The Book of Lost Saints

by Daniel José Older

  Everything seems to have gone very, very still.

  Slowly, I allow myself to slide down from the ceiling.

  “But she was reported as killed by the Granma,” Kacique says, because Ramón is just sitting there with his mouth hanging open.

  Alvarez cranes his neck forward and blinks at the screen for a few seconds, during which I’m sure neither of the men across from him are breathing.

  “Des … a … parecida…,” Alvarez reads aloud. “Ta ta ta, fulano mengano, no sé qué y no sé cuánto, ah … aquí. A ver.” Then he cringes again. “Yes.”

  “Yes what?” Ramón says, clearly fighting the impulse to overturn the desk and see for himself.

  “Yes, that is what the Granma reported. The official documents tell a different story, as is sometimes the case.” He smiles, peering over his glasses at Ramón. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Ramón stands, sits back down. Shakes his head.

  I hold perfectly still, terrified I’ll somehow ruin the moment.

  “What story do the official documents tell?” Kacique asks.

  Alvarez shakes his head and makes a poofing gesture with his hands. “Desaparecida.” Then he shrugs. “Would you still like the paperwork you’ll need to extend your visa, Señor Rodriguez? I will remind you that the official—”

  Ramón is already halfway to the door and I’m already out it, into the sun-strewn streets, the wide and beautiful world. “No, thanks!” Ramón yells. “I’ll be leaving tonight!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Malecón: the edge of the world. Here is where I drove with Padre Sebastián and before that so many times with Papi, staring out the window each time, taking a moment to pay homage to the giantess crashing again and again against the crumbling walls of the city. I swirl up above them to take it in. A row of faded plaster palaces watches the water from behind us, peeled paint forms crude maps across their facades, open windows and dangling laundry and beyond that all of La Habana stretches toward the teeming suburbs. Night lets itself gently down on the city one block at a time; the ocean still radiates orange streaks and a sudden gash of red emerges from the violet haze where the sun once was.

  And maybe, just maybe, I survived this island.

  A tiny sliver of a possibility, but at least according to the official records, I vanished and am presumed in exile. Desaparecida. There are so many ways to vanish, really. So many meanings to that word.

  But it doesn’t matter.

  A surge of joy has been rippling through me since that frumpy little bureaucrat pronounced me an exile, but also a brand-new urgency. Because still, I am fading. My time is almost up. Even when I replenish, it’s not enough, like there’s a leak somewhere, and every bit of energy I acquire surges right back out. And I don’t think I have more than a few memories left to give before I’m simply gone. But I’m so close, and somewhere, somewhere there is an answer to the riddle that is my life, my maybe death.

  Some kids finish up their messing around down by the rocks, smack the water from their soaked T-shirts, and chase each other, all giggles and cursing, up the stairs to the street.

  “I know this is a possibly very stupid question,” Ramón says.

  Catabalas laughs. “You’re allowed three stupid questions and you already used up two of them, so choose wisely.”

  Kacique rolls his eyes. “There are no stupid questions, Ramón. Only ignorant privileged ones that have no business being asked.”

  “Great. Is there anything, uh … I can do … to get either of you … out?”

  It’s a worthwhile question, my awkward nephew, but I already know the answer.

  Both Kacique and Catabalas laugh some more before shaking their heads. “Ay, Ramón. We’re stayers. You didn’t know? We stay. Like your tía.”

  “Didn’t do her much good.” Ramón cringes a little when he says it, but hey, he has a point. “And she didn’t have much of a choice.”

  Catabalas shakes his head. “It’s part of it. Part of staying is knowing that we might disappear too. That we’re disappearing a little bit, every day. From ourselves, from you. Part of leaving is having to watch us disappear.” He shrugs.

  “I guess. But … thank you? I guess that’s what I was trying to say.”

  “Then just say that,” Kacique says. “You gusanos are so overcomplicated.”

