Juan kissed the air around her face. The smell of decaying flowers enveloped them both.
“How—how have you been?” he asked.
It was a silly question, but he couldn’t think of a better way to break twenty years of silence.
“Not as well as you,” she replied. “You haven’t changed a bit. Did you preserve yourself in formaldehyde?”
Juan coughed out a nervous laugh.
“Bad joke, sorry.” She winked. “A mortician’s joke.”
Juan sneezed. He searched his pockets for a handkerchief and feigned another cough to avoid speaking.
Rosita fanned the air with her hands.
“I have to do something about the smell. We ordered a shipment of flowers, but the family never showed up with the body. They decided to cremate it at the last minute. Ah, the competition!” she said, her voice rising in mock indignation. “I left the flowers in my office in case we might be able to use them. We’re big into recycling here. But they’re starting to stink.”
“Oh, I hardly noticed,” he lied.
“It’s so nice to see you again, Juan.”
She spoke as if they had parted ways only a few weeks before.
“Well, the same, Rosi.”
“Do you want to go out now? I’m supposed to stay here until two, but I’ll leave a note. Give me one second.”
She disappeared behind the curtain. Juan heard a whisper. Was she talking to someone? Praying? She came back with a piece of paper and taped it to the door. The handwritten note read, Going out, urgent matter. Will be back.
“Let’s go,” she said with a confident, happy expression that pained Juan.
“Go where?” he asked, hesitant to go anywhere at all with her.
She flipped her hair.
“Oh, wherever you want,” she said breezily. “There are lots of places we could grab a bite and talk for a while. Remember when all we had was a few pizzerias? Now there are paladares all over. My favorite is La Dulcinea. They make great desserts.”
The name sounded familiar. Juan tried to remember where he had seen it.
“They also have ice cream, homemade vanilla. And the best flan in Havana.”
Oh, where he had bought the flan for Víctor. Carajo. No way he was going back to that place.
She took him by the arm and started walking.
“Rosi,” he managed to say, “I can’t. I don’t—I don’t have time. My wife’s waiting at the hotel. I came here to visit my dad’s grave.” She stopped and let go of his arm. Silence floated between them, like the smell of rotten flowers.
“Fine,” she said flatly at last. “I’ll take you there.”
They set off walking again. Juan avoided getting too close. Should he mention the past, apologize to her? He didn’t want her to get any ideas—he was married, after all—but finding out what had happened with her pregnancy, or at least asking, was the right thing to do.
“I keep it clean and nice here,” she said. “I bring flowers the third day of every month, because Oscar died on February the third.”
Juan realized she was talking about his father’s grave. She’d done that for El Chino Oscar all these years?
“Thanks,” he said, trying to stave off a nauseating guilt. “I’m happy to pay you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to. Victoria does. I would have taken care of it anyway, but she brings me five CUCs when she can and finds makeup gigs for me at Café Arabia.”
Juan decided not tell her about Víctor’s death. He just wanted to pay his respects to his father and leave. Rosita was getting on his nerves already, as she always had.
They passed by the mausoleum of Juan Pedro Baró and Catalina Laso. In the early twenties, when divorce hadn’t been legal in Cuba, Catalina had left her husband and fled to Europe with her lover, Juan Pedro. When the divorce law was finally passed, they had come back to Havana, but she had died a few years later. Juan Pedro built an Art Deco mausoleum for her in marble and black granite, with a crystal rose carved on top.
Juan remembered the story because Víctor and Elsa had been in a play inspired by it. Víctor had been the male protagonist, which now seemed ironic. Elsa had played a high-society lady who despised Catalina.
“Here we are,” Rosita said.
The unpretentious Lasalle mausoleum was tucked on a side street, away from the main avenues. A cement vase on top contained three withered red roses. oscar chiong and 1947–1999 had been engraved next to it. Below were the names of Juan’s mother and other relatives, almost weathered off the tombstone.
“Are they all buried here?” Juan asked, perplexed. Unless the grave was very deep, he couldn’t fathom how they had managed to get more than four bodies in.
“Not anymore,” Rosita said. “All the Lasalle folks have already been moved out.”
“Mom too?”
“Yes.”
Juan blinked. “You mean she isn’t buried next to Dad? Why? Where is she?”
“When the body decomposes, only the skull and some of the bigger bones remain. We put them in an ossuary after a certain number of years. This makes it possible to bury other people in these spots, since space is limited.”
Rosita spoke mechanically, sounding bored. She must have repeated these lines often. He thought of asking whether Catalina and Juan Pedro had been separated and their vacant spots given to others, but decided it was none of his business.
“There’s still room in your mausoleum,” Rosita added cheerily. “We can place up to three more bodies here.”
Juan wanted to offer the space for Víctor, but didn’t. He needed to leave this place. He couldn’t stand Rosita’s gaze—strangely self-assured, almost smug. But he still had to ask. He inhaled deeply. She looked at him and waited.
“Rosi,” he started.
“Yes?”
He heaved a sigh. Just get it over with.
“I’m sorry for the way I treated you,” he said.
“I was just your backup girlfriend.”
