Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1)

by Luis Gonzalez

  “And where is home, compañera?”

  “Centro Habana,” I said.

  “Centro Habana!”

  “Sí, chico, near the Malecón. Close to the Deauville, as a matter of fact. You do know where the Deauville is, don’t you? The site of el Maleconazo!”

  What had gotten into me? Why was I mouthing off to one of the mongrels? Especially now that I wasn’t leaving? I guess Rigo’s behavior from this morning had rubbed off on me.

  “I think the whole world knows now where the Deauville is, don’t you, compañera?”

  “Let’s hope so,” I said. “Let’s hope the whole world not only knows where it is, but what led to it.”

  Again, what had gotten into me? Why was I being so brash and openly hostile? I could easily be arrested and I knew it. Hadn’t the mongrel just threatened that mangy animal with arrest? But maybe it was time I threw some rocks, even if only in the form of words.

  “You don’t trust me, do you, compañera? You think I’m up to something, don’t you?”

  “Well,” I said. “Would it be that unlikely a supposition?”

  “Fine, chica. Fine,” he said. “I’m not only going to show you I’m not up to anything, I’m going to show you that you can trust me. Get in the car!” he ordered.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Where do you think we’re going, chica? Centro Habana, that’s where—Centro Habana, off the Malecón, near the Deauville itself. I’m sure I’ll be fired, sanctioned severely, thrown in jail and never work in Cuba again, but I’m taking you to Centro Habana and dropping you off right on your doorstep just to show you that you can trust me. How’s that, compañera? Now get in!”

  I didn’t know why, but without so much as another word or thought, I slid into the back of that police vehicle. The mongrel in blue held the door open for me as I melted into the backseat. He wasted no time in closing the door and walking round to the front. I may have been making the biggest mistake of my life, but what did it matter? Wasn’t I alone now? Wasn’t Rigo gone for good? What was there for me to look forward to? I had no one or nothing. What did it matter where this mongrel took me? Whether he was transporting me to Villa Marista or some other interrogation center. Whether I would be beaten or tortured or locked up for good. They could do whatever they wanted with me. How would anyone even find me since I was supposed to be gone?

  Could I really rule out such a scenario? Hadn’t I just heard with my own ears they’d be looking for me? The people who the mongrel had run off with. Wasn’t I the only remnant of that group? The sole and stranded survivor of it. This mongrel knew something and his kindness was all a ruse. He had witnessed some portion of my exchange with Rigo and planned on delivering me into the hands of his superiors. I’d be pumped for information. I’d be coerced into providing names and addresses. If the government didn’t already know, it would soon learn about Nelson and the group Insurrection and my involvement in it. Just as it already knew whose daughter I was and the disgrace that ended my father’s life and career. My fate with the university was well-documented and now they would connect this incident to Rigo. I was cursed, really I was. And it wasn’t just the Curse of Cojimar. It was the Curse of Cuba.

  How wrong this mongrel had summed things up. He was definitely carrying a corpse in his car, definitely riding with a dead body in the backseat. He just didn’t realize it. I was dead, just as I’d been dead for so long. Nothing I saw registered through my eyes. Nothing I thought penetrated my head. I felt nothing and the mongrel was simply transporting me to be buried, interred in some secret cell. Just in case I was wrong, just in case he really was dropping me off at my doorstep, I planned on carrying forth alone. Whether locked up in some facility or holed up inside my house, I was withdrawing from the world and going into seclusion.

  That was all I felt grateful about with this mongrel: the seclusion and isolation in this backseat. The way he left me completely alone and rendered me solely unto my thoughts. The way he let me relive those last moments with Rigo as I delved into some inner space and lost all track of time. I kept expecting my captor to launch into some preliminary interrogation, to trick me into divulging information on the others. But my expectations went unfulfilled. Nothing of the sort took place. No probing or prying. No insinuations or innuendo. Nothing at all. Just calmness and quietude. Just a Cimmerian silence.

