Later on another woman come ask me to help with the food so I do that. More rice and beans. And after that I lean up by a standpipe and wash the pots and plates as they get pile up next to me and I pass them on to the woman that drying and stacking. She called Aida and she look as African as me.
When she see me staring at her she say, ‘Santiago was the first city in Cuba to get African slaves.’
I so surprised I just say to her, ‘Yu speak English.’
‘My people come from Jamaica little time back.’
We carry on with the dishes and then she say, ‘Plenty French here as well after the slave uprising in Haiti. So Santiago different from other towns in Cuba. More mix.’ She stop. ‘But there is one thing that all of Cuba shares.’ And then she straighten herself up like she about to salute the national flag. ‘The island will sink into the sea before the Cuban people let ourselves be slaves to anyone. That is Señor Fidel Castro.’ And she tek the cloth and start drying the dishes again.
At the end of the day I go back to another sleepless night even though I so tired, not from the work but from the bumpy road and the airless heat. Next day, same thing. But this time it don’t seem so hard. Maybe I getting used to it. Or maybe I starting to see the good all of this is doing because even though I cyan hardly talk to anybody I can look. And what I see is pride. They have overcome. And if education and revolution are the same thing as Rodolfo say, then the pencil in these children’s hand is like the stick under their arm.
When we get back from the mountain I tek a shower and put on a fresh housecoat to cool down and relax. Matilde say me and Sybil must come out front on the veranda where we can see the sun set. And just as we sitting there I notice Rodolfo standing at the gate talking to a man. A man with beautiful hair. Hair that dark and full, but short and cultured. Hair that bouncy and soft. And when he turn ’round his eyes catch me and they are laughing and gentle. The kindest eyes I have ever seen.
I say to Matilde, ‘Who is that?’
‘Rodolfo’s cousin.’ And she stop, so I just carry on look at her ’til she say, ‘Ernesto Sánchez.’
And just as I turn my head I see him look at me and say something to Rodolfo, and I catch a hint of the Spanish faint on the breeze. So I say to Sybil, ‘What did he say?’
‘He said, “Who is that?”’
I sit there thinking that maybe when he finish talking he will tek a stroll up the path, but he don’t. He just shake Rodolfo hand and wave, the smallest little now-yu-see-me, now-yu-don’t wave of the hand, and then he turn and walk off.
‘He fought you know, Ernesto, alongside Fidel and Che up in the mountains. Both he and Rodolfo.’
Next morning Rodolfo tell us that Ernesto coming to dinner that evening. And from that moment on what a state my mind is in. All through the lesson, and the pots and plates, and the sticks that are shooting bullets, and the cries for ‘Homeland’, and the bumping down the mountain road, all I can think about is that hair and those eyes.
When I reach the house I go straight in the shower and come out and put on something nice, not that I got anything really presentable with me, but I have a blue skirt and a white blouse with some frill down the front and I reckon that will do. I fix up my face with the little something I bring, and even as I am putting on the lipstick I am wondering what the hell it is I think I am doing. How can I be acting this way over a man I don’t even know? Me, a woman with a child and the history I got.
It so obvious the way I going on Sybil say to me, ‘Yu sure yu know what yu doing?’
‘What it look like?’
‘You know what it look like. It look like what it is.’ And she narrow her eyes at me. ‘Just think before yu leap that is all I am saying.’
When Ernesto show up he is wearing green army trousers and shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and black army boots. Completely different from how he was the day before in the pants and sport shirt. But even so, what is still the same is the hair so soft and the eyes that sparkle.
I am awkward and clumsy and don’t know what has come over me. I am like a schoolgirl who dunno what to do with herself. Not that there is much for me to do or say. Matilde busy-busy doing everything and insisting that we sit there at the table and ‘make conversation’, but what conversation am I making when I can’t understand a word of Spanish? Every now and again Sybil join in or Ernesto give some translation, like, ‘Fidel says, “When men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can keep them isolated”.’ Or, ‘Che Guevara say, “We should defend the right of all peoples to achieve their liberty”.’
This is all they talk about. The revolution. And when Matilde lean in my ear to whisper, she say the only English Ernesto know is to quote Fidel and Che. That is all he knows to do.
But that is not all Ernesto is doing. He is also looking. He is looking and he is smiling. And when it come time to clear the table he jump up quick and say to Matilde that me and him going do it. So we clear and wash the dishes standing side by side at the sink while he taking care to make sure he nuh touch me. Not even by accident.
When we finish he say, ‘It is a beautiful country, Cuba.’ But I don’t say nothing to him. So he say, ‘You will have some time before you go to see a little of it.’
‘I will?’
‘Yes, I already asked Rodolfo.’ He pause and then he say, ‘And your friend too. Of course.’
So I think quoting Fidel and Che not the only English you know after all.
That night when I go to bed my mind is churning. Half a me so eager to be with him it frighten me. The other half telling me I am a stupid old woman. Ernesto got to be ten years younger than me if not more. What would a man like that want with a woman like me? And even if his interest not just to show me this country he love so much, what is the point of all of this when I going back to Jamaica in two weeks?
Sybil don’t say nothing ’bout it. Maybe she reckon she already say her piece. What she do instead is lay in the darkness every night and tell me how things would be different in Jamaica if we had unity like the Cubans. And I say, ‘And hope. The same hope that carry these people ’cross this mountain every day to sit hour after hour trying to read and write and learn.’
Halfway through the week Ernesto come early one morning. He exchange few words with Rodolfo and then put us in his little army jeep and drive to Cementerio Santa Ifigenia to see where José Martí buried. Ernesto say José Martí is the Apostle of Cuban Independence and he always quoting from him. He love José Martí for what he say about oppression and justice. And for his poetry as well. Poems about love and liberty and compassion. Like he say Martí write:
I have a white rose to tend
I give it to the true friend
And to the cruel one
For him, too, I have a white rose.
