“I don’t know.”
“¿Quizás en Miramar? Near Quinta Avenida? A friend of mine was working the neighborhood around the tunnel last night, and when he recognized that hideous mark on your face he followed you here.” Tito takes a long drag of the cigarette. “But first he saw you throwing something in the ocean. What was in the box, doctor? Alejandro’s head?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it and neither did Julia.”
“Is that the name she gave you?”
“I need water.”
“No water.”
Throat is dry. Dry leaves. Thinking: Medianoche, puerto. “Can I have a cigarette?”
Tito lights one for me and passes it through the bars: mentholated Popular. “I’m going to watch you put it out when you’re done. In fact, you’re going to hand me the butt. If I have to come in there to get it, I’ll crack your skull in half.”
When it’s down to the butt smoldering between pinched fingertips, I pass it back through the bars. Tito spits into the palm of his hand and puts it out. “Good doctor.”
“I can give you money—dollars.”
“You’re a doctor; you don’t have any money. Hasta mañana, feo.” He climbs the dark stairs and calls from the top, “Or maybe pasado mañana.”
* * *
When I lie very still on the slab in the center of the room, the flies begin landing on me, crawling over my face. I part my lips gently and a fly tests the crust at the corners of my mouth. I clamp my mouth shut and the flies scatter.
The light ebbs. The landing is lost in darkness. My clothes are damp with sweat and I feel cold. I anticipate each new stage of dehydration: a hangover headache, familiar enough, but aggravated by the lingering concussion. Sensitivity to hypothermia, orthostatic hypotension, severe dizziness each time I rise from the slab. Nothing to eat or drink and the migraine arrives. Think pleasant thoughts.
Eyes. An attempt at conjuring eyes. Only three or four women have really looked me in the eye. I’d like to be able to say not counting Mamá, but it wouldn’t be true. Submerged deep in her room, her drugs, she never looked into anyone’s eyes. Pero Aurora, sí. Even after the suicide. But her love was different. And then came Ojitos Lindos. I am sure she had experienced the connection before, but for me it was the first time. People rarely ever dared to look.
Agonizing hours pass. Midnight goes unmarked. Julia will think I stood her up. If I can get out of here she might come again tomorrow. I hold my last urine and struggle to resist the diarrhea. Keep alive. Keep alive long enough for someone to find me. Cold, clammy, no blanket, no jacket. The only way to sleep on this slab is like a corpse.
* * *
The stairs glow violet again and I begin to really thirst. Twenty-four hours. People should be wondering. Carlota? Not anymore. And Yorki will think I’m angry about her. Beatrice? Carajo … But I’m missing the second shift in two days at the pediátrico. The staff nurse will tell Director González that I didn’t report. The director will tell the staff nurse to hold someone over. Then what? Back to his desk, his Marlboros and Belgian chocolate? Will he ask himself why Rodriguez, who hasn’t missed a shift in more than a year, failed to call in?
The stone wall sweats with condensation. I try licking it. It is an unwholesome liquid, thick and alkaline, impregnated with the foul flavor of humus, but when my swollen tongue touches it the wetness is cool, comforting. The spongy papillae will absorb what water they can. Between licks I scrape the filth from my lips.
I walk around in circles to forestall atrophy. The pain in my bowels bends me double. I can’t hold it any longer and go in the corner near the gate. Burning, bladder empties its last liquid. Mouth caked with thick detritus. Tongue swollen. Lips parched. Skin cracking. Eyes sunken in orbits. Nasal passages crusted with blood. Skin scaly. I cry, “Water!” But nobody is listening.
Two flies bother each other on the edge of the stone slab. I wait until they begin mating, swat them in their moment of distraction. I scrape my hand across my teeth and swallow drily without chewing. My throat catches but I suppress the rising bile. I lick what’s left of the meal from my palm. A dry irritation remains. My throat burns.
The patient suffering dehydration can last as little as five days, as long as three weeks. I try to remember when Julia and I first met. The bar, the hospital, the basement clinic—it’s all mixed up. When will I see her again? Medianoche, puerto. Don’t let them get you, Julia.
A second night comes and goes. I weep, and with depraved satisfaction recognize the arrival of a bizarre symptom: crying without tears.
