Mother longs for daughter in Cuba

 BY ELAINE DE VALLE

 The reporters and their cameras are gone.

 So are the politicians and exile activists asking Arianne Horta to help Elián
 González stay in the United States and offering to help get her daughter out of
 Cuba.

 Horta, who arrived in South Florida a year ago Saturday with her boyfriend,
 Nivaldo Fernández -- the only adult survivors from the journey that brought Elián to
 Miami -- feels alone.

 Today, Horta works at a home-cleaning business, and Fernández lifts boxes six
 days a week at a warehouse. They live anonymously in a tiny efficiency in
 Hialeah.

 ``Abandoned,'' is how she put it. ``Everybody has forgotten us.''

 It wasn't always like this.

 Shortly after the two got out of Jackson Memorial Hospital, where they were
 treated for severe dehydration and sun exposure, they were besieged by reporters
 from all over the world who wanted to hear their stories.

 Politicians wanted to be photographed with them. Radio commentators
 interviewed them live on the air. And Elián's family and advocates said they
 needed their support.

 Horta and Fernández went to Washington, D.C., in January to testify on the rafter
 boy's behalf. They rallied at the relatives' home in Little Havana just before the
 federal raid April 22 that swept him away.

 Then Horta and Fernández disappeared from the public's radar, as well as those
 involved in Elián's seven-month American saga.

 ``We've never seen them again. Any of them,'' Horta said. ``Only on TV.''

 Says Fernández: ``They used us.''

 After they went before Congress to tell how Elián's mother's dying words begged
 them to help keep the boy in the United States, the Cuban government portrayed
 them as immoral criminals. Fernández, they said, was a pimp; Horta, a
 prostitute.

 ``My mother and father had to read that, had to see that on TV, and they cried,''
 Horta said. ``My parents raised me right. I was a good girl from a good family.''

 BARRED FROM RETURN

 Now, Fernández says, they can't go back to Cuba to visit his parents -- or her
 daughter, Estefani.

 The girl almost made the trip with her mother, but Horta sent her back home at
 the last minute.

 Horta was afraid of the bad weather they had encountered on their first try.

 ``Today, I am glad I did. She is alive because of it.''

 The girl is 6, the same age as Elián.

 She lives in the same town, Cárdenas.

 She goes to the same school. She also sees a psychologist, Horta says.

 Yet there are no news stories about her.

 There are no protests, no posters, no prayers like those at a Mass for Elián's
 mother Saturday night.

 ``Isn't my daughter a child, just like Elián? Aren't I a human being, like his
 mother? Isn't this blood running through my veins?'' Horta asked.

 She wants to bring Estefani to live with her here and says the girl's father would
 not object. ``He has remarried. He has a new life. I know he would sign'' the
 permission form to let her emigrate.

 MOTHER HAS AGREED

 Her own mother, who has said in the past that Horta needed time to get a job and
 her life in order, has already agreed, Horta says.

 She got a lawyer who told her she had to become a U.S. resident first. She
 applied for residency, paid the fees and is waiting for an answer.

 ``But now people tell me that if I am a resident, it takes forever. That if I were a
 citizen, it would be faster,'' she said. ``I'm going to have a heart attack if I have to
 wait five years.''

 Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, a spokeswoman for the Cuban American National
 Foundation, says Horta is the victim of some bad advice.

 She says she told Horta to apply for political asylum, not residency.

 ``At that time, with all the publicity, it would have been a very good case for
 asylum, and her daughter would have a visa by now. It would be up to the Cuban
 government,'' Pérez-Castellón said.

 PAIR `OVERWHELMED'

 ``I must have told her 20 times to come to the office to fill out the forms. I feel bad
 for them, because everything fell on them at the same time. They were
 overwhelmed.''

 The activist says there is nothing the foundation can do now that Horta has
 applied for residency. ``Now reclaiming her child falls into a process that takes
 years.''

 U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, who pledged in January to help Horta
 and has made it her personal crusade to help reunite families separated by the
 Florida Straits, said she had not forgotten the woman's pain.

 ``We will help her all we can, and we will continue to monitor her situation so that
 one day Arianne's dream can come true,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.

 ``I would tell her to call my office this week, and we will reactivate all of our
 ongoing efforts on her behalf,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.

 Horta says she couldn't claim political asylum because she would never then be
 allowed back into the island to visit. ``I have a mother and father, you know? And I
 was not resigned to tell myself that I would never see them again.''

 She also believes that if the foundation ``moved mountains'' to try to keep Elián in
 the United States, it can do something to get her daughter out of Cuba.

 ``Where there's a will, there's a way.''

 So a year to the day that the couple arrived from Cuba, they sit in their cramped
 bedroom -- Horta stroking the photo of her only child -- with mixed feelings of
 gratitude and bitterness.

 ``You think on this anniversary, we would be able to go out. To buy new clothes or
 go to a restaurant,'' Fernández said. ``But we can't afford it.''

 They pay $525 a month for a tiny efficiency, barely furnished, with a used black
 and white television that someone gave them as a gift their only means of
 entertainment. They want to move into something bigger, better. But they can't
 save any money.

 Horta works sporadically at the home-cleaning business -- whenever they need
 her, which is not regularly enough, she says.

 MONEY SPOKEN FOR

 Fernández gets paid $600 every two weeks at the warehouse. The first of the
 month he pays the rent and has $75 left for food and gas.

 They each drive old cars they bought when they worked at Metro Ford.

 The $1,500 for the 1991 Ford Escort and $1,200 for the 1990 Mercury Cougar
 were taken out of their weekly paychecks.

 The next check of the month goes to pay the phone bill, their car insurance and
 more food. ``Nothing is left.''

 Still, they are grateful for the air they breathe.

 The best thing about being here is being alive, Horta says. ``I thank God every
 day that I am here.''

 The worst thing is the hole in her heart without Estefani.

 ``This year without her has been very black.''

 In fact, the only time Horta looks forward to is every Sunday evening, when she
 uses a prepaid telephone card -- $10 buys 30 minutes -- to call her little girl.

 ``She's well. She's healthy, at least. She always says `Mamá, sing me a song,' ''
 Horta recalled.

 ``She says she misses me and asks me when I'm coming. I don't tell her I can't
 go.

 ``I say, `Yes, yes, soon we'll see each other,' '' the mother said.