The Lazarus Rumba (14 page)

He followed his usual morning rituals, bathing in the crisp river water, and then urinating in a dry coconut shell and mixing it with fresh guava pulp before drinking it, because he had read in an Eastern handbook on the matter that drinking a bit of one's own urine in the morning increased sexual power. Never bothering to dress, he fed his remaining cows, gave them food enough to last a week, though they cowered in a corner of the barn when they saw him. He buried Berta's mutilated carcass in a secluded field beyond the mango grove, carried it over his shoulder after he had finished digging a hole wide and deep enough to accommodate in eternal comfort her wide rump and in soil rich enough that her peachy hide would remain fresh for generations and generations. When he shoveled the warm earth over Berta, he prayed for shelter against the curses of the widow-bitchwitch. Then he knelt on the burial mound, threw his head back into the noon light and full of tears honored the memory of his beloved one last time, dreaming of those secret peachy-rump dawns, baptizing the innocent dead, so entranced he never heard the commotion behind him, the mob gathering in the mango grove, nor did he hear the first few rotten mangoes that whizzed by him, landing on the riverbank, and even tried to ignore the pulpy missile that hit him square in the buttocks just as he had squeezed them tight and was surging into the final gestures of his pining. Here they came, hundreds and hundreds of them, mostly women, the more reverent followers of the widow-bitchwitch.

“¡Diablo! ¡Bestia! ¡Ateo!” they screamed, chasing him into the river and leaving him for drowned, after pegging him in the head a few times with dry mango pits.

Mingo survived as he always had, through his wits and through the surprising ability of his pudgy body to perform under duress. He knew every inch of his finca as well as any man knows his own body, even the riverbed—where it was pebbly white, where it was shifty and sandy, where it dipped, where it twisted. So when he made it to the river, with the mob and their flying mangoes not so far behind, he knew he was safe. At least for the time being. He swam about a quarter of a mile underwater, thinking not of his safety, but of Berta and how the mob was sure to desecrate her grave, and came up at the bend of the river not far from his cottage. He waited for dusk before he made his move into the house, heading for the makeshift cellar and hiding with Luis el Catorce under five heavy bags of coffee beans.

He stayed in the cellar for four days, eating the coffee beans and drinking coconut juice—there was a pile of recently picked coconuts in storage—and his own urine, without guava pulp, straight from nature, warm still, for sustenance, till he was sure the mob had quitted him and dispersed. He thought he was ready for anything when he went to the grave site, till he saw the smoldering heap of ashes that had served as their cooking fire, and got a whiff of the rich smell of seared meat that still lingered in the air. They had eaten his beloved, feasted for three days and gorged themselves on Berta's flesh, even chopped the horns from her discarded skull that lay by the riverbank and used them as drinking vessels. As Luis el Catorce sniffed at the carcass, and unnoticed by his master took a few bites, Mingo knelt over the empty hole that had been her grave and began to plan his revenge. He would get the widow-bitchwitch. He would get her just as surely as he once had saved her. “They are all the same. ¡Comen santos y cagan diablos!”

Nothing More or Less

When Alicia Lucientes was arrested on Christmas morning 1967, Mingo, Father Gonzalo, Alicia's sister Marta, and other members of their weekly book club had organized to come to her aid, forgetting about literature altogether and using the time allotted for their weekly meetings to set a strategy for defense.
They
would represent her in the revolutionary mock court and not some government-appointed doltish comunista. But even getting that far was a monumental task. On New Year's Day, Mingo and Father Gonzalo went to the leader of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, or el Comité, as they succinctly referred to themselves, the group that would initially sit in judgment of Alicia. Her name was Pucha she said when they introduced themselves and added that she had much more on her mind than that upcoming trial. “So you want to represent Alicia Lucientes in court? You, a finquero? And you, un curita?”

In the sparse room where she conducted the business of el Comité there was a scratched wooden table scattered with papers on one end and domino pieces stacked neatly on the other, surrounded by six schoolboy chairs; there was also a splintery filing cabinet and an old bicycle, with a well-oiled chain but in need of a paint job, that leaned up against the back wall, and on one side wall hung a portrait of José Martí, yellowed by time and wrinkled by the heat, and on the other one of Fidel surrounded by adoring crowds during one of his speeches, his finger wagging at the heavens. Pucha sat in a swiveling oak chair. She tapped the tabletop with a pencil.

