Flight to Freedom (3 page)

Eventually Mami called a halt to the celebration, and she asked me to take dictation. She began listing
the errands we need to get done to prepare for our departure. We are going to be very, very busy. On top of the list: Contacting Pepito. He must ask for a pass to come home to say good-bye.

I do not know whether to be excited or upset. I have decided that I should be both. One part of me is curious about what is on the other side of that wide, blue ocean. Will it be a wonderful place where I will make new friends and have a good time? Another part of me, though, is frightened. What if people are unfriendly? How will I understand what they are saying in English?

Today we had the big march around the plaza to commemorate Fidel Castro's attack on the Moncada Barracks, which gave start to the revolution back in 1953. (Funny to think it, but I was not even born then.) I did not want to go, but Maruja, who heads our neighborhood's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, came to round us up. Mami does not want us to be singled out in any way, so we went to the march with long faces and heavy hearts. It was stuffy
in the buses, and people were fainting right and left at the plaza from the horrendous heat. Do you think anybody cared? Of course not. All they want is for the masses to spill around the plaza so that journalists can see the millions supporting the Maximum Leader. What a joke!

There were tens of thousands of people participating in the march, workers bused from the factories, children from their day care wearing the red scarf of the Young Pioneers, and students just like us coming from their activities. Everyone was wearing the revolution's colors, red and black. When a man yelled instructions through a bullhorn, we obediently marched and cheered and shouted revolutionary slogans: “Fatherland or death, we will triumph!” And,
“¡Cuba, sí, Yanquis, no!”

My throat is very sore from all the shouting. So is my heart. It feels as if it has been shredded by lies and deception, by having to fake belief in something I know is not true. I am also ashamed that I did not have the courage to refuse to march. How can I cheer for a government my family opposes, the same government that has sent my Papi to work the fields just because we disagree with its policies and want to
leave? Why didn't I look that bossy Comrade Maruja in the eye and tell her what she could do with her Committee for the Defense of the Revolution?

Papi always tells us that the New Man the Communists want to create with their rules is really a social hypocrite who says one thing but believes another. That's how I feel. But then I hear my mother's warnings. I am not to do anything to make myself stand out. We must conform. We must keep silent. We are too close to what we want. To leaving. To freedom. Yet, I ask myself, at what price? I can feel this anger and resentment bubbling up inside me like
café
percolating.

Papi is finally home. Or maybe I should say that a man who looks like my father is home. He has lost a lot of weight and now he has gray hair. Mami teased him about it, but he didn't laugh. He didn't even seem happy that we had gotten our exit permits.

It is ten o'clock in the evening, and Papi is still sitting out in the porch alone. When people come to visit, he leaves the room. If Mami or any of us speak to him, he answers yes or no but doesn't say much. What is wrong with him?

We will not be able to see Pepito before we leave. He is training in the mountains somewhere, and was refused permission to say good-bye to his
gusano
family before we leave for
yanqui
hell. That's how Papi told us, kind of making a joke of it. Then he did not say anything else, just went to his room and slammed the door.

Mami sat in the living room and cried with my grandparents. Ileana said we should write to Fidel Castro and ask him to let us see our brother. I would never have thought of such an idea, but that is how my sister thinks. Abuelo Pancho told her not to be ridiculous. They got into an argument, and I just came into the bedroom to get away.

All our stuff is packed. Well, not all. The government
does not allow us to take anything of value, and the weight and number of suitcases are limited. I cannot bring most of my dresses and shoes, nor my pretty jewelry box. I suppose we will eventually get new ones, but I will miss some of the jewelry I have had for a long time, especially my baby earrings and the small gold identification bracelet I received for my fifth birthday. Those are things I can never replace.

Monday through Friday there are two flights a day taking Cubans to Miami. The airlift began in December 1965, when our government and the United States government agreed to allow people like us to leave the island. I have never been on an airplane before, so I am looking forward to my first time. Will it be a long flight? Where will we sit? (I would like a window seat.) Can we breathe so high up in the air, or will we have to wear a mask? Will we float as if we were in space? Should I take a
bocadito
to eat? Mami laughs when I ask her all these questions. She said it's like taking a bus in the air.

“You will always remember this airplane trip,” she assures me.

