by Anthony Hyde
She walked up the steps into the dark, still lobby, trembling, her legs weak and her heart drumming inside the hollow of her breast. She took a moment to catch her breath and then went up to the desk for her key. She began to feel better. She thought, The rigor mortis is passing off, and she smiled, thinking of herself as the corpse in a Wimsey. She was able to smile, and her voice sounded perfectly normal, as she asked the blond lady for her key. The lady fetched it, and handed it across the counter—but caught herself as she began to turn away. “Mrs. Lorraine?”
Mrs. Lorraine. . . . Cubans were always doing that. “Yes?”
“I have a message. A young man left it about ten minutes ago.”
She passed Lorraine a piece of paper, folded over, a page torn from a small wire-bound notebook. The writing was in the Cuban national hand, in ballpoint ink. Dear Mrs. Stowe. A man from Canada told me that you are wishing to speak to me about Murray. They don’t like Cuban people waiting in the hotel. I will be in Iglesia de la Merced. 11 oclock. It is near, and anyone in the hotel can tell you where to go. Almado Valdes.
Almado . . . Hugo. Of course. “Hugo.” She said his name aloud.
2
The Jardín del Edén, the restaurant in the Hotel Raquel that also served as the breakfast room, was merely a corner of the lobby set off by a number of elegant, decorative screens—dark wood inset with stained glass, symbolic of the Tree of Life; and so it was easy enough for Lorraine to peek in and see that Mathilde was still there, though she was now alone in the room. “You’re late,” she said. “I was getting ready to go.”
“I’m sorry. I was afraid—I was out, you see.”
“But that’s good!”
“Well—” Lorraine sat down. “I didn’t want to ask you—I had to get to the bank to cash some traveller’s cheques. But I had one of my attacks.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I am. But now . . . oh, I’m sorry, but I would like your help.”
“Of course. You must not be sorry.”
“This was at the desk.” Lorraine gave her the note. “You remember, I told you why I came here, to Cuba?”
Mathilde began reading. “Almado. He is the lover of your friend . . . who died?”
“That’s right. Yes.”
“So he’s found you, somehow.”
“I know how, I think. I can’t remember if I told you this, but that very first day I went into Coppelia, the ice cream place, and I saw a young man who I thought was Almado, but it turned out he only looked like him. I had to explain, of course, and he offered to help. He spoke Spanish. He said he’d try to find him.”
“So, that’s it. He tracked him down.”
Lorraine picked up the note. “I wish I’d been here, when he came.”
Mathilde sipped her coffee. “He’s right, you know. It’s a scandal, but they don’t like Cubans hanging around in the lobby.”
Lorraine was remembering. “The next day, when I went back with Father Rodriguez, I think Hugo had already been there.”
“Hugo?”
“That’s the young man’s name. The one who found him.”
“Well, it’s very good. It all worked out in the end. We’ll go to the church. Of course I’ll come. I’d love to. You know, it’s very famous? Catholic, but all made over to their African religion.”
“Thank you. You don’t know—I’m so relieved.”
“Don’t think of it. Listen—wait here. You should have some coffee. I’ll go up and get my guidebook and ask at the desk.”
Mathilde went off. And Lorraine asked for coffee, and then some eggs from the young woman in her white cap, discovering, as she ate, that she was famished: and she got some more bread. And orange juice. She felt better now. She’d almost forgotten what she was doing here—reading Almado’s name had been a shock, and the prospect of going to the church alone . . . but, as a joint project, it seemed perfectly feasible. And Mathilde’s enthusiasm was obviously genuine. She came back with her guidebook. “He’s right, it’s not far. One block to Cuba, and then straight down to the Merced—”
“It must mean ‘mercy.’ Our Lady of Mercy.”
“According to Santeria—the black religion—she is the equivalent to Obatalla, the great deity of the Yoruba. It’s from the time of the slaves. They weren’t allowed to worship their own gods, so they used the saints instead, a trick.” Mathilde smiled. “Or that’s what the guidebook says. It’s simple, though, to get there. Don’t rush. We have enough time.”
When Lorraine was finished, they decided to go up to their rooms; the hotel put fresh bottles of water in the minibar every morning, and although it was more expensive than the water you could buy on the street, it was important to have some if you were walking any distance at all.
