Thine is the Kingdom

by Abilio Estevez

  From then on it reappeared whenever the shadows grew over the terrace, as soon as Melissa was no longer in sight, though Vido never could see where she had gone. Every night the bird returned, more aggressively. As soon as he saw it coming Vido would quickly climb back down the oak and run home, cutting through The Beyond, followed by the bird and its hooting, and when he came inside and went to his bath to think about Melissa, he would continue seeing the animal, the image of the animal interposed between him and the image of Melissa, and he would hear the hooting that would make Miss Berta, over in the living room, cross herself and cry Ave Maria Purissima and run to close the windows.

  Now he is stretched out on the ground. He has been stretched out on the ground for a long time. He has seen night run through all the hues of darkness before reaching the shade of red it now has. Intense pain pierces his arm. The bird has flown away, or cannot be seen. In its place, its white shadow remains, like a ship’s wake, the persistent sound of flapping, the echo of its hoots that sound like loud laughter. The bird has gone; the threat of it is still there. Vido stands up; not knowing how he can do it, with his good arm he holds and squeezes his other, aching arm, and walks toward the Island, crying.

  On this page it is best to use the future tense, a generally inadvisable practice. It has already been written that Chacho had gotten back from Headquarters just past four in the afternoon, and that he was the first to notice the coming storm. It has been written, moreover, that Casta Diva, his wife, saw him later, absolutely motionless, watching the tops of the trees. The following day, after the events that will soon be narrated had taken place, Chacho will begin to talk less, and less, and less, until he decides to take to bed. No one will know what the problem is with Chacho (not even Chacho himself), whether an illness of the body or of the spirit (as a somewhat perplexed Doctor Pinto will suggest). Without fuss, without emphasis, without hope, he will refuse to return to Headquarters at the Columbia base (where, may it be said in passing, he has never had the talent to rise above the rank of radio operator in the Signal Corps, where his absence will not be noticed). Chacho will spend sixty-three days without talking. During that time, we will be able to see him obsessed with his rabbits and with Carlos Gardel. And, as it is best not to abuse this generally inadvisable tense, it is just and proper that we leave Chacho to his silence until such a time as he should reappear, as God wills it, in this narration.

  A knock at the windowpane. A dry knock, like that of a pebble, followed by a short silence, only to knock again with greater force. The son of a bitch is going to break the window, Sebastián says. He recognizes the knock, so he leaves the book and the dictionary on the floor, goes to the window, and stealthily opens it, trying to make as little noise as possible. It is indeed Tingo. Sebastián doesn’t ask, shows no curiosity, looks at the other with utter fearlessness because he knows that this attitude disconcerts Tingo. However, Tingo is far too disturbed to be disconcerted. He repeats a gesture with both hands, ordering him to come down urgently, it’s a matter of real importance. I’m not up for silly games, Sebastián says without knowing whether Tingo has been able to hear him, he has said it with his lips, in barely a whisper, it’s late and Helena might realize he’s still awake. Without talking, the boy continues to perform his exaggerated gestures, and he displays something, a piece of paper, a letter, and points toward an inexact spot behind the building, down by the river perhaps. It’s a motionless night of clouds that pass by almost touching the rooftops. Linea Street looks deserted, scarcely illuminated by the lights of the street lamps, lamps swinging half loose and at the mercy of the winds. The unsteady light makes the street meander, a sensation accentuated by the whirls of dust that the wind raises. The night, red and motionless, is enough to make you think no one will ever walk down Linea Street again. Sebastián stares at the dark, abandoned houses, and thinks they are mere facades, that nothing and no one could be behind them. At times you can hear shots fired, the sirens of police cars or of the building, where a walkway, torn up by the roots of so many trees, leads to The Beyond. Sebastian takes away his hand: the contact with Tingo’s delicate hand makes him blush for reasons he cannot fathom. Tingo-I-Don’t-Get-It goes in front, stepping stealthily, as if the gusting wind weren’t enough to deaden the sound of their footsteps, as if the noise of the gusting wind weren’t enough to eliminate any other sound, a whole battalion could march down this walkway tonight and not one person in the Island would ever notice.

