In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd

by Ana Menéndez

  “You’ll never play in the grandes ligas.”

  “You haven’t seen my curveball.”

  Mirta turned to see two boys tossing a baseball back and forth on the shore. They were the only other people on the beach and Mirta imagined they were her brothers. Her mother, too, sat watching them as if this was what they had come all this way to see.

  They sat for several minutes, watching the boys hurl faster and faster balls at each other, their talk growing rough and jagged. Mirta saw her mother look back toward land once and then thrust her chin out. Her silence frightened Mirta, but she didn’t know why and the uncertainty frightened her more.

  “Mama?”

  “Shh.”

  “Mama?”

  Mirta looked at the bag with the sandwiches. She had helped her mother make them, spreading mayonnaise over the sweet yellow bread, instructing her mother, No, the ham first, then the pork, and her mother playing along. Her mother had been laughing and happy and Mirta, wanting to keep it that way, repeated, No, the ham first, then the pork! This time a little louder. No! The ham FIRST! Then the PORK! THE HAM AND THEN THE PORK! Until her mother had said, Basta ya, and put an end to the game.

  “The only other man I saw with an arm like that was a maricon.”

  “Eat that one, hijo de puta.”

  The boy fell back from the force of the ball. Mirta watched it rolling into the surf and then the boy, flipping up off his back like a fish and splashing after it.

  Mirta looked back to her mother to see if she had seen the boy’s acrobatics and caught her instead coming up from a quick glance at her watch. She pressed her lips together and ruffled Mirta’s hair.

  “Are you hungry, cariño?”

  “No,” Mirta said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Mirta shook her head so her ponytails lashed her face and sent her giggling.

  Her mother lifted the corners of her mouth into a smile, but kept her lips together. Only now, all these years later, Mirta knew how many worlds that one gesture contained.

  A yelp once again and Mirta turned to the shore. One boy was much bigger than the other. He wore his jean shorts rolled up at the edges and he had flung off his shirt to reveal a wide chest stained to walnut by the sun. His dark blond hair hung shaggily around his face and matched the bleached hair on his forearms, which pumped furiously in the brightness. The other boy was smaller and darker, but stronger. He wore white canvas shorts and a black shirt with the sleeves ripped out to show his compact little arms. Where the big boy seemed to be taking their escalating game as a merry sport, the small one had grown more serious and sour. Now and then the bigger boy laughed and this seemed only to make the smaller boy angrier.

  They had stopped talking now, communicating only by grunts or bursts of derisive laughter, the ball sailing between them like profanities. Now and again the ball splashed in the water and as one boy went racing after it, the other stood on the shore, catching his breath or looking up at the sky which had grown deeper behind the advancing sun.

  Mirta’s mother stroked her arm so gently that her fingers became indistinguishable from the breeze and Mirta blinked, slower and slower each time, lulled by the sound of the waves and the boys’ cries steady and sharp like the call of seagulls until Mirta wasn’t sure which was which and the whole world seemed one mass and if she tried, she might be able to make sense of it all in a second. But Mirta’s thoughts kept slipping behind the veil of childhood and she whispered, as she drifted to sleep, I must remember to …

  She was a girl in a white dress asleep on the sand, company for her mother. And now she was lifting outside of herself, she was watching the horizon sink beneath her. On the sand, her two wide wings cast shadows on her old self, the breeze like fingers through the feathers that rose stiff along her neck. She tumbled through the air, the sun warm on her back, the sea distant and soft below, the sound of people like the murmur between grains of sands. And her mother, sad eyes out over the straits, one hand caressing the arm of a little girl who slept beside her and waited.

  She woke, suddenly, to confusion. Shouts. A woman screaming. Her mother? Herself? Her heart pounded. She came back to her body in fits, still dreaming she was crashing onto the sand. And then she sat up, forgetting where she was. Fear. The loud voices. Men running around. Her mother gone.

  “Mami!”

