Made in Saturn

by Rita Indiana

  Independencia Avenue was packed with minibuses and conchos and they were honking their horns incessantly, as if the unbearable noise might unravel the blocks-long traffic jam. The driver of the concho Argenis was traveling in got out to try to make out the cause of the problem in the distance. But the problem was very far away and the driver saw how dozens of others like him were also getting out of their cars to look ahead. They had been stuck there, unmoving, for half an hour under a deluge of curses the passengers were hurling down at the country, the drivers, the government, their own lives.

  Argenis got out and stepped onto the sidewalk to walk to the tailor’s shop. It was only a few blocks. When he got to the cemetery, those responsible for the traffic jam – some employees of the Electric Company – were up on a service truck’s ladder in the middle of the street, repairing a transformer. It was common for the transformers to explode and leave several blocks without electricity. A high-voltage cable had broken and fallen into the street, and a couple of technicians had roped it off. The ones who were up on the ladder were illuminating their work with lights from their hard hats—the last rays of the sun would go down at any moment.

  Arzobispo Nouel Street looked dark and desolate, lit only by the lights from a colmado fed by an emergency generator. An old woman was assiduously sweeping outside the front of the tailor shop. Argenis thought it might be the mother or aunt of the tailor, but the woman, who had one eye half closed, kept sweeping until she got to the corner, then turned and disappeared. The workshop looked empty. Presumably, when he’d heard the news of the power outage, Loudón had called his clients to tell them not to come. It was dinnertime and one of his assistants was eating a plate of spaghetti with bread; she was sitting in the doorway to take advantage of the light from the colmado. It smelled of tomato sauce and cheese. In a nasal voice the woman told him that Orestes was inside.

  To make it possible to work, Orestes had placed a number of candles in the four corners of the room. One was on his sewing machine, one hung over the wardrobe where he kept the pieces that were ready to be picked up, one on the bottle of the water dispenser, and the fourth right on the floor. They all surrounded a round rug that looked black by candlelight, but could have been purple or navy blue. Under the light from the water-bottle candle, Loudón was tossing a spoonful of black powder into a plastic jar. “It’s charcoal,” he told Argenis, dividing the contents into two glasses. Offering him one, he said, “Drink; this absorbs everything that’s of no use.” When Argenis, confused, brought it to his mouth, he added, “It’s good for your stomach.”

  Orestes Loudón emptied his own in one slow, silent gulp. One drop escaped from between his lips and traced a black line, which could have been red, down to his throat. Argenis, who drank his murky water in sips, felt the hairs on his head, which he had shaved that morning along with his beard, stand up.

  The power outage had shut off the fans and Loudón took his shirt off to cool down. When he came over to take back the empty glass, Argenis saw scars on his hands that extended like gloves of wrinkled skin up to his shoulders, as if the man had stuck both his arms into hot lava. His chest was covered by very black curly hair that dipped below his belt and, although he didn’t look like a weakling, his shoulder blades stuck out from his back like the mounds of dead roots big trees left in the ground many years after being cut down.

  As the tailor took the nearly finished suit from its plastic cover, a cold wind blew through the window, agitating the candle flames and projecting dancing shadows onto the walls. The suit and shirt were white: it was a tropical suit, like the ones diplomatic protocol required for certain receptions, and the ones kids with villas at Casa de Campo used for their parties at the marina. Argenis had never worn a suit like that – in fact, the only time he had worn a suit jacket at all it had been an old one of his brother’s, which he wore for Leonel Fernández’s presidential inauguration.

  It was a one-button jacket with pointy lapels, and the pants were cut straight and narrow. Dazzled by this marvel, Argenis stood in the middle of the circular rug, where he undressed in just as much of a hurry as his father had done twenty years earlier, and kicked his clothes and shoes far away, opening his arms into a cross so that the suit’s creator could help him into it. Once Argenis had it on, Loudón moved the candles in front of the wall mirror so that, multiplied by the reflection, they could light his client more intensely. Then he made Argenis turn around and look at himself while he took some pins from a beat-up, apple-shaped pincushion, deftly sticking their ends between his teeth.

