Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) (24 page)

“What was that?” Mamá turned and asked her. “What did you just say, hija?” It was the first time all morning my mother betrayed any hint of emotion.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Angélica explained. “I don’t mean I’m going off with them. I mean ‘acommpany’ them. I want to go to Cojimar and say good-bye.”

“Absolutely not!” Mamá shot back. “Forget about it!”

“Why not?” Angélica insisted. “It’s my sister, and I want to say good-bye to her. Is there something wrong with that, Mamá? Is there? I’m sure the driver here won’t mind waiting and bringing me back. Isn’t that right, compañero?” she turned and asked the guy.

“Of course I wouldn’t mind, not at all,” replied the driver enthusiastically, using the opportunity to insinuate himself into our family dealings and even stepping away from the front door to inch himself toward us. I noticed the way he
looked and smiled at my younger sister and I didn’t like it one bit. Like the smell of coffee this morning, it filled me with utter repugnance.

“See!” Angélica declared. “It’s settled. I’m going with them.”

“Oh, no you’re not!” Mamá countered. “You’re not going at all.”

“Señora,” the driver boldly jumped in. “If you’re worried about anything happening, please, don’t be, there’s no need. Your daughter will be perfectly fine with me. I have to come back this way anyway, and I’ll bring her back safely, I promise you that."

But Mamá simply ignored the bold little man, disregarding every word he had just uttered; instead, keeping her attentions focused solely on my younger sister.

“You’re not going anywhere!” she snapped firmly and with finality. “The next time you see your sister will either be in the United States or when she comes back here for a visit! That’s it! End of discussion!”

Angélica fell into an embarrassed silence. She knew when to stop pushing Mamá, especially in the presence of strangers. My younger sister stood in place and cast her eyes downward, while the older Pilar lifted a comforting arm to drape around her shoulder. So typical of my older sister, always placing the needs of others before her own; always striving to comfort everyone else when she was the one whose needs should come first; she, the one truly deserving of comforting due to her blindness.

“It’s all right, hermana, it’s all right,” she said soothingly, patting and squeezing Angélica’s shoulder. “You need not go to Cojimar to hold onto Clara or keep her in your heart. She’ll always be with us, no matter where we say good-bye to her, no matter where we last see her. Clara is with us and we are with her.”

Upon hearing this, a surge of tears rose to my eyes and I stepped over to join them, the three of us forming a small
circle where we held each other firmly, closely. As our arms intertwined and locked within the strands of sisterhood, we hugged each other lovingly, creating an impenetrable embrace until I could hold it no longer—until I began to weep and weep uncontrolably; it didn’t take long for my sisters to join in. We sobbed in unison, letting all our pent-up feelings gush out. I contemplated my family and how much it had unraveled during this Special Period. Only a year ago my father had died, my sister had fallen blind, and now I was leaving Cuba. My family was rapidly disintegrating, and I could blame only one person for it, one thing for it: Fidel Castro and the tyranny of his evil ways.

“Now stop, you three!
¡Ya!
” Mamá ordered, trying to keep her own maternal emotions in check. “This isn’t a time for sadness. It’s a time to be happy, a time to rejoice. Your sister is not leaving us. She’s saving us!”

Of course, we only wept all the harder. But after a few more minutes of unfettered emotion, I felt a firm and steady hand on my shoulder. I knew it was Rigo reeling me back, trying to pull me up to the surface of reason. The moment of truth had arrived and it was definitely time to take our leave. I didn’t want or need to take one last look at anything. Not at them. Not at the house. They were my one and only family and certainly we would always be a part of one another. This was my one and only birth home and there would never be any forgetting it. As much as I loathed Fidel Castro and what he had done to this country, this house would always remain my home and I would always cherish it.

How I ever made it inside the vehicle or what direction I looked in or what thoughts consumed me as the taxi pulled away and raced down our street, I could not recall. But I would always recall our driver and how the man never shut up. I tried ignoring his incessant prattle, but it was asking for the impossible. He simply could not close his mouth. I never knew his name, but that was fine with me. And I would meet him only once, during this brief ride from Havana to Cojimar, but I decided he must be the most obnoxious individual I had ever encountered. Never could I foresee the pivotal role he
would play on this morning of August 15 and its turn of events.

