We’re crossing a rickety plank bridge. The turbulent water below was making me nervous even before I boarded the Midnight. This kind of thing always terrifies me, though not even my best friend, Cundita, knows the reason why. I lean on her arm, ashamed that this June morning should find me here. When she asked me to come with her, I said, Why would I, if I’ve always avoided travelling by boat? She insisted that an outing on the sea would make me feel better. And, Who knows? she said, laughing. Maybe you’ll meet the man of your dreams. Man of my dreams. At my age—imagine. How silly even to mention the man of my dreams.

Gambling: that’s what brings Cundita to the Midnight, no matter the time of day or the weather. I didn’t come just for her sake, though; I know I really should get over my fear of the sea. But the line is moving slowly and I’m starting to worry, contemplating the huge iron skeleton I’m about to board. In front of me, an old woman in floral-printed overalls puts lipstick on with a trembling hand, batting her eyelashes at the reflection in her hand mirror. I wonder whether I’ll be like her in twenty years: ancient, with nothing to do but visit these floating casinos on the open sea with my husband just as old as me, like the guy next to her with suspenders and a straw hat. As if reading my mind, she turns around and looks at me as though we were enemies. God, age is a terrible thing. Seeing them, I feel even less prepared for the journey.

“Take it easy, Rosa, it’s only a three-hour trip. Besides, boarding a boat is nothing. There’s a first time for everything,” Cundita says, to calm me down.

If only she knew.

As I don’t intend to spend a single dollar on the slot machines, and I can’t imagine sitting next to Cundita at the game tables wasting time on multiple three-hour sessions, to entertain myself I’ve brought my video camera and the book I’ve been reading every afternoon, some mornings, and occasionally at night, since I’m single and unemployed: Simple Ways to Minimize Stress for a Competitive World (For Women). I don’t want to remember everything that happened when I lost my job, but it’s useless to try and forget. I’ve been bitter every day since then.

I lost my job at the pet store where I worked for a long time, thanks to a woman who accused me—in front of my boss—of being her husband’s lover. The accusation wasn’t false, as I’d been sleeping with her husband for eighteen years (he was an Irish scuba diver who sold marine snakes at the store) but I was always a good employee and did my work well. The owner of the pet store, who besides being my boss was the pastor of the church I attended (along with the diver and his wife), considered what I’d done to be an embarrassment before the eyes of God and His children. He scolded me, fired me and kicked me out of the congregation. After I lost my job, the diver gave me the cold shoulder. He stayed with his wife. Why did I have to go and sleep with someone else’s husband? I gave him everything I could for eighteen years and got nothing—not even a child—in return. In this whole mess, the only one punished, the only one who came out on the losing end, was me.

And I still haven’t recovered. Not only was I a good employee, but I was also very involved in the church. I sang in the choir. I was so hurt by everything that happened, it hurt me deeply, and still does. Twenty-five years wasted working in an enormous country that isn’t mine, that never will be, even if I have all my papers in order—I became a citizen, I’m North American now—but of course I’m not, not really. I am and always will be Rosa Campusano, a Dominican living in New York.

When I finally board the Midnight, the employee at the door hands me a couple of paper bags and a small envelope.

“Why’d she give me that?” I ask Cundita.

“Don’t worry,” she responds casually, chewing her Chiclet, as if trying to show off how accustomed she is to the boarding process. Meanwhile, I’m getting more and more nauseous. 

“Take it easy, Rosa,” she says in English.

Resigned, I study the Midnight’s interior, which is much uglier than I’d imagined. We’re on the first floor, and I feel as though I’m drowning: there’s no ventilation, and very little light. The rug is black and red, covered in hideous arabesques that have lost their luster due to time, I suppose. Three hours trapped in this iron casket and soon it’ll feel like I’m dying. But my friend says there are two more floors. We go up to the second. Cundita walks confidently, supporting me on her arm.

In the gaming room, the strong smell of cigarette smoke makes it difficult to breathe. All around, great excitement: the players are getting ready, buying their tickets. They almost never look at one another, but everyone seems happy anyway. The casino employees are getting ready, too: arranging the tables, brushing off their uniforms. People come up and down the stairs. Somewhere, a cheerful melody is playing. The old woman in floral overalls is seated in front of a slot machine, staring at it with a lifeless gaze. Triple Diamond. Pure Pleasure. $1292.38 in an instant. Next to the machines are skylights, through which we see the ocean.

