by Amanda Hale
‘Berto, help your brother!’ Libya would snap. ‘With all this time on your hands what else do you have to do?’ For Alberto had not married, sadly. With the onset of adolescence he had retreated into the shadow of his good health and become an outsider in a town full of suffering neighbours. There was always someone laid out at the funeraria; sometimes two interments in one day making slow processions up the hill to the cemetery. The hospital was in a constant state of crisis with an overflow of patients and not enough beds — families had to bring fold up cots from home, as well as pots of arroz con frijoles, electric fans, radios, soap, drinking water. The polyclinic and the hospital were understaffed at the best of times, and with medical staff clamoring for missions abroad — to Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Africa — the situation worsened. When an epidemic of la gripe hit Baracoa in the middle of winter with temperatures plummeting to twenty degrees centigrade and everyone shivering in long sleeved pullovers and jackets, the staff was unable to deal with the patient lineups of snorting, sneezing germ-carriers.
Alberto began to volunteer. He transported his neighbours for free in his bicitaxi, back and forth to the hospital, the clinic, the pharmacy — wherever they wanted to go — twenty times a day and into the night, following briskly trotting horses pulling wagons with oil lamps glowing in the darkness, slung low between the back wheels. Alberto felt sure that he would be contaminated by his close contact with the sick, but his robust health continued so he had nothing to contribute to the interminable organ recitals of his passengers. It seemed crass, and even cruel, to converse about his own good health, so he kept silent and contented himself at the end of the day with oiling and polishing his bicitaxi, sitting on the cracked leather of the recycled passenger seat, inhaling deeply, hoping to pick up a few germs.
There was no welcome for him in his mother’s house. The very sight of her disgustingly healthy son disturbed Libya Castro and set her mouth in a line of discontent. Her only joy was the frequent visits of her sickly little grandchildren who were increasing in number. It seemed that ill health had not affected her daughters’ fertility, and even Fredy had managed to father a couple of kids. ‘I always thought you’d be the one to marry and get out of my sight,’ Libya quipped. ‘What ever happened to that pretty girl you were so stuck on in escuela secondaria? Too good for her, were you?’ Alberto blushed like a boy at this mention of the girl with green eyes. She’d sat two rows over from him in grade ten, and they had smiled at each other every day, sneaking sidelong glances. He’d been full of hope and intention, and then she’d disappeared before he could ask her to be his novia — gone to Guantánamo, they said, with her family.
Alberto could bear it no longer — the painful memories, the loneliness, his solitary existence.
‘Berto, ¿Qué pasa?’ asked Loli Legra, noticing the taxista’s sad expression. Only last night Berto had carried Loli’s wife to the clinic when her blood pressure had risen and frightened her, so he was feeling kindly disposed to his annoyingly healthy neighbor.
‘Oh, my kidneys,’ Berto cried, clutching at his waist, feeling for the appropriate place. He had a vague memory of anatomy from biology class in tenth grade. In reality he felt nothing, neither pain nor the usual pleasure of his well-being, for he had just entered a new zone where he was between fact and fiction. After three full days of complaint — which drew marvellous attention and even brought Mama Castro to his side, smoothing his brow and coaxing him with special foods — un potaje de gandul, un postre de flan made with the last of the eggs, floating in caramelized sugar — only on the fourth day as he once again furrowed his brow and contorted his mouth did he feel a real twinge of pain where he supposed his left kidney to be. He felt a mixture of alarm and gratitude. ‘I am sick.’ he whispered. I’m like everyone else. Gracias a Diós!’
Multiple tests ensued. Blood was taken, X Rays and ultrasounds were authorized, pills were swallowed and more blood extracted until he felt quite genuinely weak. It was a marvellous feeling! But all the results were negative. Nothing could be detected and although Alberto was clearly not well he was sent home where he now had the undivided attention of Mamá, Fredy, his sisters, and the multiple nephews and nieces who gathered around Tío Berto staring solemnly, trying to prod his kidneys with their pudgy little fingers. Neighbours came to the door day and night with gifts of fruit, dishes of rice and root vegetables, medicinal teas brewed from the plants growing on their back patios — all the love and attention Berto had been missing. But love had come too late. His pretense had a firm hold on him and he was failing day by day. In the early hours of Sunday morning, with regatón blaring from Rafael’s fiesta de cumpleaños up the street, Berto woke gasping for breath, and stared Death in the face as his left kidney tortured him with a screaming pain. At dawn he passed blood in his urine and was readmitted to the hospital, where he lay in the bed of an old woman who had died in the night. Berto panicked when he realized that Death had come to him only as a warning before moving on to the hospital to take the old lady in His skeletal arms.
