The Red Umbrella

Rain splattered against the windowpane. In the glow of lightning flashes, I could see the girls sleeping in the bunk beds around me. I felt drained, like I’d shed all the tears my body could produce. But I hadn’t been the only one crying. For about an hour after the lights were turned off, all I could hear were the echoes of my sobs from the girls in the other beds. We were all alone … together.

It was well past midnight and, on my first night away from Frankie, I wondered how he was doing. He’d always hated thunderstorms. Was he scared? Crying? Maybe the rain had woken him up, too. Did the boys cry as much as the girls?

The sound of a bell ringing startled me. At some point, I’d obviously managed to drift off to sleep.

I opened my eyes and sat up. I’d been lucky enough to have been assigned a bed on the far side of the room, next to the wall. From my top bunk, I had a view of the entire place. I watched as a flurry of girls quickly picked up their things and headed out the door in their pajamas.

Angela, the eleven-year-old girl who slept in the bottom bunk, sprang up and tapped my mattress. “Apúrate,” she said.

We’d met the day before, and she’d told me her story of coming from Cienfuegos, Cuba, about two months ago. She insisted that once you knew your way around, things at the camp weren’t too bad. I stretched and watched as more girls left the room.

“If you don’t hurry, there won’t be any hot water.” She looked over her shoulder at several empty, unmade bunks. “Ay caramba, it’s too late!” She threw her clothes back on the bed.

“Sorry, I didn’t know.” I climbed down and pulled my suitcase from under the bed. It was the only place to store my things.

“Yeah,” she muttered, “price we pay for having the last bunk. Guess we’ll have to shower tomorrow.”

“I don’t mind taking a cold ducha.” I figured a cold one was better than none at all.

“Sure, if you want to miss breakfast, too.”

“¿Qué?” I asked.

“Didn’t Mrs. Eckhart explain things to you?” Angela rolled her eyes and sighed. “Breakfast is served in the cafeteria at exactly seven-thirty. If you don’t get there on time, you won’t be able to eat because we have English class right after. Mrs. Eckhart’s the teacher. They say she used to teach English at some private school in Havana before the revolution kicked her out.”

“Right, she mentioned that yesterday. But after class we get free time, so I can go see my brother at the boys’ camp, right?”

Angela shook her head. “Nah, free time means we can go outside, play games, read books. Some girls write to their families. That kinda stuff. They’ll bring over the boys for a little while at some point during the day, but that’s it.”

My shoulders slumped.

“Oye, it could be worse. They could’ve sent your brother to a different camp and you’d only see him on Saturdays.”

“Sí,” I sighed, “it could always be worse.”

*  *  *  *  *

I stood behind Angela, waiting in line to get my breakfast tray. The “cafeteria” was really just a huge room with about twenty small, square tables. An old woman wearing a hairnet and a light blue maid’s uniform brought in several trays at a time. The girls in front of me referred to her as Nena.

Angela turned around. “Keep Nena on your good side. If you clean your own tray and you’re nice to her, she’ll get you a little extra of your favorites.”

“Like what?” I asked, eyeing the box of cereal and container of milk sitting on the tray.

“Breakfast is always the same. Don’t even dream of café con leche or pan cubano. They don’t have that kinda stuff. But sometimes for dinner she’ll give you an extra piece of chicken instead of the vegetables they always want us to eat.”

“Oh.” I watched as about fifty Cuban girls, of all ages, sat around eating their cereal, laughing and talking about the upcoming day. With everyone speaking Spanish, it almost felt like we were in a boarding school back home.

Yet this wasn’t Cuba, and no matter how much I wished that everything was okay, it wasn’t. I knew it and all the girls in the room knew it, too.

“Next week you can have my bottom bunk.” Angela poured the milk into her bowl.

“¿Por qué?” I took a bite of the sweet, crunchy flakes. It wasn’t bad, but it tasted like I was having a dessert for breakfast.

“I’m going to live with a family in Oregon. They say the family’s got a daughter just about my age. Anyway, it’s not like I have a choice.”

