by Marcial Gala
“No: I was screwed over by love. I was a good-looking mulato selling sunglasses and brand-name clothing at the door of Cienfuegos’s best store, La Casa Mimbre. I made easy money and sometimes lent it out at high interest, making some extra cash. I was great until a family of dark-skinned blacks moved in and I met the most beautiful woman in the world; I was screwed over because of her, it’s because of her that I started doing what I did.”
“What is it that you did?”
“What am I going to tell you for? Knowing what I did in the U.S. is already more than enough for you. Just know that man is like the wolf, when his thirst for killing is unleashed, there’s nothing more to be done, there’s no going back.”
“You’re still a good-looking man,” the guy threw at me in English, all of a sudden, and I had to tell him in the same language that I’m no fudge packer, something that made my favorite guard, Billy Holden—a black guy who is six foot two and two hundred pounds—start laughing.
“I’m telling you because our magazine is willing to pay you to pose in the nude; you don’t know how many female admirers you have here in Texas,” the guy clarified, looking at me through the bulletproof glass, scratching his chin with the phone.
“Yes, I do know,” I told him. “I get a lot of letters. They think I’m a sex symbol because I married all those hags and then snuffed them out.”
GUTS
“Fuente Ovejuna, señor” is one of the few things I remember from my whole time in school; of course, I know how to read, write, count, and everything else, but really, I didn’t have a brain for reading and that worries me. “Could I be slow?” I ask myself at times, and then I say, no, because I escaped like Jonah from the whale, I’m living an okay life here in Barcelona, and that’s with all the bad things I did in my Cuban days. I remember that when I lived in Punta Gotica, all I wanted was a white girl. Dear God, I would pray, let her run around on me as much as she wants, but give me a white girl, not a mulata or an Indian girl, or an olive-skinned girl, give me one of those white girls whose veins show through her skin; come on, God, and of course, let her be hot. In Cuba, that kind of chick is in short supply. In my class, only one girl was like that, she lived on the Prado and had an Irish mother. Here, I’m surrounded by blondes and by legs, those Catalan women have some legs! In Cuba, to see hot white girls, you had to go spying on them in Punta Gorda. I would tell Cricket, Get it together and let’s go, we’ve got a show tomorrow, and at the beginning, he would start with the buts: But we’re going to get caught. But, come on, I’m Christian. But … Then he developed a liking for it and he was the one who invited me.
MARIBEL
Everyone knew Cricket was a Peeping Tom, but nobody cared. Almost all the young kids here spy on women, and you can let them or not, depending on whether you like the person looking. I let him sometimes because I knew how much he was working on building that crazy temple his father was making and I felt bad for him. Go on, look and have yourself a good time, I would think when I heard his soft steps on the roof, and if it was hot, I would grab my little bucket of water and go bathe in the corridor behind my home, then I would remove my clothing deliberately and start to pour the water over myself slowly to please him, I would take all the time in the world to soap up my tits, then my legs; of course, I wasn’t the old crow I am now, I was a full-bodied mulata, I was forty years old, but you had to treat me with respect; later, I got diabetes and it’s doing away with me, there’s no slowing it down. They say that in the Yuma there are some little pills that cure you right away, but I don’t have any family there, and Gringo’s on death row, so if I ask him for those pills, he’s probably going to tell me to go to hell.
GRINGO
The day before his birthday, I said to him, “What kind of present do you want?” He told me, “You don’t have to give me anything, Ricardo, your friendship is enough.” But I pressed him, “Come on, use that mouth of yours, ask me. An iPod? Don’t be shy.”
“Take me to see your Padrino.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Okay, if you say so. Let me set up the meeting and I’ll let you know.”
GUTS
I saw him with Gringo everywhere. Gringo’s fucking him, I thought at first, but no, because he looked even more macho than ever. Gringo became Christian for real and they’re going around with their Jesus Christ bullshit and all that, I thought, but Gringo spent his nights at el Ruso’s bar drinking whiskey and looking at tits. Getting together that much with someone like Gringo, the worst kind of bad, that’s not good for such a fresh-faced, delicate kid, I thought. He’s just getting his ass ready, if not for Gringo, who never seemed like much of a bugarrón, then for someone else, maybe Salvador Piggy, that guy really doesn’t care whether it’s a woman, a dog, a transvestite, or a banana tree, he just wants to stick it in some hole.
ROGELIO
“Ornament is crime,” a great architect said, and that was my premise, I wanted the building to be perfect in its almost necessary simplicity, I wanted all of its complexity to come from the harmony and the quality of the materials used, I wanted to bring a piece of modernity to a sleepy Cuban town, I wanted that filthy neighborhood of Punta Gotica to have at least one thing to show the world, and I made an effort to achieve this.
“We had something else in mind, I don’t know, something more traditional,” Basulto said to me, and showed me a picture of the Church of the Holy Sacrament in Oklahoma, where the officiant was the Reverend James Harrison Fitzgerald, the corpulent black pastor who had done so much to collect the money we needed to build.