We are in the air, flying. Though I have never been on an airplane, I am not afraid. It makes me think of Pepito because he used to say he wanted to be a pilot. I wonder if he is thinking of us just as I am thinking of him.

There are lots of clouds now, and it looks as if we are pushing through cotton. But when we first took off from the Varadero airport, it was a clear day. From the window seat beside Papi, I was able to see the green and brown of the island and then the deep blue of the ocean. Papi looked out, too, and he sighed. He said that now we were officially exiles. I asked what that meant exactly, and he replied that we belonged nowhere, not in Cuba and not in the United States. Maybe exile means staying forever in an airplane, suspended over an ocean between two countries, just like we are now.

A lot of people cried when the plane took off, my mother included. One old couple wailed and wailed. Even with my ears popping, I could hear them. They kept saying they were going to live their last years, then die, with strangers. I don't think either of them will die soon. Both seem very strong and plump.

In the row behind us there are two girls who are traveling alone. I think the oldest is my age, and they must be sisters because they have the same brown hair and cat-green eyes. There are envelopes pinned on their white blouses with their names in red ink. They have been holding hands the entire trip. If I were in their shoes, I would be shaking like a leaf. I would be scared to leave home on a plane alone. I wish I could talk to them, ask them why they are leaving, and whom they expect will meet them in Miami, but Papi told me not to stare.

My Papi. You should see his face. It is hard as stone. When he speaks, he barely moves his lips. I think he is trying very, very hard not to cry.

The pilot just made the announcement. We are landing soon!

You must have thought I had forgotten you in some suitcase, but I had not. We have just been busy. All weekend, friends and family have come to visit, beginning in the morning and lasting through the evening. So many people, and I can't remember most of them. Some tell me that I have grown and changed. Others say I look the same. Grown-ups don't make any sense!

Today was especially busy. The family who used to live down the street from us in Cuba stopped by. They brought a sack of donated clothes from their church. Most were for Ana Mari, but I was able to fit into a pretty white blouse with lace on the collar and also a blue sweater, which I will use in winter. Ileana kept a square black purse.

Papi and Tío Pablo also met with their friends, and they argued about Cuba for hours in the living room. From what I heard, one side argued for an invasion, and the other side wanted people to rebel from
within. Nobody seemed to agree, and after Abuela María offered the men coffee, she shook her head and whispered to me, “Talk and no action will never get anything accomplished.” Then she tried to pat me on the head, but when she realized I am already taller than she is, she just patted my hand. In the kitchen, the women talked, too, but it was about children and what they needed in their new homes or about all the relatives still in Cuba. Everyone has left behind a parent or a brother or a child. One woman began to sob because her mother is dying and she cannot return to the island to see her. To me, that is very sad. A family should stay together always, at least until the children marry. Then the children should live close by.

We are staying in a three-bedroom house with Tío Pablo, who is my father's older brother. Papi and Tío Pablo look alike, with the same puppy-tail mustache, except my uncle is heavier and less serious. His wife is my Tía Carmen, who is short and very thin and laughs a lot. She thinks everything is funny. My cousin Efraín is seventeen, younger than Pepito and older than Ileana. He looks like his father, with the same big chest but without a mustache. He likes to joke around. The very first day we were here, he had a
little noisemaking gadget hidden in his palm. When he shook our hands, it sounded like a gong. Even Papi was amused.

Also living in the house are Abuelo Tony and Abuela María, my father's parents. Abuelo Tony used to be my doctor when I was a baby, but now he can no longer practice pediatrics. Abuela María is soft and dimpled and seems permanently attached to my grandfather's side. Her hair is completely white, and she wears it in two braids pinned around her head. It's strange to hear her call my father by his full name, José Calixto. We had not seen any of them since they left in 1965, but they all look the same.

It is very crowded in the house. The adults have the bedrooms, and Ana Mari stays in a cot beside my parents. Efraín sleeps on a plain sofa in the back, in what they call a Florida room, right off the kitchen. Ileana and I share a sofa bed in the living room. It is lumpy and it creaks when we move. Ileana hogs the covers.

All Cubans must report to the Cuban Refugee Emergency Center when they arrive. El Refugio is a tall, tall building, probably nineteen or twenty floors, topped by a dome with slender towers. Papi said those are called minarets. The center stands across the street from the bay, and when the wind blows west, as it did while we were there, the sea mists your arms and legs. It reminded me a little of El Malecón, the old seawall at home, and I ended up getting a big lump in my throat.