* * *
The third dawn lightens the stairs and I awaken with the oppressive sensation of a dead weight atop of me. I push it off and let out a scream, hoarse, harrowing, not my own. I climb down from the slab and feel around on the floor. There is no body, no weight, only the same scattered remains. Fever. Dry heaves. Lungs swelling.
“You stink, feo!” Always shocking me out of a shallow sleep. Throat swollen, parched. Thick secretions narrowing the respiratory tract. Difficulty breathing. Tito flicks his lighter and throws a white plastic bag with a green tourist store logo through the bars. “Brought you something to eat. I didn’t have time to cook it, but I figured by now you could use the juices.”
At the bottom of the bag there is a dark, pulpy mass, like cascara de guayaba. It burns for me to speak. “¿Fruta?”
“No. Es carne. A little liver I got on the parallel market. It’s delicious. I thought you’d prefer it fresh. I would have brought you some bread but there’s another glass scare.”
I touch it. Cold.
The lighter goes out for a second and Tito flicks it again. “Pues, haz lo que te da la gana. But it’s good meat. Stolen from the kitchen of the 1830. Ellos tienen las chuletas más ricas.” He lights a cigarette. “Why don’t you tell me where she is?”
I say nothing.
“We just want to talk with her. You won’t even have to wait around. Just show me the house, and once I’ve seen her, you go. Maybe you can clear some of this up before it gets out of control, doctor.”
“Agua.”
“No water.”
Esophagus contracts painfully and I can’t supress a groan.
“You shouldn’t complain, feo. At least it’s nice and cool down here.” Tito looks me in the eye. He knows he could kill me. He doesn’t have a materialist concept of death. It is an abstraction, someone else’s problem. “I wouldn’t break my balls for her sake, doctor. At first, me and my brother were in as much trouble as you. But yesterday, divers found a scalpel at the docks where Alejandro was pushed in. It had your fingerprints on the handle, doctor.”
“¿Cómo?”
“Now that nobody’s seen you for a couple of days, there’s quite a rumor developing around Vedado. They say you’re a fag and the reason you’re hiding is because you killed Alejandro in a jealous rage. Why don’t you tell me where she is?”
“Hijo de—”
“All a person has to say is, ‘You know the doctor in Vedado, the one with the ugly birthmark?’ The rest they practically supply themselves—buggery with surgical instruments, that kind of thing.” Tito climbs the stairs and calls from the top, “This is not my problem. I’ve given you something to eat. Understand?”
When he’s gone, I consider the plastic bag, its contents. I touch it. I know there’s something wrong with the meat. It’s not liver, it’s tough like the kidney of a pig. The size is right. Similar. I can’t tell.
The scalpel: Perez could have slipped it in his overcoat the day he broke into the clinic. The black Toyota, the interview in the speakeasy—the only reason I wasn’t arrested that night is because I’m bait for Julia. Perez needs us both. If I ever get out of this hell, I’ll never let anyone lock me up again. Better death.
* * *
I dream of La Milagrosa and her stillborn child. She has awoken from the spell of death and found the infant nestled between her legs. Lying in the dark, she takes him and cradles him close to
her breast.
“Where are we, mami?”
“What? You talking already?”
“What are those thuds, like our heartbeat but far off?”
“Shovels. Away, not overhead. Too muffled …”
“And that fuzzy feeling when I breathe, causing me to swallow hard?”
“It’s the odor of our neighbors, the dead.”
“What’s this fluttering above?”
“There’s something called sight, but you were not born to use it.”
“And this bag in my hand?”
“My breast, long dry.”
“But what’s this I feel inside, where we were connected?”
“That’s nothing. That’s just hunger. Now think pleasant thoughts, my baby. We’re going to be here a long time.”
* * *
Another endless night drifting in and out of consciousness. I consider the raw meat, left untouched for hours. They are trying to get me to eat this. I will not. There is something wrong with it. I don’t need it. I don’t need it to live.
Why not? Just a taste. Blood is water. For the body. Have I tried it yet? Can’t tell. Fingers crusted with … with what? Mud? Blood. Vamos, Rodriguez. Just a nibble. To live.
