Havana Lunar (13 page)

Why not? Just a taste. Blood is water. For the body. Have I tried it yet? Can't tell. Fingers crusted with … with what? Mud? Blood. Vamos, Rodriguez. Just a nibble. To live.

Out of nowhere a hole opens in the wall. Two holes: tunnels of fire, two beautiful, blazing chutes leading deep into the earth. I could take one. I could crawl over and into one or the other and be gone, out of here. The fires sear my brain. The holes become eyes. Death has a face.

In the distance I hear a child—a picnic in the cemetery, at night? My mind knows it must be a joke, but it lets my body believe: bread, sliced pork, fried plantains, lemonade!
Come here!
I'll be right there.
You've got to see this.
I have to take a piss.
You're not going to believe it.
Believe what?
Shit. They've locked it, the assholes.
Let's go
. No. Take a look.
Can you see through
? Light a match.
There's only three left and I still want to smoke the rest of this joint.
Let's smoke it here.
This place stinks of shit. Let's go back up.
You know there's corpses in there. You can see them.
I've seen enough bones.
Whole bodies, without the heads.
Disgusting.
Dead reporters. Headless, dead reporters. Light a match.

An angel wing rises from the floor and sweeps across the walls. It descends upon my legs, torso, and flaps in my face, a blinding beam, burning. A dry, low howl:
“¡Ya!”
My own voice, unrecognizable as human, like a sound burped from a corpse.

“¡Ai!”

“¿Qué carajo fué—?”

Loud, violent smacking: tennis shoes up stone steps.

“¡Carajo! That wasn't funny.” Young boys, two of them, not the brothers.

“It wasn't me—I swear. There's someone in there.”

“Let's get the fuck out of here.”

“Wait!”

“Let's get out of here. We'll tell the groundskeeper.”

“
Get me out.
”

“Carlos, get something—that iron bar.” One of them climbs the stairs and fetches a broken fencepost. The boys take turns prying the gate, gasping for air and gagging at the smell. When the chain snaps, they flee up the stairs. They don't want to be touched by a living corpse.

I have barely enough strength to unwind the chain from the bars. I climb the stairs, muscles and joints in agony, but with each step there is relief for lungs and head: fresh air, like pure oxygen compared to the foul gases I've been breathing. At the top of the stairs, although the glass door is open, I am paralyzed by terror. I tell myself this is a trauma response, but I am unconsoled. The reflex is to run back down, but that is lunacy. I must step out into whatever might be next. The boys made it; so can I. I catch my breath, shift one stiff leg in front of the other, and emerge into the antechamber. Nobody. I am alone.

I stumble out of the crypt. The night is clear and I use the sliver of moon rising in the east to orient myself. It's a long walk back to the gate. I rest every few steps to catch my breath and massage the cramps out of my legs. I stop at the fountain for water, no more than a sip or I'll shock my system. I vomit. I wait, measuring the minutes by the far-off sounds of cars braking and accelerating at the signal on Zapata. I drink another ounce and hold it down this time. Tito could come anytime and I have to get out of the cemetery, but I can't go to the police. All I have now is my freedom. I will have to make choices: where to run, which way to take. Little decisions now have major consequences. I can't go by the attic or try to retrieve the Lada. I am hunted. Somewhere in this city they are breathing, the people responsible for killing Alejandro. Somewhere in this city Julia is hiding.
Medianoche, puerto.

There is little traffic on Zapata. It is 2, maybe 3 in the morning. I wait until the street is empty and cross to the closed cafeteria. In the alley behind the kitchen I dig through a trash barrel and find a can of orange cola, nearly empty. I need ORS solution, but I have to settle for a swallow of soft drink. The sugar throws a switch in my brain: I must go to the terminal. If I can get a botero to take me out of Havana before daybreak, I might be able to find Emilio in Pinar, arrange for a boat, and be back at the Port of Havana by midnight. Then Julia and I can escape this nightmare. I find a bunch of dead flowers in the trash. Through the cemetery would be the shortest route, but there is no way I'm going back in there. I follow the wall of the necropolis up the hill, holding the bouquet of withered flowers in front of my face like an insane suitor or a demented mourner.

At the top of the hill I turn right down Paseo. The median is conspicuous, but halfway between the footpath and the roadway there are palms and palmettos in regular sequence where I can keep in the shadows. At el Patio de Maria a late rock concert has let out, and a pack of teenagers leaving the club meets me on the median. “¡Vaya, pendejo!” spits a tall one holding a Tropicola can. My bad odor and a glimpse of my crazed expression make the kid move away. “Está loco!” the boy calls to his friends, five of them.

I pull a twenty-dollar bill from the roll in my pants and hold it up to catch the pale light of the streetlamp. “Veinte dolares—sell me your baseball cap.”

“Is that twenty Americano?”

“Sí. And give me what's left in that can you're drinking.”

The boy takes off the hat and throws it on the ground. He drinks one more swallow from the can and sets it down beside the hat. “Throw the money down.”

I crumple up the bill and toss it at the teenager, who fumbles with it for a second and shouts to his friends, “¡Vámonos!” They part ranks and scramble wide around me as if I were a leper. Their laughter dies away all down Paseo.

