by Carlos Eire
Marie Antoinette looked up, alarmed. “Oh, my God! What’s that man doing here at this hour?”
Louis XVI peered right back through the glass, and spoke to the man without opening the door.
“What do you want?”
“Could you please let me use your telephone?” The man’s voice was muffled.
“Why do you need a phone at this early hour?” Marie Antoinette called from the couch.
“My car broke down about a block away from here, and I need to call home.”
King Louis and Marie Antoinette exchanged puzzled looks. The stranger outside kept looking back over his shoulder, and he seemed to be growing more agitated.
“I’m sorry,” said King Louis, “but there’s a taxi stand about a block from here that’s open around the clock. Why don’t you go there? You can call from their phone, or take a cab home.”
The man looked over his shoulder, then back at my dad.
“I can’t do that. Please let me in to use your phone. It’s an emergency.”
“Sorry, but we don’t really know you and this is an odd time for you to be out knocking on a stranger’s door.”
“But…but…your house was the only one on this block with lights on.”
“It’s still an odd time for you to be knocking on our door. It’s Christmas, you know? As you can see—” Louis XVI pointed to us, sitting cross-legged under the Christmas tree, clutching tools from the Erector set, our eyes fixed on the door.
“Please, please, señor, I beg you, let me in, I really need to use the phone.”
He was starting to look a lot like the man who had accosted us during the shoot-out by the Quinta de los Molinos.
“Sorry, go to the taxi stand. It’s down this street, to your left, and down another block, also to the left—”
“But, you’ve got to let me in, señor. Okay, I’ll tell you the truth: I’ve got to call the police. I saw some men digging up the street about a block away and they were very suspicious looking. So, please, let me in before it’s too late and they blow up the neighborhood.”
Marie Antoinette stood up and joined King Louis at the door.
“Some men are digging up the street on Christmas morning? That doesn’t make any sense—”
“Sí, señora, they’re there, right now, and I think they’re planting a bomb.” He looked over his shoulder about three times as he said this.
“Nonsense,” said King Louis. “The only one who’s suspicious looking around here is you. Sorry, we can’t let you in at all. Go to the taxi stand.”
The man looked down the street once more and, in a flash, leapt away from the door and over the fence that separated our house from the neighbor’s yard with the breadfruit tree.
I had never seen anyone jump so fast or so high. I was amazed. That guy was just like Batman.
Louis XVI passed sentence quickly, as usual: “I tell you, that guy’s up to no good at all. I bet you anything he’s running away from the police. Good thing we didn’t let him in. How dumb does he think I am?”
Probably as dumb as you think I am, hoping I wouldn’t recognize Tony’s bike with new paint on it. The thought crossed my mind, but I didn’t dare to say it out loud.
Marie Antoinette was pleased with the judge’s quick thinking. “Yes, you did the right thing. That man looked crazed. God knows what he’s up to. Probably one of those revolutionaries, or something. Ay, Dios mío. Qué susto! Oh, my God, what a scare! God knows what he would have done if we’d let him into our house.”
“But what if someone is really planting a bomb down the street?” I hoped it was true. A bomb, on our own street! Finally!
“No way,” said King Louis. “First of all, you don’t need to tear up the street to plant a bomb. Also, no one would be dumb enough to dig up a street at dawn, on Christmas morning, in this neighborhood where there are so many children. Half the neighbors are up, just like us! Someone would see it happening and call the police immediately from their own home. Also, why would anyone want to blow up this neighborhood? The rebels blow up people, police stations, power lines, and government buildings, not neighborhoods like ours.”
So logical, the judge. What a spoilsport. I wanted a bomb on our street! Some Christmas this was turning out to be! First I found out from Tony that there was really no Santicló, then I got a used bike, and now I had to hear that there was no chance of a bomb on our street. It was a Christmas of total desengaño.
The night before had been so much nicer.
