House was a generous term for the country hut with its thatched roof and thin plywood walls, and after all these years I’d forgotten just how decrepit the buildings had been, really nothing more than shacks. Who had I been when I lived here? As I approached, along with the clatter of pots and pans I heard familiar voices coming from inside the house. It was Anselmo and his wife, whose name I’d forgotten because she’d been so mean. I peered in through the window and watched Anselmo and my grandfather play cards while Anselmo’s wife washed the pots and pans from dinner.
“Are you still hungry?” my grandfather asked his friend, grinning when he realized he would get the trump card from the bottom of the deck. They were playing Brisca, and judging from the pile of coins in front of them, Anselmo had been winning all night, ahead by at least several dólares. “We had a little extra tonight.”
Anselmo brushed a few crumbs off the table and pushed up his sleeves, concentrating on his hand. As always, he was dressed in his customary head to toe white. “Do you want some more rice?” he asked his wife.
“Shut up,” she barked from over her shoulder. “You’re never happy. I made you a fine meal.”
Anselmo and my grandfather went back to their card game, the small room lit by only a dim, yellow light in the corner. The kitchen was even more sparse than I remembered, and lacking a pantry or cabinets, the food was stacked neatly in a corner on the table beside Anselmo’s tattered copies of Cantar de mio Cid and Don Quijote de la Mancha. There wasn’t much to eat, just a few bags of coffee, sugar, a sack of rice and some sort of canned meat with a label printed in Russian. Miraculously I could read it. Pork it simply said. I was about to step inside when I felt a tap on my shoulder from an older woman I didn’t recognize.
“My name is Maria. I’ve come for Alonso. May I pass?”
“Yes,” I said. Si, pase.
“Rafa!” came a voice from inside the house. “Take off your shoes!” It was Anselmo’s wife, standing before me with her hand on her hip and a scowl on her face. “I can’t clean the floors every day!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot.”
I left my shoes at the door and stepped inside, taking the ten or so paces toward my grandfather in the kitchen. He looked up, his stained white cap low on his forehead. Like Anselmo he wore a cool linen shirt and pants, the same basic outfit every man in Cuba of a certain age preferred.
“Look at you, all grown up,” he said. For the first time I noticed the three cigars resting in the ashtray beside the small shot glasses of cheap Cuban rum on the table. Puffing on his cigar, Anselmo invited me to sit down. “Play cards with us while you wait. We need a fourth for Tute. Do you remember how to play?”
“Where’s abuela?” I asked, watching Anselmo deal. Behind me his wife threw one more dish down in the drying rack and let out a storm of curses, starting with a vulgar but still comical series of ill wishes against her husband’s mother.
“¡Me tienes la papaya hinchada con esta porquería de casuela, Anselmo! ¡Búscame otra!” You’re irritating my cunt with this old pot, Anselmo! Get me another one!
“Viki, ya!” Anselmo and my grandfather glanced at each other. “The kid is here.”
“Kid, my ass. He’s thirty-seven years old!” she said, storming out of the kitchen. That’s right. Viki and her disgusting mouth. How could I forget?
“So you have to deal with that for all eternity?” I asked. Anselmo and my grandfather exploded in laughter, prompting me to do the same. It was good to see them again. I hadn’t seen eyes so blue anywhere but the mirror in a very long time.
“Where’s abuela?” I asked, glancing at the open back door.
“She’ll be around,” said my grandfather. “She’s with your mother somewhere. She won’t come in here. She still hates Anselmo because of Miguel.”
“What about my father?” I said, rising. “Where is he?”
“Wait,” said Anselmo. “They’ll all come to you in due time.”
Reluctantly I sat back down, determined to stay here as long as it took to meet my father, knowing that it was a dangerous thing to do.
“Is that his cigar?” I asked. They nodded.
“Let’s play Brisca until he gets here.”
Anselmo shuffled the cards and dealt, and while I waited for the cards to pile up in front of me, there was a rustling at the open back door, this time a man in a cowboy hat.