Everyone in charge of selling game tickets is Latina. Dominican, almost all of them. An employee with an apron around his waist appears through the door, and the smell of food cooking in the kitchen wafts behind him. The employee and Cundita greet each other, hugging and kissing. “This is Juan, the chef, the person everyone blames when they throw up on the ship—Juaaan . . . Juaaan,” she jokes, holding her stomach, bending over like she’s about to vomit.

“Hi,” I say to the chef while they chuckle at Cundita’s joke. I can’t join in on their laughter—neither of them notices, but with each passing minute, I’m growing more and more anxious thinking about the choppy water below.

The casino on the second floor is full of gamblers. I’ve never seen so many old people in one place. Is this really where Cundita thinks I’ll find the man of my dreams? These grandpas with oxygen tanks, orthopedic collars around their necks, walkers, prostheses, wheelchairs, crutches and walking sticks certainly make a noble effort just to stay on their feet. All for the love of the game.

◆

The Midnight sets sail. Rosa feels she has to escape her friend, who has lost interest in everything except for the opening rituals of the games, her cigarette, and the anxiety of watching the spinning wheel. And Rosa—the nervous one, the dangerous one, the funny one, the risk-taker—tells her friend, see you later, and leaves, holding herself tightly. Bottle-blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, Nike shoes, tight jeans, breakfast, video camera and a book in her bag, en route to the deck.

There, blue and white chairs and a few tables with the leftovers of rushed breakfasts. Most people stand, looking out at the sea. Rosa also stands looking out at the sea, eating a hamburger with French fries and a Coke, on the deck of a ship in a northern country—who would have thought. Rosa, pensive. This sea does not look like my sea. It’s summer and yet the water seems frozen. The faraway ocean—our ocean—is always warm. And furious. Miches Sea, for example. How different. And the landscape. Here, now, the wide foam path the ship leaves behind, and above it, seagulls fluttering over the fish. At the ship’s prow, the North American flag waves slowly. Further up, the nautical club. Houses with tile roofs and chimneys. Rosa, filming what she has in front of her: a cluster of rowboats about to set sail. Tiny islands, made of sand. A fishing boat holding an old man and a child who must be his granddaughter. They look serious but happy, as though a beautiful day awaits them at the bottom of the fishing rod the grandfather casts into the water under the little girl’s watchful gaze. In the distance, a wooden shack. So different from the shack Rosa left, never to return.

The Midnight speeds up. Shortly, it arrives at a drawbridge that rises to let them pass. On both sides, lines of cars wait for the casino cruise to reach the open sea. A sudden jolt and the plates and cups on the tables begin to wobble. Rosa stops filming. She breathes deeply, holding tightly to the handrail. At her side, a septuagenarian, still standing without assistance or even a cane, observes with the dignified air of a soldier the marine landscape before him. He’s slender, in good shape. Rosa glances at him and goes back to thinking about age.

Rosa, nervous: Did I take the Dramamines they gave me when I boarded? It’s already too late. Rosa, feeling as though her stomach is trying to escape her soul. Rosa, doubled over, sighing, letting herself fall into the chair, where she tries again to breathe deeply and overcome the nausea with the pure power of her lungs. Everyone around is talking, gesticulating, laughing. An old Harry Belafonte song is playing: “Day-O.” The septuagenarian with the admiral’s visage, still stoic and holding his head high, enjoys the sensation of the wind gently beating against his dark brown face. Oh, old man, help me, Rosa, crazy, thinking. Take it easy, Rosa, no problem, she imagines she hears Cundita say.

The septuagenarian decides to sit down and read. He’s got nothing to worry about. The Midnight finds itself on the open sea, sailing smoothly as if on firm ground rather than water: a powerful sense of calm. There isn’t anything to fear, then. Nor is there anything to see on either side. The old man crosses his legs. He removes from his jacket pocket the bestseller titled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (For Men). Rosa, suddenly vomiting, clings to the paper bag, an indispensable item, her last resort to rid herself of what’s killing her inside. There goes the hamburger. The French fries. The Coke. Also—why not?—injustice. Trickery. Ignorance. Impotence. The sugar water she drank at night, recently arrived in this country, still an illegal without work. Medicare, her green card, income tax. The diver. The eighteen years spent next to him, making him rice and beans, as he enjoyed very much its Creole zest; and his wife, Irish just like him, was never going to cook him rice and beans as good as that. Now the pastor. The church. The diver’s wife. A few more French fries, and Rosa vomits i all in one go, in a single upwelling, not into the bag but into the depth of the sea, her guilt.

