Chapter Two #3
Zenaida took a deep breath. “A long time ago, I made a promise that I would keep this book safe. I can’t take it with me, and when they come to our apartment, I do not want them to have it.”
She unwrapped the bundle and held a book out to Pilar.
Pilar took the book from her.
The weight of it was so familiar, the scent of leather, paper, and ink immediately soothing.
There was something about a book that Pilar couldn’t resist. There was an intimacy one could have with books that was difficult to find anywhere else—a quiet understanding, a haven, a place to escape the troubles of the world.
During the day at work, Pilar was often distracted by the stories she shelved.
When she’d originally started working at the small library three years ago, she wondered if her passion for books would change once she was surrounded by them all the time.
In her childhood, books were an absolute luxury, the few she owned lovingly read and reread until she knew the stories by heart, could recite her favorite lines from memory.
The first day nearly a decade ago when she’d begun working as a librarian—initially at one of the larger municipal libraries and now at the smaller community library near her home—had been magical.
Suddenly, her world grew from the four books she owned, the ones she read at school, the books she was able to borrow when her parents could take her to the library, to hundreds of books all in her care.
Pilar devoted herself to getting to know the books as one might a friend, reading as many as she could in her free time, bringing them home with her, her nights spent in bed with a novel in hand.
The magic never lessened. If anything, her passion grew as her life became books. She knew no greater joy, no deeper peace, than lying beside her husband in bed, silence between them, reading one of her favorite stories.
“May I?” she asked Zenaida, curiosity filling her about the mysterious book.
Zenaida nodded.
At first glance, it appeared well-loved and well-traveled, the maroon leather cover slightly worn in places, the gold ink rubbed off on some of the letters.
A Time for Forgetting
She looked down at the author’s name—
Eva Fuentes
Pilar had never heard of the book before, or the author, and the realization that this was something new sent a tiny thrill through her.
Many of her favorite writers were women, authors like Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, María Luisa Dolz, Dulce María Loynaz, and Cristina Ayala.
There was something in the power of their words, in the way that they navigated their lives and identities in Cuba during difficult times, that gave her comfort and inspiration.
Pilar came from a small family, her parents long gone, but these writers had become her adopted ancestors, the women whose words gave her strength when she needed it most.
Perhaps Eva Fuentes would be one of those writers for her.
The book was in English, and while Pilar’s English was rusty from disuse, she was curious about the title and how it had come to Zenaida.
“What do you love about it?” Pilar asked, feeling as she always did, uncomfortable asking such an intimate question, but she wanted to know, desperately—
Why this book? Out of all the ones you could save, why did you choose this one? What does it mean to you and why must I risk my freedom—and why do you risk yours—to protect it?
After all, everything belonged to the state, and stealing from the state was a crime.
“I don’t know,” Zenaida replied. “I’ve never read it.” She looked momentarily abashed. “I’m not much of a reader.”
She said the last part almost apologetically as though she thought that to Pilar saying such a thing was tantamount to blasphemy.
In truth, it wasn’t.
All sorts of people came into the library these days.
Some readers, some not, some not readers yet , waiting for the right book to change their lives.
Sometimes Pilar liked those customers the best, the ones who would almost reluctantly check out a book only to return the next week with their gazes filled with a zeal she understood all too well, like they had discovered a secret they couldn’t wait to share with someone else.
The beautiful thing about libraries was that they offered a home to the casual reader, the devoted reader, and the nonreader alike.
“Eva and my mother were friends,” Zenaida explained. “They taught together. Before my mother passed away, she asked me to take care of the book. Eva had entrusted her with it. Eva wrote it. My mother didn’t tell me why it was important to her, and I didn’t question it.”
No, she wouldn’t have. This is what they did for one another—preserving histories, helping friends, honoring ancestors. It needed no explanation.
“I’ll keep it safe for you,” Pilar promised.
The words until you can return were on her lips, but she didn’t voice them.
In the beginning after Fidel took power, Cubans fled the country thinking their exile would be a temporary one, that surely the actions of a few hundred revolutionaries wouldn’t stand and the revolution would fall.
After all, it would hardly be the first time in Cuba’s recent history that a political regime rose to power only to subsequently fail.
But the years had tumbled by, and Fidel remained, and it became more difficult to believe this was temporary.