  “I consider the whole event a net gain.” Catabalas tries to put an arm around Ramón, but he only comes up to his nipple line and his arm doesn’t even reach halfway across the bigger man’s back. He gives up and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I irritated the regime, found out some new methods of e-intelligence gathering, hacked into a whole new ministry server, and got a girlfriend. Plus that cash you slipped me. So thank you, mi hermano.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Ramón says. “I’m happy for you two.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Still throbbing.”

  “Adina found her tíos?”

  “Yes, but apparently they’re less exciting than mine. She sounded relieved. We’re picking her up there on the way to the airport.”

  Kacique reaches his long arms to either side and makes a grunting noise. “What a beautiful night! Alright, mi gente. Time to go, eh?”

  “Pero qué dramático tú eres.”

  “Cállate, Catabalas. Ramón, you ready?”

  Ramón takes a last look at the fading light over the ocean. “Ready.”

  * * *

  Now that I have the basic details, the rest comes back in a rush. No sleeping vessel needed to filter this memory; it’s just there:

  Our feet touch the rocks, the rocks nestle into the sea, the endless sea. We are shadows on the shoreline, tiny beneath the greater shadows of the trees. The trees that reach into the soil, the soil that slopes beneath the rocks into the sea.

  I’m crying. I don’t make any noise. The tears stream down my face, and my body heaves every now and then. Out there in the darkness, three lights blink on and off, on and off, on and off. That’s it. Three lights, three blinks. Then darkness, unending. We are saved. Tesoro Milán lets out a breath so long and loud I think he’ll collapse when it’s done. Coño, he mutters under his breath.

  Edgardo Gil had been waiting for us here, just like in the plan. He was anxious, Edgardo. He hopped up the rocky shore to greet us, let loose a slew of curses in his shrill whisper, hugged Tesoro. We all looked out to the darkness of the sea and waited, became shadows on the shoreline and then the three lights blink and Tesoro Milán exhales and a strange birdcall comes out of the forest. And then it comes again. It’s a ridiculous imitation really, almost as terrible as the one Enrique did back when we were children playing soldiers in the Escambray, all those years ago. As we’re looking at each other, there’s a splash. Edgardo Gil. He’s jumped headfirst into the water. Which is so silly, because the boat hasn’t arrived yet and it’s too far to swim to. But the birdcall, the birdcall.

  The sign.

  The black water is cold against my thighs. The words flash across my mind as I dive forward. The birdcall, the sign. The black water breaks around me, catches me, swallows me whole. On the shore, men are yelling. And then the night explodes all around us, bodies collapse. I’m flinching, flinching, praying I don’t get hit and then I remember I’m in the water just as the shadows strut out of the woods toward us amidst more flashes and impossible thunder.

  I sink and kick myself away from the shore. When I emerge again, flashlights dance against the rocks, over broken, bleeding bodies. I sink, trembling, and wonder if I should bother surfacing again.

  When I do, a raspy voice is yelling from somewhere between me and the shore. All clear? Edgardo Gil, who betrayed us. I wonder what for. ¿Ya? I see his dark form rise out of the water. There’s movement on the rocks, something I can’t make out. Edgardo yells, But! Three more bangs crack across the night and he disappears beneath a splash.

  I’m panting already, swallowed between darkness above and darkness below.

>   All of them are dead. I am alive.

  Nothing more than a speck, but alive. A survivor. I outlived everyone and I don’t even know why. I’m still crying. Tiny saltwater tears dribble down my tiny cheeks and become a part of the huge ocean.

  And then I swim, because there’s nothing else left to do. The boat is an impossible distance from me and surely they’re scattering to figure out what to do next. A motor growls over the rush of waves, but it’s not from the boat ahead of me. A light breaks across the surface of the water. It’s another ship, farther away but getting closer by the second. The first boat revs its own motor, cuts a wide circle, and then charges directly at me.

  My arms wave from the ocean, my voice a high-pitched, pathetic wail in the night. I don’t care. It has to be louder than the engine or they’ll zoom right past. I yell and yell, my voice hoarse from suddenly being put to so much use after years of near total silence. But I have a voice, I have a voice. I scream, splash, cry. The getaway boat slows as it nears me; I hear its engine stutter.

