Waiting for Snow in Havana (39 page)

The bags looked like worms.
Gusanos
for the
gusanos.

Very funny. Especially when you know that caterpillars are also
gusanos.
Everyone knows what happens to caterpillars.

But Louis XVI wouldn't laugh at this pun, or get involved in any of the things that needed to be done to get us out of Cuba. He did nothing except open his hands and let us fly away. Nothing. He did nothing. There's no denying that, no.

Nada.

And we flew away from Limbo,
gusanos
in hand, and he stood there with his hands in his pockets, and we never saw each other again.

And sixteen years after that farewell, after he had already been buried for two years, I turned his surname into a middle initial, N, and began using my mother's surname, Eire, so that it could be the name I would pass on to my children, none of whom had been born yet. I knew he would be proud of me for doing it.

It was the correct thing to do. As right as putting on your shoes before your pants. As right as always wearing socks, no matter what. As right as defending Empress Maria Theresa's reputation. As right as taking an urchin off the street and adopting him.

As right as letting us go.

S
harks. In the swimming pool. Sharks, and plenty of them, swarming. It's a kidney-shaped pool, large and deep and turquoise blue, nearly the same shade as the sea. The sharks are densely packed, swimming in tight circles, looking for something to kill and devour. It's a large pool for a house, but not as big as one you might find at a swim club.

The diving board is still there, poised over the lethal brink, rudely shouting, “Suicide, anyone?”

And the sea is no more than a few feet away, full of sharks that swim freely. It's a windy day, and the waves are decent. They crash against the sharp-edged rocks and the concrete seawall, as if to remind the sharks in the pool that they've lost their freedom, just like all the humans on the island. I ask myself: can they hear the waves pounding against the shore?

The sharks are looking for blood and freedom, circling furiously. There's nothing calm about them. All kinds of sharks in there, including a couple of hammerheads. I don't know all their names, but most of them are large enough to eat me, for sure. Some could even eat Louis XVI and Ernesto with just a few bites.

I ask myself: do they sense that the pool is kidney shaped? Do they know that Ernesto is here, looking at them, so close to the diving board?

Lizard. Iguana-souled wretch.

The diving board shouts at me: “Justifiable homicide!”

I ignore the shouting. The sharks remain as silent as a woman who's trying to hide her thoughts in order to spare your feelings.

I'm at the Aquarium of the Revolution. It looks like a tureen from hell, that swimming pool, a giant soup bowl teeming with deadly squirming noodles.

I've come here with Louis XVI, Tony, Ernesto, Manuel, and Rafael. We've just found a beautiful parrot fish stranded in one of the tidal pools at La Puntilla and rushed him here in a pail full of saltwater. I've never seen a fish as beautiful as this. Good God, it's a living rainbow. Too much. If I were God, I wouldn't let anything so beautiful die. The director of the Aquarium has identified the fish, thanked us for bringing him, and dropped him into a large glass tank on the rear porch of the mansion.

The Aquarium of the Revolution has been set up at a splendid seaside house in Miramar, not far from where we live. The pink house is right up against the sea, and the pool is filled with saltwater. Huge upright glass tanks dot the backyard, which faces the Gulf of Mexico. And these tanks contain wonders. Gorgeous, incredible fish. This is too much to take in all at once. The parrot fish we rescued seems smaller and duller when viewed in the company of the others. These fish are unreal. Colors I've never seen. Patterns and shapes I'd never imagine, not even in an eternity. And all these fish are out there, all the time, along with the sharks and the moray eels and the stingrays and lobsters and crabs. All the time, swimming with sharks.

I ask myself: who owned this house? What was it like to live here, day in and day out, with your own pool, right by the turquoise sea? What was it like to give up all of this? What would the former owners of this house think of the Aquarium of the Revolution? What would they think of the sharks in their pool? What would it be like for them to come back right now, with their memories still intact? Would the sight of the shark pool dissolve all their memories, like acid?

Not that long ago, I tell myself, children surely must have used the pool. Not that long ago, a man and a woman must have kissed in that pool. Someone must have. Who wouldn't kiss, right there, at the edge of the turquoise sea?

