The German Girl (25 page)

At first, I continued to speak to her in German, just to see if she would keep the promise she had made to Papa, but she always replied in Spanish. I soon decided this ought to be the language we communicated in during our short stay on the island.

She protested from morning to night, whether it was about the heat, the wrinkles we would get from the sun, or the Cubans’ lack of manners. They didn’t speak, they shouted. They were always late, used far too much cumin in their cooking and sugar in their desserts. The meat was always overcooked, and the drinking water tasted of rusty pipes. I
realized that the more she detested everything around her, the busier she was, and so she forgot more quickly what had happened to the 906 passengers stranded on the
St. Louis
and did not have to speak of Papa. At that time, we had no idea what would happen to them: if they would find another island to take them in or be sent back to Germany.

The day we finally descended to the lobby to meet the driver who was to take us to our house in Vedado, Señor Dannón told us that the
St. Louis
had docked at Antwerp, Belgium, and it had been agreed that the passengers would be taken in by Great Britain, France, Holland, and Belgium.

“Señor Rosenthal has already taken a train to Paris.”

Mother did not react. She refused to show any emotion in front of a stranger who no doubt was charging her more than he should have for his services. She glanced at a group of men entering the hotel wearing flimsy palm hats and shirts with pleats down the front and mother-of-pearl buttons. “The Cuban uniform,” she called it, considering it vulgar.

Mrs. Samuels presented us to a driver in a black suit with gold buttonholes and a cap that made him look like a policeman. He had bulging eyes, and I found it impossible to tell how old he was: sometimes he looked very young; at others, he seemed older than Papa.

“Good morning, señora. My name is Eulogio.”

He removed his cap with his left hand, revealing a dark, shaven head. He extended his enormous, callused right hand first to Mama and then to me. I had never felt such a hot hand. He was the same man who a few days earlier had picked us up at the port, but we had not paid him much attention then. I found it hard to identify his accent: I didn’t know whether it was typically Cuban—swallowing parts of words and aspirating the
s
’s—or a foreigner who had come from another island or possibly Africa. Now our driver had a name, although we didn’t know yet what his family name was, and he was to accompany us throughout our stay in Cuba.

We left the Hotel Nacional along Avenida O and then took Calle 23. The avenues all had letters, in ascending order as we progressed. I opened the car window to feel the hot breeze and hear the noise of the
city. Then I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Papa on the train with Leo and Herr Martin arriving at the Gare du Nord Station in Paris. They would take a taxi to the Marais district and share a temporary apartment until our American visas were ready.

I began to see not the streets of Havana but Parisian boulevards. I pictured Papa as in the books he had shown me: sitting at an outdoor café, reading his newspaper, and me running with Leo to one of the oldest squares in the French capital, the Place des Vosges, where Papa told me you could look up at the window of the room where Victor Hugo used to write.

Then the car braked sharply, bringing me back to an island where I had no wish to stay. I passed the time counting the white stone markers identifying each street.

We turned onto an avenue called Paseo, and then again into Calle 21. After we passed Avenida A, the car pulled to a stop a few yards before the next corner.

Mother recognized the house as soon as she saw it. She pushed open the heavy iron gate, and we entered a garden full of yellow, red, and green croton bushes. At the far end was a small roofed-in porch. It was a solid two-story house that was quite modest in comparison with the mansion next door, which occupied a plot twice the size of ours. Señor Eulogio began to unload our suitcases, while I remained on the sidewalk, eager to explore the neighborhood we were going to live in for the next few months.

Mother came to a halt on the threshold, waiting for the man with the darkest skin she had ever seen in her life to open the door for her. A stocky woman with graying hair appeared on the step. She was wearing a white blouse, black skirt, and blue apron.

“Welcome,” she said in a gentle but firm voice. “I am Hortensia.”

The entrance led straight into a square room with moldings on the walls and ceiling. A tiny palace in the middle of the Caribbean! The furniture was an imitation of classical French styles: armchairs with medallion backs, cabriole legs, and gilt edgings. When she saw them, the new Señora Rosen burst out laughing:

“Where on earth have we come to? Hannah, welcome to the Petit Trianon!”

A long passageway linked this room to the back of the house. At the far end was the dining room, filled with heavy pieces of furniture and a table with a mirror top. A staircase led up to four spacious bedrooms on the second floor. There were gilt-framed mirrors everywhere and endless elaborate marquetry.

My bedroom was above the porch, looking out onto the street. The furniture there was light green, with a small half-moon dressing table surrounded by mirrors, and a wardrobe with hand-painted flowers on it. I opened a door thinking it was a closet and found it was my bathroom. I had another surprise when I saw the floor tiles, which immediately took me back to Alexanderplatz Station: they were the same verdigris color as in the café where I used to meet Leo at midday.

My mother’s bedroom was at the back of the house: the dark wood furniture there had clean, straight lines. Hortensia and I peered out of the window—which was to be kept shut from now on—looking across at the guesthouse above a garage that took up most of the yard.

“That’s where I live,” said Hortensia. “Eulogio’s room is next door.”

Mother was far from pleased at having people living on the property, but she said nothing. Eventually, she realized that it was probably better than having them in the house. Mrs. Samuels had insisted, “They are absolutely trustworthy.”

On the ground floor was a study for my father; I was pleased we were still taking him into account. Next to the study, a small library woke Mother from the lethargy she had been plunged into by her first conversation with that small, plump woman who was to be our only companion for who knew how long. She went through titles and authors, rejecting most of them with her typical expressions: raising an eyebrow, chewing her lip, shaking her head, or rolling her eyes.