“Ay, Rosi! I shouldn’t have . . . My only excuse is that I was young and stupid. I hope I didn’t cause too much trouble for you.”
“What do you mean?”
She wasn’t going to make it easy. He glanced at the mausoleums, which shone eerily under the sun.
“The—our child,” he said. “The last time we talked, you told me you were pregnant. What happened? Did you . . . ?”
She shook her head. “Oyá punished me, and I lost the baby.”
Her eyes swelled with tears. Despite himself, Juan put his arm around her shoulders.
“Don’t say that,” he said. “Punished for what? You didn’t do anything wrong. It was my fault too. I should’ve been more careful.”
She sank against him.
“I did do something wrong,” she whispered. “It’s why Oyá punished me. After you left me, I went to see your girlfriend and told her about us.”
Juan winced. “You told Elsa?”
“Yes.”
Rosita’s voice became firmer as she went on.
“I heard you were planning to leave . . . just Elsa and the Three Musketeers. It wasn’t fair that I would end up here, discarded like an old rag, while you and Elsa stayed together forever in La Yuma. I told her I was nine weeks pregnant. At first, she didn’t believe it was yours.” She smiled wistfully. “She couldn’t accept that after being with her, the girl everyone at ISA wanted, you’d waste your time with someone like me. But I offered her proof. I described your pinga to her, the three birthmarks on it and everything.”
She seemed almost proud.
“How did she react?” Juan asked in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own, hoarse and cracked.
“She slapped me.” Rosita’s cheeks turned red. “Twice. ‘This for being a puta and stealing my man,’ she said. ‘And this one in case yo
u’re lying.’ She went for my hair, but I ran.”
Juan’s eyes wandered over the graves surrounding them. He wished Rosita’s body were in one.
“Why would you do that?” he asked. “Why, Rosi? I never told you I would leave Elsa for you. You knew I was in love with her.”
“Hey, I was young and stupid too,” she said defensively. “I was hurting and knocked up and had no one to turn to.”
The flower vendor approached them.
“Ah, you found it!” he said to Juan. “Would you like some marigolds?” He held up a bunch. “Look, they’re still fresh.”
Juan ignored him. He waited until the man went away and then asked Rosita, “When did you tell her?”
“I don’t remember. A few days before you left, I think.”
“You have no idea how you’ve wrecked my life, Rosi,” he hissed.
“I wrecked your life?” Her eyes narrowed. “You really don’t care about anybody but yourself, do you?”
He imagined grabbing Rosita by the neck and strangling her. He avoided her eyes, tearful but shining with conviction and self-righteousness. He had to leave, before he did something stupid. After all, he wasn’t young enough to be excused for it anymore.
He walked briskly away, and she called after him: “Why does it matter now? Juan!”
He broke into a run and fled the cemetery, chased by the smell of rotten flowers.
10
Last Images of the Shipwreck
Speaking of secrets. Speaking of trust! No, he would never trust anybody again. Not after this. But still, he had to find Elsa. More than ever. Everything had just become clear, as if someone had opened the window of a dark room filled with junk, dust and cobwebs, letting the sun shine into its dirtiest corners.
When he returned to the Art Deco building, the same security guard escorted him to the Savarria and Co. office. The two young women were still at the reception desk, gossiping and laughing. No, Señora Dieguez hadn’t come in. No, she hadn’t returned their calls either. And no, they definitely couldn’t give him her personal number, much less her address.
“We’re old friends,” he argued. “We haven’t seen each other in twenty years. I’m only in Cuba for a few days and need to speak to her.”
“I’m sorry,” the younger receptionist said, unrelenting. “Señora Dieguez has made it clear that we aren’t allowed to divulge her personal information. I don’t want to lose my job.”
“I’ll never tell her you told me!”
“She’ll figure it out. I have a child to take care of, Señor.”
Frustrated, Juan left the office for the second time that day.
“Wait.”
He stopped. The taller, slightly older woman had followed him. He smiled, hope lighting up his eyes.
“Why do you need to talk to the boss?” she asked.
“We were sweethearts a long time ago,” he disclosed. “It’s been twenty years, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to return to Cuba again.”
She smiled knowingly. “I see. Well, I can give you her address.”
“Really? Thank you so much.”
She chuckled. “Not so fast, chico. If the commander in bitch finds out, she’ll fire my ass, as my friend has mentioned.”
Commander in bitch. Juan couldn’t hold back a nervous laugh. “I promise—”
“Promises won’t feed me. What’s this worth to you?”
He finally understood. “You mean money.”
“Real money. Dollars or CUCs.”
Young Cuban women had no hair on their tongues, as Abuela used to say. They never minced words. He took one hundred CUCs from his wallet and offered them to her. After counting them, she said, “It’s within walking distance from here. Eight blocks down L Street, then turn left on Tenth Street, and look for a big house painted blue. I don’t remember the exact number, but you can’t miss it. There’s a ceiba in the front yard.”
Juan thanked her profusely. It wasn’t until he was en route to L Street that it occurred to him that she might have given him false directions. If so, what could he do? Go back and confront her for squeezing a bunch of CUCs out of him? Bah. He would give her the benefit of the doubt for now. He said a quick, preemptive prayer to the orishas.
