Find Me in Havana

by Serena Burdick

  My words rush out, fast and urgent. I tell him everything, from the vomit in the kitchen to finding you on the bathroom floor to calling the ambulance to Grandmother Maria arriving. When I come to the end I say, “Ricardo killed her. Dr. Ricardo Pego. He gave her something. She said so.”

  The officer looks confused. “Her husband?”

  “They were getting a divorce.”

  “I see. That was a reason to kill her?”

  The sarcasm in his voice makes me boil. I want to rip the paperwork he keeps fiddling with out of his hands.

  I squeeze the tops of my knees. “She was filing for a divorce. He’d tried to kill her before.”

  “Did he? How, exactly?” His tone holds a hint of humor, as if we’re having a bit of fun.

  “He tried to drown her in a pool.”

  “Were you a witness to this?”

  “No.”

  “Did she report it to the police?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has she ever reported her husband to the police?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The night she died, what were her exact words?”

  “‘El me dio algo.’ It means ‘I was given something.’”

  “Did she say who gave her something?”

  “No.”

  “So it could be anyone?”

  “Ricardo is a doctor. He has access to medicine. He tried to kill her before. He gave her something!” I shout, my cheeks red hot.

  The officer scoots forward in his chair. “Calm down, missy. I’m not saying you’re wrong, it’s just...” He glances at his papers again. “This is not a murder investigation. It’s just a routine questioning.”

  “What did she die of then?”

  “It says cause of death unknown.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Which could easily mean natural causes. Influenza. Infection.”

  “That’s impossible. She wasn’t sick. She was at rehearsal right before she came home. Ask her manager or whoever was at the studio. They’ll all tell you...she...was...not...sick!”

  Officer Brown sighs heavily, his lips blowing out as he picks up a pencil and begins tapping it on his thigh. “I’ll be right back.” He stands, and I watch him swagger to a desk where a heavyset officer is on the telephone. The officer raises his hand to indicate he is not to be interrupted, and Officer Brown leans on his desk, waiting. When the officer hangs up, the two men begin talking and nodding, glancing at me, but I can’t hear a thing over the ringing telephones and clanking typewriters. After a few minutes, Officer Brown returns, sits down heavily and begins jiggling his knee again.

  “Officer Renaldo tells me you were released from the psychiatric ward of Good Hope not too long ago.”

  “So?” I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.

  “Did you like your stepfather?”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Or my being in a psych ward?”

  Officer Brown gathers his papers and taps them on the desk as if the interview is done. “It discredits your word, for one thing.”

  His dismissal sets my throat on fire. I stand up. “I’m not insane! I did a few drugs. None of that should have anything to do with my mother. Have you questioned Ricardo?”

  “Yes.” Officer Brown stands. “He was at home watching television and then went to bed.”

  “That’s not a very good alibi.”

  “Since this is not a murder case, we don’t need an alibi. It seems to me you’ve watched too much Perry Mason.”

  I want to hit him. Instead I start screaming. “You’re wrong! She was poisoned. They’ll do an autopsy and find out exactly what killed her, and you’ll be fired for not doing your goddamn job!”

  The officer takes hold of my arm. “I think we both know it’s not in your best interest to talk to a police officer like that.” Officer Renaldo has risen and gone into the room where Grandmother Maria sits. He points to me through the window, and she stands and follows him out, shaking her head at me and apologizing to the policeman as she drags me from the building into blinding sunlight.

  “Nina, what has gotten into you? You don’t scream at a policeman like that. They’ll think you’re crazier than they already do.”

  “I don’t care.” I yank my arm out of her hand. “Someone killed her! She said so. I was there.”

  Grandmother keeps walking, her stride purposeful. When we get to the car, she opens her door, gets in and reaches over to unlock mine. We drive in silence back to her house where she pulls into the driveway, turns off the engine and gets out without looking at me.

  I follow her inside. The house smells faintly of cooked onions.

  “You will sleep on the couch,” she says, pulling sheets and a blanket from the hall closet.

  “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning.” I slump against the wall and cross my arms over my chest. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere. “When are they doing the autopsy?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What happens now?”

  “A funeral.”

  “Are you arranging it?”

  “Ricardo.”

  “How can you let him do that?”

  “He is her husband.”

  “He killed her!”

  “Nina.” Grandmother Maria dumps the sheets on the couch and comes over, placing her hands on my shoulders. “This is not going to help.”

  “Don’t you want to know how she died?”

  “The doctors at the hospital know what they are doing. If there was something suspicious about her death, they’d know.”

  “You weren’t with her. You didn’t see her. She wasn’t sick. She said someone gave her something.”

  “We will wait for the autopsy. Until then, stop this. I don’t want to hear any more about it. You are making it worse.” She walks into the kitchen, her robust hips swinging, her silver hair curled on her head.

  For all her strength, I think, she is too weak to face the truth, because the truth is that we are all to blame for Ricardo’s killing you. He was violent and dangerous. You told me so yourself, and even if you never told Grandmother, she knew it, too. Virginia knew it. We all knew it, and no one did anything to protect you.

