Waiting for Snow in Havana

by Carlos Eire

  Idle speculation. Things happen the way they happen.

  Planned they are from the get-go, eternal they are and eternal are we all. One and the same are we and those facts, forever. The way Brother Alejandro’s starched clerical collar moved as he spoke. The angle of the sunlight on the boys who knelt on the gravel. The shadows they cast. The taunts, the blow to the head, the tears, the dirty magazines, the bag of popcorn. Each grease spot on the bag of popcorn, and the trajectory of every popcorn kernel as it fell to the floor. The hand extended in goodwill. Each bewildering gift from on high. Every temptation, every glimpse of the plunging crevasse inside our souls. The Judas kiss. The basest humiliation. Everything. All of it seamlessly woven into the story of my fall, our fall, yours and mine, that deep and steep fall. That happy fall, that joyous fall during which we can always, in the wink of an eye, with grace, sprout wings and scrape the gates of Heaven.

  5

  Cinco

  The pesticide Jeep rounded the corner, spraying death, and we jumped on our bicycles and chased it. It was usually Eugenio, Stinky, who could pedal the fastest, catch up to it, latch on to its rear bumper, and ride behind it for blocks. Eugenio would be lost in the cloud, invisible as the Jeep pulled away. Ten or twenty minutes later, he would return sweating and grinning, as happy as any kid could ever be, and give us a rundown on how far he had been pulled: “Ten blocks this time!” “Twenty blocks!” “Sixteen blocks!”

  Few others could match this feat. Not even my brother, who could usually do nearly anything he wanted, such as swim out to the horizon by himself, along with the sharks and barracudas, and peer into the black abyss that opened up beneath him where the sea floor suddenly dropped hundreds of feet beneath the turquoise waves.

  When the Jeep passed by, the world was transformed, and everything became invisible. You could barely see your hand in front of your face. The entire street was one giant cloud of pesticide. And it lingered forever. It must have been DDT, that awful poison banned in the United States. Mosquito control. Best way to curb malaria in a tropical paradise. What a beautiful sight, that red Jeep. What an exquisite color, that poison. Kind of blue.

  I remember whirling like a dervish in the thick fog, inhaling with abandon, collapsing onto the street nearly delirious. I thought this was what heaven must be like: thick bluish clouds, and that wonderful smell. I have always inhaled with abandon. The world is so full of wonderful smells. Roasted peanuts. Olives. Popcorn. Bus exhaust. Turpentine. Kerosene. Talcum powder. Gasoline. New tires. Glue. Shoe polish. Bubblegum wrappers. Gunpowder. Thinly sliced potatoes and hot dogs frying in olive oil. When I matured, the strangest things began to emit pleasing fumes too. Freshly baked bread. Single-malt Scotch whiskey. Cigars. Roses. Bordeaux wines. New wallets. New cars. The back of a woman’s knee after a hot bath. Other substances I dare not mention. Fumes are the fifth dimension, I’m convinced.

  But nothing could beat that poison. So pungent, yet so sweet. We loved to fill our lungs with it, loved it so much.

  Eugenio, our champion Jeep catcher, was the luckiest and the craziest of all of us. We were a close group of friends, five of us, all from the neighborhood. My brother and I, Manuel and Rafael Aguilera, also brothers, and Eugenio Godoy, who was unlucky enough to have sisters instead of brothers. When we first met him, my brother and Manuel dubbed him El Apestoso, or Stinky, because he smelled so bad. But then he started to use deodorant and we had to find another nickname for him. So we began to call him El Alocado, the Crazed One. We couldn’t call him El Loco, the Crazy One, because we had to distinguish him from the homeless alcoholic who lived in the park, who already owned that spectacular name. Big difference between those two. Eugenio’s father was a bank president, and his house and gardens took up half a city block. El Loco was an older man, scruffy and smelly, who often walked about the neighborhood muttering to himself. Sometimes he would shout, too, flailing his arms, shaking his head. We didn’t know for sure where he lived, but we feared El Loco. He would show up unexpectedly, just like the DDT Jeep, only more often. And we didn’t like that combination of frequency and unpredictability.

