Today he didn’t go to El Bilbao and didn’t take out his pastry cart. He dressed up in his best linen guayabera and brought down the straw hat his wife had given him as a wedding gift, in the days of El Chino Zayas. He stood for a long time in the courtyard, at the foot of the outspread wings of the Victory of Samothrace, crossing himself and praying to her, Little Virgin, if my son reappears I’ll buy you the finest glass case you’ve ever seen. Then he left without knowing for sure where he was going. A rowdy bunch of soldiers entered Rolos bookstore. Anyone who sees them would think there’s nothing the matter, that Cuba is Eden, Merengue said to himself, continuing toward the train station, which was full at the time, since the train to Artemisa would soon arrive. In one corner Merengue discovered a black man sprawled on the floor, facedown. He ran over to him. With fear and with hope. Ran over and turned him face up. It’s a drunk, said a woman who sat on a bench, knitting. Yes, a drunk, and also a young black man lying with his mouth open, sleeping off an excess of rum. Merengue tried to wake him, Come on, young man, they must be waiting for you at hone. The black man opened his eyes, tried to smile, said something Merengue couldn’t understand, and fell asleep again. Merengue tried to insist, but just then the train arrived. The train whistle, the movement in the station, and the sleepy face of the drunk reminded him that Sirocco had been one of the first people he had thought of. The association was not inappropriate, since Sirocco never took a bus to return home when he came to visit Chavito, but always waited for the train from Artemisa, and since he was a friend of the railway workers (and of everyone else) they would have the train slow down when it passed through Zamora so Sirocco could jump off, almost right in front of his own house. Of course Merengue couldn’t do any such thing at his age, so he went out and walked down Calvario Street, with the rapid pace of a man accustomed to pushing a heavy cart loaded with pastries. After passing the park where a bronze bongo drum stood on a pedestal as an attempted homage to Chano Pozo, Calvario Street began turning more and more squalid, narrower, darker, until it became a tangle of wood-and-tin huts, tree stumps, and Coca-Cola ads, in front of which naked kids ran with swollen bellies, and inside of which men sat to play dice, with naked sweaty torsos, their hair uncombed, their faces unshaven, but making, on the other hand, a great show of their heavy gold chains. Drying their hands on their aprons, the women came to their doors to watch the old black man pass by in his dignified guayabera and straw hat, looking as if he had stepped out of another era. Sirocco’s room, built like its neighbors from materials found here and there, built from any old thing, stood almost on top of the railroad tracks. Merengue noted that as he approached the room, on whose lumber he read, “I’m an adventurer and what do I care about the world,” the doors and windows of the neighbor’s rooms closed discreetly. Merengue knew that, even if he rang, no one would answer at Sirocco’s house. He also knew that no one would answer at the other houses, either, that no one would give him the tiniest clue of where he might find Sirocco. Only an old man who came walking along the railroad tracks, using a tree branch as a cane, his eyes hidden behind a fog of old age, shouted in a trembling voice, No, sir, I don’t know anything about Sirocco, and don’t bother asking, they’ll all say nobody has heard from him, don’t be surprised, sir, in this country everybody wants to know everything and nobody wants to know anything, this I-washed-my-hand-of-it attitude is going to sink this Island.
Gunshots were heard when Merengue flagged down a bus next to the Military Hospital. He was set to go all the way to the house of La Rusa, who lived in the district of Regla, on the other side of the bay, in a tall house, on top of a hill from which you could look down on the sea and on Havana. Merengue had gone there once with Chavito, on a September 7, the feast day of the Black Virgin, eve of the feast of La Caridad del Cobre. From that occasion Merengue recalled with emotion the Cuban flag, so large that, draped from the top of the church, it even filled a small part of the arch over the main entrance. (He recalled that when they were returning the Virgin to her place at the altar after the procession, her crown became entangled in the flag, which fell on top of her. The procession continued into the nave of the church with a Virgin of Regla