Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

by Rafael Yglesias

  I did enjoy my father’s comfort and was encouraged to make an effort. “Where’s the toilet?” I asked after a while in his arms. I knew I couldn’t stop him from leaving me; my worry was that he wouldn’t come back. I believed I had to master my fear so that returning to me would be a pleasant prospect. I certainly didn’t take for granted that the mere fact of my existence was a sufficient incentive.

  “In the hall!” he said as if that were the most brilliant fact he had yet encountered in life.

  “In the hall?” I said with as heavy and dubious tone as a nine-year-old can muster.

  He took me into the corridor where, at the end farthest from our rooms, there was a bathroom for the floor. This facility was no larger than what we had in Washington Heights, yet my father presented the rather ordinary fixtures as if they were spectacular. Did he really think they were special or was that for my benefit? I believe, in his enthusiasm, in his mania (he had triumphed over Bernie and international borders; he was about to make a book deal), he actually thought that the normal-sized porcelain tub was “big enough to be a swimming pool,” that the chain flush box toilet was “elegant,” that the scented soap not only cleaned but “deodorized,” and that the dulled mirror over the sink was “made out of a special glass to give ladies a more youthful look.” My father wasn’t a fool; but out of hope, he was often foolish.

  Anyway, I didn’t care how grand the hall bathroom was; I wanted privacy. Once my father confirmed that any guest might and would use it, I decided not to go to the toilet until we moved to a real hotel. I asked when that would be.

  “What do you mean?” my father laughed. “Don’t you think this is a real hotel?”

  “You know …” I trailed off.

  “I guess living with your uncle has spoiled you for anything but the Carlyle.”

  “No it hasn’t!” Francisco had spoken in a neutral tone; but I heard a damning judgment underneath and wished I could retrieve my complaint.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s what you’re used to.”

  “No, I’m not. I don’t even know what the Carlyle is.”

  Francisco must have been dismayed—he didn’t laugh. “The Carlyle is a hotel for rich people in New York. You know, this is really a perfectly charming place. Your uncle’s standard of living is—well, way beyond most Americans, let alone what people are used to in Europe. Even in the best hotel in Spain, although the bathroom would be in your room, it wouldn’t be any better than this one.”

  Of course, if the bathroom were in my room, especially because it would have at least doubled its size, that would have made quite a difference. “Oh, it’s great,” I said.

  “Okay,” Francisco said. But I had hurt his feelings. We walked back to my little room. My father said he was going to unpack and he left me alone.

  I sat on my bed. The springs creaked with age. I looked at the close-by wall opposite and felt abandoned. Outside I heard an ominous clacking on the pavement; I thought it was the tread of an enormous horse. I went to the window and peered through a gap in the wooden Venetian blinds.

  They were the footsteps of a Guardia Civil. He was dreadful. He was overweight, but that made him no less scary. In the uniform, moving inexorably under his cape and patent leather hat, like a sort of man-eating turtle, he was as terrible as any of his leaner and more fit brothers. I watched him go up the street, a slow patrol that I found as fascinating and as awful as King Kong’s destructive progress through a peaceful city and I imagined what it would be like to sleep there, alone, listening to the footsteps of the fat Guardia Civil.

  “Dad!” I called. I was too scared to move. I shouted again. “Daddy!”

  Francisco appeared with his shirt off and a clean one in his hands. “What is it?” He looked scared too.

  “Is Carmelita going to stay here?”

  “That’s what you were shouting about? You gave me a heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed and put on the shirt, buttoning it. “Yes. She’s going to be with us from now on. But we’ll talk about that in the morning.”

  “No. I mean, is she going out with you?”

  “Of course not. You think I would leave you alone in the hotel? Is that the kind of father you think I am?”

  I was ashamed. After all, he had never left me, he had been driven out of the country by death threats, and stayed away to fight against imperialism. “No,” I mumbled.

