by Karla Suárez
That whole line of thought developed very quickly; I was still sitting across from Euclid, who was waiting for me to respond. I finally said that he was right, the situation was dangerous. I wasn’t sure how close the friendship between Barbara and Leonardo was, but I did know that she would soon be leaving Cuba, so we had to act immediately. Euclid would take charge of entertaining her, which would be a pleasure for him. I, for my part, would focus on the author. My friend thought it was a good plan and even suggested that he could scatter a few red herrings in Barbara’s path. It was all a matter of timing, he said. Once she’d boarded her plane, we could continue with our own project. We shook on it to seal the pact, exchanging victorious smiles. Then Euclid sighed, took my hands in his and, serious once more, said that there was another important issue. Barbara knew the document had originally belonged to the ex-wife of her Cuban boyfriend, and when Euclid had casually enquired who that boyfriend was, she’d described him before mentioning his name: Ángel.
I pushed his hands aside and stood up. As Ángel had said, Barbara was something else. Do you see? She didn’t go in for mystery; she was as obvious as her bra size. I was surprised that she’d have told Euclid that and, naturally, annoyed, but before I could find the appropriate words, my friend also got to his feet, saying that it wasn’t his intention to hurt my feelings, but he felt I ought to be told. He’d never had much of a chance to get to know Ángel, but Margarita’s mother had informed him of a few things, such as that he was sometimes unfaithful to their daughter, and that those infidelities had finally led to their divorce. Euclid hadn’t mentioned it before because, as the song goes, every story is a different story, but when he’d heard Barbara saying that Ángel was her boyfriend, he’d really felt like boxing that guy’s ears: for his daughter and for me. You know, his words moved me. They seemed like a huge expression of affection and friendship, because he wanted to protect me. Lovely, right? I’d have been capable of telling him everything, but then I’d have had to tell him absolutely everything, and I wasn’t going to do that. There was no way I was going to let Euclid realise that Barbara’s presence in his home was planned by the author and me, so I had to give a modified version of the facts. I turned around and announced that I already knew. Yes, Ángel and Barbara had had a fling before we got together, but she still hadn’t given up on it and kept ringing him, despite the fact that he wasn’t interested. Of course, she didn’t know Ángel and I were an item, but the thing is that, on the one hand, he could hardly even bear to talk to her on the phone, and on the other, she was no friend of mine. Our visit to Euclid’s home had been for purely professional reasons. Euclid nodded, but without making any comment. I went on to say that I also knew Ángel had two-timed Margarita; he was very sorry for what he’d done but, as Euclid had said, every story is a different story. I kissed my friend’s cheek and thanked him for telling me, reassured him that there was no need to worry, that everything was under control. He smiled in relief. You know, I said, Ángel wanted to box your ears too when he saw Margarita crying because you were cheating on her mum, and that ended in divorce as well, right? He burst out laughing and replied that he hoped everything really was under control and that I’d be very happy. That seemed the right moment to tell him about the engagement: there hadn’t been time before. Euclid was incredulous, he’d never in his life imagined me married, but he thought it was great news. We agreed that he shouldn’t mention it to Barbara, as it was my affair and so up to me to tell her. That evening, Euclid gave me a bear hug, wishing me all the very best and uttered a phrase I loved. It was something like: When the city and everything around you is a shambles, the best course of action is to build something, however small, something that will bring back the taste of the word future to your mouth. Beautiful, don’t you think?
