The German Girl (36 page)

Our American visas had long since expired, but I was sure we could find a way to leave if we wanted to. But that possibility had never even occurred to Mother. She had already decided her bones would rest in the Colón Cemetery. She was even more determined to stay now that her bitterness and rancor had been softened by Louis’s arrival. I think she felt that in some way her presence in Cuba was necessary, and would be until the day she chose to be her last. In fact, not even then would they be free of her, because this tropical land “would have to keep my bones for at least another century.”

Nor was she going to abandon Louis to parents who were convinced they were inventing a new society, which she saw as nothing more than an absurd game of “Move over, it’s my turn,” as a popular saying had it. Power was taken from the rich and given to the poor, who then became rich, took over houses and businesses, and thought they were invincible. So the vicious cycle started up again: there was always somebody crushed at the bottom.

Mother called me up to her room; Hortensia gestured to me not to keep her waiting. She knew that Mother would never share the news with her, whether it was good or bad. Besides, she had no need: when she saw us at dinner, she would know at once.

As was to be expected, Señor Dannón’s legal practice had been taken over. The United States had broken off diplomatic relations with Cuba three years earlier, but he and his wife had obtained exit permits and were going to leave from a port near Havana where boats came from Miami to pick up entire families. It wouldn’t be good for us if he visited anymore, because now he was seen as a “worm.”

When Mother heard that word, she shuddered. That was what they had started to call those who wanted to leave the country or did not agree with the government. To her, it was as if she was reliving a nightmare. People were being dismissed as worms once again. History was repeating itself. What a lack of imagination, I thought.

Señor Dannón had left her a considerable sum of money. From then on, it would be more difficult to gain access to our trust account in Canada. It might even be seen as illegal by the new government, and we would probably have to give it up.

We decided it was not worth worrying. We could survive on the money we had. I received a ridiculously small sum each month as indemnity for the pharmacy that the government had expropriated; I also had my English classes. We didn’t need much more.

That night, after dinner, Hortensia received an urgent call from her sister, who did not want to go into details over the telephone. They were both afraid that their conversations were listened into by government agents. She asked for two days’ leave and hurried off in a panic. I had never seen Hortensia like that before.

The two days turned into five. Then she called to say that a woman named Catalina would come to help us. From that day on, that stocky woman took control of the house and never left us.

Catalina was a hurricane. She was obsessed with order and perfumes. She insisted we never leave the house without a splash of fragrance. It
was then that I, too, began to use the violet water that Hortensia used to sprinkle on Louis’s head every day before he went to school.

“It’s to ward off the evil eye,” she explained.

She was the descendant of African slaves mixed with Spaniards during the colonial period. Her mother was the only family she had known. Catalina came from the far eastern end of the island and had arrived all alone in Havana two years earlier after a cyclone destroyed her house and floods buried her village in mud. Following the devastating cyclone, she also lost her mother. She said she had worked very hard all her life and never “had time for husbands” or for a family.

Thanks to Catalina, life returned to its old routine, and the house was filled with sunflowers.

“Wherever you put them, they seek out the light,” she would say.

She soon became my mother’s shadow and communicated perfectly with her despite Catalina’s abrupt way of speaking, full of colloquial expressions that we often found hard to understand. Catalina used familiar forms of Spanish with me and was so open with us that we soon found it amusing.

“We’re in the Caribbean. What more can we expect?” Mother said.

We gradually got used to life without Hortensia. Her sister, Esperanza, with her husband in prison, had more need of her than we did; or perhaps someone in their family was ill. In reality, we had no idea what had happened to her.

Catalina began to plant mint along the patio, which she used for her infusions. She also planted basil to keep off insects she called guasasas, or fruit flies; and star jasmine so that when we went to bed, a fragrant breeze would blow in through the windows and help us rest.

A week later, Hortensia and her sister appeared without warning late one night. Louis was asleep already, and we had retired to our rooms. Catalina asked us to come down, as there were people waiting for us in the dining room.

They did not say hello or acknowledge my smile; in fact, they ignored me. They were both looking expectantly at Mother, who went to sit at the head of the table. Apparently she was the only one who could do something in the desperate situation they found themselves in, and they quickly placed themselves on either side of her. Catalina and I remained standing at the back of the room, because I thought they might want some privacy, but they were so anxious to talk to Mother they didn’t even notice us.

Hortensia was trying to stay calm, even though it was obvious she found it hard to control her rage. She couldn’t even speak, because apparently if she said anything, she would end up shouting, and she knew she ought to show us respect. I realized that not only was she never coming back to work for us but also this would be the last time we saw her. She didn’t dare look me in the eye, but her expression was one of complete repulsion, even disgust, at having to be under the same roof as us.

Esperanza was the one who eventually spoke:

“One evening, just as we were about to close the pharmacy, they came looking for Rafael. In a vehicle full of soldiers. I plucked up the courage to challenge them and ask why they were arresting him, what he had done wrong, where they were taking him, but none of them answered me. They ignored me and took away my son.”

In her despair, Esperanza visited all the local police stations, but with no success. The next day, she learned that they were rounding up all the young males, sixteen years old and up, of their faith and taking them to a stadium in the Marianao district. When she understood what was going on, she threw herself onto the floor at home and burst into tears. She cursed herself, blaming herself for the religious fervor with which she had brought up her son. Rafael was a boy who knew only good and was incapable of doing anybody harm. They had been trying to leave Cuba for a long while, but it had become impossible for them to obtain an exit visa ever since the “great leader” had accused their religious group of being a “terrible blight on society.” They had no money or relatives abroad who could help them. They depended on the compassion of their congregation, which was already officially considered illegal.