  “You know,” he said in a soft voice, “I took a chance coming to the States to get you. I could have been arrested and had my passport taken away. But I didn’t care because I wanted you with me.”

  Think of what he had risked to come get me, I scolded myself. I was very ashamed. I lowered my eyes to the tails of his laundered white Brooks Brothers shirt. Maybe I didn’t deserve such a good Daddy.

  “I kept it, Daddy. And I never told.”

  “What?” He moved to me and lifted my chin. “I can’t understand you. What did you say?”

  I was crying as I talked and the tears garbled what I said. “I have your secret letter. I know it was supposed to be destroyed but I kept it. Mommy was angry, I think.” Once I started crying it was hard to stop, although I no longer felt bad. I sobbed, became aware of my father’s mounting upset as he nervously tried to soothe me and tell him what was wrong, all the while feeling better beneath the tears.

  [Note the cyclical testing of whether the father truly cares, characteristic of a battered child. Although no violence is present here, the emotional blows are similar. There is need for attention at any cost, even if it is painful.]

  Carmelita returned while I struggled to stop weeping. She spoke softly to my father, shut the door and unloaded my sandwich from a red mesh shopping tote. She spread the wrapping paper on the tiny, almost doll-sized night table, and put my food on it while I calmed down. She watched us and rubbed her stomach gently with her right hand. I looked at her round contented face. She smiled at me lovingly.

  “Now, what were you trying to say about a secret?” my father asked.

  I took out my Indian wallet and gave him his letter.

  To my surprise, when he unfolded the yellow paper’s deep creases and read the first few lines of his handwriting, he frowned from lack of recognition. That lasted for only a moment before the shock and horror at what he was reading came into his bright eyes. He broke off to stare at me as if I were something he was afraid of.

  I was surprised at that reaction; and yet I wasn’t.

  [My unconscious knew exactly what was going on. What marvels we are: seeing when we are blind and blinded when we see.]

  I stammered fearfully. “I never told, Daddy! I was a good Communist. I never told.”

  Carmelita said, “Comunista?” She was baffled and looked to my father for an explanation.

  I ran to Francisco and pushed my way into him, past the letter. I called to his astonished, paralyzed face. “I kept the secret, Daddy. I was good.”

  He pulled my head to him. “I’m sorry, Rafe.” The tone of his apology wasn’t to a child. The use of my more American-sounding diminutive is an indication of the closed gap between our ages. He was a huge man hugging a nine-year-old but his tone was man to man. “I’ve failed you. I don’t know how you can forgive me.”

  “I love you, Daddy,” I wept into his starched shirt, ruining it for his important dinner.

  “I can’t… Not now.” He moved me off him and spoke in a rapid Spanish, way too fast for me to comprehend, to Carmelita. In moments, I found myself in her arms, pressed against her hot and swollen chest, smelling garlic that somehow clung to the rough fabric of her blouse.

  Francisco left. He came back in about half an hour. By then Carmelita had coaxed me to eat my sandwich. She spoke to me in Spanish about everything, with a cheerful and welcoming smile, but without any helpful dumbshow gestures.

  “Feeling better?” my father asked and didn’t wait for an answer. He had finished dressing in a charcoal gray pin-striped Brooks Brother
s suit. Carmelita exclaimed over him. He smiled and accepted the touch of her admiration—she stroked his hair and straightened his tie—while saying to me, “We’ll talk about that letter tomorrow. We’ve got a lot to discuss. That was a scary time and I shouldn’t’ve written the things I did. You don’t have to worry about any of that. Okay?”

  “It’s not a secret?”

  “It’s better, in this country and in the United States, not to talk about being a Communist. And you should know, that I’m not a member of the Communist Party. I haven’t been for seven years. Nor was your mother.”

  “No?” I felt relief. I wanted to clap; but I knew that wouldn’t have been right either.

  “I support Fidel.”

  “Un fidelista!” Carmelita said as if she were announcing the arrival of a circus.

