Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil (69 page)

“Quieres cafe con leche?”
Cuco asked from the stove. He shook a tall tin pot at me.

“Yes, thank you,” I said.

Cuco put the espresso maker on top of a low flame. He poured milk into a saucepan and lit another burner to heat it.

“The coffee is incredibly good,” Diane said.

“Cuban coffee puts hair on your teeth,” my father answered.

“Good morning,” I said in his and my grandfather’s direction.

Neither answered. Francisco raised a coffee mug to his lips and sipped. Pepín looked through me.

Diane filled the silence before it widened too much. “So what’s our schedule?”

“We have to leave in fifteen or twenty minutes,” Francisco said. He stood up carefully, taking his father’s hands off him and holding one of them to maneuver him gently out of the way. “Speaking of hair I’d better brush mine. And comb my teeth too. We don’t want these gringos to think we’re white trash,” he said to Pepín. He seemed to notice something. “Don’t button this,” he said, unfastening Grandpa’s collar. “You’re not wearing a tie.”

“I’m cold,” Grandpa said in Spanish and redid the button.

“You’re cold!” Francisco answered him in Spanish. “Man, it’s already seventy. And the sky’s clear. By noon, it’s going to be eighty, eighty-five.” He reached for Pepín’s collar.

Grandpa slapped at his son’s hands. “It’s air-conditioned in those places,” he said.

Francisco gave up good-naturedly, patting Pepín on the side of his shoulder. “How do you know, old man?”

“Those crackers air-condition everything.”

“And they’re right. I’m sick of the tropics. You can’t think in the heat.” He said to Diane in English, “It’s too hot down here, that’s what we’re saying. The brain doesn’t work.”

“Oh, I love it,” Diane said. “I’m sick of it being winter.”

“Winters in New York,” Francisco declaimed, looking up, arms spreading, like a hero in a Broadway musical about to transpose into song. “Beautiful women in long coats.” He smiled at her as if she were one of them. “And that air! There’s nothing like taking a deep breath on Fifth Avenue on a cold February night. Clears all the junk out of your head.”

“You’ve been away a long time,” Diane said. “Now the air is polluted.”

“It was always polluted. Wonderfully full of pollution.” Diane laughed. “Really,” he assured her. “There are ideas in that air. It even makes the stupid people think. They don’t think great thoughts, but at least they think. Down here, and in Cuba, when it gets too hot, everybody sits around stupefied, sweating their brains out. You can’t have a serious conversation in Havana until the sun sets. And in Tampa! It’s too humid. Even at night, it’s impossible.”

“Don’t say that to her!” Pepín slapped Francisco’s back, but feebly, hand trembling. “This is a good place to live. Of course she likes our weather. Nobody wants to be cold.”

“Don’t get agitated,” Francisco said in Spanish. “I’m not serious.”

“You sound serious,” Pepín complained. His mouth quivered as if he were going to cry. He switched to English and insisted to Diane, “Many people like to visit Tampa. They put up a new building almost every day. And we may get a baseball team,” he added to Cuco. “People love to come here,” he said to me.

“Of course,” I said. “Diane and I will come every winter to escape the cold.”

This earned me a stare from my father, the first look that acknowledged I was in the room.

“That’s right,” Pepín said. His trembling hands went to his already buttoned collar, ready to button it again. “You can come for
Noche Buena
and stay through New Year’s. Make a good vacation.” He looked down, confused that he couldn’t button the collar. “Ah,” he said and added in Spanish: “It’s buttoned.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “That’s what we’ll do.”

“Great,” my father said as he moved to leave the room. “Why don’t you make your reservations now?”

Diane reached for him. “Wait.”

Francisco paused at the doorway.

“Is it all right if I dress this casually?’”

Francisco stepped to her, bent over, and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re lovely. Don’t worry, they won’t mistake
you
for a peasant. They’ll know they’re dealing with a superior person.” He moved off, out of the room, saying, “But us Latinos, we’d better put on the dog.”

Cuco poured the heated milk and espresso in a large mug for me. Pepín continued to stand in the middle of the room and look at nothing, his hands worried and worrying at his clothes, touching his cuffs, pulling at the ironed crease of his pants, feeling his collar. At one point he undid his belt buckle, stared at the separated pieces, then refastened them. He smiled afterwards and commented in Spanish, “It’s hot, no?”