  In The Beyond, past the house of Professor Kingston, the dog cemetery, Chacho's banana trees, Merengue’s pigpen, and the little grassy hill down which they sometimes sled on palm bark, almost at the riverbank, stands (or falls) the carpentry shop. They call it this out of habit, out of the custom of naming things for what they once were and not for what they are. Ah, the stubbornness of memory for fixing names! It’s been years since the carpentry shop was a carpentry shop. Fourteen years at least. Or more. Since approximately forty-eight hours after Berardo, the father of Vido, was found on his carpenter’s table with his mouth open, his eyes rolled back, and his pancreas torn up, as the coroner’s report later revealed. It can be stated that from the moment they left him to rot under a hill of earth in his hometown of Alquizar, they had already forgotten not only the man who had caused so many disturbances lately, but everything that had ever in one way or another had to do with him (except for the boy, except for Vido, of course). It was easy to forget him: it proved necessary. To tell the truth, it had been quite a while since the carpentry shop had served as a carpentry shop, because Berardo, a courteous gentleman when he came to the Island, had lately left his wood, hammers, and saws for mulatta women, bottles of Bacardi and orgies that would end with an invariable and colossal brawl (the devil got into that man’s body, no doubt about it). At his death, sudden and much desired (and may God forgive us), the carpentry shop was left unprotected, to the mercies of the Island’s weather. And the Island’s weather (this will be a secret for no one) is like the Island itself: deceptive, of phony gentleness. So it lifted the paint and cracked and rotted the walls, in the patient and merciless labor more proper to woodworms than to weather, but what is the Islands weather but a plague that gives the appearance of tropical paths, bright noondays, violet seas, coconut palms, and idyllic moonlit nights? There stands the carpentry shop (anybody can see it), old, vulnerable, still upright thanks to who-knows-what miracle, with a fragile roof and the absurd color of warped lumber.

  Through the cracks in the beaten lumber escape lights that grow, weaken, flicker. Tingo and Sebastián come walking up the path that has mysteriously remained open through the Guinea grass. A little bit to the right, though in this darkness it can’t be seen nor heard through this wind, runs the river. If tonight were a night like any other, you could even contemplate the wing of galleries that belong to Miss Berta, Irene, and Casta Diva, and the Hermes and the Venus could be seen, and perhaps even the bust of Greta Garbo, for the carpentry shop was built on a privileged spot. The night is an encircling wall. The Island isn’t there, it has disappeared. At this moment only the carpentry shop exists, like a broken-down boat looming among the shadows. Tingo unknots the wire that holds the door closed. The door gives way with a creaking of wood and hinges paralyzed by rust.

  We like it because it’s scary, that’s the truth, they say that here you can hear the music and the shouting from the parties, and many times you can see Berardo again, with his deformed face and a hammer in his hand, because Merengue told me that when you die you keep on being what you were in life, and we also like it because there’s so much stuff. Look, old furniture, I mean really really old, clothes full of moths and years, and headless saints, childless madonnas, sad, looking despondently at the absence in their arms, and the stuffed peacock, remember? (it doesn’t have any feathers in its tail now: we plucked them all when we were playing Indians and cowboys), and your papa’s old gramophone, and the pieces of Godfather s ancient Ford, the army medals we found in a little wooden box inlaid with
mother-of-pearl, and the blue silk kimono, and the slippers, remember the slippers? and the binoculars, and the doll with the needles stuck in its chest, and the Cuban flag that we laid across the carpenter’s table, which is the only thing still in the carpentry shop (they’ve even stolen Berardo's nails from there), and the portraits of those people no one could identify, and I wonder, Did those people ever guess, when they were having

  II

  My Name is Scheherazade

  It’s raining. Furiously. Since this tale is being written in Cuba, the rain is falling furiously. It would be another matter if this were being written anywhere else in the world. Here you won’t find any scattered sprinkles (as an author might write in Spain), no endless Parisian drizzle. All you can describe here is a frenzied storm. In Cuba the Apocalypse comes as no surprise: it’s always been an everyday occurrence. Which is why this chapter begins with a downpour that forebodes the end of time.

