Queen of Bones

by Teresa Dovalpage

  Juan gasped. “Was she okay?”

  “Obviously not. I mean, she survived, but that girl was messed up. She dropped out of college too. It was like a soap opera, all Juan’s girls going away.”

  Juan felt guilty, then angry for feeling guilty.

  “You know what, Víctor, coño?” he blurted out.

  “Victoria, please. And coña.”

  “Victoria, whatever. In this ‘soap opera,’ as you call it, all the women get depressed and have nervous breakdowns. They’re the victims, las pobrecitas. And what about me? I spent nine days at sea with no food. I saw Camilo die and almost died myself. I don’t have to feel sorry for these bitches, okay?”

  He wanted to cry, but couldn’t do it in front of his oldest friend. His best friend, who was a woman now. No.

  “May I use your bathroom?” he asked when Victoria didn’t respond.

  “Sure, my dear. Come this way.”

  The bathroom could be accessed through a bedroom furnished with a queen bed, a dresser and a three-door armoire. All the pieces were old but had been carefully restored. There were two vintage Avon fragrance bottles on the dresser, a couple of hats and a long-haired red wig. A mahogany bookshelf displayed books that Juan recognized from his childhood: Cuentos y estampas, Ivanhoe, a Spanish-English dictionary and a collection of Agatha Christie’s novels published in translation by Ediciones Huracán. Víctor had been a nerdy, introverted kid who’d loved to read.

  The bathroom floor was slippery and wet. There was a leak at the bottom of the bowl. The water trickled toward a drain in a corner. A naked shower rod hung over an old claw-foot bathtub, next to which two blue towels and a roll of toilet paper sat on a worn-out wicker chair. A heavy metal wall-mounted cabinet over a yellowish sink had a mirror glued on to its door.

  Juan took care of his business as quickly as he could. As he washed his hands, he glanced in the mirror and noticed that his face was a deep red. After splashing some water on it, he returned to the living room.

  “I’ve feared all these years that I left a son behind,” he said. “It’s a relief to know Rosita didn’t—”

  Victoria cleared her throat.

  “You don’t have children?” she asked. “No Yuma kids for you?”

  “I wish! But when I married Sharon, she was a little old for that.”

  Victoria looked like she was about to say something but bit her tongue.

  “Where’s your wife?” she asked after a short silence. “I thought she was coming with you.”

  “She was tired from the flight here,” Juan said, skipping the dinner invitation. There were a few things he’d have to explain to Sharon first.

  “What happened to Rosita?” he asked. “Did she get married too?”

  “No. She lives alone in her old house. Her mother died several years ago. Rosita’s a makeup artist, a good one. We hire her at Café Arabia for big shows. That’s how she makes ends meet.”

  Victoria waited, but Juan didn’t ask anything else. She went on anyway.

  “She works at the cemetery. We may run into her when we go to visit your dad’s grave. She keeps it impeccable.”

  Silence fell over the room again, as if old ghosts occupied the space around them, making their presence felt.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t end up in the film industry,” Juan said, changing the subject. “You were so talented.”

  “Well, thank you. I tried, but unless you have friends in high places . . .” Victoria shrugged. “I did have some minor roles working for Fernando Pérez and Humberto Solás. You can find me in a couple of scenes in Madrigal and Barrio Cuba if you don’t blink.” She laughed. “It was too hard. I didn’t have the patience or the connections and got tired of waiting for my big break. Besides, I’ve gotten too old.”

  Juan had once held out for his own big break too, hoping to become a famous trovador like Silvio Rodríguez. He had played the guitar in several Miami clubs, both alone and with a band called Los Caribeños. But his career had never taken off. The city had been full of musicians, all better than he was. Los Caribeños dissolved in less than a year, having never made a name for themselves. By the time he relocated to Albuquerque, he had given up. The day he moved in with Sharon, he got rid of his guitar, an old Breedlove, bitterly thinking that things could have been different had he stayed in Cuba. But maybe not, especially if Víctor, who everybody had said had “it,” hadn’t succeeded either.

