“Yeah, right,” I said. “They burn my butt if I so much as talk back to them!”
“Even so, you must behave like a man,” Abuelo said. “Life gives us challenges, niño, but the Lord helps us handle them. For every problem, there is a way to deal with it. Just remember that.”
“Well, then, what’s the way to deal with the Communists?”
“Don’t worry about the Communists. Just worry about your family. God will help us find a way through these times. And he expects us to continue doing our best, not to sit around and complain. That’s why I’m going to the mill again this year, niño, and that’s why you must not walk around with this long face. Esther looks up to you. Your job is to give her encouragement, and to make your mama’s and abuela’s lives easier by being helpful and staying out of trouble. M’entiendes?”
“Yes, Abuelo,” I said. “But don’t you think you’re getting a little old to work so hard? Maybe it’s time to let someone younger take over.”
Abuelo stiffened. For a moment, I thought he was going to get angry. But then he relaxed and smiled.
“Listen, niño,” he said. “It took me a long time to work my way up from a simple field hand to the most trusted and important position in the mill, and I can tell you right now that I will not stop working until the day I drop dead. None of these young men knows as much as I do about sugar. They need me. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t ask me to come, would they? These Communists may be running the show now, but you can’t make sugar with propaganda!”
“Why are you going to help them, if they’re not forcing you to?” I asked.
“I’m not going to the mill for the sake of the Communists,” he said. “I’m going because Cuba is sugar. It’s been an important part of Cuban life for a very long time, and it will continue to be long after this idiotic Revolution is nothing more than an unpleasant memory. Besides, to make sugar, you need experience and know-how, and these stupid Communists possess neither.”
“Well, why can’t you just teach them what you know, so you can stay home from now on?”
“Because I like to work and it takes years to learn all that I know,” Abuelo replied. “You think I can just give them a few pointers? To master the art of sugaring requires a lifetime of patience. And patience, it seems to me, is something you could use a little more of, my boy. You’re acting like a caged animal these days.”
“I can’t help it!” I told him. “Everything is up in the air, and I don’t know what’s what anymore. Waiting for this telegram is driving me crazy.”
“Don’t worry about the telegram,” Abuelo said. He looked away, probably so I couldn’t see his eyes welling up with tears. “It will come when it comes. There’s nothing to be done about it, so you might as well just think about something else.”
I, too, grew misty-eyed. To hide my emotions, I asked, “Can I have a little of your pomade?”
Abuelo took me into the house and put some pomade in my hair. Then he combed it back.
“Slick as a groom on his wedding day,” he said. Then he dabbed aftershave on my cheeks. “What a handsome boy,” he said. “Let’s see that wink you’ve been practicing.”
I had a lazy left eyelid, which had never bothered me until I realized it meant I couldn’t wink. Girls always fell for guys who winked at them, at least if the movies were to be believed. I’d been practicing in the mirror for weeks. Finally, I’d gotten that stupid eyelid to move on its own. I showed Abuelo now, and he laughed and clapped his hands.
“Excellent!” he said. “That worthless doctor told us you might lose that eye completely. And now look! You’re a regular Don Juan!”
“Did you have a lot of girlfriends when you were young, Abuelo?” I asked.
“Niño, I have been in love with only one woman my entire life, and the day I married her was the best day of all!” Abuelo said, very loudly. Then he bent down and whispered in my ear, “But let me tell you, when I wed your grandmother, there were a lot of brokenhearted girls in Rodas!”
“I heard that!” Abuela yelled from the living room.
“Heard what? I didn’t say anything!” Abuelo said. Then he elbowed me in the side, one hand over his mouth.
The next day, the hated brown company car showed up to take Abuelo away. The whole family gathered in the front yard to say goodbye and wish him a safe and successful trip.
That spring, Tío William was released from prison and we thought it was a miracle that the government released him when they were supposed to. It had been a long and trying ordeal for him. He had been a massive man; now we could count his bones through his skin and he kept more to himself, smiling rarely and never laughing.
I had a hard time understanding this change in him. On one of his visits home Papa explained: “The Communists were very cruel to your uncle. He had spoken out to the guards when someone’s rights were being trampled, and spoke for all prisoners when they had a demand. This earned him the respect of the other prisoners—and the constant torment of the guards. They barely fed him and sometimes they kept him for weeks in a cell that was so tiny he could neither lie down nor stand up. There were rats and bugs. He could feel them crawling over him at night. Whenever he fell asleep, the guards would pour cold water over him to wake him up.”
“But why would they do that?” I asked.
“Torture,” Papa replied. “They were going to break his spirit.”
“What else did they do to him?”
“You are too young to hear such things, niño.”
Years later, I learned the worst of what had happened to Tío. One day, the guards took him and several other men out to a field and made them dig a large pit. This, they were told, would be their grave.
When the men had finished digging, the guards lined them up in front of the hole and told them they were about to die. Then they raised their weapons and fired blanks.
The guards thought it was a big joke. It wasn’t funny to the prisoners. One of them was so traumatized that he went mad and had to be committed to a mental institution.
