Gloria (23 page)
‘But this is not all one-way traffic. Women also have a need to develop our skills and increase our confidence and our pride. Because every woman deserves to have dignity and choices. Opportunity and equality. That is how to create a Jamaica that will truly progress and prosper.’
The whole room erupt in so much clapping and cheering, I never hear nothing like it in my life. Not indoors anyway. It so loud and raucous I start think maybe it 140 women in that room.
‘Next year starting on 1 January is the Year of Literacy in Cuba when the government has committed itself to education. They are going to build schools, train teachers and recruit volunteers to teach reading and writing to everybody, especially those in rural areas. So what I am asking is who among us is prepared to go to Cuba to help with this great undertaking? Who would give up a week or two of her life, or whatever time you can spare, to help our comrades in Cuba and learn how we ourselves can build a better future?’ She pause, then she say, ‘Yu don’t have to tell me now, just wait at the end and I will get yu name before yu go.’
At the end of the meeting she come straight up to me and say, ‘So yu going come? To Cuba?’
‘I cyan go to Cuba, Sybil.’ I pause. ‘Not that I don’t think what yu doing good and worthy. It just that . . . all a this don’t mean the same to me as it do you. All the talk and the organising too much for me. Besides, I couldn’t leave Esther like that. And anyway, I don’t speak no Spanish so what kinda help I going to be?’
‘It not just the teaching they need help wid. It building the school and cooking some food and tending the babies and little ones while the mothers and fathers trying to learn something. It helping to do anything that need doing. So nuh worry yuself ’bout nuh Spanish. If yu want to go they will welcome yu with open arms, believe me.’
But it wasn’t Sybil who change my mind. It was Pao. Because two weeks later he turn up and start tell Esther that she need to behave herself and curb the way she talking to me because she too fresh.
‘What yu doing coming in here talking to the child like that? Yu think after all these years yu can suddenly come act like a father?’
‘Gloria, the girl outta order. Her mouth is running off at the slightest thing yu say to her. Yu nuh think it rude?’
‘What I think is what I think. It not got nothing to do wid you.’ And then I notice Esther still sitting there after what she say to me, which in truth was rude. Because lately Esther very fast with her anger close to the surface. Ever since she leave kindergarten and start at this new primary school she fresh and she screaming and ready to argue over any little thing. And no matter how much I talk to her it don’t seem to mek no difference. One minute she nice, the next minute she nasty. And after that she apologising but it don’t seem to stop her from doing the very same thing the next day. Auntie say the child need a strap taking to her. That is the Jamaican way. But I not about to start that. Esther already got enough burden without me adding to it.
So I just say to her, ‘Go sort yuself out in yu bedroom. There not no need for you to be standing here listening to this.’
She look at me and then she look at him but she nuh move. So Auntie sweep into the living room and take her by the hand outta the way.
I step out on to the veranda and he follow me.
‘This is my house, Pao. I not going let just anybody come in here and think they can start dishing out the discipline. Yu voice been missing since Esther born. Yu cyan come now and start like this.’
‘Am I just anybody, Gloria?’
‘I don’t mean it like that. All I am saying is yu overstep a mark.’
‘But the old woman in there, she can tell Esther anything she want.’
‘The old woman in there is her grandmother not nuh maid like yu think she is.’
‘Her grandmother? Yu mean the woman that bring yu up in country not yu mother?’
But I don’t feel like explaining anything to him. I wouldn’t know where to begin even if I wanted to.
‘She her grandmother. So that is her position.’
He look at me with such a sadness I never see in him before. Excepting the day all them years back when I tell him I wanted him to pay. Then he say, ‘So what is my position, Gloria?’
‘Yu got to earn that, Pao. That don’t come by right.’
‘So how I going do that?’
‘Yu start by doing what Auntie already do. Put in eight years a love and attention into the child’s life.’
He walk off down the steps and get into the car and drive off. And I know for sure, by the way he never even look back, that I wasn’t going see him again ’til I pick up the telephone and tell him it all right for him to come over.
When I go back inside Auntie in the kitchen boiling water and meking tea.
‘Tea, Auntie?’
‘I reckon that is what yu need.’
After she put the Lipton’s in the pot and fix the cups and saucers she turn to me and say, ‘Yu need a break, Gloria. Yu know, a rest from all a dis aggravation.’ She wait while she pouring the tea and then she say, ‘Why yu nuh go to Cuba wid Sybil like she want?’
‘I cyan just tek off to Cuba like that.’
‘What stopping yu? Yu business over Franklyn Town? That will tek care a itself. And Esther. She will be fine. I am here like I always am.’
Then I remember Esther still in her room so I go in there and she sitting on the bed in her pyjamas. I rest myself next to her and put my arm ’round her shoulder.
‘How yu doing baby?’
‘All right.’
‘Yu father love yu. Yu know that? He just don’t know how to show it.’ I pause and then I say, ‘He was trying to get involved. That is all he was doing. He didn’t mean no harm by it.’
She turn and put her arms full ’round me and then she whisper into my ear, ‘I love you Mommy and I’m sorry for being rude to you.’
A week later when I go talk to her ’bout maybe me going to Cuba she say, ‘Gang-gang already told me.’ And I think, whoever told yu to call her that because I can’t remember. Or maybe it was you who decide the first time yu wanted to call her something. Because the only time yu ever see the woman everybody think is yu grandmother yu were one week old.
‘She did? So what yu think?’
‘We will be all right. I understand what you are doing, but you will telephone me, won’t you, Mommy?’
‘Of course I will. Yu think I not going miss you too?’