  It’s beautiful the way everything is disappearing, even the Island, turning into an impression, a mirage, I love the rain: it makes you feel outside of time and space, I love the rain, it takes me out of the monotony of one day after another, I’ll close the bookstore, at this hour nobody will come to buy, much less with all this rain, a hard rain returns the true value to things, the house, for instance, it isn’t the same when it rains, the downpour turns it into a place you want to stay, transforms it, makes it nicer, and I feel like reading or sleeping, or both things at once, yes, it would be great to be able to sleep while it’s raining, and while it’s raining and you’re sleeping, to read, or not read, but have your dream be made of words, that kind of dream: the rain beats against the red shop window and the balcony railings where dense climbing vines dangle their flowery festoons beneath the poplar leaves trembling in the cool winds; you can hear the picaresque sparrows warbling in their chambers; I love this rain, same rain as ever, same rain as a hundred years ago, the rain Casal saw from the window of his house at Aguiar number 55, the same rain that comes back now to make you feel vague pains in your muscles and deep sorrows in your soul, the downpour awakens the smell of earth, the smell that, if it weren’t for the downpour, you’d never notice, the persistent damp of it cools the house down, I love the way the downpour imprisons me, this is the only imprisonment, I suppose, that I could stand, I sit in the rocking chair with my feet up on the bed listening to the music of water on water and on the roof, I’m falling asleep, I think I can hear distant voices — let me close my eyes — rising from the infinite — I’m fading away and I know I’m not fading away — they’re letting me in on strange delights, the Island transforms itself into rain, outside of this worrying world, it’s raining, torrential, magnificent rain, I’ll be in bliss as long as the downpour lasts.

  I hate the rain, hate it because it closes me in, compels me to stay inside these four walls I abhor with all my heart, I suppose when I say “with all my heart” I mean I hate it more than I could hate anything else, the rain makes me feels imprisoned, forces me not to move, to wait here like a trapped rat, I feel cornered, I want the rain to stop, for me I wish the sun would always be roasting me, the sun, the fire, this Island is not an island, it’s a blaze, a branch office of hell, the sun, yes, and every once in a while a few hours of darkness so as not to die from the glare, I don’t even want to hear about rain, or about the smell of earth, of cemetery dirt, or the cool damp of it (which false poets ponder, the same guys who’d like to live in the mists of Scotland, the imbeciles that surround me), or the monotonous and terrifying sound of it, I’d rather be burning in the cauldrons of hell itself than in this Island, before I had to stand for this October rain that’s going to end up bringing the roof down on me, the roof of the house is creaking, didn’t I say it was going to creak! and now the leaks begin, the leaks, the leaks, one bucket here, one bucket there, the house fills up with buckets, and me here closed in, not even able to walk out into the Island, which is, you can’t fool me, the Butthole of the World, I hate the rain as I hate myself, and if God thinks that’s blasphemy let Him come, let Him come Himself with all His little angels and question me, not be afraid, just show up, I’m sure not going to let trumpets and fireworks frighten me, let Him come right now, appear this minute, He’s going to learn a thing or two, I’m going to give Him a piece of my mind.

  It’s raining and I’m getting sad and that makes me happy, the rain is worth it if you’re all alone, it’s the best pretext for feeling nostalgic about something and for getting sad about not having it and for crying for no reason. And Lucio, who is lying naked on top of his bed, closes his eyes.

