Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) Page 8

  I didn’t get it. To me it seemed like an incongruous pairing: Cuban and Arabic, especially since, as far as anyone knew, nobody in the family carried a drop of Middle Eastern blood in their veins. Thank goodness too. Even from a young age I felt no affinity with that culture, especially their treatment of women and how the men from that region of the world required females to cover up from head to toe just to appease their primitive insecurities. My father’s side of the family hailed from a long line of teachers, so it made perfect sense that he always stressed education and higher learning. He went on to earn a doctorate from the Institute of Advanced Linguistic Studies in Havana, and the state certified him with a rating of native speaker in Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, and Armenian. Only in Aramaic had he received a rank of mediocre, and this forever proved a thorn in his side.

  My father taught classes, not only at the language institute where he earned his doctorate, but all over Cuba. He was that renowned. One day officials from the Ministry of the Exterior approached him about a thrilling new project for which he had been recommended and personally selected. Representatives came to him with a proposal shortly after the start of the Gulf War in ’91, and if he accepted, it meant my father would be traveling to the Middle East posthaste. It didn’t take him long to make up his mind. Nor did it pain him any to arrive at the decision on his own.

  “I’m going to Iraq,” he announced matter-of-factly, only three days before he was scheduled to go. “I leave on Friday.”

  “Iraq!” my mother protested. “What are you talking about, Alejo? With this war that just started? With the Iraqis and Americans killing each other? I know you love all this Middle Eastern stuff, chico, but why would you want to go there now of all times? Are you crazy or something?”

  “It’s not that I want to go,” my father explained. “I’ve been personally selected because of my language expertise. I’ll be forming part of a diplomatic mission that includes engineers, medical personnel, agricultural experts, and of course, other linguists.”

  “Diplomatic mission for what?” my mother balked. “What in the world does Cuba need from Iraq and Iraq need from Cuba?”

  My father swore Mamá to secrecy, explaining that he was about to share highly confidential information with her, and she could not mention it to neighbors or friends—not even family. No worries there. Mamá hardly had any friends. She was devoutly religious and cared only about lighting votives and expanding her collection of prayer cards and relics.

  “It seems,” he began, “that in recent years Iraqis have acquired a penchant for Cuban sugar. Well, the government of Iraq is interested in cultivating and harvesting its own strain of sugarcane to meet the country’s increasing demand. For obvious reasons—since Cuba produces the best sugar in the world—the Iraqis have selected us as their consulting partner in this venture. In exchange, Cuba will be allowed to purchase Iraqi oil at a greatly subsidized cost.”

  The Revolution couldn’t have asked for a better way to bring an end to our crippling Special Period, especially since it was the end of Soviet oil subsidies that had brought the Special Period into being.

  “Of course!” my mother said scornfully. “Now it all makes sense. Oil! Sugar! These matters always include the vices of the world. I’m surprised there’s no mention of tobacco.”

  “There is!” my father continued. “Believe me, there is! But that’s five years away. For now, if we can get the Iraqi sugar fields to thrive in the desert regions of the country and become self-sufficient, they’ve agreed to build refineries right here on the island and teach us how to refine our own oil.”

  The Cuban government reacted with such joy and hopefulness at the prospect of refining its own oil on a large scale that they even sweetened the deal, offering Cuban healthcare professionals to provide educational training for Iraqi medical students. The Iraqis were genuinely touched, overjoyed by this proposal, knowing that Cuba ran a world-renowned medical program. They immediately accepted the offer and wanted the Cubans to start coming right away.

  There was just one problem. Most Iraqis did not know a word of Spanish; they mainly studied English for their foreign language requirement. Thus the reason for my father being selected for this Middle Eastern mission: to head the language team now responsible for teaching Spanish to this first generation of Iraqi medical students, who, one day would study medicine right here in Cuba for a premium price.

  “Just wait,” my father said. “In a few years, we’re not only going to be refining our own oil, we’re going to have a thriving community of Iraqis who’ll demand their own marketplace, and officials will have to accommodate them. I can’t wait!” he said. “We’ll have a Little Baghdad right here in Havana.”

  But my mother wasn’t buying any of it, and neither was I. How was all this going to happen with a war going on? A war that involved the Americans? They would never allow this type of venture between the Cubans and Iraqis. They would claim it violated international law and scorch the sugarcane fields first chance they got. Besides, how could you possibly cultivate sugarcane in the desert? Impossible! we both thought. Mamá lit candles and offered up prayers for something to impede his voyage, while I seethed in silence. I was fifteen when he blindsided us with this announcement, and I could think of only one thing: there went the Quinceñera I had expected later that year.

  “How long is the mission?” Mamá asked him.

  “Same as everything else,” he said “Five years. But don’t worry, Inez. They told me if the demands of the project permit, I can come home every six months for a week at a time.”

  “You might as well not come home at all,” Mamá said. “Why even bother?”

  My father had clearly made up his mind, especially since ministry officials had given in to a personal request of his: my father wanted a guarantee that he could devote 30 percent of his time to research. For years he’d wanted to write a dissertation on the history and evolution of Aramaic, and there could be no better place to do this than in Iraq.

