Flight to Freedom (4 page)

Ileana says that if I truly am keeping a record of the family's journey into exile—
el exilio,
as Papi likes to call it—I should write that there is a boy in her American history class who looks just like Paul McCartney, the cute Beatle. It is already her favorite class.

And Ana María, little Ana Mari, dictates this message: She loves her teacher in the second year of what is called elementary school. The teacher's name is Srta. Blanco—Miss Blanco—and her greatgrandfather was a Cuban who moved to Key West to roll cigars sometime in the last century. She gave Ana Mari a red lollipop.

I am the only one who is not excited about the first day of class. No friends, no understanding of what I'm supposed to do, no teacher I can talk to.

Can it get any worse? The social studies teacher, Mr. Peterson, asked a question in class and I had, of course, no idea what he was saying. Many of the other pupils raised their hands, but I just stared down at my desk. Obviously that was not the thing to do because he walked down the row to where I sat and tapped me on the shoulder. He said something. I looked around; I was so confused. Then I stood beside my
desk because that is what I have been taught to do, to show respect, but everyone began to laugh. I do not know why. Was it the Spanish I mumbled? Or the way I stood next to the desk? Or is it this too-big dress that my mother brought home from some giveaways at El Refugio? Whatever it was, the class laughed and laughed. I wanted the earth to swallow me. Just thinking about it makes me want to never return to school.

Though I am happy we do not have to worry about a bad government and the soldiers, I wish I could go home to Cuba, to the way things were. I want to sleep in my bed with the pink chenille bedspread. I want to listen to the tinkly music of my little jewelry box. I want to see all my old friends. I want to eat a big fat
papa rellena,
stuffed potato, in our very own kitchen. Most of all, I want to hear Pepito tell me to stop being a pest.
Sí,
most of all that.

I told Mami this. I told Papi, too. Mami said to be patient—she uses that word a lot—and her eyes
got shiny with tears. Papi replied, “Soon, soon.” How soon? Not soon enough, if you ask me.

Tonight is the vigil of La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Our Lady of Charity and Cuba's patron saint. Mami and Tía Carmen made an altar for her by setting two telephone books on a corner table and covering them with a flower-print sheet. Tía Carmen's statue is small compared to the one we had at home, but Tía Carmen says size does not matter, only faith does. They also bought red and white carnations and four votive candles at the tiny corner bodega and placed them around the altar. When we were setting up for the evening prayers, Mami and Tía Carmen warned us girls not to tell Papi how much the flowers or the candles cost. My Papi is always complaining that we must watch our money, that we are spending too much, that we have to be restricted in this and that, in everything. We are to pretend that these were gifts from the bodega owner, a nice Puerto Rican man whose wife is
americana.
Sometimes I want to put my hands over my head and pretend that I am in another
life, in a world where I can have anything I want. Sacrifice and scrimp for what?

If I could, I would ask La Virgencita for a pair of fishnet stockings like the ones I saw the famous fashion model Twiggy wearing in a photograph. But Mami says we must pray not out of selfishness but out of compassion, kindness, and love for our families and the rest of mankind. But it is hard not to want what all the other girls already have! While the family prayed the rosary tonight, I could not help myself. Between the Hail Marys, I slipped in my own plea and then glanced around the circle to see if anybody had read my thoughts. Not one accusing stare, thank heavens.

After the rosary Mami did as she always does. She told us the story of how La Virgencita became our country's patron and protector. A very long time ago, sometime in the 1600s, the town of Barajagua needed salt, so they sent three townsmen across the Bay of Nipe to get some. A storm kept them at sea for three days, and the men prayed for rescue. When the storm finally passed, they spotted a statue floating in the water on a piece of wood. “I am our Lady of Charity” was the inscription on the wood. The statue was taken to the town of El Cobre, which gets its name from the
copper mine there. This is also how La Virgencita got the last part of her name.

Tía Carmen says that the Cubans here in Miami celebrate a special mass for La Virgencita at the Marine Stadium by the bay. A boat brings the statue into the stadium and people wave their Cuban flags as she enters. This is a statue that was smuggled out of Cuba in a suitcase in 1961. I wish we had gone to the mass at the stadium, but Papi would not think of it because we have school tomorrow. (Another reason to hate school. I will always, always hate it.)

Because this is our first year in exile—“And our last,” Papi assured us—Mami said our prayers would be different. We said an extra novena for Pepito, who we all miss terribly. Now every day that passes without him, I feel guilty for all the mean things I did to my older brother.

Our Holy Mother, Mami says, will intercede for him at the throne of God. She will also intercede for our country enslaved by the Communists. But when Mami tells us this, Papi gets furious. “Don't feed the girls such nonsense!” he shouts, and his face turns red. “We will free our country by taking up arms, by
fighting.” I agree with Papi. How do you beat a playground bully? Surely not by praying.

Four men nicely dressed in white linen
guayaberas
came to see Papi tonight. It is almost eleven o'clock and they're still in the living room. They are talking in low tones as if telling a big secret. I can tell Mami doesn't like what they are discussing because every time she returns from serving them water or
café,
her lips form a hard line and her eyes are narrowed into slits. Ileana and Efraín say the men are trying to convince Papi to join their political group, which is training to invade and liberate Cuba. They tried to recruit Tío Pablo, but Efraín says Tío has something called high blood pressure and he needs to be careful about what he does.

I wonder if Papi wants to train to be in this army. He was very upset when Pepito was drafted, but I know he wants to return home because that is all he talks about. Every one of his sentences begins with “When we return.” Maybe an invasion is the solution.
I would like to go back, too. I miss my friends. I miss Pepito, and I also miss knowing where things are, like the pharmacy and the grocery and ice-cream shop. Here I am not allowed to walk anywhere. “You might get lost,” Mami says.