  Under that primitive light Argenis looked like an apparition, a cut-out silhouette on a black background, the very spirit of elegance. He thought of The Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest by El Greco and, like that man, he put his hand on his solar plexus like someone taking an oath.

  Loudón asked him to raise his arms again so he could use the pins to mark the spots that needed adjustment: the shoulders, the waist, the hem. The tailor went about his work in silence, allowing his client to remain standing before himself. This really was a work of art, Argenis thought, admiring the exquisite cut, the symmetry of the parts, the fall of the fabric over his limbs, the way in which the white contrasted with his bronze-colored mulatto’s skin. For the first time since he had graduated from Chavón he felt he was part of a relevant creative process, that this new Argenis, the one who peered at him from the mirror, was his concept, his work of art, the new man, as Che Guevara used to say – and here he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle.

  With the laughter and movement, the pin Loudón was putting into the waistband pricked Argenis a little. “This one’s the first of many,” Loudón said. “You’ll see how quickly you’ll get to like going around like this.” Argenis felt light, capable of anything, capable above all of visiting his father and asking him for money, a job, attention. Dressed this way it was impossible to imagine wasting his talent for drawing on women with black eyes who had no real interest in fine arts. A feeling of disdain for his aunt’s world made him lift his chin and he looked at the noble profile that his mother’s genes had bestowed on him, the stomach that addiction had smoothed, the height that surpassed that of his father and his brother, the slanted, feline eyes and the long-fingered, expressive hands that his past lovers had so praised.

  Something made a noise in the outer room. “The cat, hunting mice,” said Loudón, now without pins in his mouth, as he took two steps back to contemplate his work and to smile, showing all his teeth, some of them pearly, and one golden like the morning star.

  The door opened behind them and José Alfredo Luna entered. Argenis felt a strange calmness inside and it didn’t matter to him if it was a coincidence or if Loudón had set up the meeting. If it had been a mother and daughter, a seamstress would have praised her client: “Look how pretty your daughter is,” “She looks like a princess.” But these were men, and Loudón remained silent, contenting himself with moving his eyebrows and subtly nodding toward Argenis to show José Alfredo what he had achieved.

  Argenis also remained silent as he spun around, with José Alfredo’s same smile, with José Alfredo’s same almond-shaped eyes, lifting his butt the way his father had once done, too, incarnating for his father an impossible vision of himself, a vision of life and hope, of youth, swollen with blood, claiming its place in the world. And that vision of his fingers on another hand, his lips on another face, suddenly sucked the life from José Alfredo. He felt like a container, useful only for his experiences, like a señor, like a fucking old man. He dropped into the white plastic chair by the door like a sack of potatoes. The electricity came back on, to the general rejoicing of the barrio and the noisy tears of José Alfredo. Argenis finally dropped his pose and kneeled in front of his father to wipe away his tears and say, “Papi, you’re the man. I’m here, with you. I love you.”

  Loudón asked him to take off the suit so he could finish it and, giving them each a glass of water, sent them off to sit in the waiting room. An old bachata,
“Medicina de Amor,” was playing in the colmado across the way. The only thing he and his father agreed on was their hatred for bachata. Argenis closed the door onto the street, but it did not prevent the noisy guitar from filtering through the woodwork. His old man had removed the gold-framed glasses he always wore. His eyes had bags underneath, crow’s feet, and little cream-colored warts. They looked like the eyes of a gremlin. He appeared tired and defenseless after months of dirty campaigning, intrigue, hustling. Like always, the triumph of his party had cost him tears, blood, and a significant portion of dignity. Age had come upon him and Argenis, seeing his father defeated by biology, couldn’t even recall the thirst for vengeance he had felt only a few hours earlier.

  “Son, what happened in Cuba – let me explain,” he tried to tell Argenis, but Argenis got ahead of him and said, “Don’t worry, Dad. Everything’s fine.” Just like on that distant afternoon when he had guided his father into the tailor shop, he felt compassion, a need to take care of him. His father owed him a suit, a pair of sneakers, a bunch of stuff – but he owed his father his life, a life that in Orestes Loudón’s waiting room seemed to him immense and full of pleasures still to be discovered. That impeccable suit had awoken an unknown pride within him; that stitched-together fabric not only made him look distinguished and attractive, but also had restored the world to him in a lustrous splendor. He felt the vigorous thrust of his youth, recognized a richness in his young age that his father and Loudón both envied, and that tender envy made him feel powerful.

