Read an Excerpt
Tropical Secrets
Holocaust Refugees in Cuba
By Margarita Engle Henry Holt and Company
Copyright © 2009 Margarita Engle
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1981-4
CHAPTER 1
JUNE 1939
DANIEL
Last year in Berlin,
on the Night of Crystal,
my grandfather was killed
while I held his hand.
The shattered glass
of a thousand windows
turned into the salty liquid
of tears.
How can hatred have
such a beautiful name?
Crystal should be clear,
but on that dark night
the glass of broken windows
did not glitter.
Nothing could be seen
through the haze
of pain.
DANIEL
My parents are musicians —
poor people, not rich.
They had only enough money
for one ticket to flee Germany,
where Jewish families like ours
are disappearing
during nights
of crushed glass.
My parents chose to save me
instead of saving themselves,
so now, here I am, alone
on a German ship
stranded in Havana Harbor,
halfway around
the huge world.
Thousands of other Jewish refugees
stand all around me
on the deck of the ship,
waiting for refuge.
DANIEL
First, the ship sailed
to New York,
and then Canada,
but we were turned away
at every harbor.
If Cuba does not
allow us to land,
will we be sent back
to Germany's
shattered nights?
With blurry eyes
and an aching head,
I force myself to believe
that Cuba will help us
and that someday
I will find my parents
and we will be a family
once again.
PALOMA
One more ship
waits in the harbor,
one ship among so many,
all filled with sad strangers
waiting for permission to land
here in Cuba.
Our island must seem
like such a peaceful resting place
on the way to safety.
I stand in a crowd
on the docks, wondering why
all these ships
have been turned away
from the United States
and Canada.
DANIEL
One of the German sailors
sees me gazing
over the ship's railing
at the sunny island
with its crowded docks
where strangers stand
gazing back at us.
The sailor calls me
an evil name —
then he spits in my face —
but I am too frightened
to wipe away
the thick, liquid hatred.
So I cling to the railing
in silence,
with spit on my forehead.
I am thirteen, a young man,
but today I feel
like a baby seagull
with a broken beak.
DANIEL
This tropical heat
is a weight in the sky
crushing my breath,
but I will not remove
my winter coat or my fur hat
or the itchy wool scarf
my mother knitted
or the gloves my father gave me
to keep my hands warm
so that we could all
play music together
someday, in the Golden Land
called New York.
If I remove
my warm clothes,
someone might steal them,
along with my fading
stubborn dream
of somehow reaching the city
where my parents promised
to find me
beside a glowing door
at the base of a statue
called Liberty,
in a city
with seasons of snow
just like home.
PALOMA
My father's secrets
torment me.
Almost every evening
I hear him whispering plans
as he dines and drinks
with other officials,
the ones who decide
what will happen
to all the sad people
on their patient boats.
Last night
I heard my father say
that all these refugees
from faraway places
are making him rich.
I heard him bickering
with his friends
about the price they will charge
for permission to come ashore
and find refuge
in Cuba.
DANIEL
The only riches I have ever known
are the sounds of pianos, flutes, and violins,
so when the German sailors on this ship
keep telling me that I am rich
and that I should pay them
to stop spitting in my face,
I feel like laughing and crying
at the same time.
I have only a few coins
sewn into a secret place
inside my heavy, itchy coat,
but my parents warned me
that I will need
that little bit of money
no matter where I end up,
so I must let the sailors spit.
I keep telling myself
that if I ever reach New York
or any other safe place
I will look back on this day
of heat and humiliation
and none of it will matter
as long as I am free
to play music
and to believe
that I still have a family
somewhere.
PALOMA
When I overhear my father's secrets,
I understand —
any ship turned away from Cuba
will have no place to go,
no safe place on earth.
Those ships will return
to Germany,
where all the refugees
will suddenly be homeless
and helpless
in their own homeland.
My father thinks it is funny,
a clever trick
the way he sells visas
to enter our small island nation
and then decides
whether the people
who buy the visas
will actually be allowed
to land.
DANIEL
Land!
