by Karla Suárez
Barbara returned to Italy a few days later. I went to her aunt’s house to say goodbye and received a warm welcome, as I was the first of her niece’s friends to visit. Naturally, Barbara had made sure not to invite anyone else because that provincial aunt wouldn’t have agreed with her niece passing herself off as an Italian. That afternoon, Barbara gave me her cosmetics and almost all her clothes: I think she only kept the two-sizes-too-small bras. Ángel found it pretty weird to see me wearing her clothes but I thought up some story and he ended up believing it; anyway, he’d given me some of Margarita’s things and all that saved me from wardrobe-shortages during those difficult times. Deep down, I know that what he found strangest was Barbara’s sudden disappearance, with only a last-minute phone call to say goodbye. But we never mentioned that.
Curiously enough, not long after Barbara’s departure, Ángel announced that his sister had moved in with the diplomats’ son. So I was able to bid farewell to the sofa in Alamar and became a true El Vedado girl. The day I brought Ángel to meet the family, my stepfather killed two chickens and no one went hungry that evening. Soon afterwards, we were married. Euclid gave me away. In the end, I decided not to tell him that I knew what he’d done with my thesis: the money he’d earned from it was lost in the mists of time. Why embitter our lives further? Once we were officially living together, I got to know Ángel better and, by tacit accord, we decided that he would never speak about Margarita, at least not in my presence. With Leonardo, on the other hand, things had been more complicated, so we only rarely met. We once ran into each other at a set of traffic lights. I was waiting for a lift, he for the lights to change. He had a young woman on the back carrier and in a little seat at the front was the small boy who looked at me with those disquieting eyes. I only had time to tell Leo about my wedding and he wished me happiness before I walked on. I thought I’d never see him again, but we still had one more encounter to come.
At times I had to bear Dayani’s histrionics: when she had an argument with the diplomats’ son and installed herself in our apartment for a week; when she made it up with her father; when she fell in love with someone else; when she stopped talking to her father again. My sister-in-law and her new boyfriend finally decided to leave during the Rafter Crisis of ’94, when the Cuban government opened the gates to the sea, allowing anyone who wanted to leave. The only problem was that they set out too late, when the United States government had put a halt to the mass migration by sending the rafters to the Guantanamo Naval Base. Dayani ended up there and it was a hard knock for her family, especially for my poor Ángel, who was heartbroken. Fortunately, an aunt and uncle of the boyfriend claimed them and they wound up in Miami. Ángel took it badly, but at least he knew that his sister was settled somewhere.
As for Meucci, we knew that his story hadn’t yet finished. After her experiences in Havana, and even though she was aware nothing more could be done, Barbara continued to take an interest in the subject and whenever she came across even the smallest piece of news, cut it out to post to me. And that was how, in 1995, I received an article by the famous Basilio Catania in which he revealed that a year earlier, in the Washington archives, he’d found an unpublished document which would finally allow him to demonstrate the priority of Antonio Meucci in the invention of the telephone. Barbara had taken the trouble to translate the whole article for me. Do you see? An unpublished document written by Meucci had been found. It was like a pitcher of cold water hitting us in the face.
This is how things stood: Do you remember that there were two lawsuits? In one of them, the Bell Company won against Meucci and the Globe. The verdict was published, which meant that Meucci’s defeat went down in the history books. The other was the United States Government versus the Bell Company, which was discontinued without any verdict and, as the statements and proceedings were never published, no details were in the public domain. But it was in 1994, in those papers, that Basilio Catania found the unpublished document.
The evidence presented in both cases was practically identical, with only one small difference: Meucci’s notebook. The original one, in which Antonio wrote in his own hand, with the addition of sketches and designs, wasn’t submitted in evidence because it was in Italian. What was offered in both cases was an English translation. Well, in the Bell versus Meucci case, the English version of that notebook only included the text explaining his experiments, with the word ‘Drawing’ where the designs should have been. As this notebook was published with the rest of the documentation, it was freely accessible to anyone. Alternatively, the case of the United States Government versus Bell included a sworn statement by the lawyer Michele Lemmi. Do you remember Lemmi & Bertolini? Lemmi redacted a sworn statement, signed by Meucci, in which appeared the English translation of the notebook, with the explanations plus all the designs drawn by Meucci long before Bell had ever dreamed of inventing anything. The translation was never published, and lay buried among the piles of papers in the growing archive. But that very document changed history.
A while ago, I told you that the sciences can’t be explained with words; they are for art and philosophy; in science what matter are numbers, formulas, diagrams or designs. Before speaking, a scientist picks up a pencil and draws things. And there’s an interesting detail related to this. Without Meucci’s designs, his explanations are just words open to interpretation: froth, smoke, nothing. Aristotle understood that: Some people pay no attention to a speaker unless he offers mathematical proof. And Meucci’s words were carried away on the wind; it was his designs that, over a century after his death, achieved justice for him. Do you see?
