“If I do this for you, Javier, you must do something for me. You must marry.”
“Marry?”
“Yes, a woman. If need be, I can find you a suitable bride.”
“Mama never married, and she ran that estate just fine.”
“Your mother never did the unnatural things you have done …”
The irony of those words must have filled Javier with rage, but Javier’s face remained stony, or at least he believed his face remained stony. To Javier, his face betrayed no emotion, much less shame, which is what his father wanted from him. His father delighted in shaming him. Javier Castillo had been shamed by his father many times over his lifetime, but this was a new kind of attempt based on facts Javier Castillo felt certain, at the time, he had hidden from his father.
“Well, if you know the things I have done, then you know a marriage for me isn’t going to work.”
“You are manly enough. People do not stare at you the way they do those flowery boys that work down by the docks.”
“I see.” Javier Castillo knew then exactly to which unnatural acts his father had been referring. Although he had rarely ever seen his father or talked to him, his father had deduced that he did not love women.
“Imagine my surprise when that friend of the Governor General, the one from Italy who spent a month here with his family, confessed to me that he had fucked a man in my guest house. You were that man.” Javier had never heard his father use an obscene word much less as crassly as he had just done. It was true—he did, in fact, have sex with the Italian tourist, but this was so far in the past that even the particulars of it had long since faded away. Javier would guess he had only been seventeen at the time. What confused Javier was why his father had kept this knowledge for so long without acting on it. Why had he waited until that very moment to reveal that he knew exactly the kind of man Javier was? And then, despite the fact he knew he was about to lie to his father, he said: “I will marry. For your statement, I will get married.”
“Good! Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying you cannot have sex with men. We all have our particular weaknesses. But discretion . . . Discretion is, however, an important thing. And when you do have sex with men, let it be with someone like that tourist; do not go to bed with a poor field hand. Don’t let a yard man fuck you. Don’t sleep with poor men on this island period. They cannot be discreet. Trust me on this.”
Alejandro Castillo was finished. And with a single ring of the small silver bell next to him, the Archbishop summoned Father Juan Marquez. Javier Castillo rose and politely said goodbye to His Grace before being shepherded out by the priest who assisted his father. The Archbishop sat on his terrace and quietly finished his lunch.
*
The only memory Alejandro Castillo had of the time before he was taken in by Father Guillermo Rojas in Spain, vague and refracted by the passage of time as it was, was that of being in a dense forest, a dark forest. To Alejandro Castillo, memory made the forest a cathedral of trees, the branches high above like the winged buttresses he knew in the great Spanish cathedrals. He had no idea if he had become lost in this forest or if he had been abandoned there. But in the dark crevices of his mind, the ones he refused to examine despite many opportunities to do so, he stored the belief he had been abandoned. Whether or not this was the case was irrelevant. It fueled him, the belief in this abandonment. It allowed him to do the things he had done throughout much of his adult life.
The only item Alejandro Castillo possessed from his life before being taken in by Father Rojas was a small wooden amulet. On it, there was a carving of a small axe. And there were times, like this one, where Alejandro Castillo would fish the amulet from the small ornamental box he kept atop his chest of drawers and turn it over and over in his left hand. This amulet was the oldest thing he had, the oldest thing in his small box of memories. As he turned it over and over in his hand, it conjured no memories of his life before he became Alejandro Castillo. The amulet was triangular in shape and worked smooth by its creator, smoother and smoother by time itself. The small axe was done with painstaking detail so that you could see the leather bound around the handle and, at times, even the way leather could be made to reflect light by the repeated clutching of hands, by the way repeated usage could wear down the dark skin of the leather. The old woman who had cared for Father Rojas had given it to Alejandro Castillo after the priest had died, told him it was what the priest had found in his pocket all those years ago. No money, no papers, no clues save this small wooden amulet. And as it had done his entire adult life, the amulet gave up not a scrap of information to the Archbishop.
*
Alejandro Castillo wrote the statement for his son detailing how Cassandra Diaz had left the estate to him. In what must have seemed preposterous to Father Juan Marquez, the Archbishop had requested he be taken to the Reynolds House to drop something off for his nephew. But Father Juan Marquez’s job was not to question, and he arranged for the driver to take His Grace to the Great House at the bottom of Mutton Hill. When the car arrived at the house, after climbing the winding driveway from the entrance to the estate, the Archbishop asked that the driver leave him but return in half an hour.
Out behind the Great House, the cane fields and orchards stretched for miles. His son would be well off without need of the Church or anyone else. You can imagine how, at that moment, Alejandro Castillo felt a certain relief, though he would never have been able to assign such a name to that emotion he felt. Before he reached the front door, before he even crossed the entire front terrace, the door opened and a young woman lowered her head. “Señor Castillo is in the sunroom, Father.” She directed the Archbishop to the sunroom, where he found his son sitting reading a newspaper. Sitting near him at the window of the sunroom looking out at the grounds drinking a cup of coffee was a young man that, from his dress, was certainly an American.
