The Playwright's House, page 36
“Do you think the old man ratted people out?” Victor asked Serguey.
“Does it matter?” Serguey’s sandwich bread was so dry, it disintegrated onto his paper plate. The croqueta stuck to the ceiling of his mouth with every bite. “Are these made with chicken or glue?” he told the server.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Honey, the prices here are in Cuban pesos.”
Serguey didn’t respond. He had been probing for a distraction. It pained him to see Victor ashamed of their father, especially since they had been in a comparable situation and had stayed quiet. He swallowed his juice as if it could intoxicate him—as if it could drown Calderas and his own childhood from his mind—and spoke no more of Felipe.
The man at the end of the counter gave up on the menu choices. He whistled at a child who was tracking a lizard in a knot of naked bushes, and they both walked past the brothers. As soon as Victor looked ready to go, Serguey told him that it was best to part ways. He was going to Mantilla to spend the night with Anabel and find out what Father Linares had said. He warned Victor that he was to stay at the house until they had unqualified confirmation of Felipe’s release. Victor didn’t argue. He peered at the bushes where the boy had been playing and sullenly nodded at his brother’s decision.
CHAPTER 25
When Serguey arrived at his in-laws’, it took him the span of a single moment to detect that they’d been waiting for him. The entire family was in the living room, carefully arranged so that he could sit across from them. Julia’s cheeks were flushed (was it from simmering excitement, or was she as sickly as Anabel had made her sound?), a smile contained by her compressed lips. Antonio was composed, but the muscles in his face betrayed his ebullience. Alida wasn’t hiding her smile, though hers was evanescent, purely out of solidarity. A bit of anguish lingered in the halo of her expression.
“The Catholic Church can be criticized for many things,” Antonio said, as if reciting lines from a script, “but when everyone’s looking the other way, pretending that the people in charge are doing a commendable job, they’re in the trenches aiding the victims.”
Anabel flumped her head. “Thank you for the cryptic message, Dad.” She turned to Serguey, who eased himself onto the chair left for him. “Father Linares said he’s sure Felipe will be released. Cardinal Morales served as mediator. It’s just a matter of days now.”
If the cardinal—the only person with his status on the island—had been involved, Serguey could trust the information. The man’s reputation in Cuba was spotless.
“How did your father look?” Julia asked, a veil of concern passing over her face.
Serguey raised his eyebrows. “Better than I expected.”
“They know he’s on his way out,” Antonio said. “It’s all about perception for these people.”
Anabel stepped around the table and gave Serguey a kiss. The family performance had concluded. “How’s he holding up?” she asked.
“I think he’s accepted his fate.”
“Still, it must be hard,” Julia said.
Anabel said, “Hopefully this means you and Victor won’t be harassed.”
“Yes, everything will be peachy now,” Alida said, folding her arms.
“You’re not the sun, Alida,” Anabel said, her furious voice above Serguey’s head like a loudspeaker. “Not everything revolves around you.”
Julia displayed an embarrassed grin to Serguey. “It’s been like this since you left.”
“They’re my babies,” Antonio said dotingly. “My pedantic, oil and vinegar babies.”
“I doubt they’ll leave us alone that easily,” Serguey said. “But we’ll deal with things as they come.” He skated his palms over the tablecloth, trying to suggest that he wished for a reprieve. More specifically, he was asking to be briefly excluded from their family drama.
Antonio said, “You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you and Anabel need.”
“It’s like everyone wants to live in a fantasy,” Alida said, her frustration growing. She looked at Serguey. “Half the block won’t talk to my parents now. They found out what happened with Felipe and that you moved here, and they’re treating them like lepers.”
She wasn’t blaming him, but he could tell that she didn’t want to be walking on eggshells. She wanted the truth to be treated without a gullible, cheery lens.
“You’re exaggerating,” Antonio said. “The more recalcitrant neighbors don’t speak to us because we go to church.”
