Papi shakes his head. “It’s not mumps,” he says. He turns back to me, still waiting for a promise I’m not prepared to give him yet.
Every night now, the men meet at our house on the back patio. They’ve grown extremely cautious, using code phrases all the time, but they let one little thing slip by them. The patio swings around the house to a private nook where they like to sit talking, and that nook is directly beside my bedroom window. Every night as I lie in bed, I can hear their hushed voices, even as I’m losing mine.
Tío Toni is always there, and Papi, and sometimes Mr. Washburn, who brings Wimpy. Mr. Mancini has stopped coming because the group decides that he can provide a safe house in case of trouble. I don’t know what that means except that it’s probably why, now that our American school has officially closed, Sam and Mundín and I go over to the Mancinis’ house for our lessons. Mami and Mrs. Washburn and Mrs. Mancini—in fact, the whole canasta group—are not about to let their kids grow up dumb brutos just because of a dictatorship. All in all, I think there are about twelve of us from different grades, now thrown together, learning addition and algebra, “Cielito Lindo” as well as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Mundín and I always ride over with Sam in the consulate car, as it’s less likely to be stopped at the guardposts beyond the lying policemen. There are now all kinds of checkpoints and curfews. One day, we ride to school and every other person on the street and in their cars is wearing black. When Sam asks Mundín about it, my brother says these people are voicing a silent protest. Sometimes, I think of my growing silence that way: voicing a silent protest.
More and more people are getting arrested, too. I hear the men talking one night about this one drugstore where the owner, a sympathizer, will sell you a pill you can take if you get caught by the SIM. It kills you instantly; that way you can’t be tortured and reveal the names of other dissidents. Every time I help Chucha with the laundry, I check all of Papi’s and Tío Toni’s pockets, just in case they’ve forgotten their pills there. I plan to flush them down the toilet, all but one, which I’ll keep for myself. In case the SIM take me away, I’ll slip that pill in my mouth, and then my crucifix. Maybe God will forgive me for committing suicide to avoid being murdered?
So much for trying to be brave and strong like Joan of Arc!
“¡Ya esto no se puede soporta!” Tío Toni is saying. This has got to stop. They’ve been waiting around for weeks for a delivery of what they call “the ingredients for the picnic.” Tonight is no different from any other night, except that their voices are starting to sound more desperate.
“The Americans are playing with us, that’s what you don’t realize,” Tío Toni continues. I know he’s talking to Papi, who says that after the way Washburn helped with Lucinda, he trusts ese caballero with his life.
“It’s not Washburn, it’s his people in Washington dragging their feet,” another voice is saying.
“El pobre Washburn,” Papi agrees. Poor Washburn. “He’s on his way out.”
So the Washburns are leaving to join Susie in Washington! As for Lucinda, she’s now in Nueva York with my grandparents and cousins, sending me postcards that show buildings so tall even Chucha is left speechless. Lucinda signs her name “Marilyn Taylor,” after her two favorite actresses, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. According to Mami, Lucinda knows we can get in trouble for corresponding with a person who hasn’t returned when her visa expired.
The door opens a crack, and a dagger of light cuts through the darkness. It’s Mami, checking up on me. She usually waits until all the men are gone, but maybe she wants to catch me before I fall asleep. “Are you up, amorcito?” she calls into the room. Of course, had I been asleep, her calling out would have woken me. I turn on the three monkeys lamp so that she feels invited in.
Mami sits down beside me on the bed. She chuckles when her eyes fall on the silly lamp. Three monkeys—one with his hands over his eyes, one with his hands over his ears, and a third with his hands over his mouth—stand in a row under a palm tree with a green shade that covers the lightbulb. It’s one of the things we inherited from the García girls when they left the country. Carla and I always made fun of this awful lamp that one of our aunts with poor taste once gave them. When Lorena broke my bedside lamp cleaning one day, Mami got this one out of the storage closet.
Mami is shaking her head at the monkeys. “We can move Lucinda’s lamp in here if you want.” I’ve always pretended to hate the lamp, rolling my eyes theatrically. But really, it’s kind of comforting to have the three monkeys lamp Carla and I made fun of together beside me.