“Your Grace? I did not know you were coming.”
“I wanted to drop off those papers you requested.”
“Leenck, this is Archbishop Castillo, my uncle.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” offered the Archbishop.
The way Javier tells it, Leenck smiled and said hello. He and the Archbishop exchanged a few words, enough to confirm for Alejandro Castillo that the man was definitely from America. His English was certainly inflected with the sounds of that vast continent. It did not have the small biting consonants buried in the English spoken by the men from England, nor did it have the mellifluous rhymes inherent in Spanish or even the English spoken by those who first spoke Spanish. Alejandro Castillo told Leenck he had some family matters to discuss with his nephew and requested some time alone with him. Although presented as a request, it would have been obvious to Leenck that this was a really a command. And so, Leenck rose from his chair, slugged down the last of the coffee in his cup, and rushed from the sunroom.
“I asked you to marry and then I come here and find you with a man.”
“He is not that way, Father. He came to the island to see my mother but she had already passed away. He is sick and dying and knows he won’t make it back to the States.”
“Oh. I just...”
“Assumed I was not being discreet, to use your term?”
“I have the papers. Let us focus on that.”
“Well, I am glad you decided to help me. The Governor General was here yesterday, inquiring as to whether I would be staying on or not.”
“Of course he inquired. His father was born in this house. He was born in this house and grew up here. It is a wonder he didn’t put up more of a fight back when the rest of his family died off. But he was always deathly afraid of your mother.”
“I may not have the Reynoldses’ last name, but I do know my own family’s history.”
“I wasn’t implying otherwise, Javier. I wrote up the papers. You should keep a copy of it at the bank. There are special...”
“Deposit boxes set up for things like that there.”
“Yes.
Well, I am sorry I disturbed you, Javier.”
“It is fine, Father. You are the only family I have now.”
“I don’t think your Tía Flora would appreciate a comment like that.”
“Tía Flora died, Father. She died within a few days of Mama.”
The Archbishop tried to hide his surprise from Javier, and in this he was almost outstanding. But what he couldn’t hide was the grief on his face. It was clear that he had loved the Diaz sisters in his own way, but his heart loved Flora Diaz more and in a very different way than it had her sister Cassie. In those confusing days in the distant past, the Archbishop had felt real heartbreak when Flora left the convent. And when she left the island it had hurt him in a way he had not anticipated. Of the two sisters, Flora was the one he likely loved, really loved. He had to have her hands bound when he visited her in the convent. And, unlike her sister Cassandra, who gave herself freely to him after the first time, he had to have Flora gagged before visiting her. Javier knew all of these things but kept this knowledge close to his chest.
“How did she die?”
“I’m not sure, but a neighbor found her in her kitchen. I suspect she had heart problems. I had seen her about a week or so before it happened.”
The Archbishop excused himself, but as he was walking out, he turned to Javier Castillo and invited him to dinner the following evening. He even, as a gesture of good will, asked him to bring along the young man, Leenck. Javier Castillo had what he wanted, but he figured it best to just say yes. Alejandro Castillo was, as he had pointed out moments earlier, the only family he had left.
Dinner the following evening was to take place at 6:00 p.m. That morning, a messenger boy from the Archbishop’s mansion delivered a note from Father Juan Marquez instructing Javier to be at the mansion with his guest at 5:30 p.m. for cocktails on the side terrace followed by dinner at 6:00 p.m. sharp. At exactly 5:20 p.m., the car arrived to pick them up. Shortly thereafter, from his bedroom window on the upper floor of the Archbishop’s Mansion, Alejandro Castillo watched the car pass through the gates to the property and enter the grounds, watched it snake up the long driveway to the front of the house. He did not need to alert Father Juan Marquez. Father Juan Marquez was already at the door waiting to greet the Archbishop’s guests. In every version of the story, Father Juan Marquez is always ready and waiting.
Javier Castillo and Leenck were seated on the shaded side terrace looking out at the sea. They exchanged small talk that betrayed they knew very little about each other. Javier didn’t even know why he had taken in this foreigner who was dying. But he didn’t question himself much. Death and grief inspire a different kind of loneliness, and Javier Castillo was not one to dwell too deeply on the root causes of his feelings. He rarely questioned himself at all. At 5:45 p.m., the Archbishop appeared on the side terrace and a young steward rushed out to pour him a glass of red wine. The Archbishop was not in his usual attire; he was, instead, wearing an ordinary white button-down long-sleeved shirt without the white collar and a pair of dark grey pants. He looked, for all intents and purposes, rather ordinary.
“Father Castillo ... I mean Your Grace. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“No need for formality with your uncle, Javier.”
“Sir, it is good to see you again,” said Leenck.