They set off, Mathilde discreetly leading the way. It was hotter than the day before, and more humid; the sun pressed the grey, hazy clouds down upon the city. In the redevelopment of Habana Vieja, Cuba Street had been largely passed over; it was rough, decayed, a deep gutter. Only its ruins were picturesque and the beauty of the old stone had to be imagined under the grime. Soon they passed out of the tourist zone. Now there were no longer policeman at the corners. People pushed and crowded around them. Through doorways they glimpsed dark courtyards, stairs rising up to the tenements: in a shaft of sunlight a woman drew up black water from a well. Now, many of the faces were black. Also poor. Dignity fought with squalor and did not always win. For the first time Lorraine saw people in filthy clothes and one doorway breathed out a stench of sodden garbage so intense Mathilde put her head down and hurried past, throat clenched tight as a fist. The eyes of the blacks were bloodshot and sullen, full of anger and resentment, but without the energy to quite be hostile: at the same time, as the sidewalk narrowed, Mathilde realized they weren’t necessarily going to get out of her way. She said, “I don’t think I’d want to be here at night.” Lorraine said nothing. Mathilde was excited. This was different; to the extent it was frightening and a challenge, she wanted to meet it. Finally, she wasn’t being a tourist. All the preconceptions she might have had about what she was seeing felt false. She took half a dozen shots with her camera, but then put it away—it was a hindrance. She was feeling the exhilaration of seeing something with her own eyes, and that was far more exciting. Lorraine, in her own way, felt somewhat the same; the street began to take over her feelings. Across the road she spied a little boy standing in a doorway, in his school uniform—his bright red shorts—who had one leg in a cast, so that he couldn’t hold it straight. He was as clean as a new pin: his cast was pristine white. And his bright, fresh cleanliness, and the hope of his childishness brought out all that was sordid in the street more strongly. She felt a sudden onrush of tears; the child was so pitiful she couldn’t help herself. Then she thought, You are a Christian, and then she repeated the thought with great emphasis, You are a Christian, although whether she did so as reassurance or with surprise wasn’t clear to her. But it was as if, for the first time, she felt the force of her own deepest belief, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. And she did love them—that was what she felt. These poor, beaten-down people, who had nothing. She loved them. She had to love them. They had nothing, nothing, and all that distinguished them were the marks life had laid on their faces and bodies, even though these were only the signs of their common humanity. Which she shared with them, which was hers as well. It was as if she’d touched them and burned where they touched. The very violence of this made her step back, wondering if what she felt now wasn’t just an aspect of the strange fear that had gripped her lately, part of her breakdown. Perhaps that was so; for, absurdly, she was now able to imagine preaching to these people, making her life over to theirs, like Mother Teresa. Then she thought— as an appeal to her common sense—But it’s not the Black Hole of Calcutta, it’s not as bad as all that. And she thought of what Mathilde had said, I wouldn’t want to be here at night. Of course she was right. Wasn’t that terrible? To be afraid of these people . .
. whom she wanted to love. It was shameful, but she would be afraid, at night. They’d take your humanity, your very life, God’s gift, in order to steal your money. Did that mean your humanity was a luxury, something you could only afford if you had cash in your pocket? It was a terrible thought. And it was even worse, because these people couldn’t afford theirs, though it was all they possessed. They were lost, and lost again. It was hard to imagine their redemption, except for grace. What gospel could you spread amongst them? What could the good news be? How could Christ compete with a lottery number? Her heart ached with pity. But at least it was obvious, whatever misgivings she’d had about her own state, that her feelings weren’t out of keeping with the place. For the landmarks they passed as they descended deeper into the slum of Belén were a convent, Santa Clara, and then churches, first Iglesia del Espíritu Santo and finally Merced itself. Moreover, the church was the centre of this world, if it had one. There was a crowd around the door, people constantly passing in and out. And on its modest steps, people were selling flowers, candles, strings of beads. It was a happy, busy, normal scene. As they came up, both Lorraine and Mathilde felt a rush of relief that was an admission of how fearful they’d been.
“It’s like a market,” said Mathilde.
“Aren’t the flowers lovely?”
“Why don’t you buy some when we come out? You have sun in your room—you could put them in the window.”
“I might,” said Lorraine. “Those are gladioli—I don’t know why I’m surprised!”
“We can look around, you know. We’re ten minutes early.”
