The Sweetness in the Lime

by Stephen Kimber

  It was only later I realized she was building up her own cache of cash. This was not, if I am to be truthful, the first, or only thing Mariela and I disagreed about when it came to the wedding preparations. But I’d expected that. Over the years, I’d also edited more than my share of spring wedding-plan pieces—“Wedding planning can be the most stressful time in a young couple’s relationship”—so I understood it all came with the territory.

  “Pastel de boda! Pastel de boda!” Bruno shouted to quiet the crowd as a beaming Silvia pushed a small cart topped with the wedding cake into the centre of the room. “Made me,” Bruno tried out his English on me, pointing at himself. “Tres cake…blanco….” He gave up then, pointed proudly instead to the plastic bride and groom atop the cake. With Mariela’s left arm wrapped around my waist, we held on to the knife and cut through the top layer in unison. Everyone cheered, and whooped, and toasted. We passed around the cake and doled out our own gifts for the guests—each woman received a delicate purse Mariela had chosen specially (and into each of which I had secretly inserted, at the last moment, a new twenty CUC note). Each man got a dazzling knockoff wristwatch, sans cash.

  Finally, a couple of eager young women insisted it was time to pull out the ribbons.

  “You too,” I said to David, pushing him into their circle. “You’re single too.”

  David pulled the ring. There was a surprised silence, then cheers as David presented the ring to Ale. And the band resumed playing.

  ****

  Sometime later—the band was still playing, the drinks still flowing—there was a commotion near the door. It was Lío, freshly sprung from Villa Marista! He was accompanied by two embarrassed-looking men in uniform, each hefting a case of Ron Santiago rum.

  “For party,” Lío yelled, seeing me. “Best rum! Best party!”

  After everyone finally stopped hugging him, crying, cheering, slapping him on the back, Lío climbed on a table, supported by his two guards—who were smiling reluctantly, unsuccessfully attempting to appear intimidating—and began to speak.

  David, who was standing beside me, translated. “He says he wouldn’t have missed this party…this wedding…for the world.” David slipped the English seamlessly in between Lío’s Spanish. “He says he wants everyone to toast the bride and groom with the best Cuban rum…. He’s telling Bruno to put out some cups and instructing the guards to pour.

  “Unbelievable,” David said to me. “Un-fucking-believable.” After the drinks had been poured and passed, Lío raised his glass. “Salud, Mariela y Cooper. Salud siempre!” He emptied his cup, smiled, poured another. “Viva Raúl! Viva Fidel! Viva Cuba!”

  Before the crowd’s own shouted viva responses—much more effusive than any I’d heard at NovaCubaCan meetings—could fade, Lío spoke again, back to sentences longer than I could understand. David thankfully stepped in again. “He says he has a special gift for the newlyweds. He’s sorry it’s not gift wrapped, he says, but he has been a little preoccupied.” The laughter erupted only a moment ahead of David’s translation. “What he is giving the happy couple is the gift of privacy, something much valued here in Cuba, my friend Cooper.” More laughter. “Tonight, he says, he will stay with his friends, Esteban and Silvia, so the newly wedded couple can do what newlyweds should do.” I saw Lío wink to more cheers. “Y David?” Lío began again. David nodded in recognition. “And now he’s speaking to me. He says, ‘David, you had better stay away too.’” Laughter. “Don’t worry, my friend,” David spoke directly to me now. “Ale and I will be staying at his hotel. The place is yours.” And he held out his cup to mine. We clinked cups.

  ****

  It was not quite morning when I woke up, more thirsty than hungover. Mariela and I had not made love, despite Lío’s gift of privacy, despite even Mariela’s new racy lingerie that was also, I had discovered, yet another popular wedding custom.

  “I am so tired,” she had said, yawning, perhaps for effect, as she entered the bedroom wearing a new sheer white peignoir with matching lacy panties and bra she had acquired for the occasion. She sat down on the bed beside me, placed her hand, affectionately rather than lasciviously, on my thigh. “Could we?… Would you mind? I would like the moment to be special, romantic but I am too tired right now. I should not have had so much to drink, but Lío kept insisting, ‘¡Otro! ¡Otro!’ And I kept having one more.”