The director of the Aquarium tells us of their plans to expand, to turn this into a huge showcase for all the world to admire. All you need is the will to do it, he says. This mansion shall be transformed into one of the world's greatest aquariums. That's what the Revolution is all about. Poor guy, he really believed it.

He thanks us once again for bringing in such a beautiful parrot fish.

And I tell myself that this is the first thing I've seen that makes the Revolution look halfway good. The sharks in the pool are a weird touch, but the Aquarium is a great idea.

Meanwhile, the sharks are like sardines in a can, with nothing to eat except one another. And I can't stop staring at them. Every few seconds I look up from the sharks in the water and eye the diving board and Ernesto standing near it. How I wish that the sharks could swallow Ernesto whole. No, wait, why deny it? How I wish they'd chew him up, slowly. How much I'd love to see his blood turning the pool a deep, bright, joyous crimson.

Too much, for sure. Far too much.

I remember, suddenly, that I'm in Limbo. This is all here now, and I'm here now, but it won't be like this for very long. No, it's as good as gone, along with all that's past, and the future is a giant, gray, shapeless blank. I'm due to leave any time now. One of these days, we'll get a letter in the mail telling us when we can leave for the States. Rafael and Manuel are waiting for theirs, too. In the meantime, we wait.

Ernesto is waiting for us to leave.

And I watch the sharks circle and circle.

Why do they all stay so close to the bottom of the pool? What are they fed, and when, and how? Do they ever sleep? Do they ever fall in love? Do they ever worry about the future? Are they really as selfish as they seem? How did anyone catch them and get them into the pool? The Aquarium of the Revolution elicits a thousand and one questions and yields very few answers.

Flash forward seventeen years.

I'm swimming laps in an Olympic-size swimming pool in Minnesota—indoors, naturally. Outdoors, it's about twenty degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. At that temperature, your tears freeze in an instant. I'm about fifteen hundred miles from the nearest ocean. I have the pool all to myself, and it's lunchtime. I've just eaten a large lunch to taunt the god of
embolias,
and I've already completed about thirty laps when, suddenly, I'm seized by an irrational panic. I've just crossed from the shallow end to the deep end. This is also a diving pool, and it's very deep. I look down at the bottom, so far from me. It's green down there. Kind of blue-green. But I see turquoise, I see sharks circling. I feel them coming up from the bottom of the pool, from behind me, from the right and left. I see them. I'm still very far from the end of the pool, far from safety.

Stupid imagination. Stupid Aquarium of the Revolution. Wish I could banish it from my mind, this crazy fear. But the fear is so intense, the sharks so real. I can feel their jaws approaching. I can see my blood streaming into the pool, mingling with the chlorine. I see my femur sticking out of my severed leg. I feel the pain.

Stop it! Stop it!
Coño.
Too much.

I reach the end of the pool and leap out, shaking like Jell-O. I look at the water. Blue-green. Calm. Not one shark in sight. I'm in Minnesota, God damn it. God forgive me for swearing, but it's hard not to when I think about Minnesota.

Damn it. When will someone else show up? I'll be all right if someone else is in there to attract the sharks.

Five minutes later, someone opens the door from the locker room, walks over, and dives in. Thank God. Now the sharks in my mind will go for him instead. Now I can finish up. Thirty more laps to go. I hope this other guy stays in here that long. He does. I finish up, shower, and go back to work.

Believe me, if you ever see a swimming pool full of sharks, you'll never be the same again. I guarantee it.

You might even find a wife because of it.

Flash forward another two years.

I'm now living in the former Confederate States of America. I've only been at this job in this new town for about a week. I've driven into town in my Karmann Ghia, with all of my possessions crammed into it, Rolling Stones blasting “Can't You Hear Me Knocking” as I descend the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's September, but it's still brutally hot. Hotter than Cuba, and much, much stickier. I meet a nice woman named Jane in the hallway outside my office. She strikes up a conversation. We talk. We go out for dinner. Somehow, out of the blue, I start telling her about a pool I once saw full of sharks. It's one of my worst flaws, bringing up odd subjects with women I like. Odd subjects are so much safer to talk about than your feelings. She tells me that she's never seen a pool full of sharks but has been haunted all her life by that image, and by a very real fear of finding sharks in every pool. I believe her and confess that the image and the fear both haunt me still.