“Can I pass? I’m here for Salvatore.”
“Si, pase,” I said.
The three of us played round after round, and after Anselmo’s tenth consecutive win it was clear he was cheating somehow, but my grandfather either didn’t notice or care. Every few minutes a different stranger would come to the door and ask for permission to pass, taking special note of those who asked to see people especially close to me, like the short middle-aged man who came for Sandro and the old woman with the rosary and the bright lipstick who asked to see Alex. I let them all through except for one, a skinny old man with a machete who tried to sneak by.
“Hey, you!” I said, standing. “No! You don’t belong here.” Sniveling, he cursed at me but went back the way he came.
“Good catch,” said my grandfather, throwing down el tres de espadas to win the hand. “He was up to no good.”
Hours passed as the three of us played cards and Viki watched the Price is Right in the living room on an endless loop. We played with no interruptions: no one had to go to the bathroom or got thirsty or tired of sitting in their chair. It was wonderful, but after a while the visitors stopped coming and I began to wonder if my parents and my grandmother were ever going to come back. Finally, William appeared at the back door with a suitcase, smiling with delight as I waved him through.
“William!” I said. “She’s waiting for you. Do you want to sit with us a while first?”
“I can’t,” he said. “She already thinks I’m not coming.” He paused for a moment, then turned back. “It’s not going to make her sad, is it? I don’t want that.”
“No. Don’t worry if she cries,” I said.
“I’m going to be gone for a bit. Delfina wants to show me some neat things, but you can call me. You know how.”
“Of course,” I said, setting my cards down.
“Since I won’t need it anymore, I want you to make my room the baby’s room. I can keep a close watch on her that way.”
“Her?” I asked, a lump forming in my throat. I felt tears of joy well up, inexplicably burning and stinging even in this plane. “You mean we’re going to have a daughter in the future?”
“Not the future. Now. My mother is pregnant,” he said, smiling. “The handkerchief did the trick.”
It made perfect sense. Of course he’d seen what I’d done. The morning after Amada came home, I went back for the handkerchief with her blood on it and placed it inside a porcelain figurine of a pregnant woman in the back of our curio cabinet. I’d wanted to leave it at the base of Changó’s painting in the Santuario, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave something so personal out where others might disturb it. Instead I just left the offering and asked him to grant me the virility to create a child, and now my request had been granted practically overnight.
“She’s special,” continued William. “I’ve already met her, and she promised she’s going to be an easy baby. What are you going to name her?”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t believe it. I had to clear my throat to continue. “What do you think?”
“I like Sofia.”
“I’ll tell your mother. Go on, now,” I said, wiping away a tear with the back of my hand.
When William went through, the torrent of emotion rolled through me, gripping at my soul with such force I couldn’t breathe. As I struggled for air, Anselmo and my grandfather exchanged a knowing glance.
“It’s getting to be too much,” said Anselmo.
“I can’t leave until I see them,” I begged, even though I could feel Anselmo and my grandfather willing me to leave.
“Listen to us,” said my grandfather. It’s too stressful. You can come back.” They both rose from the table, as if to indicate my visit was over. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“But I haven’t even told you about my wife, or how I met her, or all the things that happened after I moved away to Havana. Abuelo, I missed you all so much.” Again, I started crying, my soul convulsing with each breath.
“Take him to over there before he hurts himself,” said Anselmo, helping me up. Together we went to the little window above the kitchen sink where I could make out four silhouettes in the darkness, three adults and one child. Suddenly aware of my presence they all turned and waved, but it was my brother who broke away and ran to the back door before they could catch him. It was no surprise he was doing the opposite of what he was told. It had always been that way. By the time he reached the house, he was just like me, a grown man.
“Look who finally showed up!” he said. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I hadn’t seen my brother since we were twelve years old and I found him on the beach, his body grotesque and bloated from days in the water. I went to embrace him, but then remembered he was a muerto who’d feel like nothing but dense air. I came closer, having forgotten just how much we looked alike, when I noticed a scar across his face.
