by Amanda Hale
Even though their school curriculum includes computer instruction Sonia cannot fathom the ease with which her girls manage the digital world. It is something that cannot be explained — there are no words for how to manage a computer. ‘I can show you, Mami,’ Marielena says, ‘Mira,’ and her fingers jab at buttons and letters, each movement causing a rearrangement of the screen, but Sonia is unable to follow. She sighs, wraps her arms around Marielena, and kisses her goodnight. ‘Mi hija, mi amor,’ she says, holding the girl at arms’ length, admiring her. There’s a hint of something in Marielena’s smile, something Sonia cannot quite identify. Is it pity? An apology? Compassion perhaps? Sonia turns to Tamara who is holding out her arms to both the girls, unaware of anything amiss. Sonia remembers her own quinceanera, how she had twirled around the sala in her white dress, crying ‘¡Mira, Mami! Look at me, look at me!’ And with the memory comes a vague feeling of unease at her own change of attitude towards her mother, something which has become entrenched as they’ve gradually switched roles over the years, Sonia looking after Tamara more and more, caring for her as she retreats into her deafness.
She glances up at her girls and sees Mumu leaning into Marielena, her head on her sister’s shoulder as they gaze into the screen of the laptop balanced on Marielena’s thighs. Sonia is surprised by the sharp prick of her tears. If I could go back, she thinks, back to my own childhood, and live my life over again, paying more attention, I wonder if I might do it differently? I wonder who I would be now, and how my daughters might see me?
FIREFLY PARK
Parque Central is silent. The birds are sleeping in the trees, their heads tucked under their wings, and all along the benches pinpoints of light glow as though a hundred insects rested, their wings quivering. Sensitive to the slightest vibration, they pulse in long-fingered brown hands, white-palmed black hands, honey-skinned hands with tapering fingers — each one lit up with the cellular bioluminescence of smart phones, tablets, androids — products new to Cuba, brought by family members returned from medical missions abroad, or purchased at Los Correos by foreign lovers eager to please their Cuban Bellas.
Yanelis got her device from Luciano, an Italian viejo she’d met walking home on the Malecón one night. All he wanted was to kiss her and touch her breasts, so she let him. He went home to his wife in Roma, but Yanelis has the tablet and she does Facetime now with Yannis, a handsome Greek she met last month at La Terraza. She blushes as she remembers how they danced, Yannis holding onto her from behind, his crotch pressed against her buttocks while she swivelled and shook her hips, as she’d been taught in Pupi’s dance class on Saturday mornings all through junior school. She’d felt the swell of his pinga through the thin material of her pants and she’d shaken harder, faster, she couldn’t help herself, it was like a fever, all the girls on the rooftop of La Terraza were doing it. She gazes now at her lover’s face in Athens as she sits in the park she has known all her life, under the church clock in the centre of Baracoa. Doing Facetime is so magical and romantic. Only three weeks ago Yannis had been by her side on this very bench, on this very night — un viernes — his big hand clasping hers, his thigh pressing urgently against her springy mulatta skin. Now her tablet picks up the sound of his voice thousands of miles across the sky, shows her his handsome face floating in a faraway land.
Yanelis has come from Marielena’s quinceanera. All the girls from her class were there, and a few boys too, closely watched by Marielena’s mami and her abuela. She was so bored at the fiesta, just waiting for her opportunity to run to Parque Central and get online with her two-peso card. It gives her a whole hour to talk with Yannis. His name fills her mouth — Yannis — Yannis and Yanelis, their names so similar, made for each other.
The lights flicker and leap as legs cross and arms jostle on the crowded benches. Someone stands up and begins to walk, carrying the light with him. A group of girls shuffle towards the fountain, scattering then clustering as they bump into a couple of boys and exchange greetings without taking their eyes off their screens. Ángela watches them from her post outside Cine Encanto, and she smiles at the spectacle of all those lights dancing like fireflies. She’s waiting for the all-clear so she can claim her bench for the night.
The church clock strikes eleven. School tomorrow. But Yanelis cannot tear herself away from Yannis’ sleepy face, his eyes half-closed, that lazy smile, and those lips, oh those lips with their soft insistence, she can almost feel them. She crosses her legs and wriggles on the bench, squeezing her thighs together. It’s six in the morning in Athens and Yannis never rises before ten. But he’d said to her at the airport as they’d waited for his plane to La Habana, ‘Call me any time, my love, I’m always ready for you,’ and he had taken her hand and discretely pressed it against his pinga.
‘If only you were here,’ she says. But at least she can hold him in her hand, a lozenge of light framing his smile. Qué rico. Many of her friends have cell phones, but Yanelis is the only one with a tablet. Yannis loves me so much he gave me his own,’ she’d boasted to her girlfriends at the party, half believing in her own fantasy. ‘It cost a lot.’
‘How much?’ Mumu had asked.
‘I don’t know. He has lots of money. He bought another one for himself at the airport in La Habana. He adores me. We’re getting married.’
‘But he’s old,’ Marielena had said, brushing her fingernails across Javier’s wrist, giving him a seductive smile.
‘He’s a mature man,’ Yanelis had replied proudly, ‘Thirty years old.’
‘¡Ay caramba!’ Mumu exclaimed as she crossed her legs and snapped another selfie. And Yanelis had tossed her head defiantly. ‘You’re all dating Cuban boys,’ she said. I’m the only one with a real man, an extranjero.’