  My grandmother and I spend the day in front of the television eating peanuts from a tin can and watching Supermarket Sweep, The Dating Game and The Donna Reed Show. It is almost five o’clock when the telephone rings, startling Grandmother Maria from her sleep in the chair, her head rolled to one side. She jumps up, clicks off the television and snatches up the phone.

  “Hello?... Yes, this is she.” She nods and blinks, saying yes and I see, and finally thank you before hanging up and sitting back down. Outside the sky is darkening. Without the glow of the television, the room feels ominous.

  “That was the hospital.” Grandmother sounds resolved. “Ricardo told them not to do an autopsy.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “He is her husband. He can do whatever he likes.”

  I say nothing. Even in death I cannot save you. I think of Che and Josepha, of violent men and helpless women. I think of Virginia. She’s not a helpless woman. She is a doctor, too. Maybe she killed you because she didn’t want you to leave her. Ricardo didn’t want you to leave him. No one wanted you to leave them. And now you have gone and left us all.

  The silence and darkness in the room bear down on me. I close my eyes and recreate the sensation of your breath on the palm of my hand, the sweetness of your perfume. I feel the impression of your body against mine growing heavier and heavier until I am pinned under the weight of your death. A death I cannot avenge or make sense of.

  * * *

  Your funeral is not beautiful. It is not a celebration of life but a trick to make us all face your death in somber black cl
othing. You hated black. Why is your coffin not painted bright green and pink and yellow? Those were your colors. You told me that, when you were sad, all you had to do was close your eyes and see the buildings in Cuba lined up in their bright, laughing colors and listen for the music playing in the streets of your hometown, Guanajay, and nothing could keep you down.

  “Music is color,” you told me, “and there was always music in Cuba. On every street corner, in every house, through every celebration and every tragedy, we always had music and color. Close your eyes, Nina. Go on, try it. I will sing to you, and you will see the colors and feel laughter bubble in your belly.”

  Your song rose and fell, and I could see the Cuban blue of the ocean, and the bright red blooms of flamboyant trees and the laughing, yellow buildings.

  No one sings at your funeral. The minister, a tiny man with white hair, reads verses that I can’t follow, even with my Catholic education. There are no maracas or drums, and no one wears pink. Not even Danita, your look-alike sister. When I first see her, I want to rush into her arms and smell her and hold her and pretend she is you. But when she looks at me, there is so much sadness and confusion between us, I just shake her hand and try not to look her in the eye. Mercedes and Oneila are here, carrying the weight of age and grief, holding each other as they did in Cuba. Mercedes hugs me and Oneila pats my shoulder. Grandmother Maria stands beside them. It is strange to see them all here in Los Angeles, but then, everything is strange. I look for Josepha, wondering if she has grown into a woman I can’t recognize, but none of my cousins have come. Why would they, I think, grateful that at least your sisters came back for you.

  As we gather to mourn, my eyes fall on Ricardo across the opening of your grave. He is meticulously dressed in a fitted wool suit, the respectful, upstanding doctor with a subtle glow to his clean-shaven, deeply lined cheeks. The sight of him turns me inside out, and I look away, trying to regain a different point of focus. Faces, familiar and unfamiliar, huddle row upon row like black crows perched under the clear blue sky. There is Virginia, weeping, and Uncle Duke, and Pilar, and Ed Adelman, actors and musicians I recognize from dinner parties, and ones I recognize from movies or television and people I don’t recognize at all.

  The minister pauses as the chatter of birds in the tree overhead grows louder. I like their disregard for the human drama taking place below them. Reaching for a wreath of red roses that hangs on a chair near the coffin, the minister clears his throat and says, “In honor of his late wife, Estelita Rodriguez, Dr. Ricardo Pego will lay this wreath on her coffin.”

  The outrage and grief brewing in my gut boils over. There is no point of focus, no distractions. I scream and lunge forward, deranged, uncontrollable. “Get away from her! You killed her! You killed my mother!” He will not touch her ever again. I will stop him.

  People turn, gasping and whispering as they shuffle out of my way. The minister and Ricardo stare at me, the wreath frozen between them. “You killed my mother!” I scream, stumbling as a pair of firm hands gently take hold of my shoulders and ease me backward, a soothing voice saying, “It’s all right, now. It’s all right. Come on, we’re going to go have a little breather now. You just hang on, sweetheart. Everything is going to be all right.”

  A small, lithe man holds my arm and leads me to a car parked on the narrow graveyard road. His driver opens the door, and I slide onto a shiny leather back seat. The man slides in next to me. He wears a dark blue suit jacket over a white shirt with a wide, pointy collar. I recognize Sammy Davis Jr. from The Ed Sullivan Show. I didn’t know, Mom, that you knew him. He smiles easily at me, unconcerned, as if he pulls screaming young women away from funerals every day.

  Patting my hand he says, “You all right?” Hysterical sobs escape me, and he nods respectfully. “Yeah, I thought as much. It’s no easy thing losing a parent. Your mama was a beautiful woman. Could make a fellow laugh like no one I knew. And those hips!” He whistles, shaking his head like you are walking by him at that minute. “Those hips...” He breathes out, leaning back and grinning. “I loved watching her on stage. She was nice on-screen, too, but on stage, well, on stage she’d shine like the sun. She was a breath of life so large she filled all of us. We’re going to miss that.”

