The Distant Marvels (30 page)

I followed them, shouting about my meager things. “I have only a few clothes. And the baby's things. Give me but a moment to collect them,” I said in Spanish. The group of Americans paused, turned, and gave me strange looks.

“Money,” I heard the chaplain say. It was another word I understood.

Landon drew out a ten-dollar bill from another pocket. He flattened it against his thigh before giving it to me. I shook my head and gave it back. The chaplain sighed, and drew a five-dollar bill from somewhere, added it to Landon's money, and handed it back to me.

“Perhaps they want you to secure your own passage to New York,” one of the women said quietly from inside the building. They'd been watching.

“Sí,” said another. “It's money for a ticket.”

I faced Landon. “We go together or we don't go at all,” I said, gesturing for my son.

“What's all this about?” asked another man striding across the tallér towards us. He wore a suit and vest. A golden pocket watch swung against his belly. He'd asked in Spanish, and before I could answer, Landon whirled, smiling broadly, and chittered away in English with the man. The two embraced, pounded one another on the back, and talked about things I did not comprehend. Soon enough, they both turned to look at me, and at Mayito, still in the arms of one of the American women.

The man introduced himself to me. “Gustavo Bernál, a tu servicio,” he said. Short, stocky, but gallant, Bernál brought my hand to his lips and placed a warm kiss on my knuckles. “You are in need of help, I can see,” he said.

“My son and I—” I tried to begin.

“Your son? Yours?”

I always forgot what others saw first—the differences between Mayito and me. “Sí, all mine,” I said, trying hard to keep frustration out of my voice.

“Que bonito,” Bernál said. “His skin is like café con leche.”

I did not like this man. But he was the only translator around at the moment. “Señor, I have here the address of a friend in Nueva York. She has promised to take my son and me in, to help us make lives for ourselves in América.”

Bernál turned to Landon, and the two conversed some more. They both laughed a great deal, punctuating their sentences with mirth. I wished they were less jolly, more serious. So much depended on this moment, and I didn't find a thing about it funny.

“Can he help us? Can you?” I interrupted. “We have no means of passage,” I went on. “We have no way of getting to Blythe Quinn at the moment, and our moment is a very desperate one. We cannot stay here.”

“These are desperate times for all Cubans right now, despite our victory,” Bernál said, very serious. “I mean to convert the fields behind this place into a world-class sugar farm, and here, where you stand, señora, will be the machinery to process the sugar. So, you are quite right. You and your son cannot stay here.”

“Help us,” I blurted.

“Sí, of course,” Bernál said. “I am a helpful man. Sergeant Landon suggests a two-part immigration. He can easily take your son with him. Many American soldiers are bringing with them orphans from the reconcentration camps. They are a generous people, you see.”

“Mayito is no orphan,” I argued.

“Of course not. Mayito? A sweet name. An apodo for Mario, sí?” I nodded. “Bien, bien. Once the boy is settled in New York with your friend Blythe Quinn, she can begin the paperwork to bring you, as well.”

“Paperwork?” I asked.

“When it comes to America, the entire country runs on paper, and the people earn a living from the work it takes to move it about. A curious place, you'll soon see,” Bernál said.

“I will wait with my son here for this paperwork,” I said.

“That might be a challenge, to draw up papers for two Cubans,” Bernál said, rubbing his chin. “As I said, so many orphans are leaving the ports now. It seems to be what the Sergeant has in mind.”

“I'm only seventeen. And I'm an orphan, too,” I said.

“My darling, you are no child.” Bernál's eyes betrayed him for an instant as they took in my body and lingered in places no gentleman would dare look.

“I wouldn't do it,” Teresa whispered behind me.

“But what is she going to do otherwise?” another woman said.