  “Me too,” I admitted. The truth was I was not disappointed. I was tired too, and woozy from the drinks, and already wondering if I would be able to perform my husbandly responsibilities. It all seemed silly when I analyzed it. We were not teenagers, we were not virgins, we were not even unfamiliar to each other. Why this pressure to consummate a relationship that had already been well and truly consummated, simply because it was our wedding night?

  “Hey,” I said, putting my own hand on hers, also more affectionately than lasciviously, and squeezed. “Not to worry. We have the rest of our lives to have sex.”

  She laughed. We kissed, still more affectionately than lasciviously, and slid into Lío’s bed, side by side on our backs, bodies touching, hands entwined, staring up at the mirror on the ceiling. “But if anyone asks,” I said finally, “we did. Many times. In many different positions. And it was good. Very good.”

  She laughed out loud then, rolled over and kissed me. “I love you very much, my darling Cooper,” she said.

  And that was the last I remembered. Until now. The room was still dark (the electricity must be off again, I thought) and the lack of noise on the street outside sent its silent signal of just how late, or early, it must be. I needed a drink of water. I remembered I’d left a bottle (I still drank my water from a bottle like a tourist) on Lío’s dresser, so I got up to get it, navigated my way past my white pants, white guayabera, white boxers, which had all fallen where I’d shed them, found the bottle, opened it, took a swig, replaced it on the dresser, and returned by the same path to the bed. Only then did I realize the bed was empty. Fuck! I panicked. Was this my Dallas, Bobby Ewing, it-was-all-a-dream moment? Had I woken up to discover that none of this—not Mariela, not Cuba, maybe not my father’s death nor my lost job—had actually happened? No, that couldn’t be true. I looked around. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking that this was Lío’s bedroom, Lío’s mirrored ceiling…. So where was Mariela?

  I treaded down the staircase carefully—it was even darker on the stairs, no windows, and I was mindful of Lío’s warning the marble tiles could be slippery. Once in the kitchen, I could see the faintest, flickering light emanating from Lío’s backyard. When I reached the door, I could see Mariela, wearing a housecoat now, sitting silent, cross-legged, on the ground in front of Lío’s barbecue pit. She was holding something in her hand.

  “Hey,” I said as softly as I could. She started, hastily put whatever she was holding into the pocket of her housecoat. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Are you OK?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, raising her face to face mine. “I’m OK. I had a nightmare is all. I sometimes have them. No reason. I just do.” I was about to ask her about her nightmares, but she had already moved on. “And now…I was just thinking about how…happy I am.”

  I could see tears on her cheeks.

  Behind Glass

  She emerges from the void, enveloped in a jumble of colour confusion-profusion—vibrant, fully saturated pinks and blues and yellows and greens, all mixing together in a mélange of wild swirls and crazy swoops. Eventually, the colours settle into shapes, the shapes into focus.

  She is standing in the centre of a manicured neon-green lawn-carpet, dotted here and there by tall, shady, forest-green magnolia trees, each in full white bloom. Off in the distance, she can see what looks like a palace of a house—its coral-coloured stucco walls and wet-earth-brown roof tiles set off by pulsing white-in-the-sun trim. Somewhere in the distance, there is a black wooden fence that seems to extend to the sky and to the end of east
and west. To keep people in? To keep them out?

  Mariela has never been to Florida, but she has seen photos. She must be in Florida.

  She sees children run around her and through, chasing each other as if she doesn’t exist. Does she? She reaches out. Her fingers smack into a wall of glass she hadn’t realized was there. Is it? She is trapped like a moth inside a glass jar. She can see the children, but she hears nothing. Are they laughing, shouting? Playing tag, you’re it? Is it someone’s birthday party? Is it?—

  She sees Tonito then, running among them, oblivious. He is older than when she last saw him. Six or seven now. Perhaps it is his birthday….

  At the edge of her vision, a woman appears. Old, kind-faced, perhaps a grandmother or a faithful retainer. She carries a tray with a pitcher of some fruity pink liquid and a number of glasses. The children stop what they are doing and run to her.

