Havana Year Zero

by Karla Suárez

  I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that, but before I could reply she smiled and said that she’d always had her suspicions. The witch! I felt awkward and said I hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings, Ángel had met her at a moment when we weren’t really talking, but everything was back on track now and we were even planning to get married; he loved me and going with her had been a way of taking revenge on Leonardo, it was a complicated story, but since Leonardo was interested in her, and the two of them had always been locked into a type of male rivalry, Ángel had seduced her just to spite Leo. She let me rattle on without interrupting and when I’d finished, asked: So why are you telling me now? I imagine I was grinning like an idiot as I explained that it must be from female solidarity. Barbara, for her part, smiled mischievously and assured me that, yes, that’s what it must be, but it was also to get her out of the way, which meant it was female rivalry too. I could only agree, she was absolutely right. Anyway, she thanked me for my solidarity and rivalry. While thoughtfully opening a can of beer, she said that I mustn’t worry, she’d be leaving soon and Ángel was obviously in love with me; she finally understood why he’d been a little elusive lately but, getting back to the female solidarity, she suggested that I keep a closer eye on my own affairs because she had, in fact, seen him again.

  Wham! Do you see what I’m saying? Rivalry, pure and simple. That blow hit me so hard I got mad and, after opening my can of beer, said that it wasn’t really Ángel she was interested in: I knew she was after the Meucci document. She hadn’t seen that coming and so opened her eyes wide in surprise, but before she could respond, I added that, given my decision to speak to her, I’d tell her everything: Euclid didn’t have the document. Leonardo had claimed that simply to draw her away from Ángel, because Leo knew that she’d been sleeping with him. Barbara gazed at me with an astonishment I can’t even come close to describing. When she finally asked who had it, I said I didn’t have the faintest idea. The only thing I did have clear was that they had all been using her, she’d become the goose that lays golden eggs because she was a tourist. Couldn’t she see? We were living through a damn awful situation and someone from abroad meant money and other possibilities, I couldn’t swear to it, but both Ángel and Leo might be hoping to get something from her, a trip, marriage, European nationality, anything. She could believe whatever she chose but if I was saying all this, it was from nothing other than female solidarity. The expression on Barbara’s face began to change slowly, the tensed muscles relaxing into a smile, she bit her lip, shook her head and finally responded: ‘As my grandmother used to say: When you’re about to shit yourself, it’s too late for green guavas.’

  I know that a few seconds went by because, while my brain works fast, it took it a while to comprehend that enigmatic phrase, which, being Cuban, I naturally understood; what my brain couldn’t do was to form the image of an Italian grandmother uttering those words. Do they have guavas in Italy? my brain went on asking until Barbara’s voice broke in on its vacillations: I’m not Italian, Julia. Problem solved.

  I don’t know how it happened, but without warning my facial muscles, which had also been tensed, began to relax, and the expression on Barbara’s face seemed so comical – just as mine must have looked comical to her – that we found ourselves laughing our socks off, as if the beer had gone straight to our heads with apocalyptic effect, as if the sea were tickling our ribs. Yeah, we really did laugh, and when our laughter finally died down, she told me her story.

  Barbara Gattorno Martínez was from a town in the centre of Cuba, near Santa Clara, and was of Italian descent. Her great-grandfather had arrived on the island in the late nineteenth century as part of a group of young people who, under the influence of the Italian branch of the Cuban Liberation Committee, came to fight in the 1895 war. What do you think of that? After the war, he decided to stay on; he married and decades later his great-granddaughter Barbara was born. In the early eighties, she’d fallen in love with an Italian man, married him and decided to make the return journey to his country. Barbara had settled in Milan and become an Italian national, which is why she no longer used her original surname. After the couple divorced, she moved between several Italian cities, working on small magazines and trying to make a name in journalism. When I met her in ’93, she was dating Leo’s Italian freelancer friend but was already tiring of him, tiring of the failures in both her personal and professional life, because she still hadn’t managed to break through into the quality press. So when she heard the story of the Meucci document, it occurred to her that she could take a hand in the affair. Everything seemed to fall into place: her boyfriend had been refused a visa, she was Cuban and hadn’t been back to the country for ten years. The boyfriend, who believed that she wanted to help him, gave her the articles he’d promised Leo and financed the trip. But she had other plans: she intended to get hold of the document. Leo could then write the book, but the journalistic scoop would be hers. And since everything was easier for a foreigner in Cuba, she’d invented the character of the ‘Italian woman’, which she’d interiorised to the point of attending the May Day parade as a tourist. As if she’d never been to one before.

  I enjoyed listening to her. If in the past I’d thought of her as an Italian who spoke Spanish well, now she was like a Cuban who spoke it badly, with a different music, confusing words, mixing up set phrases. In fact, she had no need to disguise the way she spoke; so much time spent in Italy had erased a great deal of her Cuban accent. Ten years is a long time. Or that’s my opinion.