“Basta,” I said to them both. I was so tired of struggling, running, having to make decisions. All my life had been this way, and now, finally, someone was offering to help make things easy. Mayito would go, and I would soon follow, and we would learn how to navigate a big city like New York, and move papers about if necessary, and start anew. I could see it—the snowfall, the shadows of skyscrapers, the things I'd seen in books would make Cuba seem small and insignificant, and for once I would take a free and hopeful breath. It was settled. Fear would no longer be the weakness that undid me. I was seventeen and unsophisticated, and thought I could dig about in my soul for the mettle I needed, and that it would be enough.

“Take Mayito New York?” I asked Landon. I still held the money he'd given me.

Landon smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that's it.”

I took a long, trembling breath. It would only be a short separation. “Sergeant Landon,” I said, cementing the name in my memory. “C.L. Landon,” I read on his badge.

“Christopher Lewis Landon, that's right,” the Sergeant said, and I repeated it. They laughed at my accent.

“They shouldn't laugh,” Bernál said. “You speak English so well.”

“Thank you,” I told Bernál. “For your help.”

“It is nothing. And when the plantation is up and running, you will work for me as you wait. Yes?”

I nodded again, unable to speak. Bernál said a few more words to the American retinue, and they shook hands with him, looking to me every so often. The moment was now, I told myself. Blanca Lora had set me on my feet again, given me a path to tread. I would follow it, no matter how hard it would be in the moment.

Mayito began to cry, and it was as if my soul had grown a small voice separate from my body.

Then, they all turned to leave. The woman carrying Mayito handed him back to Sergeant Landon at the man's request, and he lifted the baby onto his chest, looking over his shoulder, so that Mayito was higher than he'd ever been. He turned his small, wet face to the sky and marveled at it. I watched him go. Mayito did not lower his eyes to look at me. I watched until he was out of sight. Even then, I watched the place where he had just been, the air shimmering there, still trembling from his presence.

I did not remember until later that night, while I wept for my son, that Landon had carried away Blanca Lora's address with him, with Mayito. I hadn't told them Mario's last name was Betancourt. I'd forgotten to tell them he liked his milk warm, but not too hot, that he fell asleep by pulling my hair across his eyes, and that he'd just learned to clap for me, his little palms making the softest smacking sound in the world.

T
here is a silence so profound it rattles the soul, makes one feel displaced, as if one has been born again into a new life, unrecognizable from the one that came before. It's a feeling that lasts only a moment, but is unsettling, like a bad dream. That is the kind of silence I meet when I finish speaking. My voice is raw and my head is pounding.

“Here,” Susana says, and hands me a glass of water.

“You went to New York, then,” Dulce says, and it is a statement, not a question. I can see in her eyes that she wants this to be true. They all do. Some of the women are crying, and I know they have imagined themselves in my place, handing over their children to strangers. They shudder at the thought. They think: there but for the grace of God. Or else: I would never. Pity and disdain mingle in their features. It's a toxic mix, and the women whom I have grown so fond of over the course of the storm seem strange and unknown to me again, the way they did those first moments on the bus ride to Casa Velázquez.

“I did not,” I say.

“But why?” Rosalia squeaks. “It was all settled.”

“I never saw Gustavo Bernál again. Whatever plans he'd had for the sugar farm never materialized,” I say.

“Blythe. What of her?” Susana asks.

“I did not hear from her again. Not until it was too late, anyway.” I answer the questions automatically, as if I've answered them a thousand times before. It all ran like an old record through my mind. “Why? What happened? How? Por Dios, what have I done?” again and again, without pause, each night, for decades.

“What did you do with the money?” Mireya asks. She is quiet about it, as if the question shames her.

“I fed myself. It didn't last very long, in the end. The money wasn't enough for passage to New York on any ship I could find,” I say. “I sent a few letters to Blanca Lora. A few. I lost count. I—” I stop there.

They are quiet again, and I notice that the rain has stopped completely, and that the sun is piercing the windows and illuminating the room in ways I had not noticed before. A yellow stain blooms on the ceiling and it looks as if the storm has damaged the roof. There is a mouse hole in one of the walls, and tiny, black droppings outside of it. The wall, too, is stained yellow. I think of that smart mouse that knows it's best not to foul one's home, that such things are left outside, and I wonder at myself, having revealed so much in this small room, polluting the space with my confession.