Out of nowhere a hole opens in the wall. Two holes: tunnels of fire, two beautiful, blazing chutes leading deep into the earth. I could take one. I could crawl over and into one or the other and be gone, out of here. The fires sear my brain. The holes become eyes. Death has a face.
In the distance I hear a child—a picnic in the cemetery, at night? My mind knows it must be a joke, but it lets my body believe: bread, sliced pork, fried plantains, lemonade! Come here! I’ll be right there. You’ve got to see this. I have to take a piss. You’re not going to believe it. Believe what? Shit. They’ve locked it, the assholes. Let’s go. No. Take a look. Can you see through? Light a match. There’s only three left and I still want to smoke the rest of this joint. Let’s smoke it here. This place stinks of shit. Let’s go back up. You know there’s corpses in there. You can see them. I’ve seen enough bones. Whole bodies, without the heads. Disgusting. Dead reporters. Headless, dead reporters. Light a match.
An angel wing rises from the floor and sweeps across the walls. It descends upon my legs, torso, and flaps in my face, a blinding beam, burning. A dry, low howl: “¡Ya!” My own voice, unrecognizable as human, like a sound burped from a corpse.
“¡Ai!”
“¿Qué carajo fué—?”
Loud, violent smacking: tennis shoes up stone steps.
“¡Carajo! That wasn’t funny.” Young boys, two of them, not the brothers.
“It wasn’t me—I swear. There’s someone in there.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“Wait!”
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll tell the groundskeeper.”
“Get me out.”
“Carlos, get something—that iron bar.” One of them climbs the stairs and fetches a broken fencepost. The boys take turns prying the gate, gasping for air and gagging at the smell. When the chain snaps, they flee up the stairs. They don’t want to be touched by a living corpse.
I have barely enough strength to unwind the chain from the bars. I climb the stairs, muscles and joints in agony, but with each step there is relief for lungs and head: fresh air, like pure oxygen compared to the foul gases I’ve been breathing. At the top of the stairs, although the glass door is open, I am paralyzed by terror. I tell myself this is a trauma response, but I am unconsoled. The reflex is to run back down, but that is lunacy. I must step out into whatever might be next. The boys made it; so can I. I catch my breath, shift one stiff leg in front of the other, and emerge into the antechamber. Nobody. I am alone.
I stumble out of the crypt. The night is clear and I use the sliver of moon rising in the east to orient myself. It’s a long walk back to the gate. I rest every few steps to catch my breath and massage the cramps out of my legs. I stop at the fountain for water, no more than a sip or I’ll shock my system. I vomit. I wait, measuring the minutes by the far-off sounds of cars braking and accelerating at the signal on Zapata. I drink another ounce and hold it down this time. Tito could come anytime and I have to get out of the cemetery, but I can’t go to the police. All I have now is my freedom. I will have to make choices: where to run, which way to take. Little decisions now have major consequences. I can’t go by the attic or try to retrieve the Lada. I am hunted. Somewhere in this city they are breathing, the people responsible for killing Alejandro. Somewhere in this city Julia is hiding. Medianoche, puerto.
There is little traffic on Zapata. It is 2, maybe 3 in the morning. I wait until the street is empty and cross to the closed cafeteria. In the alley behind the kitchen I dig through a trash barrel and find a can of orange cola, nearly empty. I need ORS solution, but I have to settle for a swallow of soft drink. The sugar throws a switch in my brain: I must go to the terminal. If I can get a botero to take me out of Havana before daybreak, I might be able to find Emilio in Pinar, arrange for a boat, and be back at the Port of Havana by midnight. Then Julia and I can escape this nightmare. I find a bunch of dead flowers in the trash. Through the cemetery would be the shortest route, but there is no way I’m going back in there. I follow the wall of the necropolis up the hill, holding the bouquet of withered flowers in front of my face like an insane suitor or a demented mourner.
At the top of the hill I turn right down Paseo. The median is conspicuous, but halfway between the footpath and the roadway there are palms and palmettos in regular sequence where I can keep in the shadows. At el Patio de Maria a late rock concert has let out, and a pack of teenagers leaving the club meets me on the median. “¡Vaya, pendejo!” spits a tall one holding a Tropicola can. My bad odor and a glimpse of my crazed expression make the kid move away. “Está loco!” the boy calls to his friends, five of them.
