Thine is the Kingdom

by Abilio Estevez

  You do well to take a stroll through the bamboo, Rolo, to look at the old watering hole and to stop for a moment in front of Consuelo's Elegguá, whom you will once more ask to open up the roads for you. He continues to the statue of that skinny woman (Chavito says it’s Diana), walks into The Beyond. Look, there go Vido and Tingo-I-Don’t-Get-It, flying kites. (Sebastián is going with Marta toward the sea.) You’d do well to go where they’re going. Go ahead, please, and forget that Sandokán exists. After all, he isn’t the only beautiful man in the world.

  The fact is that Sandokán hasn’t come by in days and Rolo doesn’t know what to do. He can’t send him a message, Sandokán has taken the precaution of never revealing where he lives. Rolo supposes that his mother must live in back of the Military Hospital: many times he has seen Sandokán taking that route, getting lost among the officers’ little houses. He shouldn’t discard the possibility, however, that this may be a way of throwing him off track, given that it is also true that he disappears many times down Linea Street going toward the train station, and other times, going through the pastures; there are even afternoons when you can see him cut through the Island toward The Beyond. Sandokán is clever. He knows little about Sandokán, so little that he doesn’t even know his real name. Helena has warned him, It’s dangerous to let that man enter your life, enter your house, enter the Island. Rolo replies, I can’t help it, Helena, I can’t. Of course he can’t tell his sister the reason why he can’t help it, even if it’s easy to deduce, he can’t say this man means a lot to him, he changed my life, not because he arouses my love but because of something much more serious, it’s a whim, and there’s nobody like him for making me feel that this wretched body to which I must unfortunately attach the possessive adjective, this worthless body of mine, is an object of desire. There has never been anybody like Sandokán to make him feel the reality and the desires of his body Whole zones of his body had been asleep until Sandokán arrived. Whole zones of his spirit were benumbed as well, just waiting for someone like him. He met him more than a year ago, on one of those nights when desire came between him and the bed and made rest impossible. Rolo already knew that on nights like this the only thing to do was to abandon the bed and go out to the train station, in whose urinals he always could sense the urine of some generous soldier willing to let his generosity be fondled. That night, however, even though there were two hieratical soldiers instead of one in the urinals (he suspected they were fondling and smooching each other), Rolo couldn’t stop looking at that unique specimen, with the profile of a Greek vase, a classical torso (he was shirtless), an athlete’s legs (he was wearing short frayed pants), barefoot, crying in a corner. He produced such an impression on him that, breaking his cautious habits, he walked straight up to him. Young man, why are you crying? The young man looked up quickly and said nothing. Rolo sat down beside him. Cry if that makes you happy, but I’m advising you: tears don’t solve anything, and he dared to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, atop a tattooed acanthus leaf. Do you want to come home with me? I can offer you a cup of coffee, a glass of rum, as you prefer, you could also take a shower and rest, we can talk if you’d like, I know more of life than you do, the devil’s smart because he’s old, not because he’s the devil. The young man wiped his nose with his hands and then rubbed his fingers on the wall to dry them. He looked at Rolo with curiosity, almost smiling despite his tear-reddened eyes, and he