The Firefly Letters Read online

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Publishers since 1866

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  New York, New York 10010

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  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

  Copyright © 2010 by Margarita Engle

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Engle, Margarita.

  The firefly letters : a suffragette’s journey to Cuba / Margarita Engle.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-8050-9082-6

  1. Women—Suffrage—Cuba—Juvenile poetry. 2. Young adult poetry, American. I. Title.

  PS3555.N4254F57 2010 813'.54—dc22 2009023445

  First Edition—2010

  Printed in February 2010 in the United States of America

  by R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  for Curtis, Victor, and Nicole

  with love

  and for Reka Simonsen

  with gratitude

  Your majesty . . . I can from Cuba, better than from any other point on this side of the globe, speak of the New World, because Cuba lies between North and South America . . . Heaven and earth, the people, language, laws, manners, style of building, every thing is new . . .

  FREDERIKA BREMER,

  in a letter to Carolina Amelia,

  Queen Dowager of Denmark

  April, 1851

  Matanzas, Cuba

  CECILIAI

  I remember a wide river

  and gray parrots with patches of red feathers

  flashing across the African sky

  like traveling stars

  or Cuban fireflies.

  In the silence of night

  I still hear my mother wailing,

  and I see my father’s eyes

  refusing to meet mine.

  I was eight, plenty old enough

  to understand that my father was haggling

  with a wandering slave trader,

  agreeing to exchange me

  for a stolen cow.

  Spanish sea captains and Arab merchants

  are not the only men

  who think of girls

  as livestock.

  ELENA

  Mamá has informed me

  that we will soon play hostess

  to a Swedish traveler, a woman

  called Fredrika, who is known to believe

  that men and women are completely equal.

  What an odd notion!

  Papá has already warned me to ignore

  any outlandish ideas that I might hear

  from our strange visitor.

  I have never imagined a woman

  who could travel all over the world

  just like a man!

  Mamá says Fredrika

  does not speak much Spanish,

  so we will have to speak to her in English.

  Cecilia can help.

  I’m so glad Papá

  taught one of the slave girls

  how to speak the difficult language

  of all the American engineers

  who work at our sugar mills,

  giving orders to the slaves.

  I am sorry to say

  that Cecilia’s English

  is much better than mine.

  She is just a slave,

  but she does have a way

  with words.

  Translating is a skill that makes her useful

  in her own gloomy, sullen,

  annoying way.

  CECILIA

  The visiting lady wears a little hat

  and carries a bag of cookies

  and bananas.

  Her shoes are muddy.

  She asks so many questions

  that Elena turns her over to me

  because my English is better

  and I am a slave

  accustomed to the rudeness

  of strangers.

  When I ask the foreign lady

  where she is from,

  she points toward the North Star.

  Can her native country

  truly be as distant

  as the Congo,

  my lost home?

  FREDRIKA

  In all my travels, I have never smelled

  any place as unfamiliar as Cuba.

  Even here in the lovely city of Matanzas,

  with elegant shops and ladies in carriages

  waving silk fans,

  there is always the scent

  of rotting tropical vegetation,

  a smell that releases a bit of sorrow,

  like the death of some small wild thing—

  a bird, perhaps, or a frog.

  I am eager to see the city

  and then set off on my own,

  exploring the beautiful countryside

  with my translator, Cecilia,

  a young African girl

  with lovely dark eyes.

  With her help

  I will see how people live

  on this island of winter sun

  that makes me dream

  of discovering Eden.

  ELENA

  I find the Swedish lady’s freedom to wander

  all over the island

  without a chaperone

  so disturbing

  that I can hardly bear her company.

  I hide in my room, embroidering

  all sorts of dainty things — pillowcases

  and gowns with pearl-studded lace ruffles

  for my hope chest.

  Cecilia and I are not quite the same age.

  I am only twelve,

  but I feel like a young woman,

  and she is at least fifteen,

  already married and pregnant.