  El Loco was crazy. We knew that and our parents knew it. They called him El Loco too. He was one of the very few people in my neighborhood—perhaps the only one—at the bottom of the heap. At least the maids and nannies got paid and slept indoors. El Loco had nothing but the filthy clothes he wore and a wide-brimmed peasant straw hat. He was a force of nature, wild and dangerous, capable of just about anything.

  We, of course, were perfectly sane, and so were our parents. Unlike El Loco, who avoided the DDT Jeep like the plague, we had the good sense to discern the true, good, and the beautiful, and to chase down pesticide clouds. Our parents were enlightened enough to urge us on.

  One of my father’s brothers, Rafael, was the only adult who ever scolded us for calling this man El Loco. He had the odd nickname of Filo—which means “edge” or “sharpness”—and he was the only one in my father’s family who touched alcohol. Maybe that had something to do with that peculiar burst of compassion on his part, for he was not exactly a compassionate man. Or maybe it was a premonition on his part, for Filo would one day be imprisoned and tortured, and lose his own mind. So it goes with revolutions. Anyway, Filo pricked our consciences just a little, but not enough to make us stop. We had no consciences, really. And El Loco was crazy, really.

  Since we were all so sane, we thought it our right and privilege to taunt El Loco from a safe distance. “You’re nuts!” “You’re insane!” “Hey, what was it like at Mazorra?” (That was the name of Havana’s largest insane asylum.) “Hey, how long before you go back?” Sometimes he would start shouting and chase us. Eugenio told us that El Loco had once pulled out a huge knife and chased him for two blocks.

  We were fine specimens, the five of us. We also tormented a slightly retarded man who lived next door to Manuel and Rafael. Sometimes we would shout at him, and, since he moved slowly, challenge him to come chase us. “Mongo!” (Short for mongoloid). “Hey, how much is two plus two?” “Hey, what color was Napoleon’s white horse?” “Hey, Mongo, why don’t you show us how fast you can run!” And so on.

  Back in the fifth century Saint Augustine bemoaned the fact that as a child he and his friends had stolen pears from a neighbor’s tree just for the thrill of it. What an underachiever, that Augustine. When it came to committing mindless sins and manifesting unmistakable signs of total depravity, the five of us were gold medalists.

  We rang doorbells and ran away. We called for taxicabs on the phone and sent them to the other end of the city. Using our deepest voices, we ordered groceries and hardware on the phone and had them delivered to our neighbors’ houses. We uprooted plants from our neighbors’ yards and from nearby parks. We picked fruit from neighbors’ trees, not knowing that we were imitating a great saint. We took milk bottles from front porches and used them for target practice. We scattered thumbtacks and smashed bottles on the street and waited for cars to run over them. We blasted huge firecrackers—some of which were about the size of half a stick of dynamite—all over the neighborhood, wrecking shrubs, blackening porches, and scaring to death God knows how many old ladies. We crashed our toy cars into one another with the greatest force possible, smashed them with hammers, or blew them up with those huge firecrackers. We jammed wads of bubblegum into neighbors’ front-door locks. We stole toy soldiers from Woolworth’s. Sometimes we set those stolen plastic warriors on fire, just to watch them burn. We shot at streetlights at night with our water pistols, shattering the hot lightbulbs. When we didn’t have water pistols on hand, we also threw rocks at the streetlights. We threw rocks at cats and dogs. We threw rocks at birds. We threw rocks at one another.

  When we ran out of rocks and hard objects, we took to guns. We shot at birds with our BB guns and our pellet guns. Sometimes we even shot at people. Twice, the ever-feuding Aguilera brothers shot BBs at each other. I will never forget the sight of Rafa chasing his older brother Manuel on his bicycle,
BB gun in hand, swearing, steering, and shooting at the same time. We laughed about that for weeks. Once my cohorts actually shot at passing buses with their BB guns from the roof of Eugenio’s house. Somehow I missed that one. I think I was sick that day. But oh how I wished I could have been on that roof with my friends and brother. The four of them described in great detail how the passengers on the bus recoiled when the BBs hit near their windows. Eugenio even claimed he had shattered one window.