By then Cuco had left to dress and Diane and I were talking in whispers. We had tried to engage Grandpa in conversation, but he seemed not to hear our questions, and that was the first time he had spoken on his own. “Do you want to open your collar?” I asked.

“My collar?” A hand went to his throat. His fingers pressed all around the top button and he frowned.

I stood up. “Should I undo it?”

“No, no,” he backed away, turning toward the barred window, a hand guarding his throat. “No,” he said once more, softer, sadly.

I sat down. Diane held my hand. “Your father’s very charming,” she said.

“I told you.”

“And he’s very handsome.”

“I can’t believe he’s seventy-four.”

She squeezed my hand. “You look like him, you know. Very much like him.”

“That must stick in his craw.”

“No …” Diane was disappointed. “He must like it.”

“Makes it harder to deny me.” Pepín tapped me on the shoulder. “Yes, Grandpa?”

He spoke in English. “This is no problem. Don’t worry about it. It will be no problem.”

“I won’t,” I said. He patted my shoulder and winked. “What shouldn’t I worry about?”

“Today! Don’t you remember the appointment?”

“Oh, yes. I’m not worried,” I assured him.

“Good. Because there’s nothing to worry about.”

Cuco appeared, dressed in what appeared to be brand-new chinos and a white dress shirt, also with no tie. “We must go. Papá’s bringing the car out of the garage.”

That was the first time I heard Cuco refer to my father as Papá, his natural address for Francisco. I envied him and had to push down a swell of resentment. Perhaps that was why, when we went outside to find Francisco behind the wheel of Pepín’s white Buick, I walked to the driver’s window and leaned in to ask him, “Do you have a valid license to drive in America?”

Francisco stared ahead as if he weren’t going to answer. Cuco opened the rear door for my grandfather and Diane. There was some conversation amongst them about where Diane should sit. I maintained my position, leaning in, less than a foot from Francisco’s face. My father turned his head to me after a moment. I felt a jolt in my chest as his warm brown eyes looked deep into mine. They seemed the absolute master of what they surveyed. “No, Officer,” he said with a mocking lilt. “As a matter of fact my license has expired.”

“Then I’d better drive,” I said.

Francisco looked forward again. Diane and Grandpa had gotten into the back, Diane in the middle, Grandpa on the right, with space on the left, presumably for me. Cuco opened the passenger door. “Sit in the back,” Francisco said to him in Spanish and slid over to the passenger side.

So I drove. My father directed me in a cold authoritarian voice, as if he were training a dog. I obeyed like a star pupil.

After we left the first home, Grandpa said over and over in a faint voice that the place was nice. We rejected it, however, for being little more than a dreary boarding house run by a thin man with an unctuous manner. The manager followed us all the way to the car, saying he hated to rush us, since he thought Mr. Neruda was a gentleman and also obviously very intelligent. “He would be an asset,” he said, a curious choice of word I thought. “But,” the manager added ruefully, “I have one vacant bed and it’ll go quickly.” I got a smile out of my father by whispering as I pulled away from the curb, “Uriah Heep.”

Francisco forgot to maintain his unresponsiveness. “Yes, he’s probably stealing their Social Security checks and feeding them gruel.”

“Right,” I said. “Or taking the checks and burying his clients in the backyard so he can save on the gruel.”

“Shhh,” Diane said and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. She glanced at my grandfather, who, indeed, appeared to understand enough of our sarcasm to be alarmed.

Francisco told me the next address and what my first turn would be. In the back seat, Cuco and Diane explained to Grandpa why Uriah Heep’s Retirement Home wasn’t right for him. Perhaps because this gave us a moment of privacy, my father volunteered to speak to me, albeit in a low voice. “You read Dickens?”

“Because of you,” I answered. “You practically forced me to read
Oliver Twist
when I was eight. And in Spain you used to read
Great Expectations
to me before bedtime.”

Francisco nodded and mumbled, “You remember.”

“Of course,” I said. “As a matter of fact, when they’re old enough, I encourage my young patients to read him. From their point of view, Dickens doesn’t seem all that out of date.”

“He was a genius,” my father said, sadly, as if this were a fact lost to the world.