But even though Death visited him each night on the hospital ward Berto was no longer afraid. In fact he began to look forward to the nightly visits as though greeting an old friend. ‘Take me!’ he begged. ‘Take me please, I cannot bear this pain any longer.’ The doctors thought he had a kidney stone and waited for it to pass because there was no space in the surgical schedule until the following week, but when Berto became hoarse with screaming they authorized an emergency operation. Berto felt himself drifting away under the anaesthetic and that was the last he knew until he opened his eyes to find Mami at his bedside holding his hand. Her eyes were full of concern as she told him that they had removed his kidney, a perfectly pink and healthy kidney with no sign of a stone in it.
‘There’s nothing wrong with this man,’ growled the surgeon when he came on his rounds. ‘He’s a malingerer! Discharge him!’ Alberto was taken home, hunched over in a bicitaxi, his loving mother at his side, which throbbed with the pain of his fresh incision.
‘Pobrecito, my little Berto,’ crooned Libya Castro. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Yes, Mami, it hurts me terribly,’ Berto replied.
‘Don’t worry, the stitches will come out in a week,’ she said, patting his hand and kissing him with all the pent-up mother love withheld during his twenty-seven healthy years. What Berto failed to tell Libya was that the place where his kidney had been still tortured him. The pain of the incision and the tugging of the stitches were like a pleasant itch compared to the deep ache within his torso. Alberto was beginning to realize that the doctors didn’t know everything, and he feared more than ever for his life, though there was a part of him that exulted in the situation. He had joined the cast and he was the star.
As Alberto lay in bed drifting in and out of consciousness he heard all the sounds of the street. He heard the cry of the vendors touting onions, tomatoes, malanga and boniato. He heard the manisero crying ‘¡Mani, mani!’ and Eugenia in her blusa roja, (he had seen it often enough), calling ‘¡Cucuruchu, cucurucho fresco!’ And all the while Libya hovered at his side, smoothing his brow, coaxing four-hourly doses of Ibuprofen down his throat with sips of water. He was afraid to drink too much now that he had only one kidney. He didn’t want to overwork it. He wanted to live!
In the afternoon, after a brief nap, Alberto was roused by a rumbling in the distance. He felt more than heard it, his bed set atremble as the sound came closer. ‘¡Basura, basura, saca tu basura!’ Ah, it was the garbage men calling. He smiled to himself, his eyes still closed as he savoured the familiar sounds. He heard footsteps coming and going — his father carrying buckets of water from the cistern to the kitchen, he supposed, and his mamá bustling about the house, but when he opened his eyes a strange figure was standing over him; not his mamá, no, nor his sister nor any of his neighbours. The girl bent down until her green eyes were on a level with his. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ she asked. ‘I’m Gloria — Gloria Amor from tenth grade.’ Alberto c
ame to with a jolt and held his breath, waiting for the pain of his ghostly kidney to kick in. ‘I have returned to Baracoa now, graduated as a doctor. Where does it hurt, Berto?’
He took her hand, which was delicate and fragrant with fine blue veins just visible under creamy skin, and he placed the wonder of it over his own heart. Of course he remembered Gloria Amor with her thickly lashed green eyes, luminous as the River Toa in summer when it shimmers under the sun’s intense heat. ‘No te he olvidado por un minuto,’ he said, ‘But I never expected to see you again.’
Gloria came each day and sat with him. She told him about her life in Guantánamo where she had pined for Baracoa and decided that when she graduated she would return to work there. She told him about her new job at the polyclinic. She impressed him with her passion to heal the entire ailing population of Baracoa, and Berto found himself unlocked, sharing with Gloria all the secrets of his solitary life. After a few days, when he was strong enough to sit up in bed, he asked her, ‘Would you have come to me if I hadn’t been sick, Gloria?’
