King of Cuba

by Cristina Garcia

  To Goyo’s knowledge, nobody but he visited Luisa’s grave. Alina hadn’t attended the funeral, and only a handful of his wife’s Red Cross friends had shown up for the burial in their Sunday finery, gossiping and winking at him. Poor Goyito had driven down from Jacksonville, but he’d remained utterly silent and dry-eyed during the ceremony. To her dying day Luisa had believed that their son wasn’t mentally ill but pretending to be crazy, as she’d crassly put it, for profit. “Aren’t there easier ways for a clever boy to make money?” Goyo had argued back. But his wife was impervious to logic. After he’d tossed the clumps of requisite dirt on Luisa’s coffin, Goyo was blindsided by a crushing, unexpected loneliness. Often, he dreamt that she still slept beside him. Luisa had been an agitated constant in his life for six decades—and damn it, he missed her.

  An eclipse of white moths converged on his wife’s grave. This would’ve horrified her. Among her many empty enthusiasms, Luisa had spent a great deal of her later years battling the inevitable mildew and moth infestations that came with living by the sea. Every now and then Goyo dug into his closet and pulled out a guayabera or a pair of slacks disintegrating with holes, and this made him miss her all the more. With her passing, Goyo had lost much of his own history. His wife’s memory had been highly selective—for his concrete failings and her imaginary triumphs—but also for their early, tender love.

  After her mother was buried, Alina told him a shameful story: that when Luisa was a little girl, her father would force her to watch him fondling himself in the shower, that her own mother would make excuses for him, telling Luisa that she needed to learn the ways of men. This had enraged Goyo. It also explained why his wife had struggled so terribly to give herself over to him. For the first disastrous weeks of their honeymoon, she’d insisted that they merely hold hands when they went to sleep. It’d taken Goyo a year of loving patience to coax Luisa to permit herself the pleasure he was capable of giving her. Who knew what other secrets she’d taken to the grave?

  Goyo settled on his portable chair and pushed a button on the CD player. The sounds of “Quiero Volver” wafted over his wife’s grave and up into the shading tamarind tree. What’s madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance? Goyo recited this aloud, picturing his wife’s puzzled reaction (he’d borrowed the line from one of Alina’s poetry books). Sometimes a man needs to go to extremes to test his convictions. This line was his, as was what followed: I can’t wait any longer, Luisa. I must face my fears and become the man I know I can be. En fin, I want to be worthy of a fine elegy. I want you to be proud of me, mi amor.

  Who knew if Luisa would believe him? The two had lied to each other as a matter of course. She would’ve categorized her deceptions as feminine necessities: checking Goyo’s mail and cell phone records, inspecting his credit card receipts. His wife hadn’t spied on his e-mails only because she didn’t know how to use a computer. She’d consulted santeras and fortune-tellers, too, for advice on how to get him back. Not that Goyo had ever threatened to leave her—well, maybe once or twice over her treatment of Goyito. The real problem had been that Luisa had wanted, unreasonably, to have him all to herself. She’d been incapable of emotional moderation, or the stony tolerance expected of a good Cuban wife. In Goyo’s experience, American women were much more pragmatic about love, rarely exhibiting the melodramatic sensibilities of their Latina counterparts. Sometimes he longed for the strong, sensible girls from northern climes who’d understood the limits of his devotion.

  Goyo skipped ahead to the song “Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado.” Luisa had tried to get him to dance to it cheek to cheek, but Goyo always felt like a hapless turtle fighting its way out of a paper bag. Now he pushed himself to standing and swayed to the music, sliding one foot forward then back. This is for you, Luisa. For you, I’m dancing like an old fool. He remembered the time his wife had shown up at his diner late one night and put on a recording by Olga Guillot. They’d danced their way into the pantry and made passionate love among the onions and industrial-size cans of tomato soup. Luisa had been a great beauty once, before her weight gains and corset-like girdles disfigured her body for good.