Speaking of the future, my conversation with Leonardo was still outstanding. His phone continued out of order the next day, but I’d had enough of waiting, my patience had run out, so the minute I finished work I was off like a shot to his place, ready to wait as long as it took to see him. That wait took place outside his garage-den, and it was a miracle that I didn’t wear a furrow in the ground from so much pacing back and forth before I spotted his bicycle in the distance and stopped. The author’s figure grew larger until he was there before me with a huge smile and sweat running down his face. He started to say what a surprise it was, but I interrupted to tell him that we had to talk. He dismounted, opened the door, wheeled the bike inside; I followed behind like a hyper madwoman and went straight to his desk. Where is it, where have you hidden it? I yelled as I rifled through all his photocopies, typed pages, children’s drawings, handwritten notes and bills. Leonardo approached, asking what was going on, and then I informed him that I was looking for the Meucci document, that I’d had enough and he should tell me where he’d put it. He seemed to be astonished by my words, my attitude, but for me it was as if I’d lived that scene before. I mean, they were all astonished all the time. I’d had it up to the back teeth. He began to reorder the papers I was scattering around and asked if I was crazy: Why on earth did I think he had the document? I continued to rummage through the desk until Leo shouted: For fuck’s sake! Then I stopped. He took the papers I was holding and re-organised them, asking me not to mix up his son’s drawings with his writing. What was bugging me? Then I was doing the shouting: You lied, Leonardo! You lied to me! He had Meucci’s document and he was just using me, because it was Barbara he was really interested in, but he couldn’t bear the idea of her sleeping with Ángel, and that’s why he was using me to lure her away from his rival. Leonardo watched me, his eyebrows rising higher and higher, as I went on to say that there was no point continuing to lie because I knew everything: he’d told me that Ángel had the document to throw me off the scent, to toy with me. Leo suddenly reacted, saying that I was off my head, that if he’d had the document, he’d have finished his novel long ago, that I should calm down and tell him why I’d invented this rigmarole. I haven’t invented anything, I countered, and continued with the same arguments. He attempted to defend himself, to deny my accusations, but I was drowning him out because, like I said, I was so hyper that I couldn’t stop. And that’s why I said: Because you, Leo, slept with Margarita.
Leonardo only hesitated for an instant before commenting that Ángel had apparently been filling my head with a pack of lies. But it was true that he’d slept with Margarita, and so what? He loved her, and he’d loved her before Ángel appeared on the scene with his oh-so-charming smile, and then she went off with him, only to have to tolerate all his two-timing, the same two-timing I’d have to tolerate, because Ángel was a waste of space. So why did you sleep with me? I yelled, pushing him in the chest. His reply was to yell back that he liked me; he wasn’t going to marry anyone and was free to sleep with whomever he damn well pleased. The bastard was right, wasn’t he? I was the one who’d been messing around where I shouldn’t, and that made me so furious that I told him he was a bastard and a liar, and then tears started to well up in my eyes and I went on saying that he’d used me to score a point over his rival, and that he was the one going after Barbara because she was a foreigner, and he had the document because Margarita had given it to him after he’d fucked her, and he was the biggest liar of all and, to top it all, he’d lulled me with all those untrue stories, because he’d never left Cuba, never once travelled anywhere. I can tell you, Leo went crazy when he heard that. He looked at me like a wounded wild beast and screamed: Never travelled anywhere? Never travelled...? Then he took a book down from the shelves and showed it to me, saying: What about this? It was Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. And this? Cortázar’s Hopscotch. And he threw them onto the bed, saying: Paris. He turned back to the bookcase, pulled out two more volumes and flung them onto the bed as well: Are you going to tell me that I’ve never been to St Petersburg? I only managed to catch a glimpse of the author: Dostoyevsky. Leonardo continued his frenzied throwing of books onto the bed. Thanks to Eduardo Mendoza
, he’d visited Barcelona, and he’d been to New York with John Dos Passos and Paul Auster, Buenos Aires with Borges, he knew the whole of the Caribbean through Carpentier and Antonio Benítez Rojo. I don’t know how many books ended up on the bed but, when he eventually tired, he looked at me again like a madman, stating that you didn’t need physical displacement to travel, he had the whole world in his head and was capable of describing it. If anyone’s lying, it’s them, Julia, it’s the books that are telling lies, not me, he concluded before turning and walking out of the garage, leaving me standing there like an idiot who doesn’t know what to do next. It occurred to me that Leonardo could get a job in Immigration; when people applied for permission to go abroad, he’d give them a book and tell them not to be so fucking hung up on the idea of physical displacement. I liked that image, and my laughter helped ease the tension that had built up during our argument.