When we get off the boat in Santiago de Cuba it hot-hot. There not even a little drop a breeze coming off the sea. And with the mountains right behind yu, there not no relief from that direction neither. Rodolfo and Matilde meet us because we going stay with them. Their English good so we can feel at home. Rodolfo light-skinned, but he tanned. A Spaniard with short, tight, curly hair. Matilde, she homely, like her favourite outfit would be an apron, wrapped ’round her as she cooking and serving the food she fond of to the people she love.
The house just outside the city because Rodolfo and Matilde are farmers. In truth, it not that unlike a Jamaican house with a little veranda out front and some blue iron gate, and inside a room yu walk through to the kitchen. And then out back a real nice big sitting area shady under the trees. This is where it seem they live because inside the house dark and it not really got no furniture. It barely got any windows and the bedrooms little more than a couple alcoves off the walk-through living room hid behind some curtains they must pull across at night. So I reckon we going boil up in there, which don’t seem that encouraging if you actually want to get some sleep. Matilde say me and Sybil going share the room next to the one the children in and she and Rodolfo going sleep out back. The bathroom outside. It primitive but it got everything yu need.
After we tour the house we settle down to eat. Yellow rice with red beans and fried plantain. It not nuh Jamaican rice and peas but it tasty, and even though there not no meat it welcoming after the long journey. Sybil seem like she make herself at home already. Especially since it turn out she know more Spanish than she let on learning it like she was these last months. Me, I sit there under the tree and give myself a talking to because these people good enough to let me stay with them and all I am doing in my head is comparing and complaining. That is truly ungracious when what I should be is grateful and have the generosity in my heart towards them just the same way they have been hospitable to me.
Afterwards my eyes wander ’round for where the telephone at but I cyan see nothing. So I whisper to Sybil, ‘They got a phone?’
And she shake her head. ‘It next door.’ So I just raise my eyebrows and then she say something in Spanish to Matilde who get up out the chair fast and say, ‘Yes, I understand. Of course.’
Matilde walk me out the house and ’cross the street, and down the road a ways through an iron gate, up the path on to a veranda and into a door while she calling out, ‘Celia, Celia.’ When this woman come out she explain to her and Celia smile at me. She dry her hands on her apron and then she tek me by the hand and lead me to the telephone like it was the holy grail. That revered it was. She even dust it off with her cloth before she point at it as if to say, ‘There you are.’ So I smile and say, ‘Thank you.’
But then I am fumbling because I never mek a phone call from abroad before. Matilde come up behind me and tek the receiver out my hand and dial all the code and then she hand me the phone and say, ‘You can call now.’
When I get through Auntie say everything is all right. Esther have a good day at school and eat her dinner and almost ready for bed.
‘Hello Mommy.’
‘Hello baby. Gang-gang say all is well and yu doing fine.’
‘Yes. I miss you.’
‘I miss you too but I can’t talk long because I don’t want to be running up these people’s phone bill. Yu understand? I just wanted to let yu know we arrive safe and everything is fine. And check that you OK as well.’
‘Yes, we are all right.’
‘Good. I will ring again when I find a public phone OK?’
‘OK.’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too, Mommy.’
I tell Matilde that I want to pay Celia for the phone call but both of them say no. Celia even tek the money I am offering and hold my hand while she push it back into my purse and close the catch. And then she give it a little pat and say something which Matilde tell me she say: ‘That is a small gift from us in respect for your large gift to Cuba.’
When morning come I so relieved to get outta the bed I was in the shower at sunup. And even after the water run over me I don’t think I was any more wet than lying there with the thin sheets sticking to me like plastic on a damp surface. When Sybil finally get up she look refreshed. I couldn’t believe it. How she managed to sleep and rest in that heat.
While we eating breakfast Matilde say, ‘The Cuban Literacy Campaign is the world’s most ambitious and organised literacy campaign. This is the year of education that will bring equality between the classes and urban and rural citizens, and create a national identity of unity, sense of history, courage, intelligence and combat. It is a movement of the people. A movement for solidarity.’
Matilde sound like she reading straight from Fidel Castro’s manifesto, which I suppose she is. But when she show us the grey uniform and blanket and hammock and textbooks the volunteers have to take to the rural areas I can tell it not just talk. She proud. She really believe in what they doing because the way she holding up these books is like she think they have the answer to their prayers. And what these books are called are
We Shall Read
and
We Shall Conquer
.
And then Rodolfo say, ‘Education and revolution are the same thing.’ His English not so good as Matilde’s so he don’t say so much.
We drive up the mountain in a little old army jeep that mek yu feel every lump and bump on the road. It jerk yu outta the seat so much yu have to hold on tight in case yu head hit the roof or when yu land back yu break yu backside, or give it a damn good bruise anyway. And the more up the hillside we go the slower yu moving because the road is running out until eventually all yu got is a hard-packed red dirt track with a heap a rocks and boulders that yu have to steer your way ’round.
When we get there, the school not finish build. It look like maybe it used to be some kinda storage shed but never mind, it a school now and it full a women that have come from all over this mountain so they can learn to read. The children running ’round except the ones that too young to even crawl, and the game they all playing is just the one thing. This one is Fidel, this one is Che or Raúl or Camilo Cienfuegos. Even the girls in it, they Haydée Santamaría or Melba Hernández. And every stick under their arm is shooting at the soldiers of the cruel and unjust tyrant Fulgencio Batista. And every shout and scream is the same,
Patria o muerte!
Homeland or death! Because for them it is as real as anything else they know living right here in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
Matilde say Sybil going sit in the class with the women but I going help her with the children. So we gather them ’round and she and Joaquina, who is a real schoolteacher, set to. Me, I just ease up and when a child losing interest I go sit down next to him or her and try get them to pay the lesson some attention.