  Of course, Barbara hadn’t counted on the emotional side of things, she hadn’t expected to find the country in such a lousy state or to meet Ángel or recover so many personal memories and aromas, everything she was, and had hidden along with the surname Martínez. She was staying with an aunt who lived in El Vedado, but had already spent a fortune on necessities like soap, toothpaste, deodorant and food, things we didn’t have that year. And now I’m broke, Julia, she told me. So the goose that lays the golden eggs had neither gold nor eggs and, if you’ll forgive me saying so, was scrawnier than the chickens we kept at home. Brilliant, right? I promised not to say a word of what she’d told me to the others. We would each play our own hand. She promised not to see Ángel again and even attempted to apologise. But what was she supposed to apologise for? Barbara had been lying too, lying to all of us except, fortunately, me.

  So, what do you think? You can laugh if you like, because that’s what I wanted to do: bust a gut laughing at us. It was so absurd, chaos raised to the nth power, until I reached my bifurcation point.

  On Saturday, I went to our scientists’ meeting. We waited a long time for Euclid, but he never turned up. I finally decided to phone him. He said that he couldn’t come but asked me to call by afterwards and he’d fill me in on what was happening. Naturally, I was worried and so raced off to see him the moment the meeting ended. Euclid received me with a truly mournful face. As his mother was resting in bed, we sat in the living room and he told me that a friend of his son, a young man of twenty, had died. Euclid’s eyes misted as he said that he’d known the boy well because he’d been friends with Chichí for years and was a good lad, a good lad, he repeated, one of the friends who’d criticised Chichí for dropping out of university, but who was always close and had sometimes stayed overnight in the days when Euclid still had a family and used to make breakfast for them all, waking them with the cry of: You’re sleeping your lives away! And that boy’s life had slipped away, but from a ridiculous illness. Euclid paused before saying that Chichí was heartbroken, and so he’d spent part of the morning in the apartment and that afternoon was going to the funeral home to be with his son. His mum had also been really upset; even though she didn’t know the lad very well, it was still awful news. Euclid had decided to give her something to calm her and help her to sleep for a while. As soon as she was feeling better, he’d leave for the funeral home, although he had to confess that – his voice broke again at that
point – he was heartbroken too. A child of twenty, Julia. Just twenty.

  I took my friend’s hands in mine so that he wouldn’t have to cry alone and offered to go with him to the funeral home. He had to support his son, but it was my duty to support him. That’s what friends are for, right? For being there, always, absolutely always. Euclid gave me a hug and expressed his thanks. When his mother appeared, we had something to eat and she made a thermos of lime tea to take with us.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a funeral here in Cuba. It’s a strange experience. There are all the grieving mourners, but there are also all the other people who are there from a sense of duty. I was one of the sense-of-duty guests and that undoubtedly allowed me to be an observer. When we arrived, I tactfully positioned myself to one side, Euclid went to embrace his son, his son’s friends, the family and acquaintances. I was simply a crutch who was there watching the rocking chairs move back and forth, swaying with the bodies of twenty-year-olds saying goodbye to their friend. There’s no doubt that a funeral is a sad affair. But the funeral of a young person is sadder still. No one should have the right to die at that age. No one, not that boy or anyone else. I really have no words to describe the sadness I felt, it was like something pressing here on my chest. Then suddenly, when I was lost in thought, a voice said: Prof. I turned my head and saw that former student from the CUJAE, the one with the curly hair whom I’d met at Euclid’s place. Do you remember me mentioning her? Chichí’s friend, one of that group of aspiring young writers. With a sorrowful expression and in a quiet, almost non-existent voice, she asked if I’d known her friend. I shook my head and she, standing beside me, staring straight ahead, thanked me, sincerely thanked me for coming. He likes parties, she added; he likes people, he always has something interesting to say, he adores conversation, he’s wonderful. Then the girl turned to look at me with her strange, large, yellowish eyes, full of hate and impotence – sort of like someone going downhill on an enormous toboggan who doesn’t know whether she’ll find water, sand or a void at the bottom of the slope – and, with that vacant, frightened expression in her eyes, muttered: They say he’s dead, but they’re lying. And with that, she moved off towards the chairs and sat down next to Chichí and the others, all rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I had to go outside. I needed fresh air.

  I walked through the door and the sun suddenly slapped me in the face, forcing me to stop in my tracks and turn my head aside. There was a flight of steps down to the street. I began to slowly descend them, but the sun was blinding. It seemed to be burning brighter than ever that day. So weird, as if it were trying to prevent me going on. And I didn’t go on. I sat on one of the steps and, just at that moment, decided to let it all go to hell. Go to hell and stay there.

