Are these our last moments of freedom?
The story of exile has different origins. There are those, like my family, who were lucky enough to leave when it was possible to hop a flight to the United States, even if that avenue was fraught with government red tape and denials. Then there are those—the Peter Pan kids—whose parents were so desperate to get their children out of the country that they put them on a plane alone and sent them to the United States with the hope that one day they would be reunited, the dream of giving their children a better life than they would otherwise have in Cuba powerful enough to warrant such a sacrifice. There are those who came in the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when Castro let more than a hundred thousand Cubans leave for the United States. And then there are the rafters, the people whose ingenuity and courage drove them to brave the seas in makeshift rafts to forge the ninety-mile journey to freedom, facing death or—if they were captured before they reached U.S. shores—a life of imprisonment.
Cubans exist in a constant state of hope.
On the surface, ojalá translates to “hopefully” in English. But that’s just on paper, merely the dictionary definition. The reality is that there are some words that defy translation; their meaning contains a whole host of things simmering beneath the surface.
There’s beauty contained in the word, more than the flippancy of an idle hope. It speaks to the tenor of life, the low points and the high, the sheer unpredictability of it all. And at the heart of it, the word takes everything and puts it into the hands of a higher power, acknowledging the limits of those here on earth, and the hope, the sheer hope, the kind you hitch your life to, that your deepest wish, your deepest yearning will eventually be yours.
That same hope is in me now as we make our way through the airport. The hope that they won’t stop us, that we won’t spend the remainder of our days in a Cuban prison, that we’ll make it to the other side.
The nerves running through Luis’s body touch my limbs. There’s a tremor in his hands, his jaw clenched, his gaze darting around the airport, looking at the uniformed soldiers, the guns in their hands, waiting to see if one of them will walk over to him and take him away, if he’ll simply disappear like the others who have dared to speak out against the government. If I’ll follow him.
I’ve never been more afraid than I am now or more apt to prayer.
I’m forever caught between two languages. I learned Spanish before anything else, grew up speaking both languages at home and at school. In my most vulnerable moments, the ones when I feel things most deeply, when I hope, when I fear, when I love, it’s the Spanish that comes to me first.
The prayer runs through me now.
I go first, approaching the customs booth with a wary smile. I hand the official my passport and boarding pass along with the other half of the tourist card I received when I entered the country. We exchange a few pleasantries about my trip to Cuba, and out of the corner of my eye I watch as Luis walks up to one of the booths.
For the span of a few minutes white noise rushes through my ears, my entire body suspended as I wait. As I leave the customs booth and walk to the security checkpoint where my bag will be scanned and wait. Wait for Luis to join me.
I twist the ring on my finger, around and around again, while he talks to the immigration official, a smile on his face, one I now recognize as feigned. I strain to overhear their conversation, to read the words falling from the immigration official’s mouth. And then it’s all over—
Luis walks forward, past the customs booth, out the other side, toward me.
My knees sag.
Luis wraps his arm around my waist, tugging me forward, toward the security line where I place my bag on the belt, adrenaline pouring through my limbs.
His lips brush my temple.
“Almost there,” he whispers in my ear, his hand stroking my back.
Minutes. Minutes pass as we go through security, as we take those final steps, sinking into our seats near the gate.
I imagine my family sitting here, waiting for a plane to take them to the United States, not knowing when—if—they would return. I understand a bit more the uncertainty they faced, the kind of pervasive uncertainty that invades your bones, that comes from not having a country to call your own, a land upon which you can lay your head.
A family of tourists sits next to us blissfully unaware of the tension emanating from Luis and me. I try desperately not to make eye contact, staring out the airport window, at the drab floor, up at the ceiling, but it is as though they will me to look at them, the sheer eagerness to speak to me pushing and shoving its way into my space.
Maybe they want to make a connection in this crowded airport of travelers venturing from a lost land, maybe they think Luis and I look like a nice couple, perhaps they don’t see the open wound in both of us. Whatever it is, they can’t seem to resist.
“Was this your first trip to Cuba?” the wife asks me.
I nod, suddenly exhausted by all of this—the fear, the sense of loss, the weight of hope.
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” she asks, and I give another polite nod, ready to just get on the plane. “It’s so nice to see it like this. In its natural state. Before the tourists come in and ruin it.”
She says it as though we share a secret, as if we’ve stumbled upon a lost city.
Luis stiffens beside me, and I give her another clipped nod.
Disappointed, she leans back, turning her attention to her husband, to their children.
What is there to even say anymore?
The idea that this ruined beauty is Cuba’s destiny is as depressing as the idea that its future is to be cruise ships and casinos. That the very things that stoked the fires of revolution will be reborn again—if they ever died at all. That there’s something quaint and charming about the struggles I saw everywhere I looked. Everyone talks about Cuba being “open” and “free,” but that means very different things to very different people. To some it is the hope for fast-food chains and retail giants; to others it is the freedom to live in a country they can call their own, to maintain some semblance of autonomy over their lives.
And now I know the anger that burns inside Luis, the inability to accept this as Cuba’s natural condition. The hope for more.
Our flight begins boarding, saving us from more conversation.
We shuffle forward in the line, shoved between jubilant tourists, sunburned and chattering about the exotic adventure they had. We board the plane furtively, looking over our shoulders for a soldier’s uniform. Luis tells me to take the aisle seat, and his hands grip the armrests, his knuckles white; I realize he’s never flown on an airplane before.
How much is his life about to change?
The minutes in our seat become an eternity as we wait for the wheels to begin rolling down the runway, as we wait for the plane to soar into the sky.
It feels as though I’ve been traveling for a decade, and I no longer recognize myself. The plane rolls back from the gate, and my heartbeat steadies, my limbs relaxing, my breaths growing slower and deeper.
And then we’re in the air, Cuba behind us, Miami in front of us, far off in the distance, an ocean away.
Home.
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