Read Online Tropical Secrets by Margarita Engle - Free Book Online Page A

family
somewhere.

    Â 
PALOMA
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    Those ships will return
to Germany,
where all the refugees
will suddenly be homeless
and helpless
in their own homeland.
    Â 
    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.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Land!
Solid ground,
the firmness of earth
beneath my shoes,
even if it is just a filthy street
crowded with beggars
wearing strange costumes
    Â 
    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. . . .

    Â 
PALOMA
    Â 
    Drumming . . .
someone is drumming
on our front door. . . .
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    Papá would be furious
if he knew that I am a friend
of the old man who sells ice cream
door to door.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.

    Â 
PALOMA
    Â 
    The next singing vendor
who comes along
is a Chinese man selling herbs
and red ribbons to ward off
the evil eye.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    Even bright ribbons and cold ice cream
are not enough to make me feel
like an ordinary twelve-year-old girl.
    Â 
    I feel like a fairy-tale princess
cursed with deadly secrets
that must be kept silent.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Hundreds of refugees
crowd into the central courtyard—
an open patio at the heart
of an oddly shaped Cuban house.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    I don’t see how I can survive
without that tiny sliver of hope,
my imaginary snow.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    A friendly old man
gives me one ice-cream bar
after another.
    Â 
    He says he had to flee Russia
long ago, just as I have fled Germany.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    I promise myself that I will never
let anyone change the rhythm
of my name.

    Â 
DANIEL
    Â 
    Two days later, I am still wearing
my heavy coat.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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