Ernesto say every Cuban is a revolutionary and a poet. And every ten minutes there is something else from Martí or Fidel or Che that he got to tell us. That is Ernesto. Sybil just sit there in the back a the jeep or walk slowly behind. But she nuh say nothing. I guess she reckon she know what going on and it got nothing to do with her.
We drive into Santiago where Ernesto say is home to the two most important landmarks of the revolution, Moncada garrison and La Granjita Siboney. He park the jeep because he want to walk us to the cathedral. So we wander down and down past some streets that got the house right on the narrow cobble road with no yard or nothing. Just a concrete step at the door and a little balcony upstairs to hang out your washing. That is it. Spanish. Spanish like the adventurers and merchants and conquerors that been flocking to this island since Christopher Columbus, sauntering free and easy along to the sound of that same song that is coming at you from every direction because that is the only tune anybody want to play. ‘Guantanamera’. So it nuh surprise me when Ernesto tell me the words a the song based on poems by José Martí. That would figure.
When we finally get down to Parque Céspedes the cathedral is beautiful with the columns out front and the two towers with the dome roof and the statue of the angel in the middle. I ask Ernesto if we going to go inside but he say no, it too cold and dark. Instead, we going sit on the balcony of the Hotel Casa Granda and admire the cathedral from over there. We climb the steps and reach the balcony where we overlooking the park with the men sitting under the shady trees playing dominoes and slapping the tiles on the table just the same way they do it in Jamaica. Hard and loud. And what else I can hear is the man and his guitar playing ‘Guantanamera’, singing like he doing it for a sweetheart that sitting right there in front of him.
Ernesto order three mojitos. He say we got to try it because it a national drink of Cuba. So I say, ‘Jamaica the one that mek rum. Yu nuh know that?’
And he say, ‘Cuba make run. Cuban rum is the best rum in the world. Just like Cuban coffee.’
So I laugh, ‘No man, Jamaican coffee is the best coffee in the world. There is no arguing over that.’
‘You come taste my coffee and you decide which you think better.’
It turn out Ernesto is the supervisor at some big coffee plantation in the hills above Santiago. And it also turn out the mojito good. It sweet and refreshing and it got a good kick.
We sit up there on the balcony drinking down a second mojito and me remembering the time in Club Havana that Clifton Brown offer me one and I order some Appleton instead. When we ready to go I ask Ernesto if there is any public telephone I can use to call Jamaica. And he say yes and walk us ’round the corner to the general telephone company.
Esther tell me all about what she been doing at school and how she and Auntie been baking cakes and playing cards and reading books together. She sound happy. Auntie in good spirits too. I relieved. But a little part of me also envious. Envious of the time they sharing together, and how is seem like they nuh miss me. When I finishing the call I say to Esther, ‘I love yu.’ And she say, ‘I love you too Mommy but I have to go now. Talk to you soon.’
Next day we back up the mountain. And I really start notice the little ones and think how all of this is going to change their lives. Not just because they learning to read and write but because their mothers learning too, which going give them different opportunities and so the children going have different experiences and different choices. And I start to wonder how Esther’s life would have been different if I had made some different choices. Like the choices I made over Barrington and going to Kingston, and moving in with Sybil and Beryl, and Henry, and Pao, and Morrison and the card club. With each turn putting myself further and further out of reach of the kind of life a normal person supposed to have. Further and further into a place of no return.
Then I think ’bout Marcia and how her life been shaped by the choices I made. And me, my life, how that would have been if Auntie had kept me with her in Kingston. But none of that I will ever know. Yet what is for certain is that the lives of these people, young and old, up in these mountains going to be something it would never have been without Fidel Castro and his revolution. A revolution that is in the soul of each and every one of them every time they quoting from him or shouting
Patria o muerte!
Ernesto come at the weekend to take us to the Gran Piedra from where he say you can see Jamaica on a clear day. Me and Sybil get in the jeep and he drive. Everywhere you go yu see billboards that in Jamaica would say ‘Milo’ or ‘Craven A’ or ‘Tide’, but here they say ‘
¡
Viva el Socialismo Cubano!
’ and ‘
Unidad, firmeza y victoria
’ and ‘
Las banderas de la revolución y el socialismo no se entregan sin combatir
’.
All along the way to the Gran Piedra there are monuments by the roadside to fallen heroes of the revolution with their names and occupations carved on boulders. And every single one a these Ernesto is eager to point out and tell us about.
1,234 metres. That is how high this thing is. And to get to it you have to climb 454 steps.
I say, ‘No man, yu joking. I not going up a thing like that, I would be dead before I reach.’
But he say, ‘We can do it. We just take our time.’
So the progress slow and then halfway up it start to rain. It come down so fast and heavy that in no time at all the water was running like a river down the steps.
‘There is a boulder up ahead. We can shelter.’ So we follow him and even though it just tek a little while by the time we get there we are soaked, our clothes sticking to us like paste.
And standing there so close to him under the overhanging rock I notice the muscle ’cross his chest and arms. Not bulky like Pao’s man Hampton, just firm and strong and sort of deliberate. His arms look like they have intention. I just stand there, letting the rain fall with half of me hoping it soon stop, and the other half wishing it never stop, ever.
But even though I tugging inside the rain stop anyway and Ernesto say we can make it to the top. Up there, the sun is shining bright as any Jamaican day. Brighter than sometimes after an afternoon rain because the light got a sheen to it. Like it reflecting off a giant crystal somewhere in the sky. The view, if you nuh care too much ’bout the buzzards circling you, truly take your breath away. But Jamaica on a clear day? Maybe not. More likely the lights on a clear night. And still, I nuh care. Me, I can see Jamaica.