◆

“Oh, what a relief. I really was sick of my boss, and the diver, and his wife, and the church and that job,” I say to the gentleman next to me, who hands me a silk handkerchief.

He’s quiet but attentive. I have an uncontrollable urge to tell him what not even Cundita knows about me, even though she’s been my most supportive friend ever since I arrived in this country.

“I really shouldn’t be telling you these things, but what does it matter—you’re a stranger, and old enough to be my dad. I’m already almost fifty—I will be in three years—and I’ve spent my entire life fighting . . .”

A group of women arrives on the deck; it looks like they’re trying to have a meeting. They’re wearing black and white veils, which cover their heads. One of them is clearly the leader. The others do whatever she tells them to. They’re a large group, spreading across the deck, hurrying to arrange the chairs in a circle close to where we’re sitting. They speak in Arabic, or something like it.

The kind old man, who has put his book aside, is all ears for me. As I rearrange my windswept hair and turn to admire the sea (rather than staring at the group of women), I tell him my story.

“Twenty-five years ago, Rosa Campusano was a country girl: she lived with her Papa, her Mama, and her sisters. My Papa was a farmer, he didn’t have much land but it was fertile, and it fed his parents, his grandparents and his great-grandparents; everyone in my family could eat thanks to that land. We were seven sisters. Not a single boy, can you imagine? All of the girls except for me married early to men from different towns and moved away to live with them. They settled down, had kids. But I had other plans, and when my father died, I went to the capital to find a job and try to get an education. I wanted to work in public affairs—glamorous, right? I really liked working in groups, collaborating with people, and I had a presence, I was charming. One day, soon after I started living in the City, I was waiting for a bus on I don’t remember what street, but anyway I found myself talking to this guy, Chamán. He drove around in his fancy car hitting on country girls like me, and back then, I was so naive . . .”

The women’s meeting has begun. One of them begins speaking loudly in another language, God knows what they’re saying. I only know that every so often she mentions Bush. The other women listen, looking bored. But the one in charge of the meeting persists, raises her voice even louder; it’s obvious that she’s trying to move them, to motivate them, to convince them of something that for her, for her society, for her culture, must be very important.

The old man asks me to continue.

So I do.

“All right, so this guy Chamán offered to give me a ride to wherever I was going, so I wouldn’t have to wait for the bus. He also offered me a beer, and I, a poor country girl who hardly knew anything about life, accepted. The truth is that I let myself be impressed by him. I had big dreams. I wanted to overcome, to escape. I wouldn’t go back to my hometown for anything in the world. Life there is too unstable, life there isn’t life. So I became Chamán’s girlfriend, and he offered me everything. He sent me a lot of money, he seduced me, he made me his. Later on, he visited my parents’ house, where my Mama treated him like a prince. We made him so many sancochos to eat, and, on one of those visits, he proposed to me that we take a trip. In my country we travel on the sea in these boats called yolas. Those trips are very dangerous, and they’re certainly not legal, not at all, but it doesn’t matter—as long as they can get out of the country, people go. On yolas they cross over to the neighboring island, Puerto Rico, and from there, continue to New York.

“And that’s what happened—Chamán convinced my mother and me that we should sell our house and our land and give him the money from the sale so he could get me a spot on one of those boats. I’ve lived all these years with the guilt of knowing that I was the one who convinced Mama and my sisters to sell the land, telling them that if I went away, my life would get better, and if my life got better so would theirs. My sisters finally agreed. But you won’t imagine what happened….”

“Shhh!” The women at the meeting have been saying this for a while. Shhh! Each time a little louder. I know that their insistent shhhh is directed at me, but I don’t take the hint and keep telling the old man about the grief I still feel whenever I think about everything my family lost because of me.

“But Chamán tricked us! He only took me to Miches, after I paid him so much money. Miches is a town on the east side of the island, where many illegal passages to Puerto Rico begin.”

“Shhhh!”