“Please, let Elsa be there. Let her listen to me. Give me the chance to explain . . .”
He walked fast, blocking out the mental image of Rosita. She was as dead to him now as the bodies in the Colón Cemetery, slowly fading to dust under the marble headstones.
The neighborhood looked and felt rich. It was even a step above El Naútico, the bourgeois district Elsa’s parents had moved to in the sixties when the original homeowners had fled to Miami. Juan remembered the crystal chandeliers in the living room that had dazzled him when he first saw them. But during the Special Period that house had fallen into disrepair. In 1992, after more than thirty years without a decent paint job, with old plumbing and broken fixtures, it had still been impressive, but not the most comfortable place to live.
These El Vedado houses, though also built before the 1960s, had been carefully remodeled. Their facades had been repainted, their garages fitted with automatic doors. There were brand-new metal fences with German shepherds behind them and Mercedes and BMWs parked out front. There were green lawns and parabolic antennae on the roofs. Juan found the blue house—a single home with a coquettish picket fence and a spotless front yard where a majestic ceiba grew to the left, surrounded by shrubs. The property had probably been mapped out around the tree to avoid cutting it down, as the species was considered sacred even by nonbelievers. The garage door was open, and Juan spotted a blue Lexus, nicer and newer than the Toyota he drove in Albuquerque.
He opened the gate, crossed the front yard and stopped at the door. He then noticed a man dressed in white with red and blue Santería necklaces around his neck watching him from across the street. Juan brushed off the reflexive alarm that triggered his paranoia. The santero was probably looking at the ceiba, maybe praying to it.
Juan’s heartbeat was rapid. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Elsa, or what to do if she let him in.
He rang the bell and waited.
A familiar voice, one he’d heard many times in his dreams, replied, “Coming!”
The door opened, and there she was. Elsa, just as beautiful, with shorter hair, thick and shiny, her small mouth and deep-set green eyes. The same eyes that had looked at him so lovingly twenty years ago now glared coldly.
“What are you doing here?”
No, she wasn’t happy to see him. In fact, she seemed pissed off.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“But we were supposed to meet yesterday,” he insisted.
“We were?”
“Víctor told me you wanted to have lunch with us.”
Elsa seemed confused. Taking advantage of the moment, he pushed past her softly and sneaked inside the living room before she could protest.
And what a living room it was. Even after living abroad and constantly seeing the rich folks’ homes that Sharon bought and sold, he was awed by the marble sculptures, the massive entertainment center, the well-preserved antique mirror with its ornate golden frame.
“Nice place,” he said.
She waited by the door, raising an eyebrow.
“Elsa, please. Let’s talk.”
He realized that he sounded like Rosita, desperate and vulnerable. But he shrugged off this thought. True love made you unafraid to show weakness, he decided, feeling a brief pang of empathy for his backup girlfriend.
“There are some things I didn’t know about until today.” He approached Elsa and took her hand in both of his. It was cold. “Please, give me a chance to explain them.”
She closed the door. “Fine. Follow me.”<
br />
She led him through the living room and a formal dining area—he had a quick glimpse of the sleek dining set, a Persian rug and two oil paintings—to a breakfast nook furnished with a white table, two chairs and a matching hutch. It was in a kitchen full of stainless-steel appliances. A tray with three éclairs on it rested on the granite counter beside a notepad and a pen with the Savarria and Co. logo. A wall clock read one-thirty.
Elsa brought the tray to the table. “From La Dulcinea, the best paladar and bakery in Havana.”
Juan gave a slight involuntary shudder. They sat down at the table.
“Have an éclair,” she said. “They’re good.”
Juan hesitated but took a bite. He couldn’t help thinking of the flan he had bought for Víctor. Did everybody in El Vedado go to La Dulcinea? The éclair tasted like chalk, though he suspected it was just the association with his dead best friend.
“Mmm,” he mumbled for show, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, she was watching him closely. There was no love in her eyes, as he’d hoped there would be, or hate, as he’d feared, but a cold, almost calculating expression. He looked away and saw a bottle of creolina, a tar-based cleaning agent, sitting near the sink.
“I haven’t seen creolina in years,” he said.
“It’s the only thing that leaves tile floors spotless,” she answered, as if the benefits of a specific cleaning product was a normal conversation topic for former lovers seeing each other for the first time in two decades. “I’ve tried Pine-Sol and Clorox, but there’s nothing like creolina. I always get it at Havana Libre.”
Juan glanced out an oval window, which looked out onto a roomy backyard. There were jasmine shrubs, rosebushes and two palm trees. A three-tier fountain stood in the middle, surrounded by terra-cotta pots.
He devoured the éclair faster than he had intended out of nervousness, piled the crumbs on one corner of the table and said, “I couldn’t wait to see you at Víctor’s. Do you know what happened?”
“When I arrived, the neighbors were talking about it,” she said as she wrung her smooth, perfectly manicured hands. “Vic had invited me to lunch, but she hadn’t said you would be there.”
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