El Refugio. The Refuge. What an appropriate name, because this place was full of people like us, refugees hoping to find jobs or places to live or locate relatives in the city. Some families were given coats and one-way airplane tickets to different towns if they did not know anybody in Miami. Mami and Papi had to fill out lots of papers and answer many questions. All the social workers spoke Spanish, and many were Cuban themselves. Because Papi does not have a job yet, the government gave him one hundred dollars and a coupon that allows us to pick up food at a warehouse. Tía Carmen said we can get powdered milk and powdered eggs, cheese, canned meat, flour, and other food staples there.

I wonder why a foreign government would give away money and food this way. Maybe this country has so much that it can afford to donate its extras. “It is more than that,” Tía Carmen told me later. “The Americans are a generous people. This is a country built by immigrants and refugees, people like us who have arrived broke and brokenhearted, and then they have found refuge and comfort here.” I guess that's where the name El Refugio comes from.

Tía Carmen trimmed Mami's hair. Every strand that fell to the floor reminded me of something lost, something that I cannot get back. Does that make sense? It's as if Mami with long hair represents how our life used to be, how I would want it to be again, when I was younger and Papi was happier and Pepito was not in the army and all our relatives lived close by. Mami with short hair, on the other hand, is new and strange, different. I cannot get used to her in that style. She doesn't look like a mother at all.

We paid a short visit to Efraín at his job. He works at a store called Tandy Leather on a street named Flagler and sells craft kits to make fringe vests, headbands, and sandals. While we were at the store, Efraín waited on a customer. He had a long conversation with her in English, and we were all very impressed. We could tell he was proud of his English, too. Ileana now says she wants to get a job after school just like Efraín's. This way she can earn money to help the family while learning to speak English. Tía Carmen liked the idea, but Mami raised her eyebrows in that way she has when she thinks we are out of line. I think a job would be a good idea. If I were old enough, I would want one, too. I would like to have my own money, so I can spend it however I want to.

Efraín also introduced us to his boss, who does not speak any Spanish but knows how to say
buenos días
and
adiós.
He said his grandparents immigrated to New York from Germany and Austria many, many years ago. Later, while walking home, Mami told us that we are exiles, not immigrants. Big difference, she insisted. In what way? I asked. She explained that immigrants plan to stay in the new country while exiles
live there only for a while. That reminded me of what Papi told me on the airplane, about being between two countries. Mami also said we are living a temporary life because as soon as the Communist government is thrown out, we will return to Cuba and resume our activities there.

“This will seem like a long vacation, that's all,” she said.

Well, Efraín has been on vacation for two years then. And if it's a vacation, why do we have to go to school, find jobs, and fill out papers at El Refugio?

I wonder how my friends at home are doing. Do they still walk the three blocks to
la heladería
? (I miss the red mamey ice cream most. Of course, the shop did not always have milk or cream to make it. But when they did, it was so good!) Do they play jacks without me in Ofelia's house? Is Ofelia still participating in the Communist Youth? Has everyone, including Ofelia, stayed friends? If I remember too much, my chest hurts and my eyes burn.

Must go. Ileana is nagging me to turn off the light.

We went to Crandon Park today and took a picnic lunch. We swam at the park's beach. It was so hot that the ocean felt like bathwater. Tío Pablo said this beach is on an island called Key Biscayne and many rich people vacation here. When Papi heard this, he made a funny noise in the back of his throat and said that those of us who are used to Cuba's beaches, like Varadero and Boca Ciega and Santa María del Mar, would have a difficult time adjusting to a mediocre place like this. I don't think that was a very nice thing to say, and Abuelo Tony told my father to enjoy what he has instead of pining away for what he doesn't.

We enjoyed playing in the ocean, though. We also ran into some of Efraín's friends from school. They showed us how to play a game called football with a brown pointy ball. Ileana liked this part best because the boys were making eyes at her. But then Papi told her to go back to our table and act like a serious young lady. She stomped back mad. In the afternoon Efraín showed us around the zoo. He bought us
granizados.
In English they are called snow cones. Those are the very first words I have learned on my own in English.
Snow cone.