  Please, is the only word that comes out. Please. And then it’s closer, close enough for me to reach, even as the Cuban Navy boat’s roar grows louder. I stretch my arm across the night over the ocean toward freedom, however uncertain. And then strong hands wrap around mine, lift me out of the water, and the motor growls to life as I collapse onto the wooden bench, the wind catches my hair. And any second bullets will shred me, angry hands will pull me back into the gaping hole of all those memories, any second.

  There’s a man smiling at me. A boy really. His were the hands that plucked me out of the ocean. It’s so dark but I can see creases of concern in his thick eyebrows, the lopsided smile. The night wind whips through his long hair; he has my shoulders in his hands. Mermaid, you are safe, he says, barely audible over the motor and the rush of air. My name is Luis.

  Part Three

  RE/VOLVER

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Over and over, I try to draw him across the inside of Ramón’s mind. I trace lines along the face I remember: that crooked smile, wide forehead, and bushy brows. The way his gray eyes always seemed to squint just so, like those cheeks were made a few sizes too big for his face and everything else had to adjust to make room. I don’t know how I missed it, how I could be so close to this man, all along, all along, and not know. Even now that I do know, it unravels slowly for me, piece by piece, our life together.

  Ramón is stubborn. Stubborn and exhausted, but too wired to sleep. On the plane, he watches the sky slide past, Aliceana’s head on his shoulder, their hands interlaced. But anyway, I don’t have it in me to dilute his dreams with my memories. I just have one message: Luis. It’s a simple one, but somehow beyond my power to convey. I have been weakening every day, with each passing hour. What once seemed easy now requires incredible effort. I am dying. Perhaps for the second time. And I don’t know how many memories I have left to give before I’m gone for good.

  Then there’s the slow flurry of customs, unloading, claiming, form-filling, and box-checking. The whole process still trembles with new ferocity from the terrorist attacks a few years back. There are so many frowning soldiers, big guns, tight eyes, and doubting questions. We’ve been regurgitated out of one iron-fisted bureaucracy into the mouth of another. Painted murals on crumbled walls espousing the glorious revolution give way to shiny posters demanding passengers say something if they see something, and praising the noble commander in chief. Then the never-ending carpeted labyrinth of JFK, escalators, elevators, a gliding walkway, and all the while the unceasing nag of advertisements, their slick coercive whispers and shouts. Then the air tram and her pointed announcements, other passengers ragtag and irritable after hours of monotony, then more gates to push through, elevators and tickets to be managed, the A train, a bus from Grand Central, more troubled thoughts through stop-and-go traffic, and this ever-present feeling of fading, fading.

  Within Ramón, the pulsing uncertainty about his mother casts a long shadow. They’ve barely spoken since he hung up on her, and the memory of that sudden silence, the mix of guilt and triumph—it still pounds through him. He called the next day to check on her, but she was busy making arrangements for Tío Pepe’s funeral and then it was one thing and then another, but the truth was: Something had broken between them, and Ramón knew it. He’d put away most of the roiling nastiness of it during the trip, but now he’s back, and there’s so much to do, to say, and the impossibility of all that lies ahead sits on his shoulders, smirking.

  That woman haunts me too, in an entirely different way, a new way, but right now, I am painted with only Luis.

  All the while, Luis.

  I can see us now, the two of us. It happens as this bus slogs through a dreary rain-soaked traffic jam into New Jersey. Ramón glares out the window; Aliceana writes in her journal; Adina sleeps. I hover by the air vents, almost impalpable to even myself, lost in everything we’ve found.

  Escape was a sudden gasp of air, then came landing and processing and explaining. But I couldn’t. I had to move slowly; sudden jolts would shatter me. I drifted off that boat up onto the beach and into the lights of Miami and I barely spoke. Luis guided me along like I was an old crazy woman, the others kept their distance. In the safe house, I collapsed, disappeared into a storage closet for days because small dark rooms were the only thing that made sense. There was a comfort in the terror that the shadows brought. It was familiar, even if it shredded me.

