La Americana Read online

  Chapter 26

  The Serb

  A week later I interviewed with the small, British-run company hired by corporations to teach everyday English.

  On the spot, I signed a contract for a twelve-week session during which I would teach bank employees. A congenial woman named Anne was my direct manager and knew that I would go to Cuba for two weeks in June.

  With no formal agenda to follow, I was to begin teaching two times a week the following Tuesday at Citibank, which sat high in the Pest district. Anne guided me through various lesson plans and suggested that I choose two to three exercises to work through per class.

  I was a bit nervous because I didn’t have formal teaching experience.

  That day I was tired and took a tram back to my room to rest. As I approached the staircase, I saw George, who had first helped me at the hostel, smoking one of his many daily cigarettes. Through our brief bits of conversations in the hostel, I learned that he was Serbian. I guessed he was in his mid-thirties. George’s energy was unusual, if not oddly charming, and his features were off-putting: a bulbous, pink nose dominated his face and dark, small eyes were unevenly balanced by ratty facial hair that covered his top lip. His mouth seemed to be in a permanent state of pucker. At night, I imagined, he dreamed of lemons.

  Appropriately, his humor was acerbic, and as a man of few words, I sensed that he only shared his humor with those who would fully appreciate it.

  As I climbed the stairs, I stopped in front of him to say hello. He took a deep drag of his cigarette and flicked into the ashtray sitting on top of the railing.

  In his peculiar, small, Eastern European-Truman Capotesque voice, he accused me of being a spy. I laughed and asked why. Because of the tweed trench coat and matching hat that I wore, he said. He teased me about being a femme fatale in an American novel. He was flirting. However, in the end, he said he knew that I couldn’t be a spy because he could hear my shoes from a mile away.

  We talked about my job interview that day with an English language school and I mentioned that I would go see about a journalist’s position with a local English newspaper the following week.

  “You’re a journalist?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I was a journalist once.”

  “Where? Here?”

  His lemony lips tightened. “No.”

  “In Serbia?” I asked.

  He nodded yes and putted his cigarette out in the ashtray.

  “Why don’t you write now?”

  “I gave it up,” he said as he crossed his arms and leaned back on the staircase. “I don’t even respond to emails anymore.”

  I looked at him, puzzled; he eclipsed my next question.

  “I stupidly made the switch from sports to politics.”

  “And they didn’t like what you were writing?”

  “No.”

  “Did they want you to stop?”

  “They wanted to shoot me.”

  I had never heard anyone say such a thing.

  “Why?”

  “Because I wrote what I saw.”

  I was a little nervous to ponder the subject, but he read my inquisitive eyes.

  “I was a war reporter.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I remained silent and let him continue the conversation as he saw fit. He volunteered that although relative peace had resumed in his country, the chaos and terror would rise again. Over 90 percent of those in office were part of Milosevic’s old crew. It was simply a matter of time.

  “It’s really sad,” he said. “We used to be happy and then one day everything was taken away. No one can do anything. I tried to do something, but …” he shrugged and his words trailed off with no real ending.

  Eerily like the conversation I had with the old man in Havana, who sat in a rocking chair and mourned the loss of his country, I only thought that Luis and this shy intellect from Serbia shared experiences that I could never fully understand.

  And I, the American, who thought she was worldly because she had traveled to a few countries, didn’t really know much about anything.

  Chapter 27

  Breathe, Mel, Breathe

  A daily routine began to form. Every morning I emailed Luis from either the hostel’s one computer or a local café, with our back-and-forth writings full of angst and desperation. My trip planned in mid-June couldn’t come soon enough.

  The rest of the time was spent teaching or visiting the city’s sights with Amy, an English actress who was studying opera for the summer. We met at the hostel and became fast friends. With her, I forced myself to fill the days in productive ways. We consulted our books and the city’s subway map, getting off at local stops and riding the Danube, with my natural sense of curiosity set on low. Nothing inspired me. Nothing excited me, except for the idea of seeing Luis again soon. I knew I had found completeness in a man, yet was too chickenshit to be with him.

  I found it hard to breathe.

  Chapter 28

  Lost in Translation

  May 13, 2002

  No email from Luis. With Internet off-limits to Cubans, Luis slipped a dollar bill to a guy at an office daily so that he could write to me. It was an expensive habit, but one he saw to loyally. It was unusual that he had not written.

  May 14, 2002

  Jimmy Carter spoke to Cubans on live TV from the University of Havana. He was the first American president, past or present, to visit Cuba in forty years. The previous week he had met with Castro to press for human rights and democratic reform while simultaneously asking Bush to end the embargo. News media reports unanimously deemed the effort a failure, though well-intended.

  I wanted to beat my fists on the wall, scream to the gods, but I knew no one would hear me.

  May 15, 2002

  Still no email from Luis. Power could have been out in Cuba, I thought, but for two days? Not normal. I began to worry. To my dismay, I had already set up an appointment that morning to meet an actor looking for an English teacher.

