Within a week, he could barely function. They drove him out of bed with their hectoring in the morning. He received advice at the dinner table every night from his father, his mother, his sister (then nineteen), his grandmother (whether or not she was lucid), and his wife (a woman who had never worked a day in her life). He was sick of everyone, most especially María, who struck him as unbelievably childish, vulgar, impulsive and fat. Why had he agreed to this marriage?
After a month of this, he went to the university with shaking hands. It was August by then, and his old mentor was scheduling classes. He assigned Vladimir a third-year studio. There was a brief armistice in the house; Pucho poured him a glass of Havana Club to toast his new job. Vladimir sipped the rum warily and faced his family in silence, preparing himself for the next bad scene, which came in short order—-Javier sent dishes smashing to the floor. Not an hour went by without shouting or tears. How could he live another day in this intolerable heat, harassment, proximity, friction?
Vladimir's classroom was an enormous ballroom with twenty-foot ceilings, Corinthian columns and formerly magnificent marble floors. His signature was constantly in demand for petitions. There were routine departmental meetings during which the staff was told to work the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Battle of Ideas, the Duties of a Revolutionary, etc., into the day's curriculum. The section leader said that she couldn't be sure his job was secure if he didn't attend Committee meetings, sign petitions and march in weekly demonstrations.
Within a week of the start of school, Vladimir noticed nests of twigs, dolls and patches of fabric at the bases of the columns in his classroom and in spots around the building. When he mentioned it in the staff room, he was hushed by one colleague, and cut dead by another, who walked away while he was speaking to her.
Vladimir happily reconnected with Bebo, who was also teaching in the department. They began having lunch. Some days they split a plate at the cafeteria; at the end of the month, they ate cones of peanuts in the park. Vladimir was determined not to go home for the midday meal.
Two months into the term, one of the deans collapsed in the lunchroom, poisoned by a teacher, who confessed she'd put a drop of smoked cod oil in his coffee in order to get him out of her hair. The dean, who was allergic to fish, died. The teacher was sent to prison, but the little offerings on the columns, stairwells and windowsills remained. Vladimir was afraid to leave a cup of water unattended when he went around the room assessing student work.
After dinner, he often sat with Bebo on the lip of the old dry fountain across from Bebo's building in Centro Habana. Sometimes there was rum; usually not. Bebo had had little action, and was impressed that by law, a twenty-three-year-old like Vladimir could demand sex from his wife every night.
“That assumes that I want it.”
“How could you not?”
“Eat a meal with her and then tell me you're still interested.”
Every day, he looked at María—truly looked at her, sifting through her features, statements and movements—trying to find something attractive about her. In fact, he'd never been particularly attracted to her; he'd started talking to her that first time because she happened to be standing there and he'd just been stood up by someone else. She'd been a bulldozer from the beginning; she'd introduced him as her boyfriend on their second date. In fact, he almost got rid of her the second month when he overheard her referring to Pucho as her father-in-law when talking to a friend. Perversely, Pucho had started taking Vladimir more seriously with the advent of María. When Vladimir mentioned seeing other people, María went on talking as if he hadn't spoken. He'd tried to break up with her on three separate occasions by the time she told him, not bothering to hide her satisfaction, that she was pregnant. It was too heartbreaking to think about.
One night María appeared as he and Bebo sat smoking on the steps by the fountain across from Bebo's. She stood with her hands on her hips.
“What are you doing, talking to this loser,” she demanded. It was unclear if she was addressing him or Bebo. She had put on makeup for this scene, and it was melting in the heat. “You should be at home, with your wife and family.”
He hated her smug passivity.
“In that airless house? With the patriarch behaving like a pig? No thanks. You go: you seem to be in love with him.”
“Ha!” A single note of amazement came from a woman in the second-floor window who had been following their discussion.
“Catch you later, brother,” Bebo said, patting his shoulder.
“You're a disgrace,” María said, raising her voice.
A small crowd had gathered. He wondered if she would become physically violent and make it a show.
“That's right. So why not divorce me, if you're so ashamed and unhappy?”
At this, the first mention of divorce, she burst into tears, just as she would with every subsequent use of the word. She doubled over as if he'd punched her in the stomach. An audience member came to her aid.
“Yes, you deal with her,” Vladimir told the spectators, and walked off. “I have no patience for her anymore. She's a black hole.”
There was whistling and shouting in his wake.
What a mistake, what a weight, what a burden she was! He left the scene, but of course she followed behind him whimpering as he stalked to the Malecón. When could he have a moment of solitude in this fucking country?
The temperature had dropped; a clap of thunder was coming soon. She put her sticky arms around his neck. He peeled her hands off and walked. All he wanted was to sit on the wall and think. But she wouldn't even give him that much space.