Alida climbed off her chair and began to walk out of the room. “It’s gotten worse and you know it.”
“She’s still blathering about leaving,” Anabel said to Serguey when her sister was gone.
He didn’t reply. He needed to cool off, reboot his mind. “Could I take a shower?” he asked Julia.
The family dispersed, giving Serguey the space he hoped for. He cleaned up, shaved using one of Antonio’s razors, and put on fresh clothes.
Closer to dinnertime, he and Anabel sat in the yard, watching the sunset as they had done before. It hadn’t rained in Mantilla. The air was moist, but the ground and trees were dry, the leaves nimble in their zany flapping, like a blundering attempt at a glitzy dance. Alida was taking a nap. According to Anabel, she’d been taking pills and sleeping a lot.
“I’m starting to worry,” she confessed.
“Once my old man’s out,” Serguey said half in jest, “I might start taking pills too.” He then told her about his exchange with Felipe. He regretted chiding him, given the circumstances. He’d seen that Victor wanted them to behave like a functional family again.
“It’s easier for Victor and your dad,” Anabel replied. “Whatever differences there might be, they live together. They know how to be near each other. You’re the last to the party.”
“But that’s on me.”
She stared at him, piqued. “If you’re going to blame yourself, then there’s no point. You know it’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s just difficult to process all this stuff with everything that’s going on.”
“Give it time. You and Victor are getting along. That’s a start.”
It was more than a start, and this he could cling to—the small victories and achievements. Modest progress. This was what most Cubans clung to, anyway: tiny glimmers of improvement as fuel for hope.
“How are your parents?” he asked her.
She shrugged, her shoulders remaining elevated. “They were happy today.”
He looked at her, aware that she could feel his probing gaze.
Her shoulders sank, her eyes turning toward his. “They’re also stressed. What Alida said about the neighbors is true. There’s tension there.”
Another “I’m sorry” would have been too selfish. So would have been telling her about the house’s defacement, about his conversations with Carmina.
“We’ll help them,” he said with a nod, accentuating his solidarity. “Your parents won’t have to be alone.”
She smiled, the subdued melancholy that’d been fixed to her face since their argument slowly subsiding. She had grasped what he meant: regardless of what might happen, they would be together. In their years as a couple, they had never discussed deserting Cuba. In a country where thousands risked their lives on homemade rafts, where people married foreigners or Cubans who had become American citizens just to escape their poverty and bleak futures, not discussing the possibility of migrating was a clear sign of their intentions. Whatever her reasons—family, fear of change, faith that they could get by in Cuba—Serguey knew that she didn’t want to leave. He wasn’t going to pressure her, to persuade her to change her mind. His own decision to leave depended on one single thing—his wife. He was staying because he loved her. Of this, he was surer than anything.
As the afternoon transitioned into evening, hefty clouds began to line the horizon, glazed in a red tint akin to nebulae. Serguey heard chickens clucking in the adjacent yard. Perhaps the neighbor had bought a new batch. Antonio’s cinder blocks were there, clogging the holes beneath the fence. One rarely saw live chickens in the city, though it was possible. Serguey associated them with rural life, with his grandparents. His grandmother was an expert at breaking their necks. Two quick twists were all it took. He wouldn’t be able to do such a thing. Victor was the one who’d picked up the birds’ limp, spastic bodies and tethered them to his waist. Serguey could hurt someone with the knitting of words: irony, insinuations, accusations. Felipe had passed these skills on to him like DNA. But wringing necks was Victor’s business. Same with Montalvo and Gimenez. People like them persevered. People like Serguey starved, faded. And to think that, at one point, he had pictured himself dining with Anabel in Stockholm, showered by velvety snow.
Antonio spent dinner singing Father Linares’s and the Church’s praises. He beamed as he explained how letters and phone calls were made on Felipe’s behalf. Alida ate dinner alone in the yard, under the lambent light of a bulb Antonio had wired up above the door. Serguey asked Anabel whether they should talk to her, keep her company. Anabel told him that she’d just shut them out. It was best to let her come to them. Anabel was using the same logic he had used with Victor at the house, so when he found himself privately disagreeing with her, he didn’t bring it up. He told her that she was probably right.
