Augustino and the Choir of Destruction (8 page)

Henrietta Marie
in the sea, said to me at night, Mummy, I can't get back up to the surface, help me, and I answered, it isn't me, it's this darkness all around, there's nothing I can do, I never wanted a child to hear the explosions in Pearl Harbor while eating his pancakes in the morning, nor to run in fear through the rice paddies, no, no, I did not want that, the Pacific waters may be far away, but we cannot cut ourselves off from others in a few instants of fear, the sand of the bay, the banks, the keys extending all the way to the ocean, and the entire town of Aiea were covered with corpses, was this a time to be born, when life itself was scarcely viable, I could not think about it nor about all those other embryos that mothers were getting rid of, so many wrecks to surround the
Henrietta Marie
, small hands and feet malformed, not yet perfected, undulating on the waves, true or false, I could not think about them but saw them in my dreams, when a voice fraught with indecision said, regretfulness is not for you, you may have given up on architecture, but you can still defend your country, where now women can learn jobs usually meant only for men, airplane pilot, marine lieutenant, and who knows what else, but I was forgetting the little one, her life hardly viable, I didn't have the nobility of Justin, whose book I'd later discuss with him, a book that came out amid controversy and which I judged harshly, I envied these scientists with the secrets that went into building their bombs, holding the future of humanity in their hands, I envied and admired the physicists, gods of learning, without understanding the idea of superiority's universal triumph, this is the thinking of those who feel inferior, women and children admiring what they think of as being on high, beyond their station, in a burst of sincerity, no doubt, but where would this pride and superiority of those I admired lead us? Justin could never get me to admit I was wrong, I just couldn't side with him, the so-doubtful life of my child forbade it, have you never thought, he said, two young boys playing in the yard under a cool August sun, who then fall down in the grass unconscious, both of them, and their sisters barely turn to look at them as reddish bits of flesh are torn from their bodies, those who recall it saw that August sun consume itself in seconds and drop black rain on them, they call it the black rain of ruins, the instant ruins of liquefied glass, everywhere a dusty fluidity smelling of death, have you never thought, Caroline, for several days in a row, as though it was never enough, never ever enough, that black rain, a rain of oil on the bodies and faces, was just an idea thought up in some scientist's office and written out on a blackboard in a classroom, a superiority that would taste victory though not vengeance, in this time of such scarcely viable life, and he won me around, thinking of these great men in their conference rooms, I said to myself, who are they protecting with so many secrets, it was the explosion of the sun with all its black rain, aren't these men defending and protecting me, without them, wouldn't I be more vulnerable, haven't you ever thought, Justin would say in his soft voice and wanted to repress any desire for victory I had, no victory is good, you see, we have proof of it, he was moral, I was not, but above all I was alone with my first husband, I had committed my act of expelling this barely viable life out of me when the oily rains devoured a population, and this is the poison of blame that Charly insinuated into my veins every night that she worked for me. Immobile on the glittering waters of dawn, Julio waited in his motorboat, what peacefulness when the waves were calm, Julio thought, only the rocking of the boat could be heard, the cries of the seagulls as they streaked in to make off with the pelicans' prey, landing as though squatting, so as to snatch in an agile twist the whitefish hanging from their beaks, the grey herons and egrets unfolded their feet on the water, perhaps this was the hour when all was mirrors and mirage like the first day of flowering on the planet, thought Julio, he would see the ghosts of Oreste, Ramon and Edna at the oars, shaking the air, in their inflatable boat, voiceless rowers, lying down or upright on their floating platforms, no, they weren't what Julio was watching for like José Garcia's mother, they would never be coming back to shore, it was for him, José Garcia, the Cubans and Haitians that Julio was looking out, though he did not hold out much hope, still it is true, or was it an illusion, it was here, among the marble-necked doves and lilies, that fishermen had spotted and picked up José Garcia one Thanksgiving, a miracle of fate, he said, crying, where's my mother, where's the boat that brought them from Cuba into deep water, where had it sunk, dehydrated and lips chapped with fever, José Garcia asked, where is my mother — who thought of everything — who had wrapped her son in her own clothes, taking them off now one by one, she knew which ones she would not be needing any