Love and Ghost Letters, page 5
There was youthful rebellion in the many faces around him, marked by snarling lips and the fantasy each one of them held of drawing blood from a man in uniform. The sergeant thought at once of his son-in-law, who seemed to embody that kind of mutiny. He looked for him in the crowd. Every other face was Lorenzo’s, and then the sergeant would blink and he would note how one man had blue eyes, instead of brown, and another was too fat, and yet another had a dimple in his chin that was missing in Lorenzo’s taut complexion. He was sure he would find him, and then he could rightfully, and dutifully, knock him to the ground and keep him there. So sure was he in this search and so long did he take to probe the features of each man that when the crowd finally broke before him, slinging dirt and stones, and the cadets turned to run, he did not notice for several seconds.
The error was a grave one. The sergeant found himself alone within the mob. Some of the men did not touch him, but instead pressed their noses to his and yelled, “Down with Grau,” or, “Hijo de puta,” and then spit on him. He found that his rifle had been wrestled away, and his shield was still braced between his knees. He knew he could not fight his way out from the center of the Plaza Perla where he now found himself, and so he allowed the group to pluck the tiny brass sabers from his collar and the tassels from his shoulders. In fact, as he crouched there, he managed to peek through his fingers at the faces around him, still searching for Lorenzo. He would not be able to bring him down now, but he still looked out.
The crowd milled about him for an hour, tearing his clothes and taking his shoes, then aiming them at his head. Still, no one had really injured him yet. His heart ached, and he thought of death. Why should he die? He had had a life that was rich, full of experience. Other men died. But now, the threat of death was real. Instead of fear, the sergeant thought of his now-lost daughter and felt sad. Sadness above all else. He allowed himself the respite of a kind of half sleep, closing his eyes and breathing through his mouth so as to not smell the rottenness of these men, like milk gone sour. A voice louder than the rest, brought him back from sleep, yelling, “Pull. Harder. ¡Caballeros, duro!” and he saw a group that was trying to wrench an iron bench from its moorings. The bending iron squealed in the dark, and the sergeant watched through his fingers the funny way in which the skinny men pulled and pulled and grunted, and still the bench would not leave its place. The sergeant was near laughter, in fact, when the bench finally gave way and the men carried it over their heads. The loud-voiced one counted, “Uno, dos, tres,” and then the sergeant saw the bench leave their arms and float toward him, there on the ground. It nearly fell apart before striking. Once the bench had landed, and the sergeant found himself sleepy again, all humor gone, he heard the voice say, “Coward,” and then nothing.
* * *
The four vagabonds who had come upon the sergeant’s broken body in the center of the Plaza Perla had rummaged through the fallen man’s pockets. They found his wallet, and they found Josefina’s letter but did not read it, since they did not know how. Still, the street address was easy to make out, and because of a sense of duty, or perhaps an exchange—the return of the letter for the twenty-five pesos in his wallet—they ran all the way to the little house deep in El Cotorro to deliver the letter.
One of the men, whose left arm seemed to be pulled from its socket in some long-ago fight, so odd did it hang from the shoulder, held the letter. Another, a young man, seemed shaken and asked the one holding the letter, “He was dead, wasn’t he, Pedro?”
“Claro, idiota. He was cold, wasn’t he?” Pedro answered.
“Was he? I didn’t touch him.” The young vagrant slowed his step and turned to ask another in the group, “Diego. Diego, listen.”
“¿Que?” Diego answered, gruff and tired, his heels dragged on the ground.
“Did you touch the dead man?”
“I took the money, didn’t I? Which reminds me, I get half of the twenty-five pesos.”
“Was he cold?” the young one whispered now, clutching his hands together and holding them beneath his chin, like a child begging before a priest for answers.
“Sí, sí, cold as ice, Niquito. Now shut up.”
