Sin nombre

Marseille today In July - August of 1968, mamita and I lived with abuela Amalia for 3 weeks after arriving in Miami from Cuba. Surprisingly, considering her history with mamita and papito, she gave us temporary refuge. The new relationship did not last long. Months later, we found out that abuela was calling relatives and friends accusing mamita and I of putting poison in her breakfast juice during the time we lad lived with her. I heard it directly from abuela Amalia, too, without abuela knowing that I was there.

One day, I asked papito to tell me about su mamá, mi abuela Amalia Lussón y Lussón. As he told me, abuela Amalia's ancestors were from the South of France, Marseille, who had migrated to the island of Haiti (Santo Domingo was formed later). There the family had owned a plantation and had become wealthy using slave labor as all plantation owners did.

Because my Lussón ancestors were colonialists in Haiti, they escaped dealing with the French Revolution of 1789; however, they were caught up in the Haitian revolution instead. During the Haitian revolution (1791-1804), whites were massacred and, as a result, the period 1800-1809 saw an influx of about 27000 Haitian French - Amalia's family among them - into Santiago de Cuba, a town in the easternmost part of the island and the seat of Spanish colonial power at the time.

The French and Franco-Haitian émigrés were a great economic engine that revved up Santiago into a commercial center. Unfortunately for them, France and Spain went to war and most of the French were expulsed from Cuba (many moved to Louisiana) in 1810 but my Lussón relatives were among those that were allowed to stay in Cuba. Time passed by, the family did well and, among other things, opened up a pharmacy, a business that was highly valued because it brought in medicines to the area. Years later, both abuela Amalia and papito as a child worked in this pharmacy.

Santiago de Cuba La mamá de Amalia, bisabuela Teodora (Dora to all who knew her), was born into this economically comfortable and respected family that remembered its recent privileged times as plantation owners. But Dora shamed the family when she became the mistress of the scion of a very wealthy and aristocratic family in Santiago de Cuba. Dora bored him two bastard daughters and Amalia was one of them. Being a bastard at no time has been an easy matter (that is why "bastard" is still an insult in our times) but, in addition, Amalia's dad did not recognize his daughters. Officially then, Dora's daughters were recognized by a relative, Emilio Lussón, and so the girls had to endure being "Lussón y Lussón". (In contrast, abuelo Antonio bestowed his apellido on all his bastards; he registered 19 sons and daughters before dying in his late 40's of diabetes. But maybeit is easier when one is neither wealthy nor famous.)

Papito told me the name of Amalia's father, mi bisabuelo, but I can't remember his full name except he was an Aguilera or Aguilar. At the time papito told me, a little over a decade ago, I looked it up on the internet and to my astonishment, the family was a well known, aristocratic and very wealthy family in Spain. And then , it really sank in, how we - Amalia Lussón y Lussón's branch of the family - represented the skeletons in that family's closet.

Abuela Amalia y mi tia abuela (la hermana de Amalia) were shaped differently by the circumstances of their birth. As I heard it, abuela's dad was married and had legitimate daughters and sons. Hence, bisabuela Dora's daughters grew up sin nombre - shamed as bastards - and seeing their half sisters pampered by wealth and as members of the high society. I also heard that, as latifundistas are wont to do, my nameless bisabuelo had a large mansion on a hill that overlooked Santiago de Cuba so, every day, Amalia and her sister may have looked upon it and be reminded of their father, his wealth and social status.

Besides being a bastard, abuela Amalia was a manic depressive who had psychotic episodes. Maybe these forces - shame, rejection and illness - fueled by her pride were what shaped her into what she became.

Humble people

Today, I've been remembering people that I admire and these are people that despite their greatness are or were humble.

One of the loveliest and humble I've met is Dr. N.T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham. Through persistent, excellent scholarship he has won the recognition he deserves as one of the greatest theologians of our times.

Mainly, though, I've been remembering Barbara McClintock, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1983. The only woman to be awarded the prize all on her own and a perfect example of a woman with guts, con agallas who could shrug off what the world thought of her.

The first time I saw Dr. McClintock, I was buying a snack in the basement of my building at Stony Brook. As I pulled the snack bag out of the machine, a tiny bag lady went by me and headed to the elevators. The basement was a normal route for entering the building and I just thought a mentally unstable bag lady had wandered in. I walked towards the elevator analyzing the simply dressed, elderly woman holding a number of bags in each hand. ("Should I get into the elevator with her?") I stood next to her waiting for the elevator and sipping a drink and, as I glanced at her one more time, I recognized her face. It was McClintock! My heroine! She worked at Cold Spring Harbor Labs (CSHL) and it was known she had a collaboration going with one of the professors. She was carrying those shopping bags because she was bringing specimens from her famous maize collection to show him.

