For Brayan

In my mother-in-law's version of the tale, Francisco came home the Friday before Mother's Day in 1980 and announced he was leaving: His girlfriend. His son. His mother and his sister. His country. They were the wake he left behind as The Green Girl pulled out of Mariel's harbor. His mom doesn't care much about what happened after he jumped on a colectivo headed out of Central Havana. Elida, unlike me, is pragmatic, non-sentimental. "Leave if you want," she said, "but don't come crying to me about your problems in La Yuma."

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In my sister-in-law's version of the tale, she is the main character: a middle school student who tried to sort out what she really felt about her older brother as her schoolmates were herded together to throw rocks and shout "escoria" (scum) at the men and women who had stormed the Peruvian Embassy to ask for asylum and who Fidel had permitted to leave in rickety boats for Key West, sending along with them thousands of released convicts and mental patients.

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In Francisco's version of the tale, he never talks about the day he left. He never described what it was like to watch Havana's skyline recede behind him for the last time, what he felt in his heart when he thought about 9-month old Brayan, whether, at that moment, he thought he would ever return. He has only told me about the crossing. A voyeur in the early life of my husband, I wanted to know what the boat was like, whether the Straits separating Cuba and southern Florida are as treacherous as everyone says, whether everyone on his boat arrived safely. (The answers are: The boat was not ideal for the number of people it was carrying, the Straits are every bit as treacherous as everyone says, and no, everyone did not arrive safely; some fell off the boat and drowned en route).

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Since I learned that Francisco came to the U.S. in the Mariel boatlifts, the port about 30 miles outside of Havana has held a sort of mythic status in my mind. Since Mariel represents the literal point of departure that separated him from his father for 27 years, and since he'd never been there, Brayan agreed to accompany me on what felt like a pilgrimage. It wasn't religious, but we both knew we were looking for something ethereal, something we weren't likely to find.

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Three hitches to get to Mariel: the first from Havana to Santa Fe, the second from Santa Fe to some nameless roadside stand, and the third into the outskirts of Mariel. In the last car, the woman sharing the backseat and our sweat insists that we will have a variety of restaurants from which to choose for lunch since we left Havana without eating. Brayan asks her about Mariel--the event, not the town-- but she feigns a memory lapse, giggling nervously and saying, "Realmente, yo no se, mi'ijo."

Entering Mariel in earnest, the gleam of fresh paint bounces off the revolutionary declarations and portraits of Che and Fidel like sun off a mirror. We step onto the sidewalk of the main street and glimpse an enormous portrait of Raul resting against a wall atop a bookshelf. The Five Pillars of the Revolution are painted onto the guard booth of a parking lot. It's as if Mariel has to perform eternal penance for allowing the gusanos ("worms," the other name applied to people who left in the boatlifts) to abandon the country, insisting that the spirit of the Revolution lives on here, history be damned.

In fact, there are no signs that the scummy worms ever wiggled down the dusty streets of Mariel or dove into the shockingly small bay fully clothed to push and fight their way onto boats. The place--it can't rightfully be called a town--was lifted straight out of the Wild West and dropped onto the Caribbean shore. The buildings have old-timey wooden facades and people are withering under the heat, most doing nothing at all. Many of them look at us warily, knowing neither of us belong here. A group of old-timers plays dominoes on worn wooden card tables. One, chomping on a cigar, winks at me, and manages to adjust the cigar without touching it just long enough to ask if I want to be his girlfriend-- he's winning , he says, and he'll take me out. Where, I'm not sure. There's not a whole lot happening in Mariel.

"Let's get a bicitaxi," Brayan says. "Maybe the bay is far." In fact, it's just around the corner and we look at each other in amazement, both imagining thousands of boats trying to navigate their way into Mariel. The bicitaxista  is young, it's true, but he can't tell us a single thing about 1980. He knows there's no monument, no acknowledgment of any sort, in fact, that 10,000 Cubans risked their lives and tore apart their families right here, in this little space no bigger than a city block. He thinks there's a museum, but, as we cycle by it, we notice that it's closed indefinitely due to possible collapse. We ask a couple of other people about the Marielitos, but people just shake their heads and keep walking.

Brayan and I are the only testimony of May 1980 in Mariel. When his father "se tiro al agua," (threw himself to the water) something ended and something else began. We came to Mariel to find the past, when all this time, it existed, right here, between us.

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All photos by Brayan Collazo Alonso.