Tomorrow They Will Kiss (21 page)

Just when we were starting to believe that all the time, effort, and prayers we had invested in Graciela were beginning to
pay off, she did it again. Imagínate!

It started as a rumor, and I’m not one to listen to rumors, but behind every rumor there is always a bit of truth. And I was
right. I got all the proof I needed when Imperio told me that she’d heard from Leticia that Graciela was “seeing” Mr. O’Reilly,
the hippie foreman.

“And by seeing I mean screwing,” Imperio said.

There was no doubt about it. And it made everybody in the van very uncomfortable. Well, I can’t speak for everybody, but Imperio
and I were shaking with outrage. We didn’t know how to bring it up, not even Imperio, who had been shocked into silence. Graciela
just sat there. She said nothing. Nada.

We had no proof, but we knew there was something going on. We didn’t mention it, of course. After all, it was not our concern.

Fortunately a new telenovela, called
Apasionada,
had just started. It was about a girl, Rosalinda, who was in love with her boss. So we called Graciela “Rosalinda” behind
her back, and every time we talked about it in the van, everyone knew what we were talking about, except Graciela, who thought
we were really talking about the telenovela. It was the nice thing to do.

I
f smells had colors
the lunchroom at the factory would have looked like a rainbow. Tuna fish and mayonnaise, mustard and bologna, Pepsi- Cola.
That’s what the Americans ate. They brought square, crustless sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, tucked in a neat brown paper
bag—sometimes a kind note was discovered, from a wife or a child, like the fortune in a cookie. The Cubans ate ham and butter
sandwiches. The ham we brought in huge chunks and sliced at the table, the stick of mostly melted butter was passed from hand
to hand, the bread we broke off, then dug into with our fingernails to get the soft
masa
out of the center, like gutting a fish. And we licked our fingers between bites, and talked with our mouths full. All but
Caridad, who always worried about the Americanos.

“They’re going to think we left our country so we could stuff ourselves with ham every day,” she said.

“What do you care, Cari?” Imperio asked. “We’re here for the ham, and we’ll eat ham until we choke. Pass the butter, it goes
down easier.”

That afternoon I could feel their eyes on the back of my neck like blowtorches. Because I didn’t sit with them. Because I
would not touch the ham. Because I was sitting with Barry O’Reilly, who now found me more interesting than a science fiction
novel. The novel was there, on the tabletop, next to his sandwich, both untouched. On the cover of his book was an extravagant
pirate ship sailing through a starry universe, toward a distant, orange planet.

“How?” he asked me.

“Airplane,” I said, and put my hands together and moved my fingers up and down to simulate wings.

He smiled and said, “Escape?”

And I said, “No, many papers.”

“Red tape,” he said. I didn’t know what that meant, so I just said, “Yes.”

He nodded, his blue eyes fixed on mine, but gently, so gently that I could have made him look away with a shrug. But I didn’t.
My English was so limited that looking and being looked at was all we had. We talked to each other like Tarzan and Juana.
I wanted to tell him about the drive to Havana, the flight to Miami.

I made myself a promise to tell him someday.

*

O
UR DRIVE TO VARADERO BEACH WAS BAD FROM
the start. Ernesto hired the worst possible driver, but there weren’t many to choose from. Very few people in Palmagria had
cars that could make it all the way there. The driver’s name was Agustín García- Mesa, but everybody called him García- Mesa,
as if they were talking about a government building or a patriot.

As a young man, García- Mesa had gone to the United States to study music. He had a passion for the piano and had been blessed
with perfect pitch and long, slender fingers that could majestically perform even the most complicated runs and chords. Even
though he was probably one of the most arrogant citizens of Palmagria, one of those who never attended a dance and looked
down on everyone just because he was the master of a classical instrument, he was still considered a local treasure.

All of Palmagria celebrated his acceptance into an academy in New York City, and throngs went to the port to see him off.
But people said that when he arrived in New York, he discovered that the money he had saved, in pesos, suddenly shrank to
nothing. Even though back then the peso and the dollar were almost equal in value, New York City proved to be expensive beyond
belief.