Both of us smile in an odd way, and I change the subject. I can't help thinking I've known this woman for a very long time, maybe even forever.

Flash forward another two years.

The shark pool woman and I get married across the street from the biggest pool in town.

Flash forward another sixteen years.

Deep into the night, close to dawn, as the bullfrogs croak in my swamp, I fret about Saint Thomas Aquinas and his five proofs for the existence of God. I've only come up with four thus far, after covering so much ground. The Angelic Doctor has me beat. I'm close to the end of the race, and he's still ahead. He died when he was about my age. How long will I have to come up with five?

But, wait! What's this?

Yes…why didn't I see it before? Fool. Good God. Why, why didn't I see it?

Too much.

Like the burning bush, or the stillness in the midst of the whirlwind, or the water changed into wine, or the nets ripping from the weight of the catch.

Shoeless Moses. Jesus H. Fish-eating Christ.

A Cuban refugee catches up with Thomas Aquinas near the finish line, and offers up his fifth proof of the existence of God: a pool full of sharks.

T
wo things. Two goddamned things in this world that are too hard to take, always.

One is knowing that you will never have something that
should
be yours. Knowing that what you love and need and crave with every fiber of your being will be forever beyond reach. Never, ever will it be yours, not in this life or any other life or in a parallel universe.

The other is knowing that something that
shouldn't
be yours is yours to keep. Knowing that something you don't want at all and hate and know is all wrong is yours eternally, without reprieve. Eternally yours, the stinking evil, because it's who you are, forever, even after forgiveness is released from its cage.

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Everyone's an expert on this subject.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I wouldn't trade my life story for anyone else's, not for a minute. I'm just boasting, that's all. I can take it. I'm tougher than the hide on the oldest, meanest devil in hell.

Don't ask me which of the two things is worse, though. Both are ungodly. All I can say is: don't wish either situation on anyone, not even on your enemies. You're supposed to forgive your enemies, you know. Turn the other cheek. If they ask for a shirt, give them your coat. If they strike you on the right cheek, offer them the left cheek. If they try to kill and rape you, say thank you very much, I deserve it.

Tough commandments, especially if your enemies have hurt you deeply. Too tough, even for someone who's tougher than the hide on the oldest, meanest devil in hell.

Around the time the planes bombed my neighborhood and the cars had their shoot-out right next to me, sometime during that year I didn't go to school, just as I was getting ready to leave everything and everyone I knew, an enemy appeared. And he left me a gift I didn't want at all.

He came from nowhere. Or seemed to. Suddenly he was just there, wearing a ship captain's cap, with a black dog at his side. Or was that a chauffeur's cap on his head? It could have been. He was very young. Maybe nineteen or twenty. He was thin and dark-skinned and had curly black hair under his cap, the same color hair as his dog.

Jorge and I were no more than twelve or fourteen feet from the front door of my house, under the shade of the ficus tree, getting ready to climb into its upper reaches to look for lizards we could kill.

“Hi, kids, how are you?” he said. Then banter about how we were and what we were doing.

He seemed normal enough. He was just a guy with a stupid hat and a dog. The dog seemed nice enough. He told us he was trying to sell it. We didn't ask where he'd gotten it, or how long he'd had it, or anything like that. We didn't care. We didn't even ask if the dog was really his to sell. We just said we didn't know anyone who was looking to buy a dog.

“Hey, kids, I really need to pee. Do you know where I might be able to take a leak?”

“Right here,” I said, pointing to my house. “You can use our bathroom.”

“Oh, no, I couldn't do that. I wouldn't impose on you and your family that way.”

“Sure, no problem. Go on. It's fine.”

“Oh no. No. No. No way, I couldn't do that. I'm too shy.”