hidden under a Cuban flag, and a silent public trying to divine the precise significance of that omen.) The gunshots could still be heard when Merengue climbed on to the bus. The driver said something he couldn’t understand. There weren’t many people on board: a nun with a package in her hands, two girls in uniform, a gentleman with a suit and briefcase, a policeman. Around the Anti-Blindness League a blind man with a pair of maracas climbed on, stood before the driver, and began to sing, On the trunk of a tree a girl, carved her name swollen with pride … His voice had a dull timbre and always seemed about to die out; hearing him sing made you feel sorry, and perhaps that was his intention: as soon as he stopped he went by each passenger saying, A contribution for the Cuban artist, and collecting their few coins in a can. Afterward he sat down next to Merengue. Can you tell me the time? Merengue saw that his watch had stopped. He turned to the policeman, What time is it, please? The policeman looked at the watch on his wrist and apologized, Pardon me, it looks like mine has wound down. The policeman turned to the nun, Sister, do you know what time it is? The nun looked at her watch and said with surprise, My watch isn’t working. The conductor, in turn, took the pocket watch that he carried in his pants pocket out of its case and saw that it had stopped. The gunshots were coming closer and closer. And the police sirens. Past the Almendares Bridge, a woman got on to the bus holding a child in her arms. The child wouldn’t stop crying. The woman made every effort to quiet him, explaining to him that crying was his worst option; the child, for his part, made every effort to ignore her. The blind man started singing again, With your meaningful name of Cecilia, supreme in the musical world … At 23rd and 12th an old woman dressed in red, and a dirty, bearded man wearing a tunic made of sackcloth and carrying an image of Saint Lazarus, got on board. The man was barefoot and Merengue saw his feet were covered with sores. I’m a leper, the man explained as he begged with his outstretched hand. At the corner of 23rd and Paseo, the bus braked sharply and the nun’s package flew out of her hands, broke open, and spilled out a skull, a tibia, a femur, and several other bones. The nun exclaimed, Dear God! while the leper fell to his knees and the blind man sang, Listen to the story I was told one day by the old grape digger for the county. The girls in uniforms screamed. The policeman stood up and grabbed his pistol, but the old woman in red, quick as a flash, took a knife from her purse, pounced, and stabbed him.
After his swim in the river, Vido lies down naked on the bank, under the sun, which is hot (as it always is). Vido feels the suns heat caressing his body, and a moment arrives when he doesn’t know if the heat is coming from the sun or escaping from his body. It’s as if his body were shining and burning like a star, my body is a star, my body is the sun, I’m shining, warming everything around me, I have my own light, my bones are so hot they’ve turned incandescent and glaring bright, the sun is inside me, I am the sun.
I’m so cold, I’m ashamed to say it, with all this heat I’m ashamed to admit I’m cold. The pain in his legs has diminished a little and Professor Kingston has put on his jacket and scarf and gone out to get some sun. Despite his jacket and scarf, he’s trembling. It’s a cold that resembles the pain, that comes from within. It’s as if my bones had turned to blocks of ice, as if the sun had no power to melt the ice that is my bones, I could stand for hours beneath the sun of the Island, the relentless sun of the Island, my body wouldn’t even notice, my body ignores the sun and the sun ignores my body, and between the two ignorances I’m dying of cold.
When Vido sees Professor Kingston coming, he jumps into the water. He thinks he hears the water crackle when it receives his body, hot as the sun. The professor greets him with a faint smile. It so hot! Vido shouts in too loud a voice, in a voice whose vigor and whose cheer he can’t control. Yes, indeed, it’s hot, the professor says, shivering, arms crossed over his ches
t, adjusting the scarf around his neck.
The scarf doesn’t adjust properly and falls to the grass. The professor tries to lean over and pick it up. The pain in his hips, in his waist, in his body, in his soul, in the world, stops him. Vido runs out from the river and in no time flat picks up the scarf. Professor Kingston looks at the naked boy, the new skin refulgent with water and sun. Boy, he asks, did you know you were eternal?
