by Ana Menéndez
“I’m sorry. No. I was just thinking it was odd, that’s it.”
“Is that why you’re tossing and turning like that? The embargo?”
“Not the embargo. What you said about it.”
The room was quiet again. He thought he might have fallen asleep, when suddenly Meegan began to laugh. She reached out and caressed his cheek.
“Do you realize how funny you sound? The embargo, really. Do all Cuban men talk about the embargo in bed?”
Anselmo was quiet. A disturbing image had arisen, Meegan in bed with a slew of Cuban men, ready to test her question.
She moved and Anselmo pulled the sheets to his chin.
“I thought we always agreed that it was the right thing to do, that’s all,” he said.
Meegan was quiet.
“Meegan?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t you have to fly tomorrow? What’s gotten into you?”
Meegan turned her back toward him. He had to fly tomorrow. He must sleep. The room shrank around him; the dresser seemed closer than before. The shadow reflection of the sapodilla tree swayed. Branches like arms, thought Anselmo. Spindly arms swaying. How could anyone question that the embargo was the right thing to do? The goods wouldn’t go to the people anyway. How could she say it was time to let go? Anselmo shivered. He turned and turned and started to fall. How could they trade with that man? He would blow them up if they went near Cuban waters tomorrow. And why shouldn’t they go near Cuban waters? Tell me why not. Who cared what an ancient dictator said on television? Why shouldn’t they fly where they wished?
Anselmo woke with a shudder.
“You’re talking to yourself,” Meegan said and flipped back over.
He lay under the comforter and stared at the glitter in the ceiling. He tried to move closer to Meegan, but stopped before he touched her. Anselmo touched his nose. It was cold and stiff. He turned to the edge of the bed. Should he get out? He tried to remember where he had left his slippers. He peered over the edge of the bed. The white tile gleamed under the night light filtering through the blinds. He must have left them near the bathroom when he took a shower.
“Meegan?”
No answer.
He swung his feet over the edge and slipped from under the covers. On his tiptoes, he scanned the darkened room for his slippers. He’d never sleep now. He was fully awake. Why didn’t he ever feel this way those mornings when he had to strap in and take off, knowing for the next three hours he’d be stuck in a cockpit, Mauricio next to him saying, “Go lower, I think I see something.” And there was never anything there anymore. What were they doing, really? What was the purpose? They went up day after day and came back with nothing, the U.S. had stopped admitting Cuban rafters anyway. But always Baluti in front of the microphones afterward. The reporters who seemed to be smiling behind their nods. What did it mean? And now to think his wife might be complicating things. Why say that nonsense about the embargo?
He stood in the middle of the room and watched Meegan sleeping. He’d never watched her from this perspective and she seemed smaller, like someone he didn’t know. She turned and put an arm out to where he’d be. She needed him. Her dark hair covered part of her face. Anselmo took a look toward the closet and his heart began to beat. It was so dark in there suddenly. Hadn’t he been able to see the clothes just a moment ago? He moved closer. Meegan turned and moved toward the edge, one arm over her head now, the other tucked under her. But what was this silliness with the closet? He stepped back and tiptoed to the door. He glanced back again at Meegan sleeping and went out. The hallway was darker than the room and he stood just outside the door a moment to let his eyes adjust. Slowly, details emerged. The lamp at the far end of the living room, its glass dome giving off the slightest night glow. A corner of the dining room table. And at the bottom of the hall, the faint pink glow of the light switch. Anselmo walked quickly, not bothering with his tiptoes now. Without flipping on the light—why wake Meegan?—he felt for the plastic handle on the thermostat and pushed it up. The machine shuddered off with such force that Anselmo took a step back. The quiet hurt his ears, as if a vacuum had entered the house. He stood for a while in the darkness of the hallway. As warmth returned, the quiet filled with small night noises. He heard the crickets again, faintly. And the creak of a soft wind through the rafters. He tiptoed back to the room slowly, alive with every sound of his house.
