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!

De libros y un espiritu

Papito was an avid reader and had a library at home. The room was lined in all 4 walls with bookshelves and he had all sorts of books: medical texts, modern and classical literature, a 12-15? volume enciclopedia (it had an entry for tio-abuelo Francisco, hermano de abuelo Antonio) and much more. I don't think he had a copy of the Bible there, though. Both papito and particularly mamita had a bottomless contempt for it and the Church.

At night, if he got home before 8 o'clock (he worked very long days), papito would sometimes sit in the living room by the doors that opened unto the balcony of our second floor apartment to catch cool sea breezes and study medical texts. He would sit on a rocking chair with a book resting on the board made specially for him and wielding a fountain pen to make notes. Sometimes he would retire to his and mamita's bedroom to read while listening to classical music, the only music he liked. As time passed, he became more and more interested in theosophy and read avidly books by Blavatsky, Bailey, Khrishnamurti and others.

Once a week, papito would hold a salon to which usually 12-15 people and even 20+ would come. This displeased the CDR (Comité de Defensa de la Revolución - the local surveillance network) and they politely ordered papito to split the people into 2 groups. Thus, he ended up hosting 2 popular weekly salons.


At first, the primary purpose of the gatherings was to discuss philosophy but, with time, it became theosophy and subjects today termed "New Age". I would hang around sometimes but the topic of white magic, seven rays, El Tibetano, ascended masters, etc. was profoundly boring to me and I would drift back to my bedroom to read.

Occasionally, something interesting happened. One evening, mamita announced that she was seeing un espiritu. This was startling: I had seen mamita exhibit this ability at times (papito only once or twice) but most often she would not declare it openly and publicly. The conversation stopped and, as mamita stared into a particular spot, she described in detail the image of an elderly man: his features, build, height and manner of dress. One detail she reported was the peculiar manner in which the man handled his pocket watch and it was that detail that forced a woman guest to break her silence crying out, pale and fearful, that it was the portrait of her father.

I walked out back to my room as mamita and the woman sorted out why her father had come. Mamita did not know this woman who was attending her first salon that night. The woman had seemed normal, pleasant and her distress had also seemed genuine. By this time, I had frequently witnessed seances and trances but this particular event involving my own mother made me consider for the first time whether espiritus were real. Mamita and papito certainly thought so.

Papito

When I write about papito, one question that comes up immediately is whether I should speak of him in the past or present tense. Is he still alive or has he died? As he would be 86 years old, most likely, he has died.

His name was Fernando and he was born on April 14, 1927 (we share the same day and he shares the same year with mamita) in either Holguin or Bayamo in the province of Oriente. His parents were Antonio and Amalia. Amalia's mother, bisabuela Dora, raised papito just as bisabuela Angela raised mamita. Abuela Amalia rejected papito in the same way that abuela Isabel rejected mamita. Maybe that is why mamita and papito felt attracted to each other when they met at the University of La Habana.


The elderly woman is bisabuela Angela. She stands in back of mamita en la playa de Caibarién.
At that time, he was a slim, good looking medical student specializing in Pathology and she was a slim, beautiful nursing student specializing in the care of premature babies. Papito was a very outgoing, charming ladies' man while mamita, at that time, was very shy. So painfully shy was she that papito nicknamed her "Orillita" (diminutive of "border" or "margin") because of how she would walk bend over, hugging her books to her chest and brushing up against the wall as she went along the University's hallways.

As I heard it, Amalia was a pharmacist and she met Antonio who was a medical sales representative. Antonio was a ladies' man, a philanderer and he understood right away that Amalias was only interested in wealthy men and that the only way to bed her was to wed her. So he succeeded in making her belief that he was wealthy then he proposed and she accepted. After the honeymoon, she found out the truth and immediately divorced him but she was already pregnant.

Papito, as an infant, was a failure-to-thrive baby which is a nebulous label for a healthy baby that starts dying because of lack of maternal care and warmth. (Love is indeed life.) One of the many life-threatening events that happened to him as a baby is that someone (Amalia most likely - I can't recall) gave him injections that became infected and, as a result, his buttocks became necrotic and he almost died. Papito grew up with hollows where most people have roundness. Thankfully, one way or another, he survived.

