So much had changed, so quickly. After her mother and brother had been taken to the hospital and given a clean bill of health, Lito’s brother, Guillermo, took them in until they found a little apartment of their own. His apartment was smaller than their house in Cuba, and not near the beach, but if Isabel never saw the ocean again that was fine by her.
Little Mariano was at home, getting fat and happy along with the other babies Mami was paid to watch at the little in-house daycare she ran. Papi had gotten a job driving a taxi and was saving up for a car of their own. Se?ora Castillo planned to go back to school to become an American lawyer, and Se?or Castillo was already talking to someone about getting a loan to open a restaurant. Luis got work in a little bodega, and Amara in a dress shop, and once Amara became a US citizen she planned to become a Miami police officer. They were going to be married in the winter.
And Isabel, she had started the sixth grade. It was hard because she didn’t speak English yet. But there were other Cuban kids there, lots more Cuban kids, a few who had come to America by boat, like her, but more who had been born here, Cubanoamericanos who still spoke Spanish at home. Isabel had quickly made friends, girls and boys who were warm and welcoming, and she knew she would learn to speak English like her teachers soon enough. She was practicing by watching lots and lots of television. (At least that’s what she told her parents.) She would learn, and in the meantime math and Spanish and art class all still made sense.
And so did music.
Se?or Villanueva and the other students waited for her to play. Isabel had practiced for weeks for this moment. At first she couldn’t decide what song to play, but then, while watching a baseball game with her father, she had figured it out.
Isabel adjusted Iván’s Industriales baseball cap on her head, took a deep breath, and began to play “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States. But she didn’t play it like she’d heard it at baseball games on the television. She played it like a son cubano, offbeat with a guajeo melody.
Isabel played it salsa for Iván, lost at sea, and for Lito, back in Cuba. She played it salsa for her mother and her father, who had left their homeland, and for her little brother, Mariano, who would never know the streets of Havana the way she had. And Isabel played it salsa for herself, so she would never forget where she came from. Who she was.
Soon, Isabel had everyone in the room clapping along to the beat with her, but as she played she heard a different rhythm, a beat underneath the one everyone else was clapping to. Her foot tapped in time with the hidden cadence, and she realized with a thrill that she was finally hearing it.
She was finally counting clave.
Lito was wrong. She didn’t have to be in Havana to hear it. To feel it. She had brought Cuba with her to Miami.
Isabel finished with a flourish, and Se?or Villaneuva and the other students cheered. She thought she might cry for happiness, but she bit back her tears. She had done enough crying over Iván and Lito.
The song of her leaving Cuba to find a new home was over.
Today it was time to start a new song.
A German song Mahmoud had never heard before played on the radio of the van that took him and his family through the streets of Berlin. The capital of Germany was the biggest city he had ever seen, far bigger than Aleppo. It was filled with nightclubs and cafés and shops and monuments and statues and apartments and office buildings. Almost all the signs were in German, but here and there he saw a sign in Arabic advertising a clothing store or a restaurant or a market. Buildings lined the sidewalks like ten-story walls of brick and glass, and cars and bicycles and buses and trams rattled and honked and clanged by in the streets.
This strange, frightening, exciting place was to be Mahmoud’s new home.
The German government had taken in Mahmoud and his family. For the past four weeks the four of them had lived in a school in Munich that had been turned into simple but clean housing for refugees. They had stayed there—free to come and go as they pleased—until a host family agreed to let them share their home while Mahmoud’s parents got on their feet.
A host family here, on this street, in the capital of the country.
The van pulled up to the curb outside a little green house with white shutters and an A-frame roof. Flowers filled the window boxes like Mahmoud had seen in Austria, and two German cars were parked in the driveway. Across the street in a park, teenagers did tricks on skateboards.
Mahmoud’s father slid open the side door for them to climb out, and Mahmoud and his mother and brother grabbed the backpacks filled with the clothes, toiletries, and bedrolls the German relief workers had given them. The relief worker who’d driven them led Mahmoud’s mother and father and brother up the steps to the front door of the little house, but Mahmoud stood for a moment on the sidewalk, looking around at the neighborhood. Mahmoud knew from his history class back in Syria that Berlin had been all but destroyed by the end of World War II, reduced to a pile of rubble like Aleppo was now. Would it take another seventy years for Syria to return from the ashes the way Germany had? Would he ever see Aleppo again?
Cries of joy and welcome came from the porch, and Mahmoud followed his family up the steps. His mother was being hugged by an elderly German woman, and an elderly German man was shaking hands with his father. The German relief worker had to translate everything everyone said to each other. Mahmoud and his family didn’t speak German yet, and the family apparently didn’t speak any Arabic. The German family had at least managed a sign written in Arabic that said WELCOME HOME on it, even if the expression they had used was a bit formal. Mahmoud still appreciated the effort—it was better than he could do in German.
The man shaking hands with his father turned to Mahmoud and Waleed, and what Mahmoud saw surprised him. He was a really old man! He had wrinkly white skin and thin white hair that stuck out a bit on the sides, like he’d tried to comb it but it wouldn’t stay put. When the relief worker had told them they’d be staying with a “German family,” Mahmoud had imagined a family like his own, not like his grandparents.
“His name is Saul Rosenberg,” the relief worker translated, “and he says welcome to your new home.” As Mahmoud shook the old man’s hand, he spotted a small, thin, ornate wooden box attached to the frame just outside the front door. Mahmoud recognized the symbol on the box—it was the Star of David! The same symbol on the flag of Israel. Mahmoud tried not to show his surprise. Not only was this couple old, they were Jewish! Back in the Middle East, Mahmoud knew, Jews and Muslims had been fighting each other for decades. This was a strange new world.
Herr Rosenberg’s wife broke away from Mahmoud’s mother and bent down to say hello. She was a wide woman, white-haired like her husband, with big round glasses and a gap-toothed, friendly smile. From the pockets of her frock she withdrew a little stuffed rabbit made of white corduroy and offered it to Waleed. His eyes lit up as he took it from her.