Captain Alonso talks with Casta Diva for a long while. The captain looks worried: it’s been more than a week since Chacho last reported to the base. The woman with reddened eyes tells him, Chacho only gets out of bed to do the necessities, he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t bathe, he doesn’t look at Tatina or at Tingo much less at me, my husband has stopped living (sob). Captain Alonso seems tired, looks restless. As you know, Casta Diva, the times are very bad. The woman blinks, coughs, moves impatiently Captain Alonso takes out a handkerchief and wipes the sweat from his brow. His military jacket is soaking. Yes, the times are very bad, Columbia is a hotbed of unrest, all this is going down. She moves a few steps away; it is obvious that she prefers to watch the trees, or perhaps the Venus the Milo that can be half-glimpsed through the foliage. Don’t speak to me of bad times, she says at last. We’re on the verge of catastrophe, the captain explains, trying to smile. Casta Diva stands motionless, like one more statue. Catastrophe? what does that word signify for you, what does on the verge mean? on the verge of what? It signifies that a time of horror awaits us, and the captain points toward the trees as if the horror were out there. She remains standing motionless for several seconds and then shakes her head no, lifts her arms to the heavens, theatrically (and by the same token truthfully), There is a God up there, a magnanimous God, Captain, whatever takes place must be necessary, don’t you agree? The captain takes a few steps, his boots are heard echoing in the gallery. This time God will abandon us, irremediably, we are on the verge of disaster, he says. The woman lets her arms fall. In this country we’ve always been on the verge of disaster. Until the day, adds the captain, until the day that we stop being on the verge and at last we meet our downfall, downfall, downfall (the man emphasizes the word in a way that proves difficult to reproduce here), pay attention to that word, how the transition from the first syllable to the second, from the ow to the a, gives the sensation of going over the precipice. And who says, Captain, that we haven’t fallen already? who says that this Island hasn’t always lived in tragedy, as you say? Ma’am, you are more pessimistic than I am. No, don’t call it pessimism, I know all about dreams that don’t come true, doors that slam shut, paths that get lost, precipices that open up, hurricanes that level, a sea that overflows, a sky that splits in two, the fatalism of destiny, the inevitability of fatalism, I am the Republic, Captain, I wanted to do something I didn’t do, wanted to be somewhere I’m not, I aspired to something I can’t aspire to, I gave birth to an abnormal daughter, a son who understands nothing, I know what it means to have a husband who comes home one vile day, crawls into bed and doesn’t say another word, look at me, Captain, take a good look at me, look at this greying hair, these lusterless eyes, these withered hands, listen to this voice that, unluckily for me, has fallen silent, observe carefully my elderly looks despite my forty years, do you understand, Captain? the Island is me. The captain leans down to the ground, to Irene’s ferns, he’s about to cut a gardenia, and he doesn’t, something stops him. What’s wrong with Chacho? The same as with you, the same as with me, I suppose, Doctor Pinto gave him a checkup and couldn’t find anything physical, he spoke of… I don’t know, I don’t know, Doctor Pinto isn’t sure what my husband has. Captain Alonso squats down to watch a line of ants carrying leaves, petals, insects. And you say he never gets out of bed? The woman stands in thought for a few seconds, then smiles and says, Well, there was one day that Chacho left the bed.
Three or four days ago, early one Sunday, the bells in the great iron gate were ringing. There was no one at the door. At first I thought it might be the gang of kids that go around knocking on doors, or perhaps the Jehovah’s Witnesses with their Bibles and Watchtowers. Yet there was no one on Linea Street. Even the gangs of kids — even the Jehovah’s Witnesses! — respect the melancholy of Sunday mornings. Helena returned to work, she was very busy cleaning the bloodstains off the Cuban flag that Tingo and Sebastián had used to wrap up the Wounded Boy. A while later the bells were ringing again, and again Helena went to see, and this time she found Merengue, who hadn’t gone out with his bead-encrusted white cart even though it was Sunday (great day for sales in the hospitals), looking strange and dejected and sad and silent (and he’s always so rambunctious). Merengue was in the courtyard, placing a vase of butterfly sorrels at the feet of the Victory of Samothrace. Helena knew, naturally, why he was acting so strangely, why he was setting out the bouquet, so she greeted him shortly, she asked him, Have you seen anyone knocking? Merengue looked at her for a moment as if he didn’t understand and then he made an effort to affect his usual tone, at which he was unsuccessful. No, the truth is, I was coming here with this bouquet and I heard the bells ringing, when I got here there wasn’t anybody, not at the door, not on the street. The same thing happened to me, Helena explained, it’s the second time it’s occurred. Must be the wind, whispered Merengue. What wind? you woke up feeling romantic today Merengue couldn’t answer and couldn’t smile; nor could he look at her. He waited for Helena to leave before he knelt down again before the reproduction of the Victory of Samothrace, to whom he wanted to dedicate a Hail Mary. The bells in the iron gate rang again. Merengue turned as quickly as he could and saw nobody. Helena returned, accompanied this time by Irene. The two women even went out into the street. Nobody. There was nobody there. At this hour, at most, a few soldiers were beginning to walk down from the train station toward the Columbia base, it was not, however, very likely to have been them (pardon me, Captain Alonso, no matter how congenial a man is, he loses his sense of humor as soon as he puts on a military uniform; in my opinion, armies come about precisely when human beings become ashamed of laughing, a soldier is a man bereft of everything but hatred and tragedy). When Helena and Irene returned to their houses, to their chores, Merengue knelt down once more before the clay reproduction of the Victory of Samothrace, joined his hands, closed his eyes, prayed, pleaded fervently for Chavito. Then he began to feel that he was levitating, little by little he was levitating from the ground. A great feeling of well-being came over him. He passed above the wooden screen, next to the Apollo Belvedere, overflew the evergreen oaks, the willows, the sacred jagüey, the red sandalwood tree of Ceylon, the mango and soursop trees (the ones that produce the biggest and sweetest fruits, and that Sunday morning their aroma was overwhelming), from up there he saw the fountain with the Boy and the Goose, the Watering Hole, Consuelos Elegguá, he went off into The Beyond, toward Professor Kingston’s house, got to the River, returned along the other side of the Island, past his own house, past Eleusis, and from up in the sky he saw Linea Street and he saw an enormous blue Cadillac turning onto it. Merengue opened his eyes at the feet of the Victory of Samothrace. He turned around with great unction. There stood, yes, there stood the blue Cadillac. He didn’t stand up, he walked on his knees to the great iron gate and started moving it desperately to ring the bells that are set into it, so that everyone would come, would run over and have the joy of seeing who would come out of the blue Cadillac.
