Next Year in Havana(99)
Ana shakes her head. “They want to wait, see what happens in the next few months.”
I can’t blame them for that. It’s hard to leave everything behind you, not knowing what will greet you when you return.
“I will miss you,” she says.
My throat is hoarse. “I will miss you, too.”
She hugs me, and the familiarity of it is both a balm and salt in an open wound. This is home. How can I leave?
Ana releases me, and I wipe away the tears that have fallen on my cheeks. Her gaze sweeps over the box behind me, the makeshift shovel I stole from my mother’s flatware collection. This isn’t a wholly original idea—two hours ago I watched from my bedroom window as my father crept out in the night and buried items a hundred or so yards away from the palm tree—but it’s the best one I could come up with on such short notice.
“So what are we doing?” Ana asks, a sad smile on her face. “Digging for buried treasure?”
It’s exactly the sort of trouble we would have gotten into when we were younger, digging up my mother’s prized flowers and pretending we were pirates—I blame the French corsair for the inspiration.
“No, burying it.”
I pull out the box I pilfered from my father’s study—inside I have placed my most treasured possessions, my memories, the only pieces of Pablo that remain.
“If something happens, will you dig this up for me? I don’t know what else to do with it, and I don’t want anyone to find it. Can you keep an eye on it for me?”
I could give it to Ana to hold on to, but who knows where her family will end up, how the winds of change will eventually affect them, too. If the madness of this revolution has taught me anything it is that the affairs of men are impossible to predict; I prefer to rely on the constancy of the earth beneath our feet. It doesn’t care whose blood spills onto its soil or whose boots march upon its grass—it is Cuba, impervious to those who profess to control it. The earth cares nothing about revolutions.
“Of course,” she replies.
Ana grabs one of the instruments, a laugh escaping from her lips. “This is one of your mother’s serving spoons, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of it. Two Havana debutantes in our robes, using my mother’s finest silverware to dig in the dirt in our backyard. And at the moment, I can’t think of a better use for it. This seems to be a year for the tragic and the absurd.
We speak in quiet voices as we dig, the roar of the ocean drowning out our words. We speak as only lifelong friends can, carving out a moment of peace in these fragile times—
I am forever fortunate for the corsair’s decision to build his home on this street, on this block where one day a rum scion would do the same, providing me with another sister.
When we’ve dug a nice-sized hole, I set the wooden box inside. My hand drifts to my stomach. Will I bring my child back here to dig it up with me? Perhaps I’ll make a game of it—buried treasure indeed.
I cover the box with the cold earth, clutching the dirt in my hands until my fingers are caked with it, until it sneaks into the crevices under my fingernails. One day I’ll bring our child here. I’ll show our baby the letters we wrote, the ring its father slid on my finger, give it this part of our history, our love. The earth will guard my secrets, preserve this piece of Havana for me, my memories—
For when we return.
chapter thirty
Marisol
I search for your face in the men pouring into Havana. I dream of lying in your arms, of your lips against mine.
I miss you and I love you.
Where are you? When will you return?
You were right, you know. I understand that now. We weren’t paying attention. We lived in our little bubble, and now the bubble has burst, and I do not recognize my country. Do not recognize my place in this world.
I read my grandmother’s letters to Pablo—ones she gave to Guillermo before she thought Pablo was dead, after Fidel had taken Cuba, ones she sent my grandfather throughout their relationship. I started from the beginning of their romance, from that first letter she sent him, and now that I’m at the end, it’s like she’s sitting here beside me in bed, her words giving me the final push I need.
I wish I had done more. I wish I had fought.
* * *
? ? ?
I wake early the next day—my final day—the morning sun breaking through the clouds, the space beside me cold. After I came back from spreading my grandmother’s ashes, after I read each of her letters, I found Luis. We fell asleep together on the tiny bed in my guest room at the Rodriguez house, our clothes still on, Luis’s arm draped around my waist. But now he’s gone.
I make my way through the house, trying not to break into a run, telling myself he’s just gone for a walk, that nothing will stop us from leaving Havana today. With my grandfather’s help I got access to a phone and called Lucia yesterday and begged her to help get us out, to get the plane, buy us tickets to Antigua, asked her to talk to our father about getting Luis into the United States. I didn’t tell her the whole story, just the parts she needed for now. I’ll tell her the rest on the back porch of the house in Coral Gables, mimosas in hand. A different life.
I find Luis on the balcony, staring out at the water. He doesn’t turn when I open the door and walk outside, but he wraps his arm around me, bringing me against his side.