Day 1
At Gate 10 of Miami International Airport there was a multitude that early January morning, including a group of students from Ohio and an Afro-Dominican ensemble that serenaded us right then and there, drums and all. My fellow American travelers comprised quite a few highly educated people, interested in Cuba and its culture, and in trying to understand the system. We had editors and writers, lawyers, political scientists and Peace Corps volunteers among us, all widely traveled individuals who wanted to see the island and its people with eyes wide open. By the time we boarded the big plane, my heart was calm (glad I didn’t do caffeine that morning). One of my travel companions asked me if I had any relatives in Cuba. They’re all dead, I said, and I am carrying with me my parents’ ashes to spread on Cuban soil. I felt an emotional lump in my throat, and I quickly changed to my mother tongue, escribiendo en español al ver los últimos islotes de la Florida. Las nubes oscurecen el paisaje y, como ellas, la emoción me empaña los ojos y me nubla la vista. I was still writing in Spanish when I saw the contours of the Florida Keys. The emotions of my return clouded my eyesight, and both seascape and sky turned cloudy, too.
Thirty minutes into the flight, an attendant comes by with chicharritas de plátano, plantain chips. Although I never touch greasy food, this is a treat and I eat it. And then I go fully Cuban transnational and order a Materva—to hell with avoiding caffeine and sugar. The sun comes out above the clouds and I am blinded by the light. My chest feels tight, and I wonder if it is the unhealthy snack and drink. But what seeps into my body and invades my throat is something else: nostalgia and remembrance. The pilot announces we are close but the clouds are thick, and it starts to rain. Liquid drops outside match the tears inside of me, and we descend into a gray afternoon at the Aeropuerto Internacional José Martí. I am back on the land where my life started, on a galaxy far, far away, on a lone island in the sky. I see misty green fields and we touch land, and the haze engulfs me… After almost an hour and a half on the tarmac, the guagua finally arrives, and we finally pass immigration controls. It is, by now, the evening. In the city, at the Paladar San Cristóbal antique clocks tick away the hours and a waiter tells us that Beyoncé ate dinner there. We are served regally, ending the meal with a shot of rare añejo rum and a cigar (yes, for the ladies too). As we drive back to the Hotel Nacional, I feel profoundly foreign in this city space, and at the same time deeply familiar with almost every level of experience. I begin to realize that this island will forever be my homeland, but it is no longer my country. Cuba siempre será mi patria, pero ya no es mi país.
Day 2
Old and new friends hug me tight and kiss me and tell me how much they love me. This is so Cuban, like calling anyone you meet “mi amor,” and it is both a cultural ritual and a heartfelt gesture. I walk or ride Cuban taxis, drink coffee, visit places and people, hold hands with loved ones, and share meals with them and learn that they always boil their tap water and are careful to tell me about it. Some women I know do not have to stand in line for grocery shopping because they pay someone to do it for them, and their home internet connection is painfully slow and undependable (dial-up connections, no less, the kind I haven’t seen or heard in twenty years). I ride in a 1937 Chevrolet sedan beautifully reconstructed, down to the velvet seats, and the young driver tells me he is dying to get out of the country. There’s no future for him here, he says. Ironically, his grandfather was American and his last name is Ford. Later, at the home of cultural officials, I recall the young man’s words, but I want to be careful with what I say—they are so welcoming that I forget we think differently… Then A dear friend makes a delicious flan for me at her home in La Víbora, and I have seconds. And thirds! I am offered homemade pineapple juice and frituritas de malanga (even though I try to avoid fried things, these delicate shredded taro root balls are too tempting, reminding me of my grandmother’s cooking: someone later tells me they are the appetizer du jour at many places). Y mucho jugo de guayaba, much guava juice (unsweetened!) everywhere: cafeterias, hotels, private homes. I am seeing pink already.