The Archbishop joined them, exchanged pleasantries and finished the glass of wine just as Father Juan Marquez showed up to call them to dinner. At exactly, 6:00 p.m., they were all seated and the first course was presented. The dinner was mostly silent save the occasional comments made by Father Juan Marquez to explain each course as it was brought to the table. After so many years, Alejandro Castillo barely heard the everyday things his assistant said. He didn’t even look up at him when he spoke about things like the filet of red snapper and where the fish had been caught that morning. For Alejandro Castillo, Father Juan Marquez had become a kind of voice narrating parts of his life. For him, the good Father had become background noise.
“How long have you been an archbishop?” asked Leenck, breaking the silence as they finished their main course. Alejandro Castillo answered and wondered why Americans were always so obsessed with occupation and the things relating to it. The dinner dragged on with none of the three exactly sure what to discuss or how to act. As dinner was being cleared, Father Juan Marquez appeared and announced the driver would be ready to take the two young men back to the Reynolds Estate after the dessert course. But then, to everyone’s surprise, including likely the Archbishop himself, Alejandro Castillo announced that no, no, the young men would be staying for drinks after dessert. Father Juan Marquez could not hide the surprise on his face and simply said he would have the back terrace set up.
“Where in America are you from, Leenck?”
“Well, I have lived most of my life in California, but I was born in Spain.”
“In Spain? I am originally from Spain. Where in Spain?”
“Several miles north of Barcelona.”
“This is incredible. Javier, this is where our family comes from!”
Javier seemed lost in thought and, as they entered the terrace facing the garden, he simply nodded and stared blankly out at the fountains, the well-manicured strips of grass and all the intervening beds of flowers with their purples, the occasional reds and whites, the garden mirroring the colored vestments the priests wore throughout the year.
“But your name? It is not a Spanish name.”
“No, my family lived deep in the woods and not in the town. I am not sure exactly where the people of my family originated, but they had been separatists and rejected the Spanish culture and language. Honestly, I think many today would call them a cult.”
“Do you visit them?” The Archbishop was animated in a way he had not been in over a decade. This young man who was dying was like a strange window into his own past. And as he looked at him more closely, he began to feel an uncomfortable sensation in his chest. His heart seemed not to beat in its usual tick-tock-of-a-metronome way it always had. Instead, it seemed to be fluttering, lurching in a rhythm he had not experienced previously.
“No. I never visit them. I had a falling out with my family when I was a young man. I left. I moved to Barcelona. I learned Spanish and English. I got a job with a financial firm and learned the trade. Within a few years I moved to New York and then to California. I have never been back to Spain.”
“I came here from Spain as a young priest just promoted. I haven’t been back except once about ten years ago.”
“And your brother? Is he in Spain?”
“My brother?”
“You know, my father . . .” Javier interjected before lifting a glass of port to his lips.
“Oh, sorry. Yes, my brother. He passed away many years ago.”
“So, is Javier the only relative you see?”
“Yes, I suppose that is true.” Mimicking Javier Castillo, he said: “Javier is now my only living relative.”
As Alejandro Castillo said this, he noticed what I would later notice, that in profile his son looked very much like Leenck who was also, in that moment, in profile as both of them were watching a pigeon strutting along the edge of the fountain. It was as if the two profiles had been cut from the same stone by the same sculptor. Javier was darker in complexion. The two men’s noses were different, the foreheads were different, but the jawline, the ears, everything else seemed similar, especially the mouths. But Alejandro Castillo didn’t fully think on this the way I have. He didn’t wonder why his son would look so much like this dying man who had come to the island. It was just a passing thing noticed and then passed over, left to lie unquestioned.
“Oh, this is such a funny thing, you coming from that part of Spain. Well, in some way you are like a brother then, a cousin.” Alejandro Castillo probably could not believe that such words had come out of his mouth. He was not the kind of man to say such things. Clearly the surprise and excitement of this man hailing from the same part of the world from which h
e had come had gotten to him, affected him more deeply than he could explain. Alejandro Castillo never thought of himself as homesick much less a man buoyed by nostalgia. “I have some brandy I save for special occasions; we should all have some.”
The Archbishop rang his silver bell and Father Juan Marquez ushered them all to the library where the three men then sat facing each other in a small triangle of leather armchairs. Father Juan Marquez had opened the room twenty minutes earlier and turned on the ceiling fan, had the fourth armchair removed and the remaining three positioned accordingly, placed small tables on the right side of each chair to accommodate their glasses, and set the brandy on the side table by the mantle along with three brandy snifters. He had done this just in case. As the three men sat down, Alejandro Castillo again studied the faces of his son and Leenck. There in front of him, it was then difficult to ignore that the two men really did have the same shape to their eyes, the same shape to their faces. They had the same hairline and they definitely had the same mouth. Both of them had mouths that looked a great deal the way his own mouth looked each morning in the bathroom mirror as he shaved.
“How much do you remember of Spain? Javier told me you came here to see Cassandra.”
“Well, a friend brought me here to see her, but we had a falling-out and I haven’t even seen him the entire week I have been here. He may have gone back to the U.S. by now.”
The Affliction Page 14