Next Year in Havana

By Sarah Coleman

DAYS OF AWE
By Achy Obejas
375 pages. Ballantine. $24.95.

Days of Awe, the title of Achy Obejas' first novel about the Cuban Jewish Diaspora, refers to the days in the Jewish calendar that fall between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Traditionally, for Jews, these days are a time for wonder and reverence. But for Cuban Jews, writes Obejas, "the same days in the Jewish calendar are called los dias terribles—the terrible days." Ironic disparities like this one fuel many of Obejas' observations about Cuba and Judaism in this passionate, melancholy novel.

As Obejas writes late in the novel, there are competing stories about how Jews arrived in Cuba. Some historians, citing the use of the Star of David symbol in native pottery, believe that the indigenous Indians of the islands are actually the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Others hold that Jewish conversos arrived on the island with Columbus in 1492. Still others believe that Jewish migration to Cuba didn't begin until the end of the nineteenth century, when thousands of economic migrants from Europe flocked to the Americas.

Obejas focuses on the second historical possibility. Alejandra San Jose, the novel's heroine, is the daughter of Enrique, a Spanish-descended Cuban Jew whose family has lived in Cuba for centuries. Having converted to Christianity in the fifteenth century in order to avoid the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, Alejandra tells us, "the first New Christians in our family, like so many of their neighbors and friends, baptized themselves with the most exaggerated Catholic names available."

By the time Alejandra is born, the family's relationship to Judaism has become a complex dance of attraction and denial. Enrique denies his Judaism in public, but lays tefillin in the secrecy of his basement every Friday night. His wife Nena, a casual Catholic with Jewish converso roots, gives equal weight to her plaster statue of the Virgin of Charity and folk religion rituals like eating a raw chicken's heart to ensure the health of her baby. What's a child with parents like this to do, except probe the past in an attempt to reconcile it with the present?

For Alejandra, who is born on the day that the Communist revolution begins, family history is intimately tied to political history. Two years after Castro comes to power, her parents flee the island for Chicago in a dramatic escape that occurs just as American planes are heading towards the Bay of Pigs. Growing up, Alejandra identifies as American but knows that her Cuban roots are the source of a potent part of her identity—just as she suspects that beneath her father's denial of Judaism lies a rich and complex story.

Jewish identity has often been likened to that of other races and religions, from Irish migrants to Tibetan Buddhists. Here, Obejas draws convincing comparisons between Cubans and Jews, keeping her touch light and suggestive. Exile is the obvious common theme, and Obejas finds many parallels between the Cuban and Jewish experience. "Next year in Havana!" is the cry of many Cuban-Americans, many of whom have transferred their allegiance to their adopted country. Would they return if they could? Obejas cites the example of the ancient Jews of Babylon who, when offered a chance to return to Zion by King Cyrus of Persia, "decided to remain in Babylon, tending to their families and businesses, continuing to lead the only life they really knew, sending monies and goods back to those who had stayed behind in now mythical Israel."

For Alejandra, the chance to visit Cuba comes in 1987, when as a Spanish-English interpreter, she accompanies a group of progressive Chicago politicians on a visit to the island. At first, she is determined to remain aloof from Cuba's charms. But then she meets her father's childhood friend Moises Menach, a man who embraces Judaism and Communism with equal fervor. Moises' family is large and unruly, and through her relationship with it Alejandra begins to uncover both her own complicated attachment to Cuba and the dark secret at the heart of her own family's life.

Obejas, who has divided her career between cultural reporting for the Chicago Tribune and penning novels and poetry, puts all of this together with skill and considerable lyricism. Like her heroine, she was born in Cuba and moved to the United States as a young child. Days of Awe is clearly a very personal book, and there are times when the language soars, capturing the author's obvious passion for her homeland. "In Havana, the blue of the sea winks between colonial columns and Jetsons-style 1950s high-rises," begins one chapter. "Rain falls in spurts, then clears to not uncommon double rainbows shimmering just off the horizon. Fried pork flanks sizzle in fat just inside open windows."

There are also times when the narrative stalls, or makes false starts. Since she chooses to cover such a broad historical canvas (Alejandra juggles the story of her great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents along with her own) it's inevitable that certain balls will be dropped. One of these concerns Alejandra's bisexuality, and her identification with a young Cuban girl who is sexually exploited by a member of Moises' family. Obejas brings up this potent theme but never really develops it, leaving the reader feeling vaguely unsatisfied.

Overall, though, Days of Awe is an impressive achievement, and a worthy addition to the literature of the Jewish Diaspora. Ultimately, it's Achy Obejas' writing—by turns wistful and cynical, romantic and hard-headed—that embodies all the contradictions and charms of the Cuban Jewish identity.