Solid ground,
the firmness of earth
beneath my shoes,
even if it is just a filthy street
crowded with beggars
wearing strange costumes
and people
of all different colors
mixed up together,
as if God had poured out
a bunch of leftover paints
after making brown rocks
and beige sand....
PALOMA
Drumming ...
someone is drumming
on our front door. ...
It's the sound of a vendor
knocking at the door
and singing in Spanish
with his raspy Russian accent,
singing about cold, sweet ice cream,
vanilla in a chocolate shell,
like some sort of odd sea creature
from the far north.
Papá would be furious
if he knew that I am a friend
of the old man who sells ice cream
door to door.
Papá would be angry
not only because Davíd
is poor and foreign
but also because he is Jewish,
a refugee who came to Cuba
from the Ukraine
long ago.
I open the door
and greet Davíd.
I buy the cold treat quietly —
whispering is a skill I have learned
by watching my father
make his secret deals.
PALOMA
The next singing vendor
who comes along
is a Chinese man selling herbs
and red ribbons to ward off
the evil eye.
I buy one strand of protection
for each of my long black braids
and a third for the dovecote,
my castlelike tower
in our huge, forested garden —
the tower where I feed my winged friends,
wild doves who come and go as they please,
gentle friends, not captives in cages.
Even bright ribbons and cold ice cream
are not enough to make me feel
like an ordinary twelve-year-old girl.
I feel like a fairy-tale princess
cursed with deadly secrets
that must be kept silent.
DANIEL
Hundreds of refugees
crowd into the central courtyard —
an open patio at the heart
of an oddly shaped Cuban house.
I am not accustomed to buildings
with trees and flowers at the center
and a view of open sky
right in the middle of the house
where one would expect to find
a stone fireplace
and sturdy brick walls.
Brown-skinned Cubans
and a red-haired American Quaker woman
take turns trying to give me
new clothes made of cotton,
but I refuse to take off
my thick winter coat.
I find it almost impossible
to believe that I will ever
see my parents again,
but at the same time
I secretly remember
their dream
of being reunited
in a cold, glowing city.
I don't see how I can survive
without that tiny sliver of hope,
my imaginary snow.
DANIEL
A friendly old man
gives me one ice-cream bar
after another.
He says he had to flee Russia
long ago, just as I have fled Germany.
He tells me he understands how I feel —
I am certain that no one
could ever understand,
but he speaks Yiddish
so I shower him with questions.
He tells me his name is David
and that over the years
he has grown used to hearing his name
pronounced the Spanish way — Davíd,
with an accent on the second syllable,
like the sound of a musical burst
at the end.
I promise myself that I will never
let anyone change the rhythm
of my name.
DANIEL
Two days later, I am still wearing
my heavy coat.
The old ice-cream man tells me
that I will have to stay here in hot, sweaty
Hotel Cuba,
so I might as well remove
my uncomfortable clothing.
It takes me a while to figure out
that David is joking.
I am not really in a hotel
but in some sort of strange
makeshift shelter for refugees.
The ice cream is charity,
my melting breakfast
and messy dinner.
DANIEL
A girl with olive skin and green eyes
helps David pass out festive plates
of saffron-yellow rice
and soupy black beans.
The girl has wavy red ribbons
woven into her thick black braids.
She glances at me, and I glare back,
trying to tell her to leave me alone.
The meal is strange, but after two days
of ice cream, hot food tastes good
even in this sweltering
tropical weather.
My coat is folded up beside me.
I am finally wearing cotton clothing,
cool and comfortable,
a shirt and pants donated
by strangers.
What choice do I have?
I still cling to my dream
of a family reunion
in snowy New York,
but in the meantime, here I am
in the sweaty tropics,
struggling to breathe humid air
that feels as thick as the steam
from a pot of my mother's
fragrant tea.
DANIEL
The girl asks me questions
in Spanish
while the ice-cream man translates
into Yiddish.
Back and forth we go,
passing words from one language
to another,
and none of them are my own
native tongue, Berlin's familiar
German.
Still, I am grateful
that Jews in Europe
all share Yiddish,
the language of people
who have had to flee
from one land to another
more than once.
