The card players scurried to attention. In his uniform, with magnificent posture, Pucho entered, looked them over in an arrogant fashion, and passed on to Javier's bed. How wonderful to walk into a room and make everything stop.
Pucho waited, giving him the stony, fleshy stare.
Javier sat up, but didn't stand. He pulled his new conduct card out of his pocket and held it out for demerits.
“Outside.” Pucho pivoted and left the barracks with a banging of doors.
Javier found him sitting on a bench outside the dining hall.
“You humiliated me in there,” Pucho said.
Javier sat down next to him. “I was trying to do the honorable thing.”
“Joining is the honorable thing. You'd make contacts, you'd get points.”
“It would be hypocritical for me to join.”
Pucho gave his head an impatient shake. “You could be a great Revolutionary, if you tried. You don't try. And I don't understand why.”
The school's stray trotted over. Pucho clapped his hands at the dog to make it go away. The dog followed the order. “Do you know what I had to do to get them to consider your application? After you were expelled? Twice?”
“If you had asked me, I would have told you that the last thing I want is to be a member of the Juventud. But you never ask!”
“You think you're smart, but you're only hurting yourself. Pretty soon you'll be putting your family in jeopardy.” He stood up. “I think you fucked yourself but good this time. But go to the Principal and tell him you're sorry.”
“For what?”
“Do what I tell you. No arguments.”
“I'm not a Young Communist, I don't know how else to say it! And there's nothing you can do to make me one.”
“Cojones! You never learn.”
“We want a peaceful event,” warned a young, stocky cop with an Irish name and an open face, who was guarding the barricades across from the Cuban Mission.
“This protest will be silent,” Vladimir announced.
Relief and surprise passed over the cop's face.
Vladimir wore a sign with a photo of Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodríguez. CRIME: LENDING BOOKS. SENTENCE: 25 YEARS IN PRISON. He held high another sign: DICTATORSHIP FROM THE LEFT IS STILL DICTATORSHIP. He felt a current of electricity shoot through his chest as he and the others in his group covered their mouths with duct tape and began to walk in an oval at the curb on Lexington Avenue.
There were ten people in Vladimir's group; Manuel's group, the Sons of Martí, had refused to participate, but some of the sons of the Sons of José Martí had joined them. Just before noon, a flock of women arrived: mothers, sisters, daughters and wives of Cuban political prisoners. He eyed one who was holding a megaphone and pointed to the tape on his mouth; she set it down at the curb. So far, so good. A lone cameraman from Univision filmed. None of the English-language media he'd contacted had come. This was the flip side of democracy: people were free to pay no attention.
At twelve-fifteen, a stereo speaker appeared at a window across the street, and the hectic sounds of a Van Van song filled the air.
Bebo ripped off his duct tape and screamed: “jABAJO CASTRO!”
Vladimir watched as every last silent Cuban stripped off his tape and cried: “jABAJO CASTRO!”
The woman scrambled to retrieve her megaphone and began the chant: “jCASTRO:TRAIDOR! jASESINO Y DICTADOR!”
Vladimir broke out of the oval in disgust.
“You had a good thing going there,” said the cop. “What happened?”
He peeled tape off his mouth. “You don't know how many meetings. We agreed!”
“It's your right. Constitutionally.”
“But in a place of freedom, where everyone has the right to scream, you must be silent in order to be heard. It's a question of tactics.”
The cop nodded, then swiveled back to supervise the noise.
jCASTRO:TRAIDOR! jASESINO Y DICTADOR! rang in his head as he boarded the subway. How could there be democracy with such a stubborn people? He wouldn't speak to any of them, ever again. He was through with cooperation and compromise. Perhaps he was through with Cuba. It was too heartbreaking, too annoying. Nothing ever changed.
“So this is Tara,” Paul said as he strolled into and out of rooms, testing doors, windows and appliances, getting in the way of the contractor and the home inspector at every turn. Chris was losing patience. When a neighbor stopped by to introduce herself, Paul opened his arms wide and cried, “The Hospitality Committee!”