  A small army of clicking beetles trundled across her grave. Goyo swiped at them with the tip of his cane. Last week his brother had told him that one of his great-grandchildren, the nine-year-old, was raising hissing cockroaches from Madagascar as pets. Cucarachas? This was inconceivable to Goyo. Couldn’t the boy get a hamster or a Chihuahua like everyone else? Goyo reached inside his shirt pocket for the cigar he’d tucked there. He lit it and watched as the smoke ribboned to heaven. Maybe if he killed the tyrant, he might go straight to heaven himself. Ay, but there was little justice in the world. For him true heaven was the precious memory of his youth, of the earthly paradise he’d lost. Cuba had been his birthright, his home, and it’d been taken away from him—brutally, eternally. What was death next to such banishment?

  Goyo considered the other graves, the statues of angels and gargoyles, the mausoleums and family crypts. So many heartbroken exiles were buried here, dreaming with their last breath of returning home to a free Cuba. At least Mamá had died in Havana, though nobody had envied her at the time. She’d only been fifty-seven. The doctors had suspected a heart attack, a family hazard. Above him, a pair of ravens drifted in the skies. The heat was growing unbearable. The sun bleached everything in its domain as it moved toward unforgiving noon. Goyo’s cell phone rang. Coño, there was no escaping his son, even here.

  “Rok-rok-rok . . . frahnk . . .”

  “Goyito, is that you?”

  “Rok-rok-rok—”

  “Is that molar bothering you again?” Goyito’s interminable dental problems frequently pushed him to unconventional expressions of pain.

  “It’s a great blue heron.”

  “A what?”

  “That bird in the Everglades. It’s a mating call.”

  “Are you trying to attract a female?” There were no passports for parenthood, Goyo thought, or for death.

  “Listen to this: tsyoo-tsyoo-tsyoo-tsyoo-tswee . . .”

  “Mira, hijo, I’m here in the cemetery with your mother and—”

  “Guess what it is.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “A yellow-throated warbler. Okay, here’s the last one. I’ve been practicing this one all morning: ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta.”

  It sounded to Goyo like a maraca, but who knew what the bird was called? “I give up.”

  “A belted kingfisher! The longer the rattle, the more aggressive it’s feeling. It’s very territorial.”

  Goyo laughed. He envisioned the kingfisher, still wet and chattering on its mangrove branch. “That’s very nice, Goyito. Is this a new hobby?” He didn’t care what the hell his son did to pass the time so long as he stayed sober. Goyito was his dark angel, unfit for this world.

  “Sort of.”

  “Ah, that makes me very happy. Let’s hear another one.”

  “That’s all I’ve got. I’m working on the black-capped chickadee and the ferruginous hawk. What are you doing at Mom’s grave?”

  “Having a conversation.”

  “Two-way?”

  “Not exactly.” His son sounded good, cheerful even. Maybe his shrink had adjusted his medications.

  “Did you know that the entrance to hell is just a tiny hole in the ground?”

  “Is that so?” Goyo’s optimism sagged.

  “No bigger than the size of a black bean.”

  “And how do you know this, hijo?” Goyo tried to keep his voice even. It wasn’t possible to imagine Goyito’s confusion, but he could try to offer him patience.

  “I dreamt it.”

  Goyo heard his son grinding his back molars, popping his jawbone.

  “Life and death aren’t equal,” Goyito added.

  “I have to agree with you there.” Goyo eyed the pink and white bougainvillea cascading over a grave twenty yards away. “It goes against what the Church says, but I suspect that life is a lot bett
er than death.”

  “Whoa, then I’m totally screwed!”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just—”

  “Can you send me money for my tooth?” Goyito interrupted.

  “When are you going to the dentist?”

  “Next week.”

  “Then there’s time. I’ll call Dr. Yamada and make arrangements.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Bueno, eat something. Don’t starve yourself.” Recently, his son had embarked on a modified fast and was subsisting on liquid protein. In this, unfortunately, he took after his mother.

  A cadaverous black dog nosed its way along the graves, limping on its back left leg. “Vete de aquí! Vete! There’s a dog here, hijo. It looks like a pit bull. I don’t want it digging up your mother’s bones.” The dog approached tentatively, its eyes on Goyo. Then without warning, it latched on to his mahogany cane. “Hijo de puta!” Goyo held fast to the curved end.