The second appointment was at a larger facility, a hundred beds. The rooms were double occupancy. At Uriah’s establishment Grandpa would have been squeezed in with five other men. Here, although the rooms were institutional, like a hospital’s, at least they were bright, clean and a reasonable size, allowing for a few personal possessions. Again, Grandfather announced it was nice over and over as we toured. I was puzzled by his anxiousness to agree to become a resident of either place. I expected his senility to take a different form: fear and resistance to change. I understood when I took his arm as we walked down a flight of stairs to see the Activities Room. I whispered to him, “You really like it here?”

“Yes, it’s nice,” he said for what seemed like the twentieth time. “For a few weeks, it’s okay,” he added in Spanish.

“A few weeks?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“It’s nice,” he said in English. “Until my mind clears,” he said in Spanish; then back to English, “It’s nice.”

The bigger, more modern nursing home divided us. Diane and Cuco were in favor of it. Most of the residents were Latin, the staff seemed competent and not harassed. There were things to do besides watch television with Uriah Heep. And it was near old Ybor City, where my grandfather had once rolled cigars. In fact, we drove to Ybor City proper to eat my grandfather’s favorite lunch, Cuban sandwiches at the Tropicana. Francisco and I didn’t demur from Cucos and Diane’s positive comments about the nursing home, but we didn’t concede the decision was made either. Not that I felt my agreement was a factor for Francisco. As for Grandpa, the question was settled. “Let’s go back and tell them I’ll come in tomorrow,” he said, seeming much livelier as he bit into a flattened hero loaf, mustard oozing from its edge onto his fingers.

Francisco wiped his father’s fingers with a napkin. “Tomorrow? What are you talking about? They don’t have room until next month and there’s papers, lots of papers to sign. All those Medicare and Medicaid forms, right?” he smiled at Diane. She had questioned the administrator about insurance procotols, the liquidation of Grandfather’s assets, and so on, inadvertently showing off her expertise in dealing with bureaucracy. She handled all the paperwork for our clinic. She had impressed my father. “And we have to sell your house,” he added to Grandpa.

“Sell my house?” Grandpa took another bite speaking as he chewed, flakes of bread falling onto his chin. “You can’t sell my house. It’s for you. You and Cuco. You’re going to live there.”

“Until you’re settled, yes. But we have to go back to,” he lowered his voice to add, “Havana.” There had been a warning from Grandpa before we entered the restaurant that all the waiters were Cuban exiles. “Maybe they’ll ask for Cuco’s autograph,” Francisco had said breezily then, but he seemed wary now, checking the room after he said Havana, as if it might cause an eruption.

When the check came, I took it. My father grabbed the slip of paper out of my hand, saying, “No,” firmly, again the dog trainer.

“Is there a phone here?” Diane asked. “We should get our messages,” she added to me.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Grandpa, is there a phone here?”

“What?” He had been silent since Francisco told him they were going to sell the house on St. Claire Street.

“Where is the phone, Grandpa?”

He looked at me with old eyes, dead at their centers. “I don’t know,” he said with profound regret.

“If I remember,” Francisco said, “there’s a pay phone near the bathrooms. I’ll show you.”

“You first,” I said to Diane. She and my father stood up. Francisco pointed the way for her and continued on to the cash register. He handed over the check and money while saying something to the man behind the register. He laughed at my father’s remark and immediately they were in a friendly conversation. I felt someone watching me as I watched Francisco. I turned to find Cuco staring at me.

“He can talk to anyone,” I said.

“Yes,” Cuco didn’t seem any happier about that than I. “Sometimes I think the less he likes you, the more he’s your friend.”

I smiled at Cuco’s insight. “Yes,” I said.

“But it is not true,” Cuco said. “It appears that way because he’s harder on us, the people he loves.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you?” Cuco turned up a palm to indicate his confusion.

“For including me in the people he loves.”

“But of course he loves you.”

In Spanish, Pepín said, “It’s hot in here, no?”

“Do you want me to unbutton—?” I began and then waved my hand, giving up.

Cuco ignored Grandpa’s interruption. He continued to look at me intently.

“He doesn’t,” I said. My chin quivered.

“Yes,” Cuco insisted. “He told me about you. So did my mother and …” he nodded at Pepín.

“How is your mother?”

“I don’t speak to her.”