  Loudón appeared with the suit on a plastic-covered hanger and, when José Alfredo made as if to pull out his wallet, he explained that his son had already paid. The bureaucrat put his wallet back in his jacket pocket and went out onto the street, holding Argenis’s hand as if he were a child. José Alfredo’s driver brought the black Lexus SUV up to the sidewalk and got out to open the door for them. José Alfredo let his son get in first, then the suit, and then finally climbed in himself. Another bachata, this one by Aventura, ruined the moment’s perfection, but as soon as José Alfredo closed the door behind him and both of them were inside the luxurious vehicle Romeo Santos’ voice disappeared completely, as if by magic.

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  Avocado stuffed with crab

  Crab legs with garlic and parsley

  Shrimp in vinegar

  Tuna carpaccio

  Grilled squid

  Shrimp cocktail

  Crab cocktail

  Galician-style imported octopus

  Half dozen Blue Point oysters

  Spanish tortilla

  Just reading the appetizer menu of the Don Pepe restaurant made Argenis’s throat start to itch. His father had forgotten that he was allergic and ordered one of everything for the table, to share with Pellín and Aquiles, two old buddies who, like José Alfredo, now worked at the National Palace. Argenis said nothing, waiting for the Spanish tortilla and the French wine his father had ordered with the only French he had. He had known Pellín and Aquiles since he was a baby, from the meetings his father had held at their home when he was still married to Etelvina. Back then they had hidden their bony faces behind beards that emulated Fidel’s and wore guayabera shirts eaten up by the kind of sweat known only to Caribbean pedestrians. They were broke, jobless, and they fell on the sancocho stew Etelvina made for them as if they hadn’t eaten in years.

  They ate now with that same desperation, and his father – even though he had better manners than they did, thanks to his second wife – slurped his oysters noisily. They talked with their mouths full – about their golden years, their dead comrades, the hard times they’d endured in the mountains, Cuba, as if they had to justify their excessive appetites to Argenis. Pellín nudged José Alfredo with his elbow, since his hand was dirty, and told Argenis, “Your father was a daredevil. His pulse never went up at all, not like these fags.” Argenis wondered what fags they were talking about. Was a contingent of fags trying to topple the government? Pellín and Aquiles disgusted him. They were creatures lacking any grace, leeches who survived by attaching themselves to any possibility of notoriety. Their premium linen suits and chubby wrists adorned with heavy Bulova watches added a picturesque touch to the ensemble, something historical and clinical, like Velázquez’s dwarves.

  When the lobsters thermidor arrived, as monstrous as their consumers, he felt a bit embarrassed and recognized the disapproving looks directed their way by the old-money white guys at neighboring tables. This is the Dominican Revolution, he told himself with a shank of lamb in his mouth. So much blood spilled, just to eat lobster. His father was obsessed with lobsters. One time, when they were on vacation at Tony Catrain’s house in Las Terrenas, he had made them stand barefoot on the burning hot sand of the beach at midday. Ernesto had spit out a piece of lobster. Since Argenis was allergic he didn’t have to eat it, but his father had punished the two of them, just as he and his comrades had been punished when they were all in prison during the first few years of Balaguer’s dictatorship.

  José Alfredo would pardon anything, except their turning their noses up at their food. Ernesto had a good appetite, but he hated shellfish. José Alfredo had made him pick up the lobster he’d thrown on the floor and swallow it. When Argenis saw his brother chew that blob with grains of sand on it, his eyes filled with tears.

  “Do you know what your dad ate in jail?” José Alfredo asked them. “Do you know what chow is?” Tony Catrain had sent Charlie to his room to save him from the scene and tried unsuccessfully to intercede on behalf of the children: “José Alfredo, leave them alone, they’re kids.”

