Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) (28 page)

Still, Rigo persisted.

“What happened last night, Clara? Tell me, chica. It was something serious, and you know it. You were on the brink of telling me right before Amalia showed up.”

“For the last time, chico, nothing! Nothing happened! I was lonely is all. Lonely and scared.”

But the look in Rigo’s eyes said he wasn’t buying my explanation. It was the architect in him, always needing to inspect every nook and cranny and account for every morsel of detail.

“So you’re not going to tell me? Is that what you’re saying? You know something, chica, I don’t know you. For the first time in my life, I can honestly say I don’t know you.”

“You
do
know me, Rigo. You
do
know me, and if you loved me, you wouldn’t leave me. That’s all it boils down to.”

“I’m not the one doing the leaving, Clara. I'm not the one doing the abandoning. You're abandoning me—you are, chica! So I'm going to ask you one final time. Are you joining me? Are we going together, or am I going alone?”

My body wept heavily and uncontrollably and even shook from convulsions.

“I’m not abandoning you, amor. I love you, Rigo. You’re my life and you know it.”

“Well, if I’m your life, you’ll come with me, won’t you?”

But I could only keep sobbing and shaking my head ‘no’ as the salty taste of tears invaded my senses. He
was
my life. Since the age of twelve I had loved him. But for the first time
ever I was seeing that he truly didn’t love me. He couldn’t possibly love me and the tightening strands of this realization wove themselves so arduously around my heart I thought it would explode. How could he? How could he love me anywhere near what I loved him? When you loved someone, you didn’t give that person an ultimatum. That was only when you loved excitement more; when you were choosing a foreign land and all its tarnished allure over the person you had vowed to share your life with. What purpose would it serve to tell him about the visitation? If it was true that, soon enough, I would be with child and needed Rigo by my side, what difference did that now make? Now that I knew how he felt. What would such a man possibly care about fathering a child not even his?
No!
It was settled. I knew what I must do and how I must act. I decided once and for all—right there along the black and rocky shore of Cojimar—that I would not say anything about my predicament—not one word. Never would I divulge to Rigo the visitation of August 14 or what the Angel Gabriel had revealed to me.

“No!” I uttered firmly, resolutely, that salty taste of tears finally evaporating from my senses. “I won't go, I won’t."

"Well then, Clara, I guess this is good-bye. Good-bye, plain and simple.”

“Don’t tell me you’re serious, Rigo. Don’t tell me you’re going through with this.”

“Listen to me, Clara! And listen to me good! I
am
doing this! And I'm doing it for the two us, amor, because I love you. You're not thinking clearly. You’ve panicked at the last moment and it’s all right. I understand. You’re scared and I can’t fault you for that. Believe me, now that I’m standing in front of this enormous ocean, I can see why anybody would be scared. You think I’m not? Our brothers and sisters are leaving in groups, and we hear the stories of everyone making it across safely, but all that changes when you’re standing in front of this endless ocean face to face with it. How quickly hope withers when its vastness stares you down. I’m terrified, Clara. Deep down I’m terrified. But something else terrifies me more: the prospect of what will
happen to us—what will happen to me—if we both stay behind. Understand what I’m going to tell you, amor: I’m leaving. I’m going ahead and sticking with the plan—
our plan
. I’m leaving for the United States. Not for me, but for us. I'm going to San Francisco to find work as an architect, and after just one year and one day, I’m sending for you. How’s that, amor? That way you can arrive by plane and won’t have to
touch
so much as a drop of water. Think about it. If I leave right now it won’t be so bad. It will be no different than my going to Rio Piedras for the school year. You won’t even notice my abscence. The months will fly by, and before you know it, I’ll be sending for you. As for Amalia and Henry, don’t worry about them. I’ll explain it all. They’ll understand and forgive you, just as I understand and forgive you.”

“Rigo,” I uttered in disbelief, a disbelief so profound there was no navigating its depths. “Are you telling me you’re actually going? You’re actually taking off?”

“I am, amor. I am.”

If I should have fallen to the ground hysterically, and begun sobbing and pleading like a typically wounded female, I stood firm and resolute and my heart even hardened.

“Let me have my things, chico. Take my things out of the backpack right now.”

There was nothing left to say. Rigo turned and headed toward the vessel. Amalia and Henry sat there anxiously, in abject abeyance awaiting their fate.