As Catania explains in his articles, which I was able to read thanks to the translations Barbara sent me, the discovery of the document was a surprise because it demonstrated that Meucci was technologically ahead of his time. But the researcher’s surprise was even greater when he began to tease out the threads of the story and uncover the forgotten details of the lawsuit the United States government brought against the Bell Company. Basilio Catania started his research in 1989, the centenary of Meucci’s death, and visited archives in Florence, Havana and Washington. The discovery of the unpublished document and, later, other equally important evidence, allowed the case to be taken to the Supreme Court in New York and then to Congress. At that point, many Italian-American associations joined the cause, particularly OSDIA – the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy – which is the group responsible for the Garibaldi Meucci Museum on Staten Island. They issued a press release, officially recognising the importance of Basilio Catania’s role in the investigation.
On June 11th 2002, they won the battle: the United States Congress passed resolution 269, officially recognising Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone.
Applause.
Whenever I think of this, I want to applaud and I imagine Meucci beaming, and Alexander Graham Bell asking if he’d like a beer. Two great scientists: yes, indeed. But Antonio got there first. It’s as simple as that. He got to the telephone first, yet recognition came long afterwards. Justice sometimes travels by bicycle, but better late than never, right?
Naturally, I wanted to share the pitcher of cold water that had hit my face with the news of the discovery of the unpublished document. Leonardo was surprised when I turned up at his office, although my visit pleased him enough to invite me to go out for a coffee, and then we sat together in Plaza de Armas. When I showed him the article, he asked if I knew that Barbara was Cuban. He’d received that information from his freelancer friend. She had us all fooled, he said. I nodded and he took the pages from my hands. When he’d read them, he heaved a sigh and lit a cigarette. I’m still going to write my novel, he insisted. With or without Margarita’s document. That seemed logical to me; it was important for him to finish the book and, what’s more, I told him that he could photocopy the article and that I’d pass on any further information as it reached me. Leonardo looked at me over his glasses with his comical expression. An
d how’s your little angel? he asked with a smile. I replied that he was fine, and knew that there was little else for us to say. That was the last time we spoke. I spotted him in the distance in 1999, when they laid the stone in honour of Meucci in Havana’s Gran Teatro to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his earliest experiments. It was there that I had my first glimpse of Basilio Catania, the man who had made Euclid’s dream a reality. I know that Leonardo later published a few things, but I’ve still to hear anything of the Meucci novel.
The moment Euclid learned of the New York document, he screamed the house down. In his opinion, it was a tragedy, they had got there ahead of us, but we could still do something. He’d written a very serious letter to Margarita and was hoping that her stony heart would be melted by it; his own daughter couldn’t do something like that to him, he’d been on the trail of that piece of paper for too long. I listened as he paced from one side of the room to the other, exactly as he used to in class, and it amused me to see him that way, but also saddened me. What could we do? Nothing. The story had come to an end, even if my dear tutor refused to accept that fact: good scientists are stubborn. And that’s how he still is: a stubborn scientist, looking after his aged mother, taking old Blot’s successor for a walk, more absorbed in his scientific books than ever. Chichí, who is now an author and has even been published abroad, continues to support him financially. And Barbara occasionally sends him gifts and money. Euclid still believes that she’s Italian and I don’t have the least intention of disillusioning him. What would be the point?
When I showed Ángel the Catania article, his first reaction was to make a jocular comment about my correspondence with Barbara, but as soon as he saw the title he plumped himself down on the sofa and began to read. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. When he’d finished, he set the pages aside, saying that he’d put that whole affair out of his mind. Do you want a drink? he asked. He was just beginning to develop a belly thanks to the beer he bought with the money his mother began to send after Dayani had contacted her in the United States.
In the end, Leo had been right when he said I was an intelligent woman and would eventually tire of Ángel if he didn’t do something to stop that happening. He did nothing, simply allowed his beer gut to grow and became addicted to movies on DVD after our video player gave up the ghost and even the cassettes belonging to his unknown woman were put away in a drawer. Our marital idyll slowly decayed and I ended up bored with my angel, really bored. Luckily for us both, two years ago he won the bombo: you know that visa lottery for permission to enter the United States. He’s in Miami now. From time to time he calls, drunk, homesick, saying that he’ll come back, but to be honest, I hope he doesn’t. I’ve already had long discussions with his father about the apartment because, naturally, he doesn’t want to admit that the residence in El Vedado isn’t his, but he’s wrong. Ángel takes my side: the place had belonged to his mother’s family and in his absence, it’s now mine.
So this is where I live. I left the Tech some years ago and now give private classes in maths and rent out one of the rooms. But I pay my taxes, right? Barbara sends Italian tourists to me, so I get by. And I have a boyfriend who spends the occasional night with me, but not every night. I know what they’re like. They start by leaving a toothbrush and before you know it, they’ve moved in. No way. This apartment is mine.
