point back to the house, where Daddy and Mama are sitting with cups of coffee. It is about ten in the morning. I don’t pay much attention to the stranger since Daddy is an expert at fixing things and is often approached by neighboring farmers for his advice or tools. But I get curious when Daddy follows the man back toward the Suarez farm. I find Mama at the house with a worried look on her face.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask, reaching for the cookie tin.

  “There’s been a shipwreck beyond Punta Hicaco. Foreigners. Your father is going to see if he can help.”

  The cookie drops midway to my mouth. A flutter of excitement rips through my stomach as my mother’s words sink in. A shipwreck? Castaways? I can barely contain myself. I start to run after Daddy, but Mama calls me back, telling me it could be hours before he returns. She hands me the clam bucket. “Here, your father will want his broth when he gets back.”