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Baba Seti sat up and looked out of his window too. “We’re here,” he said. “All praises.”
Kerry looked toward the back of the small cabin where Ernest was gathering Val’s bags from the tiny overhead compartment. Val was looking forward toward Kerry. Val winked at her.
Kerry winked back.
As the steward moved to open the door, the party was gathered behind him with their eyes focused on seeing the first glimpse of Cuba. It was nearly dawn in Havana, but still the heat was relentless. As soon as the door opened, it seemed to invade the cabin and suck out all the air, drawing every soul out and onto the tarmac.
With Tyrian hiding under her right arm and snuggled into her hip like she was about to leave him at school for his first day, Kerry scanned Havana and thought of it as a possible home. The green in the woods not far away looked neon in the thin light. Leaves were lush and graceful in a slight rush of wind that could hardly be considered a breeze.
While Baba Seti kept insisting everyone come stay at Fihankra Center’s community compound, Kerry didn’t want to bring Tyrian there until she was sure of how he’d take seeing his father again. She’d already booked rooms at a small family boarding home that featured day care and facilities appropriate for children. If she’d been on her own, she would’ve demanded to see Jamison immediately after she got off that plane, but being with her child made things a little more complicated and she had to move slower and think like a mother. Val and Ernest decided to stay at the boarding house.
Outside the airport, an old dented van with the Fihankra symbol was waiting for Baba Seti and his little bag. He’d been talking to Kerry about plans of meeting up that afternoon as they walked through the airport. He’d held Kerry’s hand, told her he sensed her hesitation, and assured her that this was the perfect plan.
Two men jumped out of the van. While they were much younger than Baba Seti, they were also rather thin and were dressed in simple mud-cloth shirts. One had a short Afro, but his beard was wild and bushy; he looked like he hadn’t ever shaved. He was chewing a wooden stick, but his teeth were new white. The other greeter had unkempt dreadlocks with trinkets hanging from the tips. Some were wooden. Some were bronze. Those matched the rings hanging from his ears and nose. Both men were gracious and greeted Baba Seti with a respectful bow that made it clear to all of the people standing outside of the airport how important Baba Seti must be to those young men.
Ernest was actually taken aback by the display. He elbowed Val and whispered, “Interesting” in her ear. When he’d showed up at her house for sleep the night before they left, he found Val in her bathroom staring into the mirror. He asked her what she was looking at and she said she was thinking; she always stood in that bathroom when she was thinking. She then told him about Kerry and her mission to Cuba. She didn’t want to go along with it all, but she didn’t feel right about letting Kerry go alone. Ernest came up behind her in the mirror and told her what she needed to hear, but already knew: “You’re going to Cuba with Kerry.” Then he added, “And I’m going with you.”
“Greetings, my sisters and brothers,” the man with the beard said, nodding to everyone. His American English sounded odd in front of the airport, where white and yellow and a few brown Cubans spoke mostly Spanish. He went to get the bags from Ernest, but Kerry reminded Baba Seti that she was going to the boarding house.
“Oh, sister, I hoped you’d changed your mind. You really must see the compound. It’ll open your eyes. Help you to see,” Baba Seti said. “Prepare you.” He looked at Val and Ernest. “Prepare all of you.”
“I think we’ll catch up with you all later,” Ernest said, imposing his male voice in Kerry’s stead. He’d also been following some of the gossip about Jamison being in Cuba. As he’d told Val, he believed it. Well, he didn’t exactly have a reason not to believe it. His father was a Black Father and he knew well what the country meant to black militants. It was seen a refuge. A place to sharpen knives. To prepare. Still, as long as he’d known men and women and revolutionaries who’d gone there for just that, he’d never seen any return home. He hadn’t told Val, but a part of him was anxious to see what Jamison had in store for this. What was he going to do?
Tyrian quickly adjusted to the Cuban Carribean heat. While his mother, Val, and Ernest had spent the time in their cab to the house wiping sweat and begging the driver of the small van to turn up the half-working air-conditioning, the little boy seemed so happy to be in the tropical sunshine.