The fourth man held the twenty-five pesos. The others trusted him, because he was a religious man, because he crossed himself at dawn and sunset and kissed the feet of statues of the Virgin whenever they passed one as they wandered. The wad of bills pressed warmly against his thigh, and it reminded him to be grateful. He knelt suddenly and crossed himself, then rose and thought of the dead man. He knelt again, as if to speak to the soul of the man in the park, saying, “Be thankful, señor, that you are dead. You’re better off, better off.”
Once in El Cotorro, they dropped the letter onto the stoop of the proper door and ran, already arguing among themselves of a way to divide the twenty-five pesos they had earned, happy to be rid of the policeman’s bloody letter.
* * *
Josefina spent the two nights during the riots huddled in her bedroom closet. Soledad slept in her lap, and Lalo sat just outside the bedroom door. Lorenzo had rushed home when he heard about the uprisings and found his wife and children sitting in the dark, surrounded by food brought over from the kitchen, cold things turning warm and going bad. The darkness lasted throughout the day since the shutters were drawn and every crevice that glowed with light was stopped up with towels and rags. It was all Josefina could do before Lorenzo arrived. She could not move, not even about the house. She was trapped by her lack of experience. While neighbors knew they were safe within their homes, that the riots would not come so near their street, Josefina was paralyzed with fear, mainly for herself and her daughter. As for Lalo, he had wanted to go out and join the demonstrators. He had stood before his mother on the dawn of the second day with a machete in one hand and a handmade Cuban flag in the other. His chin was still smeared with that morning’s breakfast of eggs and rice.
“¿Adónde vas?” she had asked without looking up. She could see his small shadow at her feet, the outline of his weapon, his pink, soft hands clenched like a man’s.
“To the university. To join the fight, Mamá.”
“There is no fight. This government will be replaced by another just as terrible. Mejor sabido que por saber, hijo”—Better to stay with a known thing than to take a risk on something unknown.
“Me voy, Mamá.”
“Children do not fight in men’s battles,” Josefina said, standing now for the first time in hours, letting Soledad’s head hit the ground with a thump as she got up. Her son, she thought, was growing into the type to pick up a cause that had nothing to do with him.
Lalo loosened his grip on the machete and swayed from side to side. His eyes softened.
“Hijito,” Josefina said to the reddened ten-year-old, noting the softness and sitting down again, “there is one thing you can do. Pray for your papá to come soon.”
Lorenzo did arrive a few hours later to find his son still in the house, still gripping his flag and machete. He had hated to leave the woman in Santa Clara, where he had spent the last month. She had called him her king and had fed him slices of apricots rolled in cinnamon, brushing his eyebrows with her fingertips. This woman knew just how to knead her soft fingers into his angular, delicate shoulders without hurting him. Still, the riots had not reached Santa Clara, and he knew Josefina could not manage alone.
When he came into the house, he had taken Josefina into his arms, sitting with her in the bedroom closet for a while, Soledad crammed between them both. She had let him console her, because she found she did not have the strength to confront him about his lover. He said little, only the words “Todo bien” whenever Josefina’s cries became audible. He thought he understood well how frightened she must have been, listening to rifles going off at night and the crackle of fires being lit on every road. She cried, though not so much because the night blazed and filled her with dread, but because the sweet smell of apricots and cinnamon wafted from Lorenzo’s lips, fresh from the morning.
The night of the second day fell, and the sounds outside seemed to have been quieted. Shouts, belonging to those of officers, punctuated an otherwise silent night. Josefina and Soledad had even begun to move about, and Lalo had dropped his machete and flag on the sofa and slept on top of them. Near dawn, while they all slept, a quick knock sounded on the front door. Lorenzo approached the door slowly, pulling the machete out from under Lalo’s hip. He released the lock and pulled open the door to reveal a letter crumpled and stained with blood on the floor. Josefina’s letter, pulled from the sergeant’s grip by the group of men who found him, stirred in the breeze. The envelope, bearing Josefina’s address printed in her own hand, lay nearby. Lorenzo recognized the penmanship, refined and gentle, the hand that must have been trained that way long ago in preparation for the addressing of invitations to benefit balls or long, amiable letters to the wives of mayors and such. Lorenzo picked up the letter, careful not to touch the spots of blood. He pressed the letter into Josefina’s hand.
