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.