The Sparrow from a Non-Existent Country

By Rachel Pereda (El Toque)

HAVANA TIMES – Behind the house where I live is a lake, as in many parts of Miami. At times, when I’m fed up with the daily stress, I sit by that lake for a while and take a pause.

The landscape bears no resemblance to the little Mulgoba lake near the home of my grandparents where I spent my earliest years. However, in my mind, they seem exactly the same, even though they’re extremely different. At the edge, even the accumulated swamp mud appears to have the shape of Cuba, that crocodile-island that at some point in our lives ate us alive.

I don’t know if this happens to others, or only to me, that over the years I’ve become melancholy, nostalgic. When you emigrate, it’s like you start to look for Cuba everywhere.

Maybe it’s because of the sensation that I’m levitating, that I don’t belong to a place, that I’ve been left without roots. Holding tight to Cuba is holding on to the version of myself that I know, that is familiar; where I was part of a place, even though that place only exists in my imagination.

Much is said about the pain of migration, the strange sensation of knowing that you are achieving your goals and dreams, but at the same time feeling a kind of emptiness that will never again be filled.

Even though I’ve found a new home in Miami, and I’m building a life full of opportunities, a part of me always remains anchored in nostalgia for what I left behind.

The Mango tree

When I was little, there was a mango tree in my grandparents’ back yard. My favorite pastime was to climb on the roof of the house and – hidden there – eat green mangoes with salt.

In the house where I live now, there’s also a mango tree. To me it’s like a sign that, somehow, a piece of Cuba is with me. Right now, a number of ripe mangoes have fallen in the yard, and I’m invaded by a mix of joy and sadness – joy at having something that transports me back to my infancy; and sadness, because those moments are only memories.

A few days ago, my daughter Emma tried a mango from the tree for the first time, and she liked it so much she didn’t want to share even a little piece. Suddenly I saw myself once again as a little girl, eating mangoes on the roof of my grandparents’ house, and I was filled with a feeling I don’t have the words for – a kind of nostalgic sadness, or sad nostalgia.

In Miami, the mangoes in my yard are more than fruits. They’re symbols of my roots, of the memories I carry with me, and of the identity I try to preserve. Emma has never seen the house of her great-grandparents, nor had the sensation of climbing on a roof, but through small moments, I try to pass on to her a part of this inheritance.

A feeling of melancholy accompanies me like a shadow. In the peaceful nights, when everything is silent, I think about the noises of Havana, the laughter of my friends, and the stories I left etched in the Malecon.

They say that the national bird of Cuba is the Trogon, but I believe it’s really the sparrow, the bird that accompanies us in the complex experience of living between two worlds.

The Sparrow

When I least expect it, a sparrow appears and poses in the window of my room. I know when it’s about to arrive, because I feel a tightness beginning in my chest, a crisis of anxiety and panic.

It poses there without making noise. Silent, nostalgic, it begins to peck at the shutter. I open the windows for it to come in, but it prefers to stand there motionless, looking at me.

I feed it with memories, as if they were bread crumbs. I bring it a little water and tell it how happy I am. It once again looks at me and I see myself reflected in its yellowish eyes. “What are you doing here? What did you come for?” I ask it.

It still doesn’t move, and what appears to be a tear falls on the window. But the tear isn’t from the sparrow, it’s mine. I cry in silence, then tell it that its visit is hurting me, that it can’t just appear and sit in my window whenever it wants, that I’m going to drink the Coca Cola of oblivion, rather than give it water every time it comes.

I tell it that I’m doing well, that my children have a better future; that little by little I feel at home here. The sparrow moves its wings a little, and from them drop names, dates, people, images so sharp that I can almost touch them.

I know that my children won’t walk down the streets I crossed as a child; they won’t eat the mangoes from my grandparents’ house; they won’t go to the school that has deteriorated so much over the years, but that remains intact in my memory – full of dreams, of teachers who were special.