  “I needed a steady income, so I carved a nice niche for myself at Café Arabia,” Victoria concluded.

  “What exactly is that?”

  “A nightclub. The hottest in Havana! We’re quite well ranked on TripAdvisor, I’m told. I sing. I act. I dance. I do everything. Three times a week. Boy, do I have a following! I’ve built an audience quicker than any other performer.”

  “Good for you.”

  “But I’d still like to work with Almodóvar’s film production company, El Deseo,” Victoria admitted, blushing. “That’s my dream.”

  “Working with Almodóvar?” Juan laughed. “Weren’t you the one who once criticized us for dreaming too big?”

  Victoria stared blankly into space.

  “I was wrong,” she muttered. “I’m sorry I was such a smartass. I thought I knew everything.”

  “No, you were right. I don’t know of any Cuban making it big in Hollywood.”

  “Andy García!”

  “But he’s Cuban American. It’s different when you grow up there.”

  “Anyway, Almodóvar . . . he’s my hero.” Victoria’s eyes grew distant. “He portrays us as we are. If I could just meet him, or if he could see me act, we’d click. He’d give me a role in one of his movies, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  Juan doubted it, but didn’t dare to laugh or voice his thoughts.

  “But tell me about you.” Victoria started sipping her coffee. “Where did you say you lived?”

  “Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

  She arched her penciled eyebrows. “Wait, did you leave La Yuma?”

  “It’s New Mexico, not Mexico.”

  “What kind of name is Albuquerque? It doesn’t even sound American.”

  Juan wasn’t ready to go through the geopolitical explanation. He shrugged, but Victoria wasn’t done yet.

  “Do people speak Spanish there?”

  “Some do, but less than in Miami.”

  “Do you miss Cuba?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Victoria grinned. “What do you miss about it? Besides me.”

  “I miss the good times we all used to have together. You know, as the Three Musketeers,” Juan said slowly. “I haven’t made many friends in La Yuma.”

  “I can’t believe that! Everybody always liked you.”

  “People there are cold and guarded. They don’t joke around like we do. Or maybe they just don’t joke with me. I still feel like a foreigner there, even after twenty years.”

  Victoria twirled a blonde curl around her finger.

  “That’s too bad, Juan. Are you still into music?”

  Juan wished she hadn’t brought that up. “Not really. I tried in Miami but couldn’t compete with the pros. I mean, I was only in college for a year. Now I do construction work and help my wife with her business.” He took a card out of his wallet and handed it to Victoria.

  “What else?” she asked, placing the card under the silver mirror.

  “That’s it. I repair old houses so she can sell them for more than what she paid for them. Ah, and sometimes I teach a salsa class at a restaurant.” He scratched his chin. “Sorry I’m not the kind who comes back bragging about how successful he is. What you see is what you get.”

  “I see a happy, well-fed man.”

  “Too well fed, I’m afraid. But I refuse to go on a diet like those silly Americans. After I went hu
ngry for so long? No jodas!”

  “You don’t have to. You’re still a handsome musketeer.”

  Juan smiled briefly, then went serious and said, “Let me tell you something, Víctor—Victoria. I want to apologize. Even when we were struggling to survive out at sea, I kept thinking about that fight. I don’t know why it got so out of hand. We were talking politics. I criticized Fidel, and you defended him so angrily. I didn’t know you cared so much about the revolution.”

  “I didn’t. Not that much anyway, but it was so frustrating that you were leaving your country, your chance to get an education and, well, me, to follow a girl. It was my fault as well. I . . . I loved you, and I knew I was about to lose you. I was furious.”

  Juan stood stock-still, feeling himself blush again. Victoria’s eyes sparkled as she smiled slightly.

  “Like I said, it’s all water under the bridge,” she reassured him. “We’re just old friends now.”

  Juan let out a sigh of relief.

