“Dad!” I called. I was too scared to move. I shouted again. “Daddy!”
Francisco appeared with his shirt off and a clean one in his hands. “What is it?” He looked scared too.
“Is Carmelita going to stay here?”
“That’s what you were shouting about? You gave me a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed and put on the shirt, buttoning it. “Yes. She’s going to be with us from now on. But we’ll talk about that in the morning.”
“No. I mean, is she going out with you?”
“Of course not. You think I would leave you alone in the hotel? Is that the kind of father you think I am?”
I was ashamed. After all, he had never left me, he had been driven out of the country by death threats, and stayed away to fight against imperialism. “No,” I mumbled.
“You know,” he said in a soft voice, “I took a chance coming to the States to get you. I could have been arrested and had my passport taken away. But I didn’t care because I wanted you with me.”
Think of what he had risked to come get me, I scolded myself. I was very ashamed. I lowered my eyes to the tails of his laundered white Brooks Brothers shirt. Maybe I didn’t deserve such a good Daddy.
“I kept it, Daddy. And I never told.”
“What?” He moved to me and lifted my chin. “I can’t understand you. What did you say?”
I was crying as I talked and the tears garbled what I said. “I have your secret letter. I know it was supposed to be destroyed but I kept it. Mommy was angry, I think.” Once I started crying it was hard to stop, although I no longer felt bad. I sobbed, became aware of my father’s mounting upset as he nervously tried to soothe me and tell him what was wrong, all the while feeling better beneath the tears.
[Note the cyclical testing of whether the father truly cares, characteristic of a battered child. Although no violence is present here, the emotional blows are similar. There is need for attention at any cost, even if it is painful.]
Carmelita returned while I struggled to stop weeping. She spoke softly to my father, shut the door and unloaded my sandwich from a red mesh shopping tote. She spread the wrapping paper on the tiny, almost doll-sized night table, and put my food on it while I calmed down. She watched us and rubbed her stomach gently with her right hand. I looked at her round contented face. She smiled at me lovingly.
“Now, what were you trying to say about a secret?” my father asked.
I took out my Indian wallet and gave him his letter.
To my surprise, when he unfolded the yellow paper’s deep creases and read the first few lines of his handwriting, he frowned from lack of recognition. That lasted for only a moment before the shock and horror at what he was reading came into his bright eyes. He broke off to stare at me as if I were something he was afraid of.
I was surprised at that reaction; and yet I wasn’t.
[My unconscious knew exactly what was going on. What marvels we are: seeing when we are blind and blinded when we see.]
I stammered fearfully. “I never told, Daddy! I was a good Communist. I never told.”
Carmelita said, “Comunista?” She was baffled and looked to my father for an explanation.
I ran to Francisco and pushed my way into him, past the letter. I called to his astonished, paralyzed face. “I kept the secret, Daddy. I was good.”
He pulled my head to him. “I’m sorry, Rafe.” The tone of his apology wasn’t to a child. The use of my more American-sounding diminutive is an indication of the closed gap between our ages. He was a huge man hugging a nine-year-old but his tone was man to man. “I’ve failed you. I don’t know how you can forgive me.”
“I love you, Daddy,” I wept into his starched shirt, ruining it for his important dinner.
“I can’t… Not now.” He moved me off him and spoke in a rapid Spanish, way too fast for me to comprehend, to Carmelita. In moments, I found myself in her arms, pressed against her hot and swollen chest, smelling garlic that somehow clung to the rough fabric of her blouse.
Francisco left. He came back in about half an hour. By then Carmelita had coaxed me to eat my sandwich. She spoke to me in Spanish about everything, with a cheerful and welcoming smile, but without any helpful dumbshow gestures.
“Feeling better?” my father asked and didn’t wait for an answer. He had finished dressing in a charcoal gray pin-striped Brooks Brothers suit. Carmelita exclaimed over him. He smiled and accepted the touch of her admiration — she stroked his hair and straightened his tie — while saying to me, “We’ll talk about that letter tomorrow. We’ve got a lot to discuss. That was a scary time and I shouldn’t’ve written the things I did. You don’t have to worry about any of that. Okay?”
“It’s not a secret?”
“It’s better, in this country and in the United States, not to talk about being a Communist. And you should know, that I’m not a member of the Communist Party. I haven’t been for seven years. Nor was your mother.”
“No?” I felt relief. I wanted to clap; but I knew that wouldn’t have been right either.
“I support Fidel.”
“Un fidelista!” Carmelita said as if she were announcing the arrival of a circus.
Francisco smiled at her and continued to me, “I support Fidel. But you don’t have to keep that a secret. Not even here. Okay? We’ll talk about it all tomorrow.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“You’ll be all right with Carmelita. Go to sleep and we’ll talk about everything in the morning.”
“Would you ask her to stay here until I fall asleep?”
“Sure.” Francisco spoke to her in Spanish. She nodded as if that were a matter of course. My father reached for my nose and squeezed it between his index and middle fingers. The pinch hurt: it cleared my sinuses and made my eyes tear.
“You’re a good boy,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Daddy,” I said and meant it. I didn’t really understand how supporting Fidel was different from being a Communist. And I didn’t know why you could talk about it in a Nazi-like country. And I was afraid to think about Carmelita’s status (although, of course, my unconscious understood perfectly) but I was thrilled not to be a Communist. It was like having an abscessed tooth pulled — the pulsing infection drained quickly and the aching pain disappeared.
Later, I found the letter, the misunderstood document of my secret mission that I had hidden for so long, underneath my narrow bed when I pulled off the bedspread. Apparently, my father had dropped it during my fit of tears and it had floated underneath. Carmelita was out of the room doing something. I hadn’t understood what she said before she went; she returned right away with a chair and a book for her to read while I went to sleep. I thought about giving the letter to her for my father, but decided I would do that myself when we had our discussion in the morning — the explanation of all the things that had happened and were to happen. I returned the letter to my Indian wallet and put that under the pension’s uncomfortably flat pillow.
Carmelita read; I watched her. She noticed me after a while, lowered her book, and began to sing. It wasn’t a lullaby and it wasn’t a folk song. The tune was cheerful and the lyrics said something about mangos and boats. She laughed when she got to the end. “Entiendes?” she asked. I shook my head no. She came over and kissed me on the forehead. Her lips left a wet impression and I smelled garlic.