I hadn’t slept all night and was somewhat irritable.
“If I have to redraft this, it’s over, find another architect.”
“It’s not that we don’t like it,” Arturo Stuart said. “It’s that it’s so different, and it looks very expensive. Besides, where are you going to find the workers to do something like this? In Cuba, there aren’t builders who do this kind of work anymore, the mosaics alone would be a headache.”
“The materials and the workmen will appear.”
“Yes, but at what cost?” Basulto said. “We only have twenty thousand dollars, and money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“Is this the entrance?” Stuart pointed at something on the architectural plan laid out on the table.
“You can access the temple’s interior many ways. The concept is accessibility, permission, the temple is like an open hand everyone can hold … Perhaps you can see it better on the perspective drawing,” I said, “but I didn’t have time to finish it.”
“So do it,” Stuart said. “Do it and bring it over, and then we’ll talk.”
GRINGO
Knock, knock, they banged on the door, and I knew it was the police. I opened up and there they were: a fat mulato with a checked shirt and the sector chief.
“Blessings,” I said to them, and smiled widely. “Come in and sit down.”
They sat on the sofa and I took a seat facing them, in one of the armchairs.
“You’re really thriving, Ricardo Mora Gutiérrez,” the sector chief said. “This looks like a showroom, you’re living better than Rockefeller. Don’t tell me you started working, because all you’re good for is construction and that doesn’t pay much. What are you involved with, Ricardo Mora, huh?”
“Nothing. I converted, now I follow the path of the Lord.”
“Really? How nice. How long ago did that conversion happen?”
“Nine months ago.”
“Nine months? Sounds like a pregnancy,” the sector chief said, and let out a tiny laugh like a sad hyena.
“In a way, it is, God is something that fills you.”
“Gringo the Christian, well, well, this is something you wouldn’t see anywhere else.”
“Now you know. Would you like coffee?”
“Why not? Bring a cup for each of us, but don’t you spit in it.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” I went to brew the coffee.
When I returned, the sector chief asked me how much the living room set had cost me.
“I got it cheap, five hundred.”
“That’s a steal. Who makes it? So I can buy myself one, give me the telephone number or the address.”
“That’s in dollars.”
“Well then, you should have started there. That’s a lot of money. I’ve never seen that much all together and, you know, I work hard … Where’d you get it from, Gringuito? Don’t tell me you won the lottery.”
“My brother sent me the money.”
“Damn, your brother’s a really nice guy.”
“Now you know.”
“And here I was, thinking he left and never wrote to you again.”
“He decided it’s never too late to go to school. He got a degree as a nurse and works at one of the best hospitals in Miami, and he’s decided to help me.”
“What a brother, he’s pure gold.”
“We were always very close.”
“You don’t need to say so, you used to kill cows together.”
“If you say so … Excuse me, the coffee’s almost ready.”
“How do you know?”
“I can smell it.”
“With a nose like that, you should become a policeman, Gringuito … But go, I don’t want your coffeemaker to blow up…”
“So delicious,” the sector chief said later, when he sipped his coffee. “You must be asking yourself what we’re doing here at your house. Right?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t think of anything?”
“I’m not psychic.”
“Ah, you’re not psychic … Well then, I’m going to help you. We’re looking for an individual, from Santiespíritu, folks say they saw him with you.”
“With me?”
BERTA
On February 27, 2007, the ghost started to torment me. The first time I saw him, seated at the entrance to la cuartería, he was looking ahead in concentration, as if he were waiting for something. I knew he was dead because his eyes were rolled back and he was naked. It was nearly six in the evening, the time when kids are playing soccer and the street is full of adults coming back from work or going to their businesses. No one noticed. Only I saw him and his strong body; he had a scorpion tattooed on his right shoulder and a snake around his belly button, he was tall and would have been handsome without the open wound crossing his neck from one end to the other. He pointed at the wound with the index finger of his right hand and his eyes full of tears. I started to run.
I didn’t eat that day.
“A naked dead man appeared to me,” I told my mother.
“You and your jokes.”
“I’m serious.”
“So tell him to come cook for us, you don’t know how to do anything and I’m pretty tired of the stink of grease.”
Don’t run, my name is Aramís and I’m from Cabaiguán, he said to me the second time I saw him, on a steamy Tuesday. I was at school and had asked the chemistry teacher for permission to go to the bathroom. I’d just sat down on the toilet when he appeared and said that. All I could do was look at him and say, You don’t exist, then I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, he was no longer there. When I returned to the classroom, I was so pale, I looked like Michael Jackson.
“I was going to send someone for you,” the teacher said. “I thought you’d gone down the toilet.”
“I don’t feel good. I saw a dead person.”
“You can tell,” he said with a smile, but then he let me leave.
I went home, made the most of my mom’s not being there, took two diazepam, swallowed them, sat on one of the rocking chairs in the living room, and rocked until the pills began to take effect; then, when I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I went to lie down and in my bed was the dead man.