more, and she touched her son's forehead, saying, go there for me, be free and happy, don't forget, he saw her plunge beneath the waves under a fiery sun, was it an illusion, a mirage, he asked the fishermen, where is my mother, but they said nothing so as to spare him further pain and to let him recover from the strange sort of coma he was in after being carried by the Atlantic waters for several days and nights, why did my mother and all the others with us suddenly stop rowing or did they just wait till nightfall to slip one by one alone into the ocean, so that he, José Garcia, could remain unaware, you know his mother was only twenty-five, yes, better that he continue to know nothing, illusion, mirage, they had thought he would not know what was happening at night, wrapped up in his warm nest under the stars, José Garcia had fallen asleep on his raft, dreaming of his kites back there at home, would his brothers and cousins bring them for him, and what was it that weighed so heavily on the back of the beat-up little boat, what, maybe the weight of one or two of the drowned, lying among the knotted ropes as though they'd been strangled, an illusion, a mirage, when José Garcia slept under the stars, and when they had all fled, his mother had said to him, good-bye and sleep well, my angel, may your kites fly to you on your makeshift raft, my son, farewell, life is made of courage and innumerable fears such as this, I have dressed you, fear nothing, sleep, and you will have other toys where you are going, I want you to get an education, like your brothers at the Little Havana school, goodbye José, José Garcia heard these words as his mother watched over him while he slept, the sea voyage would be long, his raft constantly surrounded by sharks, a single drop of blood at the temples of one drowned man would have been enough to draw them, my mother, where is my mother, he asked those who had picked him up, my mother, breeze, sweet breath of wind, breeze, breeze of his mother's fingers in his hair, warm breeze of the fishing village where he had grown up, he drifted along the channels of seas and oceans suddenly grown cold, where was that breeze, under what clouds swollen with rains and storms, where had they all gone, his mothers, their companions, balseros, balseros, was it an illusion, a mirage, suddenly they were invisible on the water, but they saw a thin bundle drifting toward them on the waves, what was it, a child, and, so small, the body of a man who had clung to the knotted ropes drifting behind the boat, the fishermen took pity and called the Coast Guard, a bundle so small, was it an optical illusion, we almost didn't see him, he recalled, José Garcia, delirious from thirst, his mother and the balseros, too poor to pay thousands of dollars, a boat with a faulty motor, did he remember the price of this journey, depopulating their forests of the most beautiful birds, no longer hesitating to sell them for a more-than-ten-hour night on the water, and the crown of these captive birds sold on the black market, might it be drifting somewhere in the wake of José Garcia's raft, resplendent birds with nothing left of their song, torn away from their trees and forests, José Garcia thought he heard them, and wouldn't he too be bought and sold once the Coast Guard handed him over to the all-mighty of all countries, the rapacious interests already divided among themselves, in cities everywhere, José Garcia's face on placards, posters, and highways, some saying you belong to us, other saying we're sending you back home, they split him among them in their greed and ambition, José Garcia, sold, a media phenomenon, scarcely saved from the waters and already the owner of a bicycle, phosphorescent green phones, so many toys he did not know what to do with them, birds silent with fear, birds sold by the balseros on the black market, where were they, José wondered, and my mother, who has seen my mother, on one of phones hanging from the belt of his new jeans he heard his father's voice saying, come home to me, son, you know I was against leaving, and now, look, you have no mother, I am all you have now, don't listen to your uncles, come back, my hair has grown long, and I'm waiting for you to come home before we go cut it at the village barber's, only when you come home will it be cut, not before, I love you son, come home, I don't want you studying in that school in Little Havana, you're going to be a communist like me, that's what we've chosen, I'll explain it to you later, come back to your village, your friends wait for you every day, I had to sell everything to phone you, I know our choice is the right one, you have to be the pride of the country and do as I say, I let my hair grow thinking of you, José Garcia, come home my exiled son or it is something you will regret, there are penalties for those who break the law as your mother did, I'm your father, I am all you have, I've had to sell everything I own to phone you, you are mine, do you hear, José Garcia didn't know how to get away from all this shouting and gossip, my mother, where is my mother, he seemed to be saying to all those