  Francisco smiled at her and continued to me, “I support Fidel. But you don’t have to keep that a secret. Not even here. Okay? We’ll talk about it all tomorrow.”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “You’ll be all right with Carmelita. Go to sleep and we’ll talk about everything in the morning.”

  “Would you ask her to stay here until I fall asleep?”

  “Sure.” Francisco spoke to her in Spanish. She nodded as if that were a matter of course. My father reached for my nose and squeezed it between his index and middle fingers. The pinch hurt: it cleared my sinuses and made my eyes tear.

  “You’re a good boy,” he said. “Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck, Daddy,” I said and meant it. I didn’t really understand how supporting Fidel was different from being a Communist. And I didn’t know why you could talk about it in a Nazi-like country. And I was afraid to think about Carmelita’s status (although, of course, my unconscious understood perfectly) but I was thrilled not to be a Communist. It was like having an abscessed tooth pulled—the pulsing infection drained quickly and the aching pain disappeared.

  Later, I found the letter, the misunderstood document of my secret mission that I had hidden for so long, underneath my narrow bed when I pulled off the bedspread. Apparently, my father had dropped it during my fit of tears and it had floated underneath. Carmelita was out of the room doing something. I hadn’t understood what she said before she went; she returned right away with a chair and a book for her to read while I went to sleep. I thought about giving the letter to her for my father, but decided I would do that myself when we had our discussion in the morning—the explanation of all the things that had happened and were to happen. I returned the letter to my Indian wallet and put that under the pension’s uncomfortably flat pillow.

  Carmelita read; I watched her. She noticed me after a while, lowered her book, and began to sing. It wasn’t a lullaby and it wasn’t a folk song. The tune was cheerful and the lyrics said something about mangos and boats. She laughed when she got to the end. “Entiendes?” she asked. I shook my head no. She came over and kissed me on the forehead. Her lips left a wet impression and I smelled garlic.

  When I opened my eyes sometime later I realized I had fallen asleep and she was gone.

  The room lamp was off but a harsh serrated light came through the wooden Venetian blinds. I heard the unmistakable and dreadful footfall of a Guardia Civil on patrol. I began to feel anxious about him and then I laughed, reassured, as I remembered that I wasn’t a Communist anymore. In a moment, I was fast asleep.

  The next morning, a bleary-eyed Francisco took me out onto the gray, frigid Madrid streets. We walked for several blocks until we found a kind of storefront deli. There were countermen, but no Nova or bagels; instead they offered omelets or small baked breads. My father ordered an espresso and one of the miniature loafs with butter. I took mine with marmalade and also ordered a hot chocolate that was so sweet and thick I thought I was getting away with murder. My father saw the look in my eyes as I took my first few sips and laughed. “They make it rich, verdad?” He had been talking Spanish all night and kept slipping into it. Even his English was infected—he had an accent until his second espresso was downed.

  “It’s great,” I told him. I was feeling good. Not the hyped and ardent sensation of rescue but a secure ease that I hadn’t known since the night of the rape.

  [Of course, no incident, no matter how terrible, can determine the whole of a person’s emotional character; I don’t mean to imply that. But a trauma can—as I am convinced it did in my mother’s case—propel a neurotic into psychosis, complicate a simple flu into a body-wide infection that triggers other failures which mask and confuse both symptom and cause so that the original personality seems almost to have been a lie. To be sure, all of young Rafael’s feelings and actions had a foundation in his character that preceded witnessing the rape of his mother and the humiliation of his father; and those inherent qualities helped determine how he would react. But to go to the other extreme, and make the real world a ghostly vision of the mind that has no life or substance of its own, is just as naive as believing we are merely innocent victims of society. I had been on a roller-coaster ride since the rape and, for the first time, I was sure my rollicking compartment had come to a stop. Indeed, I believe I could have been healed at that point. Had my father been a true parent—rather than a guilt-ridden child himself—he could have interceded here with a period of calm, restitution, and analysis. The traumatic memories were not deeply buried then; a competent therapist could have done me a great deal of good. This need for timely care may seem so obvious as not to require my raising it again and again, but the most casual observation of our shelters, foster care system, and the policies of our divorce courts shows it isn’t understood well enough. And I have not brought up how we deal with adolescent crime.]