Countless people were embarking from these rocks on rafts and tires to reach freedom. An unknowable number had already perished in the process. What was he doing here? He could have stayed in Chicago! He would have been illegal for a time, but so what? He would have been illegal till he was legal. Cuba was perhaps the last bad place you could be from, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service: there were special provisions. You could essentially defect without having to prove you were politically persecuted. They knew all about Fidel Castro at the INS.
He had come home because he was sick of the drum beating constantly in his head: bad son, bad husband, bad father. But all he wanted now was to get away. It was all a big mistake—this girl was a cow! She wasn't even such a great mother: all she did was yell. She spanked Javier with a hairbrush at least once a day. She kissed the child on the mouth! Vladimir was appalled. He wanted to hit her each time she hit the child. They had arguments at night. She asked him, again with the triumphant smile: When had he changed a diaper? When had he picked the child up after a fall? When had he done anything for Javier? What gave him the right to have opinions on how she was raising the child?
Each time he tried to reach within himself to find love or tenderness or at least the resources to deal with the revulsion, she did something more revolting. How could he ever respond positively to her? He hated the sight of her! He hated the sight of her laughing with his father. He didn't want to, but he hated Javier, too. Just for being there, taking up space, making noise, causing chaos.
He'd had friends, and yes, girlfriends in America: he wasn't made of stone. But things were different there, lighter. Perhaps even too light: some people saw their families once a year! People lived alone, with space, with peace and quiet. They weren't bombarded all day long by the needs, shouts, smells and sweaty hands of four generations of demanding family members.
The clap of thunder he'd been expecting shook the waterfront, and the rain began in earnest. He was shortly drenched. He turned and walked straight home, with María alternately trotting at his side to beg his forgiveness, and falling back to groan excessively and curse him out. When they reached the house, he waited outside; he saw her answering questions in the front room. He debated going in for a towel, but decided to skip the interrogation. Any day now, he expected a lecture from his father on how to satisfy his wife.
He r
an to Bebo's and whistled, but no one came out. He spent the night lying sleepless in the darkness on a wet concrete bench outside his classroom. Perhaps there wasn't such a thing as true love. But there had to be something better than this!
It took a full hour to get through to Cuba; by this time he had forgotten why he was calling. His father answered.
“Put Mom on,” Vladimir said.
“Who is this?” Pucho asked.
Vladimir felt a familiar metallic taste in his mouth.
“Well, let's see. How many men call your home asking for ‘Mom’?”
Of course, his father could simply hang up the phone. But he didn't.
“Alicia!” he roared. Vladimir waited. He wondered if his father would speak to him. Pucho had stopped speaking to his own father over politics, so there was historical precedent for this. Vladimir's mother came to the phone.
“Rosa called,” Vladimir said. “She tells me you're unhappy.”
There was silence. Then: “Oh, Vladimir.”
“Just answer yes or no. Do you want to move out?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to go live with your sister?”
“Yes. But there are technicalities.”
The situation had to be pretty terrible if she wanted to move in with her sister and brother-in-law in the middle of nowhere in La Lisa.
“Put him on the phone.”
The phone switched hands. “What,” his father said.
“What kind of technicalities?”
“Ana won't take her,” Pucho said.
“That cannot be true. Put her on,” he said quickly, before his father got wound up. “Mom? Is it true what he just said?”
“Pucho said there may be a problem getting me on her ration card.”
“Put him on.”
The phone switched hands again.
“What,” his father said.
“You can make a single phone call and get Mom on Ana's household card.”
“Maybe Ana used the ration card as an excuse because she didn't want your mother moving in. I don't think she has much space.”
A searing pain sliced his chest. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“Why? I'm doing her a great favor, letting her live here.”
“Bullshit,” Vladimir said, trying to control his anger. He hung up and began dialing his aunt's number.
He got through half an hour later. “Are you up-to-date with Mom?”
“She's living with that monster and his girlfriend.”
“Would you be able to take her in?”
“I would love it!”
“She said there was a problem with the ration card.”
“There won't be a problem,” Ana said. “I know some people. She could move in this weekend.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“We miss you, Vladimir! Why don't you ever come back to visit?”
“You don't have the time to hear that list,” he said.
Placing his next call, Vladimir got through to Cuba on the third try.
His sister answered. “So you don't have a grandmother now?”
Vladimir was immediately on guard. He smelled sulfur, sewers. “What?”
“I read your application to that foundation for a grant,” Nadia said.
“What?”
“Are you alive? Most people hear these things about themselves only after they're dead. And you wrote that stuff about yourself? It's sickening.”
“How is it possible that you read my grant application?”
“Tell me, Vladimir, if you have truly moved on to a new world, why is your Yahoo password c-u-b-a?”
He would not stoop to their level. “Put your mother on the phone.”
Alicia thanked him when he told her the news. He really should call her more often, he reflected. She did deserve better. If only all these other vipers weren't there.
He hung up, changed his password, and called Bebo to tell him about Nadia's e-mail trespass.
“That's my password,” Bebo said, not at all surprised.