  All except Tonito.

  Tonito stops, turns toward Mariela, stares at her with those eyes—those eyes that are hers—for what seems like forever. Finally, he opens his mouth, shapes a single word, “Mami?” Though she cannot hear him speak, she understands, with a kind of ineffable anguish, that the delighted “Mami” of that first dream has been reimagined and is now a doubtful, questioning voice. “Mami?”

  Does he know who she is? She tries to run toward him, but the glass stops her. She rushes back and forth, around, but there seems no end to the glass, no way past it. Finally, Tonito himself walks tentatively up to the glass, put his small palms on its surface, peers in. She places her palms opposite his.

  “Tonito!” she shouts. “It’s me. Mami!”

  She can see the tiniest spark of “I know you” in his eyes before the entire image begins to dissolve back into its confusion of colour and there is no longer anything or anyone beyond the glass.

  And then she wakes up, her fists balled so tight her fingernails draw blood from her palms and tears stream down her face, her silent scream trapped in her throat.

  Wants and Needs

  Havana, 2017

  The image on my computer screen bobs and weaves. Tony must be talking and walking. Again.

  “Tony, Tony! Tony! You have to stop doing that. You’re making me nauseous.”

  “What’s nauseous?”

  “Feeling sick to my stomach.”

  “Are you sick, Papi?”

  The idea of these weekly IMO video chats had seemed like a good one. We’d even tested the app together before I left Havana. But we are now 3,000 kilometres apart. I’m in my basement apartment in Halifax staring at a jumping-bean image of Tony on my computer screen while Tony is with his grandmother at an outdoor Wi-Fi hotspot in the middle of Havana, wandering back and forth on the sidewalk, waving the mobile as he talks at me.

  “No, Tony. I’m OK,” I tell him. “It’s just that I need you to hold the phone steady. Remember. Like we talked about last time.”

  I shouldn’t complain. Who would have even imagined this would ever be possible? In the eight years since my first visit to Havana, mobile phones have become ubiquitous. Internet access, which used to be the preserve of privileged foreigners and important public officials, is increasingly seen as a public necessity, at least in theory. Which means I can stay in regular video contact with Tony even when I’m up north. I can see and hear him, and he can do the same. I don’t want him to forget me while I am back in Halifax for my annual Canada-imposed 183-day exile. I travel back to Halifax each spring, then wait until the end of the fall hurricane season to return to Havana. I do this because Canadian government rules dictate I must reside physically in Canada for six months plus one day each year in order to maintain my health care eligibility. So far, I haven’t needed to avail myself of that. Despite my age, I am in excellent health, give or take the odd, mild touch of arthritis in my knees, which I only notice when I first get out of bed. The few times I’ve needed to see a doctor in Havana, the kind fellow at the local clinic where Mariela goes sees me without asking to be paid or wanting proof of my Canadian insurance. Instead, I do what’s required. I bring him “black-bag” gifts, such as some chocolate for his wife, a bottle of rum for him, a shopping bag filled with juices, sodas, eggs, meat, or other groceries for his family. My good health notwithstanding, I spend my requisite six months plus a day back in Canada. Just in case.

  That’s also why Tony was born in Canada. Just in case. So he would have Canadian citizenship as his birthright. On his birth certificate, he is Anthony Elijah. I call him Tony. Mariela calls him Antonio.

  Mariela and I don’t talk much about how we reached this time and place in our lives. Or whether it—whatever “it” is—is what we really want. But…how does that song go? You may not always get what you want, but you get what you need. Mariela needed this, needed me, needed Tony most of all. That’s not to say she doesn’t have regrets. How could she not? “One cannot replace the other,” she tells me. And she still has nightmares. They occur less often now but, on some nights, I still hear her moaning from the next room. Tony—now our little log!—sleeps through it all. If I ask Mariela about her nightmare the next day, she will answer simply, “The same.” So I have learned not to ask.

  Me? Is this really what I want? When this journey began eight years ago, I believed I wanted nothing. Then I discovered I wanted everything. Now? Perhaps I too have ended up with what I need.