Perhaps the porch only made sense without Paul.
On the flight home, when the Fasten Seat Belt sign was extinguished, Paul loosened his grip on Chris's wrist and said, “Vladimir really knows what he's doing with indoor-outdoor transitions. I think you should ask him for help when you design the porch.”
Chris cast a look at him. Now, what did that mean?
Paul reclined in his chair and put on a navy blue eye mask with ceremony. “You still haven't told him, have you?”
In fact, he hadn't. He had a stable professional situation with Vladimir, and a stable personal situation with Paul. What was he doing throwing away money and antagonizing people for a porch? There were porches within driving distance of NoHo.
Chris pulled out his phone in the LaGuardia baggage claim.
“Who are you calling?”
“Sheilah and Julius,” he said. “To let them know that we're okay, and to make plans for tonight.”
“I cannot take another tofu casserole,” Paul said, “and I don't want you cooking again. They don't appreciate it.”
Sheilah was a social worker and Julius was a retired illustrator; they were Paul's parents, and Chris wanted to see them more than Paul did. They routinely marched against war, government wiretapping and the like in their orthopedic sandals and socks. There was always a lively chat going on in their tiny, overcrowded apartment on Amsterdam Avenue. Chris liked the fact that anything that might come up in conversation there was always normal to talk about.
Each time Chris suggested a trip to the Upper West Side, Paul said, “You just like them because you share a common enemy.” He made scathing remarks, often to their faces, about their hair (long), their clothing (hemp), their food (vegetarian), their housekeeping (lax) and their pieties (liberal). Each time they left, Julius told Chris, “Come back soon. But don't bring that snotty little twerp you hang out with next time. He's such a drag.”
And Paul would stick his tongue out or make an obscene noise.
By contrast, Chris's father—dead five years now—had stopped speaking to him fifteen years earlier. Chris supposed his father had known about him long before he had. His mother had always kept the door open for him, and true to form, they had never discussed the Topic. When she came to New York (his father never joined her), Chris introduced her around to all his friends and colleagues. Charlotte was chatty, affectionate and polite; at an AIDS benefit held in a restaurant he'd designed, he caught her smiling fiercely. She was proud of his professional success. And the topic of gayness just never came up. Each time he visited, his sister-in-law would ask brightly, “Will you be bringing anyone along?”
He never had. But it was unnatural not to bring Paul after all this time.
Chris's mother was an hour away by car, his brother twenty minutes by car. He would get back in touch with old friends, but would old friends be interested in double dates with him and Paul? Did he care? Was there a home in Atlanta (other than his own) where anything that might come up in conversation would be considered normal to talk about?
APRIL
“WHAT HAPPENED to your eyebrows?”
Vladimir had arrived home on a rainy night to find Diane on the floor, sweeping shards of glass into a dustpan.
“I'm sorry I just wanted to make a pot roast. Everything went wrong,” she said, and burst into a brief volley of sobs. He held her close. He had never seen her cry before. Fortunately, it didn't last long. He brought her to the bathroom to treat
her wounds.
“Vladimir, the studio in Brooklyn fell through,” she said, and he fought off a brief impulse to flee. This soon-to-be-available apartment was the reason he'd agreed to let her stay without an exit date.
“What in hell does that Paul think he's doing? This is the third apartment in a row to fall out? You need a place to live!”
She looked conflicted. He knew she didn't want to live in Brooklyn.
They went to the Chinese place on the corner. He didn't want to know if the pot roast had some significance. Desperately, he did not want her to push the issue. Yes, they'd been seeing each other for several months. Yes, she would soon be turning forty. Yes, if he wasn't serious he should tell her.
“I want to point something out to you,” she said after they ordered.
“I don't want to talk about it.”
She stopped playing with her chopsticks. “How do you know what I'm going to say?”