The facade of the church, and the doors, were plain: and as they passed through, they were diverted by a simple wooden screen that divided the traffic going in and out. Stepping around this, they were looking down the full length of the nave. Domes, arches, and columns rose and soared in a conventional way, but there, above the altar, very high up, was Our Lady, in a long white dress like a little girl’s doll, the Virgin, but a Princess, a vision of heaven dreamed in the black depths of the slum outside, blackness that had to be clothed in glorious white. She was lit by candles and hundreds of tiny light bulbs—and the light bulbs, as much as anything, created the folkloric effect, their modest, primitive means perfectly suited to the carving. There was nothing wrong with the statue ecclesiastically or doctrinally; it must have been perfectly proper. But it was hard to stand there and not feel something out of the ordinary. For She was more than a statue, and more than a figure of veneration and devotion. She was a god. It took them a while to understand this, but they both felt it at once; instinctively—they didn’t say a word—they turned and walked slowly down the aisle on the left, falling in behind a couple all dressed in white. Mathilde whispered, “Novices in Santeria.” Lorraine knew this, in fact; they had to wear nothing but white for their first year in the faith. The woman, a very large black lady, wore chains of beads around her neck, which swayed and shone as she walked. Her companion was much thinner, and he carried a flat white cap, which, with his white shoes, gave him the air of an elegant man in an old movie about to play golf. It made a comic effect: but not quite. Laughter would have had to include, as well as his ensemble, the totality of his surroundings, of which he was clearly a part, and that wasn’t quite possible. In Catholic churches, Lorraine always suffered slightly from an inferiority complex; she was flying under false colours; and although her Protestant hackles might rise, and the words vulgar and ostentatious find a place on the tip of her tongue, there was always the fear that their faith was more complete than her own, more profound—certainly more. She felt that keenly now, because this was more . . . though more of what was hard to say: but the Catholic faith raised to some new power. Mathilde felt this too, but in a different way. It was fascinating. She was alive with curiosity. She was an anthropologist. Here were “natives” with their amazing practices, customs, and rites. And yet, as they followed along behind the Santeria couple, she began to feel self-conscious, as though she were the one being observed. Once, as they passed before an altar—and a great bank of candles—the black man with his absurd cap turned his face, and Mathilde was able to see his features more clearly. He didn’t look at all like Bailey. But he was a black man. Now Mathilde felt her own whiteness in a different way. She was coloured, too. She was just a different colour, that’s all. She now ceased to be the standard, in her own eyes, by which others were measured, but became another face in the crowd. This thrilled her—and she allowed herself to feel the soreness between her legs, the stretching along the inside of her thighs.
But by this point they’d come up to the altar, and were again confronted with the figure of Our Lady of Mercy. For Lorraine, things became clearer. She felt God in a number of ways. Usually, He was quite remote, at the other end of a very thin, infinitely long thread. At other times He was watching her, not necessarily critically—though sometimes that—but close by, so she could talk to Him in a quiet voice. But at still other times—and this was one of those times—she did not feel apart from God at all, but a part of Him, one of His expressions, so she could directly feel God’s power passing through her. That was what she felt now, looking up at Our Lady, in her long white robes and crown. But as the feeling poured through her, she realized that Our Lady was also Obatalla, that she was a great god, but only one god among many: and now she was feeling this god’s terrible pagan power, deep, black, mysterious, beyond—and, instantly, she made the sign of the cross and turned away. She was shaken. But she tried to stay calm. “Do you see him?” she said then.
Mathilde leaned toward Lorraine. “I think so. Over there? On the far side. Sitting by himself.”
It was too dark to be sure. He was sitting at the end of a row of pews, but in a chair—chairs had been set out at the end of all the pews on that side, presumably to handle some special occasion; he was about halfway down.
“We’ll have to go all the way around,” said Lorraine.
They walked back, toward the entrance; as they came level, they both glanced across at the figure Mathilde had picked out as Almado. He was slumped in his chair. When they’d circled around, and started down the aisle on that side, Mathilde whispered, “He seems to be asleep.” They came up behind him. When they were four or five rows away, Mathilde said, “Would you like me to wait here?”
“Perhaps you’d better.” So Lorraine approached him by herself. She stood behind him. Now she could see that his hair had been dyed, though whether it had started out blond or dark was impossible to tell, it was so washed out. He was wearing a long-sleeved purple shirt but he was wearing it open, like a jacket, over a white T-shirt. And Lorraine was certain that these were the only two shirts he had in the world, and he had nowhere to stay, so he had to keep them both on.
She cleared her throat. She always felt ridiculous, doing that, like her mother. The young man didn’t respond. Then, trying to keep her voice low and level, she said, “Almado Valdes?”
He turned abruptly, looking over his shoulder. For an instant his face was naked, like a child, just waking up. And did he look very young, a tough, pretty boy with a grubby face and his hair in his eyes. He said nothing for a moment, only looked at her; and she almost felt that he couldn’t speak, that he was dumb or feral. Then he said, “Mrs. Stowe?”
“That’s right. I was a friend of Murray’s. I got your message at the hotel. Thank you for coming.”
His eyes settled somewhere, not quite on her face. “Is it true that he’s dead?”
“Yes. He said that he wrote to you.” His eyes, very dark, were impenetrable in the dim light. “You did get the letter?”
“One letter.”
“Didn’t you believe it?”
“It doesn’t make any difference.”
“No. I suppose it doesn’t . . . Hugo found you?”