“Wouldn’t you like that?” Mami is giving me that pleading look she wears these days when I won’t talk much. “Ay, Anita, tell me what’s going on. You look so skinny and sad, and you’re too quiet to be Mami’s cotorrita.”
I hate when Mami worries about me and starts calling me her little parrot and treating me like I’m five again.
“You miss your sister, don’t you? And now I have—not bad news, just a change.”
“The Washburns are leaving.” My voice comes out hoarse, I guess from not using it much anymore.
“How did you find out?” Mami looks puzzled. “Sammy doesn’t even know.” She continues studying my face for clues as to what I’m feeling, her eyes filling. “Maybe we’ve told you too much? Maybe we made you grow up too fast?”
“Mami, don’t . . .” I’ve forgotten the word for cry. I put my little crucifix in my mouth. Sometimes, doing so helps me remember the words for what I want to say.
“I’m sorry.” Mami is sobbing now. She reaches for me and holds on so tight, I’m reminded of the hug she gave Lucinda the day El Jefe’s roses arrived. “I wanted you to have a childhood,” Mami sniffs, wiping her tears.
I think of reassuring her by telling her that my childhood is over anyway. That I’ve already gotten my period. But the voices outside my window have grown animated. Mr. Washburn and Wimpy have arrived.
“It’s bad news,” Mr. Washburn is saying. “They’re not going to send any more ingredients for the picnic.”
“I told you they’d back out on us,” Tío Toni reminds the group.
“I’m sorry, fellas,” Washburn says. And he really does sound sad. “I’ll deliver what I have on hand in a few days at our drop-off.”
“Our usual place,” Wimpy confirms.
Mami looks like the monkey with his hand over his mouth. I don’t know if she’s upset at the news she just heard or at suddenly realizing that I’ve been listening in on the men’s secret meetings for months. She leans over my bed and angles the jalousies open. “Señores,” she calls out, “everything can be heard from this room.”
The gathering goes absolutely silent, and then Papi walks over to the window and peers in over Mami’s shoulder to where I sit on my bed.
“No wonder” is all he says.
The men move their meetings back to Tío Toni’s casita, even though it isn’t as convenient as the patio with the shortwave nearby in Papi’s study tuned to Radio Swan. Oscar says that Swan is a new station that broadcasts important bulletins by exiles who want to liberate the island. Everyone in the whole country is listening in, even though it’s illegal to do so. I’ve heard the men say that there are dissidents everywhere—even among the armed forces and policemen and cabinet members—just waiting for a signal that El Jefe is out of the way.
One time I try turning on the shortwave, hoping to hear that we’re free. But I don’t know which knob is for the volume and the radio blares for a minute. Mami hurries in. “What are you doing, Anita? Come along now and help me get the card table out.”
Mami wants me by her side at all times when I’m not at the Mancinis’. With only Chucha left in the household, I’ve taken over lots of little jobs, including helping out when the canasta group comes over, cleaning ashtrays, refreshing glasses of lemonade.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Mrs. Washburn calls me over to her side one afternoon. She puts her cards facedown on
the table. “Are you going to miss your pal Sam?” Although Mr. Washburn won’t be leaving until late June, Mrs. Washburn has decided she and Sam will join Susie in Washington soon. It’s April, and Sam has already missed too much of the school year. And Susie is proving to be a handful for her poor grandparents.
Mrs. Washburn puts her arms around me and squeezes hard. “Why haven’t you been coming over to visit? Did you and Sammy have a little squabble?” She winks at Mami. Obviously, they’ve been talking about me. “Maybe you’ll come visit us in Washington?”
I know I’m being rude, but I can’t come up with the words to answer her.
“Will you come and visit us sometime?” Mrs. Washburn persists.
I can feel Mami’s eyes prying the words from deep inside. I try to pull them out myself. But they won’t come. All I can do is shake my head.
