11
Monday flew by in a blur of activity. We spent very little time packing, for we would be allowed to take with us only one change of clothes per person, our shaving gear, and my mother’s modest cosmetics bag. We would not be permitted to take an extra pair of shoes, for there was a great scarcity of footwear in Havana and our other scuffed and worn shoes and sneakers would benefit worthier members of society. Apart from packing, each of us went out to visit close friends and neighbors to say our goodbyes, and my father took a long bus ride to see his cousin Pablo, who had a truck and agreed to drive us to the airport the following morning. I went with my father to turn over his taxicab at a government depot, several miles away from home. It was a blood curdling drive: the ten-year old Chevy had three hundred thousand kilometers in its odometer and was on its very last legs. It coughed and sputtered and stalled on us twice as we made our slow way to the depot. It stalled one final time, and died, right in front of the depot; fortunately, the entrance to the lot went slightly downhill and we were able to shift the car into neutral and gently push it into an empty parking space. We got a receipt and left as quickly as our legs would take us, for it was virtually certain that the car would never start again.
12
The last requirement before departure was the inspection of our home Tuesday morning by the Comité women, who were to ascertain that we are leaving everything on their list behind and had not tried to give anything away. They promptly showed up at seven-thirty and went over the entire house with a fine tooth comb. Then a problem arose when Crispina Valdés, looking at the contents of my bookcase, noted acidly: “There’s a book missing.” “What’s that?” I replied, torn between anger and fear. “Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós” replied the dragon lady, reading from her list. There followed a few moments of panic, while I went over the contents of the bookcase, and mother opened and closed drawers in all rooms. I couldn’t make sense of the loss of that book. My mother seldom read anything besides the papers, and I loathe the work of Pérez Galdós and would not have given that book even to my worst enemy; the book had belonged to my grandmother and had come into my possession after she passed away.