McClintock, a woman scientist as there are or have been very few in the world! In her research, she was decades ahead of her colleagues and, in their incomprehension, they derided her as crazy and incompetent ("Jumping genes, indeed! Harrumph!") It was known locally that at CSHL, her colleague had made her life miserable and had even taken away her work space. Undaunted, she had refurbished an abandoned one-room building in the CSHL grounds and had done her solitary work there for decades, ostracized. And then, her colleagues had caught up with her brilliant mind: they had finally understood her work and she received long overdue recognition for it, including the Nobel Prize.

And yet, here she was still simply dressed, and despite being 81-82 years old, she was coming to her colleague instead of having him drive the 30-40 minutes to CSHL. What a woman!

For a year or two, I got used to seeing McClintock always with her shopping bags. I never said a word to her, just got to ride the elevator with her now and again. But the memory of the humble "bag lady" always warms my heart.

"Over the years I have found that it is difficult if not impossible to bring to consciousness of another person the nature of his tacit assumptions when, by some special experiences, I have been made aware of them. This became painfully evident to me in my attempts during the 1950s to convince geneticists that the action of genes had to be and was controlled. It is now equally painful to recognize the fixity of assumptions that many persons hold on the nature of controlling elements in maize and the manners of their operation. One must await the right time for conceptual change." - Barbara McClintock.

Now, Voyager

On the way to la azotea del Mariban, I had to go past a door. Mamita had told me that a witch lived there and I would stop on the stairs below the door and stare at it, my heart pounding. Then, screwing up my courage, I would ran past it - sped by fear - to burst unto the azotea relieved that once again I had made it past the witch. Later, I learned that mamita told me about the witch to keep me away from that door. Papito, a physician, and mamita, a nurse, cared for wounded rebels in the little room behind it, as part of the rebel underground.

One day, while talking of her troubled relationship with papito, mamita confided to me in a soft and sad voice that she had fallen in love with one of the rebels she had nursed and that he had fallen in love with her, too. He had encompassed all that she found attractive in a man: handsome, courteous, respectful, loving, tender and, most of all, courageous. A true man unlike papito whom she contemptuously labeled a coward.

When the time came for this man to go, he tried persuading mamita to leave with him. She struggled over this but, in the end, decided that for Neni's and my sake she would stay with papito. I was very sad for her because, a decade or more later, there was still longing for him in her face as she spoke of this man; unlike "Now, Voyager", they had not had the stars.

Mamita never revealed his name. Recently, I've been wondering if this rebel's name was Jacobo. And this is why.

I knew when mamita was cheerful because she would call Neni "Jacobo" and she would call me "Teresa". When, once or twice, I asked her why, she laughed and brushed it off. Yesterday, I looked over a list of dead rebels from Las Villas (Caibarien, Remedios and Santa Clara are in that province) and I found a Jacobo. I've been going over lists of names tracing my family's ancestry - reams and reams of names - and I think this is the first time I've seen the name.

Jacobo Cruz Espinosa was born en Caibarien in 1928, one year after mamita. Just like mamita, Jacobo moved from Caibarien to La Habana and became involved in clandestine activities including sabotage. As a result, he had to go into hiding for a long time aided by the people of Caibarien. He came out of hiding to join the rebel forces en Oriente and was part of the forces invading Camaguey. He was killed in the Pino 3 ambush and massacre in Sept. 1958. Mamita and Jacobo had much in common - they were peers based on age, social status and politics - and most likely had met. Caibarien was just a village, a very small town when they both lived there.

Letting my imagination run free, I wonder if Jacobo Cruz Espinosa was the man with whom mamita fell in love and whether if, in those moments when they were together, talking as lovers do, they agreed that their children would have been named Jacobo and Teresa.

Marauders y el tren blindado

Curious about the battle, I found out that the Battle of Santa Clara was "the only major military engagement in the whole Cuban revolution." Source

It's importance lay in that: 1) it showed Batista that he could not stay in power if a ragged band of 300 poorly armed rebels could overcome his most important line of defense outside of La Habana. 2) the weapons captured made Che's men the best armed in the island. Hence, Fidel took over La Habana without a struggle.