  And how peculiar too, that here of all places, in the backseat of a police vehicle, as my head drooped lifelessly against the car window and I cried in silence in the presence of a total stranger, I finally felt alone. I could finally embrace the privacy I had craved all morning. The mongrel only asked for my address. No more than that. He obviously knew Havana with all its twists and turns. Only one commentary broke through the dispassionate daze of my despair, pulling me out of myself.

  “That was my friend, you know…my partner.”

  “Who was you friend?” I asked obliviously, my tone midway between dazed and detached.

  “The one who left with your companions.”

  I was no longer dead. My head shot up like a bullet in the backseat of that car. But that bullet was not taking my life, it was giving me life, especially as my eyes shot two more bullets right at him. So that was it! Why he looked so familiar! This was the mongrel who’d been hanging around the other mongrel, who’d been shifting back and forth and hovering in the background. For the first time that morning I took note of his physical appearance.

  If he was younger than Rigo it couldn’t have been by more than a few years, midtwenties certainly. He was taller than Rigo, thicker and sturdier too, probably from the much better diet afforded the mongrels, all the generous morsels of meat thrown their way to keep them well-fed and happy. He was fair complected. His eyes were a stunning clear brown, small but sharp. He had thick black hair he combed back and to the side. I had to admit that, for a mongrel, he wasn’t bad.

  “You knew him?” I asked.

  “Knew him? He was my partner, chica, my best friend. I had no clue, no idea that he was going to do what he did.”

  The mongrel not only shook his head seemingly in disbelief, a chord of distress rang out in his voice. I, in turn, had no idea what to say. I was that astonished, that dumbstruck. But might this be a trick? Might this sudden revelation be some technique to loosen me up and get me to spill my guts? The thought crossed my mind, but his demeanor pointed to the contrary. He was being truthful and fell silent after the revelation. His eyes even reflected a mild hurt through the rearview mirror.

  It was I who wanted to offer some solace now, to suggest he move vigorously and shake it all off. But I stopped myself. I remained leery of him, as I did of anyone in uniform. No wonder he had fixated on me. No wonder he had stayed readily on hand after I fainted. It all made sense now: his best friend and partner had taken off with my companions. If I might be interrogated, he definitely would he.

  That silent ride in the backseat was no longer soothing, but a struggle, a swaying and a tossing about, a crosscurrent of images that receded and revived themselves repeatedly. But one particular image kept coming back to life in fiery defiance, haunting me, harassing me, stalking me: that of the absurd little man being right. This was all a game: a politically motivated game, a series of carefully executed maneuvers made from both sides.

  I wanted to offer him some words of reassurance, but what good would it do? Nothing I’d say would change anything. Nothing I could offer him would have any transcending effect. I drooped my head against the window and gazed out to the streets. By now we were passing those hideous Soviet-style housing units in the eastern section of the city, those post-Revolutionary eyesores that Rigo had always loathed. We passed them quickly, zipping along as the car disappeared into el túnel de La Habana. The tunnel not only cut underground but underwater also. We looped around and emerged above ground. What a striking view of the city’s skyline.

  “I’m Manolo,” he introduced himself. “And you, compañera?”

  �
��Clara,” I replied flatly, not caring if revealing my identity might be some fatal misstep. “My name is Clara.”

  “Clara, ey? That’s a beautiful name. Nice to meet you, Clara. Think you can trust me now? Do you, Clara?”

  I was neither dead nor alive now. I lay somewhere in the middle between life and death, between silence and sound, in a state of dispassionate abeyance that I noticed not where we were at the moment. Not near the Malecón. Not even close to the Deauville, but at my front door. The mongrel indeed made good on his word, dropping me off on my doorstep as promised. So then, Did I trust him? Could I trust him? Before I could think of answering this, I contemplated one thing. I heard but one thing: the sound of his voice saying my name. It too struck a tone between life and death. It too hit a chord between light and dark. How soothing to hear my name being spoken. What solace the sound of that voice gave me.

  But this state of calm died as quickly as it came to life. I would now have to walk into my house without finding Rigo. He would no longer be there to greet me or embrace me and I came crashing into consciousness, the full throes of it, stripping me of any false comfort or unsatisfying solace so that I screamed inside my head: What did it matter whether I trusted you or not? What earthly difference could it possibly make? It’s not as if we were friends or neighbors or even acquaintances. We were nothing, nothing at all to each other, and would forever remain that way!