I forgot to wear a hat, and now my nose and cheeks are as red as a tomato.

Papi began work today at a hospital named Jackson Memorial. Tío Pablo works there, too. I asked Papi what his job was, but he waved me away angrily and said that it helps him feed the family and that is all I should care about it. That was so mean of him to say that. It's not my fault he's not happy about his job. Actually, he doesn't seem to be happy about anything.

Later, Mami told me he works as a bookkeeper.

Oh, the smell of
guayabas
! How it reminded me of home. Tía Carmen's cousin's house has two guava trees, and they are almost bent over with fruit. We collected as many as we could when we visited, and now their peculiar smell scents the entire house. All of us have commented on it. “Remember when,” everyone says, and tells a story having to do with the fruit.

I am bored out of my mind. There is nothing to do except help Abuela María clean or cook. And we have done plenty of both. I have tried watching television, but I do not understand what is being said. Efraín has suggested I read some books, and he brought home some his boss gave him. They are about the adventures of a man named Doc Savage. I tried to make out the words, but it was too difficult. Mami says she will try to find me a few books in Spanish to entertain me. She also believes that once school starts, I will make new friends and feel better about staying in Miami. I hope she is right.

I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I don't care what Mami says. I know I will never get used to this, and I know I will never ever ever like this school. How am I to understand anything the teacher says? English sounds like popcorn popping fast and hard on the stove.

“Patience,
hija,
patience,” Mami says, but patience has brought me nothing but disappointment. Can't she understand? I do not know how to ask to go to
the bathroom. I do not have any friends, and I do not expect to make any. I do not even know my way around the school, and twice today I went to the wrong classroom. (Ileana, who attends the second to last year of
bachillerato
at Miami Senior High, says she got lost going to each and every one of her classes, but there was always a boy to help her. Several speak Spanish. And one of the times she got lost, she discovered the bust of our José Martí in a courtyard. Imagine!)

I am in the eighth grade at Citrus Grove Junior High. Mami and Abuela María took me to the school this morning, but from tomorrow on I will take a yellow bus. The school seems enormous to me, with its big grassy field for physical education and long halls with dozens of classrooms on each side. It is nothing like my school at home. That was a two-hundred-year-old building with arched entranceways and wide porticoes. And until the government kicked them out in 1961, we had nuns who dressed like penguins. Citrus Grove houses three levels, or grades, as they call them here. I have a different teacher for each subject, but it does not matter because I do not understand what they are saying. Some look very young,
and I was shocked to see one woman wearing a pantsuit. Slacks in public! In school! She teaches mathematics, and perhaps this class will be easy for me. We will be learning algebraic equations, and I have already studied that. Still, it won't be the same as home. Nothing can ever be.

At home I knew all the girls in class, and my teachers knew me. Here, I am nobody. Worse, in school I'm convinced I appear odd and out of place, like being the lone mango tree in a field of mameys. Mami made me comb my hair back in a ponytail like a little girl. Everyone else had hers in a flip. It was so embarrassing because I could feel my new classmates staring at me as if I were a visitor from outer space. Well, maybe I am, because that's how I feel. An alien who returned from one of those space trips with the Russian cosmonauts and is now pretending to be human. Ileana says I am making too much fuss over little things.

Everything else is strange, too. Here students do not stand next to their desk to speak. They simply raise their hands to be called on. In the mornings students put their hands over their hearts and recite something called the Pledge of Allegiance. I am to learn it by the end of the week, Srta. Reed informed
me. There are also announcements over the loudspeakers and a moment of silence. But there are no official prayers whatsoever, just like when Fidel Castro came to power and abolished religion and all the penguin nuns left.

We do not go home for our midday meal, but eat in a large, noisy cafeteria. Today we had a carton of milk, a sticky white ball they said was rice, a strange green vegetable, an apple, and meat of some sort. But there is plenty of food, nothing like the rations of the last years at home. I tasted a little bit of everything, and I admit that it was not as bad as it looked. Still, how I missed Mami's cooking! Her ham croquettes, especially, which were always crispy outside but very hammy inside, and piping hot when I bit into them. My mouth waters just thinking of them. And how I wish I were back home in our kitchen with the blue tile countertop and the copper molds hanging on the wall! The cafeteria is so noisy, and no one, not one person, talked to me.