  “How was your dinner?” I asked while my stomach twisted at the richness of the chocolate. (I kept on drinking it, though.) On the plane my father told me enough about his coming meeting with the Spanish publisher for me to understand that it was important to him both financially and for his well-being. Although sleepy, Francisco’s manner retained the disguise of his charm, a charm I knew he would maintain in the face of disaster—especially in the face of disaster.

  “Mmmm,” my father sipped his espresso. “What a fantastic man. So sophisticated and intelligent. Well,” my father fell silent, or rather reentered the talk of the previous night’s dinner. His eyes twinkled at some comment that he had made; his thick eyebrows lifted with surprise at what his companion had answered. He came out of the reverie to me and smiled. “It was a real boost for me, a real lift to be with someone who appreciates my work. He kept saying over and over—it was embarrassing—what a good writer I am, that I’m an original, first-rate journalist. He understands the way I write. You see, I have this conviction that journalism, like fiction, has a narrative line.” My father looked at me and seemed to remember who he was talking to. “You know, it tells a story. And this man, this important editor, he completely gets that, understands my approach. Given the right subject, he thinks I could establish myself as the leading expert on Latin America. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think, since Franco”—my father lowered his voice—“is still in power, that he can publish a book sympathetic to Cuba.”

  “Oh,” I said in a sad tone. I understood immediately, with a child’s clear view of results rather than style, that all the flattery in the world wasn’t going to pay our bills.

  “You’re like your mother,” my father said. He hooked my nose with two fingers, pinching my nostrils together. “You don’t care about the talk, you want to see the cash. But there was money in it. Even more money than what I proposed. Or there might be. He had a terrific idea for a book that he wants me to write. And I want to talk to you about it because it means we’d have to stay in Spain for at least six months, maybe a year.”

  My father ordered a third espresso. He asked if I wanted another hot chocolate. I was stuffed and my stomach ached. Thanks to jet lag, anxiety and an overdose of cocoa bean I was soon to have the runs. Before my bowels went into spasm Francisco told me of t
he Spanish editor’s proposed book project. A Spanish-American Comes Home was the suggested title. “I’ll think of something better,” Francisco told me. Sweat had broken out on his forehead from the three espressos. It was cold outside, so cold that the windows were fogged in the center and, like my father, sweating at the edges. We were the only customers left in the place; everyone else had gone off to their jobs. “That’s my editor’s title. He’s not a writer.” The untitled book would be an account of my father and me traveling through the country of our heritage. The editor thought I was a delightful element; a charming appeal to women readers, who, my father assured me, were a huge majority of book buyers. The book would not only be graced by my father’s unique point of view as a Spanish-speaking second-generation American discovering his heritage but there was also the storytelling delight of our encounter with relatives who my father was convinced still lived in Galicia. There would be plentiful and fascinating material in this meeting between modern-day Spaniards and their American cousins. The editor had already spoken with a literary agent in the United States who believed if my father wrote a brief outline she could sell this idea to an American publisher immediately and a similar conversation had taken place with an English agent about U.K. rights. My fathers amber eyes, the deep-set, warm eyes of the Nerudas, glittered at the prospect of publication in three countries simultaneously; they shone, and yet shifted nervously with worry. “That would create quite a stir,” he said, finishing off his espresso. I noticed the grooved center of his tongue was streaked yellow by caffeine. “I could also sell off chapters to magazines as we go along to finance the book.” Francisco leaned toward me, hunched over the table and whispered, “But here’s the bad part. Here’s what you’re not going to like.”