‘¿Cómo no, Berto?’ she replied with a smile. ‘It was always my intention to come and find you, but you made it easy for me. When we are all together in our illness, it is easier for us to find each other and move forward with the power and force of our collectivity. Blessed are the weak for they will inherit the earth; Matthew, Chapter 5, verse 5.’ She leaned into him, touching his hand gently as her lips parted, revealing small glistening teeth, and just the very tip of her pink tongue. It was only later, much later, when Gloria and Berto were married with twin boys, and had become devoted members of the Pentecostal church — which Berto had learned from Gloria was yet one more way to join in the collectivity of his people — that he realized her misquotation, or perhaps his own misunderstanding of it,’ but by then it did not matter. He had regained his strength and with it had found true meekness.
HOMECOMING
When Evangelia came home it felt like the end of the war. People stood in darkness waiting for the cars to come, with only faint lights from their houses spilling onto the street. Horatio’s jeep came first, his family crowded in and Horatio himself barely visible amidst the bags and parcels filled with goods from Venezuela.
Venusa wrung her hands nervously as though she were washing them, awaiting her sister’s first homecoming leave with a mixture of longing and trepidation. She’d fought with Evangelia before her departure a year ago and had repented ever since. ‘You can’t go!’ she’d said, ‘It’s too dangerous in Venezuela! Please, Evangelia, we can manage without the extra money.’ And Evangelia had replied with uncharacteristic passion, ‘I know you’re jealous, Venusa, but don’t try to stop me! It’s my only chance! I’m fifty-one years old! This is a gift from God. Tomás was in Angola for two years, Felix was in Leipzig, two of the other nurses at the clinic have been on missions — why not me? It’s my turn!’
Evangelia’s grand-daughter Milena skipped through the house, her little sister Eleana stumbling behind her on bowed legs, trying to keep up as Milena raced onto the front patio and darted across the street, dodging traffic. ‘Milena! Ten cuidado!’ Venusa yelled.
Yarisnelda arrived next in a big old Chevrolet rolling down Calle Mariana Grajales, and everyone cheered as though she were the queen, except Venusa who had a sudden feeling of panic, as though something dreadful might happen — an accident in the darkness perhaps, where the sewer pipes were being laid. She let out a little cry then clamped her hand over her mouth, and pointed up the street. There was Tomás following behind the Chevrolet in a borrowed car, driving with a slow dignity which seemed ceremonial but was more likely due to his unfamiliarity with driving. In Angola he’d driven army vehicles, but in the two decades since coming home he’d been lucky to find a functioning bicycle to ride to work.
Venusa glimpsed Evangelia as the car door opened, and in the same moment a couple of dozen neighbours sighted her and a cry went up like the roaring of an animal. Venusa was surprised by sudden tears as a shameful emotion rose in her, like a response to the playing of the national anthem on television when Fidel spoke from the Plaza de la Revolución. Venusa’s eyes searched frantically for the children as she screamed, ‘Milena! Eleana! Ven aquí.’ Evangelia stepped out of the car and everyone surged forward, hiding her from view with a multitude of hands and arms and bobbing heads. Tomás climbed out on the driver’s side, his face impassive. Three of the sisters from the Pentecostal church spilled from the back of the car with Morito, Evangelia’s son-in-law, gathering parcels and bags in their arms, everyone strangely solemn, intent on their task. They’d all been waiting so long. Milena and Eleana appeared out of nowhere, jumping up and down, screaming ‘Abuela! Abuela!’ and Evangelia scooped them up just as Big Marta from the church enveloped her in a strong-armed embrace.