It was a tragic, frightening story García- Mesa was only too willing to tell, in minute detail, to anyone who ever rode in
his car. What happened to him in Manhattan was enough to make anyone never want to leave Palmagria.

To make ends meet, he offered the Academy his services as a piano tuner, for which he had a natural talent. He soon became
quite popular as a tuner and easily made the second semester’s tuition. Before long his services were being requested by music
lovers all over Manhattan Island.

“There’s this Cuban fellow,” people would say during breaks at recitals and cultural salons, “who does unbelievable work.
Perfect pitch! I’ll give you his number.”

García- Mesa suddenly found himself in great demand, but once again he held himself above the rest. He had made no friends
in school or in his building. He loved New York, particularly riding the subway trains, engulfed in a thick overcoat and knitted
scarf, to the better neighborhoods of Manhattan, to the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, to Sutton Place and Beekman
Place. To buildings where red- cheeked doormen ushered him in with gloved hands. He loved the spacious lobbies dripping with
crystal chandeliers and the shiny marble floors that echoed with his footsteps. He loved the spacious apartments where he
became acquainted with women with musical voices who dressed in velvet and insisted he call them by their given names: Violet,
Lillian, Gertrude.

Then one day, while he was lying on his back beneath an antique Steinway in the home of a Park Avenue dowager everyone called
Babe, a string, weakened by a microscopic speck of rust, suddenly snapped, severing three fingertips of his right hand, ending
his musical career forever. The errant wire had just barely missed the eye that his hand had instinctively shot up to protect.
The blood gushed as if from a spigot, darkening the red- and- gold Persian rug. Babe rang bells, and an army of servants rushed
him downstairs and into a waiting taxi. During that taxi ride to the hospital, his hand wrapped in a thick monogrammed towel,
he saw that ahead lay a life of waiting tables and sweeping garbage for the same people who had once insisted he call them
by their given name.

García- Mesa returned to Palmagria without fanfare and with just enough money to buy a car, and dedicated his life to making
everyone he came into contact with as miserable as possible. As miserable as himself. He was a gushing fountain of pessimism,
which he administered with unrestrained brutality, along with the sad story of his glory days in New York. People liked to
joke that it was a shame that it hadn’t been his tongue that had been sliced off.

Ernesto rode in the front passenger seat of García- Mesa’s car, and if he was having second thoughts about this venture, he
never said a word. I sat in back with the boys. Manolito, who had never been in a car before, suffered from severe carsickness.
García- Mesa kept complaining because we had to make stops every time Manolito said he felt like vomiting.

I stood by the side of the road and held Manolito’s shoulders while he leaned his little body over and coughed and gagged,
then looked up at me with watery eyes and shook his head no. Every time, it was a false alarm, which was driving García- Mesa
crazy. Manolito made us stop half a dozen times and, even with the full encouragement of everyone in the car, never did vomit.
I lost count of how many times García- Mesa cautioned us.

“He better not do it in my car,” he said again and again. “That’s all I’ve got to say.”

I was quite proud when Ernestico, who’d been sitting quietly in the back, enduring his brother’s condition, finally said to
him, “It would be nice if that
was
all you had to say.”

Sometimes children can speak your thoughts better than anyone. Neither Ernesto nor I dared say anything for fear that García-
Mesa would turn his car around and take us back to Palmagria for good. You only got one opportunity to leave Cuba. You missed
that flight, you stayed forever.

I was both relieved and excited when we finally started seeing the signs that announced Havana. It would be my first, and
perhaps last, opportunity to visit that city. I had no illusions that I was ever coming back. And it wasn’t far out of our
way.

I was looking forward to seeing all the people in the street, the bright flags, the tall buildings. They said La Habana was
as beautiful as Paris. I wanted to see this jewel of a city. I asked if we could take a fast sightseeing drive through, but
García- Mesa immediately started to complain.