Back in the room, he stopped in front of Meegan’s sleeping figure. The light through the window cast a sheen over her face as if she were shining from within. Her arms were wrapped around her body as in a hug. Her mouth was soft, amused. She lay so still that Anselmo walked slowly to her and crouched near the edge of the bed to be sure she was breathing. He straightened and stepped back. When he turned, he was staring into the dark closet. He could see the striped dress now, an animal hiding in the reeds. He shook his head. He was tired. Dreaming standing up. He turned back to Meegan. She lay in the same position. He faced the closet again and, as carefully as he could, brought the doors together, gently guiding the wobbling edges to a close, and went back to bed. He slipped under the covers and lay still.
Meegan lay on the other end of the bed, turned away from him. She had shrugged the covers off and her bare arm draped over her head as if she were shrinking from some noise. Anselmo traced her silhouette under her thin nightgown.
Mark was the only Americano on their team, a young pilot who had flown in the Gulf War. Anselmo and Meegan had met him two weeks ago at a party Baluti threw for him. Anselmo had danced with Baluti’s daughter and afterward sat down with Meegan and Mark. Meegan was sleek and pretty in a black dress and black gloves that covered her elbows, her dark hair gathered loosely over her neck. She wore the necklace he had given her on their wedding day, a diamond obelisk on a short platinum chain. Anselmo had led her through the airy green ballroom, thrilling at the heads that turned so slightly. She fingered her chain as she talked with Mark and the movement sent rainbows of light as if she were giving off sparks.
“We’re so glad to finally get a real pilot,” Anselmo said, thinking more of the brilliant obelisk, his wife’s hand.
Anselmo touched his wife’s back. He tried to meet her eyes, but Meegan had turned in a way that no matter how Anselmo tried to get around her, he was always at her back.
Mark looked from Meegan to Anselmo, but only smiled. Meegan continued to turn the obelisk in her hand. Anselmo thought himself spinning, mesmerized by the movement of that gloved hand on the diamonds.
Meegan had stood and held out her hand. “We hope to see you again,” she said. And Anselmo made a note of the we, the word filling him with gratitude, Meegan’s way of saying that while she appreciated the company, she was part of a whole. But then Anselmo went cold. Was the word really meant to distract him from some truth? He looked to Meegan, who stood with her hands to her side, looking not so much toward Mark as to a point behind him.
When, alone in their bed again, Meegan had caressed him and taken him in her arms, he felt, as he might a real physical sensation, the evening pass into memory. He was tired and alone in himself and afterward he remembered only the way the light had scattered from her hand that night as if she alone had discovered the secret to setting it free. But in the morning she was up before he awoke. And as she poured his orange juice she said they should have a party, invite that new pilot and his wife. Was Mark married, she wanted to know. And in a secret part of himself, Anselmo took note that she mentioned his name four times. Through breakfast, he thought Mark Mark Mark Mark.
Anselmo stared now at the ceiling. Meegan turned and her arm touched his, warm and soft, and Anselmo knew he had made too much of that first meeting with Mark, was making too much of last night’s conversation with the new pilot. Here was his wife, a real thing and warm beside him. He moved closer to her, examining her lashes where they met her cheek, soft and downy. But why was she talking to Mark again? A cricket chirped and Anselmo jumped. What was that? Meegan turned over and kicked off th
e last of the sheet still wrapped around her feet. The cricket stopped. Anselmo loosened his grip on the comforter. Meegan groaned and sat up.
“It’s hot in here.”
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood. He watched her walk out the door, strong and decisive. He braced himself for the shudder of the air conditioner so that when it came it seemed softer than he had imagined. He listened for Meegan’s soft steps in the hallway. But she appeared suddenly in the doorway.
“Did you turn it off or something?”
She got back into bed without waiting for an answer. She lay on her back for a second, then settled onto her side, facing Anselmo, and he thought finally he would sleep. But the chill began immediately, sharper this time, like fingers crawling up from his toes. He moved closer to his wife and wrapped the comforter under his body.
