Tata Bibí
Bibí is in her throne deep in the shade of the almond grove.
The almendros above the children’s beach are all hers.
Violet water her scent, ebony skin, a lap big enough to hold
all of Havana’s children at the same time and cushion us,
Bibí is our barefoot Tata in white uniform. Her white shoes
are tucked under the marine-blue Adirondack chair she claims
in the afternoons, her feet buried in the cool sand.
When her silence begins, the world goes still but for the
mild castanet of the afternoon breeze in the almond leaves,
the rustle of the fallen ones already dry and curled up when
they move about scratching the sand, the slow back and forth
of small waves in the children’s cove. Without her
permission, the sea beyond the breakwater will not rise and
roar.
Roberto and I, small subjects at her feet, pass the
afternoon filling and emptying our sand pails, pressing our
molds into the damp sand: Look, Bibí, I made you a cake.
Bibí, mira, una estrella de mar a starfish. Un pulpo, Tata,
look, an octopus. She hands us windfall almonds. Let’s make
a ring around the sea animals to keep them from harm, para
que no les pase nada.
Now we rest against her knees and make hourglasses of our
hands until the sand rises well above her ankles. Our gaze
stays fixed on the ocean for a long time: here comes a
sailboat home wing-on-wing; way out there, a fierce maw
rises from the ocean dripping sand and water, opens up and
dumps a stream of grey slurry onto a barge; Kiko el Marinero,
the old mariner pleated with wrinkles and encrusted with sea
salt, is standing bolt-straight in his rowboat and letting
fly the tarraya he’ll haul back trembling with tiny majúa
sardines Bibí will deep fry, their tails stuck together and
their thin silver bodies spread out. Majúa fans.
Tengo
una muñeca vestida de azul
con
zapatos blancos y medias de tul.
I have
a doll all dressed in blue
white
shoes on and socks of tulle,
Bibí sings to us while we rest.
Tengo una muñeca vestida de azul, I sing to myself under the
down comforter sixty years later in Buffalo, my hand
reaching for Bibí’s ankles. |
Raquel Revuelta
Algo grande. Something big was happening almost daily in the late 50's: A bomb
went off on a busy La Habana sidewalk at noon; Fidel's army in Oriente took
another village from Batista's soldiers and pronounced it "territorio libre."
Herbert Mathews from The New York Times was up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains
with the bearded rebels. We were in the midst of unstoppable events I would
later be able to name history. My own revolution, as unstoppable as Fidel's, was
underway at the same time--my metamorphosis from girl to woman.
Feral
and exquisitely feminine Raquel Revuelta--actress, goddess--was my archetype. A
compendium of Desdemona and Helen of Troy, María Félix and Ava Gardner, María
Callas and Antigone. The power in her voice and in her eyes was riveting; her
eyebrows drew a dark, bold line that made her gaze imperious. When she raised
one of those eyebrows (the right one) her gaze had the power of an electrical
storm. Raquel: the woman my amigas and I hoped to find someday when we had
finished molting and looked in the mirror.
Forty years later, photographing a tile wainscoting of exquisite pale green
lilies-of-the-valley against a white background at the Dramatic Arts Center in
La Habana, I sense an alteration of the air, a presence. I lower the camera,
turn, and see a gray-haired woman--much too thin, shabbily dressed--standing
motionless at the end of the long corridor, considering me. She begins to
approach. And as she does, something in the way she moves turns the light into a
fine haze, a sfumato. She herself is all dream, drawing closer and closer. I
hold my breath and lean into my companion, who whispers something I don't quite
hear. I move closer. He repeats, "Es Raquel Revuelta."
The hallway becomes a stage. She and I are face-to-face, her
gaze fixed on mine. After a long silence--what seems like a
long silence--she speaks her first line, deceptively
innocent: "May I help you with anything at all?" That voice.
But the eyes: still piercing but tired, tinged with
stoicism, at home with suffering. Defeated, I dare say to
myself. And then an almost imperceptible toss of the head,
and the eyebrow arches upward. There it is: the pride we
adored made gesture.
She waits. She observes me trying to settle under her spell.
Waits for an answer to her question. But I can't speak; it's
as if Spanish had become a different language. If I were to
answer her "May I help you?" I'd have to say, "Yes, Raquel
Revuelta, make it be 1955 again. Let me find you at the
Radiocentro cafeteria after a performance and watch you sign
the paper napkin I've just asked you to autograph." Then, a
stratagem (a rude one) to keep her a little longer: "What is
your name?"
"Raquel," she answers coyly, playfully. She's on to me.
Another hour of silence. Before I know what I'm doing, I've
done it. My hand has risen to her face; my left thumb to her
right eyebrow. And I've traced its outline as lovingly and
in as familiar a way as if she had been mother, sister.
"There's only one person in the world with eyebrows like
these. I wanted to be you when I was young." Her eyes and
mine well-up, and we embrace.
But her performance is impeccable: "Come, come. Let's not
become sentimental. No nos pongamos sentimentales." And she
turns away, walks off, ascends into heaven on a cloud of
homely mosquito netting. |
A Dynamic Duo: Two Rustonians in Panama
 Who
are these two?
Elvira Weiss and Olga Karman, Ruston Academy, ‘58
What are they doing in Panama?
Olga has arrived from Buffalo, NY with 10 college
students. The trip is part of her D'Youville College
course: Cross-Cultural Seminar, Panama.
Elvira, who lives in Panama, has made all the
arrangements for the Buffalo contingent: hotels,
tour guide, visits to hospitals and schools, a day
with a Peace Corps volunteer up in the boondocks. A
week-end on the Island of Taboga, where Elvira and
husband Jorge de la Guardia will invite the group to
a back-yard barbecue under La Cruz del Sur. For the
9th year in a row! (I know, Mr. Neuendorf: lots of
incomplete sentences. ¡Ay!)
When they see each other after a year what do
they do?
They laugh their heads off, give each other an
abrazo, and say things like "We did it again!" or
"Can you believe we pull this off every year?" A
high-five, sometimes. (And sometimes, sentence
fragments!)
Why do they do this Panama thing?
The official reason: Olga wants her college students
to become literate about Latin America. What better
place to start than Panama?
The unofficial reason: Olga and Elvira have found a
way to see each other, chismear[gossip], recordar el
pasado [remember the past] every year for free!!
(That Ruston education wasn't wasted on us!!)
Yours,
Olga Karman, past editor The Rustonian
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