“Graciela,” Ernesto said, “Havana is still many miles away. “We’ve already wasted enough time with all of Manolito’s unscheduled
stops. We can’t go there now.”

Havana slipped away from me, like water through my fingers. I longed to see Old Havana, El Vedado Park, the world- famous
Malecón seawall, the ornate buildings. I just wanted to take a moment and breathe the air of that magnificent old city I had
heard so much about. But García- Mesa took us straight to Varadero Beach. The Freedom Flights were taking off from that legendary
beach instead of José Martí International Airport. I saw nothing of the beach, just a dirt road that led to a dirt runway.
The airport was much smaller than I had imagined. Just a small, gray building. Behind it I could see the waiting airplane,
big and white. Its propellers were already spinning, a giant bird anxious to take flight. I gathered the children close to
me while Ernesto took our suitcases out of the trunk. Then García- Mesa surprised us by giving us each a tearful embrace.

“Cuídate, Gracielita,” he said as if he was the loving older brother I never had. “Take care.”

While Ernesto and the boys took our luggage inside, I stood still for a moment, breathing the salty air mixed with jet engine
fumes, and watched his car vanish in the distance, back to Palmagria, which at the moment seemed like a prehistoric, mythical
land.

“That poor García- Mesa, he drinks happiness and misery from the same cup,” my mother would say whenever she saw him pass
by.

Commercial flights to the United States had been closed for three years, since the missile crisis had almost brought us to
the end of the world, almost the same amount of time I had spent at my parents’ house. Almost the same amount of time since
I had last seen Pepe. But now, in 1965, the flights had miraculously reopened and people were pouring out of the country as
quickly as they could get a visa. We were to be on one of the very first flights out, and I wondered how much Pepe Medina
Ynclán had to do with it. Had Pepe intervened on my behalf? Did he want me gone so badly? He knew I was leaving. To the very
end I expected to see him, a glimpse, a wave good- bye, just a little gesture to let me know that what had happened between
us had been real, that the risk and its consequences had been worth it. But he did not appear.

The boarding area was packed with people. Some chatted amiably, laughing too loud. Others sat solemnly, clutching their few
belongings. Some prayed while others paced, nervously glancing at the wall clock. A glass partition separated those departing
from the ones who’d come to see them off, and they talked loudly to each other across the glass that divided them, making
promises and plans. Swearing unending love. Vowing never to forget.

“Volveremos,” they shouted. We will return. And fingers went to pursed lips in a warning of silence. That word was counterrevolutionary,
that word could have kept them from getting on the airplane.

There was no one there to see us off. We were on our own, a strange little family at once together and divided, just like
the country we were abandoning. I treated Ernesto with as much respect and courtesy as possible. I didn’t talk to him much
and he, as usual, didn’t have very much to say. There were years of bad blood between us, but for the boys I was willing to
make this sacrifice. A rumor that Castro was going to put all children in a concentration camp had kept me up nights, although
nothing had come of it. But you never knew.

While Ernesto was providing the officials with document after document, I had to run Manolito to the ladies’ room, which was
just as crowded as the boarding area. As we waited for one of the stalls to vacate, Manolito vomited violently all over the
floor. All the women in there gave me sympathetic eyes, but not one of them offered to help.

Fortunately he didn’t soil his clothes, and I held him over the sink to rinse his mouth and cool his forehead with water.
Afterward, I hugged him tight, wondering what more I could do to protect him, feeling as if I wanted him back in my womb.
He was convulsing with hiccups, and I rubbed his little back gently.

Someone must have complained, because suddenly there were two armed guards at our side yelling at me to clean up our mess.
Ernesto walked in, against the ladies’ loud protests, to see what was delaying us.

“They’re beginning to board our airplane,” he said.

One of the guards placed a hand on his revolver and barked at him to wait outside. The airport was so small that I could actually
hear the sound of the propellers through the thin walls.

“You’re not leaving until you’ve cleaned this up,” he said to me. I had no choice but to obey. So my last moments on Cuban
soil were spent on my knees mopping vomit off the granite floor of a public restroom.