Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) (23 page)

“Well, Son!” the Creator bellowed out after him, knowing the Son of Man could hear him perfectly well, that all His thoughts would still reach him no matter what corner or nook or cranny of the universe the Son of Man tried escaping into and hiding in. “I have only one thing to add, but I assume you already know what it is: yes, Son, that would certainly be a fair assumption on
both
our parts. Congratulations, Son! Congratulations to you and congratulations to me! You’re going to be a brother, and—once again—I’m going to be a dad!”

5

assumptions

august 15

early morning

W
ake up, Clara! Arise, amor! The car is going to
be here in half an hour, and you need to get moving!”

I was awake—and been so for hours. I may have lain motionless in bed for the moment, but I was fully alert and been so all night. How could I possibly fall asleep after a visitation from the Angel Gabriel? Heaven’s chief messenger. Telling me I’d been selected as the mother of God’s next child, no less—and a daughter at that! How could anyone fall asleep after so preposterous a vision?
Impossible
. I had only feigned sleep. I had only tried sleeping the whole incident off, even if the strands of consciousness had never loosened their tightly woven grip.

Which had only given way to endless bouts of vacillation, flip-flopping, and indecision throughout the last vestiges of night. But now I knew exactly what to do. I was perfectly clear on it! I was going. I was still leaving Cuba as planned. Despite the admonitions from my winged friend, no silly hallucination would keep me from fulfilling my dreams. No product of delerium or exhaustion would deprive me of my goals. Within a few hours Rigo and I would set sail for America. And within a few hours more, we’d reach the golden shores of the United States.

“I am awake, amor, I am,” I assured him, my focus renewed. “But you’re right. It’s time to get going. It’s time to arise.”

Rigo stopped for a moment at the side of the bed and shook his head in amusement. He bent down to run his fingers through my hair and then kissed my forehead.

“You really are something, Clara, you know that, amor. I thought you would have been up long ago. I’ve hardly slept any myself.”

That I knew. When Rigo finally came home, long after the apparition’s departure, he was a bundle of energy. After all of Mihrta’s hysterics I expected to find him dejected and morose, ready to call everything off. Instead, he was rapt and jubilant. He couldn’t stop moving, even if I felt like a zombie. So it went in this clash of motion. I could barely respond to his utterances, much less arise from bed, but Rigo had no intention of slowing down, even if it was two in the morning. He retrieved his green backpack with its black straps and pouches. He rounded up any essential documents we might need in the United States, like our marriage certificate. He looked for any tools that might come in handy along our voyage.

“Guess what we now have?” he announced proudly.

“What?” I asked.

“A compass, amor. Papá gave me his prized compass to guide us on our journey.”

“A compass?” I eked out. “We’re not going to need a compass, Rigo. I told you, amor, the boats are going to be waiting for us twelve miles out. We’ll be intercepted before we know it.”

It was my last utterance before Rigo seriously faded out. Still, he persisted methodically, the expert now on fleeing Cuba.

“They’re not always twelve miles out, Clara. And besides, twelve miles
is
a long distance, especially out at sea. We’ll need this compass to stay on course, amor, trust me.”

It was the architect in him, always needing to be precise and exact, always needing tools for guidance or measurement. At least we had my father-in-law’s blessing for the trip, at least the compass signified that much. Whether it would actually come in handy, who knew? But I did know the moment of truth was finally upon us. I jumped out of bed and made haste, and sure enough, in the next half hour everything unfurled in a dizzying blur.

I moved about frantically and hurriedly, but Rigo shifted about our bedroom deliberately and cautiously, executing all his last-minute tasks with meticulousness and precision. It didn’t seem he was about to venture off the island for good on some homemade raft, but merely packing up for the new school year in Camagüey. While my husband sat on the edge of the bed and carefully rolled and wrapped up our marriage certificate and IDs and the blueprint of his tower complex in plastic sheathing, I rushed to the dresser and gathered up my prayer cards and clutched them fiercely in my hand. As Rigo took the large water container and made sure it was sealed tightly before placing it securely in the green packpack, I suddenly wanted to shower. The day before I had never washed. I should have been covered in sweat and dirt and grime, but even in my nervous observations, I realized that wasn’t the case. My body felt cool and refreshed, completely clean, as if I’d already showered and dried off. Even my hair looked thoroughly combed out, every strand perfectly in place. I made no sense of this, but it mattered not. I wanted to retrieve the one item I must absolutely take with me to the
United States: the letter my father had received from his friend in Iraq. The letter that made him weep right before he died and which I would finally have translated.