A short while later, I went outside. Leonardo was smoking on the low wall by the door to his garage. I sat beside him, but he didn’t so much as glance in my direction. I didn’t look at him either. When he finished his cigarette, he tossed the butt to the ground and only then spoke, still staring straight ahead. He said that he’d loved Margarita very deeply, but she’d fallen for Ángel and that was the cause of the rift between the two men. At first he’d liked Barbara, although not that much, they never went to bed together; she promised things, publications, travel, and to tell the truth he wouldn’t have minded getting to know the Italy beyond his bookshelves. He liked me, he said, and that was why he’d slept with me and, yes, it irritated him that I preferred Ángel, and that was another reason why he’d slept with me. As a child he’d been to the centre of the Earth, had travelled with Captain Nemo on the Nautilus, and that made him want to become a writer. But he didn’t have Meucci’s document; Margarita had told him that stuff about Ángel. Then he finally turned to look at me: I swear on my son’s life, Julia. I turned to him, sighed deeply and stood up. Below me, I heard his voice saying that he supposed our pact was a thing of the past now. I asked if he’d heard of the butterfly effect and he shook his head. Then I told him that Ángel didn’t have the document: apparently Margarita had been amusing herself with these stories, telling each of them that she’d given it to one of the others. Margaritabutterfly, I concluded before saying bye and walking away. Leo asked if I wanted a ride to the nearest traffic lights to wait for a lift, but, without stopping or turning back, I waggled a finger to indicate no. Then he shouted that he’d call the next day if that was all right. That stopped me in my tracks and I looked at him with a smile, saying he could call me whenever he liked. Havana telephones were almost always out of order when you needed them. Then I continued on my way.
Poincaré said something along the lines that there are problems a scientist chooses to pose and others that pose themselves. By this stage, the problem was who the hell had the document. That night, when I arrived home, the apartment was in darkness. I could hear my stepfather snoring on one side, the creaking springs of my brother and sister-in-law’s bed on the other. My sheets were laid out on the sofa. In the kitchen, there was a note from Mum saying that my dinner was in the fridge. I tried to eat, but between the stink of the chickens on the rear balcony and my own discomfort, I could barely manage a bite, so I poured a glass of water and went to drink it on the front balcony, gazing out, as usual, on the clothes lines strung outside the buildings on the other side of the street.
I didn’t understand a thing. If Leonardo had the document and hadn’t yet sold it to Barbara, it must be because he actually hoped to get a trip to Italy out of it, an international publication or something like that; whatever the case, that paper was a guarantee, a bargaining chip. Bastard. If Euclid had it, I’d just handed him over to Barbara, the ideal purchaser, and he’d be able to negotiate the deal on his own, without my input; I mean, he’d already stabbed me in the back by publishing my work as his own. Bastard. And if Ángel had it, his reason for keeping in touch with Barbara was the money because, he insisted, I was the one who mattered to him, that Italian woman was just a source of cash. Bastard. I didn’t understand a thing. My only point of clarity was that, whatever was going on, Barbara and I were being used. Do you see? I suddenly felt a strange sense of female solidarity, or something like that, something new for me. Barbara with her giggles, her boobs, her invitations to dinner, had become the goose that lays the golden eggs. OK, she was on the trail of the document, but she’d kind of half fallen in love with Ángel and he was taking advantage of the situation. That wasn’t right. As far as I was concerned, it just wasn’t right.
That was when I came to the conclusion that things had to change. Barbara didn’t know about my relationship with Ángel, and there was no doubt that he hadn’t taken the trouble to enlighten her, but then neither had I. And even though he’d promised to stop seeing her, that wasn’t enough, at least it wasn’t enough for me because Barbara was still calling him her boyfriend. So, it would be the most natural thing in the world for me to tell her to forget about him, to tell her that he and I were engaged to be married, and that she was completely out of the picture. Ángel might or might not get in touch, but when another woman tells you to keep your hands off her man, the effect is usually instantaneous. And in addition, I was feeling a tad guilty because she’d confided in me, told me about her relationship with Ángel but I, despite calling her on the telephone, greeting her warmly, taking her to meet Euclid, accepting the meals and taxis she paid for, had been incapable of telling her the truth. It was like I was using her too. And that was awful. Like I too was taking advantage of the goose who lays the golden eggs.