  After Tony was born, we stayed in Halifax for a few months while I arranged my affairs. I semi-renovated my parents’ house, removing the padlocks from the doors, ripping up the shag rugs from the main floor, and painting every surface a boring neutral colour. Sarah, who was now teaching at the local law school, took it upon herself to de-clutter what little was left of the clutter of my human existence, then artfully staged the house as an inviting, lived-in yet un-lived-in home, complete with the homey smells of cinnamon wafting from a pot simmering on the stove whenever potential buyers came for a showing. I put the house on the market for the outrageous price Arthur the Architect believed reasonable—and got every penny of it. I handed half to Sarah’s investment guy, Peter Someone-or-other, who has since invested it in some sort of magical money beans he insists will allow me to live out all my legally permissible days in Havana in relative comfort.

  While I’m in Halifax, I live in the basement apartment of a house Wendy Wagner and her husband bought with my help. They’d wanted to buy the house but couldn’t afford it, so I agreed to rent the apartment, then paid my first years’ rent in advance out of the proceeds from the sale of my house. They added that to their downpayment, thus convincing their bankers they had the wherewithal to carry the mortgage. They were grateful. I am grateful.

  Tony has never lived in Canada except for his first few months, but Mariela and I agree he will spend at least part of each summer here with me when he’s older. Sarah has promised to help take care of him. While I’m in Halifax, Big Maria, Mariela’s mother, lives in my bedroom in Havana and looks after Tony so Mariela can continue working.

  While I’m in Canada, I miss Cuba, miss my family, miss Tony most of all. I still refuse to think of myself as one of those foreign sugar daddies who breeze in and out of Cuba for a few months at a time, lavish gifts on all and sundry, live like a Cuban king on a Canadian pauper’s salary, and feel themselves fulfilled. But I am. And I do.

  Does it make a difference I now consider Cuba my real home? I find things to occupy my time in Halifax, of course. Last summer I made weekly visits to Aunt Abigail in a seniors’ residence, staying for dinner, befriending her friends. The home’s “life coordinator” eventually recruited me to be part of what she called the Memory Project, interviewing the residents about their lives for a book she plans to get printed. My hope—that I would encounter someone who had known or served with my father and could tell me the story behind the story I still didn’t fully understand—proved vain, but listening to all the stories I didn’t know about lives I hadn’t l
ived inspired me to begin researching and writing my own family history. For balance, I’m learning more about Mariela’s family story too. Big Maria has a head full of family stories from before and after the Revolution, all of which need to be recorded and preserved. I’m trying. For Tony.

  “Is your abuela there?” I ask finally, interrupting yet another Tony monologue about his imaginary adventures in the snow with Olaf.

  “She’s talking to una mujer. Should I get her?”

  “No, no. It’s OK. Just give her a kiss for me, will you.”

  “OK.”

  “And here’s one for your mother.” I blew him a kiss. “Did you catch it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And one for you.”

  “I caught it!” he yelled as the image on my screen flipped and flopped. “Papi?”

  “Yes.” He fumbled with the phone, held it in one hand, held his Mi Toni in the other, pushing the doll’s face at the screen.

  “Mi Toni is kissing you too. Did you catch it?”

  I did.

  Welcome to Canada

  Halifax, 2011

  1

  Yet another planeload of weary, wary, bored, bouncy passengers disgorging from escalators, spilling out, expectant, into the arrivals area at the Halifax airport. But not Mariela. Not this flight…. The black beans! Lily’s recipe. Cuban, from Umberto’s grandmother. Muy rica! Lily assured me. Those beans now simmering on the stove at home. Burned dry? Burned down the house? Would Mariela really want her first Canadian dinner to be Cuban beans and rice, overly familiar food territory, or would she perhaps crave the Big Mac and fries she’d heard about but never experienced? What would she think about Jane’s on the Common? Gloves! Goddamn! I’d remembered to buy her a duffel coat, boots of indeterminate size and style, even a scarf to protect her neck against Halifax’s late winter winds, all now hanging neatly over my arm, waiting only for her to step into them. But I’d forgotten to remember winter gloves. How could I have?…