“Carajo, Padre …
you
at least should know better. Why? Why is it that you want to do this? Do you think you will help her? Do you think you will convince the tribunal of her
obvious
innocence, when she goes up there to the pulpit and tells her little story that virtually dared el Rubio to arrest her! You know the rules, Padre. Muy fácil. La Revolución does not need your God. You stay out of our business, we'll stay out of yours. SeñoraAlicia broke that rule. SeñoraAlicia wants to infect our people with her lies just because she cannot face the shame of what her husband did. And you want to represent her in court? You want to associate with her publicly?”

Pucha put the pencil behind her ear, leaned back and waited for an answer. Her auburn hair was tied back in a bun. Her face was bony and the skin hung on it like an ill-suited garment, burned brown. Blood leaked into the whites of her eyes and her pupils were a coruscant urine color. She wore an oversized men's button-down. “I have things to do, señores,” she said, pointing their attention to the multitude of papers heaped on the tabletop. “¿Sí o no?”

“Yes, of course, yes,” Father Gonzalo said. “That's why we came, so that we may represent her. Thank you … Pucha.”

“Bueno entonces, if el Rubio agrees—claro, only if
he
agrees, quién sabe, my cousin is very strict when it comes to these official matters—then it is settled, you will represent her in court. I will give you documents concerning her trial as soon as I receive them.”

“May we see her?”

“That matter you will have to take up with el Rubio … mañana. Hoy es día de fiesta. Now, sit down for a second, gentlemen. There's actually something
you
can do to help me.” She gave Mingo and Father Gonzalo each a list of scribbled addresses and placed in front of them a stack of fancy cotton-fiber peach-colored envelopes. Father Gonzalo marveled at their quality.

“Where did you get these?”

“Never mind that, just get busy and print those addresses on them.”

Pucha handed each of them a fine-tipped pen. Mingo and Father Gonzalo worked quietly while Pucha stuffed the envelopes and stamped them. Some of them were going as far away as the capital. Father Gonzalo stopped every third or fourth envelope to further admire its quality. When it began to get unbearably warm inside the room, so warm that sweat from their palms was staining the fancy envelopes, Pucha pushed open the door to let in the afternoon breeze and from the splintery cabinet pulled out a bottle of rum and three shot glasses.

“Chispa de tren, I call it. El Rubio himself makes it—O bueno, his shorn-headed indian servant makes it, but he likes to take credit.” She poured them each a shot and then herself one. Mingo and Father Gonzalo looked at each other and then at their shots of moonshine and not wanting to offend their influential host raised their glasses and drank.

“To Alicia!” Mingo said.

“Pues, to Alicia,” Father Gonzalo said after a moment's hesitation.

“Feliz año and good luck, señores.” Their glasses clinked. “You're going to need it.”

They went back to writing the addresses on the envelopes, Pucha complimenting their handwriting, especially Mingo's, and when they were finished, they helped her with placing the invitations inside and stamping them. It was for a wedding to be held in the spring. Father Gonzalo knew the bride. “I baptized her. Sometimes I still see her grandmother at Mass.”

“Esa vieja está senil,” Pucha muttered. “¡Gusana! She wont be at the wedding.”

“Why?”

“There is no invitation for her.”

“To her own granddaughter's wedding!” Mingo said.

“She speaks ill of the groom.” Pucha's tone stiffened. “Speaks ill of his whole family. A lieutenant colonel and not yet thirty. A veteran of Playa Girón. A hero.”

“Aah,” Father Gonzalo said. “Un militar. I see.”

Mingo grumbled as he sealed the last of the envelopes. Pucha took all the envelopes, dropped them in a sack, bundled them tight, and tied the sack on the rack behind the seat of the old bicycle. “Muchas gracias.” She poured them each another shot of her cousin's homemade rum against their mild protests. She raised her glass and before either of the men could toast to Alicia again, she blurted, “To the bride and groom.”

“To the wedding,” Father Gonzalo said.

“To her grandmother being there,” Mingo said.

They clinked glasses again.

Outside, Pucha carried the bicycle herself down the steps of the veranda, though Mingo and Father Gonzalo twice offered to help. She threw on a Che-style beret and hopped on the bicycle. When she took off her moccasins and tied them down with the mail bag, Father Gonzalo noticed that her feet were badly in need of a pedicure, the toes twisted one on the other like neighboring vines, the nails blackened, the skin dry and veined with cracks as if she had walked the distance of the Island barefoot.

“Come see me early tomorrow. I will put you in touch with el Rubio and I am sure he will let you see Señora Alicia then. The other matter … that's up to him. Bueno, me voy, have to get these invitations out. This is what my job is all about, building new families to grow under la Revolución … los veo tempranito mañana.”

They nodded and the leader of the 83rd Neighborhood Committee for Defense of the Revolution pedaled off. Mingo and Father Gonzalo were left on the dusty road to make their way back on foot. Mingo pulled out from his pocket a crumpled wedding invitation. He laughed and handed it to Father Gonzalo. “For the grandmother … when you see her at Mass!”

In his office at the Department of State Security, el Rubio picked at his rotted teeth with a long sewing needle. He did not offer his visitors a seat. He grimaced when the sharp end of the needle found tender gum, as he insisted he had Alicia Lucientes' best interests in mind.

“No matter how repugnant her crime may have been, caballeros, she needs someone who will be able to defend her properly, someone trained in the law. We will appoint her the finest attorney available. I hope your dismay with la Revolución does not go as far as to accuse us of cheating your friend of justice. She will have that, eso se lo juro. Tell la vieja … the mother, she may see her daughter after the trial. We will move expeditiously. I assure you, caballeros.”

When Father Gonzalo protested, el Rubio insisted he had no time. Tomás de Aquino was suffering from a bad case of colic and needed to be escorted to the revolutionary hospital.

Alicia Lucientes was handed to the revolutionary tribunal by the 83rd Neighborhood Committee for the Defense of the Revolution and tried and sentenced in justice, in less than an hour, to six months' confinement in Villa Brown, a dilapidating row of houses on the hills overlooking the bay that had once served as a private school for the children of the personnel at the yanqui naval base, now encircled by billowing rolls of concertina wire and used as a retraining center for political discontents. Of the seventy-six detainees then present, Alicia was one of four women. Mercedes and Beba, the brainy bespectacled twins who had once belonged to Father Gonzalo's book club, were there serving time for distributing counterrevolutionary literature. They had translated many of Lewis Carroll's stories and printed them in pamphlets to distribute among schoolchildren. They had been sentenced to two years' confinement. Their trial also had been expeditious. Alicia was pleased to see them. Beba, the more contumacious of the two, pushed a rolled-up tattered manuscript into Alicia's hand. Her translation of the first chapters of
Through the Looking-Glass.

“You get out before us,” she said, her lenses magnifying the conviction in her pale gray eyes. “Make sure this gets out with you, make sure it is copied and distributed throughout the schools and the libraries, and make sure only
my
name stays on it; porque aunque Mercedes helped, I will take all the blame when the time comes.”

“Ay, Beba, estás loca,” her sister said.

Alicia folded the manuscript and stuffed it in the side pocket of the simple gray dress they had given her to wear.

“Be careful,” Beba said, “no one here is who they say they are. ¡Curiosísimo!” She grabbed her sister by the arm and led her away. Mercedes turned, waved to Alicia, and shook her head as if offering an apology. Alicia waved back. No apologies necessary.

On Alicia's fourth day there, her mother was allowed to visit; and as Alicia requested, doña Adela did not bring Teresita. Her mother told her of plans to release her soon. Mingo and Father Gonzalo were working out a deal with el Rubio.

“If it requires my silence,” Alicia said, “if it requires forgetting about Héctor, I'll be part of no deal. I'll serve the time the court has mandated.”

“I don't know what it requires. Y coño, stop being so stubborn. You have a daughter—that should be your first concern. Where do I tell her her mamita has gone for six months?”

“She
is
my first concern. That is why I have done all this, why I am here. So that she never doubts who her father was and why he died. Tell her the truth, that is what you tell her!”