“What’s happening?” Amalia asked. “¿Qué pasa, chico?”

But rather than diffuse his focus by uttering a single word, Rigo remained stonily silent, resolute, on course as he reached for the green backpack and proceeded to retrieve my belongings. Amalia and Henry both knew what this meant. My best friend immediately buried her face in her hands and cried while Henry embraced her and tried to soothe her. After a few sobs she attempted to break free of him and head toward me, but Henry clutched onto her firmly and would not let her go.

“Here, Clara,” Rigo said. “Here are your things.”

I didn’t say a word. I numbly accepted my belongings, but with barely the force to hold them. I could only focus on the sight of Amalia downcast and crying. Rigo had the audacity to embrace me. Worse, I had the audacity of wanting to embrace him back, of wanting to hold onto him so tightly my body might meld into his and he physically couldn’t leave me. But I quickly tamed this audacious urge, this sickening sentiment of mine. I simply let my body go limp until I felt dead again, as I had for so long. Something was quickly scooping out all my false hope and my blind belief so that my entire body felt hollow. For so long I had felt dead inside. Now I felt empty and lifeless from the outside in.

“I love you,” he said, unclasping me from the audacity of his embrace, even kissing me lightly on the lips. “I love you, and we’ll be together again, amor, I promise you.”

So it all ended. That simply. That uneventfully. Rigo turned and headed back toward La Maloja, that beautiful green vessel that would pull him out of my life forever. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. It had to be a dream of some kind or some cruel prank. A visitation from the Angel Gabriel seemed more real than this. As Rigo’s steps took him farther and farther away from me, I kept thinking I would awaken from this nightmare and a soothing illumination would bask my heart once more. I even found myself taking a few steps and following numbly behind until, again, I felt some intrusive presence. I stopped. It was that damned policeman again! That mongrel in blue who had glued himself to us. He kept lingering and looming out of the corner of my eye. Why wouldn't he leave us alone? Why wouldn't he just get lost?

Rigo didn’t turn around. As he reached the raft I knew what he was thinking. I could feel it. He was hoping I’d call out to him, hoping that I’d have a final change of heart, hoping that I’d run toward him and admit I had momentarily lost my mind, but now fully regained my senses. I knew this had to be his silent hope. I still knew his heart and mind. But it wouldn’t happen. I would not give in and now I felt doubly
betrayed. Not only had he chosen adventure over me, Rigo had robbed me of the right to be angry with him and unleash my fury. How could I possibly be mad? As gentle and loving as he had acted, how could I be angry? Abandoned yes, angry no.

I stayed put as he conferred with Henry and Amalia, breaking the news that I could not be swayed. The moment he finished Amalia broke away from their huddle and advanced toward me. I braced myself. She either intended on pleading with me one last time, upbraiding me for my selfishness, or physically dragging me onto the raft whether I liked it or not. Whatever her intentions, I would never see them realized. I would never see or talk to Amalia again because, just then, our friend the policeman, that mongrel in blue, blocked her path and brought her to a halt.

Good, I thought
. At last the mongrel had found a way to make himself useful. Maybe
he
could stop the three of them. Maybe he would arrest and detain them for coercion and Rigo would be charged with attempted abandonment. I couldn’t make out their peculiar exchange, but the mongrel suddenly accompanied Amalia toward the raft. In a matter of seconds this new foursome began speaking and nodding and gesturing vigorously. I kept an eye out for any hint of trouble. Maybe this mongrel had mistaken Henry and Rigo for the rock throwers of August 5. Maybe they would be paraded as
elementos antisociales
and counterrevolutionaries on State television. But if I expected the mongrel to radio for assistance while he inspected their carnéts, little did I envision what happened next. It was truly inconceivable, not to be believed. Yet it unfolded before my eyes in the strands of stunned disbelief. Rigo, Amalia, and Henry had just procured my replacement, had just secured the fourth passenger they needed so badly. I stood and watched in astonishment as the mongrel in blue took off his uniform, removed his black boots, belt and gun, stripped down to his shorts, and became the fourth passenger on our raft, La Maloja.

It produced nothing less than a thunderous applause, the most boisterous response of the morning in Cojimjar by all
who had witnessed this unlikely apparition: one of Fidel's own, in some moment of crisis, stripping down to his underwear in desperation and climbing onto a raft to join the exodus. If only our great uncle could have been there to witness it. Only then would it have completed so perfect a portrait.