  “As long as it doesn’t interfere with your teaching or interpreting duties, it’s fine,” they said.

  For the next two days Papi barely uttered a word as he moved throughout the house, wrapping himself up, as he always did, in his latest undertaking; this time packing and making sure he set aside everything he needed, especially key textbooks and journals and teaching materials. On the day he shipped off for Iraq, Mamá and my two sisters cried inconsolably, but I didn’t. My blood merely churned. My heart seethed. I was the second sister, the middle of us three, and I could think only of how much I hated him, especially as I felt the raw exhilaration coursing through his veins, the spirit of adventure brewing in jubilant impatience and frothing in its eagerness to be in those Middle Eastern marketplaces already.

  I did not expect to hear from him for the first year, but much to my surprise, we received letters almost immediately. Never did my father say a word, however, about missing us or missing Cuba or counting down the days until his first visit home. All he wrote about in great length—ad nauseam I might add—were the different marketplaces he had visited and how each one had its own feel and personality and how each managed to surpass the other in vitality and charm beyond his wildest expectations.

  “And the coffee,” he added. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. I don’t know which I like better. Turkish coffee, Arabian coffee, Syrian coffee, or Greek. I can drink coffee from anywhere in the world here—anywhere!”

  I hated him all the more after reading this. I despised my father with every word he wrote about his blessed marketplaces and Middle Eastern coffees. I loathed his letters that were nothing but history lessons on that part of the world. And since he had a fascination with coffee now, my sisters and I learned all about how the first instance of brewed coffee dated back to fifteenth-century Yemen and how the word coffee itself, in most languages, came directly or indirectly from the Arabic word qahwah. But it wasn’t just hearing about exotic coffees that tantalized and teased us. It was
learning about an endless array of cheeses and oils, of spices and even breads.

  “The breads!” he would write. “Middle Eastern bread has got to be the most delicious in the world, especially the flat kind. You should taste it when it’s soft and warm, when it’s dipped in oil and slightly salted. There are times I look at it and swear I want to cry.”

  I wanted to cry too—from the way his description of all these foods left my mouth watering. How could he be so thoughtless? So shameless when we were all starving from the effects of this Special Period? It was clear that he loved his new life there. He’d taken to it as a fish to water. One day my father wrote us about a new friend he’d made in Iraq, a native of Baghdad named Ehn al-Salahm, head of security at the language school. We all thought it strange that a linguistics professor should associate so closely with what was essentially a security guard, but my father explained that Ehn al-Salahm longed to learn Spanish so he could impress one of the Cuban girls at the embassy. Aside from that, Papi explained that he and his new friend shared a lot in common.

  Soon my father wrote us about Ehn al-Salahm every chance he got, explaining how this new friend had even invited him over for dinner to meet his wife and family. My father said that he received the shock of his life when the front door opened and he was greeted respectfully by Ehn al-Salahm’s three beautiful daughters. Three daughters. Just like us. But they were younger, as my father was in his midforties at the time and Ehn al-Salam only in his early thirties.

  “Wait a minute!” Mamá said. “This Ehn al-Salahm is married with three daughters, but he’s trying to impress one of the Cuban girls with his Spanish? Wonderful friend your father is making!”

  It certainly didn’t affect Papi’s opinion of Ehn al-Salahm. Not as letter after letter regaled us with tales of intoxicating evenings spent at the man’s home, during which Papi described extravagant gatherings rich in food and wine, full of conversation and music and dancing, along with the endless assortment of Middle Eastern coffees.

  “I hate him!” I confessed to Pilar any time I read one of the Ehn al-Salahm letters. “I despise Papi.”

  “Why?” she asked me. “You shouldn’t begrudge him, hermana. Papi is an ambitious man, and that’s how ambitious men are.”

  “Yes, they’re so ambitious that they love their passions and careers more than their own families. I hate him, hermana! I hope he stays in Iraq with this Ehn al-Salahm guy for good, and I hope he never comes back!”

  “Don’t talk that way, hermana,” she reproached me. “Really. Take that back or you’ll regret it one day—you’ll see.”

  But I wouldn’t take it back. I wouldn’t apologize for my feelings, and this outburst swelled into a shameful secret we both shared. Fortunately, Pilar did not resent me for any asperity in my words. It only brought out the mother in her all the more, and she lectured me about feeling happy for Papi and being proud of him.

  “Don’t you see that this opportunity is precisely why he’s slaved away all his life, hermana? Why he’s made so many sacrifices and concessions. Don’t you see that Papi has reached a level of success in Cuba that less than one percent of the entire population ever achieve!”

  I didn’t care. It got to the point where I wouldn’t read his letters anymore. Pilar possessed far more a forgiving nature than I ever did, and I truly admired her for it. She had always been athletic and physically gifted, but never ambitious or career oriented at all; yet it was she who understood our father’s burning desire to excel and attain distinction. It was she who sympathized with him while I continued to hate him and wished I would never see him again, especially since a whole year had gone by and my father had apparently forfeited both opportunities to come home to visit.