  We creep along the highway. Industrial wastelands stretch out beneath us. It hasn’t changed much, now I realize. I have been here before, long, long ago.

  “Ay, nena,” Luis said to me. I had fallen asleep in the passenger seat of his beat-up Chevrolet. In my sleep, I’d dropped my guard and found his shoulder and made a home there, and as I drifted back to the surface I made peace with his musky body odor and the last traces of some cologne.

  “Nena, despiértate. Estamos en Jersey.” I still hadn’t told him my name. I had barely spoken. My open mouth on his T-shirt was the most I’d touched him. I could tell he wasn’t moving any more than he had to, trying to hold tight to the moment.

  Factories churned around us, their smokestacks gushed angry gray prayers into the angry gray sky. “Welcome,” Luis said gravely, “to the Garden State.”

  I lifted myself from his shoulder. Smiled. Parking lots reached toward some distant huddle of skyscrapers. The Garden State. This man who pulled me out of the ocean had a sense of humor. I exhaled, and a little hiccupy gurgle of a chuckle came out.

  The bigger joke: being alive and in a strange car with a strange man in this strange new country. All that finally worked its way through the layers of sorrow and fear and the impossible shock of sudden freedom. And it was hilarious. Laughter poured out of me, a torrential downpour. I had no name no home no degree. And for a moment, it felt just right.

  Luis put his hand on mine, smiling at the highway as the lights came on around us. “You don’t have family somewhere you want to look up, see if they’re alright?” The laughter caught in my throat. My parents had died while I was locked up. A guard had informed me, months after the funerals. Nilda, I wanted to look up, yes, but not to see if she was alright—to make sure she wasn’t.

  I took my hand away, watched night cover the city out the window. “My family is dead.”

  * * *

  “How was it?” Marcos wants to know, wrapping his arms around Ramón.

  How was it. Ramón smiles, hugs back. “A fucking mess.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Concussed, according to Aliceana.” Ramón puts down his bags, plops on the couch. “She keeps saying we have to X-ray it, but I’m alright.”

  “Your aunt?”

  Ramón shakes his head. “Long story, man. There’s rum and cigars in the bag by the door.”

  Marcos starts unwrapping his gifts and I’m out the window, embraced by the gathering night. This place looks different now: It’s like I’m seeing double. The present is a thin venee
r over the Jersey I once knew. The trees remain the same, some of the pavement. A building here, a shred of dusty architecture I must’ve strolled past once. Nothing resolves fully until I round a corner toward downtown. Here, two-story family houses with mild-mannered front lawns give way to a larger throughway. A pizza place is shutting down for the night; the neon sign blinks off and chairs go up on tables. Beside it, the beauty supply store and Laundromat have already closed. Farther down, large windows take up a whole storefront. Faded gold letters spell out the owner’s name with elegance: SERRANO’S. Beneath that a less thoughtfully rendered barber’s pole stands a little off center. New cardboard displays adorn the window: a walk to cure something, a teeth whitener, but beyond them, in the semi-dark perfect stillness, sit the same old chafed maroon cushions and ornate brass chairs.

  I enter.

  All these faces, staring back at me through gray tones and glass. Luis is everywhere, that serious glare he used to put on for the world, but I ignore him for now. I have to concentrate. I might be here. Here’s Maceo, tall and burly and hairy: a poet. Here’s Benigno the boxer and his Colombian boyfriend, Eliazer, who never bothered to learn English. Their smiles say it all, just a few inches apart, leaning into each other just so, but they never said a word about their love. Here are José Luis and José José, best friends, matching ’fros and Puerto Rican flag T-shirts, undaunted ease in both their grins, pants too tight, and little Serrano himself stands between them, arms crossed over his chest, his face a pockmarked frown: the perennial badass, even with that silly bow tie he always wore.

  And Luis, Luis, Luis, all throughout. Serrano was his best friend, I now remember; they’d come up in Santa Clara together. Radicalized when Eddie Chibas offed himself on national radio, they stormed side by side through the jungles with Huber Matos right up until nothing turned out to be what it seemed.