  All these bullets sat poised on the tip of my tongue, ready to fire off in rapid succession. But I never got the chance to shoot any of them. The moment that fierce and feisty falcon who was my mother spotted a police car in front of her house, she immediately flew into the street to look and investigate, to find out why it had planted itself right outside her door. That soothing voice of Manolo’s never got to hear my own voice in return. Before I could tell him whether I trusted him or decide if I should trust him or not, another voice punctuated the moment with every exclamation point and question mark she could fling.

  “¡Clara!” Mamá cried out. “¡Clara mija!”

  Upon seeing my mother plowing toward the vehicle, I thought she might throw something through the back window. I even thought she had some rocks in her hand. Fortunately, she did not. She merely flung the back door open and lunged for me in a fury.

  “What in the world is happening, hija? Why are you in a police car? And what are you even doing here? You’re supposed to be on your way to the United States. Where’s Rigo, mija?”

  I was still adrift in that sphere between sound and silence. I managed to exit the vehicle, but at the mention of Rigo’s name I thought I’d pass out again. All I wanted was to hide, to seek the seclusion I had vowed to give myself. Angélica and Pilar might have been present in the living room, but I never knew it. I saw no one or nothing. I merely slid through the rust-colored walls of our house as if being sucked through some secret tube in the hallway, some hidden tunnel that cut through both ground and water. I shot straight to my room. Upon entering I closed the door and bolted it shut.

  Right away, I could barely stand it. I could barely tolerate occupying that space and knowing Rigo would not be coming back. I threw myself on the bed and began to cry. Meanwhile, the mongrel had actually entered the house. I could hear him through the door as he explained to Mamá all that had transpired this morning. His muffled, distant voice no longer had that caring or soothing quality.

  “But what in the world happened?” Mamá asked. “What is she doing here?”

  “I couldn’t tell you exactly what, señora, but I think she got scared.”

  “Scared? And Rigo just took off?” Mamá asked.

  “Which one was Rigo?”

  “Her husband, that’s which one.”

  I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but it seemed the mongrel lost his footing momentarily, that he struggled to formulate his next words.

  “Oh, her husband? I guess that’s the one she kept talking to for so long. Well, yes then, señora, he left.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Mamá said. “I just can’t believe it.”

  I continued lying face down: my head buried in the mattress; my arms and hands clutched tightly underneath my body. The spheres of sight and sound briefly intersected as I pictured Mamá shaking her head in dismay and disbelief.

  “Don’t feel bad, señora,” the mongrel said. “My partner took off too, totally unexpectedly. I had no idea he was going to do it. Why, he even took your daughter’s spot on the raft.”

  “Your partner?” Mamá asked.

  “Yes, my colleague,” he explained. “Another officer. Before I knew what was happening, he had ripped off his uniform and jumped aboard the same raft as your daughter’s…well, her husband’s, I guess.”

  Even from my back room, and with the door tightly closed, I could hear Mamá and my sisters gasping. I could visualize them shaking their heads, stunned and appalled. What I didn’t know was that Pilar had actually begun to cry for me.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mamá said again. “It just doesn’t seem possible.”

  “How I wish it weren’t, señora, but it is. And then, just as the raft reached the horizon, your daughter blacked out right along the shore.”

  “She blacked out?”

  “Yes, but don’t worry, señora. She wasn’t out for long, maybe three or four seconds! I happened to be nearby and revived her immediately. I also made sure she didn’t move her head any, just in case she was hurt.”

  “Well, thank you so much, mijito. Thank you for taking such good care of my daughter. You even brought her home in a patrol car. Are you even allowed to do that?”

  “Not really, señora, not really. But you won’t say anything, will you?”

  “Of course not mijito. Of course not.”

  ¡Mijito! Had Mamá just called the mongrel mijito? I couldn’t believe it. How I wished I were adrift again, deep within some sphere of silence, but I wasn’t. I tried unplugging my ears from this watered-down version of events, but I couldn’t do it.