This sight alone clinched the spectacle of Cojimar for the carnival it truly was, with La Maloja winning a prize for the most memorable float of the morning. Unforgettable. Indelible. Unstoppable. So it marched on, this parade of sorts, gliding with a momentum that could not be reversed. But instead of marching and stomping and waving batons along a planned route, this parade drifted slowly upward and floated every which way into infinity, jabbing the currents of those unpredictable waters with paddles and oars as they lifted into oblivion. Only one of the revelers from that winning float managed to wave good-bye at me: Henry, who seemed to bear no ill will despite what I had done. Even the mongrel, no longer in blue, waved enthusiastically my way, his smile so bright and glowing it looked like whitecaps riding the waves. Amalia, however, kept her back to me as the float drifted away and I couldn’t blame her. I had stranded her, stranded our friendship. I too would have felt betrayed—destroyed more like it. I would never talk to Amalia again after that morning in Cojimar, even when, years later, she returned to Cuba to visit her family.

As for Rigo, his eyes never wavered from mine the entire time he faded from view. Even as the water drew him away from me and he became smaller and smaller in that swallowing ocean, I could feel the pull of his eyes upon me. I could feel his eyes searching and seeking me even when, surely, he could no longer distinguish me from any of the others gathered along the shore.

"Rigo!" I cried out. "Rigo!"

I couldn’t help myself. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I cried out anyway. I had to stay connected in some way. The image of Rigo floating off would haunt me forever, the sight of him vanishing into nothingness while I stood there
helpless. All the days of my life I would recall the events of Cojimar, of how and where they occurred with the precision of some internal compass. The commotion. The contraptions. The consequences. All these unwelcome recollections would rip through my mind with the force of some savage storm, a criss-crossing of images along the straits of memory to be played back and forth over and over again.

He was leaving for good. I didn’t need to assume it. I knew it. As for me, I also wanted to leave. I wanted to run and hide. I felt as if everyone on that beach knew who I was and what I had done: chickened out, discarded my husband and stranded best friend, committed a horrible act of betrayal. I felt that everyone standing there looked at me and regarded me a traitor, a coward. Not only an hoja mala—a bad leaf—but maloja itself: that which must be pulled off and discarded, that which must be burned alive out in the fields. I wanted to run back home and hide within the pages of my father’s text. I wanted to jump onto page 609 and have someone forever snap that book tightly shut. No wonder Hemingway had chosen this spot as the setting for his famous novel, except I had just rewritten it.
The Foolish Girl and the Sea
—that’s all I was. I had done exactly as Santiago had: captured the big fish only to throw it back into the water and have it vanish forever. I also wanted to vanish. I wanted to disappear even though I had no idea where to go or how to get back to Centro Habana. A bus maybe. Walk even. But a taxi? Never. I just wanted privacy. I wanted to be annonymous. Most of all, I wanted to move away from the water, far away from it.

Water. As much I had always loved the water, from that moment on I avoided going anywhere near it. Never again would water hold any more magic for me, any more mystery. Never would I walk along the shore of any beach again or sit along the Malecón to wonder and dream and gaze at the infinite expanse of horizon. Water would come to terrify me. No wonder I had thought of nothing but water all week. No wonder it had haunted my dreams. I’d been issued a warning, but had failed to recognize it: a foreshadowing of the betrayals water would bring. The ocean. From a distance so silky a surface, so alluring. Up close, a dark and deep
monster constantly in motion, constantly swallowing things up.

No longer did I yearn to be near the water, but wanted Rigo near me. How I ached to be at his side. The farther he drifed away, the closer I felt him to me. The more invisible he became to my eyes, the more visible he grew in my mind. I envisioned him before me and could hear his parting words:
he was carrying on with our plan; he would go to the United States and send for me after a year; he was doing this for the two of us because he loved me
. For a fleeting moment I entertained his ideas. I longed desperately to believe in them. This future he had carved out for us. This illusion of living blissfully in the land of freedom and raising our daughter. Both families living nearby and everyone existing in Capitalist contentment. Deep down I knew this would never come to be. Deep down, in that monstrous ocean that can be the human heart, where the waters of doubt dampen all our dreams, I knew this would never happen.