My Brigadista Year

“Yes, a poem. When your heart is broken, poetry can be very healing.”

“Do you really think so?”

“You should try,” I said, and promptly forgot about it, as life soon began to speed up for all of us.

The first thing that happened was not the most important, but it did mark a milestone in my life. It began the first week of September with an ache in my stomach and a slight backache. When I visited the outdoor toilet, I realized what was happening. Girls at school often talked about it. But I didn’t know what to do. I was totally unprepared. There were no pharmacies in the mountains. I was embarrassed, but the only thing I could do was ask Veronica for help. She was so kind, just like the older sister I’d described for my parents. She got me the makeshift rags that women in the country must use in such times. “Now you are a woman, Lora,” she said, “not just a teacher.”

I couldn’t remember that she’d ever called me by my name before.

Far more important than that milestone in my life was wh

at happened soon afterward. It didn’t matter how often Luis or Veronica protested, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the accident was my fault. I had written a letter home telling my family about my students’ progress, and I was anxious to get it sent. I fussed aloud at breakfast that the letters I gave to Esteban and Lilian for mailing took forever to arrive in Havana.

“Veronica,” Luis said as he was getting up from the table, “I noticed we have more guava fruit than we can eat. We haven’t used all our rations. I think I’ll go to market and sell some of the guava. Then I could buy more rice. If you like, Lora, I could mail your letter for you while I’m there.”

He borrowed the Acostas’ old mare to take a large burlap sack of guava fruit and my letter. He got safely to town, bought the rice, and secured the bag to Bonita’s saddle. It was on the way home that the accident occurred.

Bonita, as I’ve said before, was the slowest, kindest horse in the Western Hemisphere. But sweet old Bonita had thrown Luis into the brush.

“It was not her fault,” Luis said to us afterward. “She was startled. You would jump, too, if a large boa suddenly appeared at your feet.” When Luis had tried to stand, he told us, his right leg had buckled under his body and the pain in his back and leg had forced him to lie down again at once.

“But I couldn’t just lie there and wait for a snake to bite or mosquitoes to eat me,” he said. “So I called Bonita and somehow got myself onto the saddle. She was very sorry. I could tell how sorry she was. She stood very still and gazed sadly at me while I struggled up on her back, and she was very careful and gentle all the rest of the way home.”

Veronica and I helped him to their mattress. He winced when we got him down on his back. Veronica and I knelt on either side of the patient. She carefully took off his shirt and pushed up his pants’ leg. His leg was bloody. The children were standing around the mattress. Rafael was trying bravely not to cry — to be like his papi, but when the girls saw the blood, they both burst into tears.

“Shh,” Luis said. “Don’t cry. Papi will be fine.”

I knew there was nothing I could do about his back except pray it wasn’t broken, but when Veronica washed the blood off his leg, it was so strangely twisted that I felt sure it was broken. Luis was trying so hard to smile, to make a brave front for the sake of the children, but it was apparent that he was in agony. I made him swallow a couple of aspirin — the best I could do for the pain. “We need to get you to a doctor,” I said.

“I can’t go to a doctor,” he said. “I’ll be all right. Just let me rest a bit.”

“I’ll fetch Esteban,” Rafael said.

Everyone looked at him. “It’s nearly dark,” Veronica said. “And it’s a long way.”

“I know the way,” the boy said. “I’ll ride Bonita.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll go.”

Luis reached out his hand and grasped my arm. “If someone must go, it would be better if it’s the boy. The bandidos aren’t looking for him.”

Not long after Rafael set out, the Acostas came for the lessons. “Is everything all right?” Daniel asked as soon as Veronica unbolted the door. “I didn’t see the horse.”

“Mother of God!” In the dim light of the kitchen, Dunia had made out the form of Luis lying on one of the mattresses. “What is this?”

“There was a little accident,” Luis said, trying to get into a sitting position. “Don’t worry. The horse wasn’t hurt. Rafael insisted on taking her to fetch Esteban.” He clinched his teeth and lowered himself slowly back down. “Though what can he do more than cluck his teeth? A little rest, and I’ll be fine. Now, go to the back room and do your lessons. I can listen from here.”

When Esteban arrived, he tried to persuade Luis that he should see a doctor, but it would mean a journey of more than a day, and Luis was adamant. So Esteban improvised a splint for Luis’s leg and told him sternly not to try to stand on it until Esteban could somehow fetch a doctor to come examine him and encase his leg in a proper cast.

“But who will plow tomorrow?” he asked.

“I will,” said Rafael.

I took the child’s hand. “We will,” I said. “We’ll make a good team. You’ll see.”

And the next day, we did. The boy’s arms could not reach across to both handles of the plow, so he led the oxen while I guided the plow. I tried not to think of Luis, lying in pain on the kitchen floor. I kept trying to tell myself that it was an accident. That it was not my fault that Luis had decided to go to the market. That no one could have predicted that a snake would spook the horse and he would be thrown. But somehow the sweat pouring down my face was not only for the physical exertion of pushing the plow.

When we looked at our efforts at the end of the morning, it was plain to see that our furrows were far from straight, but it was the best we could do.