asked with the best-timbraled voice in the world, Where do you live, old man? And Rolo wanted to say, Very near here, but his voice wouldn’t leave his throat and he could only make a gesture with his hand. The young man straightened out his short pants, dried his tears, and left the station followed by Rolo. When they got to the house, to avoid people’s gazes and indiscreet comments he didn’t go to the Great Iron Gate, rather he decided to enter through Eleusis. It amused him to see that specimen looking with surprise and a bit of terror at the books. At the same time he felt a touch of rage. He couldn’t stand to see laymen looking at books, he felt that literature was a mystery, and insofar as it was a mystery, for initiates only With some impatience, therefore, he led the young man toward the house. Come along, you can’t shower or sleep in this sanctum sanctorum. When they were in the living room, the boy sat down in a little rocker and picked up the bust of la Malibrán. You run the library? Rolo took the small bust from his hand and didn’t answer. He looked for a clean towel. It isn’t a library; what would you like to eat? The boy’s eyes, no longer reddened, were looking dark and lively Whatever ya got. Not what I got, what I have. Okay, a piece of bread. He was about to take off his pants in the living room, thought about it for a second, and went dressed into the bathroom. God, Rolo thought, he’s more beautiful than young Flandrin. He prepared a supper (bread, cheese, sausage, ham, olives, and ice-cold beers) while getting excited listening to the sounds of the shower. There was a noticeable difference between the sound the shower made when it hit the floor and the one it made when it flowed over a body You could tell when a person was showering and when he was soaping up. You could think that when he wasn’t showering, he was doing other things. The wait was also exciting. He approached the bathroom door. Can I hand you the soap? He didn’t hear or didn’t want to answer. He sang, Our kisses were like fire, romancing with desire … At last he came out of the bath with the towel tied around his waist. They sat at the table like that. He hadn’t dried himself well, his hair was sopping and his body was sprinkled with drops of water. He looked white and handsome, with those long sideburns that end in a perfect diagonal. His mood seemed to have changed magically Hey, old man, this is a banquet, he exclaimed with a mouth full of ham. Rolo opened two beers. He served them in a pair of mugs that said in red letters: HATUEY, THE GREAT BEER OF CUBA. He quickly drank from his own before Rolo had time to clink mugs, so that the gesture was left hanging in the air and the word Cheers on the point of being spoken. What’s your name? The boy smiled, evaded, ate sausage, olives, drank beer, before explaining, It doesn’t matter, old man, they call me Sandokan. So you’re from Malaysia, Rolo joked. No, the other replied seriously, I was born in Caraballo and I grew up in Marianao. Rolo found a washrag and began to dry his back for him. Busy eating, Sandokan not only allowed him, he even helped him by moving his torso and lifting his arms. Afterward Rolo rubbed lavender water on his neck, on his arms, especially there where he had the tattooed acanthus leaf, and in his sweetest voice asked him, Stay here tonight, I wouldn’t like for you to leave, it’s too late, something could happen to you, these are bad times … and he went into the bathroom as if he wanted to take a shower, and what he did instead was take Sandokán’s dirty cutoff pants, his cotton underwear that must have once been white, and caress them, smell them: no one who’s even halfway sensitive should doubt that the sweat of a beautiful man is finer than the most expensive perfume in Paris.