“What happened?” I asked, pointing to my own cheek.
“My girlfriend’s husband did it,” he laughed. “Fucker.”
“Here?” There was so much I still didn’t understand about this plane.
“I don’t sit around and play cards with the old men like you.” He looked me up and down with a mix of annoyance and playfulness. “You were always boring as shit, you little ass kisser.”
“Did you kill yourself because of the voices?” I had to know the truth, once and for all, no matter how painful it was to hear.
“No, dummy. The voices told me to go out in the water to find the buried treasure.” Momentarily distracted, Miguel turned in the direction of my mother, who was calling him back. “Mamá thinks Anselmo screwed up, that they only wanted you, not both of us. I told her she should have been nicer to you because it wasn’t your fault, but she’s crazy.” Suddenly he remembered something. “Anselmo, I think she’s going to sneak in and put a pillow over your face tonight.”
“Every night she tries to kill me,” said Anselmo, waving away the thought as if swatting away a mosquito. “Make sure you don’t make any mistakes, mijo, or you’ll pay forever.”
“How do I stop this eternal madness?” I was horrified. Even in the afterlife my mother still hated me, my brother was still a miserable asshole, my father still eluded me, and poor Anselmo was paying the price for following the Orishas’ commands. Rolling his eyes, he threw his head back and sighed.
“You’ve got to go, mijo,” he said. “You’re getting too upset.”
“Tell me!” I demanded, feeling my heart start to race.
“Are you happy now?” spat my grandfather. “Look at your shirt. That’s very bad.” I looked down and saw that I was soaked from head to toe, but I hadn’t been near any water. “Go back to your wife and daughter now, Rafa, before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It had all started out relatively peacefully, in spite of the surreal circumstances. Rafa’s party was no less elegant than any I’d ever attended in Miami or abroad, the ship he’d chosen a picture-perfect setting in which to explore the metaphysical side of his new calling. I was still in disbelief he’d given up his medical career for me, especially now that I’d returned to my own work, but he was so certain it had been the right thing to do. Now, in these Elysian surroundings under the moonless Miami sky, with the sound of Beethoven’s most complex work played to perfection by our new virtuoso friend, my beautiful Rafa had fallen into some kind of trance.
Stupidly, I’d asked if he’d speak in tongues, half expecting him to levitate and float across the room. He’d laughed at me, rightly so, and as I stared at his calm, angelic face, I realized the absurdity of my ignorance. For all purposes Rafa was asleep, his body present but his mind and soul elsewhere. He’d left me in charge of his physical being while he traveled to other times and places, or more likely it was only a deep, complex dream within a dream, woven from a fabric of memories, hopes and disappointments. It was at worst a complete farce, a figment of a romantic man’s imagination. But at best this was nothing less than magical realism, the kind found in the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, where Latin American dictators live to be hundreds of years old and prophets foretell the destiny of generations to come. I was acutely aware that my love for him was blinding, and if he’d told me he’d been to another planet I would have taken him at his word. Raised by a family and country that believed, it was a part of his very essence, so there was nothing to question. If he said it was so, then it was.
I remained beside him while he was under, determined to protect him, acutely aware of his vulnerability as I had been the first night. Every person at the party was a trusted friend yet I still found myself unable to leave him. He’d slumped down a little more into the chaise, his outstretched legs crossed at the ankles, his head now resting partially on my lap. Our guests went about their own business talking and laughing respectfully, but I could see or hear nothing but him. Carefully I loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, and as I peered down at him, his dark curly hair against the ruffle of my skirt, I knew he was my greatest joy, my only love, the master of my mind, body, and heart. I would give anything to go inside his memories with him, to see who and what had made him the exemplary man he was in spite of hardships I couldn’t even imagine. Once he’d told me that until he’d lived in Havana, it was a regular occurrence for him to go to bed hungry. He’d said it in my ear with his chest resting on mine, just before entering me. I thought it an odd time to say such a thing, but that hunger, he continued, paled in comparison to his insatiable appetite for me. He spoke so matter-of-factly about those times that it made almost me sad, but the feral and shadowy look in his eyes wouldn’t let me feel an ounce of pity. I was his to devour in that moment and that’s all there was to know.