“If you had only seen me—I was so young and dying of fear. We left at midnight, a group of men and women, on a yola. I said goodbye to Chamán, crying, and he promised me that in a few months, we’d be reunited and get married, and later I could even send for my mother and my sisters and their children and their husbands and we would all live together in New York. I believed him, and when I finally boarded I was petrified, but hopeful.”

Shhhhh!

The women put their index fingers to their lips in unison like a choir. They must be trying to make me think I’m not as polite as they are.

I ignore them. They can shh all they want; I couldn’t care less.

I keep telling my new friend about my voyage on the yola.

“The men driving the boat took us from Miches to a lonely hill near the coast and said, ‘That’s it, now get out and run, you’re in Puerto Rico,’ and sped away. It was nighttime and we were all too dizzy and scared to realize that we were still in Santo Domingo, down by Boca Chica. I threw up a couple of times, and at some point during the journey I truly believed that the yola was going to crash. Eventually, I gave up, I left everything in God’s hands—I thought that in the process of looking for a better future I was going to die. But still, the trip seemed much shorter and more pleasant than what I’d been told. Crossing Canal de la Mona, which separates the two islands, is really different from sailing a certain distance along my own country’s coast.”

“Shhhh!”

“That trip was a scam. I felt even more nauseous than I had on the yola when I realized that Chamán—whom I have never seen again—had tricked me and my whole family. I was furious! The whole thing was such a trial that I told myself: I’ll make it to that country; I, Rosa Campusano, even if I have to cross the Niagara on a bike. And God is so great—look at me, look at where I am today.”

“Shhh, shhh!” Again, the chorus of veiled faces wants me to be quiet. “Shut up!” shouts the leader, staring at me. Instead of telling her group of women to stop shhhing, she’s telling me to shut up. I know I speak too loudly, and even more so now that I have to compete with the wind, but no shhh and no shut up in the world is going to silence me now, when I’ve decided to unburden myself, to empty myself. So I tell them to shut up, too.

“Shut up? Yes! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I yell in English.

The women stare at me, sizing me up. They know I really mean it. The speaker, livid, crosses the deck looking for a Midnight employee. The old man keeps his calm. I explain to him, a little agitated but not yelling, that I’m tired of being told to shut up. He’s Black; he must understand how we Hispanics feel when people treat us like that; no matter what we say it’s shut up. Always. Shut up. So, for me, from now on, I won’t let anyone shut me up.

The speaker comes back with the Latina employee in charge of the deck following her. The two women speak English in different accents, both of which are much stronger than mine. All I say is, “I won’t shut up,” and I don’t back down. Nobody will shut me up. My new friend agrees, he tells me I’m right. No more “shut up” from them. The veiled women have no option other than to leave, fuming, and have their meeting somewhere else.

◆

An hour later, Rosa admired for the second time the wide foam path the Midnight left in its wake, this time without seagulls. The North American flag waved, victorious. At this point, the employees began to collect the trash and many paper bags of vomit that the passengers had left on the deck. Inside, what had initially been an air of excitement had become, little by little, an ambiance of general unease. Some people were sleeping on the floor, folded in uncomfortable-looking positions, their mouths open and stomachs bloated from anti-nausea medicine. Others had fainted, and still others were dizzily wandering through the hallways and up the staircase, or trying to find the bathrooms, or sitting at the tables, staring at the screens in front of them. The scene looked like a mass suicide. The century-old paraplegics; the old men with neck braces; others with wheelchairs or walkers; the few who were neither ancient nor disabled were drunk, stumbling through the aisles, running into each other, excuse me, excuse me, trying to walk straight but finding it impossible.

At one in the afternoon on the dot the Midnight returned to the dock. Rosa, happy, crossed the plank bridge on the septuagenarian’s arm. Life, Rosa, is a game about walking with a firm step and your head up high, asking for forgiveness and forgiving after every fall; that’s the only way to win the big match, he commented, with the same elegant solemnity Rosa admired as she watched him watching the sea. At the exit, they ran into Cundita, who was in a very bad mood. She had lost all her money.

“Take it easy, sister,” said Rosa in English.

To cheer Cundita up, Rosa introduced her to her new friend, the gentleman who had listened patiently as she told her story, who had supported her when she stood up for herself, with all her heart, against those who tried to silence her.