He was short but muscular, albeit, slightly overweight; heavily balding with traces of dark hair; he possessed an abnormally low voice, and from his inarticulate diction and how fast he spoke, I could tell he hailed from the countryside, for he nearly swallowed his words whole. I figured him to be a complete illiterate, and was therefore dumbstruck when the absurd little man informed us he wasn’t really a taxi driver by profession but a
Técnico Medio
in
Artes Plásticas
.

“Really?” I posed. “Well then, what are you doing driving a taxi?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he shot off in his low-voiced, rapid-fire manner. “Same thing everyone else is doing these days: surviving, making ends meet, ‘resolving’ if you know what I mean. You think that anybody can make money in
Artes Plásticas
these days? During this Special Period?”

I kept silent, but only thought to myself:
I’m sure you could if you were any good, if you had any actual talent or were any kind of real artist
. But I simply kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t worth it. I had to recognize that this impulse to lash out was just the critic in me, the cynic always wanting to find fault with things or needing to dissect everything. So I kept my mouth shut. At least I knew now whom I was dealing with: a frustrated artist. One more example of why I must leave Cuba and eagerly looked forward to it: so I didn’t end up the same as this absurd little man; except, a frustrated critic in my case.

“Of course not,” I replied with restraint. “You’re absolutely right, compañero.”

Rigo must have sensed my simmering unease, for he jumped in to give his two cents and diffuse the tension.

“Of course not, compañero. And I know exactly how you feel,” he said. Why, I’m an architect myself. I’ll have you know that I graduated two years ago at the top of my class from the Instituto Superior right here in Havana. But do you think I’ve gotten to exercise my talents even once? I haven’t gotten to build so much as a cardboard box yet.”

I cringed as I sat in the backseat of that car and looked out the window. We snaked our way through the streets of Havana and it seemed we were navigating through a familiar sea of blue, police blue: the mongrels were stationed everywhere, especially along the Malecón. I wished that Rigo would not divulge any aspect of our life to this absurd little man. I didn’t trust him for one second in his dark blue jeans and tight-fitting designer shirt. I didn’t know what had gotten into Rigo. He was usually so discreet, so reserved. But this morning he was markedly different, seemingly changed somehow. He was a running faucet of water that one could not force shut.

“Really?” said the bald little man. “I fancy myself as an engineer and an architect too. What have you been doing for the last two years?”

Just as the faint light of morning was cautiously tiptoeing and had yet to press its footprints upon the soft path of day, how I wished my husband would proceed just as cautiously. How I wished he had the sense to brush off this intrusive line of questioning since taxi drivers in Cuba were notoriously nosy, usually security people. But no, Rigo fell right in place with those steps by plowing and stomping full-force ahead.

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” Rigo replied.

“Oh, I’d believe anything,” the absurd little man shot back. “Remember, this is Cuba, compadre, where things that should make sense don’t, and things that don’t make sense do.”

“You’ve got that right,” said Rigo. “That’s why they’ve had me in some remote, rural village in Camagüey teaching advanced math to kids who can barely read or write yet.”

“¡Camagüey!” declared the absurd little man. “Why, I just drove through there a couple of weeks ago. Which town in Camagüey?”

“I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. It’s this tiny little town called Rio Piedras.”

“Rio Piedras? You mean where the cattle co-op is?
That
Rio
Piedras? Why yes, compadre, I know exactly where that is.”

I sank ever deeper into the backseat of that car, burying my face slightly as I brought a hand to my forehead and silently shook my head. Why couldn’t we have any privacy? Just a few kilometers of privacy. I turned to Rigo to get his attention, signaling him to put a lid on it, but there was no tightening that spigot, no turning off that faucet.

“Coño, compadre. You’re the first person I know who’s ever heard of Rio Piedras. That’s where I’ve been for the last two years, teaching calculus to fifth graders. It’s called Early Exposure.”

“Calculus to fifth graders!” declared the absurd little man.

