Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) (13 page)

Naturally, I mentioned nothing of the group to Rigo, especially the fact that, before long, I became Nelson’s right-hand man. My husband would have adamantly disapproved. Rigo liked Nelson and respected him, but why create strife
with unnecessary revelations? Hadn’t I experienced enough setbacks and untimely tragedies? Enough of these crippling curses then: Rigo and I married, only to be forced apart. My admission to the university accepted, only to be denied. My father’s life dedicated to his work, only for his reputation to be trashed. And worst of all: now he lay dead.

All of these misfortunes were more than what the everyday Cuban should have to endure. Rigo, me, everyone we knew—we were all the product of taunting disillusion, bitter disappointment. My family in particular had suffered its share of setbacks. But a new plague would strike to eclipse them all, even my father’s death. This time it afflicted the one person who least deserved it: my older sister Pilar, whom I cherished and loved dearly. It happened on March 30 of ’93, the culmination of a week I would never forget.

An everyday, ordinary headache—that was how it started. We were assured that nothing could have prevented the outcome. Pilar had just come home from afternoon training that day. A third-year college student, she was a long-distance runner at the university and one of their best. She would tell the doctors that it all began with a pain that had burrowed itself deep in her forehead. But even during two days of intense aching, she knew it was no ordinary headache. The pain had embedded itself deep in her eye, and any eye movement, no matter how minimal, only worsened it. This persistent pain lasted several days before it finally dissipated, but only to be replaced by a flashing and flickering of lights even when she closed her eyes.

“That’s it, hermana! You’re going to the doctor!” I insisted. “This isn’t normal, and you need to be seen right away.”

“I’ll be fine,” Pilar insisted. “I’ve been working really hard lately, that’s all. I bet it’s my blood sugar that’s really low.”

The next couple of days she undertook much lighter training and it helped. The splitting pain vanished. The flashing and flickering of lights all but dispersed. But little could anyone imagine that, right around the corner, the next phase of this ailment sat poised to strike.

“It’s so strange,” she announced one afternoon that week. “I don’t know what’s happening, but the color in everything seems all drained and washed out.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Everything seems less vibrant, especially anything with red in it.”

“How long has this been happening?” I asked.

“A couple of days,” she replied.

I didn’t know why, but I felt a sense of urgency upon hearing this, and no longer would I postpone the necessary.

“That’s it,” I said. “I’m taking you to the doctor’s right now, whether you want to go or not.”

We were standing in the kitchen when I demanded this. I was prepared to drag her from the house, by force if necessary, but within seconds, such efforts were rendered pointless. I knew circumstances had taken a dire turn when Pilar couldn’t move, or lift either foot off the ground, and had to remain stationary as if to maintain balance. She jutted her arms and hands about too. She shifted her head slowly as if some wave of dizziness were about to topple her.

“What’s happening, Pilar? What’s the matter, hermana?”

“I can’t see!” she cried. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I can’t see!”

I would never forget the fear and panic in my sister’s voice, nor the taxi ride to the hospital and how she clung to me as we both cried. In between sobs Pilar explained how, right there in our kitchen, a black vapor enshrouded her eyes and she nearly fell to the ground. Worse, this black fog did not retreat. The entire way to the hospital it only thickened, entrenching itself firmly in the mirror of her eyes. By the time we saw a physician, it was too late. Not only could she no longer see, the doctor informed us the vision loss was permanent. I couldn’t stop shaking. I couldn’t stop sobbing hysterically.

“It’s my fault!” I wept. “It’s all my fault!”

The doctors insisted that I stop with the hysterics. Pilar needed us more than ever now, but she needed clear and calm heads to prevail. They assured me there was nothing that anyone could have done to prevent this. Surely we’d been following the events of the last year and a half. Surely we knew Pilar wasn’t the first person in Cuba to succumb to this affliction during this Special Period. We certainly knew what the doctors were talking about. Who hadn’t followed the events of our recent health crisis? Still, I couldn’t keep from crying or blaming myself or believing that, if only I had dragged her to the hospital on the first day of her headache, she wouldn’t have lost her sight.