  “Don’t mention it, señora. It was my duty.”

  “What’s your name, mijito?”

  “Manuel, señora. But, please, call me Manolo.”

  “Manolo. Why, what a nice name,” she said. “Tell you what, Manolo. If you’re ever this way again, I would like to repay your kindness, show you my gratitude.”

  “No, no, señora. Please, there’s no need. It was my pleasure, my duty.”

  “But I would like to cook you something, mijito. I would like to invite you over for a wonderful dinner.”

  “Gracias, señora, but please, you need not go to any trouble, really.”

  “Oh no, mijito, no trouble at all. You’re the one who’s gone to all the trouble, and I insist on repaying your kindness.”

  If a moment of silence had finally ensued to seal the sanctity of this exchange, I couldn’t make it out. Maybe I had finally tuned them out.

  “Well, señora, thank you then, that’s very kind of you. First chance I get, I promise I’ll be by.”

  “I’ll be expecting you, mijito. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Gracias señora, gracias. By the way,” he added. “I believe this belongs to your daughter. She left it in the backseat of the patrol car.”

  I tuned back in: sharp and clear and receiving every signal. My things. The mongrel had my things. My journals and prayer cards. My father’s letter from Iraq. For a moment I almost got up and zipped into the living room.

  “Yes, those are her things,” I heard Mamá say. “Thanks again, mijito. I’ll take them.”

  I wanted to rush out there, to make sure he had not ransacked my possessions or confiscated anything. But I quickly abandoned the idea. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to see anybody. Besides, he had finally left. Not only was there no response, but a car took off, the front door closed, and moments later came the knocking I expected.

  “Clara mija, let me in, mija. Please, let me in.”

  “Leave me alone, Mamá. Just leave me alone.
”

  “But mija,” she persisted. “What happened? I have a right to know, don’t I? Not to mention you must be starving, hija. Let me bring you something to eat.”

  The mere mention of food made me gag again. Even as I lay in bed I thought I might throw up. How typical of my Cuban mother. Food was always the solution to life’s ailments. No matter what the ill, no matter what the predicament, life’s turmoils could all be tempered with food, particularly her food. And true, she may have been a great cook, and a great mother, but food would not do the trick this time. Food could offer me no solace at the moment.

  “I’m not hungry, Mamá! What I want is to be left alone. Please, can you respect that?”

  If I expected a fierce and protracted battle, I didn’t get one. She mysteriously relented. Whether the urgency in my tone prompted a retreat, or the locked door commanded respect, Mamá acquiesced, yielding to my request for solitude. Too little time lapsed, however, before she came knocking again.

  “Aren’t you hungry, mija? Can’t I bring you something to eat?”

  “No, Mamá. I’m not hungry. Just leave me alone, will you!”

  Even Angélica and Pilar knocked on the door periodically, asking if they could help at all, asking if I wanted to talk about anything, but I only turned them away as well.

  “I’m fine!” I called out. “I just want to be alone!”

  And it was true. That was all I wanted. To be left alone and suffer in solitude. To ponder my fate in silence and endure it all by myself. I would do it too. And just to make sure that no one snuck into my room unbeknownst to me, I took a chair and wedged it underneath the doorknob, lodging it there as hard as I could. I did it. I secured my withdrawal from the world as hermetically as possible. Only one force intruded on that solitude, which I could not shut out—Rigo.

  How do I explain what the hours of my days were like after that morning of August 15? What the hours of my life were like after Rigo? Only one word came near to describing them. Intolerable. Only one feeling remotely captured them. Insufferable. The emptiness I felt. The worthlessness of my existence. I already felt dead inside, but there were hours I wanted to die all over again, hours I prayed for a new death. The thought of water asphyxiated me and I no longer wanted anything to do with it. But there were hours I yearned to throw myself deep into the ocean and end my life there. The face of the water mocked me. It resurrected the memory of Rigo’s departure from my life and the horrible moment he stranded me on the shore. I was so distraught I thought of nothing else. Not the visitation from the night before. Not the tidings or admonitions from the Angel Gabriel. I could think of only one thing and recall one thing only—Rigo.