At exactly 10:00 p.m., Kiko called. He sounded edgy, though he had good news. A source had informed Claudia that Felipe was indeed being flown to Madrid as early as Tuesday. Kiko said he didn’t want to discuss any details over the phone but that Serguey could meet him and Claudia at his place the next morning.
“The back and forth must be killing you,” he said, “but you’d do me a solid if you came.”
Serguey exhaled away from the receiver. “I’ll be there. Victor too?”
“He already knows. Scoop him up on your way here.”
Anabel wasn’t happy with the plan. If his friend were really worried, it made more sense for him to speak with Serguey over the phone.
“I can’t turn my back on the people who’ve helped me. Kiko won’t set me up.” He said this without looking at her, a physical exclusion that dissuaded her from pressing the issue.
Close to midnight, the Industriales vs. Villa Clara baseball game Antonio had been watching was in the thirteenth inning, tied at five runs apiece. Serguey and Anabel decided to turn in. Antonio had fallen asleep in his rocking chair, unperturbed by the television’s glare. Julia told them that she would take care of waking and dragging him to their bedroom.
“It’s a routine for us,” she said.
Anabel wouldn’t have it. She helped her mother carry Antonio like an injured, incoherent soldier to the room.
Alida was already deep in slumber in her bed. Serguey and Anabel removed their clothes except for their underwear and slipped under the covers. A tall, rust-spotted fan stood by the bedroom door, rattling and warbling as it spun. Serguey couldn’t see well in the darkness, but he felt Anabel’s hand crawling down his arm, then his pelvis, and finally grabbing his penis. He kissed her slowly, digging his fingers into the curving slope of her ass. They locked their bodies, and he murmured into her ear, asking if it was prudent with Alida in the same room.
“The pills,” Anabel said. “A train horn won’t wake her.”
That disarmed him. Serguey began pleasuring his wife, her moans not as quiet as he expected. After a while, she pulled him on top. The bed creaked, but the sounds they made merged with the fan’s. Serguey timed his deeper thrusts to match the fan’s movement at its loudest, when it turned away from them. He concentrated on his wife—her tightening thighs, her breasts rubbing against his ribs. As he sensed the end was near, he slouched forward. Anabel bit his earlobe, and he couldn’t restrain himself. She ran her palms over his sweat-lacquered back as he lay on her, knee-buckled and out of breath. He kissed her neck and nibbled on it until she shrieked.
They took turns going to the bathroom, flicking the light on only after they’d closed the door. No one in the house noticed, especially Alida, who proved she was asleep by mumbling something incoherent about ballet. He hadn’t thought of her. He hadn’t imagined her face or body. Toward the end, he forgot that she was a few steps away, shrouded in a mound of shadows. None of this absolved him from his previous dream, but it undeniably lightened his shame.
The next morning, Antonio worked out a ride for Serguey to Calzada 10 de Octubre and Santa Catalina. Serguey began to walk the rest of the way, nearly two kilometers, under a clear sky. Students had already nestled into their classrooms, listening to their first period teachers. Adults were headed to work with coffee-fueled steps. Serguey passed his middle school, which, unlike others, had been repaired and painted. He resolved taking the same route he had as a teenager. He strode by the bus stop where he and Kiko had bought cucuruchos de mani from the toothless man with the camouflage fanny pack. A few people were cloistered under the roof, their faces made grim by the inflexible slitting of their eyes.
A quarter of an hour later, as he neared the house, he noticed a man standing in the corner. An open newspaper concealed his profile. He was leaning against the column of an abandoned, boarded up bodega. He appeared to have a black cell phone case attached to his belt, which for an instant Serguey confused with a holster.