“Yes, that’s right. But do you know what they wanted me to do this year? What I would be doing if I were going back? Teaching mechanical engineering to fourth graders. That’s what the project is for the upcoming year. It’s called Intense Early Exposure.”

The absurd little man shook his bald head, laughing uproariously in his abnormally low voice.

“No wonder you want to leave here so badly, compadre. I can’t say I blame you in the least.”

“No more!” said Rigo. “No more! I’ve wasted two whole years of my life with nonsense, but no more.”

“Well, what is it that you do want to do?” asked the probing little man. “Design houses?”

“Definitely not!” said Rigo. “Growing up in Cuba has ruined that for good.”

“And why is that?” asked the little man.

“Are you kidding?” said Rigo. “You think that after spending an entire life here surrounded by hideous Soviet-style apartment buildings built after the Revolution, I want to design anything residential? Not on your life. I want to design things there are of no use here in Cuba: tall buildings, skyscrapers, towers even.”

“Towers?” said the little man.

“Yes, towers. You see, for the longest time I’ve been designing a very special tower. It’s the first of its kind, and I’m finally going to make it happen when I arrive in the United States.”

“In Miami?” asked the round little man. “I’ve seen many pictures of Miami and it seems to be nothing but towers.”

“No, we’re not going to Miami, compadre. Maybe for a couple of days, but that’s it. We’re going to San Francisco, in California. Now San Francisco is a city of towers. They’ve got this one tower that’s completely round called Coit Tower. And they’ve got this other tower in the shape of a pyramid called the TransAmerica Pyramid. Well, my tower is going to be the perfect complement to these two. I call it the Tri-Tower Complex. You want to see it?”

“¡Coño sí!” he said excitedly. “I would love to see it! I’ve been designing something very similar myself. But mine is four towers!”

I didn’t believe this for a moment. I straightened out in that backseat while in the grip of some silent terror. I reached over and grabbed Rigo’s lap. He turned and looked at me as I shook my head furiously at him.
What’s the matter with you?
I wanted to scream out.
What’s gotten into you? Why are you confiding in this narcissitic little man who can betray us and denounce us at any moment? Who might even steal your idea and design?
Hadn’t he heard the absurd little man say he considered himself an architect and engineer? Rigo must have read my thoughts because he suddenly did an about-face.

“You know what?” he said, changing gears and downshifting. “I don’t think I can do that. The blueprint is all packed away. It will disturb everything else if I retrieve it.”

“I understand,” said the little man. “I understand perfectly, compadre. But coño, that’s great. Congratulations on such a stupendous idea; a tri-tower complex. I imagine it’s going to be three towers all in a row, right?”

“Yes!” I jumped in to save Rigo. “All in a row, side by side.”

Of course, I was lying. And fortunately this nosy driver was too narcissistic to wonder why I had suddenly answered for Rigo, which was fine with me. There were times narcissism actually paid off.

“Well then, it’s a good thing you two are doing this right now,” continued the narcissistic little man. “That’s what I’ve been telling people all week: take advantage of this opportunity right away, the sooner the better.”

Now he had
me
on the hook. Now it was my curiosity that was piqued.

"Oh?" I began. “And why is that?”

The narcissistic little man stopped to look up in the rearview mirror. Not to lock eyes with me, but only to steal a glance at himself.

“Well, I can’t tell you with absolute certainty,” he said, managing to strip his attention away from the mirror. "But I understand this exodus isn’t going to be lasting much longer. In fact, it’s going to be ending real soon.”

How full this guy was of himself. What a delusional little narcissist. Not only a frustrated artist and balding fool, but a know-it-all. Typical taxi driver here in Cuba, always acting as if they knew everything. Not only because of their contact with foreigners, but because everyone knew they were agents of the state. No wonder being a taxi driver was one of the most coveted trades in all of Cuba: trained in tips, travel, and tourists. Except this guy had an additional degree:
tattler!

“How soon?” I asked.

“This week, compañera."

“This week?" I said. "What do you mean?"

The taxi driver shot a glance over his shoulder. It was the first time he made direct eye contact with me. If I wasn’t mistaken, he looked at me the same way he had looked at Angélica earlier. I really couldn’t stand him or stand being in his presence any longer; in fact, I loathed him.