As Anthony transitioned into Debussy’s Claire de Lune, I felt something pass through Rafa and then my own body. Whatever it was crossed the deck and made itself known, and as a hush fell across the party, everyone put down their drinks and gathered around us. The exception was Anthony, who, under some sort of mad artistic spell of his own, was either unwilling or unable to stop playing. If anyone was possessed it was him, his textured, melancholy notes filling the gaps between us and the starry night like a trillion little molecules connecting us all. No one spoke, content only to watch the still motionless Rafa, but something in the universe had shifted as if to embrace us. It was love in its purest form, and it was here. We all felt it at the same time, as if we’d all waded into the warmest ocean cove, shallow and peaceful, a momentary return to our original, unblemished state.
As all of the eager faces came closer, Rafa’s eyes began to dance beneath his eyelids, then his perfectly still lips came to life. I placed my fingertips against his temple, worried there might be something wrong, but his skin was cool to the touch. Glancing at the group gathered around us, all of whom stood a respectful distance away but were still so clearly captivated by what was about to happen, I wondered if any of them had ever been part of such an event before. It couldn’t have been something entirely new for anyone but me, and perhaps Alex, as their peaceful acceptance of the extraordinary was remarkable to witness. Esteban in particular appeared to be not just calm, but joyful. He’d thrown his arm around his son’s shoulders as if to make sure they were connected when the moment came. They reminded me of people waiting for the arrivals at an airport, each pair of eyes glued to the door about to swing open, eagerly awaiting the first glimpse of their loved ones. Another silent flash of light cracked the sky in two, and then she was there.
“Alonso,” murmured Rafa.
“He’s asking for Alonso. Is there an Alonso here?�
� I hadn’t remembered meeting anyone by that name.
“That’s me,” said Piraña, making his way toward the front by Rafa. He was about to kneel when Sandro tapped him on the shoulder and indicated he should sit in the chair he’d placed at Rafa’s side.
“Let me know if you need anything,” said Sandro to me. “He’s fine. It’s going well.” I nodded, grateful he knew I needed the reassurance. Of course he’d seen this many times as Doña Delfina’s bodyguard, though I had no idea how her methods differed from Rafa’s. Sandro made room for Piraña but stayed close, keeping a watchful eye on both of us. Piraña sat down and reflexively went to hold Rafa’s hand, then recoiled, as if he’d committed a faux pas.
“He said you could,” I whispered. “Go ahead.”
The last time I’d seen Piraña, Rafa and I had been sprawled out naked on a couch in his studio for hours, the artist and his subjects lost in a delicious haze of eroticism and inspiration, Piraña the confident master of his universe. We’d followed his direction and given him our trust without reservation, and now he was doing the same, completely vulnerable in a different but equally profound way. Now, holding Rafa’s hand, he leaned in and answered in English and Spanish.
“I’m here. Estoy aquí.”
“It’s Mari.” Piraña and I both did a double take, but not for the same reason. He was visibly overcome with emotion at reconnecting with someone he’d lost, but I was astonished at the way Rafa sounded. The tenor of his voice was the same, still deep and rich, but for the first time ever he spoke in a perfect American accent. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d opened his mouth and started speaking Japanese. No one else had noticed it yet, but Rafa and I had talked several times about his inability to say the word ‘it’ with a sharp t-sound. In spite of his best efforts the word always came out like ‘is,’ but tonight it was as perfectly enunciated as if Kieran or I had said it. This was not Rafa speaking, and Piraña knew it, too. He bowed his head to Rafa’s hand and stifled a sob.
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