Roberto Fariñas couldn’t help but notice that something deeper than resentment and even the fear with which they arrived at that place was running through his friend. In a whisper, he asked if something was wrong, but Daniel Kaminsky barely shook his head, saying no, incapable of talking, of thinking, of knowing.
The housekeeper at the luxurious building on Miramar’s Séptima Avenida had offered them a seat on the soft sofas covered in blue velvet, harmoniously in line with the living room’s sumptuous décor, the most refined part of which was due to the paintings hanging on the walls, reproductions of famous works from the golden age of Dutch art. Among the paintings, placed on the room’s best wall to highlight the role of its certain authenticity and its overwhelming beauty, that young Jewish man’s head, signed with the initials of Rembrandt van Rijn, yelled out its presence to a stunned Daniel Kaminsky. The obsessive contemplation of the work in which the young man had thrown himself caught Roberto’s attention. “There’s something strange about that painting, isn’t there? Is it a portrait of a man or an image of Jesus Christ?” Daniel didn’t respond.
Román Mejías appeared a few minutes later. He was a man of about sixty years of age, wearing a shiny linen suit made of dril cien, as if he were about to go out. Daniel did the math: that man would have been about forty at the time of the Saint Louis incident, so he could well have been one of the ones going on and off the boat due to his job as an immigration official.
The Polish man barely listened to the conversation between Mejías and Roberto. He was trying to look, without making his interest too obvious, at the small painted canvas and only came back to reality when his friend asked him for the money that Daniel was carrying in the inside pocket of his jacket. He handed the envelope to Mejías as the first part of the deal: five thousand pesos to start, another five thousand when they received the passport. Mejías put away the envelope without counting the money while he explained to them that from the minute he gave them the fake document the beneficiary had to leave Cuba within a week, maximum. He committed to having it ready in ten days. Roberto extended the photos of Pepe Manuel to him, now with a mustache and Coke-bottle glasses, and Mejías asked if they had any preference regarding the name. Roberto looked at Daniel, and from some corner of the Polish man’s memory came the name: “Antonio Rico Mangual,” he said, since a few months before he had received the news that his old buddy Antonio, the mulato lavado with the beautiful eyes who was by his side in his first adventures in Old Havana, had died of tuberculosis in a sanatorium on the outskirts of the city. But a light in his mind made him add, to Roberto’s surprise, “That’s my name. I don’t have a passport nor do I have any plans to travel, so you can use it, no problem.”
“That’s fine by me. I’ll take care of getting the birth certificate,” the man said and concluded, “Done deal.”
Mejías held out his hand to his visitors. Roberto shook it, but Daniel acted like he didn’t notice so as to avoid contact.
“We’ll see each other here in ten days,” the man added. “And discretion will guarantee your friend’s life, yours, and mine. Batista swore he would kill all of those guys. And he won’t stop until he does so.”
When Daniel and Roberto were about to leave, a force that was stronger than all of his precautions pushed the former Jew. “Mr. Mejías, that painting over there”—he pointed out the head painted on canvas—“is it by a well-known painter?”
Mejías turned around to contemplate the work, like a father who is proud of his daughter’s beauty. “The others, of course, are reproductions. But that one, although you may not believe it,” he said, “is an authentic painting by Rembrandt, a famous painter, beyond well-known.”
* * *
Daniel Kaminsky’s life, already wounded by the fear surrounding him and by his own tensions, fell from that moment into a dark labyrinth. Without even discussing his terrible discovery with Marta or with his uncle Joseph, he devoted several days to thinking about his options. In his mind, nonetheless, the conviction had taken root: that man, or someone connected to him, had conned his parents. Mejías or whatever person had given him or sold him that painting held a lot of responsibility for the death of his family. And, in any event, he had the obligation to recover the painting, property of the Kaminskys since the far-off days when the dying rabbi had handed it over to Dr. Moshe Kaminsky in a distant Kraków devastated by violence and plague.
With all the discretion required by the matter, Daniel started to investigate the life of Román Mejías. All of his precautions would be too little, he thought, and that is what he would tell his son Elias: although he wasn’t dealing with a man in Batista’s inner circle of friends and favorites, he was a government official and, as such, a regime man, and like all of those people, Mejías lived in a state of permanent alert. Besides, the man was involved in the preparation of Pepe Manuel’s passport and that was the priority at the moment.
By using trivial reasons to ask any question and reading old newspapers, Daniel was able to piece together that man’s life. The necessary data point was that Mejías had been, in fact, one of the officials picked by President Laredo Brú’s minister of the interior to substitute for Colonel Manuel Benítez’s acolytes in the immigration administration following the battle over the visas sold in Berlin. The possibility that he was one of the ones overseeing the Saint Louis incident was more than probable, and a copy of El País from May 31, 1939, which published a photo in which Mejías appeared, twenty years younger, proved it. In the image, he was in the company of two other officials at the moment in which, recently disembarked after a stay on the passenger ship, they refused to give the press any information regarding the rumor that the government was asking double the amount of money offered by the Joint Distribution Committee. But couldn’t it have been another colleague of his who made away with the painting and, for some reason, then handed it over to Mejías? Although far-fetched, there existed that explanation that could even exonerate Mejías.
