Waiting for Snow in Havana (10 page)

I'm sure the gaunt man with the pencil-thin moustache who peered down my underwear at the airport years later had never been to a party like that. I don't think anyone ever gave him a striped silver box full of treasures in exchange for a used board game. I don't think anyone who cried out
paredón
! had a similar experience either.

Gracias. Muchas gracias,
Sugar Boy, for showering me with grace in exchange for my tawdry gift. A foretaste, I hope, of The Final Judgment, the ultimate party, when we show up bearing crappy gifts and, instead of being tossed out on our ear, to wail and gnash our teeth, are instead overwhelmed with superabundant largesse, with eternal gifts beyond our wildest dreams.

Thanks also for making me laugh years later when your family's name showed up in
The Starr Report,
which gave us all the sordid details of the affair between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Bubba Clinton was actually talking on the phone with someone in your family—no doubt trying to shake loose some change—while Monica played with his
pinga.
Was that your name etched in Monica's memory and in the White House phone log?

Still no more than colonial inferiors unworthy of respect, even when knighted by King Bubba. Sorry, Sir Sugar Boy. Guess we Cubans are still not civilized. Or is it ceeveelaaized? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Gracias. Muchas gracias,
oh sage, Jamaican man on the London bus. You're the closest I've ever come to those angels who walk the earth in human disguise.

Gracias. Muchas gracias,
South Sea Islanders for being kindred spirits.
Japy berrsdéy tú yú,
Nanumangans. You too, Manihikians, and all you Nukulaelaelans. Time for presents!

Gracias. Muchas gracias,
Mel Blanc, for giving me the chance to earn some points with God by forgiving your goofy ignorance, spicmeister.
Arriba, arriba, ándale, ándale.
Hope you enjoy sharing heaven with all of us spics, you colonialist doofus.

Gracias. Muchas gracias, compañero,
whoever you were. Thank you, comrade, buddy, airport underwear checker, for tugging on my briefs, inspecting my butt and my family jewels, and thank you above all for laughing. Thank you, nameless brother, fellow Cuban, whoever you were. I turned into a Regla wharf boy, there at the airport, right in front of you, stripped bare, without a nickel or penny, on the way to a totally uncertain future and many years of Reglahood.

But you also set my feet on the path to enlightenment with the snap of that elastic band. You did, you bastard, you agent of heaven, brother of mine.

My party favor, I guess, for having attended Fidel's glorious, all-inclusive party.

Gracias, muchas gracias.
I must have deserved it. I hope you spend eternity living in very close proximity to Mel Blanc, comrade.

Arriba, arriba! Fiesta
time in heaven!

T
he master craftsman was at it again, creating other worlds in miniature. So many worlds to create. So much time.

Louis XVI cut into the cardboard box very carefully with a knife he reserved strictly for that purpose. He was cutting out a window or, more accurately, what would be a window. Right now it was just a rectangular hole in a brown cardboard box. The box would eventually be covered in plaster of Paris and turned into a house. A house in Bethlehem.

We had the whole town, and it grew every year. House by house he built it, house by house it grew, Bethlehem. We had the landscape too. Rocks. Hills. Ravines. Meadows. A few trees. Just a few, and scraggly ones at that. Even the palms looked beat. King Louis knew there weren't many trees in the area of Bethlehem around the time Jesus was born. He couldn't re-create a falsehood.

He had been there. He remembered all the details. No vault of oblivion for this man, my father.

“See this domed house over here? That was the first inn at which Mary and Joseph asked for a room. See that hill there? That's where the shepherds usually ate dinner around a fire. This house I'm making now was my house. See this window here, the one I'm slicing open? One of Herod's soldiers threw the corpses of my twin sons out of this window after he cut off their heads.”

Jesus H. Dictator-fleeing Christ. Where did this man come up with so many details? And all these severed heads?

He seemed to remember everything. Or to have convinced himself that he did. He had a very fertile, nearly inexhaustible imagination, totally dedicated to inventing past lives and vanished worlds. And it wasn't enough to do this inside his once-severed head. No, he had to re-create some of these vanished worlds physically.

By the time I was seven years old, the town of Bethlehem and surrounding countryside took up most of our dining room. By the time I was nine, it had become too big to fit into any single room in our house, and King Louis had persuaded the Christian Brothers to display it in a large room at our school. He would set it up on sheets of plywood, which rested on sawhorses. Over the plywood he would lay out the landscape, some of it made from very stiff, painted fabric, some of it built out of chicken wire covered with plaster of Paris.

The town itself consisted of many buildings in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Many of them had domes for roofs. Inside each building was a lightbulb. Small ones, the kind that are usually strung on outdoor Christmas trees or used for night-lights. Some lights were red, others orange or yellow. He wanted to capture the glow of the hearths inside those houses, inns, and shops. To re-create it just as he remembered it, this time with the aid of electricity.