“I wrote this to Papá,” she said. “Renzo, what can this mean?” She had already gone pale about the cheeks and forehead. She had really not meant to ask, and now she wanted to stop her husband from saying it.
“He’s been killed, I suppose,” Lorenzo said, gathering Soledad in his arms. “Someone has let you know about it. That’s a kindness I wouldn’t expect in this village.”
Josefina stood holding the letter loosely between her fingers. It balanced there for a moment, falling one way and then the other, before slipping to the ground quietly. Lorenzo carried Soledad outside, “to pick at the anthill near the avocado tree,” he told her when she protested. Even outside, Josefina’s cries could be heard.
“Papá,” Soledad asked, “why is she crying? Let me go see her.”
“Leave your mother alone for a while. Look at the ants. The big one, see there, do you think it’s the queen?”
“But why does she cry?” she’d ask again, standing on her toes and trying desperately to peer through the trees toward the windows. Ants crawled up her legs and bit her thighs.
“Nothing, niña, nothing. Your brother spilled milk on her dress, her favorite dress. Let her be sad for now.”
When the crying stopped, and the afternoon sun flared overhead, Lorenzo went inside. Lalo, still on the sofa, pretending to sleep and clutching his small flag as he watched his mamá, stood at the sight of his father.
“Go watch your sister. She’s outside,” he said, noticing the dents the flag’s tiny rod had left in his son’s hands, so tight was his hold on it. Josefina knelt on the floor.
“Basta. You’ve cried enough,” Lorenzo said, gripping his wife’s shoulder. He pulled hard, expecting her body to be stiff, but it was not. She flew up with the force of the tug and stumbled, catching herself on a small settee nearby. Lorenzo looked at his wife, her cheek smudged with blood, like a child playing with lipstick. She noticed his stare, and her hand fluttered to her face and began to wipe it. Lorenzo, though not pleased that a man had been killed, was gratified by his wife’s reaction. He thought she would be difficult. While he toyed with the ants outside, he imagined that she’d want to do something lunatic, like keep the letter around for days, tucked into her shirt, or read it for advice, or frame the bloody paper. These things had happened before to other women, not unlike Josefina. Still, Lorenzo was thankful that she would not put on that type of display.
Her face looked so composed now, wiped clean of blood and glossy trails from her eyes to her nose, that he told her, “Hurry. Take Soledad and ride the first train to Vedado. Take all you can from the old house before the new sergeant is appointed to live there. Regla will be there, won’t she?” Josefina was already rising, and running her fingers through her hair.
“Josefina,” he added, “I’ll stay and watch Lalo until you get back. The government will require money for the burial, if they find the body. I will send it soon.” Josefina watched as her husband found his unpacked suitcase and arranged it by the front door. The scent of apricot and cinnamon was so thick in the air that Josefina thought she could open her mouth and swallow it.
Josefina did as her husband told her. She took her small daughter, dressed her in mourning, and headed out to her old home in Vedado. In her pocket was the bloody letter. Her son she left at home, “to make sure everything is safe.” Lalo watched them from the window, his small hand still clenching the dull machete, proud to be doing something of importance at last.
Josefina’s hand trembled as she tried to lock the front door of her house. Lorenzo would never remember, and the streets weren’t safe. Soledad held onto her mother’s skirt.
“Mami,” she asked, “why were you crying?” The child was teary-eyed herself, knew how hard it was when her father was not around, and was afraid of losing her mother, too.
“Your abuelo went to live with the angels, mi amor,” Josefina whispered and felt her throat constrict again as she pulled on the door to make sure it was locked.