That Christmas Eve, like all others, we had gone to my grandparents’ house to celebrate Nochebuena. The Good Night. Pronounced as a single word by Cubans: Goodnight. And every single year it was a good night.
We gathered early, around two in the afternoon. My grandparents, my uncle Mario and his wife, my aunt Lily, and the five of us from Miramar, including Aunt Lucía. We were six at home now that Ernesto had moved in with us, but he’d gone to celebrate Christmas with his own poor family. I think my dad had given him enough money so that his parents could buy a decent Nochebuena dinner and some presents for their six children.
There wasn’t much of a welfare system in Cuba in 1958. If someone like my dad hadn’t helped Ernesto’s family, they might have had no Christmas at all. President Batista’s wife used to collect toys for poor children whose mothers would line up outside the presidential palace in Havana to pick them up. I saw the line one day. It stretched for blocks. And almost everyone in line was dark-skinned.
My uncle’s wife, Hilda, didn’t look very happy that Christmas Eve. Her brother had just been released from jail and he was in bad shape. He’s the one who had been badly tortured by Batista’s police. My uncle Mario, as usual, joked around the whole time.
Everyone in Cuba who could afford it would eat roast pork on Christmas Eve. Lechón asado. The whole pig, preferably, with something in its mouth. I’d heard one slaughtered once, down the street from us. One of our neighbors had the gumption to pull this off in his backyard, much to the chagrin of the entire neighborhood. The sounds made by that pig as it was ineptly slaughtered still ring in my ears, along with the neighbors’ complaints.
I wonder if the pig felt as anxious as the man who knocked at our door that Christmas morning. I wonder what might have happened if that pig had been able to leap over tall backyard fences.
Anyway, my grandmother didn’t go for the lechón asado. She made a nice, neat pork roast, or some carne asada, or ropa vieja, or picadillo, or arroz con pollo, along with all kinds of Cuban dishes, including yuca, malanga, avocado salad, and fried plantains. She might have skipped the whole pig, but no longer cooked like a Gallega, thank God. She did make caldo gallego, a wonderful soup, and tortilla española, an omelette with potatoes, onions, and sausage, but that was it for Spanish dishes.
Thank God for that. I’m glad she didn’t ever cook calf heads and rabbits whole, or serve fish with their dead eyes looking right at you, or boil up paella crawling with crustaceans and mollusks and slimy invertebrates, or plop an entire octopus complete with suction cups in front of you and say, “Buen provecho.”
Spanish cuisine is not for the squeamish.
I’m still surprised that the Spanish didn’t adopt lizards as their favorite food after they stumbled upon the New World. Lizards cooked and served whole. Steamed, probably, with as few spices as possible, with maybe a little parsley garnish, and an almond or an olive in their mouth, served on a bed of eels or slugs or, better yet, snakes. Or, why not all three? Paella Infernal: so many beady little eyes to stare into, so many little heads to bite off, so many little bones to pull out of your mouth as you chew.
That Christmas Eve we had a wonderful time. We ate a lot of good Cuban food. Slave cuisine, most of it developed by the Africans who had come to Cuba against their will and had ended up cooking for the Spaniards who owned and sold them like cattle.
We talked and talked. Stories of long ago. Stories from the recent past. I loved hearing my grandparents tell stories about their chil
dhood in Spain. I especially loved hearing about snow and ice on Christmas Eve. I’d ask them hundreds of questions: What does snow look like? What does it feel like when you touch it? Does snow smell like the frost in our freezer? What does it feel like to wear coats and hats all the time? Did you ever make a snowman? Did you ever have snowball fights?
I thought our Christmases in Cuba were inferior because we didn’t have snow. Christmas was all about snow, and here we were, eating Christmas Eve dinner in our shirtsleeves, with palm trees waving in the wind outside. We Cubans were getting cheated out of the real Christmas.
Coño, qué mierda.
Little did I know that years later I would nearly freeze to death in Galicia, in one of those stone houses where my grandparents grew up. Or that I would almost burn to death in the same house when my electric blanket caught on fire.
