Find Me in Havana by Serena Burdick

Author:Serena Burdick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Park Row Books
Published: 2020-10-14T19:30:46+00:00

Chapter Twenty

* * *

They Took Him in the Night

Daughter,

This is not a homecoming: it is a pulverization of memory. My sisters have become women I don’t recognize; they are now mothers with solid identities and rooted habits. When I left Guanajay, Mercedes was a scrawny twelve-year-old who still played with paper dolls, Danita sixteen and self-conscious and angry, Oneila a woman of twenty-two who had not yet fallen in love. Now, the gap in their ages has closed into comfortable comradery. They are full of opinionated ideas and loud laughter, full of contentment with each other.

I do not belong to them or to this house anymore, modernized under the hands of Danita and her husband Sergio. Whole walls have been removed, floors stripped, our great-grandparents’ dark, intricately carved furniture replaced with teak and chrome. Bulbous light fixtures dangle overhead, and shag rugs decorate the floor. It is LA incarnated in Cuba, and the only remaining part I remember is the crumbling, second-story exterior.

Danita, however, is proud of her home. In her immaculate, frilly apron, she leads me from room to room, a manic quality to her movements as she points out each new addition, Eames chairs and Nelson lamps. She desperately wants to impress me, but something weighty is wrought beneath the sheen of her smile. This tour is her crowning glory, and she’s determined to carry it out, never mind the growing restlessness of rebel soldiers armed outside.

By the time we make it to the living room, where we used to sing along to the radio, I am tired of pretending to like the ostentatious home she’s created. The room is swank and cold, and nothing looks comfortable to sit on. Boxy throw pillows are propped in the arms of white tufted chairs, and the sofa, upholstered in pale pink leather, sits off-center from the oval coffee table as if they, too, are distant relatives. Out the window, the ficus tree is the only thing calling to me from the past, its aerial roots still hanging like thickly braided hair from its massive branches.

I watch you, Nina, with Josepha, my sister’s daughter, huddled beneath that same ficus that sheltered my sister and me so long ago. You whisper close as if you’ve known each other your whole lives. From the porch, Mercedes’s and Mamá’s low voices drift in, and I see Oneila walk past under the window to join them.

Danita moves around the room, straightening pillows and brushing down the arms of the chairs with the flat of her hand. Of all my siblings, we are the most alike. Her narrow nose, full lips and wide brown eyes mirror my own. It was just luck that landed me on-screen and not her. This show of domesticity from her feels desperate, her strained movements fearful.

“Danita, what is going on? Why were we escorted home by soldiers?”

She looks up, her eyes hard and glassy. “Escorted? Oh, no, dear sister, you’ve been arrested.” She waves a frantic hand around the room. “House arrest.

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