Havana Year Zero

by Karla Suárez

  11

  I didn’t attend the following meeting of the science group because I quite honestly had no desire to see Euclid. I rang in the morning from the neighbour’s apartment to say I had period pains, or some such thing, and was incapable of going out. I didn’t care whether or not he believed me. While I was there, I called Ángel but there was no reply. I decided to try again later. Back at home, I think I might have done some laundry – I don’t remember exactly – I just know I was feeling restless and the apartment was, as usual, crammed with people. It’s always noisy, never peaceful for a moment. In this city, people talk as if we were all deaf; mothers shout to their children from balconies, music has to be played at top volume and secrets are never whispered behind closed doors. I lay the responsibility for this on the Caribbean, that warm, unsettled sea. What do you think? That’s why when I’m feeling low, and not even touching my scar can help, I need the sea to calm me, to give me advice or at least to hear me out.

  That afternoon I set out to walk along the shoreline. I had a lot of reasons for feeling down. First, what Euclid had done to me, which, naturally, I would never be able to get my head around. Then, because... How can I put it? It seemed like my life was only halfway to anywhere. You see, Euclid was my only true friend, but I’d just discovered a serious betrayal; it was probably a momentary weakness on his part, I had no doubt that he cared for me, yet it totally pissed me off that he was capable of doing such a thing but incapable of confessing it. So it turns out that my only friend wasn’t my real friend. Do you get me? I’ve never gone in for close friendships – even as a child I was a loner – but you, or at least I, have to be whole; that’s what I think. And then there was Ángel. What sort of a relationship did we have? We were lovers, nothing more. We weren’t a couple, an item, a ‘Can I introduce you to my partner?’ No, we were lovers, and we were the only ones who knew it.

  Around that time my brother had been getting my goat, always asking who I was sleeping with when I didn’t return to Alamar at night. He’d tell me to be careful about going with foreigners, ask why I didn’t bring the guy home. He’s never known anything about my life, but he likes playing the macho-brother role. To be honest, I’d have liked to introduce Ángel to him, it was just that Ángel wasn’t my boyfriend per se, it wasn’t a complete relationship. Do you see? Somewhere between a lover and a friend, that was what I had. And the same went for my career, of course, because that rounded the whole thing off. A disaster area. Right?

  I walked for quite a long time without finding a telephone so, when a guagua – that’s our name for a bus – passed just as I reached the stop, I almost automatically got on board. I’d find a working phone at some point and, if it were possible to meet Ángel, I’d at least be on the right side of the bay. Dante Alighieri should have included a bus trip from Alamar to Havana among the punishments of his Inferno. On those buses, you feel truly close to your neighbour, so close that he’s breathing straight into your face and your bodies are indistinguishable. You no longer know if that leg brushing yours belongs to you or the person next to you, if the hand reaching into your bag is yours or some other person’s, if you like or feel uncomfortable about that thing pushing against your arse. You can’t precisely define anything other than the bead of sweat trickling down your spine, at about the same rate as the bus moves in the tropical sun: slow and laboured.

  I was incapable of bearing that torture for long, so as soon as I could, I got off and continued walking along the Malecón, beside the warm, unsettled sea. I really would have preferred to have been able to think of something else, but it was hard to take my mind off Meucci and the situation surrounding him – especially now that I’d decided to take the document from Euclid. I’d go on loving him in my own way, but he didn’t deserve the document, there was no question about it. That afternoon, I began thinking through the options for getting my hands on the legacy, which he probably kept in his room. I could, for instance, hide somewhere near his house, wait for him to take Blot for a walk, then go in to tell his mother that I’d be in his room. Or I could be in there with him and wait for him to take a shower. Or pretend to be ill and persuade him to offer me his bed for the night. I could invent any number of ways that would, there’s no doubt, make me a thief, but as the saying goes: it’s no crime to steal from a thief. Aren’t I right?

  What seemed strangest was that, quite by chance, I’d reached the point they had all been circling around for ages. Yes, because we were all, for different reasons, after the same thing.

  What was I hoping to achieve by securing the document? The truth is that my motives weren’t particularly clear. It had started out as scientific curiosity and the desire to collaborate with a friend; now it was to punish that friend. I don’t know. When I think about it, I believe I simply needed an objective, something to save me from the emptiness of that year. Ángel’s interest in the affair was obvious: he wanted to recover Margarita’s legacy, and that included the document. We’ve already mentioned Euclid’s motives. As for Leonardo, it was clear that he wanted it as supporting evidence for the story he was working on. During one of our first conversations, he’d spoken of the need to demonstrate that his story wasn’t fictional but unmitigated fact, History with a capital H, and, of course, he could only do that with Meucci’s document. But let’s recap: according to Ángel, Margarita had told him that Euclid had the paper. He was also sure that Leonardo thought he had it. That liar Euclid said that Margarita had told him Leonardo had the thing. And what did the author have to say? Zilch. So I decided to call him before trying to get in touch with Ángel.