It was a short drive to the boarding house. Through the window, Kerry saw that the part of Cuba she was seeing had so many more levels than what she’d peeped from the sky. There were rich and poor pockets. A beautiful young Cuban man in a business suit who looked like he could be worth millions in America would be standing on a street corner, while a man of similar age and build could be hunched over and begging for change. This was interesting to see in a place that claimed equality for all through even income distribution since its revolution. Since then, all eyes had placed Cuba front and center, some in crosshairs, some in rose-colored glasses. Seeing it up-close, Kerry didn’t know what to make of the Communist dream.
The boarding house was actually a small and decent hotel on the beach in Playa. From the car, it was clear the place had some decades on it, maybe half a century, but where paint was missing, vines with budding, exotic flowers popped out, making the old beautiful and quaint.
Ernest had sat in the front seat with the driver, picking his brain about everything Cuban. He sounded like he was on vacation and seeking the hottest places to hang out and things he had to see before leaving the embattled paradise.
Val was seated behind him, listening to his voice. How confident he was. Cheerful. He sounded so happy. It was like there was nothing dark inside of him. No secrets. No flaws. Maybe a past, but he was a man who was open and honest. She’d never heard him speak to another person. Not to engage. To have a conversation. It eased something in her. He sounded like a man a woman could love. A solid man.
When the driver opened the van door to let them out at the hotel, Tyrian spotted a few little boys his age playing on a huge, indoor jungle gym in the open-air lobby. He quickly untangled himself from Kerry and begged to join them.
“Okay,” Kerry agreed, “but stay where I can see you. And don’t
wander off anywhere. We’ll need to go to our room once we check in.” This final message fell on deaf or departed ears. Tyrian was already gone and climbing up the back of a slide behind a boy with blond hair.
Val was standing beside Kerry as Ernest helped the driver and doorman with their bags. She slid her shades down and looked into the lobby behind Tyrian. “Looks like he’s about to make some friends,” she said to Kerry
“Yeah,” Kerry said, surprised. It was the first time Tyrian had voluntarily left her side since she’d gotten home. She’d even kept him home from school a few times to avoid his good-bye tears.
After checking in and being introduced to Anna, one of the home’s nannies, who’d been assigned to care for Tyrian, Kerry found herself in her hotel room, staring at bags and bags of her and Tyrian’s things. Ernest had volunteered to sit downstairs and watch Tyrian play with his new friends and Val went to their room to shower.
Kerry opened her suitcase and fingered a pair of high-heeled shoes poking out the top. They looked so odd in the bag and she wondered why she’d packed them. What use would they be? This wasn’t a party. This wasn’t a celebration. When she’d flung the plum-colored peep-toes into the small carrying bag she needed to fill to prepare for the two-night stay—that’s as long as she’d thought she’d need to see Jamison and convince him to come home with her and Tyrian—she’d convinced herself that she needed to be ready for anything. Maybe the reunion would be splendid. Something that would require that plum sundress she’d fetched from her bag. Those shoes. The golden earrings. Jamison would show up in a suit with a bow tie. There would be some jazz band or a symphony playing. He’d run toward her, and she toward him. They’d meet. Kiss. He’d dip her low to the ground as if they were ballroom dancing. Then he’d slide a new engagement ring on her finger. Say he loved her and that he’d been a fool.
Standing right there and right then, she knew she could’ve left those shoes and the earrings at home. There would be no romantic union. She wasn’t sure what it would be, but definitely not that. These people Jamison were with—the people from the Fihankra Center, Baba Seti—they were on a mission. One for which Kerry had no shoes, understanding, or identity. She knew that before she got on that plane, but now her head was reeling in worry about it. She was considering that maybe Jamison didn’t want her there. If maybe Jamison had no intentions of ever seeing her, his family, his world ever again, and she was scrambling to get to him and bringing it all with her. She’d be rejected, made the fool, turned down and away.
After knocking on the half-open door, Val walked inside in a thin sundress that clung to her still-wet skin. A towel was over her hair. She had her cell phone in her hand.
“You busy?” Val asked.
“Just unpacking. How was your shower?”
“Short, but it’ll do.” Val held the phone out to Kerry. “I was checking my messages and someone sent me a link to this picture.”
Kerry took the phone and looked at the screen. There was a picture of the van parked outside the airport. The one Baba Seti had gotten into to go to the Fihankra Center. Beside it were Kerry, Val, Ernest, and Tyrian. Baba Seti was there too. The men who’d retrieved them from the airport were bowing to him.