DAVID
I am glad that I have plenty
of ice cream and advice
to give away
because what else can I offer
to all these frightened people
who are just beginning to understand
what it means
to be a refugee
without a home?
DANIEL
David says that removing my coat
was the first step
and accepting strange food
was the second.
Now, he wants me to plunge
into the ocean.
Others are doing it —
all around me, refugees wade
into the island's warm
turquoise sea.
David insists that I must learn
how to swim, if I want to cool off
on hot days.
He speaks to me with his hands dancing
and his voice musical, just like the islanders
who sound like chattering
wild birds.
I find the old man's company
comforting in some ways
and troubling in others.
He is still Russian, still Jewish,
but he talks like a completely
new sort of person,
one without memories
to treasure.
DANIEL
The city of Havana is never quiet.
Sleep is impossible — there are always
the drums of passing footsteps
and the horns of traffic
and choirs of dogs barking;
an orchestra of vendors singing
and neighbors laughing
and children fighting. ...
Today, when I ventured out by myself,
one beggar sang to me
and another handed me a poem
in a language I cannot read,
and there was an old woman
who cursed me because I could not
give her a coin.
Some words can be understood
without knowing
the language.
I lie awake, hour after hour,
remembering the old woman's anger
along with my own.
DANIEL
Perhaps it is true,
as my father used to say,
that languages
do not matter as much
to musicians
as to other people.
My grandfather was always
able to communicate
with violinists from other countries
by playing the violin,
and when a French pianist
visited our house, my parents spoke
to him with sonatas,
and when an Italian cellist
asked me a question,
I answered him
with my flute.
DANIEL
All I want to do is lose myself
in dreams of home,
but the Cuban girl who brings food
keeps asking me questions
in Spanish.
I try to silence her
by drumming my hands
against the trunks of trees and vines
in the courtyard
of this crazy,
noisy shelter.
My impatient rhythm is answered
by cicadas and crickets.
If I could speak Spanish,
I would remind the girl
that I am not here in Cuba
by choice.
I have nothing to say
to any stranger who treats me
like a normal person
with a family
and a home.
DANIEL
Weeks at sea
introduced me to a new
kind of music,
endless and constant,
sung by a voice of air and water,
a voice of nature so enormous
that it can be ridden by humans
in tiny vessels —
our huge ships as small as toys
from the point of view
of an ocean wave.
There was also the music
of moaning masses —
babies shrieking, mothers weeping,
and sailors howling
wolflike
as they sang
their hideous
Nazi songs.
DANIEL
The girl gives me an orange.
I cannot bring myself to eat it
because, at home, oranges
are precious.
One orange was a treasure
in Germany, in winter.
My mother would place the golden fruit
at the center of our dining-room table,
and we would gather around
to gaze and marvel,
inhaling the fragrance
of warm climates
like that of the Holy Land.
DANIEL
The orange in my hand
looks like a sun
and smells like heaven.
I cannot believe my ears
when David tells me to peel
the radiant fruit
and eat all the juicy sections
by myself.
He says there are so many
oranges in Cuba
that I can eat my fill every day
for the rest of my life.
I glare at David,
hoping he will see
that I am different.
I am not like him.
I have no intention
of giving up hope.
I will not spend my life
here in Cuba
with strangers.
I close my fist
around the orange,
refusing to swallow
anything so sacred.
PALOMA
Germans were in my house last night.
Not refugees, but the other Germans,
the ones who cause all the trouble
that forces refugees to flee.
Papá made me stay in my room.
He sent all the servants home early.
He did not whisper
but spoke in his loud, laughing voice,
the one he uses when he knows
that he is getting rich.
I sneaked onto the stairway
and heard a few fragments
of the German visitors' plan,
something about showing the world
that even a small tropical island like Cuba
wants nothing to do
with helping Jews.
EL GORDO
Business is business.
Why should I care
about Nazis or Jews?
I find money for my fat wallet
any way I can.
Business is busyness.
A busy life wards off the evil eye
of sadness.
My daughter knows nothing
about business or evil eyes.
She's just a child
who hides in a tower
with wild doves.