  They’re lying, the girl had said, and it was the first time those words seemed to have any real meaning. I asked myself how you continue living after seeing a friend of only twenty die. I guess life goes on, like the rocking chairs, but what happens when the chair rocks backwards? I don’t know. Do you ever stop crying? I don’t know. The only thing I can say is that, sitting there on the steps of the Calzada & K funeral home, everything felt absurd. Inside, broken lives; outside, just down the street, the office of the United States Interests Section with a long queue of people applying for visas. And all around me, the Havana of 1993, of Year Zero. That night would be the witches’ Sabbath, but I wouldn’t be there to attend it. I was stuck in the instant when the sun blinded me and, naturally, I had no shades to protect me – not from that sun, not from the terrified gaze of my former student, not from the faces in the queue or the apparent absurdity of the whole story of Meucci’s document.

  We were searching for a document that someone had once seen. A sheet of paper, almost nothing, a scrap we had all pinned our hopes on. Do you see what I mean? We were living in a country being screened in slow motion and sometimes in black and white, where the only things that weren’t an uphill struggle were a smile, making love and dreaming. That’s why we’re always smiling here in Cuba, why we make love and dream all the time. We’ll dream of anything. Nowadays I’m aware that knowing who invented the telephone isn’t so important, and nor is the possession of a piece of paper that proves it; but give me a crisis and I can tell you which illusion to cling to. That’s what Meucci’s document was: unadulterated illusion, pure delusion. Our lives were revolving around it because there was nothing else, it was Year Zero. Nothingness. Smiling, making love. We were fractals reproducing the worst of ourselves.

  In the group that morning, we’d studied a very interesting article about fractals and society. I haven’t told you about fractals yet, have I? I’ll give you the for-dummies version. Fractals are geometric objects whose dimension doesn’t fit with classical conceptions, they are neither one, two or three dimensional; they are something else. Take clouds, coasts or trees, for example: natural elements that can be described using classical theory. But one of the most common characteristics of fractals is that they reproduce identical or self-similar structures on a variety of scales. Think of a fern: the smallest frond branching from the stalk has the same form as the whole fern. That tiny part is exactly the same as the small one, which is exactly the same as the big one. Get it? Due to this characteristic, fractals have been applied in music, the visual arts, finance and even the social sciences.

  What we studied that morning was the idea that in society, negative emotions disseminate with fractal growth. It’s as if they were branching out, reproducing themselves, growing and growing. You wake in the morning, the power is off, you breakfast on sugar-water, leave the house feeling grumpy, you push me as I’m trying to get on the guagua, shout at me when I protest, I push another woman to get off at my stop, I get to school, hate my students, speak to them roughly, they all seem thick as planks, classes finish, they leave, and when they get home, one has an argument with her mother, shouts at her, behaves badly and the mother cries, wondering what’s wrong. She doesn’t understand that, like fractals, we reproduce the worst of ourselves and aren’t even aware of it, we just follow the flow. That’s what had happened to us. See? Each of us holds within us the discontent of society and every one of us reproduces it. I swear, I had the urge to jump up and cry, Shit! Shout it good and loud, so the whole world could hear, but I was on the steps of the funeral home and inside sadness had taken up residence. Inside was shatteringly real life.

  That was why I decided to get myself out of this story. I’d never set eyes on Meucci’s document, had no idea who had it, and to be honest, I didn’t give a fuck. All I really wanted was to live with Ángel. That had been my objective right from the start and I was about to achieve it, so I didn’t want any more mix-ups or lies. As far as I was concerned, it was a closed book.

  The only problem was that I felt I had to do something, I wasn’t sure what, make a small movement that would in some way counteract the spread of the negative emotions. For an instant I considered following Margarita’s example and becoming a Juliabutterfly, rearranging the variables, telling Leonardo that Euclid had the document, and Euclid that Ángel had it, and Ángel that it was in Leonardo’s hands; not a bad game for a puppeteer. Only I no longer wanted to be a puppeteer. Moving the variables around would just mean that the game would go on ad infinitum, that the positions of the cannons would change in order to prolong the attack and allow all the negative emotions to continue multiplying. No way. None of that made sense. What’s more, both Leo and Ángel still considered Barbara to be the hypothetical purchaser they didn’t want to lose, while for Euclid she was the hypothetical purchaser he wanted out of the way. It was absurd. Do you see? Barbara, who had no money, who wasn’t going to invite anyone to Italy, who was just pure bluff, was still a source of hope. Ridiculous.

  Something had to be done. When I was arguing with Leo, I’d ended by telling him that Ángel didn’t have the document. I’d also told Barbara that Euclid didn’t have it. Correct. Don’t re
arrange the variables; clearing them away is the better option. I decided to tell Euclid that the author didn’t have the paper, and Ángel that Euclid didn’t have it. In this way the negative emotions would slowly disperse and I’d be content to have done something sensible, maybe not for Meucci, but at least for us. That was my decision, and I don’t regret it. Our equation needed to be finally solved. Meucci’s solution would soon follow, although his variables were different from ours.

  22

  And that was our story. I managed to convince them that Margarita had been secretly enjoying herself, having a joke at their expense, giving them all false information. If anyone wanted to continue the search, they would undoubtedly have to go back to square one, but without my involvement, because I’d decided to quit.