That should have made some alarm go off, but it didn't.

“Well, we have a bathroom in the back of the house. It's our maid's bathroom. You can go around the side of the house to the rear patio and use that. You won't even have to enter our house.”

“Oh no. No. No, that won't do either. No way, I couldn't do that. I couldn't impose; I'm too shy. What I'm looking for is just a place where I can pee outdoors, out of sight.”

Why didn't the bells go off? I thought his self-professed shyness was weird, but I had no clue that he had crossed some line.

So Jorge offered him an alternative.

“Well, there's a vacant lot around the corner. Someone started to build a clinic there, but they never finished.”

“Yeah, that's it! Could you kids show me how to get there? I don't know this neighborhood at all.”

“It's very easy to find,” I said. “You just walk to that corner over there, and turn right. You can't miss the vacant lot. It's three houses down from that corner, right there. And it's big, and it has an empty-looking building next to it.”

“Oh, but I'm afraid I'll get lost. Could you please show me how to get there?”

“Sure,” said Jorge.

The bells were ringing faintly, very faintly. How could he get lost on the way to the vacant lot? Even the dumbest kid could find it. Something was fishy. But Jorge had spoken up and agreed to show him the way. Now we had to do it.

So we walked him there. He walked with the dog tailing him. He didn't have a leash; the dog simply kept pace with us, staying close to him. I thought he was a little strange, and too childish, but it never crossed my mind that he meant harm in any way. He was just goofy, I thought.

When we reached the empty building and the vacant lot he had another request.

“Looks great, kids. But what will the neighbors around here think if they see me going back there? I'm a stranger here. And it looks kind of scary back there. Could one of you please come with me, so I can pee behind the building, out of sight. Please? I'm scared to go back there. Those trees back there are so big and the shade is so dark. Do you know what it's like to be scared? Haven't you ever been scared? Huh?”

I certainly knew what it was like to be scared to go into dark, strange places, but something didn't seem right. Why was this older guy so scared?

“What about your dog?” I asked. “Can't your dog keep you company?”

“Oh, no. He's a good dog, but I need human company. How about it? Please? Won't one of you come back with me?”

I looked at Jorge and he looked at me. He looked a little puzzled too. The guy with the cap and the dog looked at me.”

“How about it, huh? How about you? You're older and bigger, and would help keep me company much better. Yeah. Please? Come on, please, I'm about to pee in my pants. I really have to go, now. Please?”

I felt sorry for the guy and annoyed by him all at once.
Grow up,
I thought.

“Okay,” I said.

“And you,” he said to Jorge, “stay here and keep an eye out. Make sure no one else comes back there. I'm so shy.”

He pulled a knife on me the instant we stepped into the passageway. Since the passageway was L-shaped, we turned a corner and went out of sight. Jorge had no clue. It was a switchblade, with a white pearled handle and a long blade. It had a button on it that made the blade pop out. He opened and closed it, opened and closed it, and when we reached the rear of the building, past the shade of the trees he had claimed to fear so much, he kept it open for good.

The sunlight hit the blade and bounced off with all the ferocious indifference stored up in the universe. It blinded me. The light hit the blade and turned it into a flaming sword.

He grabbed me with the arm he wasn't using to hold the knife, roughly, and pulled me up against him. He held me tightly.

“Help me pee.”

The dog, who had been calm until then, began to leap around. Was he all too familiar with this? He was leaping up to the knife, and the guy told him to calm down. He called the dog by name for the first time. It seemed like a very dumb name, but I can't remember it. My mind was on other details.

Like the knife. And the way he was holding me so tightly, so as to make it hard for me to get away. And the sight of his knife hand pulling down the zipper. It must be hard to pull down a zipper while holding a knife, but he managed to do it. It seemed as if he'd had a lot of practice.

I don't think he really needed to pee. He was much too excited. I'd never seen anyone so excited in all my life.

“Here, help me pee. Put your hand right here.”

Jesus, no.

And he pulled the knife up to my face, tightened his grip on me, and he told me how I should help him. He was very strong for a skinny guy. The blade felt cold, despite the sunlight it reflected.