The first person to whom Daniel owed an explanation was Roberto Fariñas. Four days after they began their dealings with Mejías, when they again saw each other, Roberto asked him why he said his name was Antonio Rico Mangual, and about his strange attitude during their whole negotiation with that individual and his interest in that painting that he refused to believe was a real Rembrandt, no matter what, just like the others hanging there weren’t real Vermeers or Ruysdaels. Based on what he knew of art—not much, but something—Roberto expounded that the face was missing something of the mastery transmitted by all Rembrandts, the greater and lesser works, even the overlooked ones, he concluded. Then Daniel Kaminsky, who already felt like he was suffocating under the weight of the revelation and the suspicions that went along with it, chose to unburden himself and tell his friend the story and that he had decided to recover what belonged to him. Because that painting, despite Roberto’s opinion, despite being just a study, was a true Rembrandt, the real deal—and he knew it well, he said, and showed his friend the photo of the family living room in Kraków. As he listened to him, Roberto almost didn’t put much stock in the story and even had the childish idea that, as soon as they got the passport, someone, perhaps Uncle Joseph Kaminsky himself with the support of powerful Brandon, would denounce the corrupt official. The young man immediately realized the improbable success of his idea, since in practice guys like Mejías always managed to hide the body from the justice system of a country that had turned into nothing but a gigantic lair of competing self-interests. But, as could be expected, he put himself at his friend’s disposal to do whatever was necessary—whatever, he emphasized. That’s how Roberto Fariñas was and always would be, Daniel Kaminsky would tell his son Elias. That’s how he was, even in the times when politics had taken care of creating the largest distances imaginable between old buddies and filling in the differences with resentment. At that moment Daniel only asked Roberto for the greatest discretion, at least until they could get Pepe Manuel out of Cuba. Afterward, they would
see.
A brilliant idea then came to his aid. The afternoon prior to the agreed-upon day for the passport’s delivery, Daniel left the market, got into his Chevy, and headed toward his old neighborhood, in Havana’s Jewish quarter. On Calle Bernaza, between Obispo and Obrapía, one of the city’s most renowned photography studios, Fotografía Rembrandt, had been in operation since the 1920s. Its original proprietor, very old, but still lucid, was a Jew, Aladar Hajdú, who was such a fan of the Dutch master’s work that his notoriety as such led his clients and those who knew him to call him “Rembrandt.” It wasn’t a mere coincidence that he had chosen the artist’s name when he christened his prosperous business, in which he displayed not only photos of famous customers but also some works by Cuban painters and several Rembrandt reproductions, the leading one being Belshazzar’s Feast, placed in such a way that the biblical character, with the dramatic gesture that distinguished him in all of art history, was pointing at the interior room where the backdrop was set up for studio photos.
Daniel asked to see Hajdú and introduced himself. The old man, luckily, knew Pepe the Purseman and even knew about his close relationship with the powerful Brandon. It wasn’t hard for Daniel to get the old Jewish man, in between whose lips there was always a cigarette burning, to accept his offer to have a beer at the corner bar, since he needed to discuss something with him. When they were already sitting at a table, surrounded by all of the possible sounds generated at that vital and overwhelming place in the city, Daniel asked that the conversation they were about to have remain secret, for reasons that he perhaps could explain. Hajdú, part curious and part alarmed, wouldn’t promise anything until he knew what it was about, he said.
“I need to know something, perhaps very easy to find out for someone like you,” Daniel began, putting it all at risk. “Does someone in Cuba have a Rembrandt?”
Hajdú smiled and blew out smoke, as if he were burning inside. “Why do you want to know?”
“I am the one who can’t tell you. I just need to confirm that I saw one.”
The old Jew took the bait. “Román Mejías. Years ago, that man came to see me to find out if the Christ figure he had was an authentic Rembrandt. As far as I know, it seemed that it was. One of the various Christ figures that Rembrandt painted.”
“So when did he consult you about that?”
“Hmmm, about twenty years ago,” Hajdú said as he lit a new cigarette, and added, “He told me it was a family legacy. Then he showed me some of the work’s certificates of authenticity, but they were written in German, and I don’t speak German. What I do remember is that they were dated in Berlin, in 1928.”
That was the confirmation sought by Daniel: those were the documents obtained by his father, and the painting that Mejías had was his family’s. “So now can you keep this conversation a secret?”
Hajdú looked at him with an intensity that Daniel felt could strip him down. “Yes … but with a tip that I’ll give you for free, kid: Román Mejías is a dangerous guy … Be careful, whatever it is that you have going on. By the way, I don’t know you and I’ve never spoken with you. Thanks for the beer,” he said, blew out smoke, and stood up to head back toward his photo studio.