I rushed out of our bedroom to retrieve it, stepping into my parents’ room down the hall and heading straight for the towering bookcases that housed all his texts, including the Arabic ones. I remembered exactly which book I had placed the letter in, what page number even. It was in that encyclopedia of leaves, that old mysterious book bound in leather and containing intricate and hand-tinted illustrations of all the leaves of the world. I treated it with more care and respect than ever now. As a child, how I remembered the way my father would peruse the pages of this book for what seemed hours on end. And given what Pilar told me after he died, I went and tucked the infamous letter away on the only page that seemed appropriate: page 609, which contained a whimsical illustration of the notorious leaf and its whitish wispy flower. Maloja, as it was called: the bad leaf.

Sure enough, there it was! The envelope and letter from Iraq pressed firmly between the pages of this sacred book. I plucked it out and closed the pages, kissing the cover before returning my father’s book back to its shelf, letting my hand linger on it momentarily before jetting out to the hallway. I wished my heartbeat would settle down. But it raced and pounded nevertheless, even if everything around me unfolded in synchronized slow motion, especially in the kitchen, where I encountered Mamá standing over the stove waiting for her coffee to brew so she could pour me a
tazita
.

“Well, Mamá,” I began in earnest, keeping that letter from Iraq hidden behind my back. “This is it,
Vieja
. The moment has finally come: I’m leaving. Well, we’re both leaving. But I don’t want you to worry, Mamá, because, one year—that’s all it’s going to take—one year for Rigo and I to become residents. And the moment we do I’m sending for you and my sisters and we’re all going to be together again, you understand?”

I certainly didn’t expect Mamá to break down and start sobbing. She wasn’t the hysterical type like my mother-in-
law. But I did expect
some
display of emotion from her, even if just a few tears welling up in her eyes or her voice choking up. But nothing. All she did was stand there in her drab gown and in her detached and distant manner, slowly and methodically pouring me my
cafesito
into a white porcelain cup and handing it to me.

“I know, mijita. I know,” she said. “Now, here, drink up.”

I normally loved coffee, especially Mamá’s coffee first thing in the morning. But for some reason the smell of this coffee was so repugnant, I thought I would throw up if I took one more whiff of it. She kept holding the cup in my direction as waves of unexplained nausea swelled within me.

“Mamá!” I said in annoyance. “Did you hear me, vieja? I said this is it: we’re going, Mamá. Rigo and I are leaving!”

“I heard you, mija, I heard you,” she said, avoiding direct eye contact. “And I have faith that everything is going to be all right, Clara. I’ve prayed to the Virgin and to all the angels and saints and even to God himself to watch over you on your travels and keep you safe at all times, and I know that all of Heaven will do just that. So here, mijita, have your last cafesito before you go. Would you like some bread and butter too?”

As she finished, Mamá thrust the cup closer to my face, and I actually began to gag. Not just from the smell of it, but the sight of it too.

“Clara, mija. What’s the matter? Are you feeling sick?”

I didn’t know what I was feeling. And I didn’t understand why so violent a reaction unless it was just a dose of anxiety and raw nerves. But neither did I like this cool and detached manner of Mamá’s either, almost as if she were making a mockery of me or she were the bearer of some secret knowledge.

“Mamá,” I pressed suspiciously, looking straight into her dark, inscrutable eyes. “
Ven acá chica
. What did you do last night? Why did you get home so late?”

She rubbed her hands for a moment along that drab gown.

“Why…you know what I did, mija. I was visiting your aunt for a while…that’s all. I was just out visiting her. Now…here, take the coffee. I made it just for you and Rigo. Would you like some bread and butter or not?”

