by Ann Hood
“You killed her,” she said.
“Oh, please.”
“You wrote it,” she said. “You got rid of the girl.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. You really don’t get it.”
“What should I get? Do you want me to like him? Is that it? Forgive him? Feel sorry for him? And anyway, this story,” she said (she simply couldn’t help herself—she knew she shouldn’t say it, she ought to let it go, she always did, but the woman last night at the reading, the way she was carrying on and on, the way he’d lapped it up . . . ),“it doesn’t make sense. I mean, the timing is wrong.”
“I know the timing is wrong. He—”
“No,” she said. “The story. If this, this business with Louise, was in the ’70s, he’s . . . your age. Not so old. Not yet. Not old enough yet to have dementia like that, to be ravaged like that.”
“But he’s crazy.” He crumpled his napkin. “I guess you have a point, maybe literally speaking. But listen. Maybe the framing is different. The ’50s or something. Or, I know. Maybe—he might have had a stroke.”
“Now, why would he have a stroke?”
“An addiction,” he said. “Gone mad. I said that.”
“We ought to give up our table,” she said. “All of these people are waiting to sit.”
* * *
“So who was she, really? Louise?” she asked. “You based her on someone.”
“No one,” he said.
She turned away.
“Don’t do this,” he said.
“She had to be someone. Everyone you write about is someone you know. And why would you tell me a story like that?” The snow was a cliché, she thought, and she was no writer. He ought to know better and probably did. So what was his point?
They stood by the time board—every seat taken under the dome—as new delays clicked into view.
“For God’s sake, let it go,” he said.
The air hung between them. The damage was done.
She could see the future; she didn’t need to dream it: Sooner or later the train would come. The law of things. The two of them: grasping their bags, boarding the train, claiming their places. Each would read, or fake it. Back in New York, they would stop for a drink. They would laugh over nothing. Make up, brush it off. Neither of them would speak of the story ever again, though later he would publish it. Nevertheless, for the rest of the time they were lovers (which wouldn’t, of course, be very much longer), she’d cease to adore him; for him, she was a phase. And the woman—Louise—whoever she’d been, whatever she’d done, whatever her significance, for them, she was real and could not be un-invented.
He knew what he was doing.
“People you’ve known for a very short while will stay with you always,” he’d said to her once. “Regret. Impossibility. That’s something you don’t understand yet . . .”
3.
Soon, She’ll Be a Master
She turns off his laptop, there in the dark. His name is his password. First. Last. Crackable. Practical precautions—he isn’t very good at them (she tells herself that), for all of his planning, for all of his critically acclaimed self-awareness. She’d read the thing twice—“The Point of Departure.”
The action she’s taken cannot be reversed.
He murmurs in his sleep as she lies down beside him, nose to nape.
Soon he’ll awaken. Soon he will worry (delays, cancellations). Soon they will go to the station and quibble. This, that. Café La France. The ladies’ room. Unswallowable breakfast.
The future he can’t completely imagine, for all that he tries.
Listen, he’ll say.
Do you want to hear my idea? he’ll say, before he pays cash, before he finds fault, before the train comes, before he opens his case, before he answers a text, before he knows what he knows, before he clicks on a file, before she swallows a pill, before he pleads an excuse, before he changes a lock, before he apprehends that it is she, Louise, who has deleted the body.
WATERFIRE’S SMELL TONIGHT
BY PABLO RODRIGUEZ
WaterFire
The smoke was different tonight.
Maybe the onlookers attributed that to the humidity, or the wet wood. But not Jose Cadalzo. Jose had finally landed a volunteer job on the boat that went around the floating fire pits, feeding the pyres with crisp, specially chosen wood, giving him the best seat in the house for the now world famous Providence tradition. Who would have ever thought that setting up a bunch of floating fireplaces accompanied by piped-in music on a not-so-clean river would become the main attraction in the renaissance of a former industrial city?
The color and the acrid smell of the smoke reminded Jose of his youth in the Dominican Republic. When cows or horses died by the roadside, their owners would douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. That was it! Jose realized. The fires tonight smelled like burnt flesh. And why not? Human flesh and animal flesh are not that different, are they?
Just three days earlier, Jose and his best friend Luis were playing dominoes at Club Juan Pablo Duarte, discussing the typical Dominican topics of politics, making money, and the meaning of life, when the issue of US and Dominican citizenship came to the fore. In all Dominican gatherings the pitch of the discussion increased when talk turned to politics, and that night was no exception. In spite of being best friends and originating from the same town in the DR, Jose and Luis were political enemies, therefore their arguments were especially loud. Not that they were the I’m-going-to-kill-you kind of enemies, but their difference of opinion regarding the two political parties, the PLD and PRD, was legendary.
When he was twelve years old, Jose had come to the US illegally from the DR with his mother. Luis was second generation, born here from a Dominican couple whose skin color was a reminder of the omnipresence of Haitians on the island of Hispaniola, the shared landmass comprising the two countries. Their discussion three days ago concerned the change in the Dominican constitution revoking citizenship for descendants of Haitians living in La Republica, retroactively to 1929. Almost two hundred thousand people found themselves stateless overnight as a result of the ruling by the constitutional court in September of 2013. Even though Luis was born in the United States he had always maintained pride in his native country, and no one flew more Dominican flags from his or her car during the annual Dominican festival at Roger Williams Park.