“I don't want to talk about anything in a serious way tonight, Diane.”
“I think the María situation is not a stalemate.”
“Why? We've been married for seventeen years, and I've been begging to get out for sixteen of them. Why should it change?”
“Because things change. They do,” she said, when he objected. “When did you last talk to her about it?”
“I wrote her an e-mail. In the fall.”
“Did she answer you?”
“Always. Long, nasty letters. Terrible punctuation and typos, practically illiterate, stream of consciousness. In every letter she says no.”
“What if /talked to her?”
He laughed. “You're brave even to consider it.”
“Does she speak English?” He shook his head. “We could get a translator here. What about your friend Bebo?”
“jComemierda, carajo! I'll never speak to him again. Also, his English is bad. But his wife is fluent.” He suddenly felt hot. “What would you say?”
“I would just pose a few new questions, to open doors in her mind.”
Her left eyebrow looked like straw. Diane was messy. Diane was clumsy. Diane gave him hope.
“May I ask you to stay out of the kitchen?”
“It's not usually that bad,” she said.
FROM CHRIS’Sbored expression, Vladimir knew he was very late. A group was gathered in front of the screen at the Bedford Street Cinema. He made sure to greet Diane as if he hadn't seen her since the last meeting.
“I think we may have to cancel the blacklist panel,” Diane said. “Two of our panelists have cancelled because of illness.”
“I'd be glad to step in,” said the mousy little man who stared at Diane with an open mouth at every meeting.
“Jan Mattias hates the design,” said Jack Lipsky Diane's boss.
Vladimir didn't get upset about these things anymore. “Which part?”
“He didn't say.”
“Has he seen it?” Diane asked.
“I didn't show him anything,” Vladimir said, and Chris began blinking. Vladimir had learned this was a sign that his partner was angry. “We should feel him up about that.”
There were a few giggles. “Feel him out,” Chris corrected.
“Out, up, in, through. Find out what is the bee in his bucket.”
“I'll do that,” said Diane, and went to the last row with her phone.
“You know, Vladimir, I used to go to Cuba in the fifties,” one of the old actresses said. “The Hotel Nacional was so glamorous. You wouldn't understand. How glamorous it was, all the chic people.”
Chris raised an eyebrow at him. Vladimir knew that to most of the Americans he met, he represented all of Cuba; for many, he represented all of Latin America. On some level—no, on many levels— this was tedious.
“Herb and I stayed at the Hotel Nacional in 2001,” said the other actress. “It's not the same. But we went to the cigar factories, and we saw them reading Dickens to the people. The people are happy in Cuba. They love the Revolution.”
“Where did you get this fiction?” Vladimir asked.
“The tour guide,” she said, smiling.
The tour guide. When feeling optimistic, Vladimir believed in fighting on all fronts. But talking was a waste of time, especially talking to Americans, who lived in a kind of national kindergarten, where no one was allowed to say anything unkind and everyone pretended to clean up. He'd said it all, he'd heard it all. He was done with discusión, which was harsher in Spanish, closer to argument than to conversation. No more talk!
Diane trotted back to the stage. “Jan seems to think the entire concept is wrong. I asked him if he was talking about the layout, or the look. He said both. But since he hasn't seen your drawings, I don't know what he's talking about, and I propose that neither does he. So let's continue. If he has a specific objection, he can raise it.”
Chris sent Vladimir a we'll-talk-later look.
“Jan said he'd step in on the blacklist panel,” Diane said.
The mousy man blew a gasket. “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! WHAT THE HELL DOES JAN MATTIAS KNOW ABOUT THE BLACKLIST?”
“Daniel, calm down,” said the older woman.
“That bastard isn't going anywhere near the panel. Diane? Do you not see how obscene that is? Diane?”
Diane made a calming hand gesture and gave this man a steadying look.
“So when are you going back to Cuba?” asked the tiny blond donor.
“I'd rather have my liver picked out by birds of prey.”
