Leaving Glorytown Read online

  One day, Abuela Ana and I were walking to the store to get some milk when I heard a tremendous roar. We found a spot on the sidewalk among a rapidly growing crowd. The roar grew closer. At the last moment, I lost my nerve and dived behind Abuela’s skirt. Peeking out, I beheld an amazing sight: hundreds and hundreds of people, marching, chanting, and singing. The pounding of their feet resounded in my chest. They yelled, Viva Fidel! and Viva la Revolución! Long live Fidel! Long live the Revolution! I still had no idea what a revolution was. So far, it was all army men and marches, and both of those things were fine with me.

  The Voice could talk for hours. I could leave the radio to take a nap, wake up two or three hours later, and he would still be talking. At first I was impressed, then bored. Soon the Voice faded into the background of my life. It seemed that it had always been there, like our house, like my parents and grandparents, like Pichilingo. I paid no more attention to it than to the color of the walls.

  The next thing I noticed was that the grownups of my world seemed unhappy. They snapped at me for little things, and they acted as if something was wrong. I assumed it was because I was a bad boy, so I did my best to stop tracking dirt in the house and to listen when told to pick up my toys. But that made no difference. Everyone stayed upset, no matter what I did.

  We had less to eat now. Our favorite meals had been beans or rice, served with all kinds of meat—pork, chicken, or beef—and seasoned with hot peppers or fresh herbs. We’d never been wealthy, but we’d always had enough food. Now, at dinnertime, there was less on my plate. I’d always loved ketchup, but now there was none to be found. We could still get rice and beans, and there were fruit trees in Abuela Ana and Abuelo Julian’s yard, but I often couldn’t eat as much as I wanted. I thought I was being punished for something, and I cried out of frustration—hadn’t I been doing my best to behave well?

  “Don’t cry, niño,” Papa told me. “There’s no point. And besides, men don’t cry. They fight back against the things they can change, and they don’t complain about the things they cannot.”

  “He’s not even four!” Mama said. “Don’t talk to him about fighting.”

  “It’s not too early for him to start learning how the world works,” Papa said. “It’s the world he has to live in, after all.”

  “Tell him he’s a good boy,” said Mama. “He thinks you’re mad at him for something.”

  “You are a good boy, hijo,” said Papa, mussing my hair. “It’s the world that’s going bad.”

  I was relieved to hear that my efforts at self-improvement had not gone unnoticed. But things didn’t get any better.

  My father rose every morning well before the sun. I was very proud of Papa. After he had married Mama, he had left the docks and become a driver. Anyone who was even vaguely associated with engines was important in my eyes, but to be a driver was the greatest thing of all.

  Papa was a driver for Tío William, who owned a distribution company, and my wild and crazy Tío Cholu, Mama’s middle brother, was his assistant. Tío William was Mama’s oldest brother, and he was a big man in every sense. Because of his success in life, he was treated with reverence, and on top of that he weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Like many other members of Mama’s family, he, too, lived on San Carlos Street. He had two sons, Julian and Gilberto, and a daughter, Carmensita, whom I often played with when I wasn’t hanging out with my friends, Rolando and Tito Caballero, and my cousin Luis. Carmensita was five years older than I was, but she treated me as an equal, and I loved it.

  I learned that in this strange new world of the Revolution, Tuesday was the day to look forward to. That was when Papa and Tío Cholu went out to the countryside to deliver gasoline and alcohol to the farmers. They would come back from these trips after dark, bearing wonderful things: pieces of fresh beef, a dozen eggs, soft loaves of bread, a whole chicken. Then we would eat the way we used to.

  Once night after supper, Papa said, “Niño, go play. I need to talk to your mama.”

  I obeyed, but I stayed within earshot. I could make out Papa’s low tones: “. . . got to get out of here . . . ,” “. . . leave the country for America . . . ,” “. . . exit visa.”

  I burst back into the kitchen, which doubled as our dining room. “Are we going on a trip?” I yelled. But I was unprepared for Papa’s anger.

  “Quiet!” he thundered. He went to the front door, opened it, and looked up and down the sidewalk. Then he came back to where I stood.

  Tears were rolling down my face. Papa was a gentle, affectionate man who hardly ever raised his voice, and when he did, it was shocking. He grabbed me by the shoulders, but then he looked at me tenderly.

  “Do you see,” he said to Mama. “Here I am, yelling at my son because I’m afraid the government will hear what he thinks. Is this any way for us to live? Do we need any more reason to get out of here?”

  “Felo, be careful what you say in front of him,” Mama murmured. “He could repeat it.”

  “Eduar,” Papa said, “I love you more than anything, and I’m sorry I yelled at you. But there is something you must understand. If the bad people hear what we’re talking about, we could all get in big trouble. So don’t ever again say anything about us leaving—nothing is decided anyway. Understand?”

  Miserable, I nodded.

  “Buck up,” he said. “Real men don’t cry just because of a little yelling.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “You know I love you, niño. Give me a hug.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice to hug Papa. He smelled of aftershave, like Abuelo Julian, and his warm body vibrated when he talked and laughed. I could have clung to him all day like a baby monkey, just to be close to him. But already I knew that it was unmanly to want too much affection. A man had to be tough, and I was going to be a man—a big, strong one, just like Papa.