As the story goes, when he was 3 years old, he was having lunch with Amalia and Dora when he accidentally knocked over a glass of milk. Amalia flew into a rage and started beating papito. By the time Dora got Amalia away from him, he was unconscious and almost lifeless. That day, Dora took papito away from Amalia and he lived with her until she died some years later. But, at least for a while, he was loved and sheltered.

Papito dearly loved Dora as the abuela that raised him tenderly. But, all his life, he continued to love Amalia with a love that was entwined with sadness and pain because, usually, we don't stop loving our mothers even when they are sadists.

Shell shocked

Growing up with someone(s) whose mind, through great suffering or genetics, has become misshapen and distorted is like living in a war zone or living through a never-ending earthquake. You never know when the next crack will appear underfoot or the wall will come crashing on you. When the bomb will explode next to you or the bullet whiz by your head. A child - let's say a girl - may think that she is the cause of the war or the earthquakes and that, if she is really good all the badness may stop. But then, this implies that she is bad, very bad for she is living through hell.

You grow up shell-shocked and dissociated or, as it is popularly called, "moody". Dissociation is confusing, like living in the House of Mirrors at the fair. You may be happy and, without nothing changing in your environment, a few minutes later, you may be plunged into darkest despair. You may find yourself in a room or store and not remember how you got there or why. You may find clothing in your closet that you don't recall buying. People know you but you don't know who they are. You may endure, most days, tremendous psychical pain that makes you wish longingly for death as a relief, a rest.

It is genetic, a hereditary trait and, in its own odd way, it is also a gift, a means of staying alive under pressure/stress that the self finds unbearable. It is unbearable so there is a fracture of the self and, if the pressure continues, another and another. Those that don't dissociate may end up with permanent personality distortions or commit suicide (experts think that a small albeit significant percent of childhood accidents are actually suicides).

Unlike other psychiatric illnesses, dissociation can be treated and the person healed. It does take an awful lot of self-examination, of stamina, of determination but it can be done (I made these sculpeys during this time). It is not easy to confront that which shattered you; it means going through the agony again. Most importantly, it takes forgiving and not hating those that have harmed you because hate is a great lead weight that keeps you stuck in that Hell.

Mamita went through this too but I don't know if she found her way out. One night when she called me (we talked 2-3 times a week), I told her that the therapist had told me that I had PTSD and was dissociated. (Post Traumatic Stress Sydrome is the new label for Shelled-Shocked, a term used widely during World War I).

In a soft confiding voice, she told me that she was also dissociated, that she had become unstable during the last few years of abuela's life (abuela had become unable to take care of herself). She told me that she had wanted to keep it hidden and had gone for therapy somewhere around or North of Pompano Beach ( I can'r recall clearly); that she had been receiving therapy several times a week and medication. The purpose was to keep her functional so that she could continue her life apparently alright and continue taking care of abuela. That night, mamita told me that her diagnosis was DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). I can't recall if she realized that DID was the current label for Multiple Personality Disorder. And things for me finally clicked in place as to the way she had behaved since I was a child.

Mamita told me that night about finding herself recently in the parking lot of a shopping mall - no idea of how she got there or why - and of how frightening it was. We talked about all the disorientation and confusion that came along with dissociation and all the fast scrambling one had to do to cover up and try to explain one's behavior. We talked like friends - sometimes we could do that - and, the conversation ended, we hanged up.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. It was mamita but now her voice was harsh, very angry but familiar to me. The first thing I heard after answering was "What did SHE tell you??" I realized that a part of her that was my friend had confessed the DID. This other part, a dominant and angry part of her, was seething because the secret of the existence of a system of parts had been revealed. It was after this revelation that mamita's dominant-hostile part told me that she would no longer talk to me. And so it was for years until, right before her death, her part that was my friend phoned to say Good-bye.

Light and shadows

Growing up, I liked mi abuela. She was a well dressed, elegant woman who always smelled of Guerlain's Eau de Cologne and Shalimar. Even when she was young - I heard from mamita and others such as her cousin Graciela recently - that other women admired how she always managed to be neat and stylish and even wear heels in an environment where most other women would be plain and in flats.