  But if there were ever times in a person’s life when one had to be careful with what one wished for, this played out as such. Not only would I certainly see Papi again, but much sooner than expected. After a year and a half of his five-year assignment in Iraq, my father sent word he was coming home. Not for a brief visit, but for good. He didn’t elaborate. Not in the cable received and forwarded to us by the ministry.

  But if we would have to wait to hear all about this unexpected shift of events in person, I wanted only one explanation the day my father came home from Iraq for good: Why hadn’t he brought us even one can of café? Just one! I understood no breads and cheeses; they would have spoiled on the long journey back. But how had he failed to bring home even one jodida can of coffee after writing all those letters about all those Middle Eastern coffees? Just like him!

  “What happened?” Mamá asked, knowing from the look on his face and the disengaged expression in his eyes it could not be good.

  “What do you think happened?” he said. “The usual thing that happens anywhere and everywhere: envious colleagues, jealous coworkers, backbiting and gossip, the usual knives in the back.”

  “Alejo, can you be a little bit more specific?” Mamá urged. “Can you tell me who did what to you?”

  But Papi would not reveal more. He refused to talk about whatever had happened, while subjecting us to an atmosphere of dark brooding and sullenness for days and weeks on end. We left him alone and afforded him his space.

  “When do you return to work?” Mamá asked one day. “When do you go back to the language institute?”

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “You don’t? Well, how are we going to live?” she asked. “What are we going to do for money, Alejo?”

  “Does it matter?” he replied. “Is the Cuban peso worth anything anyway?”

  He had a point there, but we still needed some money. So while Papi languished in his state of abject misery and solitary dejection, Mamá mobilized quickly and managed to find a job right away. Of all things, too: patching up the horde of defective wheels and inner tubes to all those Chinese bicycles flooding the streets of Cuba during this Special Period. It turned out that Chinese rubber was highly corrosive and flimsy. It either melted quite easily in the Cuban sun or exploded without notice. Wheels were either eroding right on the asphalt or popping like crazy. Mamá hated the work. The first thing she did the moment she came home each day to was detoxify herself from the handling of all those dirty wheels and from inhaling the fumes of rubber cement. True, it wasn’t a glamorous job: repairing rubber and inflating inner tubes, sometimes by mouth even. And it was rather embarrassing too, considering she was married to a renowned linguist. But this was no time for conceit or pride. It was no time for self-indulgence or moping either. Whatever had taken place in Iraq, Mamá insisted on knowing the full story, but Papi would only offer her the same diluted and watered-down version.

  “I’ve told you, Inez: personality conflicts.”

  “But you were the supervisor, Alejo. You were running the show. Personality conflicts with whom?”

  “The underlings, Inez. The underlings banded together and turned on me.”

  Mamá wasn’t buying it. She knew there had to be more to it than what his monosyllabic replies suggested. She knew he was keeping her in the dark about something, and she was right. One day my father finally opened up to the one person he had always felt a kinship with in our household: Pilar. He at last divulged to her the details of his fate in Iraq, but she swore me to secrecy. I was not to tell Mamá any of this. While Pilar and my father had always been particularly close, Mamá and I shared the same closeness, and Pilar knew this. I was not to utter one word to our mother or how it all revolved around this new friend of his, Ehn al-Salahm.

  “I knew it!” I said. “I knew that guy had something to do with this. I never liked that individual just from what I read about him. What happened, hermana? Tell me!”

  “Well,” Pilar began. “It seems that this fast and furious friendship not only caused envy and hostility among his coworkers at the language school, but speculation as well.”

  “Speculation? What type of speculation?” I asked.

  “Well, I didn’t know this, hermana, but apparently the men in the Middl
e East not only greet each other and say goodbye with a kiss, but when they’re really good friends, they hold hands and drape their arms around each other’s shoulders—whether or not they’re in public.”

  “Really?” I said. “They hold hands in public? Grown men?”

  “Yes, and it seems that on more than one occasion, Papi and Ehn al-Salahm were spotted holding hands walking through the various marketplaces and word got back to the embassy.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, Papi told me that when he showed up for work that Monday morning, two diplomats from the embassy were waiting for him at the language school. They marched him straight into conference and demanded an explanation as to all these alleged physical displays of affection—the hand holding, the shoulder draping.”

  “What about it do you want to know?” he asked.

  “Is it true?” they said.

  “Of course it’s true,” he replied. “It’s the custom here. It’s what they do.”

  “It’s what the Iraqis do!” they replied. “It’s the custom between Iraqi and Iraqi, not between Cuban and Iraqi. You’re a visitor here, do you understand?”

  But nobody was going to correct or instruct Papi about a culture he had read about and studied all his life. “It’s the custom here between good friends regardless of where you come from. And if you don’t partake of the custom, you offend them. Is that what you want me to do? Offend our Iraqi hosts?”

  “Precisely!” they fired back. “They are the host, and you are the guest. You are not supposed to be befriending anyone anyway. You’ll recall that, before coming here, everybody was expressly warned not to fraternize with the locals. You know that Middle Easterners snap and go crazy.”