  I had to walk a long way before finding a functioning telephone. Leonardo answered in a friendly tone, happy to talk to me. He said that he’d be home all evening as his son was visiting, and if I had nothing better to do, I could call around. But I had to remember that having the child in the house was like the passage of a force five hurricane and his main task was to try to contain its fury. I told him to put the water on for the lemongrass tea because I’d be there shortly, and then hung up.

  When I arrived I found the garage door open, the tea cold and Leonardo stretched out on the bed beside his son, showing him a world atlas. I immediately took to the boy. He was the image of his father: light brown complexion, glasses, a likeable face. The moment he saw me he sat up, responded to my greeting with a ‘Hi’ and, looking at his father, asked if I was his girlfriend. Leonardo got to his feet to welcome me in and explained that I was just a friend and, so that his friend didn’t think they were a pair of hugger-muggers, maybe he should gather up the books on the bed and all the drawings and crayons on the floor. The boy made a face, pushed his glasses up his nose and set about following his father’s advice. It really was lovely to see them together. While one picked up the paper littering the floor, the other heated the pan of tea, and it was as if they were the same person in two different sizes, except that, just then, the larger person was talking to me while the other furtively sneaked me suspicious-inspector looks. When everything had been tidied up, Leonardo suggested that his son should go to the main house for a while to see his grandparents. The kid didn’t seem particularly pleased by that idea: he gave me a sideways glance and then asked his father why he wanted to be alone with me if I wasn’t his girlfriend. His father made a face, pushed his glasses up his nose and pointed to the door. The child left, muttering complaints.

  Just as soon as he was out of sight, Leonardo sighed and said that he was dying for a rum but didn’t like his son to see him drinking. He took a bottle from the place behind the books where it was secreted and, pouring a generous tot into the lemongrass tea, told me that he’d donated blood that morning. This country, he asserted, has gone crazy. Since the situation had got so bad and people hardly had any food, very few were volunteering to give blood. No one had the energy. So what do you think they had thought up in his neighbourhood? They gave donors a bottle of rum. Madness! But the truth was that rum was expensive
and he had an iron constitution, so he felt good about it: his blood might save someone’s life and, in exchange, his body got a little of the drink it enjoyed so much. Do you want some? I decided to take my tea unlaced. Anyway, if I accepted his offer I was going to feel like a louse.

  That evening I heard his favourite trova singer for the first time. I didn’t know much about Frank Delgado back then, but I love him now; although, to tell the truth, that day he was just background music to Leo’s words. The author was capable of making physical objects speak: each had its own story. I noticed that in the tin can where he kept his pens and pencils there was a Russian wooden spoon, one of the really pretty handpainted ones, and he told me about his brief stay in Moscow. He said it had been given to him on Arbat, an enchanting street full of cheap bookshops, craft outlets and record stores. He had little money, but he fell in love with the spoons and matryoshka dolls the middle-aged saleswoman had made and decorated herself. Leonardo greatly admired people capable of making something with their own hands, which may explain his own skill: he too was capable of making many things, although he never thought the results were anything special. That woman, however, was a magician, and he praised her work so roundly that she had no choice but to refuse payment for the spoon. And there it was, standing with the pens and pencils Leonardo was using to write his work.

  His work was the novel about Antonio Meucci and there was by then no need for me think up ways of broaching the subject because it came up of its own volition. Leonardo was so immersed in the story that he couldn’t help but mention it. He told me he’d just read some extremely interesting articles that cast light on the details of Meucci’s first experiments. The distinguished Italian scholar and scientist Basilio Catania, who had written these articles, stated that although the telephones created in Havana were rudimentary, they involved the principle of variable resistance, which would be used by Thomas Alva Edison in his carbon microphone. That’s to say, Meucci’s creation was already addressing certain issues that would later come to the fore. He was ahead of his time. While Leonardo was speaking, I had the pleasure of imagining Antonio during the period when the Teatro Tacón was closed, holed up in his study, working on designs, carrying out tests, making mistakes and starting over again, because that’s what it’s all about: trying hundreds of times until you get a satisfactory result.

  After that first occasion, when his patient’s cry marked a new path to be followed, Meucci resolved to continue his experiments. And since, logically, his intention was not to make his poor patients suffer by administering electric shocks that would cause anyone to yell out in pain, he designed an instrument that would reproduce the mechanism, but with the addition of a cardboard cone. So, on one end was the patient with his instrument, talking into the cone, and on the other was Meucci with a similar instrument, listening to what came through his cone. That small adaptation allowed him to utilize the acoustic potential of the cone to reduce the strength of the current and, above all, increase the quality of the sound transmission. I imagine that the scientist was hardly able to sleep from sheer joy.