Mother remained motionless as she listened to Esperanza, arms tight against her sides and hands folded on her lap. This time she wasn’t facing racial cleansing that aimed to create physical perfection, size, and color to achieve purity. Now it was a cleansing of ideas. It was people’s minds they were afraid of, not their physical traits. The doubts expressed by a crazy philosopher from her own country whom she used to read flitted through her mind: “Is man God’s mistake, or God man’s mistake?”

As Rafael was considered a minor—he was a few months short of his eighteenth birthday—they obtained permission to visit him in a work camp in the center of the island. This was where those hostile to the new government as well as people with religious beliefs were imprisoned. God had become the new rulers’ main enemy. The government devoted itself to political, moral, and religious purges. The forced labor camp where Rafael had been interned was surrounded by barbed wire fences, and at the entrance was a huge sign that read “Work will make men of you.”

They were allowed to see him for a half hour. Rafael did not have the chance to tell them—it was impossible, because there were guards present the whole time—how bad things were for him. He had lost more than twenty pounds. His head had been shaved.

“His hands were blistered,” Esperanza went on. “He was forced to salute the flag, to sing the national anthem, to deny his religion. He refused, and so they increased his punishment day by day. He’s only a boy, Alma, a boy . . .”

Rafael did have time, though, to tell them that a delegation had been there to inspect the camps, which were known as “therapeutic rehabilitation work camps.” In the group were several members of the government who were concerned about the prisoners’ conditions and asked how the reeducation process was going. He had recognized one of them, who returned his gaze. Rafael smiled and suddenly felt a glimmer of hope.

“Gustavo was part of the delegation,” said Esperanza, looking straight at Mother.

On hearing her son’s name—the boy she had not had circumcised, whom she brought up to be free—Mother began to tremble. She did not shed any tears, but her body shuddered with silent sobs. It was obvious it was not only her soul that was in torment: she was suffering physically.

Catalina put her arm round me. I was struck dumb; I couldn’t believe it. Hortensia got down on her knees in front of Mother and clasped her hands.

“Alma, you are the only one who can help us. Rafael is our life, Alma,” she pleaded.

Mother shut her eyes as tight as she could. She did not want to listen. She could not understand why she still had to pay for her guilt.

“Talk to Gustavo. Beg him to get Rafael back to us. We won’t ask anything more of him. If Rafael dies . . .” Hortensia left the sentence unfinished.

Mother was still far-off, staring at the wall. Her whole body was shaking.

After a lengthy silence, Hortensia rose to her feet. Esperanza took her by the arm, and the two of them strode to the door. They did not say good-bye, and we never heard from them again.

Still trembling, Mother tried to get up out of her chair. Catalina and I rushed to help her. She had difficulty walking, and we had to struggle—almost carrying her—to put her to bed. She hid under the white sheets, buried her head in the pillow, and appeared to have fallen asleep.

At dawn the next morning, I went into her room with Louis so that he could say good-bye before going to school. When he gave her a kiss on her brow, she opened her eyes, caught hold of his arm, and stared at him. Summoning what little strength she had left, she whispered in his ear in a language he could not understand:

“Du bist ein Rosenthal.”

Since we had reached the port of Havana and disembarked from the ill-fated
St. Louis
, this was the first time Mother spoke German. It was also the last.

T
his trip has been more difficult for Mom than she imagined. When Aunt Hannah tells her about what happened to Rafael, Mom can’t understand how Cuba, the country she idolized as a bastion of social progress, could have created concentration camps to purge its “undesirables” while the world simply looked on. Perhaps Grandfather Gustavo thought he was behaving correctly: that he really was rehabilitating those who had gone astray, that “blight on society” that needed reforming. Grandfather Gustavo’s crime was a gesture of salvation. What I can’t understand is why Aunt Hannah never asked her brother to do something to help Rafael. She left it all up to my great-grandmother.

It was a year before they released Rafael and let his whole family leave the country in exile. Catalina tells us that when she found out, she ran to tell the news to Great-grandmother, who had taken to her bed in
an act of perpetual self-punishment. Great-grandmother wasn’t satisfied that Rafael had been set free by now. The guilt went much deeper than that, and Gustavo would have to pay as well.

Eventually, when Gustavo and Viera appeared one day to tell Alma they were going to a distant country as ambassadors of the nation she detested so much, Catalina says my great-grandmother turned her face from them. That was her only response. Catalina says it showed that she cursed her son, that she wished to see them both dead. Her gesture wounded Gustavo to the depths of his soul. Dad remained with Aunt Hannah from the day his parents went off to the far side of the world.

Catalina devoted herself to looking after Alma. She fed and washed her, changed her sheets every day, and treated the terrible bedsores that slowly ate away at her body. Strangely, as she withered, her hair began to regain its former brilliance.

I go up on my own to Great-grandmother’s room, which smells of disinfectant. The gray bedcover, drawn up over the mattress with its broken springs, still seems to hold some of her presence. I sit on a corner of it and can sense her, the pain of her last years while she was lying here in endless silence.

Aunt Hannah keeps a lock of Alma’s hair in a black wooden chest together with their most precious jewels. It’s a Rosenthal family relic. I also see there a faded leather notebook, and the small blue box my aunt has never opened, keeping the promise she made on the ship a long time ago.