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Authors: Armando Lucas Correa
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outside the city, so usually I see them only at school during classes.
I’m not really interested in parties. I want something better: a trip. Yes, let’s cross the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s conquer the waves of the Caribbean, glimpse the coast of an island filled with palm and coconut trees, with lots of sun. We’ll reach a port where we’ll be greeted with flowers and balloons, and there will be music. People will be dancing on the shore and will clear a way for us to enter the promised land.
“Cuba! Let’s go to Cuba!”
Her face sharpens: she parts her lips, and a gleam begins to light up her eyes. I want to tell her, “Mom, we’re not alone,” but I don’t have the guts.
“We could meet Dad’s family and the aunt who raised him,” I say, and at first she doesn’t react.
With any luck, his aunt will look after me if anything happens to Mom. Maybe I’ll even find other uncles and aunts or cousins who will take care of me until I’m old enough to decide for myself without some social worker making me go live with some family I don’t know.
Now I have a goal: to discover who my father really was.
“Why don’t we go to Cuba?” I insist.
Mom still says nothing. She smiles and hugs me:
“Tomorrow we’ll talk to your aunt Hannah.”
H annah
Berlin, 1939
I arrived early for our rendezvous at Frau Falkenhorst’s café. I couldn’t see Leo, so I started wandering around the Hackescher Markt Station. It was full of soldiers. There were even more people than usual there that day. Something was going on, and Leo wasn’t with me. More flags. All I could see everywhere was red and black. It was torment. The streets were crowded with banners and men and women, their arms raised to the skies.
Over the loudspeakers, an excited voice was talking about a birthday, the celebration of a man who was changing the Germans’ destiny. The man we were supposed to follow, admire, worship. The purest man in a country where very soon only pure people like him would be allowed to live. The loudspeakers made it impossible to hear the announcements of the train departures and arrivals. A huge banner thanked the chiefOgre for the Germany we lived in: “ Wir danken dir. ” Then a Bach cantata began to echo through the station: “ Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir .” “We thank you, God, we thank you.” So now the Ogre was God. It was the twentieth of April.
My green dress blended with the station’s tiled walls so perfectly that I felt like a chameleon. When he saw me, Leo would burst out laughing. I ran to the exit connecting to the café and bumped into him.
“What does the German girl of Französische Strasse have to say?” he laughed, with an irony that made his eyes look even more mischievous than usual. “We’re going to Cuba. And you’ll see how that magazine will open doors for you. The German girl is here!” he shouted and laughed.
Cuba. Yet another new destination. Leo had found out everything. He was sure it was Cuba. It began to rain, so we ran to the sprawling Hermann Tietz department store—which was no longer called that because it was too impure. Now they called it Hertie, so as not to offend anyone. Despite the rain and the time of day, all the floors seemed empty.
“Where has everybody gone?”
We found the central staircase and rushed up it. We bumped into some women who looked at us as if wondering where the adult minding us could be. We passed the floor with the Persian rugs hanging over the banister and reached the top floor under the glass roof, where we could see the rain falling.
“Cuba? Where is Cuba? In Africa, or the Indian Ocean? Is it an island? How do you spell it?” I insisted as I followed Leo breathlessly, wishing I could sit down and stop having to avoid women carrying shopping bags.
“K-h-u-b-a.” Leo spelled it out in German. “They’re talking about buying boat passages. Your father is going to help us with ours.”
It was an island. There was nowhere
I’m not really interested in parties. I want something better: a trip. Yes, let’s cross the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s conquer the waves of the Caribbean, glimpse the coast of an island filled with palm and coconut trees, with lots of sun. We’ll reach a port where we’ll be greeted with flowers and balloons, and there will be music. People will be dancing on the shore and will clear a way for us to enter the promised land.
“Cuba! Let’s go to Cuba!”
Her face sharpens: she parts her lips, and a gleam begins to light up her eyes. I want to tell her, “Mom, we’re not alone,” but I don’t have the guts.
“We could meet Dad’s family and the aunt who raised him,” I say, and at first she doesn’t react.
With any luck, his aunt will look after me if anything happens to Mom. Maybe I’ll even find other uncles and aunts or cousins who will take care of me until I’m old enough to decide for myself without some social worker making me go live with some family I don’t know.
Now I have a goal: to discover who my father really was.
“Why don’t we go to Cuba?” I insist.
Mom still says nothing. She smiles and hugs me:
“Tomorrow we’ll talk to your aunt Hannah.”
H annah
Berlin, 1939
I arrived early for our rendezvous at Frau Falkenhorst’s café. I couldn’t see Leo, so I started wandering around the Hackescher Markt Station. It was full of soldiers. There were even more people than usual there that day. Something was going on, and Leo wasn’t with me. More flags. All I could see everywhere was red and black. It was torment. The streets were crowded with banners and men and women, their arms raised to the skies.
Over the loudspeakers, an excited voice was talking about a birthday, the celebration of a man who was changing the Germans’ destiny. The man we were supposed to follow, admire, worship. The purest man in a country where very soon only pure people like him would be allowed to live. The loudspeakers made it impossible to hear the announcements of the train departures and arrivals. A huge banner thanked the chiefOgre for the Germany we lived in: “ Wir danken dir. ” Then a Bach cantata began to echo through the station: “ Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir .” “We thank you, God, we thank you.” So now the Ogre was God. It was the twentieth of April.
My green dress blended with the station’s tiled walls so perfectly that I felt like a chameleon. When he saw me, Leo would burst out laughing. I ran to the exit connecting to the café and bumped into him.
“What does the German girl of Französische Strasse have to say?” he laughed, with an irony that made his eyes look even more mischievous than usual. “We’re going to Cuba. And you’ll see how that magazine will open doors for you. The German girl is here!” he shouted and laughed.
Cuba. Yet another new destination. Leo had found out everything. He was sure it was Cuba. It began to rain, so we ran to the sprawling Hermann Tietz department store—which was no longer called that because it was too impure. Now they called it Hertie, so as not to offend anyone. Despite the rain and the time of day, all the floors seemed empty.
“Where has everybody gone?”
We found the central staircase and rushed up it. We bumped into some women who looked at us as if wondering where the adult minding us could be. We passed the floor with the Persian rugs hanging over the banister and reached the top floor under the glass roof, where we could see the rain falling.
“Cuba? Where is Cuba? In Africa, or the Indian Ocean? Is it an island? How do you spell it?” I insisted as I followed Leo breathlessly, wishing I could sit down and stop having to avoid women carrying shopping bags.
“K-h-u-b-a.” Leo spelled it out in German. “They’re talking about buying boat passages. Your father is going to help us with ours.”
It was an island. There was nowhere
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