Have you been out onto the balcony yet? Even though I’ve never travelled anywhere, I’m certain that this is my favourite road in the whole world, with its trees, its streetlights and its shadows. Even in the dark, it’s beautiful. Always beautiful. It’s the main artery of the city. I like to go out onto the balcony at night to breathe the cool air and dream. Didn’t I say we’re all dreamers here? Many things have changed since 1993. And although we’re still stuck in that sort of eternal limbo, if you look outside, you’ll see the past and the present pass by on Calle 23: there are fewer bicycles now, but there are both old and modern cars; the power doesn’t cut out so often and we’re even allowed mobile phones. Yes, things are undoubtedly better, we keep smiling, keep making love and dreaming, even if many of our dreams have changed. The crisis of the nineties finally convinced us that we’re not all equal and the world is divided into those who have money and those who have none. That’s the way it’s always been. Everywhere. Aren’t I right? We’ll slowly begin to look more like normal countries, where you’re fine if you have money and fucked if you don’t. That damned normality is no surprise to anyone. It’s the changes that surprise you, the uncertainty of the bifurcation point. Don’t you think so?
I’ve often asked myself what would have occurred in 1874 if Antonio Meucci had had the ten dollars he needed to renew the provisional patent. History would have been different. On the other hand, what would have happened in 1993 if one of us had found Margarita’s document? Nothing. I’m certain absolutely nothing would have happened. We were hanging on to our illusions, living one more dream, in a state of chaos, and chaos is a vortex that sucks everything in.
But better late than never, right? What happened was that when Ángel left the country I decided to rearrange the apartment in El Vedado to suit my own tastes. I had a pile of boxes with all my work stuff, so I set about classifying them and throwing out the things that were no longer useful. New house, new life. One of the boxes contained things from my years at the Tech, and that was where I came across a folder containing the stories Chichí had given me to pass on to Barbara. Remember? It was the day Euclid had gone out with her and, while I was waiting for him to return, his son turned up with the folder. He had to leave, Euclid and Barbara showed no sign of appearing and I needed to get home. The folder of stories was buried under my other papers in Alamar and eventually ended up in a box in El Vedado. To tell the truth, I’d never really liked Chichí’s stories, but that night, when I was putting things in order, I opened the folder out of curiosity and began to read one, hoping to find something marvellous. And I did. The stories were written on the reverse side of a variety of documents: telephone bills, school tests, diplomas. It was impossible to buy paper in ’93. Year Zero, remember. The sheet of paper on which the last page of the story was written was thick, and it had another, yellowing sheet taped onto it. Clumsily taped. I forgot the story. There were sketches. Symbols. Diagrams. I had such an urge to laugh aloud that the only thing I could do was cry. Honest. I cried the whole night long. I cried for months. I cried until I found you. What would have happened if Euclid and Barbara had come home earlier that day? I don’t even want to think about it. How did Meucci’s document get into Chichí’s hands? I don’t know and I don’t care, but it’s possible that it never left Margarita’s family home – Euclid can’t have been aware of that – and the boy had no idea of the importance of those drawings. He wanted to write a story, and for that he needed a sheet of paper. Long live the creatives.
And that’s it. I’ve told you everything. In this folder, which has lain on the table during our conversation, is the document containing the designs Meucci made here in Havana in 1849, in this marvellous country where we go on smiling, and making love and dreaming. But between the smiles and the sex and the dreams, you have to make a living, so turn off the tape recorder and we’ll get down to business. I know this document isn’t worth as much now as it would have been in ’93, but shall we talk money?
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr Catania, who is no longer with us. His tenacity and meticulous research underlay the fact that, in 2002, Antonio Meucci finally received the recognition that was denied him during his lifetime. It is due to his kindness and to all the information he offered me, that I was able to write this novel.
I also wish to thank all those who helped me in one way or another: my parents, my sister and my aunt, Josefina Suárez; Armando León Viera; Patricia Pérez (thanks, Prof); Leonardo Padura; The Centre National du Livre in Paris; Anne Marie Métailié; Amir Valle, José Ovejero, Antonio Sarabia, Alf
redo Rey, Rafael Quevedo, Pierpaolo Marchetti, Bárbara Bertoni and Juan Pedro Herguera. I would finally like to thank José Manuel Fajardo and Silvia Bastos Agency.
Director & Editor: Carolina Orloff
Director: Samuel McDowell
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First published by Charco Press 2021
Charco Press Ltd., Office 59, 44-46 Morningside Road, Edinburgh EH10 4BF
Copyright © Karla Suárez 2011
Rights managed by Silvia Bastos, S.L., agencia literaria
First published in Spanish as Habana Año Cero by Quetzal (Lisbon)
English translation copyright © Christina MacSweeney 2021
The rights of Karla Suárez to be identified as the author of this work and of Christina MacSweeney to be identified as the translator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781913867003
e-book: 9781913867010
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