Little did I know that I would one day end up in Minnesota, where winter is eight months long and the lakes freeze so solidly that you can build houses and drive big, heavy trucks on them, and the heating bills sometimes add up to more than your paycheck.
My favorite story that night was the one my grandfather told about finding a wolf who had frozen to death. “There he was, the beast, totally stiff, hard as a rock. I tried to bend his legs, but they were like steel. So I picked him up and threw him, and he sounded just like a rock when he hit the ground. And one of his ears broke off. Just snapped right off, cracked as easily as a mirror, it did.” I tried to imagine air cold enough to freeze a wolf solid, but couldn’t.
After dinner there were wonderful desserts, and nuts, and turrón, or nougat. There are many different kinds of turrón, from very soft to tooth-cracking hard, and I liked them all. I especially liked the thin waferlike covering on the hardest turrones because it was made out of the same stuff as the host we got for communion at church. Imagine, covering a piece of sweet candy with a huge host! A host that didn’t require you to be pure and holy in order to eat it.
Tony and I loved tearing the hostlike wafers off the turrones and eating them with utter abandon, usually after we’d hidden some of our aunt Lily’s jewelry or spit on some pedestrians from the balcony.
I also loved cracking walnuts and filberts—pure, good food from the land of snow and Santicló, and all good TV shows and movies. I loved playing with the nutcrackers too—those simple metal ones, not the wooden Russian ones. I’d beg to crush those nutshells for everyone in the house. It amazed me that two pieces of metal enabled me to do something I couldn’t with my bare hands.
That Christmas Eve my grandfather showed me how to take two walnuts in the palm of my hand and crack them both by pressing one against the other. How I wish I could have learned a few more things like that from him. He knew so much more, like how to throw a frozen wolf, or how to build a house from scratch. He was an amazing man, and so quiet. How I envied his reserve. My mother tells me he could get weepy, but I never saw that side of him. All I saw was the stoic, stone-hard Amador.
He sat on the balcony after dinner. Sat in a rocking chair, with his beret on and a bottle of wine next to him. He drank and rocked and remained silent, looking up at the stars, thinking perhaps of frozen wolves and everything that had slipped through his fingers, and all the relatives he never, ever saw again. He must have missed them terribly.
Still, he was tough. And he wasn’t the least bit scared of lizards. Once, when we were sitting side by side on a park bench near his house, a huge chameleon dropped out of a tree and landed on his shoulder with a loud thud. I jumped out of my seat, looked over at him, and instantly panicked. That lizard was huge—one of the largest I had ever seen. And he was looking straight at me, examining me with his beady eyes, threatening to jump on me. My grandfather turned his head ever so slowly. It was as if he were moving in slow motion, as lizards sometimes do. He showed no surprise, no concern, nothing at all. Just like a lizard.
He looked the chameleon straight in the eyes. They rolled away from me and over to meet his light brown eyes. He stared the reptile down for an instant and then, with a quick swipe of the hand, he knocked it off his shoulder. It flew through the air and landed on the ground with exactly the same kind of thud as when it had landed on his shoulder. Then it scampered off with its long green tail wagging, as if nothing had happened at all.
My grandfather didn’t say a word. He just sat there on the bench next to me, as quiet as ever. I sat there quietly too, dumbfounded. Forget Batman, Superman, Aquaman, or any other superhero. I had just witnessed a heroic act of the highest magnitude.
My grandmother was every bit as reserved as her husband, and probably every bit as heroic. I just didn’t get to see her in action. That Christmas Eve, she spent most of the time in the kitchen or talking to her two daughters. As always, I didn’t pay attention to what any of them said.
I was too busy cracking nuts.
How still the night air was that Christmas Eve. No wind. Just the soft murmuring of other families on their porches and balconies. Families like ours, enjoying one another’s company—or, maybe, not enjoying it very much.