“How could they do this, coño? Don’t they know that the DR is a black country? Todos somos negros,” Luis argued. He rubbed the top of his forearm with so much vigor that it seemed like he wanted to rub off his skin. “Everyone has a little bit of this.”
“Speak for yourself, cocolo,” Jose replied. “My family are descendants from Galicia in Spain, and we can trace our arrival on the island to the second trip by el Almirante Cristóbal Colón, and to the founding of Santo Domingo, the first city in the New World.”
“Mierda,” said Luis, raising his middle finger in disgust as he prepared to overturn the table, which was customary during discussions of the constitution. “You have pelo malo just like me and your lips are most definitely African. You just won’t admit to your own race.”
This was true. Jose Cadalzo was white. He had blue eyes and the bridge of his nose was like the bow of the Titanic. But his lips were not typical for gallegos and he had never yet met a comb that would slide through his hair, or a breeze strong enough to disrupt his hairdo. He never knew his father, but his mother, Doña Carmen Maria Cadalzo Frias, was the spitting image of la Virgen de la Altagracia, the venerated Madonna of the Dominican Republic whose porcelain skin and Roman nose were the ultimate expression of beauty and love. But Jose’s incongruent features did not dissuade him from his guttural certainty that he was white, and as a white person he felt threatened by the increasing numbers of Haitians crossing the border, having babies, and changing the complexion of the Dominican people.
“They are different,” Jose said matter-of-factly. “They’re not like us and never will be. They
’re just good for hard labor and they like it that way. You don’t know this because you were born here, you’re American.”
Those were fighting words for Luis, the number one Dominican in Providence.
The dominoes started to fly, and cries of racism and ignorance filled the room. Pedro Jose, the president of the club, came down from his office to see what the ruckus was all about, and found himself in the middle of a fistfight, with both men landing punches on him. More than one chair passed by his head as he dodged from side to side.
“Paren esto, CARAJO!” Pedro Jose screamed as he slammed his Louisville Slugger on the only table still standing. “You better take this outside, otherwise I’m going to crack both your heads open.”
Pedro Jose was a small man with a small-man complex, but his baseball bat had broken up plenty of fights and more than a few skulls. Both fighters knew better, and just like the response to the bell in a prizefight, they stopped. But this particular argument changed something in their relationship. Luis was angry at the world because the motherland he so cherished had rejected him. Jose was angry because in the depth of his soul there was always a doubt as to his father’s race, especially since any mention of him during family gatherings was met with the same universal sign of silence reserved for churches and libraries: index finger to the lips.
* * *
As Mozart’s “Requiem” played through the speakers on the banks of the urban river, the first round of stoking the fires ended. The skipper guided the vessel to the pile of wood near the end of the river, just before the hurricane barrier, to reload it with fresh red cedar. The full moon illuminated the pile, which appeared redder than usual, and the sweet smell of the cedar carried a slight tinge of decomposing matter.
“Dead mice,” the skipper announced as the logs were loaded onto the cargo area.
Some of the volunteers waved at the air as if shooing flies. When the cute blonde from Brown University picked up a broken piece of cedar, something dangled from one of its shards.
“Check this out!” she called with the enthusiasm of someone winning the lottery. “I think it’s a necklace.”
Sure enough, hanging from the wood was a gold chain with a pendant for la Virgen de la Altagracia on one side and a Dominican flag on the other. The virgin glistened under the light of the moon like a magic talisman with its own internal light.
“That’s mine!” Jose yelled with such conviction that the young woman immediately handed him the chain. “I was loading this pile on the truck this morning when I noticed I no longer had my chain,” he explained as he took it from her.
This much was true. He had worked with the wood crew for the last two days, cutting and loading the cedar for tonight’s event. What his boat mates did not know was that the chain belonged to his friend Luis, whose family had reported him missing two days ago when he did not return home after his fracas with Jose.
At that moment, “El Niágara en bicicleta,” a song by Juan Luis Guerra, burst from Jose’s pocket. As Jose answered his phone, the loading of the boat resumed. At the other end of the line, he heard the familiar sound of his mother’s voice. With a deep exasperated sigh, he said, “Qué pasa?”
His mother was worried. She had received a call from the police asking about her son. Apparently, witnesses of the fight at Club Juan Pablo Duarte had spoken to the agents investigating Luis’s disappearance and therefore Jose had become a person of interest.
Luis’s words, “Todos somos negros,” repeated in Jose’s brain like a broken record.
“Jose,” his mother was asking, “did you have anything to do with Luis’s disappearance?”
“Por favor, mamá, don’t believe the worst,” Jose replied. “Luis is probably partying in New York or Boston and has not bothered to call.”
Any other time he would have been mortified at the prospect of lying to his mother. But now he felt completely justified: she had lied to him all his life about his father. He knew. He had been there when Luis uttered his last words, nearly drowned by the sound of the wood chipper: “Jodio negro.” You damned negro.