My choices were painfully simple: do his bidding or get knifed.

Then, as I was being dragged down to hell, came that voice from heaven, shouting obscenities nearby.
“Coño, carajo, hijo de puta, cabrón, qué mierda, puñetera madre que te parió, mal rayo te parta, mojón del diablo…”

El Loco
. The neighborhood wino we had tormented so often, screaming at the top of his lungs, stringing unconnected swear words together like beads in a rosary. He screamed as he always did, but this time he sounded like an entire choir of angels.

The pervert jumped at the sound of
El Loco
's voice, and his grip on me loosened a little. Just then Jorge started yelling, “
El Loco,
it's
El Loco,
he's here,
El Loco
!” We were all scared of the guy, especially because we teased him so much and had been chased by him so many times. Jorge, especially, was terrified by him, and ran away screaming.

Jorge's cries startled the pervert enough to make him loosen his grip a little more. Enough to allow me to wriggle free and run like the wind. The dog barked and jumped up at me, but I couldn't have cared less. I sprinted out of the passageway. I ran down the block, and around the corner, and down my block, and into my house without looking back. I ran past the blood red hibiscus blossoms, oblivious to them and their desires. I never even caught a glimpse of
El Loco,
even though his shouting rang in my ears nearly all the way home. Maybe he even chased me and I didn't know it.

But I wasn't worried about
El Loco
. He'd saved me from shame, maybe even saved my life. I had another crazy guy to worry about, one with a knife.

On the porch, at my house, there was the rest of the gang. Why hadn't they been there a few minutes before?

I ran back to the bathroom. I felt like vomiting, but nothing came up. I was shaking and sweating and cold all at once. My hands trembled. I started worrying about the pervert. What if he came after me? He knew where I lived. What if he was out there at that very moment, waiting for me, his switchblade in his pocket? What about tomorrow or the next day? Or the day after that? Or next month?

I stayed inside the house for the rest of the day.

Jorge came by and asked me why it had taken that guy so long to pee.

“I don't know. He was such a goofy guy. I don't know…”

“Hey,
El Loco
got really close to us. He just kind of snuck up. That was scary, wasn't it?”

“Yeah, really scary,” I lied.

I didn't tell my parents or anyone else about what had happened. It was all too embarrassing. I felt stupid for having fallen for the guy's deception, especially since I'd been warned many times not to talk to strangers or go places with them.
I've been really stupid,
I thought. I can't tell anyone. And I certainly can't tell anyone that the guy asked me to help him pee. No way.

I did tell my mom several months later, but by then it was too late to chase down the guy. I told her because I couldn't stop worrying that he would show up at our front door again. I was staying indoors as much as possible, trapped in my house by fear of him.

Then I had an even worse thought. What if Ernesto had sent him? After all, why had the guy come to our house? He admitted that it was the first time he'd been in our neighborhood. Why was he there then? Why had he insisted that I, and I alone, follow him to the back of that abandoned building? I couldn't ask Ernesto, because that would have meant revealing the incident to him. Besides, I knew he'd lie if he'd really put the guy up to it.

I became as paranoid as my uncle Filo. I even began to fear that I'd run into the guy in the United States. The thought of being alone in the States, with no one to protect me from that creep, was more than I could bear.

So I told my mom. And she hugged me and said all the things a mom should say and scolded me mildly for not having told her sooner.

“Your father is a judge, don't forget. If you'd told me earlier we could have found the guy and your dad could have put him in prison, where he deserves to be. Maybe he's still out there, hurting other little boys.”

So now it was also my fault that he was still out there, somewhere, being himself, excited in the presence of little boys. But she was right, and I knew it. If I had blurted out the awful truth the minute I set foot in my house that day, we could have probably chased him down. I know that because two or three days later, when I finally ventured beyond my house, I ran into his dog.

There he was, the leaping pervert of a dog. Reminding me.

One of our neighbors now owned him. After he tried to knife me, the bastard had gone door to door and sold the dog to the Basque family whose backyard was adjacent to ours.