  After that, there were a lot of late-night conversations between my parents and grandparents. I overheard them from my bed near the porch, though I understood little of what was being said. I knew only that Mama would sometimes cry—normally a rare occurrence—and that everyone else sounded worried.

  Sometimes Tío William would sit in on these conversations, too. Tío William was a hero to us all, and his opinion carried great weight—just like he did. His voice echoed through the night like the call of a bull elephant. You could feel it as much as hear it. Everyone listened to Tío William. I never paid attention to his actual words, though—I was too busy thrilling to his deep tones, which I could feel through the springs of my bed.

  Because I played with Carmensita, I saw a lot of Tío William. But one morning, when I walked into their house—none of us ever bothered knocking—she was nowhere to be found.

  “Tía!” I said to my aunt Carmen. “Where is Carmensita?”

  “Shh!” said Tía Carmen. “Carmensita is in bed. She doesn’t feel good.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She has a fever,” said Tía Carmen. “You go away and come back tomorrow, Eduar. She’ll be better by then. The doctor says she has the flu.”

  But the next day, Carmensita was worse. Now, in addition to her fever, she had aches and pains.

  “Carmensita!” I yelled from the living room. “Come out and play!”

  Carmensita poked her head around the corner of her parents’ bedroom.

  “Okay!” she said weakly.

  But her mother pushed her back into bed. Then she came out and led me to the door.

  “Eduar,” she said, “you must leave at once. It’s not safe for you to be here. You might catch what she has.”

  “I want Carmensita!” I wailed.

  “Just go!” said Tía Carmen. “We’ll tell you when it’s safe to come back.”

  By late afternoon their house was full of grownups, but I still wasn’t allowed inside. Then the men carried Carmensita out of the house on a stretcher and into a waiting car. I was in their front yard and I called her name as she went by, but she didn’t respond. She
was asleep. She looked very pretty and peaceful, I thought, though I was surprised that she could sleep through all the fun of going for a stretcher ride.

  It was the last time I ever saw her. They took her to a hospital in Havana, but it was too late. The next day, I was told that Carmensita had gone to heaven, and that I would not see her again in this lifetime.

  I could hear my father cursing in the kitchen. This time, he didn’t care who heard him.

  “That damn useless doctor!” he shouted. “If all the good doctors hadn’t left the country because of this stupid Revolution, they would have found out what was wrong with her!”

  But my father’s reaction was nothing compared to Tío William’s. He shut himself up in his house and refused to come out for days. The whole neighborhood could hear his screams of rage and heartbreak. Why? Why, God? Why did you take my baby girl from me? What did I do to deserve this? No one, not his sons, Julian and Gilberto, not even Tía Carmen, could go near him.

  The Bay of Pigs

  In the spring of 1961, when I was five and a half, I heard a great commotion on the street from my rooftop perch under the fruit trees: truck and jeep engines, strange men shouting orders, women screaming, children crying. I didn’t know whether to stay in hiding or go look. Finally I climbed down and went timidly to my grandparents’ front door.

  There, in our ordinarily tranquil street, I beheld chaos. Soldiers with weapons were everywhere. Their eyes were as flat and glittering as a snake’s, and their faces were full of menace. Worse, they were pointing their guns at people. I’d never seen them do that before. All the men in the neighborhood knelt in a row, hands on their heads, looking down at the ground. Some of the soldiers were holding their guns to the men’s heads, and it seemed that they might shoot at any moment.

  Then, to my horror, I saw that Papa and Tío William were among the kneeling men. The soldiers snarled at everyone to keep still and do as they were told. Meanwhile, an officer was strutting back and forth, screaming in a high-pitched voice at the women to stop their crying and let the soldiers do their job, or they would all be arrested, too.

  Rooted where I stood, I saw my mother approach this officer, wringing her apron in her hands. She asked him something. His response was to lift his hand as if to hit her. My mother stood her ground, unflinching. She repeated her question several more times, and finally the officer gave her some kind of curt answer.

  Then they loaded the men—including Papa and Tío William—into the trucks and drove off. Standing at the door, I tried to yell Papa’s name, but I could make only a hoarse sound. I could see his face as they drove off. I had never seen him look frightened before.

  When the trucks were gone, Mama yelled, “They’re taking them to the Terry Theater!”

  A wail went up from the women. I didn’t understand—were the men being taken to a puppet show? Somehow I didn’t think so, but I could imagine no other reason for going to the theater.

  At last I dared to venture out of the house. When Mama saw me, she grabbed me and held me tight.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “Nothing, niño,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  By then I’d learned that whenever someone said everything was going to be fine, things were about to get really bad. And I was right. We spent a long, tense night huddled up together—me, Mama, and my baby sister, Esther, who was only six months old. Esther slept, and eventually so did I. I’m sure Mama didn’t close her eyes for a moment.