It was June and the days had been beautiful and it occurred to Anselmo that something was wrong. This cold that was so unnatural, these thoughts. He saw the ocean beneath him and him falling, falling out of the sky. The ocean rushing to meet him, the dead rafters signaling from below with their mirrors. Here we are, where we’ve always been.
A shot. Anselmo sat up. Meegan lay on her side facing away. His heart beat in his ears and he waited, watching, until he saw her back rising and falling. He lay down again and slipped under the covers, waiting for the blood to rush out of his head, for his breathing to quiet. In the darkened room, everything looked blue, as if underwater. The lights sparkled above him like a harbor. In the mirror, a bony hand was shaking its finger back and forth. Anselmo shrank under the covers. He shut his eyes. He must try not to think about anything. What time was it? He wouldn’t look at the clock. He turned toward Meegan and rolled himself into a ball. The skin on his arms tingled with goose bumps.
She had stood there, just eight hours ago, with her hand on her wineglass, smiling at the new pilot. “What has the embargo accomplished, really?” she’d said, and the new pilot smiled. Anselmo tried to picture his smile now, but came up with a blank face instead. “It’s time to end it,” and then she’d turned to Anselmo as if she knew he’d been there all along and added, “Of course, Anselmo would disagree with me.”
At first, he’d thought, End what? He knew Mark would go to Baluti later and tell him Anselmo’s wife thought we should lift the embargo. The new pilot probably wasn’t even thirty, his ideas still rough outlines of the way things ought to be. How could Meegan be so careless? Or was she trying to be careless? It was ridiculous to have these parties before their runs. Baluti’s idea: Invite the papers, take photos, The Heroes Celebrating Before the Next Rescue Mission. And what if Fidel did shoot them down over the straits tomorrow? What would it all look like then? A shot and the plane falling. Or the plane falling without a shot? What if it were pilot error? An accident?
Anselmo lay quiet and listened to the moan of the air conditioner. And something else. Something behind it. Moving in the corner. Was that the machine moaning or something else? Anselmo suddenly turned and sat up. There was a figure there. Someone in the room! His wife sighed.
“Meegan, no!” Anselmo cried out.
“My God, you scared me half to death, what’s wrong with you?̵
Anselmo saw now that it was only his pants and shoes. In the corner where he had left them.
“I’m sorry. I must have been having a nightmare.”
She turned without a word. Anselmo moved closer. He wanted to wrap his arms around his wife. Warm and soft. He watched her back rise and fall in the blue light. He was afraid to venture too close to the edge of the bed. Why didn’t she turn and take him in her arms again?
“Meegan?”
Anselmo listened to the air conditioner, distinguishing each current that rustled the vent. He must sleep. He opened his eyes. He wanted to be close to Meegan, but he didn’t want to look at the closet doors. He turned away. What was she dreaming?
Before they left the party last night, Mark had put a hand on his shoulder.
“Your wife agreed to play tennis with me tomorrow morning,” he said. “She says you’ll be up in the Piper.”
Anselmo replayed it, watching Mark’s face, feeling the pressure on his shoulder. Tennis with me. Tennis with me. Yes, he would be up in the Piper in the morning, scanning the straits. Why hadn’t Meegan told him about the tennis? If it was such an innocent thing, why not tell him? Maybe she was waiting to tell him before he left. Maybe she would get up before him and wait in the kitchen, kiss him and mention casually that she was playing tennis with Mark. Meegan was his wife, she loved him.
But she wouldn’t tell him. Anselmo had never been so sure of anything before. He knew, the way some people knew that there was a God who cared for them, that Meegan would not get up to say good-bye. That he would dress in the dark, watching her turn in her sleep. It was his fault. That other morning that was too terrible to think about. He must not think about it. Meegan standing by the sink, not saying anything, but not crying either, the blooming memory of his hand on her face, spreading. The shards of glass on the floor. Don’t you feel? he had shouted. The whole morning he had thought Mark and the way her lips had formed his name as she poured him orange juice as if it were the most natural thing in the world. When she asked him to bring his plates to the sink, he’d sat for a moment watching her and then kicked the glass, watched as it spun away, bright fragments that caught the light and sparkled, and Anselmo had found it beautiful. “Don’t you feel anything?” he screamed. The desire, like an old ache, to feel his hand sharp against her cheek.