I learned to admire abuela also. I heard about how hard working she was and about her great business acumen. Married to abuelo, a field worker, abuela worked as a seamstress and then, by a stroke of luck, became a landowner: she won a lottery ticket and bought la finca "Aguacate". Abuelo put a lot of sweat into making la finca "Aguacate" productive. People admired him for being a very hard working man and also for putting up patiently with abuela's domineering ways and her periodic abandonment of abuelo and the children en la finca for weeks at a time to visit relatives in town. I think abuelo simply loved her all his life.

The story goes that, with time, they saved money and invested wisely. By the time I was 4 (1959), she owned the 3 story apartment building en la Calle I, in El Vedado, a prized location (abuela owned another building in the area but I don't know where it was). Abuela lived in the top apt. with abuelo and, since it was very large, she - always the business woman - rented out several rooms to 4-5 med students. She cleaned and cooked for everyone while continuing to work as a seamstress.

I remember meeting abuela when I was 4 and we had returned to live in La Habana. I liked how she called me "Cacho" because, as she laughingly said when I asked "Why?", I was a "cachito de su corazón". I loved her softness and nice smell when I hugged and kissed her soft, sagging cheek. Abuela loved being kissed and hugged unlike mamita.

Mamita would say that she only wanted to be kissed by papito, a man; that anything else was revolting and "lesbiano" even if it was me kissing her cheek. I don't know with certitude what shaped mamita so but, as a child, I knew about lesbians for we had a lesbian couple as neighbors and mamita abhorred them. So, I taught myself not to hug or kiss her and, instead, I kissed and hugged abuela.

Years later, in my late teens or early 20's, mamita changed and wanted hugs and kisses. I did it to make her happy but, by then, I had been shaped into feeling that it was somehow "lesbian" as it related to her. Happily, I think mamita got lots of warm kisses and hugs because she became "abuela". I wouldn't be surprised if sus nietos even heard her call them "Cachito de mi corazón!".

That Day at the Park

That day at the park, I remember that Neni and I had to stop playing and come sit on a bench. There we are, in shorts and wearing our "patanes". That was how Neni, when he was learning to talk, called "zapatos" and it remained a word we used jokingly in the family for many years.



There is a man in profile in this photo that may be tio Orlando. (Notice the little girl next to me. I'm so glad mamita preferred shorts! Who can play in frilly dresses and patent leather shoes?!)



So it may be that tio Orlando had come to visit from the U.S. and wanted to take photos of us. Tio Orland had worked in La Habana for Joe Ellys the Merryl Lynch CEO but, in 1956, he moved to New York to work for the multimillionaires Harold and Shirley Leviton. Working in NY would have put a camera within his reach (at the time, I don't think cameras were abundant at all) either by receiving it from the Levitons or because buying a camera in NY would have been cheaper than one imported and bought in Cuba.

(The Leviton's were very generous to tio Orlando and tia Esperanza, who also worked for them starting in 1957. One generous act, for example, was that when Shirley found out that tia was not able to conceive, she paid for tia Esperanza to be treated by very expensive specialists; the result was primo Gregory. Due to her health, tia - 81 years old - finally retired in February-March of this year. She stayed, for as long as she could, to take care of Shirley who has Alzheimer's .)

This is primo Gregory with tia Esperanza, his wife Cindy and his children Lindsey and Lukas.
(Back to that day at the park.) Watched by abuelo, I had been playing but don't remember at what. It could have been anything: 2 year old babies think it's fun to look at a blade of grass (thinking about it ... I still think it is interesting!). But I do remember that I was confused as to why I was being called to sit on the bench. Neni had been playing an exciting game of cowboys and indians with 4-5 other boys brandishing pearl-handled revolvers that made noise. He was unhappy that he had to stop while his friends continued playing nearby.

I remember that because of the distraction caused by the photographer, I was able to get a hold of the pearl-handled revolver. I didn't know what a revolver was for but I found out that it made a handy hammer so I proceeded to start banging it with gusto on the concrete. In retrospect, I'm glad someone came and took it away from me because I'm sure I would have broken Neni's pearl-handled revolver. But then, what are little sisters for?

As you wish

"As you wish"
Westley in Princess Bride

This is me at 4 months old. Two months later we moved to Santa Clara.

When we had moved to Santa Clara (I was a year or younger), abuelo would spend time with us in Santa Clara and he would spend that time being my nanny. During those years, Neni (my brother) and I had also a young nanny, Olivia, but I only remember mi abuelo.

