I never knew what the fall of the Berlin wall meant to my mother, or even if she knew the wall existed. My mother left us without even understanding what was happening in Cuba, our country, or perhaps she died with the sensation that nothing was happening. By the end of her 25 years of stable employment, all she owned was a fridge and the not-so-olive-green hope of a black and white television.
I have a certain need to invent a family album. It might be because of the way my memory is failing over the years, or because of the absence of photographs or other physical objects that might help me to remember that… there was a time in my life when I was a child …and there was Mema.
Mema
…My mother’s name was Enma but we all called her Mema. She was born in 1940 in Oriente, (the Eastern Provinces) and like most Cubans I’ve known, she came from humble origins… By the time she migrated to Havana, at the age of twelve, Mema had completed sixth grade, a qualification that she achieved while working as a maid in the houses of ‘rich’ families…
The year 1959 was growing closer and with it a revolution full of promise for women, black people and the poor. My mother, as well as being young, was all of these. The speech given by the young Fidel Castro during his self-defence for the assault on the Moncada barracks – known as “History will absolve me”– was full of hope, and with the desire to turn these words into reality Mema dedicated her life to the “construction” of that new society…
…………
In 1970 Mema managed to get her first stable job as a cook in the Manuel Martinez Prieto Sugar Refinery (el Toledo) in Havana. She stayed in this job for the rest of her life, and even though on a material level it didn’t contribute anything significant, her good cooking did fill the stomachs of a lot of sugar workers, and make them happy. In this same year she managed to get a small house near the Refinery where she worked.
The house was made of wood and had only one bedroom. It was located between a liquid gas plant and an immense green cane field. We (me and my two sisters) grew up there, like wildflowers, between the soot of the refinery, a grove of guava and avocado trees, and alongside a cow, two calves and some chickens! You might ask: “What more could anyone want?” I would answer: perhaps to have spent more time with my mother and sisters there, in that house in the Batey, and not to have been sent at the age of three and a half years to the Becas (boarding school). From early childhood until my young adulthood the Becas was my home. Mine was not an exceptional case, but rather part of a normalised national strategy for the Cuban socialist education. The 1959 Cuban revolution nationalised everything, including the family. Like me, many children from my generation were sent to the Becas and separated from the intimate space of the family home. For some time we would return to our houses every forty five days, though later this became more frequent, depending on the historical period, and the place of study. These boarding schools now no longer exist, as they were gradually closed by the state from 2009 onwards. For reasons I can only guess were a matter of destiny for the three sisters, I was the only one who stayed in the Becas. My younger sister, who was sent to a different school, could not cope with the difficult life, abuses and strict regime and after escaping from the school was expelled and marked as a deserter at 12 years old. My older sister was with Mema’s parents until the age of five in Oriente (east side of Cuba). Aged fourteen she was married to a boy of similar age and became a mother.
…………
Now when I go back to the Batey, I have to admit that I don’t feel any connection with the house, maybe because of my historical lack of family domesticity. But also because there are no visual mementos of those times, not a single photo in which one of these brief memories of home were registered.
I’ve never had pictures of my parents, my grandparents, or even my sisters and myself from when we were little girls. The only picture I have seen of myself as a child, was shown to me by a neighbourhood friend. It showed my sisters and me between seven, eight and nine years old. We were at a neighbour’s birthday celebration and there were many other children there. I asked Noel (my neighbour) if he was willing to give it to me, as I thought that for him it was just another birthday photograph. For me it was the ‘only signifier’ of my childhood. I don’t remember what happened with the photograph. It has since disappeared. Unlike Barthes I don’t look for any specific sign of “truth”. My desire is driven by the need to find photographs that “prove” my connection to my childhood and help me recuperate those memories. As I search now for clues, I may be reinventing a past in which to shelter my recollections. And even then, perhaps I am re-imagining them. These recollections, the ones I try to hold onto and keep safe, are fragmented and misplaced from so much walking with them on my back. Those memories are now becoming entangled with my immediate past and intertwined with memories of my adulthood and motherhood. Forty-five years away from the Batey and so much migrating from one place to another.
…………
Four years ago I went to the Batey to visit my sisters who are still living there. We were in what is still the living room. There were also, like family members, the two old wood sillones (rocking chairs). They have been there in the house longer than we have. And have witnessed not only Mema’s daily life events, but also her death. It was in this seemingly familial space that I read part of the accounts I had been keeping. I remember the three of us sitting in the living room, looking at photographs I had taken on previous trips to Cuba. We talked a bit about everything, of how much we had changed since the last time we saw each other; of the coincidence that each of us now had a daughter; that Mema would have loved them… I recall saying “I also have here a text I wrote about Mema”… then, without hesitation, I took the plunge and read it aloud.
Mema was the only link to our childhood. I was afraid they would disapprove of my recollection of her, but they were almost indifferent…“Why do you want to write about this?” was their only comment.
And I thought to myself, because Mema is the place where my memories shelter.