The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2022

The Meadow 199 It was the music in the name, she whispers. Nic-a-rag-ua. That’s what brought me. The lyrical sound of it caught hold of me, exuded some pleasure I had never known, something exotic. I heard joy in the name. I once went to Barcelona looking for the same thing. Bar-cel-o-na. “Nicaragua was nothing like Barcelona, certainly not then with all the trouble.” The voice laughs between coughs from the blue smoke. “Havana was though, in the old days. Some days it was like a city given over to joy.” And still you left... “La Revolución, it changed everything. There was a woman in Havana that I cared for very much,” The old man’s words drift as though faraway, filled with the music of regret. “For many, many years, there was never a day I failed to think of her, right up until the end. I wanted to marry her, but they made me leave the country. You see, we had played for the Yanquis, took their money, so some of us were not pure enough for their revolution. No more Yanquis, no more dancing, no more money. Nada. The music stopped.” Yes, that’s how it was with my marriage. The music just...stopped. I never told anyone that except Sandy. That’s when he told me to go away somewhere—the farther the better—to get that music out of my head. Then my brilliant brother said, “Let’s go to Nicaragua. They’re trying to remake the country. There’s a lot you can do, you can help them. And I can get my head together.” With her finger, she pushes a stray cigarette ash from the table, remembering his way of making crazy sound altogether sensible. But she was finally done with law school. And done with being married. He was done with, well, Sandy had no ties. “You were ready to do something, a thing muy importante. So you come to help us with our revolution.” There is irony in the voice she hears. “Twenty-five years before, I had no choice but to come home. But you should have stayed away.” After a moment, she thinks yes, we should have, but then remembers how earnest Sandy was, how his eyes lit up at the

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