Tío regained some of his strength and personality. But the trials he underwent in prison, coupled with the loss of his daughter, altered him forever. Instead of the great, happy bear of a man everyone knew and loved, he became a quiet, brooding presence in the background. But he wasn’t completely broken. We could still count on him for a smile or a little joke when the situation called for it, and the entrepreneurial spirit dies hard, even under such repressive regimes. Tío bought a new truck with the small amount of money we’d saved for him in his absence, before his business was closed. He began to operate a cartage service, hauling trash and goods for people—sometimes even for the government. He told my father that this was his way of showing them who was better. He had decided to stay in Cuba and was determined to keep working until they stood him up against a wall and shot him, or until he dropped dead, whichever came first.
If I needed an example of how to behave in difficult times, I didn’t have to look any further than my own family. One day, when I was hiding on the roof as usual, I heard voices raised in alarm. Climbing down quickly, I ran inside to see what was going on. My godmother, Magalys, was in the living room, wringing her hands.
“Your abuela has fallen outside the store and hurt herself,” she told me. “Go tell your mama. I’m going to the hospital.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She tripped and fell. She has a nasty cut on her forehead,” she said. “There was blood everywhere, and she’s going to need stitches. But I think she’s going to be fine.”
I ran to get Mama and Esther, and we waited together for Magalys to come back with Abuela. When they finally showed up, it was nearly dark out. Abuela looked strange with a neat row of black sutures and a wicked-looking bruise on her forehead. Mama helped her to the rocking chair, and she sat down gingerly.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said in response to our anxious inquiries. “I don’t know what happened. I was just stepping out
of the door when I slipped on something, and the milk went everywhere. Magalys, was it all ruined?”
“It was, Abuela,” said Magalys. “But don’t worry about the milk. The important thing is that you’re okay.”
“What an old idiot I am!” Abuela said. “Who cares if I’m okay? The children needed that milk, and now they have none!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mama soothed her. “We’ll get more on the black market. It’s okay.”
“Curses on this stupid Revolution!” Abuela muttered. Then she looked up at the picture of Jesus on the wall and crossed herself. “Forgive me, Lord, for speaking that way,” she said. “But why should the little ones have to suffer for the idiocy of adults? If someone has to go without, let it be me. The children have already seen too much.”
Within the hour, the house filled with neighbors and family members. All of them had heard what happened, and they wanted to offer Abuela their best wishes for a speedy recovery. I think most of them were surprised to see her sitting up in the living room as though nothing had happened. They’d been expecting to find her in bed, but Abuela would rather have died than let everyone think she was a frail old woman.
It was just like my family to turn any event at all, even an unfortunate one, into a reason for socializing. Soon people seemed to forget why they were there, and they began laughing, joking, and generally having a good time. That was the best medicine there was for Abuela. She sat in her rocking chair, listening and smiling. Tío William came through the door about halfway through the evening. I perked up when I saw him.
“Mama!” he greeted Abuela cheerfully. “What have I told you about drinking rum during the daytime!”
“Oh, stop it, you bigheaded idiot,” Abuela said. “You know I never touch the stuff!”
“And what have I told you about waiting in line? Why should you stand there for an hour and get so tired you trip, while any one of us can go get the milk for you? Next time, send Eduar!”
“Yeah, send me,” I said without enthusiasm. Waiting in line was my least favorite activity in the world, though I would have done it for Abuela.
“William,” said Abuela, “do you want something to eat?”
“Look at her! She’s wounded, and she wants to cook something,” Tío William said. “Mama, if you had any food in your kitchen, I would eat it. But you don’t, so I won’t.”
“I’ll check anyway,” said Abuela, getting up.
“She doesn’t listen in the slightest,” Tío William said. He walked up behind her as she headed into the kitchen and slapped her on the butt. “Sit down!” he said. “Let someone else do the work for a change!”
“Leave me alone, little boy!” Abuela barked at him. I always thought it was hilarious when Abuela talked that way to Tío William, because he was so much bigger than she was. That he had come out of her body amazed me.
When Tío William left a few minutes later, I followed him out to the porch.
“Tío, can I have some money?” I asked.
He turned and scowled. “Who do I look like, Rockefeller? You’re going to break me, sobrino!” But he reached into his pocket and pulled out a diez centavos—a coin worth about ten cents. “Here,” he said. “Invest it wisely.”
I held it up and looked at it, marveling at the kind of man Tío was. He’d lost his daughter, been sent to prison, lost his business, and still he could crack jokes and be generous. I admired him now more than ever.
“Do you have something to say to me?” Tío William growled.
“Thank you, Tío,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Tío William said, winking, and then he turned and went down the street to his own house.
La Natividad
By some miracle, I passed sixth grade and would be going to Nguyen Van Troy Middle School in the fall. I’d gotten a little taller, though not nearly enough to satisfy me, and I’d grown stronger as well. I’d become a fast runner, too—my clandestine trips to Tía Luisa’s now took me only a couple of hours.