  You do well to stay there, sitting on a rock, watching Tingo fly his kite. Anything that helps you forget Sandokán is good. Tingo, who sees you, comes running over and says, You know what I’m doing with the kite? I’m mailing a letter to God, Sebastián and me tied, you know, the paper, the letter, to the kite tails, and since kites go up and up and up we’re sure He’ll read them and we hope He’ll write back to us right on the kites but Miss Berta told us God’s too busy and He doesn’t answer like that. Whose idea was this? Who do you think, Uncle Rolo? Sebastian’s. Might one inquire what you have asked of God? Tingo looks in every direction, unties the letter and hands it to Rolo. Uncle opens the paper and reads: Dear God, we hope You are feeling well when You receive this letter. We, Your children, are fine, though we would like to beg You: Don’t destroy the Island, don’t punish us! Good or bad, this Island is all You have let us have. So just think, what would we do without it? Hoping for Your generosity we are, Yours.

  Tingo keeps on flying the kite and he doesn’t know why. Sebastián told him to do it to send a message to God. Except Tingo doesn’t know what a message is, much less who God is. I don’t get Sebastian’s messag
e either, you know, Sebastián thinks of the strangest things. Sometimes Tingo gets tired and lets the kite fall dead. And he wonders what sense it could make to fly the kite. It’s like the other day when Miss Berta said the earth was round and that it spun around the sun. Tingo doesn’t get how the earth could be round, how it could spin around the sun. Nor does he get how Miss Berta could know that, much less what he’s supposed to do from now on with this information. It’s like flying kites to send messages to God. Before I knew the earth was round, I could walk as good as could be, now that I know it’s round I can still walk as good as can be, I don’t get tired, I don’t get seasick, nothing’s different, my father’s still lying in bed not talking, my mother still cries and complains all the time, my sister Tatina laughs and pees, and all that happens with or without the roundness of the earth, and the truth is there’s a lot of stuff I don’t get, for example, why is my mamá my mamá? why not Helena or I-don’t-know-who? why aren’t I a flower or an ant? why do I have to sleep at night and not during the day? why sleep with your eyes closed? why doesn’t the sun come out at night and the moon during the day? why do I have to eat just to crap it out later? why take a bath if I’m dirty, and get dirty so I can take a bath? why get dressed if they say I was born bare naked? why is it if I want to talk I have to talk? why is it if I want to be quiet I have to shut up? why do my mamá and my papá argue when they don’t agree? why don’t they argue when they do agree? why do trees make shade? why is it, if trees make shade, I have to live in a house? I don’t get it, and everything seems to indicate that the only one who doesn’t get it is me, of course, there’s no difference between getting it and not getting it, otherwise I’d be different, I’d have just one eye, just one ear, just one arm, just one leg, and it’s not like that, I’m the same as everybody else, I sleep, I talk, I eat, I piss and crap like everybody else, which proves that someone who gets it is the same as someone who doesn’t, so I can tell you one thing as easily as I can tell you the other, you know, for me everything we see isn’t what’s there, it’s what isn’t there, I’ll try to explain, what’s there is something different from what you can see, that is, I’m going to give you an example so you’ll understand (if you’re one of the ones who understand, because what if you’re like me), I see a tree, a royal palm let’s say, well the truth is that this royal palm is what I can see, not what exists, what exists is something else that I take to be a royal palm, look, what I’m trying to tell you is that there’s a veil between my eyes and the real stuff, which is the other fake stuff that we take to be real, get it? of course, that doesn’t change anything either, it’s like knowing that the earth spins, in the end, you know, what I can see is the royal palm, and what’s really there behind the royal palm I can’t see, so forget it, it doesn’t matter.

  In front of the bust of Martí, at the entrance to Miss Berta’s classroom, Rolo finds a bouquet of roses and, a little lower down, a bunch of bananas tied with a red ribbon. My country, so young, how can you define it, Rolo declaims in a querulous tone, and instead of walking down the gallery he continues through trees and crotons, ferns and herbs, rosebushes and creepers, passing the Hermes of Praxiteles, the bust of Greta Garbo, and reaches Irene’s house. Although the house is open, Irene is not to be seen. Nobody offering coffee? Rolo asks in a loud voice. Irene appears at the door of her kitchen, drying her hands on her apron, unsmiling, looking as if she’s had a bad night. If I offer you some coffee, what will you give me in return? What you most desire: a memory! Irene is ready to embrace Rolo. An intelligent character, after all, he realizes that Irene is feeling bad, that she wants to embrace him, and since besides being intelligent he is a character who has fits of clairvoyance, he looks in her living room and finds the stuffed falcon; he knows he shouldn’t ask and for that very reason he asks, Who did it belong to? knowing full well that he will provoke the same anguish in Irene as when she found the falcon, an important falcon in her personal history, but whose importance Irene has forgotten. I don’t know, Rolo, you know very well that I don’t know who it belonged to. What’s wrong with you, woman? If I only knew … someone’s set on making me forget, soon I’ll forget my own name. Rolo hugs her. Controlling her desire to cry, Irene asks him, Come on into the kitchen, I just made coffee a little while ago.

  We can spare ourselves the description of the moment they enter the kitchen to have a cup of coffee. What matters isn’t that Irene and Rolo are drinking coffee from uncomfortable, sophisticated porcelain cups shaped like birds with little feet that are useless for balancing them on the saucers, what matters is that Irene reveals that this morning she forgot she had the Wounded Boy in her house, and she didn’t come to give him his six A.M. treatment. Past nine o’clock, by chance she entered the room he sleeps in, and the worst part wasn’t finding him there, but not knowing for a few minutes who he might be.