Day 3
Marilin, licenciada en letras, a university graduate in the humanities who serves as our guide at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, describes the different Cuban “emigrations” while speaking about pictorial symbols in the work of Pedro Pablo Oliva (boat and ship sails, in abstract representations of Cubans who leave the island). “We used to throw eggs at the people who wanted to leave,” she whispers. I wonder at the language of accommodation that is used in Cuba to refer to those of us who are gone, exiled, the subjects of diaspora. I wonder, too, at the “nicer” images constructed to speak of aggressive acts of repudiation organized against those who planned to leave, especially during the Mariel exodus of 1980. I then wander off to the rooms devoted to Wifredo Lam, Amelia Peláez, Carlos Enríquez and René Portocarrero. The presence of these master painters always enthralls me, but seeing “in person” again La silla, Pez, El rapto de las mulatas and Paisaje de La Habana proves to be too much, and emotion takes over. My chest tightens and my eyes well up. I try to figure out why, and can only come up with vague reasons: pride in Cuban art and talent throughout the years, disbelief and wonder at the realization that so many of the masterpieces painted by these modern artists are also not here (like me, like so many of us)? I have seen Lam´s The Jungle at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and one of Portocarrero’s Floras at the Cernuda Gallery in Coral Gables, Florida, and wanted to look at them forever.
Later at the gift shop, a small miracle takes place: after years of searching to no avail, I find a good print of Gitana tropical by Víctor Manuel—my heart rejoices. I will be able to look daily at that beautiful Cuban face in my Arizona home, where she will adorn the wall in the company of Lam, Mariano Rodríguez, Xavier Cortada, and Zaida del Río.
Day 4
My journey to the island’s past (and to my own also) continues, and the road takes me to the valley of the poets—Matanzas, the Athens of Cuba, as the city is called. We stop at a rest place for el baño and drink piña coladas at the bar, straight from hollowed out pineapples. Musicians play Guantanamera and one invites me to sing with them, while the bongos player asks me, “Usted es cubana, verdad?” You are Cuban, right? I answer yes, with a smile, and ask him back “¿Se me nota?” Can you tell? And he says “La pinta nunca se pierde,” One never loses that [Cuban] look, or resemblance. Imagine, I have spent half my life (or so it seems) answering the question, “Where are you from?” and now here on the island I am asked all the time: Are you Cuban? I smile, because usually this question comes after they address me in English. They seem surprised when I answer in Spanish, and it’s once more my identity that comes to the fore, for this person who has written so much in pursuit of who she is, where her being lies (do my roots show?). Am I still Cuban after more than half a century of being absent from the homeland? Cuban enough to say this is still my patria but not my país? Why does coming up with an answer take so long?
* * *
Matanzas welcomes us. I after the usual tourist walk, part ways to text my daughter in San Francisco from one of the new wifi spots. “Hi Mom!” she replies almost immediately. She asks me to take photos of the spot where I am standing, the Freedom Park or Parque de la Libertad. It looks like Puerto Rico, she says. “Happy Birthday sweetie!” I type next and she sends back a smile like this ☺ (today is the eve of her birthday, but I don’t know if I will get a connection tomorrow).
We continue our trip after lunch, and by the time we arrive in the peninsula that is Varadero the sun is almost down. I am disappointed to see rocks on the beach. At the Meliá hotel, at the peninsula’s easternmost tip, I find myself surrounded by Chinese, French, Italian, and Mexican tourists. Suddenly, this is not Cuba anymore, but a “non-place,” anywhere in the Caribbean, or perhaps on a Pacific island. Global tourism reached my birthplace and is not letting go, only increasing. After a long dinner with my new friends in the tour group, I retire and fall into a deep sleep, with echoes and vibrations of soft jazz coming up from musicians performing on the ground floor of the hotel atrium.
Day 5
Today is the day. I set out on my own to find a place to spread my parents’ ashes. I walk and walk and find a perfect location: a tiny park just south of the hotel gardens, with six royal palms surrounding a stone marker (one of the palms is dead, how symbolic, and the other five bear inscriptions left by lovers). I carefully open the little bag redolent of Indian champa incense, and as I let the ashes fall on the earth around the roots I repeat softly, “Here you are, Dad. Here you are, Mom. Here you are, finally.” I am surprised at how calm I feel at this very moment, with a sense of completion. I take photographs of the place to commemorate the return: my parents left Cuba on September 30th, 1970, and part of their ashes have returned to a final union with Cuban soil on January 8th, 2016, on their beloved granddaughter’s birthday. Rest in peace, mami y papi. You are home again.
My mind is quiet as I walk the gardens but later, as I write these lines, I weep. All those years of missing the land and its people, all that nostalgia and sadness and sorrow for the loss of home and country, it all ends for them today. And I hope it will end for me also, although it won’t be today.
All images by Eliana Rivero.