My uncle Mario and his wife left right after dinner. They had to go spend time with her family, who lived two blocks away. She looked kind of glum, maybe because of her recently tortured brother.
My dad and his sister Lucía just sat there most of the night, counting the minutes until it was time to leave. They seemed so stiff and uncomfortable.
We didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time my entire family would spend Nochebuena together at my grandparents’ house. That’s what God had decided, as my grandmother would have said. In her world, God decided everything, down to the smallest little detail. Every time she spoke about any event in the future, even minutes away, she would preface or conclude her remarks with “Si Dios quiere.” If God wills it.
As all of us sat on that balcony after dinner, unable to discern God’s will, Fidel was very close to winning his war against Batista. In eight days, it would all be over—his guerilla war and our future as a family.
My grandmother would discern very soon after he assumed power that Fidel was up to no good at all. She had a way to tell.
“You know, that Fidel can talk for hours on end and promise all kinds of things for the future, but he has never ever said ‘si Dios quiere,’ not even once. He’s up to no good. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he is a fool. He may also be an atheist, and that can only mean trouble.”
That beautiful silent night God willed that we drive home the long way, down the Malecón, the boulevard that ran along the seashore, the road where we always went car surfing. My brother and I were wired up, abuzz with anticipation. But we didn’t need to talk about it. Really good things don’t need words. No. The best thing about really good things is that you can just sit there with someone else and not say a word. And you both know.
That, my friend, is the sweetest of all feelings in the universe.
God willed that certain families decorate their houses with garlands of Christmas lights, house after house, and God willed that I should love those lights beyond measure. God willed it, too, that some families place their Christmas trees by their front windows, so that I could see them as we drove by.
God willed that my father take a special detour so we could see the street decorations on La Rampa, a wide, busy boulevard. God willed it that those decorations should be splendid that year. Better than ever.
God willed it that the sky should be clear and the stars very bright over Havana that night. And God willed it that each and every star in that swath of sky should be reflected in my Fidel glasses as I stuck my head out of the window with an upturned face. God willed that the smell of the saltwater should embrace me, that the soft murmur of the waves should caress me, tenderly, and that the warm tropical air should kiss my hair and make it whirl about in absolute rapture.
God willed that my mother and father sit quietly in the front seat, saying nothing to each other. He also willed that my aunt Lucía fall
asleep on the way home.
God willed that we arrive at a darkened house and that I run to the Christmas tree and plug in its lights. God willed that I ignore the Nativity scene my dad had worked so hard to create.
God willed that Ernesto be home with his own family that night, and He also willed that it should be the very last time that would happen. God willed that Ernesto be adopted by my father, against all of our wishes. God willed that Ernesto inherit Eye Jesus, Maria Theresa’s portrait, and everything else in that house.
God willed that I get my brother’s old bike as a Christmas present the next morning, and that an anxious man should knock on our door to remind us that there was trouble brewing on the streets of Havana.
God willed that Fidel and his army be close to victory that night, and that the rebels would take over Cuba a few days later, destroying our world.
God didn’t ask my permission for any of these things. Should He have asked?
God willed that I should have no clue whatsoever about the way in which He runs His universe, or any say in how He chooses to redeem us, or not.
God willed it, even, that I should still be asking Him impertinent questions and that I should still be doubting the wisdom of his plans, brooding over the logic of the Virgin’s womb and the Word.
God wills it all. And it’s our job, our very purpose in existing, to submit graciously, like the lizards who fall off trees onto the shoulders of white-haired grandfathers and are swiftly brushed off.
Just like lizards, I’m afraid.
21
Veintiuno
The air was a huge, all-enveloping knife. Even through the thickest layers of wool, the wind coming off Lake Michigan, two blocks away, would plunge the blade deep into you. It was about minus ten degrees Fahrenheit. Cold enough to freeze your spit in two minutes or so. I knew from empirical observation. I had just timed it, right there on the elevated train platform, after I’d coughed up a huge jade green wad of phlegm.