  There lies the Wounded Boy. Sleeping, gently breathing, the perfect incarnation of the Tropical Gypsy, with a face Victor Manuel would kneel down before. Rolo draws near as if he is in church before an image of the Descent from the Cross. He passes his hand across the boy’s forehead, cool and slightly sweaty. What’s your name? he asks, knowing full well he won’t reply. The Wounded Boy, nonetheless, moves his right hand almost imperceptibly. What’s your name? The Wounded Boy blinks, moves his lips. The window is open and it’s as if the afternoon doesn’t exist in the outskirts of the Island. Could someone really be playing, on some piano, to the point of exhaustion, something (Schumann?) that Rolo cannot identify? Rolo takes the Wounded Boy’s hands in his own. What’s your name? He opens his eyes, now he’s really opening his eyes and Rolo thinks he’s looking at him. What’s your name? He smiles with those lips that Victor Manuel would have to kneel down to. Scheherazade, he exclaims in a weak voice, my name is Scheherazade.

  Where are you taking me? Marta asks. To the sea, Sebastián replies, we’re going to sit down by the shore of the sea.

  III

  The Faithful Dead

  The sea, Sebastián, can you hear it? close your eyes, that way you’ll hear it like I do, you have to close your eyes, sight is such a powerful sense that if you don’t close your eyes you won’t be able to hear it, if you only knew, I used to live facing it, after the death of my father, when we had to leave Melania and the kingdom of Lalisia, my uncle Leandro brought us to his house on the beach at Jaimanitas (which we called Typee), even though my eyes were starting to dry up they were still alive then, I could see the sea, those were the best years of my life, despite the fainting spells and the constant thirst I lived with, it’s bad to be thirsty all the time, Sebastián, it’s like living in the desert, your mouth dry, your throat dry, thirsty, and despite that, believe me, I was happy, Uncle Leandro was the only man I had met who had ever gone past the horizon and been off the Island, and more important, his absence was called India, for me India was gigantic rivers, crowds performing ablutions and chants in the gigantic rivers, marble palaces, golden temples, painted elephants, and one man, my uncle, meditating in the middle of a downpour, with the help of a snake, the mystery of that trip persisted in Uncle Leandro ‘s eyes, all those palaces and temples and rivers and forests were in Uncle Leandro’s eyes, and that fascinated me.

  And perhaps this is not the proper place to call attention (though in the end it will have to be done on some page of the book) to the fact that there’s nothing so enchanting for an inhabitant of the islands as knowing that someone has dared to break through the encirclement of the sea, has overcome the fate of the horizon, someone has been outside and learned what the world is. For an inhabitant of the islands, traveler is synonymous with wizard; travel synonymous with good fortune.

  Facing the sea at Typee, Marta first felt the desire to travel. Sometimes they could see ships in the distance. For any islander, a ship (one that plies the seas, of course, this isn’t about the grounded ship that is an island) constitutes the most sublime image of freedom. A ship cutting through the water is the symbol of hope. If it arrives, yo
u should caress it to get the smell and the air of other lands on your hands. If it sails off, you should caress it so that the smell and the air of other lands will know our hands exist. Marta bid farewell to the ships with a handkerchief, in the certainty that someday she would be the one who would see, through tears of joy, the handkerchiefs along the seashore. She would go off, away to cities with promising names, and in Paris, Liverpool, Salzburg, or Santiago de Compostela she would finish becoming a woman. What happened, however, was that little by little the ships grew blurry in the distance, and she would ask Mercedes, What’s that out there, far off? A ship, her sister would answer in surprise. The sea also faded, changing colors little by little (so calmly that it was only much later that she realized it) until it became a reddish expanse. India disappeared from the eyes of Uncle Leandro. Her uncle’s eyes disappeared. As did those of Mercedes and her mother. Their faces dissolved into hues as reddish as the sea s. The sea grapes no longer were trees; before they were definitively hidden, they turned into black structures. The mirror also began to hide her own image from her. One morning there was no image in the mirror. Another morning, there was no mirror. A weaker and weaker resplendence distinguished day from night. Not knowing how, her legs adopted a stealthy pace, and her hands began to stretch out, to specialize in touch. It was as if her hands were thinking for themselves. Writing, for example, turned into something her hands did on their own, forming larger and more directionless letters every day. So it happened that one morning Marta felt she had woken up nowhere. Her eyes opened to a dark, nearly black redness, and she felt alone, more alone than she ever had. Despite the fact that being an adolescent, after all, the majority of things were not very clear to her, she somehow instinctively knew that it was unfortunate enough and imprisoning enough to live on an island, not to have to lose as well the only sense that allowed her to be aware that other men and countries existed.