“Young lady,” Mami corrects. No matter how worried she is about me, she still won’t stand for rudeness. “That’s no way to turn down an invitation.”
But Mrs. Washburn waves Mami’s scolding away. She gives me another tight squeeze. Can’t she see that I’m not a little girl anymore? That I have breasts that hurt when she does that?
“Thank you, Mrs. Washburn,” my mother coaches.
“Thank you,” I echo in the small voice I’ve learned for being polite.
Sam still comes over, but it’s not to visit me anymore. Now it’s to hang over the hood of Tío Toni’s hot rod with Mundín, fixing up the motor. Tío Toni has promised Mundín the car as soon as my brother gets his license when he turns sixteen. What I always wonder is, how good can a car be that always needs some repair?
The special feelings I once had for Sam have definitely faded. Now he seems like a regular boy, with his hair too white as if it’s been left in a bucket of bleach overnight, his eyes a dull blue. He and Mundín are always talking about cars. Chucha and I will pass by the carport and overhear them discussing the carburetor and brake pads, points and plugs. I’ll repeat these words to myself, as if by doing so I’ll somehow be able to understand my older brother and my former love a little better.
Sometimes, when Mundín and Sam are out working on the car and Mami and her friends are playing canasta on the patio, it seems as if things might be going back to normal. Suddenly, I’ll think up a dozen things to say to Chucha about something I saw in one of Mrs. Washburn’s Life magazines or a plan for a hairdo that’ll make me look older. But then something happens to remind me that we’re not safe, and my words slide away again.
Thursday morning, we are on our way to Oscar’s house for class, Sam and Mundín and I. His chauffeur has the day off, so Mr. Washburn is driving. He has a stop to make downtown at Wimpy’s anyway.
Wimpy is over at the Washburns’ a lot these days. I’ve heard Sam tell Mundín that Wimpy is really an undercover agent for the United States. That’s why Mr. Washburn has been bringing him to the secret meetings at our house.
Today, traffic is heavy. Probably, El Jefe’s car is expected down the main avenue, which means cars will be backed up until his motorcade passes. We inch forward at a crawl. Beside me, in the backseat, Sam is looking uncomfortable, squirming this way and that.
Suddenly, the car ahead of us brakes, and as we brake, too, the car behind rams into us, and the trunk flies open.
Mr. Washburn is out of the car in a flash. From their guardpost, two policemen, who have seen the accident, head down the block toward us. Sam turns pale at the sight of soldiers approaching, wielding machine guns. He opens his door and hurries out to join Mundín and Mr. Washburn at the back of the car. I’m right behind him.
“No problem,” Mr. Washburn is saying to the driver who has run into our car. “It’s understandable, bad tráfico.” He’s talking too fast, as if he’s the one who rammed into a car, his hand trying desperately to push down the trunk that has flown open. But the dent in the trunk won’t let the latch catch.
“Allow me,” one of the policemen offers, strapping his weapon over his shoulder and rolling up his sleeves.
“No, no, por favor,” Mr. Washburn insists, waving him away from the trunk. “All that is needed is a piece of rope.”
The driver of the car behind us runs off to get some rope he has stored in his trunk. Meanwhile, the second policeman heads back to his guardpost to make out his report.
“You will dirty your sleeves!” Mr. Washburn is still arguing with the remaining policeman about helping with the dented trunk. But the policeman is insistent. He steps forward and lifts the lid to inspect the damage.
I cannot describe what I see, for the words slide away from my memory. In fact, no one says a word. We stand for a long moment, looking down into the trunk of that car. The driver, who has arrived with the coil of rope, glances down and his eyes grow wide.
Jolted from their sugar-cane sacking, barrels poking out, the ingredients of the picnic have spilled out across the floor of the trunk. The guns were on their way to the drop-off point, the mission disguised as a school ride for us kids.
The policeman must see them, too. But all he does is reach for the rope from the terrified driver and loop one end into the lid and then through the bumper and knot them tightly together.
“You better get that fixed,” he says quietly to Mr. Washburn when he’s done.
“¿Todo bien?” his buddy calls from their guardpost.