  And then she saw her standing in a crowd at the seashore, the short boy pacing back and forth. Where was the bare-chested boy? Mirta ran to her mother. A man tried to hold her back from the crowd, but she squirmed loose and ran up the other side, coming to her mother’s leg first, then seeing the boy faceup in the sand, a trickle of blood flowing out of his left nostril. A woman came running down the beach, one hand pulling up the length of her skirt, another on the short white hair that bristled straight behind her in the breeze. A sun-browned man in white shorts shouted at her and that was picked up by the man standing next to him and then the woman behind them until everyone in the crowd had spotted the woman and some ran halfway to meet her and others waved their arms for her to run faster. But as she got closer, the crowd grew quiet, as if embarrassed, and the only sounds were the waves and the woman, getting closer, shouting, He’s killed him! He’s killed him! And the men in the crowd looked at one another and the women looked at the boy in the sand, the trickle of blood looking so thin and weak where it disappeared into the rolling waves at their feet.

  Mirta’s mother held her hand tight. The crowd stepped aside to let the woman through and they watched as she held the boy’s head in her hands. She screamed and sobbed and asked the Virgen how she would dare do this to her, a woman with only one son in the whole world, and some in the crowd shook their heads and looked at the empty sky. And as Mirta watched, the boy slowly stirred. She pointed and her mother moved closer and the woman with the short white hair stopped shouting at the Virgen in heaven and looked back at her boy and now they all stood watching. And when his hand went to his nose and he opened his eyes, the shouting started again. Mirta and her mother were pushed aside as the men picked up the boy and carried him back up the sand. The crowd moved as one with the boy, a screaming, gesticulating mass. And then the whole thing disappeared into one of the round wood houses behind them and the shore was quiet again and all of it had happened so fast that Mirta wondered if she had dreamed it also until she saw the smaller boy in the distance, walking west along the shore.

  She stood with her mother where the tide was coming in. They were alone again watching the boy fade like the trees around the bend where the peninsula doubled into itself. Mirta felt a hollow in her stomach and looked to her mother’s straw bag. It was still leaning against a tree, a blanket twisted underneath where Mirta had slept. The shade had shifted and half their little camp lay in soft sunlight now. Mirta looked at her mother, who stood still watching the boy.

  Mirta’s mother walked to the blanket and slowly folded it, her face turned toward the boy, who was now a dot in the distance and not a boy but a memory of one. She picked up the straw bag and slung the blanket over it. She opened her other hand and gestured for Mirta to take it.

  “You can keep the photo in your room if you’d like,” her mother said.

  Mirta jumped suddenly and clapped, the disappointment of the afternoon forgotten for a moment. The photo her mother kept of her father, before he was famous. Propped against her dresser. Just three years old and wearing pants that came to his knees. A little jacket with a round collar. A baseball bat resting sideways against an old tree.

  “Can girls be baseball players?” Mirta asked.

  After a moment, hearing nothing from her mother, Mirta stopped walking and looked up at her.

  “Can I have the photo, really?”

  That night, Mirta lay in the narrow bed in the hallway and listened to her mother speak low and fast into the phone and then she lay there long after, listening to the planes fly overhead and imagining the night silhouettes of their wings as they waved forever good-bye to Havana.r />
  The Last Rescue