  “I swear I never thought that you and Camilo . . .” he said, shaking his head. “How did I miss the signs?”

  “You were too busy with your women to read the cues.”

  “But why didn’t you guys ever tell me straight up?”

  “Come on. Would you still have hung out with us if you’d known?”

  Probably not. He would have been self-conscious, afraid of what people would say. Birds of a feather flock together. In Cuba, “birds” meant gays.

  The chorus to “La vie en rose” cut the conversation short, saving him from answering. Victoria retrieved her cell phone from the table.

  “Yes, honey,” she purred. “Are you going to the mariconga? No? Sorry to hear. Well, I can’t miss it. No, no! I’ll go by myself! Bye, my king.”

  She blew a kiss and closed the phone.

  “That was Lázaro,” she said. “He’s so jealous. If he finds out you were here, he’ll have a fit. He’s too possessive, but I love him. We’ll be getting married soon.”

  Juan looked discreetly at Victoria’s breasts. He doubted they were real but didn’t dare to ask.

  “I didn’t know gay marriage was legal here,” he said.

  “It isn’t quite yet, but they’re getting the process started to change the law. That’s one of the things we’re celebrating with the mariconga.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The gay pride parade. See, ‘maricón’ and ‘conga’? But it’s also a play on Mariela’s name.”

  “Mariela who?”

  Victoria threw her hands in the air. “Mariela Castro! Haven’t you heard what she’s done for us?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t really keep up with Cuban news,” Juan admitted.

  He didn’t actually keep up with any kind of news.

  “She opened the National Center for Sex Education, the CENESEX,” Victoria gushed. “She gave us free gender reassignment surgeries and protection from the police. She’s our queen! The mariconga is a way of kissing her ass too. It’ll be a fun party, though. Do you want to come?”

  The phone rang again. This time, Victoria glanced at it but didn’t answer.

  “That’s the club owner,” she said. “He’s trying to get me to work today, but I already told him no. I understand that business is important, but money isn’t everything. Down with man’s exploitation of man!”

  She laughed at Juan’s puzzled expression.

  “Yes, I can still quote old Marx,” she said. “So, are you coming to the mariconga or not?”

  Juan thought about it. He had never been part of a pride march. What if people misinterpreted his presence there? But then he realized that the chances of someone recognizing him after so many years were nearly zero. Besides, he didn’t care what anyone here thought of him. And he didn’t want to offend Victoria by refusing to go; it was obviously important to her. He also wanted to spend more time with her. There were a few things about Elsa he needed to find out.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Fabulous! Give me one second.”

  Victoria pranced to her bedroom and came back wearing a white hat. The brim was covered in blue feathers. A tiny red bird made of silk sat atop it.

  “I need protection from the sun,” she explained. “I’m using a treatment to shrink my pores, and the sun’s rays will give me dark spots.”

  The hat smelled faintly of hair spray.

  “Let’s go,” Juan said.

  6

  The Mariconga

  Sharon, who was still in the park, saw Juan come out of the building in the company of the tall blonde who had closed the balcony door an hour before. Now she was wearing a hat with—goodness, was that a hummingbird on top? Sharon would have laughed, had she been in the mood for it. She waited behind the flamboyán that exploded in a cascade of bright red flowers. The tree, over a hundred years old, provided her with safe refuge behind its flaming foliage.

  What had happened in the apartment during that hour? Nothing good, Sharon assumed. At least, nothing good for her, her relationship with Juan, her wounded self-esteem. She followed the couple at a respectful distance—not that it mattered, since they were too engulfed in their chat to pay attention to the world around them.

  Sharon berated herself for having trusted Juan—not only that day, but all the years they had been together. He’d played her like a fiddle. Oh, I’m going to see an old friend . . . I beat the shit out of him once and have to apologize.

  “Qué cabrón!”

  She had become so used to her husband’s slang that it came to her mind when she least expected it.

  “No, I’m the cabrona,” she muttered, remembering that cabrona also meant “cheated wife.”