As he planted his feet on the front steps of the house, Serguey glanced back at the man and saw him fold the paper while staring in his direction. He knocked with deliberate vigor. Victor opened the door, already dressed. Serguey kept him from exiting.
“Check out the guy to my left,” he said, “by the bodega.”
Nonchalantly, Victor crossed the width of the porch to the veranda and scanned the block. “If there was a guy, he’s gone. You’re not getting paranoid on me like Kiko, are you?”
“Maybe I’m seeing things.”
He wasn’t. The brothers began to walk away from the house, and three men in civilian clothing emerged from behind the columns. Soon they had changed sidewalks, trailing Serguey and Victor some thirty meters behind.
“We’re going to have to lose them,” Victor said, barely moving his lips.
“What do you mean?” Serguey whispered, his heart racing.
At the end of the block, Victor shoved Serguey to the left instead of going straight. He waited with his back against the wall of the corner building and gestured for Serguey to do the same. They could hear the men hastening their steps. Victor intercepted them the minute he saw their bodies.
“What the fuck do you want?”
One of the men reached for his lower back and retrieved a club. Victor latched on to it, their tussling becoming a tug-of-war. Another man grabbed Victor from behind. The three-headed mass scuffled toward the middle of the street, as if dragged by an invisible force. The third man ordered Serguey to remain close to the wall, a hand at his hip over what turned out to be a small pistol. Serguey watched the man’s fingers begin to grip the gun. A vision of the other two holding Victor while this one aimed the pistol at him played somewhere in Serguey’s mind.
When the guy finally unholstered the weapon, he pointed it at Serguey, almost absentmindedly, as if aware that the older brother didn’t pose a physical threat. His face stayed turned toward Victor and the men, the sharpness in his eyes reinforcing Serguey’s fear that this wouldn’t end well. A suffusing ache swirled about in his gut, a painfully enlarging contraction he had experienced before, when his body froze and he became a useless spectator. Serguey resisted it with a scream as he kicked the man in the groin, out of sheer terror. A delayed response followed the hit, during which Serguey, holding his breath, could see the man’s eyes rolling up and momentarily disappearing behind the eyelids. He ultimately dropped to the ground, grunting like a dizzy, wounded animal. The pistol fell from his hand, and Serguey punted it down the sidewalk, not wanting to get his prints anywhere near it. Emboldened by the effectiveness of his actions, he rushed to the curb and gripped a large rock, the size of a softball. He got closer to the downed man, who was beginning to stand, and sensing his own body expanding—getting taller and broader—he threw the rock at the man’s head. The man fell forward, yelling “Ay!” as the rock ricocheted back to Serguey’s feet. He writhed on the sidewalk, plugging his head as if trying to keep his brain from spilling out. Serguey picked up the rock again and ran to the street. Victor was on the ground, struggling with his two assailants. Serguey kicked the man on top, his shinbone clobbering the nose. He launched the rock as the man jerked backwards, striking him below the ribs. The man hunched over, heaving in pain.
Victor twisted his body and found himself mounting the last man. He jammed his knee on the man’s right wrist, compelling him to release the club. Victor took it and struck the man repeatedly on the head and ears until his arms went limp.
“That one’s got a gun!” Serguey yelled.
Victor looked around in confusion. “What?”
The previously armed man was crawling, more intent on covering the blood dripping down his forehead than retrieving the pistol. Victor tossed the club and shouted at Serguey to run. They sprinted toward Kiko’s, Serguey a few steps behind. His legs were heavy, his feet impacting and retreating from the pavement as if on wet sand. Neighbors tracked their getaway with alarmed faces, but no one intervened. Serguey had the sensation that someone was right at his heels, that he’d be seized at any second, causing him to tumble on the sidewalk as his brother’s leaping feet melted into a distant, sun-scarred haze.
They stopped at the base of Kiko’s stairs, audibly catching their raspy breaths. No one had pursued them.
“What happened?”
The brothers glanced up and saw their friend leaning over the railing.