  We met at Eckermann Café on Andrassy and discussed his background in theater, followed by a tour of the neighborhood, which he called “Little Broadway.” Yet, I couldn’t focus, as my mind consistently retreated to Luis. Finally, I was able to excuse myself in a polite way and raced back to an Internet café nearby where I had become a regular.

  There I found a string of emails from Luis, short and lovely.

  One-liners, they read: Estoy enomorado de ti. I am in love with you.

  Te extraño. I miss you.

  Te necesito. I need you.

  In an instant I was relieved. And then sad. What am I doing here? Why am I not with him?

  A fourth email appeared, strikingly different in tone from the others. He wrote that he wanted to marry me, to have children with me, but how could we when we didn’t see each other but every two months?

  I started to shake. In an instant, I slammed into that horrible, frightening place that I had worked so hard to stay away from. This was scary, dead Mom territory. I wanted to throw up.

  He wrote that he didn’t want our relationship to turn enferma, which I translated literally to mean sick or bad. Tears dropped hard as I read in circles. I couldn’t get past that word, enferma. I thought he was writing script about why we weren’t going to make it.

  And there it was, swift and brutal. I was finally forced to recognize what I didn’t want to: I kept moving so not to feel. I ran and I ran, from New York, from Savannah, from the therapist, and finally, from Luis. All I was really doing was running from me.

  There was terror in standing still.

  My life’s shift had been seismic. I had lost, but I also had gained.

  I knew what I needed to do. Go home. Be near Luis and stake a real future. It was my first clear thought in two years. With newfound clarity, it was even more difficult to read Luis’s words. Beyond his concerns, he missed me; he needed to hear my voice. With blurred vision, I collected my things and scurried to the street in search of a phone card subst
antial enough to talk to Luis for ten minutes.

  Afterward, it was a near run to my apartment, which I had moved into a couple of weeks prior. It was only five in the morning in Cuba, but I didn’t care. I had to talk to him. He picked up the phone, groggy. I said I was sorry for calling so early, but I had to teach and I couldn’t wait to talk to him until late afternoon.

  “How are you?” he asked sleepily.

  “I’m not OK,” sobbing uncontrollably. I sputtered: “I got your email. What did you mean by enferma? What are you saying?”

  More sobbing and drooling ensued, followed by me essentially asking the same question to different degrees. Luis tried to break in several times, but I cut him off with more groveling and pleading. All around, it was pretty unpleasant and pitiful. Finally, he squeezed in: “No te preocupes, Mel, no te preocupes.”

  Don’t worry, don’t worry, he said, calmly.

  “Cómo?” I sputtered. “How can I not worry? I just want to leave Hungary and go home. I want to be close to you.”

  “I need you, too, Mel. It’s OK.”

  I collected myself enough to speak in full sentences.

  “Then why did you say that our relationship is becoming enferma?’”

  He explained that he was scared this was becoming an obsession, instead of a real, palatable relationship. That it was making him crazy being separated.

  “Me too,” I said, defeated. “Me too.”

  Luis reassured me that he wanted to be with me, above and beyond anything else. He reminded me that I would be in Cuba in just a couple of weeks and then he started to sing to me again.

  I hung up exhausted, but less erratic. In the afternoon Luis’s sister, Anabel, called me from Italy with reassuring words and asked me not to try not to overanalyze anything. By then, I was calm and clear. I told her that if she could get Luis to Italy, then I would marry him. I wasn’t thinking about a big, white dress. In my mind this was a strategic move to get Luis out of the country. From there we could start a life together somewhere. Anywhere. I even spent some time online looking for teaching posts in Havana, but it quickly became clear that it would be like scaling the Great Wall of China on a winter’s day.

  Just nineteen days to Luis.

  Chapter 29

  Wings of an Angel

  When I called the next day Luis told me that Luisito was going to be in Cuba for several weeks. This would be their first visit together since he’d left almost a year earlier. I was excited and nervous to meet the little guy. Pictures I’d seen in Luis’s house showed a sweet face, though much lighter in tone than either of his parents. His hair was dark blond and his skin appeared to almost resemble mine, minus the freckles. Yet he shared his dad’s intense brown eyes and eyebrows that looked unusually wise for a small boy.

  For the first time in my life, I felt intimidated by a four-year-old. Luis had never introduced any of his girlfriends to his son. What if he didn’t like me? What if he became jealous? I certainly wasn’t going to compete with him.

  As I sat at the computer writing to Luis about my insecurities, I suddenly wilted, wanting only to go to sleep. It was such a strange reaction because I’m usually a people person. But this was something that had happened since my mother had died. The teensiest whiff of vulnerability on my end set off a series of reactions in me beyond my control, leaving me debilitated. It didn’t take much at all, in fact, to set off this reaction.

  Just days before, my new friend Amy and I had watched an exceptional performance of Madame Butterfly at the Opera House. I was into the music and the incredible beauty of the building when out of nowhere my eyes welled, the intimacy of the setting suddenly too much to absorb. In an instant the darkness carried me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

  I looked to my left, several rows in front of us, and there was an elderly man asleep, his blue coat blanketing his torso. His mouth was in a perfect oval and there was Mom, sick in her hospice bed, her mouth in a long O. She was a mummy, petrified wood, and the only sign of life was a gurgle and deep gasping for air.

