Cuba and the Night (27 page)

“But, being English, you can’t say what they are exactly?”

“I’m a member of the Church of England.”

“Sounds like one of your clubs.”

“I suppose it is.”

“Sign up, pay your dues, and you’re in for life. Only difference is, you don’t need someone to recommend you.”

“Maybe so. But I believe in something. I believe in fairness. In the rules of those clubs, and the fairness of those rules. It’s the same as with the boys: as long as one lays down some rules, and enforces them without partiality, the boys realize that they will reap the benefits of what they sow. That there’s some kind of mechanism of justice in the world. That if you do good, you’ll be rewarded, and if you don’t, it’s no one’s fault but your own. Without that, you’ve got nothing.”

“So you believe in your clubs? In a sense of responsibility? To something, at least.” I had to get going; somewhere, in this city, Lourdes was sleeping.

“Yes. Insofar as I am able.”

“And you believe in God? In love?”

“Yes. Not in the abstract, perhaps, but if I feel it, I believe it.”

“Well, I have a proposition for you, Hugo. You remember I mentioned a surprise in my letter?”

“Of course.”

“Well, this is it. I know some people would consider it a jackpot.”

He was silent. The pig snuffled and rooted. There were murmurs, soft voices from next door.

“This is it: why don’t you marry Lourdes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Not for real. But for her sake. To help her escape. Then I’ll take over.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. It happens all the time here. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s just an answer—a convenient answer—to a difficult situation.”

“That’s absolutely absurd. You’re the one who loves her.”

“I know. But it’s not easy for me. I’m American, I’m married already, I’m here all the time. If you marry her, no one will suspect a thing. You’re as clean as a baby.”

“And what about her? You talk about her as if she were a piece of property.”

“She’s the one who gains most out of this. Anything’s worth a ticket out. Can’t you see that’s what she’s living for? Dying for? This is your chance to do something, for a change. To help out.”

“And then?”

“Then I come over and take her off your hands. This isn’t going to be any big hassle for you. Anyway, she likes you.”

I could picture him going through options in his head. His glasses on the table beside him; his pajamas collecting sweat.

“Why don’t you live, for a change? Do something daring, something dangerous. W.H. Auden did it.”

“I don’t believe W. H. Auden had many other matrimonial options.”

“No, but he did it. Stood up for what he believed in. Put his life on the line.”

“More like ‘put his wife on the line.’ And besides, what am I going to do when I really do want to get married? Later on.”

“No problem. Lula’ll be long gone by then. It’ll even give you some extra glamour. Add some spice to your name. Hugo who rescued the Cuban beauty.”

“Just what a nice girl from Hampshire wants to hear.”

“You’d be surprised. A woman in your past could lead to women in your future. Just think how the boys at the school would take this. The other teachers too. You’re putting yourself out to help a young woman who wants to be free.”

“As well as a not-so-young photographer who wants to be free.”

“Well, maybe that too. Why hesitate about something where everyone stands to gain?”

“Thank you, Richard. Perhaps I’ll think about it.”

“Do that. I don’t expect you to decide immediately.”

“Sleep well,” he said, and turned on his side. From the next room, we could hear the old man relieving himself with his wife.

I
had a strange dream that night. I was walking through the streets of Vedado under a canopy of trees. The city was bathed in apricot light. There was the sound of voices from the buildings, sometimes faint and then remote. The cars standing motionless along the streets. A few black birds scattered through the trees.

I walked into a room. There were men only there, crouching on the floor. Small cups of coffee at their feet. Somewhere, from inside, I heard her voice. High-pitched and screaming. In ecstasy or pain, I didn’t know.

W
hen I awoke, I saw Hugo, in the early light, lying on his back, and staring up.

“So what if I say yes?” he was saying. There was the sound of a rooster outside, and the pig waking up: kids of various ages walking shirtless past our door.

“Then we can set things up right now. José has a friend in Havana who can make the whole thing go two days from now. In Cayo Largo. The sooner the better; you don’t know when we’ll all be here again. Then we go back to Havana, you take care of the paperwork. I know a guy in your embassy, a cultural attaché, who can help.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it. Easy as one-two-three. They do these all the time. It’s not a real marriage; just an easy way of keeping the authorities off your back. I pay the whole thing up front, and José’s buddy closes the store. All you’ve got to do is show up.”

“And then?”

“You just go back to England, the way you’re planning to do. She comes over there as soon as the papers are processed. I wait around until the coast is clear. Then we have a big reunion at the Dorchester. My treat.”

“You still won’t be able to marry her.”

“Not yet. But I have ways of getting round that. As soon as we’re together, it’ll be plain sailing.”

“It just doesn’t sound right. Or even very possible.”