DAVID
The radio and magazines
are filled with hateful lies.
Cuba's newspaper pages are covered
with ugly cartoons about Jews.
Where do the lies come from —
who dreams up the insults
that make ordinary people
sound like beasts
and feel like sheep
in a forest
of wolves?
DANIEL
Today, a ship
left Havana Harbor.
Desperate relatives
of the people on the ship
rowed out in small boats,
calling up to the decks
where their loved ones
leaned over the railings,
reaching. ...
One man hurled himself
overboard.
Was he trying
to drown himself,
or was he hoping
that he could somehow
swim to shore?
I picture the German sailors
laughing, and spitting in faces
while they point to the posters of Hitler
in the dining room.
I feel the terror
of the refugees
as they realize
that they are being sent back
to Europe.
DANIEL
Where will the ship go?
What will happen to refugees
who find no refuge?
I cannot bring myself
to imagine the fate
of all those people,
all the children
who traveled alone
just as I did.
Each time I try to picture
my own future,
I feel just as helpless
as the children
on the ship.
Will those children
ever find
a home?
DANIEL
I stand in a crowd
on the docks,
watching the ship
as it grows smaller
and vanishes
over the horizon.
There is nothing to do now,
nothing but drumming
on the earth
with my feet
and pounding out a rhythm
in the air
with my fingers.
I feel so powerless.
All I can do
is talk to the sky
with my hands
and wonder how
any country
can turn a ship away,
knowing that it is filled
with human beings
searching for something
as simple
as hope.
PALOMA
What would my father do
if he knew that I am one
of many young Cuban volunteers
who help los Cuáqueros, the Quakers
from North America
who come here to Cuba
to care for the refugees,
offering food
and shelter?
Which would bother my father more —
knowing that I am helping Jews
or seeing me in the company
of Protestants?
DANIEL
The green-eyed girl
turns her face away
when she serves our meals
of yellow rice
and black beans.
I cannot tell
whether she is sad
or ashamed.
David explains that Paloma
is not her true name.
She is really María Dolores,
"Mary of Sorrows,"
but everyone calls her Paloma, "the Dove"
because she often hides
in a tower
in her garden,
a tower built
as a home
for wild birds.
No one seems to know
why she feels
the need
to hide.
PALOMA
I sneak out
of my room
at night.
I creep through
the garden, and up
into the dovecote.
I sleep
surrounded
by wings.
EL GORDO
Paloma is not my daughter.
My child is María Dolores.
Paloma is just a fantasy name
the girl dreamed up
to help herself forget
her mother's treachery.
Until my wife ran away
with a foreigner, our daughter
was content to live in a house
instead of a dovecote.
DANIEL
I rest in the open patio,
a crazy place shared
with so many
other refugees.
I am getting used to sleeping
in a house filled with strangers
and trees.
I am not the only young person
unlucky enough to end up alone
in this crowd.
The nights are as hot as the days.
Glowing insects flash like flames,
and a pale green moth
the size of my hand
floats above my head
like a ghost.
Sometimes I feel
like a ghost
myself.
DANIEL
Tonight, I cannot sleep.
I listen to the chirping
of tree frogs
and the clacking beaks
of wild parrots
and music, always music,
the rhythms of rattling maracas
and goatskin drums
even here, in the city,
where one would expect
to hear only sirens, buses,
and the radios of neighbors
broadcasting news
about Germany.
Sometimes I wish
I was not learning Spanish
so easily — then I would not
understand all the lies
about Jews.
PALOMA
In the morning
I walk past the brightly
painted houses of Havana —
lime green, canary yellow,
and sapphire blue.
The houses
look like songbirds.
I picture them rising
up into the sky
and fluttering away.
With each step
I ask myself questions.
What would Papá be like
if my mother had not
sailed away
with a dancing man
from Paris?
Is she still there?
Did she marry the dancer?
Do they have children?
Are there brothers and sisters
who ask questions about me?
I do not ask myself anything
about the start of a war
in Europe — I do not want to know
if my mother
is dead.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Tropical Secrets by Margarita Engle. Copyright © 2009 Margarita Engle. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
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