  1850 saw the reopening of the Teatro Tacón and the end of the Meuccis’ contracts. Leonardo, however, was still unsure exactly why they left Cuba. It could have been the logical consequence of the termination of those contracts, but certain data in his possession suggested that other factors were involved. At that time, a number of voices in favour of independence from Spain were beginning to be raised on the island. Antonio was a personal friend of Garibaldi, had always sympathised with liberal movements and, in short, was on the side of revolution and independence, so – there’s no smoke without fire – it should be no surprise that the flame took hold, and those sympathies may very well have annoyed more than one islander and thus caused Meucci difficulties. In addition, his scientific spirit had to be taken into account. Antonio needed to change jobs in order to concentrate on his ‘speaking telegraph’. Of course he was well aware of the notion of ‘being in the right place at the right time’ and Havana at that time was the wrong place for developing his type of invention. Truth be told, there have been plenty of times when Havana was the wrong place for many things, but that wasn’t Meucci’s problem; what he needed was to set himself up in a place where he could continue his work. And that place, at that time, was the United States of America, which offered an increasingly favourable environment for inventors of any type. So, on April 23rd 1850, Ester and Antonio Meucci embarked on the yacht Norma, waved goodbye to the beautiful city of Havana and headed for the land of the future.

  On arrival in New York, they decided to settle on Staten Island. Some months later Giuseppe Garibaldi came to the country seeking asylum and was received as a guest in their home, where he remained for four years. Nowadays that house is the home of the Garibaldi Meucci Museum. I don’t know what funds the couple were able to draw on to establish themselves on Staten Island, but not long after their arrival, Meucci opened a candle factory, where he worked alongside Garibaldi and a number of other exiles. Can you imagine: Garibaldi a candle maker? According to Leonardo, Meucci also experimented with the use of different materials in the factory, including paraffin and stearin, neither of which had previously been employed in the manufacture of candles. There’s no two ways about it: the guy had a fever for invention.

  During his first years in the United States, Antonio divided his time between the candle factory and his experiments on voice transmission. And things seemed to be going quite well until a string of calamities occurred. In 1853, his wife developed a serious form of rheumatoid arthritis, which in the course of just a few months left her partially paralysed and condemned to passing the rest of her life as a bedbound invalid. In the same year, Garibaldi returned to Italy and, shortly afterwards, Antonio was forced to close the factory due to commercial and financial difficulties. So it was just one damn thing after another that year: he lost his business, lost his friend and his wife was ill. But Meucci wasn’t the sort to be laid low by any problem. No way! He decided to perfect his communication system and install a telephone connection between Ester’s bedroom on the third floor and his workshop, which was outside the main house, so that they could be in permanent contact. Brilliant!

  Leonardo recounted everything he knew about the inventor’s life and the things he was in the process of unearthing, which would eventually become part of his novel. He had a few fragments, some scenes, invented dialogues, things like that. But, he said, it was all subject to change because a book is a living organism that is constantly growing, breathing and demanding a space of its own. When I asked if he had any idea when his non-fiction novel might be finished, Leo grinned. He told me that he was still lacking one important detail, and when he had that, it would be a matter of writing-up and revising the text. It was a major work of literature, as revolutionary as the telephone itself, so it had to be perfect. I enquired how he could be sure of that perfection and Leo grinned again: because it would leave everyone open-mouthed, he said. I asked if the perfection depended on that very important detail he still lacked; he agreed that it did, and I was about to ask another question... but you know how it is with kids: they have a gift for turning up at the wrong time. At that moment, the miniature Leo dashed into the remodelled garage and, on seeing me, stopped and blurted out: Gosh! Are you still here? His father reprimanded him but I said not to worry, I had to leave shortly. And that was true; I wanted to call Ángel again and I wasn’t going to use the phone in the main house to do that. Father and son accompanied me to the closest traffic lights, where I could hitch a ride. I was angry about the conversation being cut short because, having got that far, I was convinced that the detail Leonardo was referring to was Meucci’s document; although, naturally, he had no idea that I knew that part of the story. As we walked down the street, I attempted to pick up the thread of the conversation but with the little monster there, it just wasn’t going to happen. I said goodbye from the window of the car that stopped to give me a lift an
d Leonardo blew me a kiss. Nice guy!

  I liked Leonardo and I felt kind of sorry for him that day, because what he wanted was to write a great novel, but to do so he needed the document that Euclid had secreted somewhere. All that seemed so innocent now. Leonardo thought he’d revolutionise literature by narrating Meucci’s real story and basing his book on a document that would certify its authenticity. I can hear you say that piece of paper wasn’t any guarantee that the man could actually write a good novel. And you’re right. But that brings us back to Einstein and his relativity. Like Euclid, Leonardo needed a dream he could believe in; that was what gave him the energy to keep pedalling each day in the hot sun. That was why he was obsessed by the idea of the book and why he needed the document.

  He needed the document that I’d decided to find. I suddenly felt good, like a puppeteer or something. I could recover the document and give it to Leo so he in turn could use it in his book and become a famous author. Or I could hang onto it myself and become the reputable scientist who rescued Meucci from anonymity, the reputable scientist Euclid wanted to be. Or I could give it to Ángel so he could then return it to Margarita. No one was going to become famous that way, but there was no doubt that it would be a grand gesture, a just, tender gesture.

  I arrived at El Vedado, found a telephone, dialled Ángel’s number and almost jumped for joy when he answered. He said he’d been home all day, expecting me to call, without a sound from the damned instrument, and so it had been almost weird when it eventually did ring. Ángel, my angel. He told me he was waiting by candlelight as there was no electricity. Antonio, my Antonio, if your friend Garibaldi were to see us now with candles and no telephone...