As mamita told it, we would spend a great part of the day at the park. I would wear only shorts (mamita believed in children having a lot of sun) and my white orthopedic boots (an attempt to correct flat feet). I was also chubby: I think that, because mamita had gone through scarcity and even a famine as a child, Ofelia, la cocinera, made for Neni and me a child's equivalent of abuelo's daily feast.

One thing I cherished about abuelo is that I could rely on him; he was my friend.

I loved the swings and he would obediently take me when I wished. One day, as he pushed me, he started teaching me how to move my legs to swing myself. Oh, how triumphant and exhilarated I felt as I arched toward the sky on my own!

Abuelo also quelled my anxiety over death. I became obsessed with death ("What is death??" - I must have overheard a conversation) and abuelo - moved by my pleas - started taking me to the morgue where papito worked. We checked the freezers unsuccessfully several days until, one day, when he opened the bottom freezer, there was a body. I asked him to slide the body out and peered at a white-haired man, peacefully resting, dressed in a suit with a panama hat resting on his chest. Anxiety drained out of me: death was peaceful like sleep. Hand in hand, my question answered, abuelo led me out of the morgue.

Another day, as we rested on a park bench outside the church, we silently watched people walking in to attend Mass. Abuelo had quite a reputation as a prankster (I found out much later) and he turned to me and asked me if I would sneak into the church, slide under the pews all the way to the altar and spring up as the priest stood nearby; then run fast out of the church. I think now that he not only wanted a disruption of Mass but also to cause mayhem: if startled by me, the priest would have dropped the host ... I shudder thinking of it.

Wanting to please abuelo, I sneaked into the solemn church and slid all the way to the front pew. I could see the priest's shoes and I slid forward a bit more and glanced up his body. As I looked up at the priest, fear gripped me. Much faster than in the way in, I slid back out. Still frightened, I ran to abuelo who waited for me on the bench. He said nothing about my failure and I loved him even more for that.

All that is hidden will be revealed

"There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. There is nothing kept secret that will not come to light." - Mk 4:22

The story is that abuelo started courting abuela when she was a budding 14 year old and he was 24. They kept it hidden from her father, Abelardo (abuelo's uncle) because he would have objected strongly to an early marriage. As abuela told it, they had chastely waited for her to turn 17 and then, with great-grandfather Abelardo's blessing, she had married her 27 year old sweetheart. Two years later their first son, tio Orlando had been born.

There it was in the marriage certificate I held in my hand today as I chatted with tia Esperanza about them: married November 20, 1922. I also had abuela's birth certificate - born January 8, 1902 - and abuelo's - born November 26, 1891. But, wait! She was 20 years old not 17 and he was just 6 days shy of turning 31. What the ...? Senility? Not possible. Abuela had told me this same story several times while in her 60's and her mind was sharp as a tack. "Oh, well - I thought - there is a mystery here lost in time."

But then, a niggling thought prompted me to ask: "When was tio Orlando born?". Tia Esperanza, his wife of 52 years, rattled off the date immediately: "March 31, 1921". I laughed with glee - "We've got them!". A lie had been dispelled and the secret revealed.

Abuelo and abuela had waited for her to turn 17 before consummating their passion. Hence, abuela spoke of "marrying" at 17. Records suggest that both lived in La Carolina, a tiny village east of Remedios, and in that small village world, "arrimarse" (slang for cohabiting) is common. Why did they wait for baby Orlando to be almost 2 before marrying? I suppose it did not matter to the people around them, including her father, and the months passed as they continued working and living until an opportune moment presented itself to go to Remedios' City Hall to get married.

Abuela had given me a glossy picture but the raw, real stuff of which life is made was revealed and with it a vital piece in a puzzle which has made many other pieces fall into place. A clearer picture emerged of the world abuela and abuelo lived in, the world that shaped them and through them, their descendents. It is a picture of the illiterate or poorly educated campesino who lives always precariously, dreading drought and flood, pestilence and famine. A world where death is always visible as is sex and where there is little privacy and girls are disposable. The picture revealed is also of them being endearingly human and fallible.

Humorously, I also find that I have this in common with abuela: I lived with my husband for 2 years before we married and I, too, count our marriage as starting when we moved together, not when the papers were signed. "De tal palo tal astilla!".

