We Have a Home

In memory of my oldest brother, Carlos Alberto Muller, July 14, 1935 – August 3, 2021

Less than a month after my arrival in Florida on July 5, 1961, my aunt Sarah and uncle Panchito received word that my brother Carlos Alberto and his wife María Antonia would soon be joining us in Miami. This gave me high hopes that I would be seeing them soon. I felt happy, looking forward to their arrival. The month of July ended and two weeks into August we still had not heard from them, or so I thought. In reality, Carlos Alberto and Maria Antonia had tried to leave the island but instead had been detained and my brother had landed in jail.

When my aunt and uncle received the news of my brother’s failed attempt at leaving Cuba and his detention they decided not to tell me then, even though they had received a letter from my Mom to me telling me all about it.   They waited until he was freed to break the news to me and give me Mom’s letter. I was extremely sad when I read about their ordeal, and I was also upset that I had not been told about it before. “If I had known, I would have been praying for him,” I thought to myself. I have not found that letter from my Mom in my treasured stash of correspondence from those years. What follows here is based on my own reminiscence of it, on conversations that I had with members of the family and mostly from a digital draft of Carlos Alberto’s own autobiography that he had sent me not too long ago.  

Allow me to rewind and start the story again.

On July 28, 1961, my brother Carlos Alberto and his wife María Antonia arrived at the Port of Havana to get on board the Joseph R. Parrot ferry, the same vessel on which I had travelled earlier that same month. They were confident that they would be allowed to leave the island since they had obtained a visa waiver to the United States. In addition, three days prior, in his July 26^th speech, Fidel Castro had declared that even though there had been a rumor going around that he was not going to allow Cubans to leave the island after that day, anyone who wanted to leave Cuba was free to do so.   

In spite of Castro’s July 26^th declaration, Carlos was detained by G2¹ agents at the Customs Office at the Port of Havana.  Maurice Dussaq, a friend of our family and an administrator of the ferries, gave orders for the ferry to wait until Carlos was released.  After several hours it became evident that the G2 would keep Carlos from leaving on that day, and the ferry departed without him and without María Antonia.  Although she was given permission to travel, she refused to leave without her husband. Both of them were detained and taken to the G2 headquarters on Havana’s Fifth Avenue. The G2 police released Maria Antonia that evening, but kept Carlos in the building’s small library (20’ by 20’) which had been turned into a makeshift jail holding 40 prisoners.

The room did not have enough floor space for all the prisoners to lie down to sleep. One of them slept standing up, leaning on the angle formed by the two walls on one of the corners of the room. When Carlos Alberto first arrived the police offered him the mattress of another prisoner who had died from diphtheria that morning while lying on it.  Carlos refused to use that mattress and slept each night on the marble floor under another prisoner’s cot.  There was one bathroom with two showers and one toilet. Infections were rampant under these unsanitary conditions.

Some of the prisoners had been members of the government police force and militia, giving rise to the suspicion that among the group there could be some government plants. Remy, one of the prisoners, would lead the praying of the rosary every night. He was a friend of our brother Francisco Javier and therefore recognized Carlos Alberto as being a trustworthy detainee.  He delegated to him the task of leading the nightly rosary.

Carlos was released on August 12.  As he headed home after having spent two weeks in the dark wearing only undergarments, his clothes felt uncomfortable and everything that he saw that had color, including traffic lights, grabbed his attention.  In spite of the many precautions he had taken, he soon found out he had contracted an infection.

While Carlos Alberto was in prison the Revolutionary Government changed the Cuban currency making it practically worthless. When he and his wife were given permission to leave Cuba on October 4th, Maurice Dussaq, the administrator of the ferries, gave him the dollars necessary to buy two Pan American Airlines tickets.  As Carlos Alberto put it, “having dollars to buy tickets to get out of Cuba was synonymous with having dollars to purchase freedom.”

Carlos Alberto had packed six books in his suitcase, and he was able to take three of them, because the lady who searched through his belongings at the airport was not a true revolutionary. Had that been the case, she would not have allowed him to bring any of the books with him. The three books reflected his interests and the person he aspired to be:  an Engineering book that included a trigonometric formula that he was able to use years later while working as an engineer at the Bendix Corporation in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The second book was a philosophy book and the third book was a Spanish translation of the Four Gospels directly from the Greek.  He had read the Gospel book several times during the worst moments of the years 1960 and 1961.

Carlos Alberto and Maria Antonia also took with them the maximum amount of money allowed by the revolutionary government: 5 Cuban pesos each.    When they arrived in Miami Maria Antonia asked an unknown woman who just happened to be there to please give her a dime.  With that dime she was able to call our uncle Panchito to come to pick them up at the airport.  This time they had not notified any of the Miami relatives and friends of their trip.  They were afraid that he would be taken prisoner again and for that reason they had kept their trip a secret.

For Carlos Alberto arriving at the Miami International Airport, fleeing from Fidel Castro, was one of the most incredible moments of his life. After all they had gone through he described feeling infinite peace and tranquility.

As they were settling in Miami, Carlos Alberto and María Antonia started their own family. I was a student at Ursuline Academy in Dallas, Texas and would spend the summers in Miami. One of the greatest joys I had during those visits was to meet my baby nephews, one by one, almost three summers in a row: first Carl Hans, then Carl Franz, and a few summers later, Carlos Alberto Jr.

Carlos Alberto enrolled at the University of Miami (UM) receiving his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering within a year’s time because he was given full credit for the three years of Engineering he had completed at the Universidad de La Habana.  He became a professor at UM, a job he loved and held for several years. Besides providing for his young family he helped out many other family members as they first arrived in Miami and he also helped those who had stayed on the island.

Several years after he had bought his first home Carlos Alberto helped our parents buy their own house by co-signing on their mortgage. Decades later he also co-signed on our mortgage when we bought our home in Boynton Beach. On the day of the closing Carlos Alberto and María Antonia met us at the title company in Delray Beach. As they arrived he was smiling and enthusiastically said to me: “Elena, we have a home!”

Carlos Alberto died on August 3 at Hope Hospice in Fort Myers, Florida.  He had celebrated his 86^th birthday on July 14. We were able to visit him twice during his final days. One of the doctors at the hospital gave us hope that he would be ok. It was soon evident that his body was failing and could not endure the heart surgery that he needed.  When he could only receive palliative care he was transferred to hospice and we also visited him there.  

I am deeply grateful for the life of my oldest brother. In my mind I still see his smiling face and hear him say “We have a home!” I imagine him hearing similar words as he arrives to receive his eternal reward: “Carlos Alberto, we have a home for you!”²  I pray that he may now be experiencing in full the peace and tranquility of which he had a foretaste the day he arrived in his adopted country.   

Carlos Alberto, dear brother, may you rest in peace in your eternal home.

Footnotes:

1. The G2 is the main state intelligence agency of the government of Cuba.
2. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?” John 14:2