  “Fifty bucks. Send me fifty bucks?”

  “Twenty!” Goyo shouted. With a sharp tug, the dog got hold of the cane and trotted off with it, settling on some Cuban admiral’s grave and having himself a good chew. “I’ll call you back, hijo.”

  Now what? Goyo was sweating from the humidity and his battle with the dichoso mutt. A hummingbird flitted amid the bougainvillea. It looked like a gleaming ruby with wings, its beak a perfect curved needle. Mi madre, why was it breaking his heart? Time was no more than this, Goyo decided: a stray dog snatching your cane without permission or grace. Goyo wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. A drifting cloud gave him momentary respite from the sun. He stumbled after the dog, but it stood its ground and growled.

  “Give it to me,” Goyo commanded, stretching out his hand. If he couldn’t get his cane back from this flea-bitten mutt, then what hope did he have of killing El Comandante? The dog emitted a high-pitched whine. Goyo got a little closer. It sat upright and offered Goyo its paw. He shook it, then reached for his cane. “Good boy,” he whispered. “You’re a good boy. I’ll bring you a steak next time, okay?”

  Charade

  So there was this couple in Havana who’d been married forever and devoted to each other like you’ve never seen. He’d been a sociology professor at the university before they abolished the department; she’d been a private French tutor until nobody studied French anymore. During the Special Period, they had next to nothing to eat, so every night they pretended to go to a fancy restaurant and order a sumptuous meal. Would you like the steak au poivre tonight? Oh my, look! They have stuffed lobster tails and a bouillabaisse! They went through all the motions: wiping their mouths with imaginary linen napkins, toasting themselves with make-believe champagne in crystal flutes, ordering blancmange for dessert. I heard this story from their only son, an artist in Germany. He managed to emigrate in the nineties and sent them money until they died “sharing” a beef bourguignon.

  —Silvia Meléndez, glass blower

  5.

  Rain

  Mexico City

  It was an interminable ride from the airport into the heart of Mexico City, where Babo was living out his remaining days. El Comandante had received the call late that morning: if he wanted to see his friend alive, then it was necessary to come immediately. The tyrant hated traveling, as he hated anything that wasn’t under his direct control. It was a testament to his love for Babo that he made this exception. The filth and fumes of the capital’s outskirts depressed the tyrant, and his limousine reminded him of a hearse. He decided against mentioning the resemblance to his wife. Delia would only contradict him, change the conversation to a more cheerful topic; in a word, irritate the hell out of him. He hadn’t wanted her to come along today, but she’d insisted, something she almost never did, and so he’d reluctantly agreed.

  When the doctors had first discovered the spot on Babo’s lung, he’d overreacted, decamping from his villa on the Pacific Coast and cooping himself up in an ugly, pretentious high-rise next door to the best hospital in the country. El Comandante was surprised by his friend’s apprehensions. The Babo he knew had lived fully and fearlessly, never hesitating to plunge headlong into battles for causes he believed in, be they political, literary, or romantic. It was midafternoon by the time the hearse pulled up to the luxury building. Rooftop snipers protected the uniformed doormen. This was what life had come to here. The rich could afford more protection than the poor, who were treated as so much cannon fodder in the war between the drug cartels and corrupt government forces. Woe to anyone who got caught in the crossfire.

  El Comandante and his wife were escorted into Babo’s building and up the elevator to his penthouse. Walls of bulletproof glass overlooked the city. Everything felt tightly sealed, vacuum-wrapped, airless. Babo’s second wife, Gloria, to whom he’d been married thirty years, greeted them in her bare feet, her white linen dress absorbing the thin afternoon light. Despite her keen eyes and calm, ironic tone, she was something of an old hippie, if you could call the heiress to one of Mexico’s petrochemical fortunes a hippie. Gloria was the opposite of the dictator’s own wife, who had the good-natured sincerity of a puppy.

  The atmosphere in the apartment was as somber as the decor. Gone were the wicker chairs and open-air patios of Babo’s seaside home, replaced by stiff, cretonne-upholstered furniture. The three sat in silence as a maid served them coffee and petit fours, which Delia ate with abandon. Gloria didn’t touch a thing.