As I told you, I’m both sensitive to the feelings of those around me and have a great sense of justice, which must be why that burst of female solidarity was later repaid by Barbara’s friendship. And what’s curious is that it’s a friendship rooted in our liking the same man, but which then transformed and grew. That’s unusual for me, you know I don’t usually go in for female friends. I generally prefer the company of men and not just because I like them; women have always seemed competitive to me. Some of them seem to think that everything reflects back on themselves: the clothes you’re wearing, the few extra kilos, the flirting in the street, everything. You think she’s your friend and cares about what’s happening to you, when in fact she cares about what isn’t happening to her. Talk about boring! And then there are the hopeless cases who ooze that thing about the rib and the weaker sex from every pore. That sort cling to you as an equal, a member of the tribe, and the problem is that they can’t bear (not out of spite but because it’s stronger than they are) for the other (me, for instance) to be doing fine, and then you stop being a point of reference, one of the tribe, and become something that has to be constantly badgered. It’s like a drowning person who, instead of reaching out a hand so the other can pull her out of the water, clutches the head of her would-be rescuer and sinks it into the water: just-like-that; if I’m fucked up, you have to be too. More boring still. However, with Barbara, a situation that could have become an idiotically fierce battle over a man ended by becoming something else. And she actually turned out to be not at all the barbarian I’d imagined.
That night, leaning against the balcony wall, I decided I’d tell her about my relationship with Ángel and make it clear who was the queen bee in that hive. I also wanted to prevent her from being the goose who lays the golden eggs. I finished my glass of water and, with the last sip, pursed my lips and let the liquid fall like a fountain from the fifth floor. Well, everyone’s dead to the world at that hour.
21
Barbara sounded truly pleased to hear from me. She said that she’d been working the whole day and wanted to see a movie but couldn’t get in touch with anyone, so it was perfect that I’d rung. I remember it was a Friday, and I’d originally intended to spend the night at Ángel’s, but that afternoon he’d come to see me at work to say Dayani was back and it would be better to postpone my visit. I�
�d phoned Barbara immediately, just in case, and was relieved to discover that Ángel’s story wasn’t merely a ploy to see her.
We met at the Coppelia to have a quick ice cream before going into the cinema. That year, instead of selling the marvellous confections everyone eats in Strawberry and Chocolate, the famous parlour was offering tropical ice cream, the tropicality of which consisted of the fact that it was mostly water with very little flavouring, as light as the sweat running down our backs. When we later emerged from the cinema, Barbara bought pizza and beer and we went to sit on the Malecón. Some kids with guitars were singing nearby, and she thought that was so lovely. I guess that as her departure date drew closer she was becoming nostalgic, feeling more deeply in love with our island than ever. She said it was a while since she’d seen or heard anything like that, and she was going to miss Havana so much; Italy was a beautiful country but it was slowly degenerating. Money, she said, ruins everything. I didn’t make any comment because, given my lack of financial resources, my best option was to keep looking out to sea and listening to her. Italy seemed a wonderful country to me, famous not only for its artists but also its great scientists: Galileo, Volta, Galvani, Marconi and Meucci himself. What a nation! But that Italian woman was feeling nostalgic about our island, and went on speaking about the strange Caribbean light, and the street sounds, and the people, and how easy it was to get to know them and speak to them. She was going to miss everything, miss everyone, and she was also going to miss Ángel. At that, I re-arranged my dreamy-sea-gazer expression and took advantage of a pause to say that I had something to tell her. As her expression showed curiosity, I went on to remind her that she’d once asked me about Ángel, and I’d told her that he was in love with someone else. Well, I said, he’s still in love with that other woman. As you know, Barbara wasn’t the sort to beat around the bush. Without batting an eye, she responded: With you, right?