At night, light poured out of the windows, bathing the landscape in a soft, twilight glow and heightening the shadows on it.

All over the town and the countryside, naturally, there were people and livestock. Shepherds galore, out in the fields, and flocks of sheep. A few donkeys and cows. And camels, those inevitable camels. Wait, wait, I almost forgot the angels. There were angels too, suspended from the ceiling with clear, nearly invisible fishing line. Hand-painted ceramic figurines. And a dark blue, starry backdrop. Couldn't forget about that Star of Bethlehem, could he? He had, after all, seen it with his own eyes.

A nativity scene worthy of a cathedral. A very Spanish Christmas tradition, passed on to its colonies. Every church set up one of these tableaux, or so it seemed, but none that I saw could compete with ours. Many homes had them too, but they were all puny by comparison.

What a sight that miniature Bethlehem, especially in the dark. You could almost hear the people inside, gnawing on bones around their hearths, or licking their fingers, as ancients did. (My dad had enlightened me at an early age about the invention of the fork in the Middle Ages, and about how hard it was for people to get used to the concept, even among the nobility. “One of my brothers stabbed me in the forearm with a fork the first time we dined with them back in 1348, just before the Black Death wiped us all out.”) All those people and animals milling about. The stable in which Jesus was born, so rustic, so incredibly detailed, off to the side of the town, somewhere near the shepherds and their flocks. Had my dad really seen moss hanging from the rafters of that stable?

He said he had.

My favorite characters were the Three Wise Men. The Magi. The Three Kings.
Los Reyes Magos.
Call them whatever you want. The Three Zoroastrians. The Three Astrologers. The Three Wisenheimers. Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar, bringing gifts on their camels. They were the only figures that moved across the landscape. On the first day in which Bethlehem went up in our dining room, the Magi would be placed way out on the edge, and with each passing day, we'd move them ever closer to the manger where Baby Jesus lay, His little chubby arms constantly outstretched, prefiguring the cross. Millimeter by millimeter. On the sixth of January, the Feast of Epiphany, these three very well-rested travelers and their camels would finally make it to the manger. Talk about slouching towards Bethlehem.

That same day we would also receive some presents, left for us by those same three Wise Men.

I liked the way we could move the Magi, but I hated thinking about their God-awful gifts. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh? What kid in his right mind would swoon over such useless grown-up crap, especially the myrrh? Even two thousand years ago, kids must have seen these gifts for what they were: useless stuff. What can a little baby do with spices, bullion, or coins? Jesus H. Diaper-changing Christ. What child is this?

A very unlucky child,
I thought.

First these awful gifts, in a stinking stable, and then the cross at the end, in the prime of life. What kind of Father was God, to do this to His Son?

Perhaps none at all.

That's what I thought then. Any dad that puts his son through so much, making him cry out at the end, “Why have you abandoned me?” was no dad at all. Lucky me, I thought: my inventive, one-of-a-kind dad would never abandon me. No, he might even build a real town someday, just for me, and include in it a huge store filled with firecrackers. And he might just stand there laughing, beaming with pride as I blew up the whole town with my explosives. He'd do anything for me, except sell the portrait of Maria Theresa.

If you overlooked his unhealthy relationship with Maria Theresa and the other antiques in our house, my dad, Antonio, Louis XVI, was a great father. So much like the other gift giver at Christmastime, the
good
gift giver,
Santicló
. Merry Old Santa, swooping down from the pristine, ever-frozen North Pole, his sled brimming with really good presents that ended under our Christmas tree. Despite the fact that he labored mightily to keep alive a Spanish tradition at Christmastime, my father really resembled the imperialist American Santa Claus.

At Christmastime, you see, a silent battle raged in our house between Spanish and American customs. A battle between
Santicló
and
Los Reyes Magos,
between Bethlehem and the Christmas tree. And those Three Wisenheimers had no chance of winning the battle with Santa. Spain had no chance against the United States, just as in 1898. The past had no chance against the future.

Santa brought the best presents. And the Christmas tree: no contest. That tree was divine. I didn't know it at the time, confused as I was about the first commandment, but I was an idolater. I worshiped that tree, bowed down to it, praised it, loved it unconditionally, inhaled its sweet essence down into my cells, where it mingled with the sunlight.

Where these trees came from, I had no idea. Years later, when I moved to Illinois and saw balsams, spruces, and firs growing out of the ground, some of them three stories tall, I was thrilled beyond words. I might have even floated a few feet off the ground when no one was looking.

Now I take my children to a tree farm every December and we spend a very long time looking for the perfect tree, saw in hand. Even in the worst weather, even when my kids argue endlessly, I could remain there all day. Once, in freezing rain, mud and slush under our feet, one child running a fever, it took over one hour to find and cut down the tree God had grown for us.

When I die I would like to be buried at a Christmas tree farm.