  Too soon, I will reach fourteen,

  the age when I will be forced to marry

  a man of my father’s choice.

  The thought of marriage

  to some old frowning stranger

  makes me feel just as helpless

  as a slave.

  FREDRIKA

  When I asked the Swedish Consul

  to place me in a quiet home

  in the Cuban countryside,

  I expected a thatched hut

  on a small farm.

  Instead, I find myself languishing

  among gentry, surrounded by luxury.

  The ladies of Matanzas

  rarely set foot outdoors.

  Enclosed in marble courtyards,

  Elena and her mother move like shadows

  lost in their private world

  of silk and lace.

  If I’d wanted to endure

  the tedious life of a noblewoman,

  I could have stayed home

  at Årsta Castle, where my mother

  never allowed me to speak to servants

  and if I wanted to greet my father

  I had to wait

  while a footman

  rolled out a carpet

  and a hairdresser powdered

  my father’s pigtail.

  There is no place more lonely

  than a rich man’s home.

  CECILIA

  Fredrika’s visit is touching my life

  in ways I could never have imagined.

  She has asked Elena’s father

  to give us a little house in the big garden

  where the two of us can live in peace,

  surrounded by cocuyos — fireflies —

  instead of chandeliers.

  Together, we walk over hills and valleys

  to see
sugar plantations and coffee groves.

  We visit fields owned by wealthy planters

  and tiny patches of corn and yams

  that belong to freed slaves

  who live in little huts

  that look like paradise.

  We ride across rivers in small boats,

  carrying bags of cookies and bananas

  to share with all the children, dogs, goats,

  and tame flamingos

  that follow us wherever we go,

  begging for treats, and hearing stories

  about the North Star.

  CECILIA

  The huts of the freed slaves

  make me think of my lost home—

  I remember a ghostly mist

  rising over the river

  after a boy drowned

  trying to escape

  from the slave traders.

  The mist was silent

  but the water sang softly,

  telling its own

  flowing story.

  If I had known

  that my father would trade me

  for a stolen cow,

  I would have run away

  into the forest

  to live in a nest

  made of dreams

  and green leaves.

  FREDRIKA

  Cecilia is a fine translator,

  floating back and forth

  between English and Spanish so easily,

  yet I feel certain that she is homesick

  for Africa, and sadly, she suffers

  from the lung sickness.

  Walking tires her, so we often stop to rest

  in lovely places, beside stream banks

  or at the small farms of free men

  who used to be slaves.

  When I ask Cecilia about liberty,

  she lists the prices:

  Five hundred gold dollars

  would buy the freedom of a slave

  who works in the fields,

  but she has been taught the art

  of translation, so she is worth a fortune,

  and her husband is a skilled horseman

  valued at more than a thousand

  gold dollars.

  Fifteen dollars would be enough

  to purchase liberty

  for their unborn child.

  The price will double

  on the day of its birth.

  How strange the laws are

  on this beautiful island where—

  if not for slavery—

  I could think of the palm trees

  and winter sun

  as true evidence

  of Eden

  rediscovered.

  ELENA

  Cecilia and Fredrika live

  in a hut in our garden, but they dine

  in the big house with us,

  and I must say that the Swedish lady

  eats like a castaway

  right after the long-awaited rescue

  from starvation.

  Fredrika tells us that her mother

  never allowed her to eat her fill.

  She was expected to be as thin and graceful

  as a ballet dancer,

  even though her natural shape

  is sturdy and strong.

  Hunger drove her to steal

  strawberry cream cake from the pantry.

  Anger made her toss her gloves into the fire.

  Once, after writing a poem about the moon,

  she burned it, because she knew

  that nothing she did could ever be good enough

  to please her stern mother.

  FREDRIKA

  On the coldest, darkest night

  of Sweden’s long winter,

  I used to dress up as the Queen of Light,

  with pine branches and candles

  balanced on my head.

  I walked carefully

  to avoid setting my hair on fire

  as I carried the traditional gift

  of saffron buns to my parents.

