Sunday, 2nd of April

Here we are, you and I, alone together. Forever. Or until these pages are filled with my handwriting. You are my first diary. Papi gave you to me this morning, before he left for the countryside. "For my studious daughter," he said. (That's me.) He had tears in his eyes when he said this, and his square chin quivered.

He gave Ileana, who, at sixteen, is three years older than I, a beautiful tortoiseshell compact with face powder, and for our younger sister, Ana María, a small rag doll with embroidered eyes and yarn for hair. I do not know if he got anything for Pepito because my brother was drafted into the army last fall. Our gifts are treasures in these rationed times, so I thanked him with many hugs and kisses. I did not want to cry in front of him because that would make him feel worse, so I tried to concentrate on his thick, black mustache.

Papi must work in the fields, harvesting coffee, so we can leave Cuba. The government assigns all the heads of households to la agricultura before a family can emigrate. Working the fields can be backbreaking toil under terrible conditions, especially for men like my father who are city folk and know nothing about farming. But what else can he do? Like everyone who requests permission to leave the country, he was fired from his job. We have had to depend on our savings and the generosity of family. Some do not even have that to fall back on. "All in all," Mami keeps reminding us, "we have been lucky."

We do not know exactly when we will be allowed to travel, but Papi has already been told that our exit permits and U.S. visas are being processed. When the paperwork is complete, we will board an airplane for Miami, to join my father's brother and his family. My paternal grandparents, Abuelo Tony and Abuela María, are there, too. We will be gone only a short time, Papi said, until the political situation improves here on the island. To prove she believes this, Mami had her long brown hair, which she liked to wear in a chignon, cut short like a boy's. She will grow it back only after we return. She has offered this as a sacrifice to Our Lady of Charity in hopes that our stay in the United States will not be long.

Tuesday, 4th of April

Ana Mari came home crying because other pupils in her school are calling her gusana. Everyone calls the Cuban exiles in Miami "worms," and since we will soon be going there, they insult us in that way, too. Those who know we have applied to leave the country think we are turncoats because we are abandoning the revolution and fleeing to the imperialist yanquis in the north. Papi says we must leave because the government has made indoctrination more important than the study of mathematics and grammar. Two years ago, when Ana Mari was entering kindergarten, the teacher asked her class if they believed God existed. Ana Mari and a few other students said yes, and were told to close their eyes and ask God for a piece of candy. When they opened their eyes, their hands were empty. Then the teacher asked them to close their eyes again and ask Fidel Castro, leader of the revolution, for candy. When they did, the teacher placed a piece of candy in each of the outstretched hands. "There is no God," the teacher told the class. "There is only Fidel."

Oh, Papi was angry when he heard that! He got so red in the face. I think that is when he decided we could not continue living here.

April is the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs battle, when a group of exiles, with the help of the United States, tried to attack Cuba but failed. In Ana Mari's first grade book, there is a poem titled "Girón" that talks about the invasion. "One time, in April," it says, "the Yankees attacked us. They sent a lot of bad people. They wanted to destroy the free Cuba. The people defeated them. Fidel led the fight."

We hear stories like this all the time in school, and my parents worry that the government is trying to poison our minds. Mami and Papi tell us not to believe everything we hear in the classroom because it is Communist propaganda. The only way to get away from this is to leave our home, yet I am scared. I am scared of a strange place, a strange language, a strange people. I am scared of leaving my friends behind, and my maternal grandparents, and my brother. When will we see them again?

Thursday, 6th of April

Tío Camilo came into town from his farm in Matanzas and brought us all kinds of fresh fruit, a big ham, and a pork leg. Mami immediately hid whatever she could in the freezer and kissed and hugged her older brother as if he were one of the Three Kings bearing gifts on the Epiphany. In a way, I guess he is. It is impossible to find the food he brought us in any of the stores of the city. He also risked being thrown in jail for transporting these goods without government approval. But Tío Camilo doesn't seem to mind the danger. When Mami warned him to be careful, he told her, "Sister, under this government we must get approval to breathe. What am I to do? Suffocate?"

He complained that Fidel Castro had sworn to the people that his revolution was as Cuban as the palm trees. "Ha! Ha!" he laughed. "With all those Russians crawling around, no? This revolution is more like a guava fruit-green on the outside and red on the inside."

Saturday, 8th of April

You would not believe what happened when I was waiting in line with Mami for our soap ration. She had heard from a neighbor, who heard it from her cousin's mother-in-law, that a shipment had arrived, so off we went at dawn. By the time we got there, there was already a long line, but we waited anyway. And waited. And waited. The day was hot and people were acting nasty. A fight broke out between two men ahead of us, but nobody tried to stop it because no one wanted to lose their place in line. Some people were cheering the tall skinny man, but I thought the fat, bald one was getting in more punches. As the men began to circle around each other, an old lady behind us screamed. It was a scream to make your hair stand on end.

Mami and I turned around and saw an old man in a yellow guayabera shirt lying on the street in a crumpled heap. The fat man and the skinny one stopped fighting, and people began to call out for a doctor. Finally a young woman broke through the ranks and identified herself as a medical worker in a lab. She bent over the man and pressed her fingers to his wrist. She said he was dead. We all sighed, but nobody moved. My mother's hands were shaking and her face was white. She ordered me to face the front and stop staring, but when she wasn't watching, I sneaked some peeks at the dead man. As the line moved, the people behind us simply stepped over him. Eventually two men in blue uniforms came with a stretcher and carried him away.

By the time it was our turn, the government store had already run out of soap. We wasted all that time, and now I cannot get the image of the dead man out of my mind. How horrible to die that way, without family or friends around you, waiting in line for some stupid rationed soap.