Boy Who Said No : An Escape to Freedom (9781608090815) Read online

  Soon the blue lantern felt too heavy, and I threw it down the mountainside. It tumbled over itself and landed next to a fallen branch. Other boys had already discarded their lanterns, so the soldiers barely gave it a glance.

  We walked the rest of the way in silence.

  CHAPTER 4

  When we got to our destination, I was delivered to a Haitian family that eyed me with suspicion. Two boys about my age sat on a dirt floor, while a barefoot girl glared at me from behind a banana tree. A fine layer of clay lightened their ebony skin.

  A matronly woman with straggly hair and missing teeth clung to her husband, José, while three dirty-faced toddlers hung on her legs. The father stood tall, an onyx giant, with well-defined muscles etching his shoulders and back. His arms were stronger than his legs and his shoulders showed the results of years of hard labor.

  Wiry black hair covered his chest and back. A “lazy eye” wandered around in his eye socket, making it difficult to tell whether he was looking at you or not. A rope hung around his neck and a machete yoked his waist. The carcass of an animal—I didn’t know what kind—hung from a pole to dry. Its skin had been removed and its body was marbled with blood.

  I looked at the children, feeling sorry that they had to live in such squalor. I figured the parents were former slaves brought to Cuba from Haiti to work the plantations, but I didn’t ask any questions. That wasn’t my job.

  One of the soldiers, the taller of the two, stepped forward and said, “Frank is here to teach you to read.” He spoke loudly and slowly as if that would help the peasants comprehend what he was saying. He butted me with his rifle.

  “Show ’em the books so they understand.”

  I scrambled to hold up the books for them to see.

  José shot me a look of disdain. He fingered the handle of his machete and grunted.

  “Ain’t no use for readin’ here,” he said. “Might as well send ’im back where he belong!” The boys nodded in agreement. Then the man spat on the ground and walked away. I wondered how long I would have to stay with these people.

  The soldiers shrugged their shoulders and took their leave.

  After the soldiers departed, José and I squatted on the ground opposite each other while the children busied themselves winding and unwinding a ball of twine. Neither of us knew what to say. He seemed content to just sit and look at me. He struck me as a man filled with subterranean emotions, one I would have to tiptoe around.

  Not knowing what to do, I unlaced my boots and rubbed my feet, which were red and sore from the long hike up the mountain. My boots were heavy and stiff as cardboard, and I knew they would be difficult to walk in for any length of time. I fingered a plump blister, rolling the liquid beneath the skin. I was tempted to lance it, but I looked at my dirty hands and thought better of it. I felt a pang of longing for Mima. She was the one who tended to my scrapes and cuts.

  José was still staring at me, and I figured I looked very young to him, far too young to teach him anything. An uncomfortable silence hung in the air. I lowered my head and studied the ground in an effort to look respectful. I knew I’d have to prove myself to him—and to everyone else.

  My first order of business was to figure out where to bed down for the night. The two boys, Juan and Ernesto, showed me the primitive hammocks they used for sleep, and my hopes for a bed evaporated like smoke in the wind. I unpacked my own canvas hammock, and the boys indicated that I was to tie it between two trees.

  I glanced at Ernesto who was eyeing my blanket enviously. I offered it to him, and he took it with a smile. I knotted the rope the way Abuelo had taught me and climbed into my gently swinging bed. I turned on my side, drew my legs to my chest, and listened to the insects hum in a minor key.

  I missed Abuelo. I missed my parents. I missed the sweet smell of my sheets and the coldness of my pillowcase against my cheek. I missed my mother’s pastries and the sound of her laughter. I missed the safety and surety of home.

  I looked up at the moon and felt comforted that it was the same moon that shone on the roof of my home on Pepe Antonio Street. Then I cried myself softly, very softly, to sleep.

  My life in the hills was very different from my life in Guanabacoa. The thatched-roofed hut that the family called home had no electricity, no stove, no refrigerator, and no indoor plumbing. Chickens pecked the hut’s mud floor and pigs roamed the crowded living space.