  The next day Mama refused to let me out of her sight, and when I said I would go out anyway, she threatened to tie me to a table leg. At first I was defiant, but then came a new sound, the most terrifying yet: Castro’s warplanes. They screamed and dived overhead, scaring little Esther so badly that she wouldn’t nurse. Trucks full of soldiers zoomed past again, but they didn’t stop this time. Something big was going on.

  During a lull in the action, Mama ran from house to house with Esther in her arms, knocking on doors. I followed.

  “Come to our house,” she told everyone. “It’s the smallest on the block! If the bombs start falling, it will be the least likely to get hit!”

  Many of the residents of San Carlos Street followed us home. There were about twenty-five of us, and those who had chickens or goats brought them along, and the animals ran all over the house. It was like a big party. Babies cried, goats bleated, chickens cackled, and grownups tried to listen over the din to what was happening outside. People ventured out from time to time, but for the most part we stayed inside. Every time a plane went overhead we all squeezed into our large bathroom—it was about ten by fourteen feet. I thought it was very funny that so many of us were in there together.

  Finally Mama told me what was happening: the Bay of Pigs was being invaded by the Yankees. Papa and all the other men had been taken away and locked in the Terry Theater so they couldn’t join the invaders and fight against the Communists. I knew there wasn’t a person on earth who could hurt Papa, who was strong, smart, and capable. I trusted that he would be all right. Since I was an animal lover, my concern was for the pigs. I was worried they might get shot.

  Mama laughed, for the first time since Papa had been taken. “There are no real pigs in the Bay of Pigs,” she said.

  “There must be!” I insisted. “They swim around with their snouts in the air!”

  “No, niño, listen. The Bay of Pigs gets its name from a kind of fish that lives there.”

  I was crestfallen. I’d never heard of the Bay of Pigs before that day, but it sounded like my kind of place. I wanted to believe that it was a porcine paradise, with lots of pink piglets floating on their backs, kicking their legs as they sunned their fat little tummies. I would have loved to visit such a beach.

  “Are you sure, Mama?” I asked.

  “Yes, niño. When you pull a triggerfish out of the water, it makes a sound like a pig’s. Listen: roik, roik!”

  “Mama,” I said, as everyone laughed at her joke, “you’re being silly. There is no fish that sounds like a pig. Only pigs sound like pigs. Fish don’t make any noise!”

  “Okay, niño,” Mama said. “You’re right. Maybe after this is all over, Papa will take us on a vacation there, and you can see for yourself what it is all about.”

  Soon the planes and trucks stopped, and the neighbors left. For a long time, I referred to the Bay of Pigs invasion as “the day we all went to the bathroom together.”

  Three days later, Papa came home, hungry, dehydrated, and stinking to high heaven.

  “Give me some water,” he said to Mama, collapsing in a chair.

  But she wouldn’t let him rest until he got into the bathtub. She left the door open, and he told her what had happened to them at the Terry Theater as he scrubbed himself.

  “They packed us in there like chickens in a crate,” he said. “They nailed the doors and windows shut, and there wasn’t a breath of air. If you had to—well, you know—you had to do it right where you stood, in your pants. No food. Hardly any water. A lot of men collapsed. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them died. Concha, I could eat a whole pig right now and it would barely fill the hole in me!”

  “They didn’t take Rolando and Tito Caballero’s father!” I said.

  “That’s because Caballero is a Communist!” Papa said. “They rounded us up because they didn’t want us to fight back! They don’t want us being unfaithful, so they treat us like animals. There is no more certain way to turn men against you than to take them away from their families. Concha, we are going to find a way to America, do you hear me?”

  “I do, and so does the C.D.R. lady,” said Mama. “So keep your voice down.”

  I was old enough now to understand what C.D.R. meant—the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. The C.D.R. was kind of a cross between the Gestapo and a Neighbor Watch program. Every residential block in Cuba had a C.D.R. agent living on it—a regular neighbor who had been selected for his or her revolutionary zeal and wil
lingness to inform on neighbors. The agent was often a woman, because in those days women stayed home all day, and they saw everything that happened on the street. It was the C.D.R. agent’s job to report any antirevolutionary talk or behavior. Agents marched into people’s homes unannounced whenever the Voice was talking, just to make sure they were listening to the radio. These people also kept an eye out for signs of illegal capitalist activity—that is, buying and selling of anything, even food or clothing, on the black market—and listened in on private conversations from doorways and windowsills, hoping to overhear someone making a comment that could get him or her thrown into prison. People who were judged antirevolutionary needed to be reeducated. Re-education was achieved in one of three ways: forced labor, imprisonment, or firing squad.

  Sadly, even some of our family members were getting caught up in the madness, including my cousin Peruchito, the son of Abuela Ana’s oldest daughter, Idalia. Peruchito actually joined the military.

  Mama would tell us the story of the time Peruchito came to visit Abuela Ana and Abuelo Julian in full military dress. As he walked through the front door, he noticed that the framed photograph of Fidel he’d sent was nowhere to be found. “Abuela!” he said. “Where is the photo of El Comandante? You should take down this picture of Jesus and replace it with Fidel. He is the only one who can save us, not some long-haired Jew!”

  Abuela threw her apron over her shoulder—always a sign that she was preparing for action—and jabbed Peruchito in the chest with one iron-strong finger.