Outnumbered. Mandi Eizenbaum
Bobo. Pobre Bobo. The guy always had such stupid, rotten luck.
We spent my second-to-last night in Havana together at the beach at Calle 21 y O. Immersed in the dubious celebration, we danced, drank, smoked cigars, and sang all night. The briny aroma of the sea tickled my nostrils and teased my senses; it was a smell I swore I would never forget. Cheap rum, the color of dark amber, burned a hole in my belly and coated my gut. Crowds of people, old and young, locals and tourists, formed around us wanting to join our party, completely unaware of the inner anxiety and fear that truly accompanied Los Cuatro Compadres that night.
I pounded out familiar African rhythms on my conga drum that flowed through my body and out my nubby fingers as naturally as the blood that flowed in my veins. While my palms grew numb and red from beating on the drum, cigar smoke filled my fragile lungs. The physical aches and stings, however, could not stop the party. Nostalgia was wearing me down, and my sadness could be heard in every sad slap of my heavy hands on the tight skin of the drum. Still, I buried my grief and, with a false bravado, continued the celebration.
As the night wore on, the music vibrated in the humid air, and the smell of pungent sweat mixed with the salty sea air, stale cigar smoke, and tangy beer. We didn’t stop the party until the next morning when the sun peeked through the dreamy Caribbean sky. Behind me now was the familiar, soothing “dancing waters” of the Parisien Cabaret. In front of me lay a blurred, hazy horizon beyond a vast ocean of uncertainty.
I had said my final goodbyes to my compadres the night before, and I was spending that last night with my small immediate family—my mother (minus Saul), my grandparents, and my Tía Cecilia (Mamá’s older sister). The five of us gathered in the second floor apartment above my Abuelo’s shoe factory and shuffled nervously around each other. The large and airy apartment seemed unusually crowded and I felt claustrophobic. Abuela called us all to the dining table for what I figured to be our version of ‘the last supper.’ The mounds of food, lovingly prepared by my grandmother as a feast for a king, tasted bland and mushy in my mouth. I have never been able to eat cholent and liver with onions again. What were then my favorite dishes and smells became reminders of loss and sadness.
Tossing and turning in my bed that last night, haunted by dreams and the tiny voice that followed me everywhere, I was as restless as an animal trapped in a circus cage. Alone in my familiar bed, a flood of emotions overtook me; tears gushed like a busted water pipe from my bloodshot eyes and saturated my pillow with pools of sorrow. Over and over, I swore to myself and made fearful promises to my father that I would make him proud of me. With all my might, I hung on to the hope of what was to come. I would not disappear and become a forgotten nobody.
I woke up groggy the next morning, and I staggered out of bed. That was it—my last sunrise in Havana. The air was already damp with the steamy humidity that I had come to love; the sky was a clear blue and the sun was not yet visible above the horizon. I forced myself out of the house before anyone else woke up, despite my pounding headache and the nausea that was bubbling in my stomach. I couldn’t say why, but I felt an urgent impulse to go to the cemetery by the synagogue where my father was buried.
The sun was just beginning to kiss the horizon as I sat at my father’s burial place. Alone, I let myself cry, and I pounded my fists into the stone slab covering my father’s grave. Finally, Papi, I have to leave you here now…but I will always carry you with me. I patted the photo that rested snuggly in the shirt pocket over my racing heart. I got to my feet. I placed a smooth round stone and a shiny kilo on top of the grave marker. I swiped my dirt-covered hand over my cheeks to clear away any traces of tears and attempted to gather all the strength I could muster before returning home. I recited my morning prayers there at the cemetery before turning my back and walking away from my father. I needed the quiet walk home to clear the rest of my head.
Blazing with resentment and dripping now with sweat from the relenting heat of the climbing sun—or was it from tension, or both?—I suddenly felt too young to be cast out of my life and home and too old not to realize what I would be leaving behind.
When I got back to my grandparents’ home, Mamá was there alone on the sidewalk waiting for me, my trunk and conga drum resting at her feet. Silently, I strode up to her and waited—always silent. Our neighbor Pepe had offered to drive me to the airport. “It would save us all the emotional scene at the airport when we had to say our goodbyes,” he had advised us. My whole body shuddered with confusion and anticipation, torn between hope and despair.
Looking up at my bedroom window from the sidewalk for the last time, I noticed the lace curtains shift despite the stillness of the morning air. It was Abuelo looking down at us.
“Make us proud and listen to your Tío Daniel.” My mother’s words brought me back to the sidewalk outside my grandparents’ place. “And for God’s sake, don’t you dare get your uncle angry.” These were the last words I heard my mother call out to me before Pepe pulled up to the curb, quickly put my things in the trunk of his car, and drove us off to the airport.
Poughkeepsie, NY
1958-1962
9
Nobody warned me that flying would be so stressful. The crammed space and the stifling air on the plane was much worse than I ever imagined it would be. From the minute I stepped foot into the airport terminal, I felt suffocated and vulnerable with each tortuous breath I took. The plane cabin closed in on me, and I could just feel the germs settling in my lungs as the other melancholy, sniffling passengers—more soon-to-be exiles—shuffled by my seat.
Ten minutes into my four-hour trip from Havana to New York, the airline attendant took one look at me and crunched up her eyebrows with a show of concern.
“Are you feeling okay, mi hijo?” A motherly smile stretched across her smooth face as she leaned over me and touched my shoulder. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty-three or twenty-four, but she spoke to me as if she were a much older, much wiser, protective mother.
“How long until we get to New York City?” I asked, trying to keep the pooling bile in my stomach from gurgling up past my throat.
“It’s about three and a half hours, hijo. And then you will be in America. You must be very excited.” She was doing her best to calm me down.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” the attendant named Juana asked me again.
“Oy vey,” I mumbled to myself. I wondered how I was going to make it.
“Here. Take this. Hold on to it if you should need it during the flight.” Juana was holding out a small white paper bag and waving it in front of my face.
Embarrassed, I reluctantly accepted the barf-bag from Juana. I held it up in front of my mouth and nose for the next three hours.
Finally, the wheels of the plane touched down, and we were now back on solid ground. The only belongings I brought with me to my new world were an old leather travel trunk and my conga drum. The trunk contained exactly two pairs of new leather shoes, three guayabera shirts, two pairs of cotton pants, my prayer shawl (which Abuelo stuffed in the trunk when he thought I wasn’t paying attention), a new tube of Brylcreem, and my favorite record of Perez Prado’s “Cerezo Rosa.” The old, faded photo of my father on his tricycle and my lucky bolita ticket remained in the breast pocket of my shirt. The one hundred pesos that Abuelo gave me at our last supper was taped securely inside my drum with the rest of my secret savings. A suitcase, a drum, and a couple hundred worthless Cuban pesos were all I had to my name.
The claustrophobic panic of the plane ride took a while to melt away while I waited at the luggage carousel. New York City made Havana look like a backward village in comparison. The bustling movement and confusion, the noise, the smoke and congestion from the traffic, the crowds of people rushing in all different directions, and no sign of the ocean anywhere made me nervous and disoriented. The first impressions of my future were quickly filled with panic and despair. El Jefe was slowly morphing into El Infantil, the baby.
My