But I was wrong. As much a natural critic as I was, I couldn’t argue with science: an epidemic was an epidemic. It’s just that, deep down, even if the doctors were right, I needed something to blame myself over, a way to punish myself for all my self-centeredness and self-absorption, a symptom of being a middle sister. Pilar was not the only everyday Cuban who had mysteriously lost her sight in the last year and a half. The first cases surfaced in early ’92, in Pinar del Río, our westernmost province. But those initial cases involved middle-aged men who smoked heavily and drank alcohol, those with hardened vices. Pilar hardly seemed a candidate for the ruthlessness of this epidemic and it made no sense.

When it first struck the island, nobody understood what was happening, where this plague had come from or how it was proliferating so swiftly. There were those who called it a curse, a just punishment for a government alienated from God. Why else had thousands of our brothers and sisters developed physical ailments that ranged from loss of vision and loss of use of both legs and arms to total paralysis and complete blindness? Why else? If many believed this, I never bought such explanations. If anyone deserved punishment around here, it should have been them: all the ministers and secretaries, all the diplomats and officials, our bearded uncle in his olive-green fatigues. But they weren’t affected. Just the ordinary, everyday Cuban.

It didn’t take long for a major visitation, for doctors and scientists from all over the world to descend on the island and figure it all out, the odd etiology of this epidemic. They soon had a name and face for it:
neuritis
, an inflammation of the central nervous system. The effects were sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent. But if neuritis turned into an international riddle, I found it all rather comical, ironic that it took the greatest minds of the global medical community to arrive at such an obvious conclusion: neuritis was the result of near starvation. Over the last two years the Cuban diet had deteriorated miserably. Our bodies were starved for vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin B. No wonder those from the government emerged unscathed, their eyes and limbs fully intact. They weren’t starving in the least and everyone knew it.

The Ministry of Health responded swiftly, handing out vitamin supplements so that, in some cases, the ailments stopped or even reversed themselves. But a year and a half after the outbreak, thousands remained afflicted with one form of the disease or another. There were two versions of the ailment: those left paralyzed and those left blind. The two sides of neuritis were like the faces of two fraternal twins: somewhat the same, but very much different. By the time neuritis hit Pilar, over thirty thousand had succumbed.

This plague did not strike without notice, as some believed. It spread swiftly, as all plagues do, but its nucleus had been a long time forming, a long time nurturing, its incubation silent but steadfast, and all a result of this Special Period, this dreadful era of scarcity and self-denial. Even the term
Periodo Especial
mocked us: a term usually reserved for nations at war. We were in a war all right: at war with our own bodies. Three years into this Special Period and its hallmark was a diet intent on destroying us. Not to mention the blackouts we had to stomach. A
pagones
we called them, the twelve-hour blocks of time when officials cut power to the city and left us drowning in darkness. How I hated our nightly blackouts, those long and terrifying hours when we lit candles, a few lit kerosene lamps, just to assure ourselves someone was out there.

How unjust. How unfair that the tentacles of this affliction had tightened themselves around Pilar. My older sister, the kindest, most loving person in the world. Pilar, who hardly fit the profile of those at risk. She was twenty-two and an athlete, in great physical shape, without an ounce of fat on her bones. Little did anyone suspect during the early days of the epidemic that fitness only fed the vengefulness of the disease. A lack of body fat left muscle and nerve vulnerable to attack, while heat and exercise intensified its effects.

According to all the specialists then, an unfortunate pairing of events conspired against Pilar to minister her condition permanent. But no matter
what
anyone told me, I blamed myself, believing that if only I had taken her to a doctor on that first day, she would never have lost her sight. I needed to punish myself. I needed to pay the price for my neglect. And so, one day, not long after Pilar lost her sight, I was only too happy when I came down with horrible cramps that raged somewhere within my abdomen. I knew I should go to the hospital, but I refused. I suffered the pain as long as I could.