“When are you coming home?” his mother asked him.
“As soon as the fires are out,” he said. Then he bade her farewell, “Okay, okay, okay!” When he hurriedly pressed the red bar of the iPhone, he noticed the cuticle of his index finger was stained red.
* * *
The skipper whistled with two fingers in his mouth to signal that it was time to return to the fires. The boat was loaded and the pyres were hungry for fresh wood. Barnaby Evans, the artist and director of WaterFire, stood on the other bank of the river forming a giant V with his arms to convey his impatience with the volunteers. When the skipper noticed the boss, he waved and nodded, signaling that he understood and was on the case. It was Jose’s turn to be in the front of the boat leading the effort of rekindling the fires. As the boat slowly approached the floating cauldron, the line of volunteers on the side loaded the wood onto the fire with a solemnity very much in tune with the piped-in music.
Jose was distracted by his thoughts, so there was a slight delay in loading the logs onto the next bonfire.
“Wake up, Jose!” the skipper screamed.
But his mind had drifted back to forty-eight hours earlier when Luis came to visit the lumberyard where Jose was preparing the cedar. Long, slender red logs had to be cut into cylindrical pieces and then split, ready for lighting. As he cut his last log he heard the familiar greeting from his friend. Luis had a somber face and his shoulders were rolled forward with the weight of a truth he had been carrying for a long while.
* * *
The fight the day before was the final straw for Luis, and he could no longer hold his peace. He had come upon the truth of Jose’s father during his last trip to the DR when he was inquiring about his citizenship status. Luis was in the final steps of obtaining his dual citizenship, something he cherished enormously, dreaming of a day when he could return to the land of his ancestors full of money and respect. Born a US citizen from Dominican parents would have been a slam dunk the year before, but now, after the constitutional court had revoked his parents’ citizenship, he had to reapply under a different class: a Haitian. As he was researching his grandparents’ entry into the country, he met his Uncle Frantz, still living in the house where his ancestors first set foot in the country to work in the sugarcane fields. Luis was delighted by the stories his uncle shared, until the conversation turned to people they both knew.
Uncle Frantz gazed toward the sky searching for memories in the clouds above.
Many of the folks from their hometown, the border town of Dajabón, had found work in Rhode Island and were eventually able to bring their families to the States. But when the topic turned to family and children, Uncle Frantz became quiet and told Luis not to ask any more questions about such a touchy subject. Index finger to the lips. After much prodding, Uncle Frantz revealed the identity of a lover he’d had many years before when interracial sex was very much taboo. He knew she had become pregnant right before she left for the capital, Santo Domingo, in order to escape the poverty and misery of the border town. He also knew she could never reveal the nature of their relationship and had decided to leave in part to hide the truth of a child who would have been born black to a family whose proud Galician traditions permeated every celebration, and whose ancestry could be traced to the Spaniards’ arrival in 1492. As a devout Catholic, there had been no other options. Frantz was aware she had lived in Santo Domingo for twelve years and then left for Puerto Rico in a rickety yola with her young son. Last he’d heard she was in Providence.
“You’re still in Providence, right?” Uncle Frantz asked.
Luis nodded.
“What family was she from?”
“She was a Cadalzo,” Uncle Frantz whispered.
No other words were spoken. The pain of not knowing his son overwhelmed the old man and the gravity of the revelation overwhelmed the young one.
* * *
“W
hat the hell are you doing here?” Jose demanded when Luis showed up at the lumberyard. He stuck his chest out like a gorilla defending his turf, and he held a splitting axe tight in his hand.
“I’m sorry that things between us have become so strained,” Luis said carefully. “But I just came from meeting with your mother and she confirmed something for me that she would never tell you. As a matter of fact, she made me promise not to share it with you. And here I am violating my oath to her.” He looked down at the ground as if apologizing for what he was about to say.
“What are you talking about, man? What can my mother tell you that she wouldn’t tell me?” As he barked the questions, Jose moved closer to Luis, almost bumping chests.
Luis began to narrate the tragic story of Frantz and Carmen Maria, their illegitimate child, and their lack of contact after all these years. Jose’s shoulders rose higher and the muscles around his jaw tightened.
“Who the hell are you talking about and why are you telling me this?” Jose growled through clenched teeth.
“My Uncle Frantz is your father. And just like me, you are a black Haitian. And just like me, you can no longer call yourself a Dominican citizen,” replied Luis with both an air of certainty and a sense of relief at sharing the weight of the truth with his newfound cousin.
“Mentiras, you lie to make yourself feel better about losing your citizenship. My mother would never sleep with a negro like you. How dare you insult my mother this way!” Jose grabbed a big branch and began chasing Luis through the lumberyard, howling and spitting insults half in English and half in Spanish.
Luis frantically tried to stay ahead of the swinging lunatic. He climbed onto a platform above the moving Morbark 950 Tub Grinder, which was used to turn big branches into toothpicks, hoping that the machinery would somehow slow down the attack.
But Jose kept in pursuit, screaming obscenities and swinging the branch wildly. Was he trying to hurt Luis? Or was he just swinging at the truth, hoping that with one blow everything would return to normal and he could become white once again?