The lights and houses of Bethlehem, so lovingly created by my dad, were no match for the lights on that tree, or for the ornaments. Exquisite ones, mostly hand-blown glass, finely spun into marvelous shapes and figures. I catalogued and memorized them all. But I think it would be better not to dwell on them. I might revert to my idolatrous ways if I get going on this topic.

My dad bore some responsibility for the Christmas tree, since he bought it, but it was my mother's Christmas symbol, not his. She, the daughter of Spanish immigrants, conceived on a transatlantic liner on the way to Cuba, wanted her children to be up-to-date. This meant being as American as possible. My dad favored the past, fought against the present, ignored the future. My mom looked towards the future.

I realize now that the battle between December 25 and January 6 was not just a skirmish between American cultural imperialism and Spanish tradition, but also a contest between Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. And it was no contest, despite my father's best efforts.

Nature itself mocked my dad when it came to this battle for Christmas. My own dad, the former Louis XVI, looked and acted like Santa. He was as fat as Santa, and just as white-haired. So what if he didn't have a beard or a red suit? He looked as old as Santa, didn't he? If he didn't, then why did all of my classmates think he was my grandfather? So what if he had eyeglasses different from Santa's? He wore glasses, didn't he? Thick ones, too. He made toys, didn't he? He loved children, didn't he? Loved them so much he always brought strange ones to our house, like so many stray cats. He was generous. He never skimped on firecrackers. And he took us car surfing: a fine tropical substitute for sleigh rides.

“
Santicló
doesn't exist,” said my brother to me one day. “All those presents come from Dad.” Tony said this to me as we stood on the edge of our father's Bethlehem, in the glow of the lights that streamed from the windows he had cut out so carefully.

I didn't even bother to ask my brother about the Magi, because I didn't really care for them. They always brought inferior gifts.

Like all kids, I refused to believe the awful news at first, but the veil lifted quickly, and the clues all fell into place. In less than a minute, I came face to face with the truth. Santa and my dad were, in fact, one and the same person.

I had been lied to for years.

The veil lifted, and I beheld, virginally, the dreadful treasure unearthed by my ancestors.
Desengaño
. Disillusionment. The scorching, incandescent cornerstone of Spanish culture. You see, Spanish culture is built upon one warning: beware, all is illusion. Whatever you love, whatever you think you own, all of it is bound to disappoint, to prove false. Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, nothing you can embrace in this world will ever fill that yawning void in your soul. Nothing. No thing. No one
. Nada. Ninguna cosa. Nadie.

Jesus H. Bungee-jumping Christ, save me! Find me the key to the vault of everlasting illusion! Take me to a place where the veil is never lifted, where the void can be ignored or seem full to the brim. Right there, looking down on Bethlehem, I prayed for release, for redemption. And it came from a very unlikely source, and much too fast.

Fidel came down from the mountains a few days later, swept down like an avenging angel burning with white-hot envy, frothing at the mouth. Beelzebub, Herod, and the Seven-Headed Beast of the Apocalypse rolled into one, a big fat smoldering cigar wedged between his seething lips, hell-bent on imposing his will on everyone. Hell-bent on ensuring there would be no king but he, no thoughts but his. He wrecked Bethlehem, leveled it, slaughtered all its children or drove them away. Burned all the Christmas trees in one fell swoop with a whirlwind of flame, a cyclone of hellfire, kindled by his cigar. Banished Christmas itself, made it illegal. Sowed salt on the landscape too, he did, enough brine to poison the entire island for more than the biblical forty years.

Two score and one, and still counting, as I write this. Man, oh man, God was surely pissed at us. So seldom does he exceed the number forty when venting his spleen or teaching a lesson.

I was one of the lucky ones. Fidel couldn't obliterate me as he did all the other children, slicing off their heads ever so slowly, and replacing them with fearful, slavish copies of his own. New heads held in place by two bolts, like Boris Karloff's in
Frankenstein,
one bolt forged from fear, the other from illusion. Even those Regla wharf boys lost their heads, they did, in exchange for a ration card and a ban on coin diving. And those that are still there, now grown men, with children and grandchildren of their own, are all walking around with rusty bolts on their necks.

Thanks to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, I was spared the head transplant. They battled over how best to save me, went to war with each other, pulled out weapons neither one knew they had. Like all real wars—as opposed to the ones staged in films—it wasn't very pretty or much fun to watch. Working with the skills she had honed so well in the battle over Christmas, my mom eventually prevailed. Louis XVI caved in to her, reluctantly. Caved in and collapsed, unable to resist her persuasive voice. On bad days I see my dad as an inflatable rubber Santa, the air all gone from inside, nothing but a red, wrinkly puddle on the ground. Or I see him as a plastic lawn ornament Santa, turned into shrapnel by a well-placed explosive. Dad-Santa, gone in an instant. Just like our lizard rocket.