This passion of his burned him, tortured him. He was the only pilot who had never spotted a rafter because everywhere he saw her face. And she like a paper flower, turning her head up to receive his kiss, smiling as if lightly amused, as if this weren’t love, but a discreet and perfect friendship. And in his mind Anselmo saw what he had been trying not to see. He saw the shards come together and whisper, whole and perfect, that something had broken and it was his fault and it would never be the same again. Two people rarely love each other equally.
Tomorrow he would get in his plane and strap himself in. He and Mauricio would dance figure eights in the sky, Mauricio never once turning to look at him. Anselmo squinting and pretending to see. The water so still that the entire Caribbean would be a mirror on the sun. The brilliance getting inside him, urging him to believe heaven lay at the bottom of the ocean.
Anselmo gave a shudder under the comforter. He opened his eyes and breathed in the cold thin air of the room. The ceiling was littered with broken glass. It distorted the light, sent it running at odd angles. The dresser shone, polished and smooth. And in the mirror, a hand scratched the window glass, one bony finger extended. Anselmo drew closer to Meegan, so close he could smell her. The pile in the corner lay in shadow now, the figure of his last self obscured in darkness.
He had wanted her to scream, to break dishes, to swear and cry and promise to leave, to take everything and walk away. But the days that followed were like the days before. She floated and he reached for her. Finally it was he who came sobbing, begging forgiveness, falling. And now he was falling again. She talking to Mark last night as if nothing had happened. Why hadn’t she mentioned the tennis?
Anselmo turned on his back. He brought his arms up from under the comforter. A blue sheen covered them, the hair stood on end. He would get out and walk down the hall and shut off the air once and for all. And then he would sleep. Finally, sweet sleep. He would close his eyes and dream. Anselmo slipped out of the comforter, crouching away from the figure in the mirror. He measured his steps to the edge of the room, letting the cold wrap around him. He stood in front of the door, the knob in his hand, listening to his heart beat a desperate staccato in his ears.
Miami Relatives
My aunt Julia likes to bite people. Usually it only happens when she’s angry. But one year at Christmas Eve dinner she got very drunk and right there and then, in front of all those guests who know nothing of what my family is like
, she bent close as if to kiss her husband and instead bit part of his cheek off.
People thought it was some kind of show, especially since my uncle was howling a Julio Iglesias tune while his wife had her teeth sunk into his cheek. He ended up needing seventeen stitches.
The scar’s still visible after all these years, a white line above his jaw that’s like a second smile.
I worry about my family. When I was little I used to lie in bed, unable to sleep, wondering how long it’d be before a giant sinkhole swallowed the house with all of us in it. First would come the noise, like a deep sigh, and then the room would tilt toward the center and all the screaming in the world wouldn’t save us. I imagined the hole spreading, taking the Aunt Julia’s house next door and then the entire street all the way past the stop sign, moving south from Miami, through the fields and out over the water, eating everything in its path. And then the sinkhole would arrive in Havana and knock on the old uncle’s door and wait for him to answer before swallowing him too.
I still think my family would be happiest living underground, blind insects communicating by touch, rubbing antennae, working the same old paths. Every night, I bury them beneath the house. It is a way of keeping them safe.
My grandparents live with us in a little apartment off the back porch. It has a kitchen, but my grandmother refuses to cook in it. She says the spirit of the food will be trapped forever inside her apartment and then she won’t be able to sleep at night with all the spirits moaning with melancholy and regret.
So instead, she cooks at the barbecue grill inside the porch, so that the food spirits can escape through the screen. She makes everything there, including her morning coffee, and at least once a week she leaves a pot on to smolder.
My grandmother will go out to the yard and climb the mango tree to have lunch. She’ll be sitting there eating out of the bird feeder with the crows and my mother will run out and yell,