One of the first acts of the rebels was capturing el tren blindado. The taking down of the armored train before attacking Santa Clara gave the rebels a large amount of weaponry including anti-aircraft guns.

It follows then that the antiaircraft gun that ended up en la azotea del Mariban was one of those captured in the armored train. (History meets real life to my amazement.)

This source has an exciting story of the battle (starts p. 244). According to it, the planes bombing us is Santa Clara were the Martin B-26 Marauders. The Cuban B-26s were provided by the U.S. - the Batistiano pilots were also U.S. trained. The video shows a bombing raid from the viewpoint of the bomber crew.



At one point in the battle, the Marauders escalated to 500 lb bombs but, luckily, the antiaircraft guns drove them away.

After learning this, I can't any longer view objectively the twisted remains del tren blindado.

La guerra en Santa Clara

As I understand it now, Santa Clara was the plum, the ultimate goal in the center of the island as el Ejercito Rebelde swept towards La Habana. Che Guevara was in charge of the offensive which started in earnest on December 15, 1958. El Che first took Caibarien and Remedios and then aimed for Santa Clara.

In Santa Clara, the Batistianos counted with 2000 men, medium and light tanks and bombers. They set up defensive centers within the town while outside town they had various cuarteles and an armored train. Rebel squads were assigned to go into town and attack the defensive centers, eliminate the nests of snipers en el Teatro Martí y Gran Hotel and create obstacles in the streets to impede the tanks. The attack started on December 28.

The Mariban may be the tall building in this photo.
I remember we lived en el edificio "Mariban". It was a building of many floors con una azotea where I went sometimes. What I remember of the battle is that all the big white metal windows were shuttered and mamita told me to stay on the ground and to move only crawling on my belly. Then there was a lot of climbing stairs up and down depending on whether the tanks or the planes were attacking. After climbing up one time, I remember I sat on a mattress laid on the floor next to a young woman with a very large belly - I think that was the time I became aware of pregnancies. Other women were also there and a man (abuelo?) laid another mattress over us in case the bombs struck our building. I sat there, weighted down by the heavy mattress, hearing the terrifying whistle of bombs falling followed by the explosions and then by relief that it had not blown us up. So much noise: the tanks rolling by and the explosions of their rounds, the loud machine gun fire (later I learned it was a rebel antiaircraft gun) and the regular gunfire. Modeling my new bathing suit en la azotea del Mariban.

One time, there was a lull in the battle. We had been on the floor at home and it must have been for a while because mamita went into the kitchen to make us (papito, Neni, me - I don't remember abuelo there) hot chocolate. As you walked into the kitchen, you faced a counter and the stove was to the right. At both ends of the counter was a window: one window faced the street, the other a shaft. Mamita walked to the counter and soon bullets started coming in through the window. To me it was like machine gun fire but, on hindsight, it must have been a snipper because, otherwise, why sustain that line of fire for so long?

Mamita was trapped against the counter pero no perdió la cabeza. (Tenia agallas mi madre!) She flattened herself against the counter pushing her upper body against the cabinets doing a limbo. I stood transfixed staring at her blanched face as the rounds flew by her belly and then started running towards her screaming terrified: she was in danger. Papito quickly intercepted me and held me back and we stood there staring at mamita: me screaming and him pale and mute. Then I saw mamita slowly, very slowly and carefully sink to the floor still flattening herself as much as possible against the counter, holding her belly in to keep it out of the bullets' path. After a time, thankfully, she made it alive below the path of the bullets and quickly crawled out to us.

After the battle ended, I remember going outside and seeing the holes from the tank rounds in the supporting columns of our building. (I heard later that because of the antiaircraft gun, we had been a target of the tanks and planes.) We walked a bit further than normal and, amazed, I saw sofas, stuff and trash cluttering the street. Walking in the opposite direction, I saw that all the buildings there had been flattened. I learned later that it was were the cuarteles had stood. In Santa Clara's country club. Neni unhappy because he had to pose.

Even after the Batistianos surrendered on January 1, our beautiful black-haired neighbor Olga almost got shot by a persistent sniper while sitting at her vanity table with her back to the window. The bullet came through the window whizzing by her face. It made a hole in the mirror, ricochet, traveled between wall and mirror, hit something so that it came back out through the mirror and embedded itself in the round powder box that rested inches from her waist.

The boys were told to be careful picking cartridges ,etc because there could be live munitions. But, as I saw them animatedly showing off their finds one day, I don't think they listened. Mi hermano Neni has blogged recently about his memories of this war.