“What became of Mayito?” Susana asks. “You never saw him again?”

I shake my head, and, trembling, I draw the picture frame from my pocket. I do not let the women look at it for long. Instead, I take apart the frame. The page of newsprint behind Mayito's picture is folded tightly to fit the frame. I undo the fold carefully, afraid that it will disintegrate in my hands. A separate sheet of onionskin paper comes loose as I lay the newsprint flat on the dusty bed in the center of the room. A fine, faded scrawl fills both sides of the onionskin paper.

“It's from Blanca Lora. She translated the article. Her article,” I say. “This explains why I didn't go to New York. This is why I'm confessing to you all now, because I can't live another moment carrying this shame on my own.” I wince, and have to grip my sides with both hands. “The envelope with this,” I say, gesturing to the article, “found me in August.” I squeeze my eyes shut and Susana flies to me, trying to take hold of my shoulders. “No. I deserve this,” I tell her through gritted teeth. Dulce shakes her head at me. “I deserve worse than this,” I say, looking at her hard, and then, when the pain passes, I begin to read.

 

A
 
C
UBAN
M
ASCOT

Blythe Quinn Witnesses

“Butcher” Weyler's Reconcentration Camps

 

You will Learn Here About Wretchedness and Squalor in Cuba—How the Wickedness of Spain Abuses Poor Creatures—The American Soldier Who Befriended a Cuban Negro Infant—The Generosity of Members of the Manhattan Club

 

Quite recently I had the idea that a woman undercover in Cuba would possess an advantage over any other who might go to this tumultuous island and attempt to report what he saw. I speak fluent Spanish, and my accent is inflected in the Galician way, and so, I passed easily for a Spanish nurse. In Cuba, I was witness to abuses by the Spanish armed forces upon the simple Cuban people that I may never shake from my mind. What did I see that so rocked this reporter to her very foundations?

I will tell you.

General Valeriano Weyler, he whom they called “The Butcher,” proved to be aptly named. We have all read with great interest of the reconcentrados, those unfortunate villagers in the Cuban countryside, who were, because of their support of the Cuban Liberation Army, sequestered in their own homes, left to die of starvation and disease.

To such a place my duties as a nurse led me. One village in particular, named La Cuchilla, or “The Knife,” was among the most miserable.

I witnessed a woman no older than forty, dying of yellow fever, left alone in a small hut that the Cubans call a “bohío.” Flies gathered at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes were swollen shut. She was one of many in such a condition.

I saw a child, of no more than five, sitting up with the bodies of her parents in her bed. She had laid a hand on each of them, and it took several nurses to tear her away from their cold forms.

The Spanish would take the bodies and dump them not far from the village, so that they formed a great pyramid of death, and buzzards circled the place day and night, blackening the sky.

All this happened in the name of Spain, to thousands of innocents, and in defense of that nation's terrible army.

 

 

One Woman's Misery

 

I was able, through wile and subterfuge, to rescue one young woman from La Cuchilla. She was unmarried, and with child. I could not help but imagine her in New York City, where lost girls such as she was would find refuge in places like Magdalen's House, where she might be reformed.

The young woman's name was Carla Carvajál, and she had fallen in love with a hero of the Cuban Liberation Army, a freed slave and courageous son of Cuba. She posed as a nurse in the Spanish field hospital where I worked, and proved herself to be both a talented caretaker of so many wounded and ill Spanish soldiers (all of whom were her enemies, though they did not know it) and a marvelous storyteller, as well, as is true of many Cubans, for whom it seems the knack of weaving a tale comes naturally.

She bore a half-negro son shortly after her rescue. I took pity on Miss Carvajál, and on her son, and arranged a safer place for them to stay. The Cubans were willing to look the other way when it comes to women who have started on the downward path. The Spanish are far less tolerant, and indeed, there was talk among the nurses in the field hospital of disposing of the infant, as one would rid a house of a rodent.