I think about that beloved teacher: what he taught me about paper mâché in those classes, and the mutual admiration we shared. I remember that he was one of the first to emigrate, and I couldn’t understand his reasons. I was so much a child then, so young, so full of illusions. Until I grew and had my own reasons.

The sparrow opens its wings a little wider, and the memories continue falling from the window. My children won’t walk at the farm that was my refuge, where I grew up happy and rebellious. I console myself with the view that’s sketched in my window: the skyscrapers and the beach nearby; the beach that unites and separates us, as salty as the tears that spill into my mouth right now. Those tears form a knot in my throat that won’t allow me to release the choked scream I’ve been carrying for so long.

The sparrow begins to be annoyed. For the first time since its arrival, it looks upset. Its gaze reflects my ire, the anger I would feel when the Police summoned me, as if I were a criminal just for being an independent journalist. When they clipped my wings, and I began to feel like I was extraneous in my country.

What right do they have to force so many sparrows to migrate and seek a new nest, or at least a little peace? The sparrow knows about sorrow, my sorrow. It knows about fear, about the traumas, about what I had to leave behind, in order to have a future before me.

It knows about the journey, the curves, the cliffs, the rivers, the jungles, and the uncertainty. About the prayers at midnight, and my hands that trembled as I gave my baby her bottle. It accompanied me the whole way. It was with me in Guatemala, when the corrupt Police blackmailed me, threatening to take away my children and I had to give over more money for them. “No parent wants to leave without their children,” they said.

I, who already carry my traumas from the constant police citations, still shake with fear when I hear the siren of a far-off squad car. The sparrow knows that what seems easy has been very hard. What the sparrow doesn’t know is how to find the answers I need, to so many “why’s”. Why do they all want to flee the nest? With the warmth that should be there, with how comfortable we could be?

Why can’t I progress in my country, after having studied, having so many hopes? What did I think? Why are they so afraid of ideas, of thinking differently? Why is the bandage that covers their eyes tied so tightly that they’re incapable of seeing what’s in full view? Or maybe they do see and say they don’t – blinded by a power that has destroyed the country and, with it, the dreams of its children, transformed into sparrows that fly around the world without a nest.

The sparrow moves again and looks annoyed. “You didn’t have to come,” I gripe at it.

I’m happy now, I tell it, and I’ll be fine. I’m building our nest here, with every dry twig that I find on the road, with effort, with energy, with dreams; the dreams that are impossible there. The sparrow turns his gaze downwards, and the anger suddenly becomes sadness.

I observe how its wings tremble lightly, as if it felt the weight of our interlaced histories. I realize that, like me, the sparrow is sustaining its own burden of loss and transformation. That’s when the sadness we share becomes denial.

I tell the sparrow that its visit isn’t welcome anymore. I try to convince myself that I’ve overcome the difficulties of the past, that my family and I are building a better life here. I make an effort to adapt, to find my identity in a new environment. But deep within me I know that this denial is only a temporary phase in the process of grieving. It’s a form of protection, a way of keeping myself afloat in the face of the overpowering emotion of each memory.

Over time, denial gives way to acceptance. I realize that I can’t erase or forget the past, and I shouldn’t try. Accepting means recognizing that losses and changes form part of the human experience. I understand that my identity has been profoundly transformed by the experience of migrating; that I’m not the same person that I was before I said goodbye to Cuba.

My children are growing up with a hybrid identity, enriched by the influences of two cultures, two languages, two trees that are trying to sink roots. Some roots that, underground, are interlaced with memories, experiences and nostalgias, connecting Cuba and the United States.

Behind the house where I live is a lake, as in many parts of Miami. In reality, it has nothing to do with the little Mulgoba lake close to the house of my grandparents where I spent my early childhood. Nonetheless, in my mind, they look nearly the same. On the edge, the accumulated swamp mud seems to have the form of Cuba, of that crocodile-shaped island that devoured our soul, and now has been transformed into a swallow.

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Originally published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times