Chapter Five #2
Their schedules had overlapped in the first few days after the police had taken Enrique, when sleep had eluded her, the hours ticking by while she stared at the door praying that it would swing open and her husband would return home, fearing that they would come for her next.
The sounds of his life had been one of the only things to keep her from believing she was already dead.
—
The library was still sleeping when she arrived.
Ignacio Arenas, who had been the head librarian for as long as she had been working there, was already walking the stacks as he always did, making sure that there were no books that had been mis-shelved from the night before, no errant items cluttering the books.
In the beginning, when she was first hired as a librarian, she had tried to arrive as early as he did and stay as late, desperate to make a good impression at her new job.
She’d quickly learned from observing Ignacio that while he never told her outright that he preferred the task of opening and closing the library alone, it was clear that this time was sacred to him, a routine that he would cherish for as long as he was able to, so she left him to it until the day when he would turn the charge over to her.
She glanced down at her watch. Ten minutes until opening.
“Good morning,” she called out, announcing her presence, knowing that Ignacio wouldn’t respond or make his way toward her until he had finished with the last books.
Most of the patrons were a little afraid of Ignacio; his propensity to quiet a visitor who was too loud or scold another who had damaged—or even worse, lost—a book could intimidate some.
His ferocity was one of the things Pilar admired most about him.
She busied herself with turning on lights before heading to the circulation desk. The ledger where they kept a record of which books had been checked out was already sitting open waiting for her.
The revolution had touched the library just like it had set every aspect of life in Cuba on fire. It was a public library, and therefore, like everything else now, controlled by the state.
Fidel’s literacy campaign that he instituted five years ago with military-like determination had been lauded internationally.
On paper, the goal was to increase the number of Cubans who were literate by having volunteers teach them to read.
But the lessons instructing Cubans to read were dictated by propaganda pamphlets and books the government had published to “teach” the public about the gloriousness of the revolution whether the printed words matched the reality of their lives or not.
To be deemed “literate” by the state, the participants were to write a letter addressed to Fidel himself, the political fervor attached to the whole business setting off increasing unease inside her.
For most of her life, books had meant freedom.
Now she wasn’t so sure, considering the extent to which books were being censored and banned in Cuba, the free press eradicated, artists and authors driven from their homeland.
The narrative that was being printed and distributed by the state was somehow to be taken as fact.
The first time she’d opened the box that they’d received, seen the materials they had printed for children to be stocked in classrooms throughout the country, dread had filled her.
She’d come home from work sick to her stomach. It was the first time she had ever considered quitting her job as a librarian.
It was Enrique who convinced her not to quit, who told her that there was good that she could still do, that her work mattered.
“Good morning,” Ignacio returned, walking out from the most distant shelves where they kept the children’s books.
He was, as always, dressed impeccably. Despite the strained times, she had never seen him with a button out of place, a loose thread, or a stain besmirching his clothes.
His wife Migdalia had been a seamstress for a Cuban fashion designer who fled Havana after the revolution, and now she took in sewing, bartering her services for extra bits of food or supplies.
Pilar imagined that after she finished her work, she labored over her husband’s garments.
Pilar made sure she wore her finest clothes when she worked at the library.
Her skill with a needle was abysmal, but she tried her best to follow Ignacio’s lead.
He had told her from the beginning that theirs was a noble vocation, that they were custodians of a literary history, a cultural tradition that must be protected at all costs.
She tried to live up to such an important task.
“How were the books?” Pilar asked Ignacio.
“Awaiting their next adventure,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye that belied his normally formal demeanor.
“Speaking of adventures.” Pilar pulled the chair out behind the circulation desk and sat down. “Have you ever heard of an author named Eva Fuentes? She’s Cuban. She wrote a book called A Time for Forgetting. ”
If anyone would know of the book, it was Ignacio.
He hesitated, and she could almost visualize him combing through the recesses of his mind much as he did the stacks in the library. She’d never met anyone with as prodigious a memory as he possessed.
“It doesn’t come to mind, no. Did you check the catalogue to see if we have the book or if she published any other works?”
“I plan on doing so.”
“How did the book pique your interest?”
“A friend mentioned it. She thought I might enjoy it. Have you ever heard of a group of Cuban teachers who visited the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century?” Pilar asked, changing tack.
“They studied at Harvard. I was curious about Eva Fuentes since I’d never heard of her, so I read her biography in the back of the book.
It mentioned that Eva was one of those teachers. ”
Strange that an event that happened in her parents’ lifetime was unfamiliar to her considering sixty-six years wasn’t that long ago, but if she’d ever heard mention of the Cuban Summer School, she couldn’t recall.
“When specifically?”
“The summer of 1900. The book was published in English by a Boston publisher the year after.”
She considered sharing the story of the book with him—not the full story, not Zenaida, and the late-night visit, and the secrecy, or the letter, but rather the marvelous words she’d found contained in its pages.
She desperately wanted to tell someone what a delight it was to read, the sensation that the author was talking to her directly, as though they were sharing intimacies like old friends.
She wanted to tell him about the book because she knew instinctively that Ignacio would recognize it for the gem that it was, but something held her back.
She trusted him, as much as you could trust anyone these days, which sadly was not very much.
But, it wasn’t just about who you trusted; you had to consider who you wanted to keep safe.
Ignacio knew about Enrique, had kept her on at the library even though she had become troublesome in the eyes of the state, considering her connections.
She didn’t want to repay his kindness by jeopardizing his safety.
“I was surprised I’d never heard of the summer school—or if I had, I’d forgotten it entirely,” Pilar added.
“You’d be forgiven, I think, considering all the history Cuba has lived in those sixty-six years,” he replied, his tone wry.
He wasn’t wrong. She often wondered what it would have been like to be born in a country where her biggest worries would be purely domestic ones, when her life would be occupied by personal matters rather than the reality of dealing with the ever-changing political tides.
How would her life have differed if it hadn’t been shaped by wars like her mother’s was, and her grandmother’s before her, and her great-grandmother’s before that?
To be a Cuban woman was to master the art of enduring.
“There might be mention of the summer school in some of the history books written about that time. In some of the news articles we have. Likely even more at the National Library. You could do some research.”
Theirs was a small community library, their selections lovingly curated but hardly as robust as some of the larger municipal libraries and the prestigious José Martí National Library.
Pilar nodded, the idea taking root.
“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Ignacio said. “There was a man here yesterday after you left. He was asking questions about what kind of worker you are. Whether you supported the revolution.”
Fear sliced through her. If she lost her job…
This was all she had, the library all that kept her going now that Enrique was gone.
She’d always known this was a possibility, had feared that because the regime had deemed her husband a threat, she would be considered one by association.
They’d questioned her after they took Enrique, but she hadn’t lied when she said she didn’t know much about what her husband had been involved in.
He’d not confided in her to keep her safe.
“What did you tell him?” Pilar asked, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice.
Ignacio held her gaze. “That you’re a good librarian. Quiet. That you mostly keep to yourself and that you’re dedicated to the books. I told him that I had never seen or heard anything that made me think you weren’t loyal to the revolution.”
She tried to read his tone, the expression on his face, to assess what he wasn’t saying.
They didn’t speak of the revolution at work.
Ignacio was a good boss, a fair employer, but they’d never had an overly personal relationship.
He was a formal man, and given her own private nature, Pilar had never minded that their interactions never strayed far from the professional.
Besides, these days it was safer to keep your thoughts to yourself, considering how fervently the regime was committed to rooting out dissent.