  The urine and feces of the two animal species melded into a smell so foul it made my eyes burn. Large black flies feasted on the scraps of food that littered the children’s mouths, and ugly sores festered on their shoeless feet.

  I figured I had to fend for myself to survive. Although I was an official “teacher” and was not required by the State to work, the only way to earn the family’s respect was to pitch in and help.

  Our routine was to rise early in the morning and wash our bodies in a nearby stream, the same stream where Maria did the family’s laundry. José, Juan, Ernesto, and I then went out to work, while Maria stayed home to tend the younger children and to prepare the morning meal. Around ten o’clock she’d bring breakfast for us to eat in the fields.

  The family wore rubber shoes made from old tires. I drew my knife and sliced off enough rubber to make shoes for myself. Maria, a large, powerful woman with a sweet smile, showed me how to sew the ends with a long curved needle and urged me to stuff the shoes with rags the way the family did. While serviceable, the shoes were slippery when wet, and I had to sit and slide myself over rain-slicked rocks to avoid an accident.

  The family grew coffee, which required long hours of picking, sorting, and packing the beans into rough burlap bags. With no electricity and no machinery, all the chores had to be done by hand. The boys and I found a flat spot on the side of the mountain. We set up a large tray to spread the coffee beans. We spent hours pushing the beans back and forth to dry. Although I ached all over, my arm, shoulder, and leg muscles were beginning to ripple beneath my skin.

  In addition to coffee, we raised red, black, and garbanzo beans, yams, maize, and other vegetables. We mostly ate dried corn, fried plantains, and boiled yucca, augmenting our diet with snakes, iguanas, and small animals. We roasted birds and guinea hens over an open fire. Juan, Ernesto, and I climbed trees for bananas, coconuts, and mangoes. I could smell a ripe banana a mile away.

  Work ended when the sun went down. After dinner, by the light of the family’s three candles, I tried to teach. The content of the two textbooks the soldiers gave us related to current issues facing Cuba. These books were very different from the ones I used to learn to read.

  I tried teaching José and Maria some letters, but it was tough going. José saw little use for reading and usually pushed me aside. Maria followed his lead. But once a month or so I got her to sit and work with me.

  Most of the time, my teaching was frustrating. I didn’t know how to teach, so I did the best I could. I held up the letters of the alphabet over and over until the boys knew them by sight. I had to further drill them on a couple of letters such as W and H.

  The times when the children sounded out a word were satisfying—even fun. But it wasn’t enough to make me happy or to keep me from being homesick.

  For after I blew out the candles, after the weary red sparks died on the wick, after the inky night swallowed the last curl of smoke, I was still a thirteen-year-old boy, alone. High in the mountains and very alone.

  CHAPTER 5

  Once a month, the authorities allowed us to go into the small village of Turquino del Mar to meet with the other literacy teachers in the area. Because of the danger due to rebel activity in the Sierra Maestra, José and Maria accompanied me into town. Besides, they needed to get their beans to market.

  On those days Gilbert, Tato, Luis, Antonio, and I would sit on the bare ground watching the lines of mules, their backs burdened with bags of beans, snort and kick the dust. We entertained each other with tales of our mountain adventures. Gilbert and I discovered that we lived on opposite
sides of the mountains, and we promised to send smoke signals to each other so we’d feel less lonely.

  Several girls in the village tried their best to get our attention. They called us “The Havana Boys.” Since we came from a city, they thought we were very glamorous. Some of them dashed back and forth behind the trees, shyly enticing us with their girlish laughs. Other girls flirted more unabashedly with us.

  We had been told that the girls were hoping we’d fall for them and get them pregnant. Then we’d have to marry them and take them back to Havana with us. Once in a while Gilbert talked to a couple of the girls, but the rest of us wanted nothing to do with them. We had enough trouble as it was.