“Why can’t you just stay here?” I asked.

“This place is only temporary.” She leaned closer to me. “We’re like puppies at the pound. If we don’t get picked up by friends or some extended-family member, then they ship us off to make room for the new arrivals.”

“But don’t parents sometimes come to get their kids?”

Angela took a big sip from the orange juice carton on her tray. “Sure. I heard that happened a couple of months ago to someone, but that was before I got here.”

“So, they’re sending you to Oregon. Is that far from here?”

“Mmm-hmm. Other side of the country. Above California. But at least I’ll be going with Claudia.” She pointed to a little girl about eight years old sitting at a table with kids her own age. “And I’ll only have to share a room with her, instead of fifty other people. It won’t be too bad.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if she was saying this to convince me or to convince herself.

She slowly exhaled and looked at me. “Your time will come, too.”

*  *  *  *  *

Classes at the camp reminded me of school in Cuba, except here there was a sense of urgency in learning English. The idea of having to speak a foreign language all the time was overwhelming, even for girls like me who’d studied English for years. Back home, I used to feel worldly being able to understand the American movies and songs, but now I just felt silly speaking in English. Thankfully, everyone else around me sounded just like me or a little worse.

“All right, ladies … class is dismissed. Please remember to practice speaking to each other in English. It will help you outside of camp.” Mrs. Eckhart stood at the door and handed each of us a list with vocabulary words. “Read over these new terms and we will discuss them all tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day, girls.”

I walked back to the central yard and glanced down at the purple-inked paper. It still had the smell of the mimeograph machine that it had been printed on.

“Lucy!”

I looked over at the picnic table and saw Frankie sitting with a few other boys. He quickly swung his legs over the bench and ran toward me.

“Lucy, we’ve got to figure out a way to go back home,” he said, hugging me tightly.

“Frankie, you know we can’t.”

“Then can’t you make them let me stay here with you?”

“They won’t let you, but we’ll see each other every afternoon.”

“That’s not good enough. I don’t know how things are over here, but it’s horrible over there.” He pointed across the road.

I pushed him back a little and looked at him from head to toe. “Did something happen?”

“Nah, a couple of bullies tried to mess with me, but I’m tough and it’s no big deal. But the food is really bad, Lucy.” He gave me a pained look.

I started laughing.

“No, really. I’m not kidding. I’m starving.”

I shook my head. Leave it to Frankie to view everything through his stomach.

“Can’t you do something to get us home? Maybe we can call and Papá can send money to fly back?”

“No.”

“What if we sneak out and stow away on a plane back to Cuba?”

“No.”

“Well, if we do something really bad and they kick us out of the camp, then they’d have to—”

“Don’t even think about it, Frankie,” I warned. “We will make Mamá and Papá proud. Mrs. Eckhart already sent a telegram to them saying that we were staying here. We’ll probably get letters from Mamá and Papá soon.”

“Not soon enough,” Frankie muttered.

“Look, this isn’t fun for anyone, but I’ll figure something out. We still have each other, and some kids get sent to foster homes. Maybe we’ll end up with a really nice family somewhere in Miami Beach.”

Frankie crossed his arms and looked away. “Yeah, or we’ll end up in a place where they’ll turn us into slaves, make us sleep on the floor, and feed us dog food.”

“Frankie, you know that won’t happen.”

“Fine, but they could separate us. Send us to different homes. That really does happen. Did you think about that?”

I opened my mouth to answer but realized that there was nothing to say. He was right. It could happen.

“See, we have to do something before it’s too late.”

“I’ll figure something out, Frankie. I promise.” I looked around. Some girls had started to play badminton, and a few others were reading under the shadow cast by one of the buildings. “C’mon, I’ll show you around. I think they even have some board games in the main hall.”

Frankie shrugged.

I gave him a little nudge. “Challenge you to a game of checkers.”

“Ha, challenge?” He smirked. “You’ve never beaten me.”

“We’ll see. Things are different now.”