  Juan and his companion walked fast. Having a good sense of orientation, Sharon knew they were going toward downtown, the heart of the city, where the ice-cream parlor was. Her shoes were bothering her, and her feet hurt, but she kept going.

  The conversation between Juan and the blonde was punctuated by gestures. Their hands moved at high speed. So did their legs. Sharon was panting by the time they reached Línea Street.

  Just when she had resolved it was time to end her chase and confront them, a man dressed in blue overalls came out of nowhere and blocked the couple’s way. Sharon realized that he had been following them as well.

  The man was angry. When he spoke to the blonde, he put his face one inch from hers, shaking his finger in the air. The woman answered in a soothing tone and didn’t seem concerned. Juan kept his distance from both. But the other guy’s voice was loud enough to carry over the fifty yards or so that separated Sharon from them.

  “You are a puta!” he yelled at the blonde. “If you keep this up, I’ll kill you!”

  The man, who was younger and taller than Juan, had a few choice words for him too. Juan, Sharon noted with contempt, didn’t try to defend himself or his companion. He simply stood apart, as if the confrontation had nothing to do with him. Just as the discussion became more heated, a yellow ’58 Chevy drove by. The blonde flagged it. The car stopped, and she pushed Juan toward the back door and got into the passenger seat herself. The car sped off. The other guy shook his fist at the vanishing almendrón.

  Sharon waited a few more minutes until another almendrón came by. She waved it down and asked to be taken to the Meliá Cohiba hotel.

  The almendrón driver charged her fifteen dollars for the five-minute ride.

  The Chevy stopped one block away from Coppelia. Victoria smoothed her hair, fixed her hat and paid the driver five CUCs.

  “Don’t mind Lázaro,” she told Juan, taking him by the arm. “He’s always making a scene.”

  Juan coughed. “I hope he understands that I am just . . . a friend.”

  “Oh, he knows I’m not a loose girl.” Victoria winked. “But he likes to show off. It’s a Cuban macho thing.”

  �
�Macho?”

  The sculpture of a naked Don Quijote riding on Rocinante appeared in the distance. The piece, created by Sergio Martínez, had been a point of reference for Habaneros since 1980.

  “Lázaro is the macho,” Victoria said, swatting at Juan playfully. “He’s a bugarrón, the one on top. Officially, he’s Victoria Sunrise’s man.”

  “Why Sunrise, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “You know my two last names: Pérez and Díaz. So vulgar, so lacking in sophistication. I had a boyfriend who used to call me his amanecer, so I just translated that and came up with Sunrise. It befits a sensuous woman, a lady with cachet.”

  “You talk so openly about . . . all this,” Juan said.

  “It’s been a long time, and like I told you, things here have changed. You’ll see it at the mariconga.”

  They passed by El Quijote Park, where the two-ton wire sculpture of the man of La Mancha stood.

  “Nice park,” Juan said. “I had almost forgotten it.”

  “Now people call it Parque del Suicida,” Victoria said. “A young man shot himself in the head here three years ago. He left a note saying it was because of a love affair gone wrong. Very romantic.”

  Juan shuddered. “I don’t think it’s romantic. Poor guy.”

  “It happens all the time.” Victoria’s laser-like eyes flashed under the hat. “Women set themselves aflame; men jump off bridges or shoot themselves—when they can find a gun, which isn’t easy here. The case was strange because the police never found the weapon. People think that whoever discovered the body first took it and went away without a word. The story I heard was that he put the gun inside his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

  The conversation was making Juan uncomfortable. He had avoided military service because he suffered from scoliosis, but he also had an aversion to guns and violence in general.

  A woman rushed past them. She was wearing a strong perfume, so thick that Juan thought he could almost see it, like an aura around her. It was a foreign scent, Opium or Shalimar. Back in his youth, Cuban women had worn Russian perfumes. Elsa’s favorite had been Red Moscow. Elsa. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He had to find a tactful way to ask where she lived now and if there was a chance of getting in touch with her.