First Iraida came out, looking lovely (have you ever seen a more beautiful mulatto than Iraida?). Offspring of Spanish man and black woman, she had perfect coloring, perfect hair, perfect features, a perfect body (though they get tired of explaining it, one will never understand why it is that every inhabitant of the Iberian Peninsula doesn’t run out to find a mate in the African continent — or vice versa — in order to begin to bring about — in the only way possible — the dream of a Better World). As a daughter of Our Lady of Mercy (Obbatalá), she dressed in white, wearing a simple cotton dress that revealed her shoulders, which we
re covered by her hair, sort of like a black woman’s hair, sort of like a white woman’s hair. From the moment Merengue saw her descend from the Cadillac he sensed the aroma of Cotillon perfume that preceded her, as if a legion of Iraidas were announcing the arrival of Iraida. Behind her, of course, came the Greatest Singer in the World, Beny Moré! Merengue shouted in greeting, what a great band you have! In his wide-brimmed hat, his denim overalls, and his red-and-yellow checked shirt, Beny looked thinner than usual, tired, haggard, a little sad despite the smile that never left him. At the sound of the ringing bells, the courtyard filled with people, Helena first, affable as she has rarely been in her life, opening the padlock. Everyone (except Chacho) pressed in to greet Iraida, Woman, you’re beautiful, kissing her, hugging her, and there she was in the center, enchanting, smiling. He stood behind, radiant in his wife’s glow, giving hugs, shaking hands, handing out smiles, with his characteristic greeting, And what about my Cuba? to which everyone replied, flatteringly, As long as you’re here singing, there’s nothing wrong with Cuba. Not even Uncle Rolo could hold back his admiration, and he shouted, The day you die, Beny, the Island will go under. And they passed by the wooden screen, left behind the courtyard, the comfort station, the spittoon and the hat stand, to arrive in front of Merengue’s house, where the necessary rocking chairs appeared, and someone (Casta Diva, I suppose) brought rice pudding, and someone (Helena, I suppose: it wouldn’t be logical to think Irene would leave the Wounded Boy for so long) started brewing coffee. Buva and Pecu hopped onto the singer’s lap in a single bound, he petted them, smiled at them as if cats, too, had to be won over, as if they could have known he was the Greatest Singer in the World. Beny ate rice pudding, drank coffee, and talked about Mexico, about how his band’s tour through there had gone, about his duet with Pedro Vargas. My goodness, with Pedro Vargas! (prolonged applause). The Mexican people really love Cubans, Beny explained, and besides, there you have Ninon Sevilla, Rosita Fornés, María Antonieta Pons, Pérez Prado, Mexico is a frightfully beautiful country, life and death working together, as they should, producing volcanoes and gigantic flowers over there, I feel good in that country, not as good as here, naturally, and I don’t have to explain that, right? being Cuban means you suffer when you’re away, staying in the Island is the only way … Silence. Silence reigned. Then, to break it, Beny struck a beat on the rocking chair arms and sang, Oh but how deliciously lovely Mexican women look dancing mambo …(applause). Fanning herself with her white fan, Iraida stood up, elated, Tell them, Beny, tell them how we met Cantinflas, an enchanting man, refined, elegant, not at all like what you see in the movies, those hilarious entanglements, no, no, a man of culture, he invited us to dine at his house, well, not his house, his mansion, well, not his mansion, his palace, filled with objects of art, so valuable, and I swear, if it hadn’t been for his physical appearance and his way of talking, I would have sworn Cantinflas was English. Irene sat down again, smiling. We also met María Félix, they call her María Bonita for good reason, she’s the most beautiful woman ever born on this planet, and we visited the tombs of Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete, and we placed flowers there and Beny sang to them. Then the Singer interrupted Iraida, who was undoubtedly ready to relate every detail about their visit to the tombs, and asked again, though with a different intonation than he had used when he greeted them by the iron gate, And what about my Cuba?
Thine is the Kingdom Page 13