Patricia Engel - The Veins of the Ocean

He reaches into a bag we’ve brought along and pulls out a round watermelon, a hole carved in it, filled with molasses meant to hold his deepest wishes and plugged with white flowers. He places it carefully in the water below.

He lifts his palms to the sky in alabanza, watching the offering roll above the waves away from us.

I wait for him on the back of the boat so we can fall into the water together.

He comes to me, giving me his hand, and we toss ourselves into the ocean, feeling ourselves sink into the current, heavy yet weightless.

I take my time coming up for air, even as the water wants to push me to the surface.

There was a period during my brother’s years in prison when I’d wrestle with the long nights by walking aimlessly along our neighborhood streets.

Many times, police cars pulled over asking if I was lost or needed a ride.

I’d tell the officers, most of whom knew me by name or by face from Carlito’s trial, that I was just out for a walk and they’d urge me to go home.

“You’re a girl alone,” they would say, as if I were unaware. “Ask yourself how many hours or days or weeks would have to pass before anybody notices you’ve disappeared from this earth forever.”

I never had an answer for them, but the question has always remained with me.

I take too long to come up for air and Nesto reaches down into the water and pulls me up to him.

I’m blind with salt and sun but feel him hold me, waiting for my eyes to open to him.

Only then does he let go.

I drift into my own space of ocean, a small chasm forming between us.

Across the growing bulge of waves, I see him reach for me again, hear him call my name, telling me not to slip away.

My infinite gratitude to the many people on these and other shores who have been a part of this journey.

On this side of the Florida Straits, I thank E.Q.R for sharing so much with me and for Buenavista; the Marine Animal Rescue Society, and Ricardo Paris for his excellent freediving instruction out in the deep blue.

In Cuba, my thanks to Genaro Bombino, Paquito Vives and Alicia Pérez, Pamela Ruíz and Damián Aquiles, Tom Miller, Elvia Grisuela, Ofélia Riverón and Cáritas de La Habana, Bibiana Barban and Carlos Rodríguez, María Josefa Rodríguez, and Gabby Mejía, who was there that first trip; the community of La Casa de los Orishas de La Habana and La Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba with whom I visited and consulted many times over the years of researching and writing this book; and Adolfo Nodal and Peter Sánchez, masters of logistics. Special thanks to Gustavo Bell Lemus.

In Cartagena, my thanks to Álvaro Blanco and to San Basilio de Palenque.

To my stellar agent and first reader, Ayesha Pande; my editor, Elisabeth Schmitz, for her passion and precision; Katie Raissian, for her keen editorial eye and kindness; and the tireless team at Grove, especially Judy Hottensen, Morgan Entrekin, Deb Seager, Justina Batchelor, John Mark Boling, Amy Hundley, Becca Putman, Charles Rue Woods, Gretchen Mergenthaler, Julia Berner-Tobin, and Cecilia Molinari.

For their generous support, I thank the National Endowment for the Arts; C. Michael Curtis for publishing “The Bridge” many years before it would grow into a novel; David Mura for important advice early on; my colleagues and my students at the University of Miami; for their friendship and encouragement, my thanks to M. Evelina Galang and Chauncey Mabe, Edwidge Danticat, Chris Feliciano Arnold, Mark Powell, Claudia Milian, and Daniel Samper Pizano. I am especially grateful to Stella Ohana, who read the manuscript on a moment’s notice and provided crucial insights.

I thank my family and the many friends who remain constant companions no matter the distance or how far I disappear into my work; my nieces and my godchildren, and the memory of my grandmother Lucía, and my uncle H. Above all, I thank my parents, for their faith and for more love than could fill an ocean.