  Lucio has closed his eyes. He sees a wooden house, on pillars, with a wide porch. The walls are white; not white (he can’t see what color they are).The doors and windows are sealed with metallic cloth. Stairs rise to the porch. The floor is also wood. A rocking chair rocks by itself, perhaps an effect of the wind. Lucio enters the house. It’s empty, there is hardly any furniture, just a few chairs and a table on which a lighted oil lamp sits. The rooms are also devoid of beds, dressers, mirrors. The only thing to see on the bedroom walls are photographs, austere men and women he supposes are dead because they are so austere, and because it is perfectly obvious that the photos are very old. In the last room, in one corner, a little girl, sitting on the floor, is crying. She is hiding her face in her hands. Lucio caresses her close-cropped head. He feels like crying, too, he doesn’t know why, and since he feels like crying and doesn’t know why, he goes to the window and opens it. The sea. Dawn begins to break. The sea is calm, grey. The sky, grey as well, is sketched with distant and motionless clouds. The girl stands up. Goes over to Lucio. When he feels her footsteps he turns and sees the girl with her head held down. Why are you crying? The girl doesn’t reply. She stops next to him, looks too at the sea, takes Lucio ‘s hand and caresses it. Why are you crying? He pinches her chin, lifts her little face to see her better. What’s your name? Still crying, the little girl smiles, Lucio, she says, my name is Lucio.

  Don’t you think that the sound of a downpour is rare music? Three men in white tunics are playing instruments that sound like rain. It’s a small bedroom painted red, with damask curtains and censers filled with burning incense. A smiling young woman, with ingenuous malice on her face, comes up and takes him by the hand. Lucio follows her, still hearing, very close by, the sound of the music that is the rain, that is the rain that is the music. A long corridor is full of natural plants: they have the odd virtue of seeming artificial. In a salon, various couples are kissing, caressing each other by order of an old woman in a wheelchair. She (the old woman) stares at Lucio. At last! she exclaims. The others separate, look at him. At last! they exclaim in chorus. Lucio approaches the old woman in the wheel™ chair. She (the old woman) touches his chest, his thighs, as if she were touching a handsome animal. You’re hot, she says. The old woman is ugly, her dress is the same red color as the walls, she wears dark glasses. She does not smile. Lucio isn’t ashamed to be naked, just strangely happy. With great ceremony they take him to another room where a cadaver is covered with a shroud. Who is it? Lucio asks. The sound persists of music that is rare rain. The young woman with the malicious face lifts the shroud and Lucio sees the cadaver, also naked, the very image of himself, identical. The live Lucio touches the hands of the dead Lucio and finds them rigid, cold. When did he die? When did I die? The old woman is wheeled in on her wheelchair by a strong, handsome black man. The old woman dries false tears. We’re all alive, we’re all dead, she exclaims in a choked voice. Does my mother know? Your mother died before you did. Lucio feels tremendous sorrow. He leans over the dead Lucio and kisses the closed, breathless lips. Could he be happy? He turns around, realizes no one is there, they have left him alone but he asks anyway, And why, if I’m dead, don’t I know what death is? He is crying over the other one at the moment when they knock on the door. He hears the old woman’s voice, Lucio, Lucio. They knock again. Irene shouts Lucio, Fortunato’s here. Lucio opens his eyes in his own bedroom. Fuc
k his mother, how the hell could Fortunato get here in this deluge?

  What are you doing here? Fortunato is soaking wet from head to foot. I have to talk with you. First you have to dry off, Irene says, and she hands him a towel. Dry off, Lucio orders him with the sense of superiority Fortunato always makes him feel. Dry off and change your clothes. Irene prudently closes the door so that Fortunato can change, I don’t want you to catch a cold, young man. Fortunato is tawny, too tawny, practically mulatto despite his good hair and European features, and he is tall, cheerful, gentle, with an inexplicable look in his eyes, greenish with glints of yellow. His slightly thick, slightly livid lips are almost always smiling with a sweetness that contrasts with his body’s strength. His hands are so large they seem timid. How did it ever occur to you to go out in this downpour? Fortunato keeps on smiling. No rain can stop me, he insists in a harsh voice that reveals, more than any other detail, that his father was black. I had to see you and I said to myself, No rain could ever beat me, and here I am. You’re crazy, go ahead and change already. Look, even my under-wear is sopping wet. Lucio hands him clean clothes without looking at him. Fortunato puts on Lucios clothes, which are tight on him. Lucio takes off the robe he had put on to answer the door and falls back naked on the bed. What’s this problem that’s so important you had to leave your house in the rain? The other sits on the foot of the bed, not smiling now. Nothing, I wanted to see you. See me? just see me? Fortunato nods. Lucio breaks out laughing. Fuck, I think you must be a faggot.