FAMILY REUNION

I took great pleasure in playing tourist guide for my sisters who were discovering the island for the first time. They loved being accosted and courted on every street corner by the local men, very fond of white exotic flesh freshly arrived from the airport. On the other hand, my sisters didn't enjoy their similar popularity with mosquitoes as much. They immediately adored Chris and Feliz, with whom we went out in town and on the beaches, leaving mum and dad at home with Alegria and Pedro. My father didn't speak Spanish well, but his French enabled him to get by. He could make himself understood by others, and understand them. He loved busying himself around and inside Alegria's house. For a man who didn't feel loved, being useful constituted his sole life purpose since he could always find something to do for someone else somewhere.

***

I hadn't really wondered why my father had finally decided to come and visit us in Cuba with the whole family and why at that time. The answer to these questions came to me the second week after their arrival. We were sitting outside on the balcony, having our meal when he exclaimed in French between two bits:

"So, Borys, how would you like to go back to Poland with us?"

At the shock of his words, I dropped my fork and remained speechless for a long moment. My gaze moved nervously from Alegria to my father, then to Pedro, my mother and my sisters, and again to Alegria.

Why did we always have to choose a side? And what would happen to me if I didn't even have the right to choose?

"You want to take my son away?" She retorted sternly in Spanish. She gently placed her fork on the edge of her plate.

"I don't need to speak French to understand what you're saying," She paused for a moment to stare at my father before adding, "Is that why you've come after so long? To take him back without even telling me?"

"He's my son," he defended himself in Spanish without raising his voice.

He never raised his voice. He had never needed to raise his voice in his whole adult life because the people around him always listened to him.

"And I'm his mother's mother. Without me she'd never have been born, and neither would 've your son'. I too contributed greatly to the conception of this child," she said, raising her voice.

My paternal authority fell silent, plunging his head down again into his plate. He hadn't finished the discussion yet, but obviously it wasn't the right time. Alegria meanwhile, still wasn't done with him.

"Your son came to my house alone at age five with his passport and his name around his neck like he had been abandoned," she continued, pointing at me. "Today, more than ten years later, you want to take him back as if nothing had happened? But why? What else are you going to do to this child to shape him in your image?" She asked insistently.

Iwona and Ania turned sympathetic and sad eyes to me as if realising only at that moment the magnitude of the humiliation of the brother they had allowed to leave. A heavy and sad silence invaded the balcony despite the sun and the beautiful landscape around us. My father sat up looking his mother-in-law in the eye. With a red face, but a calm tone, he answered her in French:

"He's sixteen years-old, he can learn a trade and join the military afterwards if he wants."

Alegria frowned, shaking her head.

"If that's what he wants for himself, I won't stop him, but if it's another of your punishment for some reason, he's not going anywhere," she said. grabbing her fork.

She remained motionless for a moment like a stone statue, her face leaned towards her plate, her fork in her hand hanging.