  He falls silent, smoothing his palms over his knees while I cry. When Grandmother Maria comes for me, I am slumped in a heap on the seat. “I’ll follow you back home. Best not to move her into another car. She doesn’t need to see that crowd again.” Sammy Davis Jr. pats my back. “I know all these people act like they knew your mama, but no one knew her like you did.”

  I want to tell him he is wrong. The people who loved you up on stage knew you just as well as I did. You gave your true self to everyone.

  At home, I’m given a sedative and put to bed. Crazy Nina. I haven’t done any drugs since getting out of Good Hope, and now they are freely given to me. I don’t mind. I like painkillers. I melt and slip under and hold my breath.

  In my drugged stupor, all I think about is you and that I will carry the truth of your story into old age and that no one will ever believe me.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  * * *

  August, 1966

  My Julian

  Mother,

  I am cold and wet, and my face hurts as I stand looking into the black hole of your grave. Only there is no coffin, just empty space. And then I see that you are standing across from me, right on the edge. You wear your green silk evening gown and your hair in pin curls. Your brows are painted black, your lips red. You are not looking at me but into the grave, and I wonder why, because if you are not in that hole, then who is? And then there is a man behind you, and I think it is Ricardo, but he’s too young, and he pushes you so suddenly I don’t even see you fall. I scream and leap after you, expecting free fall, silence, stillness, but the air is sharp and compact and splintered with glass.

  I don’t want to die, I think, even if I find you on the bottom.

  “Mom?” I scream. “Where are you?”

  “I am right here, Nina. I have not gone anywhere,” you say and laugh that singsongy sound, the kind that rolls up from your belly like a drumbeat. I feel your arms then, tight around me, easing me to the ground. I think of my arms around you when you were dying, how you were always better at saving me than I was at saving you.

  There is the sound of surf pounding, and when I open my eyes, I glimpse flashes of moonlight spliced through black night and see your beautiful, colorless face in the sky, just as I saw it the night you died. Your dark arched brows and full, pale lips. There is sand under my fingernails, grit and salt, and I hear the thunder of waves against rock. I am not dust, I think. I have not fallen through your fingers. I am solid and whole, and you have been carrying me all along.

  I push myself into a sitting position and the world wavers. My face hurts, and when I touch my cheeks, they are sticky, and the tips of my fingers come away dark with blood. A full, fat moon hangs like a balloon let loose over a black sea that throws waves at my feet, my sneakers licked with foam.

  A Big Sur moon, I remember, a Big Sur sea.

  Next to me Bret sits cross-legged chanting. The fucker is chanting while I lie here dripping blood. His hands rest palm up on his knees, thumb and ring finger touching, his eyes closed. I don’t know what he’s chanting, some Indian-guru chant he tried to teach me. I could never remember it and always resorted to om instead. Om is not going to help us now.

  The car is farther up the beach tilted on its side, half on the hillside, half on sand, smoke hissing from the engine. Its underside looks like the dark belly of a beetle, the two wheels up in the air like flailing legs. On the sand, glass from the shattered windows sparkle in the moonlight, and I worry that people—children and parents and lovers—will cut their feet when they walk by. How did I get next to the water? Maybe Bret had the decency to pull me from the car. Probably not. More likely I crawled out or was thrown. Sand i
s a soft landing. Nothing feels broken, but my face stings, and I am cold and shaking.

  I am weak and tired, and all I can think about is lying down, but as I sink back onto the sand, I see a dark shape in the water. At first I think it is you, emerging not from the sky but from the sea. Then I wonder if it is a porpoise or a dolphin, the shape rising slowly from the waves and coming toward me, seal-skinned, like a science fiction novel coming to life. It crouches beside me and pulls a snorkel from its mouth and the mask from its eyes. Drops of cold water drip from the man’s wetsuit onto my bare legs.

  “My God, are you all right?” The man touches my shoulder, gently, raccoon circles from his mask pressed into the skin around his bright eyes.

  “No.” I shake my head.

  “No, no, you don’t look all right. Is he okay?” He gestures to Bret, and I say, “No, but he never was to begin with.”

  The man chuckles and shakes his head. “At least you have your wits about you. We’re going to get you help. I have flares with me. Just give me a minute to set them off, and I’ll be right back, okay?”

  I nod. Flares. Help. Police. “Where’s my doll?” I cry, stricken with reality.

  “Your doll?”

  Now he won’t think I have my wits about me. “Find my doll. I need my doll.”

  He pats the air as if calming a small child. A doll seems to imply that. “I’ll find it. Just let me get those flares lit first, and I’ll see if it’s near the car, okay?”

  My hero from the sea, I think. My Neptune. When I was three, you read me a story about Neptune, and because you and Grandmother Maria were the only grown-ups I knew, for a short while I thought all men were gods. Maybe, finally, this one really is. Maybe you sent him from the sea to fall in love with me.

  I sink onto my side. There is sand in my hair, in my cut skin, in my shoes and underwear. I remember when I was little and I hated wearing underwear, and you told me I had to.