Well, of course. And I'll continue to get lost if I do not learn where things are!

Though I am beginning to pick out a few words, most conversations I cannot understand. At night we can't listen to the radio too loud or laugh too much because the grown-ups are afraid the neighbors will complain about how many of us are living in one house. Being on my best behavior all the time can be tiring.

I wish the men would leave so that we can pull out the sofa bed. I am so sleepy.

By the way, I recited the Pledge of Allegiance perfectly in Srta. Reed's class yesterday. Of course, I had no idea what I was saying, but she handed me a piece of paper that said “Homework Pass.” That means I can skip doing homework one day.

There are two girls in my science class who are Cuban, but both have been in Miami since their first or second year of school. They speak English well. Another boy, in my English class, arrived in December 1965, on the first Freedom Flight from La Habana. He said his photograph was published in the newspaper. I wonder if he told me that because I'm new and he thinks I'm gullible. There are other Cuban pupils in the school. I have seen them in the hall, and they all wear that same lost look of strangers.

Patricia, one of the Cuban girls, claims school will get better when I learn the language. On her first day of second grade, she peed in her pants because she did not know how to ask for the bathroom. Now she speaks English. She has friends. She also has new clothes—not a lot, but some. You can tell the Cubans who have just arrived, she says, by their clothes. They dress old. Old? “
Sí,
old,” she said. They dress too formal, like they were in Cuba, the girls especially, with bows in their hair and bobby socks. And they wear the same thing over and over again.

When she was saying this, I fingered my hair bow, and I looked down at my socks. She was describing
me to a tee, and my face felt red-hot. Mami makes us dress in nice clothes so that our teachers “receive a good impression.” We do not have but two or three outfits of this kind, nice but old and worn. They are always clean even if Mami has to wash them by hand in the bathroom sink.

To be honest, at first I was mortified to find out how everybody regards me. Then I also was upset with Mami. She does not understand how school is different in the United States. But now that many hours have passed since my conversation with Patricia, something else, another feeling, has come over me. I am still angry, but at Patricia. At everybody else, too. I cannot quite explain why, but the thought of these classmates looking down at me makes me so, so angry.

I will show them. Just wait. I am going to be the best student in the class. I will get the highest qualifications of anybody. My marks will be outstanding. I will speak English so well, write it so eloquently, that no one will notice the clothes I wear. They will be mesmerized by my brilliance. Just wait.

Mami got a job. Yes, yes! Is that not something? Her very own job at a shoe factory. I am beaming like a flashlight. She begins Monday, and will be riding in a car with two other women: Lourdes, who is married to Tía Carmen's second cousin, and someone else I do not know. She is so excited. You should see her face, all smiles, and she has been humming since the afternoon. She has never had a job, not a real job outside the home.

“Now we can look for our own apartment,” she told Ileana and me. “And I am going to learn to drive.”

Oh, how I would love that. I love Tía Carmen and Tío Pablo, and Efraín is very nice, really, because he tells funny stories about his job, but we live like sardines packed in a can. We eat all our meals in shifts, and have to sit on the floor if everybody wants to watch the television together. And using the bathroom in the morning—that requires the speed of a sprinter.

I am so proud of my mother. So is Ileana, who says she is old enough for a job, too. I hope that when Mami receives the progress of my marks—they call it a report card here—she will be as proud.

It is terrible. Horrible. Worse than terrible. Mami and Papi had a big fight because of her new job. He does not want her to go to work. I think he is mad that she never consulted him when she went looking for work. Well, of course, she knew he would react this way. He was also especially angry when he found out that it is a man who drives the two women to the factory in this little town called Hialeah.

“What will people think?” Papi hissed. Yes, he hissed. That is exactly how it sounded. But Mami stood right up to him. (“Good for her,” Ileana says. I agree.) She said she was doing something honest, and something good for the family, and she was very firm about it. But Papi told her she was absolutely not, under any condition, going on Monday. Her responsibility was to care for us.

“Who will be home when the girls arrive from school?” Papi asked.

“Your mother,” Mami replied.

That got Papi mad at Abuela María because he said everybody had conspired behind his back, without any regard to his authority or our feelings. Tío Pablo pointed out that Tía Carmen worked, that there was
no shame in it, but Papi pushed him aside, his own brother, and stormed out of the room, slamming the front door. We do not know where he is now, and it is very dark outside.

Ana Mari bawled so loud that Tía Carmen pulled her up onto her lap. Tía Carmen told us that we had to give our father time to get used to all the changes. “Change is always harder for men than for us women,” she said. “They think they are
muy
macho, but the truth of the matter is that they are quite fragile. They also have farther to fall.” I am not quite sure what she meant by that.

I wanted to cry, too, but I did not dare. It would just make things worse. I am glad for my mother because she took matters into her own hands. It is important, I think, to not just sit around and let things happen to you. But I feel badly for my poor father. How upsetting it must be to realize that everything you have ever believed in is not necessarily true, that everything you have worked for can be taken away by some stupid Communist government. He was always so proud that we lived in a nice house and that we had pretty clothes and that all his children went to private school. It must be difficult to give up on that.

I'm not sure what happened between Mami and Papi, but it appears as though my father was convinced to give his approval of her job. A little while ago, she prepared her clothes and lunch just like a child preparing for the first day of school.

Tía Carmen and Mami enrolled in night classes at Miami Senior High, where Ileana attends school. They are going to learn English and will have homework just like we do! Mami told us not to tell Papi. I suppose that is because she thinks that would anger him. We already know what happened when she told him about the shoe factory. But I think she is willing to risk his anger. Today she came home so excited and inspired about having her own job that she immediately signed up for the class.

I hope they don't fight again.