Birth en un tibol

Mamita specialized in nursing premature babies and she was very good at it. For several years, she was in charge of a premie floor at a large hospital en La Habana and she consistently achieved a lower mortality rate that even that of the U.S.. She was fierce about keeping the babies alive and her excellent track record led to her appointment as head of nursing of Fidel's flagship children's hospital. (She quit the position after a few years due to disagreements with Fidel and became a housewife.)

When I asked about her interest in premie babies, Mamita told me the story several times of her perilous birth: she was born in a tibol, a premature baby herself, and almost discarded with the feces.

As mamita told me, abuela was seven months pregnant and living en la finca Aguacate with abuelo. One day she needed to go to the toilet and abuela decided to use el tibol instead of going out to the outhouse. Afterwards, the story goes, bisabuela Angela picked up the tibol to empty it and, to her surprise, found there a baby, a tiny premature baby that abuela had delivered unaware.

Bisabuela Angela then took over the premie's care and mamita had spent her first few months nestled for warmth between Angela's old breasts. I asked once why abuela had not taken care of her own baby and the answer was that bisabuela's breasts were more suited to keep the baby warm: mamita would join her hands to indicate this tiny baby that would fit in the palms of the hands and thus would fit in an old woman's cleavage.

I kept this story in mind and believed it until I got older and learned more about babies and placentas. I learned that it is not possible for a woman to deliver a baby unawares unless she is unconscious, in a coma or dead. Abuela could not have thought she had just had a bowel movement because there is the issue of the umbilical cord and the placenta. So abuela must have known that she had delivered a child.

If mamita was left in the tibol, was it because abuela rejected a premature (hence sickly) baby or because it was a girl? (Abuela had a marked preference for boys.) Did Isabel and Angela think that she was dead at first? Why was mamita told that she was such a nothing that she was almost chucked out with the feces? Who told her this tale? Abuela in a brilliant display of cruelty?

Mamita y su hermano Orlando. Remembering the fractious relationship between abuela and mamita, I've even wondered recently whether the premature birth was an attempt at aborting the fetus. Abuela liked to live in town socializing with well to do folks, the cream of society according to mamita's cousin Graciela and maybe she felt that a second baby would further hamper that lifestyle.

As far as I can put it together, both bisabuelas (Angela and Nemesia, but primarily Angela) took care of mamita when she was a baby. Later, as mamita told me, she lived most of the time with her abuela Angela and abuelo Abelardo, both of whom mamita loved deeply. The reason given to me why Angela mothered her and not Isabel was that mamita needed to live in town: she suffered from chronic ear infections that necessitated ready access to physicians unavailable en la finca. For some periods of time, off and on, mamita did live with abuela Isabel en la finca but she would talk mostly of those times with anger etched in her face. But when she talked of Angela, her face softened - "mama Angela" - as mamita called her - had been her shelter and her shield.

Mujeres con agallas

Sometimes I have ran into people - men and women - who speak with bravado. I have also known people who are truly courageous as revealed by their acts. Abuela and mamita were in the latter group: they were mujeres con agallas.

One story about abuela's mettle has to do with Fidel. Abuela and most of our family opposed Batista and were part of the clandestine network that formed around Fidel. Because she had her rooming house near the University of La Habana and all those who lived with her and abuelo were students, she knew Fidel, a law student.

Fidel in his period as a university student.
There came a day when the Batista security forces set out to arrest Fidel who had to go into hiding immediately. In his escape from La Habana, abuela's home became his shelter for one night. He needed to move quickly from one hiding place to another to keep ahead of Batista's men so, after one night at abuela's, he moved on to another haven. But soon after he had left, the Batistianos arrived and searched abuela's apartment. She had pigeon coops in the roof and they also searched there. They searched everything but Fidel was gone. Frustrated and very angry, the head of the Batistianos took abuela with him and 1-2 other men back to her bedroom which was the last bedroom, the large one at the rear of the apartment.

I was a young child and I'm not certain they told me of all that happened to abuela after the Batistianos locked themselves in with her in the bedroom. But they did tell me that the head man held a gun against abuela's belly as he questioned her threatening to kill her, that he beat her and that he pistol whipped her breaking her front teeth. But she did not buckle and she did not give Fidel away.

So I grew up knowing that abuela was flawed - harsh and cruel at times - but I also grew up admiring and respecting her. She, like mamita, was a woman with agallas!