I pull a twenty-dollar bill from the roll in my pants and hold it up to catch the pale light of the streetlamp. “Veinte dolares—sell me your baseball cap.”
“Is that twenty Americano?”
“Sí. And give me what’s left in that can you’re drinking.”
The boy takes off the hat and throws it on the ground. He drinks one more swallow from the can and sets it down beside the hat. “Throw the money down.”
I crumple up the bill and toss it at the teenager, who fumbles with it for a second and shouts to his friends, “¡Vámonos!” They part ranks and scramble wide around me as if I were a leper. Their laughter dies away all down Paseo.
I put the baseball cap on and taste the canned cocktail, permitting myself just one sip: awful, luke-warm cola cut with chispe tren, but the alcohol takes only a few seconds to administer a calming, anesthetic effect. I pull the hat low over my eyes, hold the flowers against my cheek, and resume the march down Paseo toward the Plaza de la Revolución. Before getting too close to the monument, I cut left to the Teatro Nacional, where I stop to drink from the fountain, then out toward Boyeros and the National Library, a shortcut to the bus terminal.
I stop at the treeline and sip the last of the cola cocktail, peering across the street at the taxi stand. There are no boteros leaving long-distance at this hour, but five private taxis lined up at the curb await delayed arrivals. On the steps of the terminal, four drivers stand chattering and stretching their legs. At the end of the line of cars, the last driver is asleep in his front seat. Silently I cross the street and rap lightly on his half-lowered window. He awakens with a start. “¡Coño que susto!”
“Llévame para Pinar y te doy cien dólares Americanos.”
The driver’s black guayabera is stained from front-seat meals. He is groggy but sensible enough to keep his voice down so his competitors don’t hear the negotiation. “You smell like a pig.”
“I’ll sit in back.” I dig in my pocket and hold up the roll of money.
“I can smell you from here.”
“Stop at the Teatro Nacional and I’ll wash off in the fountain.”
>
The driver looks at the money, frowns, and jerks his chin toward the backseat. “Get in quickly.” I crack the back door and slip in. “Don’t slam it. Hold the handle. Keep your head down until I get away from these sinvergüenzas.” He starts the car and pulls out into the road. “¡Hasta mañana!” he calls to the drivers on the steps.
One of them shouts back, “¡Sueña con los mariconcitos!”
“Okay, shut the door now,” the driver says. “¿Qué te pasó a ti?”
I rise from the floor but stay slumped in the seat, the hat brim pulled down over my brow. “M’emboraché.”
“¡Échale!” he says at the thought of a good drunk.
The driver pulls up in front of the fountain. I get out, remove my filthy clothes, and wash off. When I put the dirty rags back on, the smell makes me gag. I vomit on the trunk of a royal palm.
Shortly before dawn, we are at the outskirts of Havana when the driver slows for a fat woman at a parasombra. I protest, “Wait, no more passengers. I’m paying you to rent the whole car.”
“She’s not a passenger, compañero. Es mi prima. Familia. Sube aquí en frente si quieres.”
I move to the front seat and he helps the woman fill the back with her bags and baskets. The driver pulls onto the highway and for a mile all is silent. The sun is beginning to rise above the hills to the west. I am exhausted, ready to allow myself a short nap, when in the rearview mirror I see the fat woman gawking back at my mark on my cheek. She screams, “¡Para! ¡Para la máquina!”
The driver slams on the brakes. “¡Coño! ¿Qué pasa, vieja?”
“¡Asesino! ¡Mounstro!” she shouts. “Mató a ese chulo.”
The driver casts about frantically and sees my lunar. “¡Sí! ¡Es él!” he cries. He reaches in the ashtray and pulls out a little knife, pointing it at me. “Butcher! Get out of here!” I throw the door open and jump out of the car. The driver speeds away, rear wheels spitting gravel. The day is dawning. I have to get out of the light.
I follow the alleys to Yorki’s apartment at the outskirts of Vedado and find the spare key under the Santa Barbara outside his door. A look in the bedroom: nobody home. I use his phone to call Emilio’s place in Pinar. No answer. I fall asleep on the sofa and dream I am back down in the hole, my shoulders against the cold slab.
Havana Lunar Page 10