“Why?”
“It’s what Papa Dios wanted, Soledad. Your abuelo is dead.”
“But…”
“It was meant to be this way,” Josefina said loudly. She swallowed hard and took hold of Soledad’s hand a little too firmly. She hadn’t meant to, of course, nor had she meant to say that the sergeant’s death was meant to be. It was a colossal error, Josefina thought. I’ve made a colossal error in coming here, and as she walked with her daughter to the train station, Josefina thought of how nice it would have been to stay in Vedado with her little pianoforte and her big closets full of clothes. With Regla and her father making sure she was happy.
* * *
The trains, slowed by the riots, did not leave the station until the next morning, so they slept on the third-class wooden benches. Sometime near dawn, an old woman tapped Josefina on the shoulder to wake her. She heard the tapping before she felt it, and in her dream, the sound was like a hammer being put to her front door, gouging a hole in the wood, deeper and wider with each blow. It was not until a few seconds later that Josefina realized she was being awakened.
“¿Que? ¿Que?” she asked, clutching at her purse.
“Perdón,” the old woman said meekly, her twisted, shaky fingertip still pressed against Josefina’s shoulder. “Might you have a few pesos, for an old poor woman?”
Josefina thought of the crumpled bills in her purse, enough for only two train tickets home. The old woman’s eyes, large and mapped with red veins, went from the sleeping figure of Soledad to Josefina’s purse, then back again.
“I’m sorry,” Josefina said at last. “No tengo nada.” The old woman removed her finger from Josefina’s shoulder as if she had just burned it on a hot iron.
“Nothing?” she asked, the veins in her eyes began to branch out, giving her the appearance of a red-eyed demon.
“Nothing,” Josefina said again. Now frightened, she lifted Soledad to her side and held her about the waist.
The woman did not move for a long time. The muscles around her lips twitched first, then the lips themselves parted to reveal a long, thin slice of tongue and gums. She spat as she spoke: “Miserable, greedy, greed, greed, misery…”
Soledad, enveloped in Josefina’s fearful embrace, peeked through her mother’s fingers and said, “My mamá is not miserable. You are!”
Josefina began to yell for the train attendant when the old woman moved close to Soledad. She pried the child’s face out from the crook of her mother’s arm. Her gnarled hands cupped Soledad’s cheeks, and she hissed, “Don’t you see it, child? Every inch of her tells of misery. Misery now, misery to come. Greed, greedy, greed…” She continued yelling when the train attendant finally took her away and pushed her out of the train.
Through the rest of the dawn and into the daybreak, Josefina and Soledad heard her yelling outside to all who would listen, about suffering and the trials of a woman inside. “See her for yourself,” she’d say, over and over, as if she was a sideshow announcer.
Their journey began near noon. They were relieved when the old woman’s voice faded as they moved away and were able to notice the scenery outside the moving train with interest. It changed quickly as they moved out of El Cotorro and into Havana province. Ramshackle shelters with emaciated dogs prostrate at the doorsteps gave way to rolling hills and large farms and men on sturdy horses that ran alongside the train, waving at the passengers. They looked as if there was nothing going on in the island, no guns, no revolutions, no men waving flags and growling at one another. Once the city itself began to come into view, the train slowed, or so it seemed to Josefina, so that the passengers could take in the sight of coral-walled buildings. Even the smokestacks looked pretty, the dark smoke like a painter’s careful smudge on the blue sky.
Soledad said little as they walked to the house in Vedado. Her eyes took in every detail—the cracks in the sidewalks and the cigarette butts stuck in between, the sparrows that perched in one long line on every rooftop, peering down at the pedestrians. And she noticed everything that was not there, like the fruit trees and tomato gardens, and she wondered if the sparrows had driven the nightingales away. Soledad carried an empty carpetbag “so we can bring our things home,” her mamá said. Soledad marveled that anything of theirs could be so far away in so strange a city.