Hope was nearly as hard to find as meat in Cuba these days.
“Thank you,” Zenaida replied. “There’s another thing—I know it’s a lot to ask—but would it be possible for you to return the book to the author, to Eva Fuentes?”
Surprise filled Pilar. When people asked for her help, it was to safeguard their books with the hopes that they would eventually be reunited with their owner.
She’d never been asked to return a book to its author.
Surely, Eva Fuentes had copies of her own book? What was so special about this edition?
“My mother and Eva lost touch after I was born,” Zenaida added.
“I never met Eva. I believe my mother always meant to return the book to her friend, but she died before she could. I tried finding Eva once, but all my mother had was an address in Old Havana, and when I went there, the current residents told me she had moved. They didn’t know where she had gone, but they believed she’s still in Cuba.
She’s a teacher. I meant to continue searching for her, but—”
She gestured with her hands as if to convey the utter futility of trying to make plans or navigate the normal details of life amid such uncertainty and turmoil. It was a struggle Pilar knew all too well, considering her plans had been thoroughly upended when they took her husband.
“Life slipped away from me. My son got in trouble right after that, and I was so worried about him, about what would happen to him. The book disappeared from my thoughts. It wasn’t until we were going through our belongings that I remembered it.
” She ducked her head. “I am ashamed that I did not try to find her sooner, that—”
Pilar took Zenaida’s hand, squeezing it softly for reassurance before releasing it.
“Please,” Zenaida finished, the look in her gaze—
What could she say? How could she not help?
Pilar nodded. “I’ll do everything I can to find Eva Fuentes.”
“Thank you.”
For a moment, neither one of them spoke, the space between them brimming with all the things that were unsaid, the truths they knew but were unable or unwilling to voice. Loss enveloped them, the kind that could not be made whole.
“It’s in English,” Zenaida added. “But Enrique mentioned once that you spoke English. You can read it if you want. I know how you like books. It must be difficult being alone here.”
Tears pricked Pilar’s eyes. Zenaida was proud. They all were. For her to come to Pilar with this and ask her for help must have given Zenaida pause. So here she was, offering something of value—a story for Pilar, who loved books above nearly all else.
“Thank you,” Pilar echoed.
When she was lying in bed hours later, Pilar would think back on the moment, on the decision that led her to close the distance between them and embrace her neighbor.
It was so wholly out of character for Pilar that she was shocked by the intimacy, and eventually she would conclude that it must have been the way she recognized the quiet pain that rested like a mantle over Zenaida’s shoulders.
In a manner of speaking, they had both lost their homes—physical and emotional—to the revolution.
Initially, Zenaida seemed caught off guard by the hug. But then, perhaps realizing how much they both needed it, she relaxed into the embrace, the tension seemingly leaving her body as she held on tight, the book clutched between them.
A minute must have passed, maybe two, and then the sound of her downstairs neighbor returning home—a shut door, padded footfalls—pulled them apart.
Zenaida had places to go.
They offered each other hasty goodbyes, words that inevitably failed to meet the gravity of the situation. After all, how did you adequately express such a depth of emotion? What could you ever say to make the act of fleeing the only home you’d ever known palatable?
Despite everything, despite the understanding that had sprung up between them, truthfully, they were just neighbors, little more than strangers but for the act of fate that had placed their apartments beside each other.
And still, they were both Cuban.
That was everything.
When she settled into bed, Pilar turned her attention to the novel Zenaida had left in her care.
A Time for Forgetting by Eva Fuentes.
There was a pact that existed between an author and a reader. An agreement that began when the reader picked up the book, studied the cover, and saw the author’s name on the front, and then finally in that moment when their fingers flipped to the first few pages as a bargain was sealed.
Read me and I will tell you all my secrets.
The reader was promised the possibility of sinking into another world, of escaping their problems, the weight of life subsiding for minutes, hours, days at a time.
They were promised a story, a fiction, a sleight of hand, a shuffling of letters that altered reality.
And yet, in that make-believe world, the reader looked for truth—for the words on the page to resonate, for the characters in the scene to make them feel seen, for a thread that they could hold on to, for the book to sink its hooks into them and carry them on an unforgettable adventure.
Pilar began to read.