  Living the same lifestyle as my “students,” I wore next to nothing. Only when I wanted to shield my skin from the sun did I get fully dressed. Dirt gathered under my nails and calluses grew rough and thick on my hands and feet. My hair lay in oily tangles around my head.

  I acquired a host of survival skills—hunting, cooking, farming. I even learned a new way to fish, flushing out trout with the strategic placement of rocks and then stabbing them with V-shaped prongs attached to a long stick. I couldn’t wait to show Abuelo my newfound skill.

  I still missed my friends, their laughter and pranks, and I thought about my family every day. I missed my long talks with Abuelo and my short talks with my father. I even missed helping my mother with chores.

  Since not knowing when—or if—I would ever return home made me feel afraid and uncertain, I tried not to think about it. Instead, I found comfort in hearing Juan and Ernesto sing their ABCs and spell out words such as DOG and HELLO. At these times, José would cast me a glance of resentment tinged with pride.

  Every couple of months, families from the area came to see Maria during an all-day spiritual event, the likes of which I had never seen. The day before the ceremony the family would busy themselves gathering food and making other preparations to welcome their guests.

  José would erect an altar for Chango, the god of fire. He’d place upon it large black dolls along with bananas, mangoes, pineapples, and various herbs and potions to be used in healing. The dolls were strange, primitive things that served as vehicles for human hair, fingernails, and scraps of people’s clothing. Some contained bits of colored glass, ceramics, or stones. People used the dolls to cast spells on enemies by puncturing them with pins and nails. They gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  We would gather chickens and either a goat or pig whose throat would be slit in sacrifice. José would draw a long, sharp blade across its neck, slicing through skin and tendons. Maria would gather the animal’s blood into a rough, wooden bowl and sprinkle it over the crowd in a blessing.

  Maria always wore a long, white dress for the ceremonies. She layered strings of shells and beads around her neck and wrists to enhance her image as someone with special powers.

  Maria would sit in front of the altar and enter a trance, her eyelids flickering and her thick throat emitting incomprehensible singsong sounds as competing spirits entered her body. There would always be a period of time—ten to fifteen minutes—when she struggled, dismissing the spirits she did not want to possess her.

  Eventually, she would welcome the familiar spirit of a man into her body. At that point, her voice would sink to a lower register and her facial expressions would change so much that practically no vestiges of Maria remained—for all intents and purposes she had become another person. People would sit in a circle and ask Maria questions regarding their personal lives, and she would recommend spells and potions to cure their ills.

  Once the advice was dispensed, she would stand like a man, spitting alcohol at people and smoking a fat cigar. Sometimes she’d crack a raw egg on her chest—I wasn’t sure why—while attendees danced to the rhythmic beat of large, conical drums. A bonfire kicked sparks high into the air and served as a backdrop to the frenzy.

  Meanwhile, men would saunter about opening and closing their shirts in front of people. Tobacco smoke wafted from their chests in great gray puffs that dissipated like fog into the cool night air. The smoke was used to heal people, but I was never sure where it came from. It was magic to me.

  By dawn, everyone would be spent from drinking and dancing. Maria would collapse well before the ceremonies ended, exhausted from her encounters with the spirits.

  Once Gilbert came to the event with his peasant family, and we watched the proceedings in wonder. The words vodou and brujería were bandied about. Neither of us knew what to make of the ceremony.

  The next morning Maria would act as if nothing unusual had happened. Sometimes I wondered who the real Maria was.

  • • •

  One rainy day I was packing coffee beans and thinking about putting grass under my bed for the camels of the Three Kings to eat on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany.

  I was so immersed in reverie I failed to notice a soldier who had come up behind me. When he tapped me on the shoulder, I jumped, startled. I had no idea what he wanted. The soldier canted his head, indicating that I was to go with him.

  “Your work here is done, Frankie,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, trying to take in what he was saying.

  “The Literacy Campaign is over. Fidel says it was a huge success.”

  “So I can go home?” The news was almost disorienting.

  “Yes. Get your things together. The train to Havana leaves tomorrow.”