“Just live for once, Hugo. Come into the real world.”

“I appreciate your solicitude.”

B
efore we left that morning, I took the old guy aside.

“You mind if I ask you something—something private—before I go?”

“No problem. Fire away.”

“You know Lourdes?”

“Sure. That pretty girl from Havana? José brings her here sometimes. I know her.”

“You think she’s on the level?”

“She’s a nice girl. Pretty, goodhearted, speaks good English. What more can you ask?”

“I’m thinking of marrying her.”

“Sure. Why not? Where are you going to find better?”

“You trust her, then?”

“Trust?” He chuckled hoarsely. “Don’t ask me about trust. I don’t even trust my own wife.”

A couple of kids came out then, and I could tell it was time for us to go. “Good talking with you guys,” he said. “First time I’m speaking English in maybe two, three years. If you see any of those baseball magazines at home, maybe you could send me a couple? I got a sister in Boston, an aunt down in Hialeah, but they don’t never send me nothin’. Take it easy,” and then we were out the door, and he was back in his room of shadows, speaking Spanish.

W
e met José and Lula at the hotel ten minutes later, and as soon as she saw Hugo, Lourdes came up to greet him.

“Look,” she said excitedly. “Look what I found in my altar!” It
was a clipping, from some old American magazine, and there was a picture of an English guy called Ogilvy, and there was a long story about how he’d been framed in some liaison by the Communists.

“You understand?” she said.

“My uncle,” said Hugo, reading it more closely.

“So we have another historian here,” I said. “Another thing you two have in common.”

“Set up by the guerrillas,” he repeated to himself.

“Look, Hugo, José has something he wants to talk to you about.” I steered him off in the other direction, so I could take Lourdes aside.

“I think we’re on,” I told her, as soon as they were gone. “This week.”

“He’s so kind to me.”

“I guess.”

“It’s true.
You
wouldn’t do this for someone. Not unless you got money for it.”

“Sure. I guess this is the only way he’ll get to spend a night with a woman.”

“Very funny, Richard,” she said. “You are a comedian.”

“Just imagine him on the wedding night,” I went on.

“I won’t have to. I’ll be there with him. Keeping the police occupied. Proving to them that this is a true wedding.”

“Yes,” I said, “I guess you will,” and went up to collect my camera case.

W
e drove out of town then, all four of us, past the cashew trees and the trucks loaded with date palms, past the ancient sugar mills and the lookout posts, standing lonely sentinel on the hills, and up into the sun-baked village of El Cobre.

Lula was looking glamorous—she’d worn her best pantsuit for the visit, the one she’d worn our first time, on the way to Artemisa—and she’d brought a ring, she said, to give to the Virgin, to bring good luck to her marriage. It felt strange for me, her saying it like that: as if her wedding was real, as if she needed good luck for it.

Up in the famous Sanctuary, it was again like the Southwest: charged, elemental, with that kind of supernatural, underground force like you feel in Anasazi country. Blue skies, empty spaces, a spire reaching into the heavens. A sense of strength, a hint of magic.
“Virgen de la Caridad. No me abandones,”
read a message on the wall. Virgin of Charity. Don’t abandon me. By the altar was a Cuban flag.

The room where they kept the Virgin was one of the most crowded places in Cuba: it was as if the emptier the rest of the island got, the fuller this space became, as if the more real life faded, the more the faith in magic got worked up. The place was packed with every kind of gift and offering you could imagine. Pablo records, eggs, a model Citroën. A ship in a bottle. A life jacket. A pair of spectacles. A Mickey Mouse pendant. A meal voucher.

There was something too much about the room, so I put away my camera and just looked at all the heaped and abandoned hopes of Cuba laid before its patron saint. Stuffed animals, and dolls, and dancing figures of wedding couples. Military hats, models of Jesus, and, along the walls, clutches of keys. A castanet too, and yellow clippings of Ernesto Hemingway receiving the Nobel Prize, and dark flowers, in this small room lit by candles.

It was like all the rooms in Cuba combined in one, all the private altars and glass cases pooled to make some communal appeal. There were bright medals from Angola, pre-Revolutionary coins, certificates belonging to kids who’d studied in Ethiopia. There were boxing medals and medals given to soldiers who died. And, from Fidel’s mother, Lina Ruz, the maid who’d married the boss, there was a small gold talisman.

Lourdes left her ring by the altar, then went into the nave and prayed.

I watched her from a distance, kneeling on the cool stone floor, eyes closed, muttering some kind of prayer, and then I got tired of waiting and went outside, into the sun.

“What did you ask the Virgin for?” I asked when she came out.

“That will be my secret,” she said, and linked her arm around my friend’s.

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