The crowd began to part but Venusa hung back. She felt shy and out of place. Evangelia looked different, her hair a mass of golden-beaded braid extensions, her face calm and beautiful as ever. She wore skin-tight jeans and an indigo-gold blouse that revealed the generous swell of her breasts. On her sturdy feet she wore golden jewelled sandals, and there were large gold pendants dangling from her ears. This is a new Evangelia, Venusa thought. She’s coming home like a victorious warrior bearing the spoils of sacrifice. And it isn’t only the clothes. There’s something else. She has a new way of carrying herself. Venusa crossed her arms over her scrawny breast and pressed herself against the wall of the front room. I should go back to the kitchen, she thought, make myself useful. But neighbours were crowding into the house looking for the Bienvenida cake and refreshments and Venusa couldn’t move. Then she saw her opportunity, slid between Big Marta and her daughter Dulce, and shyly approached Evangelia who embraced her with such warmth that soon the two women were crying on each other’s shoulders. Nothing was mentioned of their parting disagreement. It was as though they were children again, always together, the first two in a family of fourteen. They couldn’t afford to be at odds. They broke their embrace and held each other at arms’ length, then Evangelia linked arms with Venusa and laid her head on her shoulder as they walked together down the corridor to the kitchen.
The cake was already gone, leaving the children smeared with greasy pink icing, and the floor sticky with spilled orange crush and kola. Men were gathered in the yard at the back of the house, handing rum bottles around. But not Tomás. He had quit before Evangelia left for Venezuela — he’d had to — he was killing himself with weekend binge drinking. He’d been on medical leave for nine months and had only recently returned to work, not in the slaughterhouse, but a lighter job in the crafts centre where he prepared big chunks of pungent guayacán for carving. Artisans transformed the wood into curvaceous dancing girls and spear-handling Taíno warriors. Tomás showed little emotion about his wife’s return, but everyone knew that he’d been waiting for that day, checking his cell phone for messages from her, fretting when the money ran out and he had no way to recharge it. His welcome was clear in the condition of the house — it was sparkling clean, and he’d fixed the window shutter that had been dangling for years, put a new battery in the wall clock, scrubbed out the bathroom, and even made a tiny room for Milena by blocking off part of the kitchen. She was turning into a señorita, unwilling to go on sharing a bedroom with her parents and little sister, or with her grandparents. In Baracoa everyone lived together — there was no alternative — but with the extra money Evangelia received for her work in Venezuela they’d be able to start construction on the roof when building materials became available, and soon a couple of new rooms would sprout there with a view of the jungle strip that ran between Mariana Grajales and El Castillo — the hotel that towered above the town of Baracoa. Tomás remembered Tío César telling him about the old days when Batista’s men had imprisoned the revolutionaries in El Castillo, and tortured them in what was now the Dining Room. With the triumph of the Revolution in ’59 the soldiers were driven out, ‘Flung from the crocodile’s snout north to the tail of La Haban
a and Raúl’s firing squads,’ Tío had said with a flourish of his muscled arm. César had been a revolutionary himself — an electrician and explosions expert.
Bags were unzipped, suitcases snapped open, gifts spilling out. Eleana’s little feet lit up with the red flashing lights on her new Venezuelan shoes as she pranced around the front room pushing a doll’s carriage. The naked doll sat rigid, one arm dangling precariously while Eleana pulled the cord in back of its neck over and over, playing a reggae tune, faint below the din of the neighbours’ celebrations in Horatio’s and Yarisnelda’s houses further down the street. Milena burst from behind her curtained room in a pair of calenticos — very short shorts that revealed every crack and curve of her emerging form. ‘¡Peligroso!’ exclaimed her step-father Morito, slapping her bottom. Just then the girls’ mother, Ariadne, arrived home from work and pushed her way through to embrace Evangelia. Mother and daughter clung to each other for minutes as Ariadne wept all her bottled-up tears. When she disengaged herself finally, snorting and wiping her wet face with her arm, she smirked at Morito and shouted — ‘What the hell you looking at?’ She disappeared into the bedroom with Evangelia and when they emerged a few minutes later Ariadne was transformed in skin-tight white jeans, a plunging turquoise blouse, hooped white earrings, and a tottering pair of white sandals.
When the rum bottles were empty the crowd began to thin. Venusa gathered all the gifts and wrapping paper strewn about the house and piled everything on the tattered old sofa in the front parlour. There had been no gift for her, but Evangelia’s homecoming was gift enough.