The year after Vladimir had made the error of returning to Cuba, salvation arrived in the form of one of his University of Illinois professors, who came to Havana with a historic-preservation tour group. The professor gave Vladimir an application to a state-of-the-art research unit in the Department of Architecture and Spacial Design at London Metropolitan University. Vladimir filled out the form, using his aunt's Miami address. He asked the professor to mail it from the United States, as the Cuban postal system, like the Cuban Revolution, was a mire of stagnation. Two months later, his aunt called with good news and sent him his acceptance letter with a friend who was visiting Havana.
When Vladimir applied for an Exit Permit, the functionary at the Ministry of Culture looked up from his file and said, “But you just got back.”
He cleared his throat. “This unit studies materials and manufacturing processes. It's really what I'd like to specialize in, and there's nothing like it at any of our universities.”
The functionary leaned back in his chair and smiled. “You're applying for school, and my son's in school! He's nine. He's desperate for a backpack.”
“Really,” Vladimir said.
“Yes. And my girl is twelve. She's been begging for a Walkman. Well, I'll look over your paperwork here, and get back to you.”
The following week, Vladimir arrived at the office with a backpack and a Walkman that he bought at the Dollar Store with money he'd earned making models for his professor's firm in Chicago.
“What a coincidence,” the functionary said. “I was just looking over your file, and here it is, your Exit Permit.” He pulled a rubber stamp and an ink pad out of his drawer.
A month prior to his departure for the United Kingdom, Vladimir received a visit. His father greeted the officer of the Ministry of the Interior cordially. His mother brought coffee out to the patio on a tray, and in the guise of one paying a social call, the officer questioned Vladimir about what he planned to do in London, and if he would represent Cuba in a positive manner.
Since Vladimir hadn't mentioned his plans to anyone in the house, there was utter silence on the patio. “I think I was a great ambassador for the Nation in the United States,” he said with conviction, “and I will continue to present a positive face when I go to the United Kingdom next month.”
Pucho's eyebrow rose at his use of the word “when” instead of “if.” His sister, Nadia, followed the conversation as if it were a tennis match. María sat next to Vladimir on the sofa in rigid corpulence. He could h
ear her breathing.
“It has come to our attention that you haven't attended Departmental Meetings or Rallies. Your Section Supervisor wrote in your Report that your colleagues have doubts about your fealty to the Revolution.”
“No one can question my patriotism,” he said with fervor, and it was true. He loved his country. Not the demented dictator, but the country of Cuba. Cuba itself!
“And this Report we have?”
Vladimir leaned forward. “May I tell you something in confidence?”
Everyone leaned forward. Javier ran through the patio naked, and everyone ignored him. Vladimir kept his voice low, as if he didn't want his wife to hear, although she was sitting right next to him. “The woman who wrote that is still upset that I turned her down in our first year at university. What do you think she's going to say about me, now that she's in a position of power?”
The agent seemed satisfied by this, and finished his coffee. Fresh gossip was perhaps the only thing that could neutralize a bad Committee Report. There was handshaking. Pucho behaved as if the visit had been a special consideration granted to Vladimir because of his own rank in the Army.
All hell broke loose on the patio when the front door closed.
“He's leaving!” María shrieked. “He's just going to walk out again!”
“It's a two-week course, you pinhead,” he told her.
“Don't talk to your wife like that,” Pucho shouted.
“Who are you to tell me how to talk to my wife?” he said, and stood up.
The last time his father had hit him was when he was thirteen. Was it a coincidence that that was the first time that Vladimir had hit back?
Pucho kicked the coffee table across the patio. Cups and saucers scattered and shattered all over the floor. Alicia began to cry over the family dishes.
“That was helpful,” Vladimir said.
His father went upstairs to his bedroom and slammed the door. Vladimir bent down with his mother to help her clean up the mess.
“Let him go,” Nadia said. “He isn't really doing anyone any good here.”
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