  But why stop at buses and BB guns? Why not aim higher? At Eugenio’s house there were a lot of real guns, with real ammunition. Rifles, pistols, shotguns. None of them were locked up, and his father never seemed to be around to stop us from using them. One day my four cohorts climbed to Eugenio’s roof with a .22-caliber rifle and took turns shooting at passing aircraft. Yes, they tried to shoot down airplanes. I wasn’t there, though. Once again, I had missed out on great fun. What if they had actually succeeded? I tried to imagine the fireball and the explosion as the plane landed on someone’s house.

  We were capable of anything.

  We also killed lizards whenever we saw them. In all sorts of horrible ways I can’t yet reveal. All I will say now is that we sometimes tried to send them into outer space like the Russian dog Laika.

  Poor lizards.

  You see, it wasn’t just my adopted brother Ernesto who was rotten. We were all rotten. The difference between him and us was that he did even nastier things and never got caught. Compared to him, the five of us were amateurs, and bad ones at that. We got caught every now and then and had to pay.

  Like the day when the older boys ganged up on Rafa and me and put us through their version of Indian torture.

  We had all recently seen a movie in which the ever-evil Hollywood Indians had buried some unfortunate ever-wholesome Cowboy up to his neck in the sand and smeared his face with something sweet. When the ants came out and ate his face we all squirmed and squinted, turning away from the screen and peeking through our fingers. But look we did. And the image took hold of us. This was one evil deed that cried out for imitation.

  Rafa and Manuel’s yard had several fire ant nests. One of them was huge. We knew they were hormigas bravas because we had all been stung now and then. We knew to stay away from them, and especially from that one big nest, which looked like a small volcano. Often, while playing in that yard, one of us would have a run-in with them and cry out in pain and run around like some demoniac. All of us learned to recognize the scream that came with their bite. It would take some time for the bite to swell, but the pain was there from the instant they bit you.

  Those ants made the lizards look good.

  But they weren’t the only constant reminder of nature’s treachery in that yard. The Aguilera yard was also blessed with a hot pepper bush. These weren’t jalapeño peppers, with which just about every North American is familiar. No, they made jalapeños seem mild mannered. They were beautiful, tiny red peppers, and they could kill. They were truly exquisite to behold: such a bright shining red. Same color as a sports car, or the brightest red lipstick, and so smooth to the touch. They cried out, “Touch me, kiss me, eat me!” The ultimate deception. All of us had been tempted to sample them—cautiously, just on the tip of the tongue—and we rued having done it. One brush with their evil juice and you could brag about knowing what hell was like. They burned hotter than lava and made your flesh swell to the point of bursting.

  I’m not exaggerating.

  And one day, shortly after having seen the movie with the guy whose face got eaten by ants, the older boys decided to act out the fateful scene. Naturally, they used the two of us who were youngest and weakest to play the role of the hapless Cowboy. And they hit upon the very Cuban idea of combining the killer peppers and the fire ants.

  The three of them—Manuel, Eugenio, and Tony—ganged up on Rafa and me, smeared our faces with the red peppers, threw us onto the fire ant nest, and held us there for a while. I had never thought it possible to hurt so much. And I didn’t know which was worse, the sting of the ants or the burn from the peppers. But I still remember very clearly how I could feel my eyelids and lips swelling.

  Rafa and I cried out, begging for mercy from our Indian torturers and for help from our moms. But our mothers were too used to our war games and our constant cries of distress and agony. (“Help, help, don’t scalp me, no! Aaaaaaaay!” “Help, help, this grenade blew my legs off! AAAaaaaaay.” “Oh no, my guts are spilling out. Ooooooh no!”) No one came out of the house to rescue us, though we were shouting at the top of our lungs.

  As soon as the Indians released us, Rafa and I ran into the house, wailing. Everything was blurry due to the hot pepper juice in our eyes and the swelling of our eyelids, but we found our way to our mothers in the kitchen, where they were chatting. I was crying my heart out, thinking that I was maimed for life, or on the threshold of dying. In between our sobs Rafa and I explained to our mothers what had happened, as they pelted us with questions and cries of alarm. Neither Rafa nor I had any idea how badly disfigured we were already, and how much that upset our moms. They rushed us into the bathroom, tossed us into the shower fully dressed, and soaked us thoroughly. I remember the two of them making more of a din than we two kids.