  “The doctors say he’s in his last hours.” Gloria lit a gold-tipped cigarette. She blew the smoke toward a chandelier and waited for it to dissipate before continuing. “I know he’ll be happy to see you, Jefe.”

  “The truth is we—” Delia started, but she was cut short by her husband’s glare.

  El Comandante didn’t want to risk Delia mentioning that they almost didn’t come. Dying friends dispirited the tyrant.

  “Do you think he’ll recognize me?” he asked.

  “I know he will.” Gloria smiled one of the enigmatic smiles that Babo once confessed had hooked him like a helpless trout. That, and the fact that she gave the best head in all the Americas.

  “I’d like to see him, Gloria.”

  “Claro, Jefe. Follow me.”

  He trailed Gloria down a dim corridor to Babo’s study. It was here that his friend had insisted on spending his final days. He wanted, simply, to die surrounded by books. There were no family photographs, no souvenirs of his travels, no sign of his Nobel medal or snapshots of him with the great men of his day, the tyrant included; just books—his and others’—Babo’s eternal friends, and a vase of hyacinths on the nightstand.

  El Comandante approached his friend cautiously. He was relieved that Babo was alive but afraid that there was nothing left for them to discuss. In their heyday, their conversations had lasted for days, interspersed with fishing trips and the reverential hush that accompanied their smoking of fine island cigars. There were few subjects they hadn’t broached, analyzed, laughed over, and argued about, all the while growing fonder and more admiring of each other. Not that there hadn’t been a thorn or two. Once Babo stopped speaking to the tyrant for months over a rust-colored beauty they’d discovered on a visit to El Cobre’s foundry. She was just Babo’s type, too—pure liquefied mulata sugar. But at the last minute, the tyrant chose her for himself, pulling a revolutionary droit du seigneur. Every now and then the incident rippled through their friendship like a Cuban water snake.

  Nonetheless, Babo had proved as savvy about politics as he was at writing about the darkest recesses of the human heart. It was a rare combination in a man of his accomplishments, and there’d been a time when the tyrant had envied his friend’s gifts. (In truth, his envy still flared on occasion.) But Babo’s unfailing good humor, his generosity toward the Revolution, and his unflagging personal loyalty to El Comandante had won him over. There wasn’t another soul on the planet, save Fernando, whom he trusted as much.

  “Hombre, what are you doing lying there like a beached whale?”


  Babo opened his rheumy eyes and cracked a half smile. That initial spot on his lungs had developed into a tangled web of ailments impossible to unravel. As the afternoon light faded, Babo’s surprisingly small study filled with shadows. Night’s arrival would console El Comandante, at least until his exhaustion began to feed his paranoia and worsen his mood.

  “Hijo de puta,” Babo whispered, his grin widening a quarter inch. “Did they tell you I was dead?” The pale light gleamed off the side rail of his bed.

  It seemed to El Comandante that something in the room itself, in the shelves of thick, silent tomes, in the collection of vintage typewriters and the fountain pens arranged in a perfect arc across Babo’s desk, seemed charged in some imperceptible way. His friend’s breathing grew labored, deliberate, as if he had to concentrate on it fully. A nurse who reminded the tyrant of his mother—dark-skinned with sinewy legs—held a handkerchief to Babo’s mouth until he expectorated.

  “Carajo, you look almost peaceful,” El Comandante joked. “That’s something we vowed never to become.”

  The old friends coughed companionably. The nurse poured each of them a glass of water, which their respective wives helped administer.

  “All this love and we’re still powerless against death,” Babo said, regaining his composure. “In the end, I want to leave behind something imagined, not simply recalled.”

  The tyrant couldn’t have disagreed with Babo more, but he was in no mood to antagonize him on his deathbed. No, he would much rather reminisce over his lurid, manic, garish, heroic, lived life than dwell on anything that even the great Babo could conjure up. It was action that fueled his ideas, El Líder thought, not the other way around. He was a man of action; action and appetites.

  “Facts paralyze,” his friend continued, a disconcerting rumbling emanating from his chest. “Imagination frees us.”