It was probably the password of all two million Cubans in exile.
In his e-mail in-box, there was a letter from Elena Gutiérrez Pérez—no doubt another projectile of rhetoric from her daughter Yasmina. He opened it: it was from Elena Gutiérrez Pérez herself. She was writing to tell him that he had insulted her by implying that his correspondence with her daughter over her e-mail account could in any way compromise her. She had a spotless reputation, she wrote, as the Administrative Secretary of the Deputy Chief of the Ministry of Education; she was also a Member in Good Standing of the Federation of Cuban Women, and a Sector Chief of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Anyone reading his letter could come to only one conclusion: He was a disgrace to his country.
Cojones!
In spite of having campaigned with all his strength to go to La Lenin, the top nonmilitary high school where all his friends went, Javier was now enrolled in another camilito school. His grandfather had granite wrapped in flan where his brain should have been.
“Why am I in a military school if I'm not going into the military?”
“Everyone does military service,” Pucho said. “And so will you. You'll have a head start by being a camilito.”
“If you do well in the exams,” Javier said, “you do one year in the military instead of two, and then you go to university.”
“So do well in the exams,” Pucho said, as if the idea were preposterous.
He would get into university, if only to fuck his grandfather over.
His standing at the Camilo Cienfuegos Military High School in El Cotorro was worse than at the one in Capdevila. He was given an extra conduct card, as his bad acts couldn't fit on one card. It read:
At the weekly court-martial, where student conduct was tabulated, he was told to reflect on his contribution to the Revolution, and was sentenced to weekend drudgery. At the barracks, a mimeographed sheet lay on his bed. It read:
Year of the XXXXV Anniversary of the Victory of Playa Girón, The First Great Defeat of Imperialism in Latin America
Your presence is requested next Monday, April 12th, at 15:30 hours. The purpose of this meeting is the interview of the candidate [here the name Javier Hurtado Casares was written on a blank line in pencil] on his qualifications to be a member of the Unión de Jovenes Comunistas (UJC), in the Province of Ciudad de la Ha-bana, Camilo Cienfuegos Military School, El Cotorro Section.
Public humiliation for two conduct cards on a Thursday, and then UJC membership the following Monday? Not possible.
On Monday afternoon at the appointed time, he showed up at the designated classroom, and he tried to be neat. Leticia Gómez, the Section Leader of the Juventud at the school, was sitting with the Principal and two men in their early twenties at the front of the humid room. Javier saw Pucho chatting with his Marxism teacher, who had caught him smoking in an inappropriate area. The meeting began with formal introductions, and he began to sweat on his forehead.
“As you are fully aware,” the UJC Municipal Director said, “being a Member of the Union of Young Communists is an honor. Joining is voluntary and selective. Your record has been examined, and a recommendation has been made to the Chief of the Base Core.”
Javier felt sweat on the back of his knees.
The UJC officer then read aloud a list of Necessary Attributes of a Communist Youth, adding, “To be a part of the New Generation of Rebel Youth, you must always be in the Vanguard, mindful of the legacy of Our Heroes and Martyrs, who started the unceasing Struggle against Imperialism. Leticia, would you like to continue?”
Javier felt sweat breaking out under his arms and on his back.
“You must train yourself to think proper thoughts, to have coherent ideas,” Leticia Gómez declared. “You must understand your role and have total consciousness of what we defend. You must be efficacious in each and every working day!”
His mouth and throat were dry.
�
�You will join the struggle of anti-imperialism, without forgetting, as our dear Commander-in-Chief, Fidel, has taught us, the secret lies in the Unity of forces, now more than ever!” She finished on a ringing note, and there was a round of polite grunting. The Division Director suddenly focused on Javier.
“Your father is a traitor and a worm. What do you think of him?”
Javier cleared his throat. “I don't see how that's relevant.”
“We decide what's relevant,” the Director said, leaning forward for emphasis. “Why do you want to be a member of the Juventud?”
“I don't.”
He felt, rather than saw, his grandfather sit up and look around, as if to catch someone's eye whom he could command to change what was wrong.
“I don't think I can be the kind of candidate you're looking for,” he said, sweating in his groin now. “I respect the institution, so I don't want to waste your time. I'm just not that kind of Revolutionary material.”
There was silence in the room. Leticia looked at him as if he'd announced he slept on a bed of live snakes. The Principal nodded; he'd been the one who caught him urinating behind the auditorium. “Thank you for your honesty,” he said. “Are you sure?”
“Completely sure.”
The Principal cast a glance over his head. “Well, then, that's all.”
Everyone got up to leave. Pucho continued to sit at the school desk. Javier walked out of the classroom without looking at him.
He went to his barracks, where two guys were playing cards on the shady side of the room. He lay down on his bed and waited. He was starving. His life loomed ahead: hunger, boredom and confrontation. It was just a matter of time.
The barracks doors banging open sounded like gunshots.
Don't Make a Scene Page 15