  If you ever need to awaken quickly from a deep, deep sleep arrange to have two Cuban mothers shout at your bedside as if their children have been hurt. If you need to awaken from a coma, have them shout as if their older children have hurt the younger ones.

  Rafa and I had our eyes soaked in something that made us cry even more and were slathered with ointment where the fire ants had left their marks. I don’t know about Rafa, but I cried more on that day than I had ever cried before.

  The older boys were rounded up for justice. They were unmasked before their fathers for the bullies they were, and they paid for what they did. I don’t remember the punishment, but whatever it was, it must have been far too light for the crime they had committed. They never again did anything so cruel, but they joked about what they had done for years, and even bragged about it when we were in the company of other boys who hadn’t been there. They probably bragged about the punishment, too.

  After a while Rafa and I began to brag about it too, and even to laugh. It was the kind of story that always got the right kind of reaction from other boys.

  With girls, it was different. The first time I told the story to a girl should have been the last. But I kept trying for years, thinking it would impress them.

  Nowadays I play a game with my own three children. I ask them, suddenly and unexpectedly, at the oddest moments: “What is the Law?” They know the answer, and they pronounce the words as I have taught them, slowly and ponderously: “We shall not walk on all fours. We shall not drink blood.” The answer is especially endearing when it issues from my youngest son’s lips: “We sall not walk on all foahs. We sall not dwink bwood.” They’ve never seen the movie this line is taken from, Island of the Lost Souls, with Charles Laughton playing the part of a deranged scientist, Dr. Moreau, who turns beasts into humans and has to keep them in line with a whip and the ever-central question, “What is the Law?” Snap! goes Dr. Moreau’s whip. “What IS the Law?” Snap! Snap! Snap! “What IS the Law?” Snap! Moreau’s creatures, barely erect, ask themselves and their creator, “Are we not men?” And they reply to Dr. Moreau’s question in unison, slowly and ponderously, “We shall not walk on all fours. We shall not drink blood.”

  To this quiz on the Law I have added a third response of my own: “We shall not inhale poison.”

  My children think I’m joking when I launch into this pop quiz. But I’m deadly serious. I want them to know that there is a law, and that there is a beast inside each of them, always itching to ignore it and to break free. I want them to know, too, that there is a whip snapping over their heads, silent for now, gentle and silent. Someday, I tell them, they will hear the crack of the whip and realize they are wielding it themselves, standing erect, abstaining from blood, seeing poison for what it is,
and avoiding it like the plague.

  So, what is the Law? Snap! Snap! What IS the Law? Snap!

  Your turn now. Go on. Answer.

  6

  Seis

  There He was again. How I wished He would stop this.

  There He was, at the window, shouldering the weight of that huge, awful cross. He always showed up so unexpectedly. So swiftly. It’s not as though He walked to the spot, or anything like that. He simply appeared. And He never made a sound.

  How I hated it. How I feared it.

  He just stood there, as always, blood trickling down His face, that nasty crown of thorns piercing His forehead. They were such huge thorns, and so sharp. His hair was long and messy, and bloody too.

  He just stood there and stared at me.

  My family kept eating dinner, as always, oblivious to the visitor. There they were, seated around the table, stuffing food in their mouths, making small talk, while Jesus parked Himself at our window, staring at me. “Pass the fried plantains, please.” “Azucena, dish me out some more malanga.” “Tony, eat your soup, it’s getting cold. If you eat cold soup, you’ll get indigestion.” “Antonio, are you ready for dessert?”

  How He stared. God, those eyes, those eyes, so full of pain. Brown eyes, not blue. So all-commanding, so all-consuming. Eyes that pierced right through to the very core of my soul, eyes that read my mind. Eyes that seemed to beg and command at the same time.

  “Come, follow Me.”

  Go away, go away, go away, please. Vanish. Disappear, please. Stop torturing me. Why do you do this? I didn’t have to speak. He knew what I was thinking before I thought it. And I knew He knew it.

  He just stood there and stared at me.

  I tried to speak to my family, but no words would come out of my mouth. It was useless to try. He let me know it was useless. He was there for me alone. And then He would vanish, as suddenly as He had appeared.