“Everything is fine,” the policeman lies, waving us on our way.
Back inside the car, Mr. Washburn’s hands are shaking so badly, he has trouble turning on the ignition. I smell urine, as if someone has peed in his pants. My heart is thundering in my chest. I pull out my chain and put the little cross in my mouth, but I can’t come up with the words for a simple prayer of thanks.
eight
Almost Free
“He’s coming!” Oscar yells from the nursery room we use as our classroom. We’ve been playing hide-and-seek with his three little sisters. Since Oscar is It, I wonder if he’s trying to trick us into coming out of our hiding places. “Hurry up or you’ll miss him!”
I look at the clock in the hallway, and sure enough, it’s fivefifteen. El Jefe will be walking down from his mother’s mansion, past Oscar’s house next to the Italian embassy, all the way to the avenida by the ocean. Every evening of the week, he follows the same routine. Oscar says El Jefe is really strict about his schedule and does things right on the dot, not a moment before or after. He is superstitious that if he’s off by a minute, something awful will happen to him.
I race down the hall so I can catch a glimpse of El Jefe, surrounded by his throng of bodyguards and important people from his cabinet. The first time I saw this afternoon parade, I was surprised to recognize several men from the group that gathers at our house every night to talk about getting rid of El Jefe.
I don’t say so to Oscar. I don’t say much even at school these days. Many times, when we play hide-and-seek to keep his little sisters entertained, I won’t come out of my hiding place when I hear “Ally ally oxen free!” But like Papi, Oscar seems to understand my silence and goes on talking to me anyway.
“El Jefe’s not wearing his jewelry today.” María Eugenia, the oldest of the three little sisters, has joined us at the front window.
“It’s not jewelry, it’s his medals,” Oscar corrects.
“Why can’t they be jewelry?” María Eugenia protests. “They’re gold.”
“There’s twenty soldiers,” María Rosa pipes up. She just started learning numbers, and so everything she sees, she counts up. She’s the youngest of the three little girls, all of whom have María as part of their name. Mrs. Mancini is really devoted to the Virgin Mary, Oscar has told me. Even he has María in his name, Oscar M. Mancini. At school, Oscar always refused to say what his middle initial stood for.
“Why does he have so many soldiers?” María Josefina, the middle sister, wants to know. All three little girls are now crowded at the window.
“Because,” Oscar answers shortly.
“B
ecause what?”
Curiosity runs in the family.
“Shhh, he’s going to hear you!” Oscar warns. The three little girls fall silent. Oscar has already told them that if they get caught spying, they’ll be taken out on the street and shot.
“That’s strange. He’s wearing his khaki today,” Oscar points out. El Jefe always wears his white uniform, except on Wednesdays, when he heads for his country home at night. Then he wears a green khaki outfit. But today is only Tuesday.
“He probably has a new girlfriend,” Oscar guesses. El Jefe keeps all his girlfriends out in his country house, where his wife never goes. Otherwise, she would surely murder them.
I shiver, remembering how El Jefe spotted Lucinda at Susie’s party and started courting her with roses. Quickly, I draw back from the window. What if El Jefe looks up and sends his SIM up to get me? “So, you are the girl who never cries!” he would greet me.
No, señor, I rehearse my reply. I am the girl who hardly talks anymore.
After El Jefe passes by, I stand a while at the window, looking up at a glint of silver in the sky. The daily Pan Am flight is departing for the States. The García girls left on that flight, as did my grandparents, uncles, and aunts and their families; then Lucinda and Susie; and finally, a few days ago, Sam and his mom.
Oscar comes up beside me. The little girls have been called to their baths. We are alone in the nursery. “Are you sad because of Sam leaving, Anita?”
It’s sweet of Oscar to care. But I don’t know how to tell him that I haven’t been spending all that much time with Sam. In fact, the last time we saw each other alone was when Sam came over to say good-bye. Sam talked on and on about how excited he was to be going back to the United States. He handed over a present, a little Statue of Liberty paperweight that I was sure his mother had picked out.