  I was back in Manhattan on January 9, 2001.

  I was in my apartment when Leanne, my stepsister, called to let me know that the doctors had given my mom two weeks to live. There was nothing more they could do beyond managing the pain.

  Mom asked her if Walter and I knew, but she never told us herself that she was going to die. Leanne instead took the charge and called me herself.

  “OK,” I murmured disoriented, unwilling to organize the words she had just said to me. If I didn’t put them in sequential order, maybe they wouldn’t be true? She suggested I take a leave of absence from work.

  “OK. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know when I’ll be there.”

  I hung up the phone and started to shake uncontrollably. There was an actual earthquake inside me. I was sobbing so hard that drool started to form chandeliers that hung disparately from the sides of my mouth. It hurt so much that I was holding myself in an L position and I couldn’t get the cries out that were cutting me in half. I don’t remember much else that night, only Jacque, Allison, and Susan, another of my dearest friends from high school and a close confidante to my mom, huddled around me in a tepee of support.

  The next morning I went to work around seven or so, and no one was there, except for Margaret. She cried with me and told me that she was proud of me for making the decision to go.

  I tried to tie up a few loose ends, breaking down every few minutes to sit like a folded bag in the bathroom. Helping no one by being there, I got my things together, turned my computer off, and discreetly headed for the door. The walls caved in when Farley, who sat across from me, came over to me to hug me. I started sobbing, almost convulsing, and he helped me out the door. I felt numb, and needles jabbed me from the inside out. Walking on the concrete hurt.

  I called Leanne and told her what train I would take and that I would pick up Mom’s birthday cake. She would turn fifty-three the next day. I walked the long West Side blocks to a boutique grocery store with vibrant fruits and vegetables and ornate bakery. I ordered a small, round cake with cursive, pink letters: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARTI.

  Loaded down, I took a cab to the train station. The ride to Jersey was flooded with tears. Vague memories of Leanne cooking cranberry chicken and wild rice, the cake being brought out to Mom while we sang “Happy Birthday,” are still part of my consciousness, but many of the in-betweens are lost. Yet, Mom’s last ode, out of tune with her family’s crackly voices, while she sat upright on her hospital bed in the middle of the living room, was just about to send me to my breaking point.

  Mom said it was the best birthday she’d ever had. Of course as we all knew it was her last, I thought. We weren’t only celebrating her birthday, but her entire life. She opened gifts, handling the elegant wrapping paper more delicately than she ever had before. It was then that the devil took over. He put his hand out—I didn’t want it—but he latched himself to me. If we all knew she was going to die, why did we buy pajamas she’d never wear? He was laughing at me. Why did we purchase makeup she would never use and books she would never read? Why were we celebrating a life that was about to leave us? Why? Why? Why? Stop! Stop! Stop! My insides screamed.

  I was drowning in guilt for such vile thoughts, but still, they fired at me. Why were we all putting on our happiest faces when we were all buried in our own terrifying notions of life without my mom? I was furious. Everything was a lie. Here we were singing to Mom, who was no longer vying for life, but succumbing to death. I was struggling to breathe and to place myself in a world without her.

  I bathed her for the first time that night. Her stomach was swollen, as if she were eight months pregnant. Her belly button was shut, her ankles full of fluid, three-hundred-pound weights attached to bird legs, knobby knees. Her clavicle pushed bone out and her breasts hung limp, just skin hanging on. Her whole body was tinted a deep, jaundiced yellow. I focused on her face, which winced from the shower water’s pressure.

  I got h
er out quickly and then called to Walter, who carried her back to bed. Lee had set out one of her birthday presents—pink pajamas with three butterflies on the front. With difficulty, we got her into them and slowly lowered her back onto the bed.

  Jim walked in. “Looking hot in your new jammies,” he told Mom, gently touching her hair.

  Big, wide eyes met his. “Are you being facetious?”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “Mom, you look beautiful,” I said.

  She faded to sleep.

  The next day she turned the corner, without asking any of us for permission. No place for words, the next few days and nights were filled with haunting, rhythmic chanting.

  The hospice nurse who came in and out of the house at least once a day told us that we all come into the world making noise so there’s a pretty good chance we’d leave it doing the same. But those cries, they were deep, not human. No mortal could make those sounds. They launched a formal war with my psyche, corroding any trace of innocence left inside me. They blanketed my nights. I tried to rest on the couch in the living room, just feet from her bed, but the moans streaked through the dark like electrical nodes suctioned to my skin.

  Hell, it seemed, had found its way to Morristown.

  Once proud to be her source of comfort at the hospital or entertainment while bored at home, I had now been devoured by my devotion to her. She held on to me in the end the way I had to her as an infant.

  Compartments in my brain began to fail me. I couldn’t focus. My mother’s regimen of medicines looked like notebooks of Chinese manuscripts to me. Lee took over Mom’s daily pill dosage while I could only manage to crawl in bed with her during light hours. I held her hand, played with her hair, and read letters that came in from friends and family who had just learned of the seriousness of her illness. She had become the master of disguising how sick she really was.