I unbuckled my rucksack and took out the books on top to dig down into the bag to get my hammock. She watched me, clearly amused. “Loaded down with books, I see.”
I blushed. “I couldn’t live without something to read,” I said.
“Well, you’re the one who has to carry the extra weight. Here, give me that.”
I handed her my hammock, which she quickly stretched between the two trees.
“But what about you?” I asked.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She took a third hook and screwed it into a nearby pine. Then she hung one end of her own hammock on the same hook holding one end of my hammock and stretched the other end to the hook on the pine tree. “See?” she said. “Nice and cozy.”
Although we had been squashed tighter than peas in a pod in the truck, our rucksacks and lanterns poking each other, sometimes painfully, it was that first night at base camp that we really became a squad. Esteban and two of the other boys had made a fire in the center of the tiny village. We gathered there after dark, and Lilian asked us each to introduce ourselves — where we were from and what we hoped would happen this year while we were brigadistas.
I didn’t learn too much about my comrades through those self-introductions. All of us were students. Most of our parents had been reluctant to let us join. All of us wanted to know at the end of the year that we had successfully carried out our mission.
But Juan said he hoped to be eighteen centimeters taller by December. And Isora’s story was the big surprise. She was only twelve — the only person in our squad younger than I.
“My papi signed for my sister Adria, who is fifteen,” Isora said, “but he wouldn’t sign for me, no matter how much I begged. So, what could I do? I copied his signature from Adria’s permission. It was perfect. I’m a good writer. And Adria would never tell.” She giggled. “Adria sneaked my bag on the bus for me, and Papi didn’t know what had happened until he saw me waving good-bye from the bus window.”
Everyone, including me, clapped, but I really didn’t know if I was impressed or horrified.
Carlos had a guitar, and after the introductions, we started to sing songs we all knew by heart. At first Carlos played comic songs of the street, but as the embers began to die, the songs grew more melancholy — songs of lost love and far-away home. It was hard to sing past the lump in my throat. “I miss the sea already,” he said, and sang a song I’d never heard of stars above the water.
We were all quiet for a long time and then Lilian said, “Look at the stars.”
I bent my head back to look up. I thought I’d seen stars before, but it had always been in the city, with all its lights. And in Varadero we’d been in our dorms soon after dark. So I drank in the sight that first night in the country. Where there are no lights, and even the moon is hidden, the sky is like a bucket of diamonds thrown across black velvet.
Later as we lay in our hammocks, our toes close to our shared hook, Maria told me how much she had hoped we would be teamed with Enrico. “You know who he is,” she said. “He’s the good-looking one. With the beautiful smile.”
Enrico was tall and quite dark — admittedly the handsomest one of the four older boys. He did have very white teeth and a lovely smile. “He’s nice looking,” I said.
“Nice looking? He’s fantastic,” she said. “Which one do you like?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m really not old enough to be thinking about boys.”
“Pooh. I bet your mother told you that.”
I blushed in the dark, because I did know which one I liked — Carlos. I loved his playing and his singing. He had the heart of a poet. I was sure of it.
“No boyfriends, eh? Just books. So, what are all those books of yours about?”
“Only three,” I said. “I just brought three books.”
“Well, what are they about?”
“One is a collection of poems by José Martí. The fat one is an English novel. I need to work on my English while I’m here.”
“And the other?”
“I had to bring my English-Spanish dictionary so I could look up words in the novel.”
“Oh,” she said. “You must be quite the scholar.” I wondered if she thought I was trying to show off. I hoped I didn’t seem to be one of those snooty intellectuals my mother had been afraid I would become.
“What’s your novel about?”
“It’s — well, I guess it’s a kind of a love story.”
“A romance novel?”