  Anselmo lay next to his wife and tried to think about nothing. The room felt safe and familiar even in the soft darkness that had gathered like drapes in the corners. The shapes and shadows of the night stood where they always had and Anselmo knew this was the dresser, that hulking piece the chair, the figure crouching in the corner only his shoes and cotton pants. The air humming softly through the house was a little cool tonight, though, and he resolved to close the vents a quarter inch in the morning. He turned, pulled the comforter to his chin, and again tried not to think. He moved closer to Meegan, not touching her but close enough so that she would have to touch him if she turned. He lay there and watched her back rise and fall with her breathing. He liked the back of her, liked to watch that sway she put into her walk that was like an invitation full of regrets. He counted her breaths and as he began to grow sleepy, he pushed out that other thought. He mustn’t think about it or he would never sleep. Maybe it was just her way of getting back at him for some slight he hadn’t even noticed. Maybe she had been brooding for weeks until the moment came for her to say something hurtful. Anselmo couldn’t find any other explanation. Not after they had agreed on all the important things for so long. No, he wouldn’t think of it. He must sleep. He must sleep immediately. And in the morning, he wouldn’t even remember and she would turn to him half asleep and hug him close and he would know she, too, had forgotten. Now he must rest. Tomorrow they were going up again, early. The other pilots would have gotten a good sleep and they would frown at his pallor. Baluti might not even let him go up, ask him how he could spot rafters in the straits when he could barely open his eyes from sleep. That Baluti always knew what Anselmo was thinking. He was afraid of him, thought him some kind of brujo. Anselmo repeated the word to himself—brujo, brujo—until he realized he was still awake. Really, he must think of nothing. He must sleep. This is how his mind began to race and then he would never sleep. Nothing, nothing. Anselmo concentrated on his own breathing, easy and deep.

  Meegan turned away, closer to the far edge, and the cold air seeped under the comforter through the new gap. He moved in closer and she turned toward him.

  “Meegan?”

  Nothing. How did she manage to sleep so well? The first year of their marriage, Anselmo had worried that this easy slumber of hers pointed to some lack in her character. Only children and the simple enjoyed such untroubled sleep. If you were a thinking person, how could you shut your eyes and fall immediately as if under a spell, smile and coo like a baby rocking? How could you help but think of all the things that needed fixing? Later, Anselmo decided that when you are Cuban, you never sleep well. You have suffered more than other people. And he forgave Meegan her simple slumber. But some nights, as he lay there thinking, he had to fight a creeping irritation with her slow breathing. It was as if she had been lying all along. As if she didn’t feel anything she claimed to feel and instead vanished every night into a space that was hers alone. If he could only dream her dreams and know. What was it Meegan thought? Why didn’t she ever share her dreams in the morning? She told Anselmo she forgot them. Anselmo whose dreams were so alive that he would wake and lie in his sweat sorting out the real from the imagined, trembling at the chasm that had opened in his mind, the vastness of all that lay waiting for him.

  Meegan turned onto his arm. Anselmo let himself come under her warmth. He sank back into the bed, easy and soft. He was so fortunate in spite of everything. Meegan who still made the grocery store clerks put down their cans as she walked by. The hazel eyes with their little slant that reminded him of Sophia Loren. His mother had said nothing when he brought her home. When she left she had sighed and said, “Una Americana.” Before they were married, his father took him to dinner. A Cuban man can never marry an Americana, he explained. An American man with a Cuban woman, this was possible. She would love him and comfort him like no Americana could, cook hot lunches for him and listen to the details of his day. But an Americana would never understand a Cuban man. She would get angry if you stayed at the table after dinner instead of taking your plates to the sink. She would want you to help her clean, take the broom and sweep out the crumbs from under the table. But Meegan never frowned when, in their early days, Anselmo would lean back in his chair after dinner and open the paper.

  So it wasn’t she who’d forced him to take on the dishes eventually. He just couldn’t bear to see her working. But he never told his father. And when his parents came for dinner, Anselmo leaned back in his chair as before and shared a cigar with his father as if there were nothing more natural in the world. And finally one day his father moved his glass of brandy forward and passed his hand over his face. “I’m happy for you,” he said. “For you and Meegan. You’re lucky and rare. Two people rarely love each other equally.”

  Meegan shifted again and Anselmo pulled the comforter up to his chin. The floodlights coming in through the blinds caught the glitter in the textured ceiling and cast soft blue shadows in the room. Like a television broadcasting late into the night, mute and comforting, nothing but blue light and shadows and the hint of glitter stars. Meegan had left her closet door ajar and her clothes hung in straight dark lines. Anselmo turned on his side to see if he could make out her outfits. In the half-light he recognized a long striped dress that she wore when they entertained at home. It was made of a soft knit that rode her curves in a way that was sexy without being cheap. It was Anselmo’s favorite dress. He lay quietly, listening to Meegan breathe. The sheet was cool against his chest and he appreciated the heaviness of the comforter. The thermostat clicked off, the hum of the air conditioner now replaced by a tinny echo in his ear. He must sleep. He must.