That same afternoon the young man drove out to the neighborhood of Luyanó, since the time had come to talk to Uncle Joseph, to whom this story also belonged. Caridad greeted him with the same affability as always, offered him a seat, and told him that his uncle had been in the bathroom for half an hour. “Doing you-know-what. He should be about to come out.” Daniel withstood how he could the banal, to him, conversation with the woman, who was very worried about her son’s future, given the indefinite closure of the university he planned to attend. When his uncle left the bathroom with the look of disgust with which he always finished his difficult bowel movements, Caridad left to make the coffee and Daniel asked Joseph to step outside the house for a moment. They headed to the nearby park on Calle Reyes, and on the way the nephew began to recount the dramatic discovery made a few days prior. When they were sitting on a bench, benefiting from the recently lit streetlamp, Daniel finished the story. During his entire narration, Uncle Joseph had remained silent, without asking so much as one question, but he looked as if he were waking from a dream when the young man revealed Mejías’s unquestionable connection with the painting since the days of the arrival of the Saint Louis, confirmed by Hajdú’s contribution regarding the certificates dated in Berlin.
“What are you going to do?” was Pepe the Purseman’s first question.
“For now, get Pepe Manuel out of Cuba. Then I don’t know.”
“That guy is a son of a bitch,” the man said, and added, with a determination capable of convincing Daniel of everything that painful discovery had awoken in Uncle Joseph, “and like the son of a bitch that he is, he has to pay for what he did.”
* * *
On the morning of the tenth day, the end of the time period requested by Román Mejías, Daniel went to the terminal for the ferries that covered the Miami–Havana–Miami route and bought a ticket for the one leaving two days later, in the morning. Since the dock was close to the Hapag dock by which the passengers of the Saint Louis should have disembarked, for the first time in eighteen years Daniel Kaminsky dared to return to the site where, along with his uncle Joseph, he had joined the crowd to see who was on the launches coming back from the passenger ship. He remembered how his uncle had bet on how an official who was covered by a hat would be the one chosen by fate to carry out the deal with his brother Isaiah. The saving Sephardic legacy, the spoon that knew what secrets were hidden in the pot … Daniel tried to recover the intensity of those moments, to recover from deep within his childhood memory the faces of the men who, amid that frenzy, he identified as the visible part of the powers capable of decreeing his family’s salvation. But Román Mejías’s actual face insisted on occupying the space of the figures his imagination evoked or created.
That night, Daniel and Roberto appeared at Mejías’s house and entered to conclude their business. This time, the official was waiting for them in the living room, where there was also a woman of about fifty, sitting in a wheelchair, who discreetly slipped away when the visitors arrived. “My sister, she’s trustworthy,” Mejías clarified as soon as they had exchanged greetings. He went over to a small cabinet from which he removed the passport and handed it to Roberto. The young man reviewed it and it looked authentic to him. “It’s authentic,” Mejías confirmed. “Well, as authentic as you need.”
Daniel remained silent, trying to concentrate on studying that place, the possible ways in and out, what could be seen through the windows. When Roberto elbowed him, he took out the envelope and handed it over to the man, who received it with a smile. When he put the money in the interior pocket of his jacket, Daniel could see, in his holster, the weapon he was carrying.
“The last packet was twenty dollars short,” Mejías said, “but don’t worry.”
Daniel, without saying a word, put his hands in his pocket and took out two twenty-dollar bills and handed them to the man. “This is for what was missing from the first delivery and in case we made another mistake,” he said.
Mejías smiled and took the bills. At that moment, Daniel Kaminsky was absolutely certain that it was that miserable man, and no other official, who had conned his parents and put them on the path to the most horrifying of deaths. Román Mejías deserved to be punished.
The preparations for Pepe Manuel’s escape were quick and concrete. The following morning, Roberto and Daniel went with Olguita to Las Guásimas. The reunion, after almost a year, was as happy and full of hope as could be expected among those shaken-up beings and given the situation at hand. But it was also brief. Roberto and Daniel agreed to come back the following morning at six, since Pepe Manuel had to board the ferry at nine, and they left Olguita with a suitcase of clothing for the traveler. The couple had one day’s time and a rustic hut as the space for their farewell.
The following mor
ning, while they traveled to the city center in Daniel’s Chevy, dawn’s light reached Havana. On the way, Pepe Manuel demanded that, to avoid the greatest risks, they leave him just around Parque Central, where he would take a taxi to the ferry docks. Once and again, Roberto and Daniel repeated to their friend to take all precautions, even knowing that Pepe Manuel, ever since he had ceased to be the fidgety Scatterbrain of old times, was a man with a deep sense of responsibility. Daniel was driving with tense shoulders because of the situation they were all in, but, above all, due to the excitement of the request he had to make to his friend before they separated. Daniel had to be grateful to Pepe Manuel for being the one to relieve a little of the weight of his anxiety when he congratulated the Pole for the new victory recently achieved by the Tigres de Marianao, Cuban Professional League champions for the second year in a row. “And that was with Miñoso at fifty percent.” He would always remember saying to his friend the same words that, exactly thirty years later, he would say to his son Elias when they attended the gala honoring the Cuban Comet in Miami, and the Jewish man was at last able to achieve one of his life’s dreams: shake the hand of that mythical black man, the one responsible for some of his best memories, and take with him a ball signed by the enormous Miñoso, although dedicated to “my friend Jose Manuel Bermudez,” just like that, without accent marks.
Heretics Page 14