“Cuban literature? I don’t want a single author from this island in here,” she said dismissively.

I wasn’t sure Hortensia knew who these authors were, but she nodded
anyway. Each time Mother passed by a window, she closed it, but she did allow the sun into the kitchen and dining room, calculating that this would be where Hortensia spent most of her time. And anyway, they did not open onto the street but onto the backyard.

“Eulogio is a very hardworking young man,” Hortensia said protectively. This settled my question: Eulogio was not old; he wasn’t even my parents’ age. I thought he must be ten or twenty years older than me, even though his face had the weary look of an old man. I was itching with curiosity. I wanted to know where he was from, who his parents were, if they were alive or dead.

I went up to my room and heard Mrs. Samuels arrive. From upstairs, you could hear everything that was said in the house, as well as the sounds from outside. I was beginning to learn what it was like to live in an open house in a city full of noise.

I flung myself down on the bed, closed my eyes, and thought of Papa and Leo. We should have stayed with them:
We would all be in Paris now!
I tried to fall asleep, to slow down my mind, but I heard my name being mentioned and listened again: we were going to stay here three months, and we had to be absolutely discreet as long as we stayed in the Petit Trianon.

“In this country, they don’t look kindly on foreigners,” Mrs. Samuels was explaining. “They think we’re here to steal their jobs, their properties, their businesses. Avoid wearing jewelry or too-striking outfits. Don’t take anything valuable with you. If you go out into the street, avoid crowds. Things will gradually return to normal, and the
St. Louis
will be forgotten.”

This list of the restrictions we would have to live with didn’t bother us at all.

“Classes start in two months,” Mrs. Samuels added. “Baldor is the best school for Hannah. It’s quite near. I’ll arrange the details.”

Two months! An eternity! It suddenly flashed across my mind that our “Havana transition” was not going to be for just a few months. It would be a year at least.

When it rains, the smells of Cuba explode. Wet grass, whitewash on walls, the breeze, and the tangy sea air all mingle together. My brain was alert, trying to identify each odor separately. I could not get used to the downpours: it was as if the world were coming to an end.

“Be prepared for the hurricanes! From your window, you’ll see tiles flying through the air, trees toppling. Only in Cuba, Ana!” exclaimed Hortensia.

“My name is Hannah, and in Spanish you have to pronounce it as if it has a
J
at the beginning,” I corrected her at once, as sternly as I could.

“Oh, my girl,
Ana
is so much easier, but as you wish,
Jana
it is! We’ll see, though: in school you won’t be able to correct everyone all the time.”

At that moment, I thought of Eva. It was the first time she had crossed my mind since we had left Berlin. Eva had been with me since I was born and yet she always treated us deferentially. Hortensia, who had only just met us, treated us with a familiarity we were not used to.

When the summer was almost over—if it is ever not summer on this island—we received the first news from Papa. His letter, postmarked Paris, took more than a month to reach Havana. When Eulogio handed my mother the mail, she ran to shut herself in her room. She refused to come down to eat and wouldn’t answer when we called up to her.

“I’m fine, don’t worry” was all she said.

We thought that perhaps her withdrawal had to do with her medical checkups, because she went to see the doctor on her own, and would never allow Hortensia or me to accompany her. Hortensia thought that perhaps there were problems with the baby, or she had low blood pressure, or was bleeding.

“We should let her rest,” she advised me.

Mother waited for the lights to go out in the house and for Hortensia and Eulogio to return to their quarters before she came to my room.

“We’ve had a letter from Papa,” she said simply. Then she lay down beside me, just like in the days when we had the world at our feet.

It wasn’t easy for Papa to get in touch with us. The plan was for us to meet up in Havana or New York. He was living austerely, in a fairly quiet neighborhood in Paris. The situation was tense there, too, but nowhere near as bad as it had been in Berlin.

I wanted her to tell me more; to give me details.

“He says we’re to look after ourselves, to eat well, and to think about the baby that’s on its way. We have to be patient, Hannah.”

I would try to be. What choice did I have? But I needed to see Papa. To hear Papa.

“Why didn’t he write a few lines for me?” I ventured to ask.

“Papa adores you. He knows you’re very strong—much stronger than I am—and he’s told you so.”

I fell asleep in her arms. I didn’t have nightmares but fell into a deep sleep. Tomorrow would be another day, although in Cuba, the worst thing was how heavily and slowly time passed, with too many intervals. A day could be an eternity, but we would get used to it.

In fact, it was Leo I wanted to know about. To hear if he and his father were sharing the same room. If they were safe. Papa should have mentioned it in his letter. I wanted to ask Mama, but decided against it: better to go into her room and find the letter so that I could read it in secret—or even keep it. Only fear of what had happened on board the
St. Louis
held me back: I didn’t want the episode with the capsules to be repeated. If Mama’s mind faltered in Havana, I could lose her: she could be taken to a clinic, be shut away or even deported, and I would never see her again. Oh, but I so much wanted to see and touch Papa’s handwriting!

Mother never agreed to show me the letter. I even came to think that she had invented it to keep my hopes up, when she knew perfectly well that neither of us had a future, that Papa had died during the journey back across the Atlantic, or that he never found a country to take him in and had to return to Germany.

I never really understood her. I tried, but the problem was that we were not alike. She knew that.

With Papa, it was different. He was not ashamed to express what he felt, even if it was pain, frustration, loss, or a sense of failure. I was his little girl, his refuge, the only one who understood him. The only one not to make demands on him or blame him for anything.