For three days I was on the brink of delirium, bedridden with chills and high fevers, convulsions pulsating deep within. How I reveled in the aching. How my body soaked up all the pain as it marinated itself with infection. I wished I would burn up and die, but the thought of Pilar blind and helpless pulled me back. And it was only from Mamá pulling me out of bed and dragging me to the hospital that I received antibiotics and the infection subsided. But the doctors had additional news for me. A week after being hospitalized, I received a call to return. My lab work had come in. Physicians wanted to meet with me personally and discuss the results. They advised I bring my husband along with me.

“Compañera, have you heard of calculus?” they sat me down and asked.

“Calculus,” I said. “As in math? You mean
that
calculus?”

“No, not that calculus. Calculus as in plaque, as in buildup.”

“Well, I certainly know the term,” I replied. “What about it?”

“Well, it seems you’re the victim of the Cuban diet too.”

Doctors proceeded to inform me that, somehow, I had managed to contract an even rarer form of neurological apathy: an intrauterine calcification affecting the peripheral parts of my reproductive system.

“But how?” I asked. “How is that possible? It doesn’t make any sense.”

But the voices of the doctors droned on as they explained it all with statistical exactitude. “Well, compañera, it makes perfect sense. You see, in the prolonged absence of essential vitamins and minerals, especially among young women of child-bearing age, the right set of circumstances can combine, wherein, the pituitary gland produces an elevated concretion of mineral salts. Sometimes these salts turn toxic and concentrate around organic material in the hollow organs or ducts of the body. Well, it appears that a thick layer of calculus has formed inside your fallopian tubes and left them permanently scarred.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“What it means is that you’re never going to bear children, compañera. Whenever there’s this much calculus, the condition is irreversible. We’re very sorry, really.”

Rigo took the news stoically, telling me not to worry, insisting the doctors were either wrong or didn’t know what they were talking about, or that we could simply wait until some treatment cleared this all up, even if it meant surgery.

“Don’t worry, amor. We’re going to be parents one day. You’re going to be a mother, and I’m going to be a father. I’ll mention this to Mamá. She’ll know what to do.”

Mihrta! Why did he have to bring her into it? What would she possibly suggest, electroshock therapy? I felt sorry for Rigo. What was it about men and their limited insight? Why did they think that the only thing that made a woman happy was having children and being a mother? Even Rigo was a
typical male when it came to this. Would he now chalk up any anxiety or frustration, any pent-up energy or restlessness I had as the result of only one thing: that I couldn’t have children? How to tell him I no longer wanted any children. I no longer wanted to be a mother. I had come to accept that I was too ambitious, and ambitious people did not make good parents.

Once the shock wore off and I digested the consequences of my plight, I wasn’t sorry. Not one bit. Most young women would have found the news devastating, but I derived a sense of comfort, a sense of justice. At last I was being punished. At last I was being rebuked for my role in Pilar’s misfortune. She would never see again, I would never have children. But I had other reasons to rejoice. I no longer wanted to bear children. I no longer wanted to bring life into this world, especially into Cuba. I couldn’t be happier in knowing that my womb lay dead inside and harbored no chance of ever rising to life. I wouldn’t be a mother—big deal! I’d be a writer, an underground rebel, an insurrectionist. That was the only parenting I wanted to do: the parenting of publishing; the parenting of politicking, the parenting of raising awareness for our true and dire plight in Cuba.

I’d had enough of this Periodo Especial and I wanted it to end, this
Periodo Trágico
more fittingly. The last several years had been insufferable for everyone. We all lived in a state of terror. Not knowing what would hit next or from where it would strike. We not only lived in a state of war, but a tug of war, a struggle between the physical and emotional. But nobody knew which side would prevail or if both would collapse. Would we further be crippled by additional epidemics or whither away from all the deprivation? Would we drown in the barrage of propaganda or suffocate from a dearth of intellectual stimulation? Would we perish from a lack of spiritual purpose or expire in this wasteland of want?