  Anselmo’s jeans and T-shirt lay on the dresser, making a mound in front of the mirror. He followed the line of the dresser top across. His wife’s perfume bottles stood at the other end, casting their own small shadows in the shiny wood. The mirror reflected the window behind the bed and the gray silhouette of the sapodilla tree, its branches swaying up, down, in long slow dips like an old-fashioned dance, like an old, old dance, down in slow dips, swaying. May I take this dance, my lovely? Yes, of course. Bent low, his arm swaying down, down, down.

  “Are you hot?”

  “Dance.”

  “It’s hot in here.”

  “Meegan.” Anselmo tucked the comforter under his leg. “I think I was asleep.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. Aren’t you hot?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she flung aside the comforter and got out of bed. Her slippers shuffled down the hall. Hush, hush, thought Anselmo, following the sound until it quieted and he knew she was standing in front of the air conditioner. The light in the hall went on, then the shudder of the air and the low moan of its coming back to work. Anselmo realized he had been listening to crickets all this time. Now there was just the moan of the machine. “I’m actually a little cold,” Anselmo said when Meegan returned to bed. She pushed his shoulder until his back was facing her and then she cuddled up close to him.

  “There,” she said. “I’ll keep you warm.”

  Anselmo sank back into his wife’s embrace. Her body was soft. Softer than it had been, but in a way that reassured him. The rest of the world had grown rigid, but here was his wife not pretending, just covering him with herself. He began to drift again, but stopped short when he remembered the perfume she had worn. He wanted to describe it to himself. But he realized that after all this time, he still couldn’t distinguish the various scents she wore, and Anselmo began to worry about this. What did it mean that he didn’t know her perfume? Then just as quickly he tried to put it out of his head. But it stayed back there, prodding him awake each time he began to fade into sleep. She had worn her hair up and dabbed perfume behind her ears. Anselmo had watched her hand around the wineglass as she talked to the new pilot.

  But it wasn’t that, not really. Anselmo was used to men looking at his wife. True, he had never seen her respond as she had, like a schoolgirl. But didn’t
he also linger over the round shoulders of salesclerks? Hadn’t he hugged Baluti’s daughter just a little too long the last time they came back from a run over the straits? These things meant nothing. He was a mature man, a man of the world. No, it wasn’t the curve of his wife’s fingers on the wineglass that bothered him. It was the conversation. Low and intimate and when Anselmo had moved in to hear, he’d been a little dismayed to learn they were discussing politics. Worse was Meegan’s talking in a way Anselmo had never heard. She used to laugh at the way he talked with his hands and once, at one of her family reunions in Maine, she imitated his gestures, exaggerating them in a pantomime that even he found amusing. They’re all like that, she said, all the Carillos. And just when he had begun to feel out of place, she planted a big kiss on his cheek and flung her arms around his neck.

  But here was Meegan, herself now animated, alive, one hand tight on the glass, the other flying through the air as if it had been charged with saying something she was not allowed to admit.

  The air moaned on. Meegan turned in bed. He felt the air on his back and pulled the comforter tighter.

  “Meegan? You awake?” She groaned.

  “I heard you talking to him.”

  “Oh, honey, you’ve woken me up.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you were awake.”

  Anselmo turned to face Meegan’s back, her hair fanned over the pillow, exposing her neck.

  He was silent for a long while, trying to think of how to say it. It wasn’t a big deal, really. He didn’t understand why he would have thought it was a big deal. He would just ask her. And why not? They were husband and wife. He could ask her anything.

  “Where did you get that about the embargo?” he asked finally.

  Meegan turned suddenly in bed to face her husband.

  “You woke me up to talk about the embargo?”