“My name is Aramís and I’m from Cabaiguán. I came to Cienfuegos looking for a motorcycle because I wanted to surprise Araceli, who wanted to see me on a motorcycle, but as you can see, they killed me and I can’t figure out how to return to my town and tell them I’m dead; I went to the station but I can’t get on a bus; when I try boarding, the bus turns to smoke and I find myself again in the house where they did this to me.”
The dead man took his hand to his throat and then implored:
“Help me.”
IBRAHIM
In spite of everything, those days were good; my wife would make my coffee; after drinking it, I would grab my bicycle and go to the temple. No matter how early it was, brother Arturo would already be there doing something: organizing the work tools or tidying up. We would pray together and await the arrival of our other brothers in Christ, the architect and the bricklayers, in order to have breakfast and begin the day’s tasks. Ibrahim is a Syrian name, and everyone has always referred to me as the Arab, even though I don’t have people in the Islamic lands: I was named Ibrahim after a telenovela that my mother saw years ago.
“Don’t you sleep, maestro?” I once asked.
Stuart looked at me with those deep eyes of his that, in spite of everything, I dare to call those of a prophet, and said, “Árabe, when the church is done, I’ll sleep so much that everyone in my house will think I’ve died.”
To raise a temple up where there was nothing but weeds, to see it grow, take shape, go from being four stakes in the ground to a building whose walls rise each day …
At the beginning, they mocked us, and even though we had all the necessary permits possible, the police and inspectors came to harass us. When we were in full swing, they called the architect and told him we had to stop and look for all the receipts proving we’d acquired the cement through official means and not illegally. Then Rogelio had to bike to his house to look for the receipts and show them, otherwise we couldn’t continue. Another day, they’d ask about bricks, the paint, about whatever they could, and there were many inspectors, so they took turns. One of the ones who fought with us most was a short little lady, chubby, who always wore a handkerchief on her head. She would arrive on a motor scooter like Gringo’s, stand close to everything, open a black folder, pull out a planner, and start taking notes with her eyes fixed on us. She tried to make us nervous, but she couldn’t anymore because the spirit of the Lord was with us. We sang hymns to Christ as we worked. Especially the one that says, “Christ has risen.” Many of the neighbors accompanied us, and some of them worked with us, although we had to take many precautions because as soon as you let your guard down, they could take one of your work tools, a can of paint, half a bag of cement, whatever, all to resell it for moonshine.
GRINGO
“Yes, with you … I’m going to refresh your memory: he was alone, white, tall, strong, about twenty-five years old.”
“Ah, that one … That guy left the country, a speedboat came to get him.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me so. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said, ‘and you won’t see any trace of me again.’”
“Oh, yeah? So what did he go see you for?”
“He was looking for my brother’s address, since they knew each other from when my bróder lived in Cabaiguán, and he wanted to meet up with him in Miami.”
“So did you give it to him?”
“Of course I didn’t, my brother has enough problems already without having to take care of some dumbass from Santiespíritu.”
Both guys looked at me for a few seconds without saying anything, then the mulato said, “He’s lying. Aramís would never leave the country, he was a hardworking, well-integrated young man, from a family with an impeccable record. I very much doubt that he would have known the brother from here. Besides, what person, living close to the northern coast, would think of coming down to Cienfuegos to leave Cuba?”
“I said the same thing to him. ‘Brother,’ I said, ‘isn’t it better for you to leave through Sagua la Grande, just a quick hop from Miami?’ And he said that it was bad up there, the border guards were on high alert and the trip cost twice as much.”
<
br /> “He told his family he was going to Cienfuegos to buy a motorcycle.”
“That was his story, but really, he was taking off.”
“And he came and told you when you’d barely met?”
“Now you know.”
“How strange,” the mulato said.
“Not just strange, superstrange,” said the other one. “There’s something fishy here. So where were you and Aramís going when you were seen?”
“Over to see some chicks. He was a fan of the mulatas.”
“Chicks? What chicks? Name and address.”
“I would give it to you, but one of them is married.”
“Well, well, out looking for chicks … Didn’t you just tell me that you were Christian?”
“So Christians don’t fuck?”
“Of course they do, Gringuito, of course they do … Okay, so you saw the chicks, and then?”
“He went on his way and I went mine.”
“And which way did he go?”
“That, I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know.”
“You never know anything.”
IBRAHIM
He was a good speaker, if you ask me, he was a better preacher than the pastor, and he had such a good memory that he could cite all the Scripture without making a mistake, and that was at just shy of fifteen years old. But something was off about him, something bad, he was proud, he thought he was predestined for something big, and that made him difficult to deal with, he barely collaborated on building the temple. His brother, just a year older, did work like an ox even though his father was merciless with him, he treated him as if he hated him, as if the kid should pay daily for not being perfect. I didn’t like that and one day I told him so. We were placing the fourth row of bricks. David King, who was working as an assistant of mine, dropped one of those bricks, which only broke in one corner, and his father became so furious that he practically went mad: