The Lazarus Rumba (49 page)

“What're you talking about, viejo? This story has been around for years. You, yourself, saw the naked statue. ¿Dónde está la Vieja?”

“She is still saying good-bye to all the doctors and the Party cronies.”

“She is right. They
are
parasites.”

When she came out a side door of the hospital, they were still following her, young doctors who wished she would stay just a few days more to make sure there would be no regression, journalists who needed a few quotes with which to pepper their article to give it the flavorful sting of verity, Party bureaucrats and CDR foot soldiers who forced little notes into her fists, lists of names and offenses, reporting every one from grandparents to teachers to garbagemen for counterrevolutionary activities, and other notes, careful, if politically hazardous, recordings of hardships not yet eased by Fidel. On our way out of Camagüey, la Vieja sat in the back of our carreta, one cigarette in mouth and one in hand, for they had not let her smoke at the hospital. She rubbed her cheeks with her palms and the healthy rosiness vanished and a gray pallor emerged from underneath. She explained that she had rubbed some of the lipstick on her face to convince the foolish young doctors that she was well enough to leave.

We continued travelling on the shoulder of the Central Highway, making the triangle from Las Tunas to Holguín to Bayamo, which we reached on the 25th of July, the eve of the tenth anniversary celebration of the rebels' failed attack on the government armory there, the spark that would light the many future fires of la Revolución. There was a carnival atmosphere in the narrow streets that not even our ghastly caravan, nor its pale thin riders, could diminish. Naked-torsoed sweaty mambistas played their drums and barefoot children sang their songs of plenty, sang a comer judías todos los días.

Guillermo and Felipe jumped out of our carreta and joined these children and learned their words. La Vieja directed us to go on, assured us that they would be safe, to go on through though she saw how difficult it was to maneuver the mules up the congested streets, where roasting pits were set up on the intersections of every third block, and the sweet smell of slow-roasting pig-fat intoxicated Brother Joaquín and all the others driving their carts behind us.

We asked where the local CDR headquarters was and without inhibiting the movements of their dance, the women pointed us in one direction and the drunken boys in another and both offered us jarfuls of rum. I grabbed one and offered la Vieja a sip and then Brother Joaquín, though he declined (too concerned with steering the nervous mules through the street fiesta) and took a sip myself. La Vieja took another sip and then squeezed in the front of the carreta between us and told Brother Joaquín that she hadn't forgotten his promise to finish the story of Delfina Gutiérrez and then demanded that he forget about the taste of pig flesh and steer the mules off the main street.

One block to the south and about six blocks down a narrower, less congested road, we saw a shabby two-floor building marked with the white letters,
C.D.R.
Their own roasting pit was set up right outside, a small child in charge of rotating the impaled pig over the fire. We stopped and looked back to direct the others and saw that the throng of revelers had swallowed about two thirds of our caravan. Inside, there were a few old men playing dominoes and drinking rum from one wide-mouthed pickling jar which they passed clockwise around the table. We celebrated that night in Bayamo, we celebrated the first of Fidel's many defeats. We celebrated, drinking rum from jars and dancing to the
tantarantán
of the mambo drums and
¡azúcar negra!
of the salsa singer and chewing on crispy greasy burned pig-skin and savoring
tajadas
of pork loin. We celebrated the first of Fidel's many defeats, in honor of his subsequent and ultimate victory.

The festivities were still going on, more pigs being slaughtered, more casks of rum being hoisted up from cellars, and the drums and the dancing unabated, when we left town two mornings later, la Vieja forcefully gathering up all her colleagues and their children and proclaiming that we had eaten and drunk enough to last us all the way into Guantánamo. None of the Bayameses, even those that covertly referred to the story in
Granma
, were able to get any answers from her on what her plans were when we reached my hometown.

“I'll hear the end of that story,” she said to Brother Joaquín on the road eastward from Bayamo. “That's what my plans are. I'll dine with Julio's lovely wife and hear the end of that story.”

At the cavernous sanctuary for la Virgencita in El Cobre, Brother Joaquín showed us the quiet spot where the remains of Delfina Gutiérrez had been spread. La Vieja knelt in front of the likeness of our Holy Mother and recited a rosary of thanksgiving with Brother Joaquín and me, and forced her grandchildren to join us. The other CDR leaders and their grandchildren refrained, not daring, however, to voice their fears that the fevers had pushed her into senility.

In exchange for this courtesy (which is all I thought it was, for though she knew the words to the prayers, la Vieja never had been and, I was sure then, never would be a woman of organized faith), Brother Joaquín was persuaded to continue his story.

“And so it was, that near the end of the last century, the whole kingdom of matrimony was infected with the vengeful pestilent ghost of Delfina Gutiérrez. Couples thought it best not to marry, and lived together and risked their everlasting souls instead of risking the demise of their love. By the time the yanqui flags were lowered and our national flag raised in 1902, unblessed unsacramented love was rampant in the capital. The problem was so drastic that the newly estáblished president don Tomás Estrada Palma secretly rode out to the outskirts of the capital with a small entourage and visited the Little Brothers of Mary at their cloister in the countryside (the house where we lived till I960, where you were kept, viejo). The brothers were still mostly Spaniards then, or native Cubans with a long lineage of Spanish blood, and they received the new president coldly. But don Tomás too had some pure blood running in him and he won them over with a woeful recounting of his three daughters' ruined marriages and they agreed to pray with him. They knelt under the Virgin's stone statue in their jasmine-sweet garden. The president refused the offer of a mat and knelt on the black dirt so that his white linen trousers were soiled. They said a novena and pleaded with the Virgin to call back her wayward devotee, to save the sacrament of marriage in the newly established nation. One of the brothers confided to the president that this was all the fault of our acceptance of the infidel yanquis, that now that they had gone, the Virgin was sure to take action.

“It took some time, but eventually the Virgin did lure the ghost of Delfina Gutiérrez into her garden. And the ghost, resentful at first, vented her rage on the soil of the jasmine vines and on the bed of wild orchids, but the more she wet the ground, the sweeter the jasmine perfumed and the more outlandish and colorful the orchids bloomed. When Delfina Gutiérrez complained that it was cold, the Virgin lent her the damask robe. But such pity did not weaken her and she continued to soak the soil, till it was said the jasmine aroma wafted all the way from that garden, through the thick foliage of the countryside, all the way into the open windows of the over-furnished quarters of don Tomás, and at his desk, just awaking from a siesta, he called in his three miserable daughters and offered them the happy news. ‘Can't you smell it! ¿Están bobas, chicas? Smell it! Smell it! The Virgin has triumphed. Your husbands are yours again.' And house by house, the stink lifted from the capital and was replaced by the fragrant breezes from the Virgin's garden. Así fue; indeed, to this day it is the only triumph historians are able to attribute to the brief and troubled term of President Tomás Estrada Palma.”

“Estrada Palma was a yanqui puppet,” la Vieja said, nodding her head.

Brother Joaquín too began to nod his head but then shook it instead, as if both pleased and annoyed by the interruption. He stood and put out a hand to help la Vieja up, but she said she wanted to stay a while, and remained behind, in private prayer.

Arrival

La Vieja talked little throughout the remainder of our journey, only once did she become talkative, to tell me how well she knew the lawyer who had defended me, a poor man driven to drunkenness because he could not reconcile his Marxism with his deep-felt Catholicism. Then she added that she had received word from the Palace of the Revolution that we would be passing through her town. When Brother Joaquín asked her to elaborate, she told him that the story of Delfina Gutiérrez could not have possibly had a more sappy ending. We bypassed Santiago de Cuba through the coffee fields to the north and arrived in Guantánamo in the late afternoon of July 28, some two days after leaving el Cobre. The air was muggy and we were thirsty and we stopped on the shores of the Río Bano and filled our canteens and the children took off all their dusty garments and jumped in the river and bathed. We entered the city through a byroad near the railroad tracks and then turned west towards the town park. El Rubio and his army of uniformed thugs had been waiting for us on the western end near el Campo Santo, the cemetery, and by the time he heard the news of our arrival, most of our party had already made it to Parque Martí, on the northwest corner of town, a few blocks from my home. A small crowd of worshippers were already gathering outside of St. Catalina de Ricis Church. El Rubio met us there, setting his men and his bullmastiff Tomás de Aquino alongside his newly painted powder-blue Studebaker in a wall to stop our progress. Some of the children from our caravan, some of the younger ones still naked or wearing only wet briefs, dismounted from the carts and ran into one of the patchy yards. El Rubio was wearing a military uniform and not the black and khaki mismatched garments that his men wore. He was the tallest man in town, handsome, some said, though he had lived all his life tormented by his bad teeth and his narrow shoulders and child-bearing hips. His beard was yellow and golden as ever but his thick hair was greased back so that it looked not blond but a light sunset honey. His eyes were like melted drops of our Cuban sky in brilliance and his lips were thick and wet and pink and set in a childish pout. La Vieja and I were in the driver's box of the lead carreta. El Rubio held on by a leash to his bullmastiff, who try as he might could not hide his languid nature, could not put on a fierce expression. El Rubio shouted at his men to grab hold of the mules. He saluted la Vieja. Father Gonzalo and the rectory servant had made their way out of the parish living quarters. He was wearing crisp and white celebrant garb. He looked at me and Brother Joaquín in our own tattered and soiled celebrant garb and did not know what to say. He greeted me with a simple nod of his head. El Rubio approached the side of our carreta and saluted la Vieja again and said he had heard of her honorable mission. He unwrapped a chocolate bar and took a bite and offered la Vieja a piece. He said he had come to meet her to take her prisoner. Brother Joaquín was about to protest but la Vieja cut him off by raising her hand. She stared at el Rubio. “¿Y quién eres tú?”

“I am capitán Camilo Suarez of the Revolutionary Police, veteran of la Revolución.” He put out a chocolate-smeared hand to help la Vieja down from out of the carreta but she did not take it.

“Mucho gusto, capitán. I am Delia María Delgado, chief officer of el Comité in Los Baños, in Matanzas, and an in absentia and honorary member of the Central Revolutionary Committee, and one of the founding members of the National Association of Small Peasants, and a voting member of the Federation of Cuban Women, and a tireless organizer and agitator for the National Confederation of Cuban Workers and a close friend and comrade of el Comandante-en-Jefe, and I know not, no tengo la menor idea, mi capitán bellísimo (has anyone ever told you you look like a yanqui movie star? un poquito como Mae West y un poquito como Marilyn Monroe), what
prisoner
you are referring to.”

El Rubio took a step back from the carreta and put his hand to his holster. Some of his men giggled at la Vieja's chide at his northern womanish beauty. The worshippers had come forward and were standing behind Father Gonzalo, though he was telling them to go inside because services were about to commence. I looked for Alicia, I looked for doña Adela, but they were not there. El Rubio held his ground and did not step farther back and tried, with his men, to giggle at himself. He said, almost casually, that his mother had been of pure Spanish blood (like el Líder's), hence his yanqui-seeming looks. Then he changed his tone and said that in his blood there was not a drop of yanqui-ness. He added that he was glad to come face-to-face with such a respected and titled and old comrade in
la lucha
and that she would find in the people of our city the truest of revolutionaries, in spite of the fact that the Devil illegally made his home in our bay.

La Vieja looked at the wall of men blockading our way and at the two men holding on to her mules by the bits, so still that horseflies rested on their serious faces, and at the poor Tomás de Aquino, who had abandoned his attack pose and was lounging on his belly. She lit a cigarette and sucked on it a few times and then held it at the side of her mouth and closed her eyes and massaged her sinuses with her fingers. “It is hot out here. Mira, I am a sick old woman, capitán. I would like to die in my own bed. I don't have time for this. What need have you to harass us?”

“Señora Delgado, by no means do I intend to harass you. Rather I came to do my duty. To receive the prisoner you have so nobly, and under great risk to your person, delivered.”

“Capitán, dime si estoy equivocada, are you so out of touch in this flat pueblecito so far from the capital, that you let hearsay dictate official revolutionary matters?”

“¿Señora?”