Yanelis feels more grown-up than any of her girlfriends, even Marielena. Her mother has been away on a mission in Venezuela for two years so she’s learned to look after herself. Now that Mami is home she gives Yanelis money to buy clothes, to visit the salon de belleza and get her nails painted and her hair coloured, and best of all she’s allowed to go dancing at La Terraza. She stays out as late as she wants. Mami doesn’t care. And Papi? He never shows his face. He has another woman across town and he lives with her now. When Mami arrived from Venezuela with a brand-new washing machine, a giant TV screen, and gifts for all the family, he said, ‘Fine, I’m leaving now. You keep the rice cooker. I’ve had enough of looking after your kids.’ Of course he isn’t her real father, but even so, he’s the only father she’s known since she was a baby, so what’s the difference? Marielena and Mumu have an absent father too — he’s their real one, but he lives with another woman. He never turned up for her quinceanera, but she doesn’t care. She has Javier.
Yannis rolls over on his side, making Yanelis so wish she was there with him in his tangled bed, the sheets white against his sunburned skin, and those dark curly hairs springing at the throat of his pyjamas. ‘It must be cold in Athens, mi amor,’ she says. ‘In Cuba we sleep naked, because it’s soooo hot at night, remember?’ She squirms seductively, hoping he’ll notice and feel a wave of desire for her. But Yannis simply laughs and twitches his nose. ‘You’re a tease,’ he says. ‘What d’you want me to do, kiss the screen?’ He puckers his lips and plants them close to his screen, then his tongue darts out like a lizard, quivering at the tip, making Yanelis jump back with a gasp. Yannis laughs at her, his strong white teeth gleaming in the light of the tablet. ‘Isn’t it time for you to go home to bed, little girl? I’m feeling sleepy myself,’ he yawns, stretching his free arm above his head. Yanelis thought she saw something behind him — just a glimpse — as he raised his arm — hair on a pillow, or . . . but it couldn’t have been, she tells herself quickly.
‘Mañana?’ she asks. ‘Mmm, you can try me,’ he says casually. ‘Buenas noches, chica’. Click. He’s gone, just like that. She wants a declaration of undying love, something she can repeat to her girlfriends in school tomorrow. Maybe she’ll stay home. She’ll be tired.
She can sleep until ten in the morning like Yannis. When Mamita comes to wake her she’ll say she has a sore throat, maybe a cough, a touch of la gripe.
The fireflies are fading. One after another they disappear as time runs out and everyone’s devices are extinguished, like the candles burning down in Yannis’ casa particular that night, Yanelis thinks. They’ll all be lining up in front of Los Correos at eight-thirty tomorrow morning to purchase another card, another dream, otra conversación con un extranjero, or with a friend in La Habana, Santa Clara, Las Tunas — anywhere but Baracoa with the same people saying the same old things — ‘Ay chica, the pain in my legs . . . no es fácil . . . el precio de frijoles . . . and not a chicken leg to be found in the store . . . ¿Qué vamos a hacer? . . . Raúl says he’s going to do away with the convertible peso . . . all the prices will go up . . . how will we live?’
Yanelis is sick of it, sick of her girlfriends with their little boy novios, sick of her abuela and her mami moaning about everything, sick of her papi who never visits her. There’s only Yannis. He is her hope for the future. She will ask him to send her a plane ticket. Everybody’s leaving. Yalily’s dad has sold his motorbike and gone to Ecuador. He keeps promising to send Yalily a ticket, but he has to wait for his residency papers. And the fat boy who sits behind Yanelis in class and kicks her desk all the time, his brother has gone to Ecuador too, and he managed to cross the border into Texas and married a Cuban-American chica. But I’m not going to Ecuador, Yanelis thinks, I’m going to Europe which is way better. But what about my passport, the visa, money for travel? It’s all so complicated. Maybe if I can just get to La Habana . . . No! Yannis must come back to Baracoa and help me. It’s so easy for him. He can arrange everything. I can’t wait any longer, I’ve had enough of school, she tells herself, of Baracoa, of Cuba. She just wants to get away, to be swallowed up by the light of her tablet and fly away like a big golden firefly, to another land where she will live in the light of her own body.
That thought jolts her back to reality. It’s been five weeks and four days since her last period. True, they only did it once, and Yannis said he’d been careful. He promised it would be better next time — ‘No blood, no pain, just the ecstasy of love, mi amor.’ She’d been so looking forward to that ecstasy, but he’d had to hurry back to La Habana a day early to catch his flight to Athens. Yanelis still feels cheated of her last night with him. The señora at his casa particular had already asked to see her carné identidad and had written her name in the guest book. ¡Dios mío! What if she was a gossip? Yanelis’ hand clamps over her mouth. If Mami and Abuela find out they’ll kill me. And what if I’m pregnant? I must get to Athens as soon as possible so we can marry and set up house together, prepare for the baby, fill the nursery with toys and teddy bears, a crib, a stroller, tiny clothes and shoes . . .
She walks slowly along the MalecÓn, gazing at the waning moon that shines a pale path of light across the water. It’s very calm tonight, not like the morning when the waves churn and splash, shooting spray twenty feet into the air, crashing on the sidewalk. Her belly feels heavy and swollen. She rubs it with circular motions like she saw Mami doing before her little brother was born.
‘I’m just imagining things,’ she says out loud. ‘I couldn’t be pregnant, not after one time, and without the ecstasy. That wouldn’t be fair.’
When Mami wakes her for school next morning Yanelis rolls over, moaning reluctantly. She feels first the hard lump of the tablet under her pillow, only slowly becoming aware of a wet patch on her sheet. She opens her eyes, pulls back the sheet and sees blood. Then she begins to weep.