  I was so happy I began jumping around and clapping my hands. I gathered my things together and bid the boys farewell, knowing I would soon be in the arms of my family. The boys seemed startled by the news. I sensed they would miss me, and I knew I would miss them.

  We managed awkward smiles, and Ernesto wrapped his arm around my waist for a minute before bending over the dirt and spelling out the word GOODBYE with a stick.

  Maria stopped cooking and hugged me farewell—we were almost family by now. There was something universal about maternal love. She had become a surrogate mother to me, and I had become her surrogate son.

  I looked about for José, but he was nowhere to be found. I figured he was out hunting birds, something he did at that time of day. It would have been nice to see him one more time. It was a strange and bittersweet goodbye.

  I laced my shoes and marched for a day to the historic town of Bayamo. As I walked through the narrow, cobblestoned streets of the “Birthplace of the Cuban Nation,” I remembered my grandfather telling me about this place. It was where the Cuban national anthem was written. I was glad Abuelo had taught me this, and I was proud of myself for remembering.

  From there I joined hundreds of boys to board the train to Havana. I had been away from home for nearly ten months. As the train panted for breath along the tracks, I thought about how much my brother Raúl must have grown. He was no longer a baby. I was eager to see my parents and to hold my brother in my arms. I was looking forward to seeing Miriam and recounting my adventures. But most of all, I couldn’t wait to tell Abuelo that I’d been to Bayamo.

  When I got home, there was a huge celebration in Revolution Square in Havana for all the alfabetizadores. Hundreds of people gathered to eat, drink, and wave gigantic pencils in the air. Music played over loudspeakers and people sang and danced in the street. Fidelistas made speeches about how important literacy was to the future of the country. I stood next to Gilbert, thinking about my stay in the mountains.

  “Are you feeling proud of yourself?” asked Gilbert.

  “A little,” I said, shrugging. “But I never managed to teach the mother and father to read and write.”

  “But you taught the boys—Ernesto and Juan.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “I suppose.”

  “What about you? Are you feeling proud?”

  Gilbert shrugged, ignoring my question.

  “Have you heard about the Bahía de Cochinos?” he asked.

  I modulated my voice to match Gilbert’s. “No,” I said. “What�
��s that?” I was envisioning a bay of dead floating pigs.

  “It happened while we were gone. The Americans tried to do Fidel in—but they failed.”

  “The Americans failed? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, it happened in April. It was a big deal. The Americans called it a fiasco, and Fidel ran around telling everybody how he’d beaten the Yanks.”

  “That’s hard to believe!”

  “Ask your grandfather. He’ll tell you about it.”

  I jumped down from the seawall and put my arm around Gilbert’s shoulder. “Let’s get a Coke,” I said. We walked through the park with the sound of bongos and maracas in the background. A cha-cha was being played and a couple was dancing under a banana tree.

  “So what does it mean?”

  “Fidel’s now stronger than ever,” said Gilbert.

  “It’s weird. Abuelo says he puts his pistol on the lectern before every speech just to show people who’s boss.”

  Gilbert shook his head. “They say Fidel and his brothers were the biggest bullies at their school. The headmaster even tried to throw Fidel out.”

  “Abuelo said he actually did. Fidel’s father was happy his son wasn’t going to school anymore so he could stay home and work.”

  “That’s messed up.”

  “Fidel threatened to burn down his parents’ house so he could get back into school.”

  I laughed. “Sounds crazy.”

  We stopped at the refreshment stand and paid for a couple of bottles of soda. There was no Coke in sight.

  “Where’s the Coke?” I asked.

  “Fidel closed down the Coca-Cola factory,” said Gilbert.

  Gilbert plucked off the ruffled metal cap with his teeth and then grabbed my bottle to do the same.

  A group of young women marched by, carrying placards with a picture of Fidel brandishing his gun.

  “I think Fidel’s in love with that rifle of his,” I said.

  Gilbert shrugged. “Maybe he’s looking at girls through his telescopic lens.”