I shook my head. Now it was the thought of bread and butter that made me gag. I finally took the cafesito from her hand, but not to drink it, only to pour it back into the glass jar she used to store her morning supply. I tightened the lid on the jar firmly and placed it down on the counter as Mamá merely shrugged her shoulders and underneath her breath said, “Suit yourself, mija.” She then turned her back on me, focusing her attention on the stove as she wiped away at its surface.

“Yes, Mamá. But what were you doing there? You never stay that long at tía’s when you visit her, especially on a weeknight, and especially the night before your daughter is leaving the country for good. What were you doing there, Mamá? What took you so long to get home?”

My mother brought her slow and methodical wiping to a halt, wringing dry the wet rag in her hands and draping it over the kitchen faucet before turning to lock eyes with me. Whether she was finally ready to reveal the events of the prior night or simply maintain some carefully crafted pretense, I would never know. Just then—right before she seemed ready to formulate a response—our furtive encounter was interrupted by a brisk knocking at the front door.

“I’ll get that, mijita,” she blurted out. “You wait right here. Better yet, why don’t you finish gathering up your things, Clara? You probably don’t have much time before you need to get going, mija. Now hurry!”

How right that mother of mine would turn out to be. The knocking on the front door not only heralded the arrival of our much-anticipated driver—who happened to appear right on schedule—but my running out of time.

“Clara!” Rigo called out from the living room. “
¿Lista amor?
The driver is here—and we can’t keep him waiting.”

Of course I wasn’t ready. It seemed there were a million
things left to do still, even if I couldn’t possibly tend to them all or take everything with me I wanted. I would have to stick with the absolute esssentials: my birth certificate and carnét; my school diploma and copies of my grades; a few of my journals that I absolutely refused to part with, filled with some of the critiques and musings I was most proud of; the list of contacts Nelson had provided me with for our group Insurrection; my few beloved prayer cards, and of course, my father’s letter from Iraq. That was it. All of it wrapped in plastic to protect it from the water. There was no room for anything else in that backpack, nor did I care about taking anything else.

Throughout this last half hour my thoughts and movements had struck with lightning speed and I could barely keep up with them. But now it was I, in some clash of motion, who could hardly move about the house. Now it was I who struggled with my steps as if moving along some invisible obstacle course, trying to dodge that repugnant smell of coffee so fresh in my mind. Somehow, I managed to complete the course and reach the finish line where I caught Rigo blithely waiting.

“Well, amor. Are we ready?” he asked.

I looked at the corner of the bed for the items I had set aside, but they were nowhere in sight.

“It’s all packed,” my husband informed me. “I’ve already placed your belongings in the backpack.”

I smiled at Rigo. It was the architect in him: always organized and one step ahead when it came to storing things.

“Of course you have,” I replied. “I wouldn’t have expected any less of you.”

“And now that we have Papá’s compass to guide us, we’re all set,” he announced proudly again.

We stepped into the living room where all three sirens were standing there waiting for us: Mamá, Pilar and Angélica, along with the individual whom I took to be our driver, but who kept his distance from our group by situating
himself near the front door. I noticed he was dressed quite stylishly in dark blue jeans and a tight-fitting shirt, short sleeved and the color of charcoal.

“I’m going!” Angélica announced unexpectedly. “I’m going with them!”

My youngest sister, Angélica, only sixteen years of age and so innocent. She thought she knew everything about life, especially love. She had acted this way for the last two years. Of us three, I had always regarded Angélica as the prettiest. She had a delicate little face with fine, dainty features. She possessed bright hazel eyes that were lively and playful. I especially loved her hair—light brown and wild—even if it was the one trait she unmercifully detested in herself: a thick head of curls so tight and coarse that she was forever cursing them and trying to straighten them out, all to no avail. No matter how much we reassured my sister that we loved her hair and told her how fortunate she was to have such a full head of curls, this would only further exacerbate Angélica, prompting her to declare her hatred for these curls all the more fiercely, rendering her all the more defiant in wanting to straighten them out.