  I was ravenous, but I was permitted only

  to keep half of one spicy golden pastry

  for myself, even though girls

  in other, more humble homes

  were allowed to feast

  during that midwinter celebration

  of hope for spring.

  I knew that I could not survive

  as a half-starved rich girl

  for the rest of my life.

  Roaming the world

  has been my escape.

  CECILIA

  My husband is a young man

  of my own tribe.

  He was chosen for me

  by Elena’s father.

  His name is Beni

  and he is a postillion,

  a skilled horseman who rides

  the fancy mare that pulls Elena’s

  swift high-wheeled volanta carriage

  down the cobblestone street

  whenever Elena and her mother

  go out to buy silk and pearls

  for her hope chest.

  Perhaps, if I had been free

  to choose Beni myself,

  I might know how to love him,

  but he is a stranger,

  and now that I am living

  in a cottage with Fredrika,

  I hardly see my husband at all.

  Out in the garden

  lit by cocuyos

  I feel unattached

  if not free.

  I feel like a young girl again,

  unmarried and skinny,

  with a flat belly

  that has never

  known the kick

  of an impatient baby

  so eager

  to be born

  into this world

  of confusion.

  BENI

  If I had been free

  to choose my own wife,

  I would have married the girl

  I loved so long ago

  before I was captured

  by men with guns

  who carried me to this island,

  a world of noble horses

  and human hatred.

  I ride with my back straight

  and my hands gentle

  so my trusting mount will know

  that I am balanced and alert,

  a rider who will never allow a horse

  to stumble and fall.

  I cannot protect myself

  from the sorrows of this world,

  but I can guide any horse

  that is placed in my care.

  CECILIA

  Fredrika tells me she was in love

  with a country preacher in her homeland.

  He asked her to marry him, but she said no

  because she felt certain that as a wife

  she would lose her freedom to roam.

  Travel is the magic

  that allows her to write

  about the lives of women

  whose husbands think of them

  as property

  instead of people.

  Fredrika says stories can lead

  to a change in laws.

  I am glad that Fredrika

  has chosen to write

  about Cuba

  and slavery.

  CECILIA

  When Elena visits us in the cottage,

  we take turns leafing

  through Fredrika’s sketchbook.

  Some of the drawings are pictures

  of famous people Fredrika met

  while she was traveling in North America—

  poets named Emerson

  and Longfellow.

  Some are pictures of Fredrika’s friends

  in Europe: the Queen of Denmark

  and a wonderful storyteller

  named Hans Christian Andersen

  who is in love with a famous singer,

  Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale,

  even though he knows

  that the singe
r will never love him.

  There are pictures of slaves

  in the United States.

  Fredrika admits that, until she saw

  the United States of America

  with her own eyes,

  she imagined she might find paradise

  in the land of Emerson

  and Longfellow.

  Instead, she found the slave market

  in New Orleans, with a schoolhouse

  right beside it

  where children were singing

  about the Land of the Free

  while, just outside

  their classroom window,

  other children

  were bought and sold

  or traded

  like stolen cows.

  FREDRIKA

  Cuban fireflies are the most amazing

  little creatures I have ever seen.

  They flock to me at night,

  resting on my fingers

  so that, while I am sketching

  and writing letters,

  I need no other lantern,

  just the light

  from their movements.

  I skim my hand across the page

  while the brilliant cocuyos help me decide

  what to write — there is so much to tell.

  How can I describe this shocking journey?

  I must speak of Cecilia’s homesickness

  and her lung sickness

  and the way her baby

  is doomed to be born

  into slavery.

  I must describe Elena’s loneliness

  and her longing for a sense of purpose.

  Somehow, I must show my readers

  the bright flowers and glowing insects

  that make Cuba’s night

  feel like morning.

  CECILIA

  When we visit the little huts

  where freed slaves live without masters,

  Fredrika asks them if they are happy

  even though she already knows

  the answer.

  I believe she simply enjoys the chance