Read Online Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) by Luis Gonzalez - Free Book Online
Authors: Luis Gonzalez
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was not RigoI saw or a feeling of love dawning on me. Instead, it was the image of my older sister Pilar and a growing sense of guilt. It was her face flashing before me and an ever-encroaching dread about abandoning her. But why was this striking me now of all times? Why was raw exhilaration being doused by some insidious dusk of doubt? For some reason a flimsy veil of incertitude was trying to cloak me in a partial darkness.
I didn’t know what to make of it, but I wouldn’t give in. I’d be strong and remember Rigo’s words to me earlier: we were committed now, no turning back! Not even a sense of duty toward Pilar could make me retreat. How could I? How could I entertain a scintilla of doubt after what Rigo and I had gone through the last couple of years? Not just us, but my father, my sister—everyone in the family. Yet, as much as we all had suffered during this Special Period, Pilar was all I cared about. The mere thought of leaving her certainly left me feeling wretched and raw, but first thing in the morning Rigo and I were out of there. No turning back!
For the second time that night, tears filled my eyes. This time they did not stage a quick retreat. This time they marched straight down my face. No moving backwards. Not as the last few years in Cuba flashed before my eyes against the backdrop of a bad dream. Not as they unfolded like a giant flashback above a graveyard lit dimly in charcoal and ash. And not as I decided to bring an end to this never-ending wake and discard all the deaths in my life: the hardships, the frustrations, all the tragedies that had visited us.
I pushed back now. I resisted these newly festering qualms and told myself it was all very normal. This dusk of indecision was only natural and would soon begin to disintegrate until it fully dispersed. Miracle or not, whenever anyone arrived at a monumental decision such as this, it was only typical to be plagued by all sorts of second thoughts. By seeds, by shadows, by visitations of doubt. That was all this signified. Under such difficult and trying circumstances, it was perfectly natural to be hampered by and fall prey to and be visited by doubt.
3
visitations
august 14
flashback in the night
T hree days prior, on August 11 when I first mentioned leaving, there had certainly been no doubt.
I thought Rigo would be thrilled by the prospect of fleeing Cuba, even on a homemade raft called the Maloja. He too hated life here and felt dead inside, he just never acknowledged that death openly. He buried it deep within and fed his foolish hope.
But if anyone had legitimate cause for abandoning his homeland, my husband did. All his life he had wanted to be an architect, dreaming of erecting skyscrapers and other towering structures. Even when I was twelve and Rigo was nineteen, when most guys that age spent their free timeplaying baseball or hanging out with friends, I, the neighborhood pest, could find him sketching and illustrating or making schematics of all the fantastic ideas firing off in his head. Science fiction, he used to call the drawings. Rigo intrigued me so, which made it easy to fall in love with him.
He realized his dream of becoming an architect, studying at Cuba’s premiere Instituto de Arquitectura. Rigo possessed such talent that he was the first to be selected for a spot in Havana’s internationally renowned institute and even graduated at the top of his class. My husband showed such promise throughout his studies, and his professors held him in such high esteem, that right before completion of his degree and becoming fully licensed by the state, Rigo was informed of an exciting new project. The Ministry of Economic Development not only wanted him to help design this project, but possibly lead it: a series of new luxury hotels along the beaches of Santa Lucía, Cuba’s pristine archipelago off the northeastern coast of Camagüey.
Rigo reacted in a manner less than thrilled. “Camagüey? But I just got married. Will
I didn’t know what to make of it, but I wouldn’t give in. I’d be strong and remember Rigo’s words to me earlier: we were committed now, no turning back! Not even a sense of duty toward Pilar could make me retreat. How could I? How could I entertain a scintilla of doubt after what Rigo and I had gone through the last couple of years? Not just us, but my father, my sister—everyone in the family. Yet, as much as we all had suffered during this Special Period, Pilar was all I cared about. The mere thought of leaving her certainly left me feeling wretched and raw, but first thing in the morning Rigo and I were out of there. No turning back!
For the second time that night, tears filled my eyes. This time they did not stage a quick retreat. This time they marched straight down my face. No moving backwards. Not as the last few years in Cuba flashed before my eyes against the backdrop of a bad dream. Not as they unfolded like a giant flashback above a graveyard lit dimly in charcoal and ash. And not as I decided to bring an end to this never-ending wake and discard all the deaths in my life: the hardships, the frustrations, all the tragedies that had visited us.
I pushed back now. I resisted these newly festering qualms and told myself it was all very normal. This dusk of indecision was only natural and would soon begin to disintegrate until it fully dispersed. Miracle or not, whenever anyone arrived at a monumental decision such as this, it was only typical to be plagued by all sorts of second thoughts. By seeds, by shadows, by visitations of doubt. That was all this signified. Under such difficult and trying circumstances, it was perfectly natural to be hampered by and fall prey to and be visited by doubt.
3
visitations
august 14
flashback in the night
T hree days prior, on August 11 when I first mentioned leaving, there had certainly been no doubt.
I thought Rigo would be thrilled by the prospect of fleeing Cuba, even on a homemade raft called the Maloja. He too hated life here and felt dead inside, he just never acknowledged that death openly. He buried it deep within and fed his foolish hope.
But if anyone had legitimate cause for abandoning his homeland, my husband did. All his life he had wanted to be an architect, dreaming of erecting skyscrapers and other towering structures. Even when I was twelve and Rigo was nineteen, when most guys that age spent their free timeplaying baseball or hanging out with friends, I, the neighborhood pest, could find him sketching and illustrating or making schematics of all the fantastic ideas firing off in his head. Science fiction, he used to call the drawings. Rigo intrigued me so, which made it easy to fall in love with him.
He realized his dream of becoming an architect, studying at Cuba’s premiere Instituto de Arquitectura. Rigo possessed such talent that he was the first to be selected for a spot in Havana’s internationally renowned institute and even graduated at the top of his class. My husband showed such promise throughout his studies, and his professors held him in such high esteem, that right before completion of his degree and becoming fully licensed by the state, Rigo was informed of an exciting new project. The Ministry of Economic Development not only wanted him to help design this project, but possibly lead it: a series of new luxury hotels along the beaches of Santa Lucía, Cuba’s pristine archipelago off the northeastern coast of Camagüey.
Rigo reacted in a manner less than thrilled. “Camagüey? But I just got married. Will
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