who assailed him, from the colossal poster on the highway, or in his striped shirt, he seemed to be asking the crowd this question, do you know what will happen to me tomorrow, Julio watched and waited, what was that black dot on the horizon, an illusion or a mirage, could it be a wreck filled with men and children, many without mothers, and if they were Cuban, a ridiculous minimum of legal protection would be given them, but if they were Haitian, they would be sent right back out to sea on their rafts, and Julio thought they would be shut out of this country, not what you could call a promised land, more likely conquered by owners wherever they were, from one coast to another, they expelled these pitiful cargoes of Chinese, Haitians, deaf to their laments and cries, but Julio would continue to watch and wait, he wrote to Samuel in New York that he and Daniel, with the help of a Cuban association in town, had founded a House of Refuge for the survivors, and that he, Julio, waited and watched from dawn to dusk in his boat, Samuel, whom Julio had loved so much as a child and who had replaced Ramon and Oreste, lost at sea, he had changed, a little more distant now, more remote, Mélanie said he didn't show the same attachment to her either, though he didn't hold out much hope, Julio continued to watch and wait for the dark dot on the horizon, illusion or mirage, it seemed amid shouts of joy that the silhouettes of Ramon, Oreste, and Edna were outlined against the sky, Augustino got up early like his father, often before dawn, and wrote, reading the words he had written from a screen placed up high where he could see the ocean, an invisible choir of destruction, I'm convinced that there are strategic missiles hidden on this island, but no one really knows, how was Augustino to face his father, Daniel, who adamantly resisted his son's desire to become a writer, what was this craziness about writing alone in his room for hours when Augustino had received a sports education, you can't see these missiles, Augustino had written, but they're here everywhere in the light of dawn and on the water, in the lukewarm colours of the sky, though he felt too inexperienced to describe the hold of outside forces on his life, inexorable as they appeared to him, living sheltered from all outer conflict in his family's home, and this further jumbled his thoughts, it was this dream, so real and palpable for him, this story of missiles he was writing, the weight of this dream that he could feel beneath his sleeping eyelids, he was certain he had seen his grandmother holding her arms out to him in another life, and moving toward her — though she no longer existed, yet still seemed the same — very small now that he had grown so big, seemed to be crying on her shoulder, please don't leave, sweet Grandma, for she had always been so tender and refined, and remembering this dream in a diaphanous mist, Augustino felt tears run down his cheeks, it was true, one day his grandmother would no longer be there with him, as adoring of her grandson as constraining, imperious as this insistence that he dress for dinner in the evening, Augustino thought, how could one give in to all these rules, children sitting in morose silence in their stiff suits at dinner time, and that other tyranny of hers, insisting on exaggerated politeness toward the ill-tempered nanny, Marie-Sylvie, who camouflaged her cuddlesome moods, keeping them only for Vincent, and annoying Augustino with sly smiles, a little off-kilter like her brother's, He-who-never-sleeps, whom she had coddled too much in his madness, sure the problem had been eating away at her brother for a long time, she said, since they'd left the Cité du Soleil by boat, look at that country burning up, bursting into flame, savannahs and bare-boned plains, how could you cultivate bananas, cotton, or cocoa now, and look at Augustino outrageously taking three meals a day, it was from listening to the imprecations of Marie-Sylvie de la Toussaint that he thought, I'll be a writer, this nanny's not fair to me, she may have her reasons, but I'll write her story and Julio's, however repressive his grandmother might be, she had always accepted that Augustino would be a writer or philosopher, Samuel's dyslexia would prevent him form lengthy schooling, and you had to admit he had unusual gifts for theatre and dance, and that's all there was to it, it was in him, and Augustino, well, his grandmother said, it's true he was born to write, first he must study and learn, now to what prestigious college or university would he be sent this fall, to the math and science college where two thousand students of the twenty-first century would have the benefits of the latest technology, then later Yale or Harvard, the list of well-known universities drawn up for him by his father and grandmother would be a long one, Mélanie preferred to steer clear of the scheming, and she was still tormented by Samuel's absence, is this how our children are torn away from us one by one, frowning, Augustino imagined groups of students on the campuses, in the labs and libraries, destined to graduate studies, the crowning