  “Chow, you ingrates,” José Alfredo continued, “was a concoction made of leftovers, ground-up rice, chicken claws, the prison guards’ phlegm and snot, really delicious. And they made your daddy drink it down, and if he complained he had to swallow an entire potful, along with a couple of kicks to the balls.” Ernesto started gagging. “Swallow it, damn it,” José Alfredo ordered. Tony Catrain watched them from the patio, both hands on his waist. Ernesto tried to swallow twice, and the third time everything he had ingested since breakfast came out of his mouth. In the vomit, you could recognize bits of scrambled egg and Choco Rica. The horrible leather sandals with thin socks that José Alfredo used for the beach disgusted Argenis even more than his brother’s vomit on the sand. He raised his head, and looking his father in the eyes, said, “I’m going to tell Mami.”

  Etelvina never went away with them during Holy Week. She stayed in the capital, taking a break from the boys, from José Alfredo, from school. Argenis knew his father would never have dared to do this in front of her, and he knew who won the shouting matches that back then his parents had almost every night. Transformed by the words of his youngest son, José Alfredo went to Ernesto with a concerned expression and asked, “Are you OK?” It was obvious he wasn’t. He picked up Ernesto’s little ten-year-old body and laid it on the sofa in the living room, made him an anise tea, and had Argenis fan him with a folder. Tony Catrain didn’t invite them to Las Terrenas ever again.

  His father told the anecdote and his friends guffawed loudly. Argenis laughed too. Ernesto was a son of a bitch who no longer roused any sympathy in him. The noise bothered the other customers – their bursts of laughter were even more annoying to the Dominican petit bourgeoisie than the Molotovs they’d thrown in the Autonomous University in 1970. In the midst of the laughter, a grain of rice from Pellín’s mouth landed on Argenis’s plate. Although he still had his shank of lamb, Argenis considered the food finished.

  The memory of his grandmother cleaning the rice wormed its way into his body. It wasn’t a two-dimensional image – she was there with him. Consuelo was smiling impishly, showing her missing tooth, and, holding a tiny stone she had just extracted between her fingers, she said, “In this world, there are those who clean it, and those who eat it.” Was she talking about the rice, or the world? Argenis had no idea. His father’s friends were grinning vacantly at him like marionettes as they licked the tips of fingers thick
as sausages. He felt nauseous and excused himself to go to the bathroom, where he urinated and threw some water on his face, his neck, his wrists. He looked into the mirror and felt better. As he pushed down on the soap dispenser he thought of Susana. How she would marvel over his father’s table, over that liquid soap that never stopped flowing.

  When he came out of the bathroom, he saw José Alfredo enjoying a crème brûlée, and at the next table a waiter was seating a pair of attractive forty-somethings. The man wore his hair gelled back, a polo shirt and khaki shorts; the woman a strapless linen tube dress. It was Giorgio Menicucci and his wife, Linda Goldman. Three years ago they had given Argenis a scholarship on the north coast. He didn’t have to do anything except paint and pay attention to the Cuban curator they had brought over. Argenis didn’t keep his side of the bargain. He had had a nervous breakdown, made himself ridiculous. When they kicked him out he came back to the capital in such bad condition that his father had him committed to the mental health ward of the UCE that same day. He didn’t want them to see him. He wanted the earth to swallow him up.

  Giorgio got up from his chair, took two strides, and put his hand on José Alfredo’s shoulder, who greeted him with an affection Argenis knew was feigned. He felt embarrassed by the airs his father gave himself whenever rich white people said a word to him. Then Giorgio looked at Argenis and, without greeting Pellín or Aquiles, opened his arms as if waiting for a hug. It would have been very awkward not to return the gesture. “Can I borrow the maestro for a few minutes?” he asked José Alfredo, referring to Argenis with a mock nineteenth-century courtesy which José Alfredo, passing a dirty napkin from one hand to the other, also failed to detect.

  Maestro. He had called him maestro. He could only be called that as a joke or with the intention to hurt. He hadn’t painted a thing in years. Nevertheless, Giorgio was looking at him with something more akin to admiration than pity. It was strange; Argenis didn’t know what to attribute it to. Giorgio’s gestures were careful and respectful toward him, and his wife’s eyes sparkled when she greeted him. They asked where he had been and he invented some experimental performance art he’d done in Havana: “Some research into the limits of the socialist body,” he said. He was talking like Susana, and they loved it.