Love at 14

When I was 11, I remember being surprised to see a girl that looked almost as young as me but with a big pregnant belly. She was a pretty 16 year old relative of papito who was pregnant with her 3rd child and ill due to her youth and assembly-line pregnancies. She had married at 13 or 14 and that - papito said sadly - was common for girls in rural Oriente, papito's home province.

Tia also married for the first time when she was 14 years old. A pretty brunette (I've seen the photos), tia lived in a very isolated, rugged mountainous region in Cuba's south with 7 other siblings and her mom and dad. One day, a man who had a finca a distance away showed up and asked for her hand in marriage. Tia's mom and dad approved of the match and left it to the 14 year old to decide. As tia tells it, this man was not only refreshingly new to look at, but good looking to boot and she readily agreed to marry him.

Once back at his finca, though, the bloom of the marriage withered in the pigsty (I have no idea if you've ever been near a pigsty but it is the foulest smell imaginable; it has a pungency all its own). It was there, among the pigs, in the mud and stench and oinking of the pigs, that tia's new husband wanted to make love to her. For 2-3 months, she endured sex in the company of pigs then tia ran away; she ran away alone, at 14, as far away as she could. Not home to her parents for he would have come for her but to ... but that's a whole different story.

Ramón

Ramón was abuelo's dad, my great-grandfather and he married Indalecia, his cousin.

For at least 3 generations (the ones that abuela remembered plus her own), cousins intermarried which (FYI) may have contributed quirks and/or gifts to the family gene pool. Did they live in the Cuban equivalent of the West Virginia hollers? Some lived in the rural area around Remedios but others lived in town. The records show there were plenty of other people around but they also indicate that the Spanish settlers preferred those who came from the same area or city as themselves.

After Indalecia's death in the re-concentration camp, Ramón married Nemesia. Ramón ended up with 11 children: 9 tall, strapping men and 2 women. Just one short of the 12 tribes, he was indeed a family patriarch and seemingly a good man because the only thing that is told of him is his tragicomic death.

There he was walking along the street in Remedios. A father, grandfather and great-grandfather and a healthy man at the very venerable age of 106. 106 and healthy!! And there comes a man riding Lizzie down the street. This man had just gotten his first Ford Model T, had hopped into it and, as the Ford ad said "Foot it'n go!" (reason why Cubans call the jallopies "fotingo"), he footed it and went riding the streets of Remedios. When he came upon Ramón crossing the street, the fotingo man could not figure out how to brake. It is told that he desperately tried - indeed! the importance of good user interface - but slapstick became tragedy.

As it is told, no one in the family, including abuelo and his siblings, held a grudge against fotingo man. What they did is mourn Ramón and tell the tale of his slapstick death which now has been told again.

Lizzie

The Model T was mass produced between 1908-1927. The reality is that, for many years after the appearance of cars, there were no driving schools or traffic signs. In Habana, for example, about 20-30 years after the introduction of the car in 1898, there were still only 2 traffic lights.

The Model T had 3 pedals: to control the gears, to go backwards and to brake. You could have a fourth pedal installed to accelerate. There were two hand levers : one to control gas flow so as to speed up or slow down the car and the other lever was a handbrake. Because of the combination of inexperienced drivers and the number of pedals and levers of the Model T, it became the butt of a lot of black humour.

The Ford Model T became a star in silent slapstick movies and later in talkies endearingly known as "Tin Lizzie" or just plain Lizzie. I grew up watching cartoons and movies in which the appearance of Lizzie was almost a sure sign of slapstick and hilarity. Lizzie starred with the Keystone Cops and many others such as Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd and Charles Chaplin. Much of the slapstick involved Lizzie as a runaway car or drivers who could not distinguish among the pedals and went backwards instead of forwards or had no idea of how to break and pedestrians had to sprint away from the car or where mowed down. Of course, in the movies they got up again.

Babe Ruth is the second customer of the madcap taxista.

This slapstick image of Lizzie is imprinted on those of us who grew up watching the old movies. Recently, I was talking with Graciela, a cousin of mamita (Olga) and niece of abuelo who lives in Florida. She is 85 years old and was wondering whether she would live long enough for us to see each other. I bucked her up by saying: "You know how long lived we are! - remember Ramón?". "Yes, that's true - then she added with a sigh - pobre Ramón!" And after a pause, we both burst out laughing.

Next: Ramón.