My grades hadn’t shown a whit of improvement, but luckily Mama had bigger things to worry about. When Papa came home on his monthly furloughs, he would inquire about my report cards. But his real concern was whether or not I had been in trouble. They were both so worried about getting out that they gave little thought to my studies.
“Always remember,” Papa told me, “those Communists are just waiting for you to make the slightest mistake. And when you do—wham! They’ll take that visa away as quick as you can blow out a candle. All my time in this work camp will have been for nothing, and you, hijo, will be going into the army.”
“Papa, don’t say that!” I begged him. Any mention of the military terrified me. I was eleven now, and there were rumors that because the draft age was fifteen, the authorities were stopping the visas of any family with a boy over fourteen years and six months. That shaved half a year off the time we could afford to sit around waiting for the telegram. Fourteen still seemed like a long way off, but I had learned that the more you want time to slow down, the faster it seems to fly by.
“I’m telling you, guys,” I said to Luis, Tito, and Rolando one day as we lounged outside the Jagua Movie House, “the day before I’m fourteen and a half, if we haven’t got that telegram yet, I’m going to steal an inner tube and jump into the water.”
“Yeah, right,” said Luis. “The sharks will be nibbling on your liver within the hour!”
“Is the army really that bad?” Tito asked. “Sometimes I think I might join when I’m old enough.”
“It’s one thing if you want to join,” I said. “It’s another if they force you.”
“Man, am I bored,” said Luis. “Can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything. What are we supposed to do, just sit around here and go crazy?”
At that moment, Rolando nudged me and nodded.
“Look who’s coming,” he said.
It was La Natividad, the crazy lady, wearing all black as usual. She was walking down the sidewalk toward us.
“Oh, brother,” groaned Tito. “Watch out! She’s going to turn us into frogs!”
We all waited to see what La Natividad would do. She crossed the street so she wouldn’t have to come near us, giving us a dirty look.
“You see that? She acts like we’re a bunch of criminals,” complained Luis. “What have we ever done to her?”
“Man, she gives me the creeps. Every time I see her, she’s talking to herself,” I said.
“That’s because she’s casting magic spells,” Rolando said darkly.
“She talks to demons, too!” added Tito. “I swear, that lady is a witch!”
“Of course she’s a witch! Everyone knows that,” I said. “Sometimes I can smell some weird kind of smoke coming from her house. She does black magic ceremonies, I think.”
We watched as La Natividad reached her house at the end of the street and opened her creaking iron gate. Then she climbed the dozen or so steps to her front door and went inside. Her house was big and spooky, and she kept her shades drawn all the time. Wild, thorny plants had taken over the yard decades earlier. A mango tree also grew there, its branches heavy with plump fruits. Dozens more were rotting on the ground.
“Look at that! What a waste!” said Rolando. “Here we are on bread and water, and that old hag has a yard full of perfectly good mangos. I’m going to get me some right now.”
“Go ahead,” said Tito. “I’d love to see that.”
“Wait until she goes out again,” Luis advised. “If she catches you, she’ll make a drum out of your skin!”
“She goes out every night around dark,” said Tito. “If you do it then, we’ll go with you.”
“She’s into Santería, you know,” I said.
Santería was a strange, ancient religion, so powerful that even Fidel left it alone. A combination of black magic, voodoo, and various African rituals brought by slaves long ago, it involved drums, chanting, and animal sacrifice. I had seen many Santería ceremonies with my own e
yes, and heard many more. The santeros held their services in a vacant lot near San Carlos Street, always late at night. When they really got going, I could hardly sleep for all the howling and pounding.
“No way am I messing with a santera!” said Tito.
“I don’t believe in that stuff,” I said. “Those people are crazy. They don’t have any real power. If they did, they would have turned Fidel into a frog long ago.”
“Fidel is afraid of them,” Luis said. “That’s why they’re still allowed to have their ceremonies. Which just goes to show you how crazy he is. I’m not allowed to go to church school anymore, but these people can sacrifice chickens under the full moon? Does that make any sense at all?”
Luis’s words sparked an idea in me. If Fidel really was afraid of the santeros, maybe I could gain some kind of power over him by breaking into La Natividad’s house and stealing one of her magic charms! I had no idea what a magic charm looked like, but I figured I would know one when I saw it. And if I was successful, then perhaps, just perhaps, it would give me the power I needed to liberate my family from the grip of this madman.
“I bet I could sneak into her house and steal something before she comes back,” I said.
“Look who’s such a big talker,” said Rolando.
“Dare him! Dare him!” said Luis.
“Good idea,” said Rolando. “Calcines, I hereby officially dare you to break into La Natividad’s house tonight while she is gone, and if you don’t do it, you are the biggest chicken in Cienfuegos.”
“I accept,” I said.
“Now we’re going to have some action!” Tito said, rubbing his hands together.
“How do you know she’s going out tonight?” said Luis.
“She goes out every night,” Tito said. “I have no idea where, or for how long, but I can guarantee you this—it has something to do with the Devil. Of that, I am positive. Just ask anyone. They’ll tell you.”
Leaving Glorytown Page 10