I put the baseball cap on and taste the canned cocktail, permitting myself just one sip: awful, luke-warm cola cut with chispe tren, but the alcohol takes only a few seconds to administer a calming, anesthetic effect. I pull the hat low over my eyes, hold the flowers against my cheek, and resume the march down Paseo toward the Plaza de la Revolución. Before getting too close to the monument, I cut left to the Teatro Nacional, where I stop to drink from the fountain, then out toward Boyeros and the National Library, a shortcut to the bus terminal.

I stop at the treeline and sip the last of the cola cocktail, peering across the street at the taxi stand. There are no boteros leaving long-distance at this hour, but five private taxis lined up at the curb await delayed arrivals. On the steps of the terminal, four drivers stand chattering and stretching their legs. At the end of the line of cars, the last driver is asleep in his front seat. Silently I cross the street and rap lightly on his half-lowered window. He awakens with a start. “¡Coño que susto!”

“Llévame para Pinar y te doy cien dólares Americanos.”

The driver's black guayabera is stained from front-seat meals. He is groggy but sensible enough to keep his voice down so his competitors don't hear the negotiation. “You smell like a pig.”

“I'll sit in back.” I dig in my pocket and hold up the roll of money.

“I can smell you from here.”

“Stop at the Teatro Nacional and I'll wash off in the fountain.”

The driver looks at the money, frowns, and jerks his chin toward the backseat. “Get in quickly.” I crack the back door and slip in. “Don't slam it. Hold the handle. Keep your head down until I get away from these sinvergüenzas.” He starts the car and pulls out into the road. “¡Hasta mañana!” he calls to the drivers on the steps.

One of them shouts back, “¡Sueña con los mariconcitos!”

“Okay, shut the door now,” the driver says. “¿Qué te pasó a ti?”

I rise from the floor but stay slumped in the seat, the hat brim pulled down over my brow. “M'emboraché.”

“¡Échale!” he says at the thought of a good drunk.

The driver pulls up in front of the fountain. I get out, remove my filthy clothes, and wash off. When I put the dirty rags back on, the smell makes me gag. I vomit on the trunk of a royal palm.

Shortly before dawn, we are at the outskirts of Havana when the driver slows for a fat woman at a parasombra. I protest, “Wait, no more passengers. I'm paying you to rent the whole car.”

“She's not a passenger, compañero. Es mi prima. Familia. Sube aquí en frente si quieres.”

I move to the front seat and he helps the woman fill the back with her bags and baskets. The driver pulls onto the highway and for a mile all is silent. The sun is beginning to rise above the hills to the west. I am exhausted, ready to allow myself a short nap, when in the rearview mirror I see the fat woman gawking back at my mark on my cheek. She screams, “¡Para! ¡Para la máquina!”

The driver slams on the brakes. “¡Coño! ¿Qué pasa, vieja?”

“¡Asesino! ¡Mounstro!” she shouts. “Mató a ese chulo.”

The driver casts about frantically and sees my lunar. “¡Sí! ¡Es él!” he cries. He reaches in the ashtray and pulls out a little knife, pointing it at me. “Butcher! Get out of here!” I throw the door open and jump out of the car. The driver speeds away, rear wheels spitting gravel. The day is dawning. I have to get out of the light.

I follow the alleys to Yorki's apartment at the outskirts of Vedado and find the spare key under the Santa Barbara outside his door. A look in the bedroom: nobody home. I use his phone to call Emilio's place in Pinar. No answer. I fall asleep on the sofa and dream I am back down in the hole, my shoulders against the cold slab.

I awaken to the sun high above the rooftops. Yorki's living room window is open to the squeals of children playing in the street below. I reach for the phone and call Emilio's, letting it ring for a long time.

A key suddenly turns in Yorki's front door and I put down the phone. It's Yorki, alone. “¡Coño qué susto!” He shuts the door and puts his sunglasses on the shelf. “Are you all right?”

“What day is it?”

“Friday.” Friday: three days underground without food or water. Tomorrow Emilio will be heading out on his solo patrol. “You look awful. Sit down. Let me get you some coffee.”

“You have coffee?”

Yorki disappears into the kitchen and comes back with two tasas of strong, sugary café, cold. “I'm heating up a new pot. ¡Coño! You look even worse than usual.” He cracks the door and peeks down the hall, then closes it and says in a low voice, “Why haven't you come forward to defend yourself?”

“It's not true what they're saying. I'm being set up.”

“The PNR came by yesterday to question me. And the CDR has been watching this block. It's not safe for you to be here, Mano.”

“I just need until dark. Por favor …”

“Of course. Forgive me, Mano. Don't think about it. You'll get this thing straightened out. The important thing is that you're okay. We were worried about you.”

“¿Como está Carlota?”

Yorki looks out the window. “Pretty shaken up. Her neighbors are saying crazy things. She told Pablo you went to Miami for a vacation. He wants you to bring him back an apple.”

“He's always wanted to try an apple. Yorki, do you have any cigarettes?”

“Sure.” He takes a pack from the table and lights one, hands it to me.

“Marlboro. Terrible.” I take one puff and stub it out. “Do you have anything to eat? A little rice?”

“I'll heat up some chícharo.” Yorki disappears into the kitchen.

“You don't have to heat it.” I lie on the sofa and let my gaze drift out the living room window all the way to the Microbrigade Buildings, the ugly ex-Soviet embassy towers in Miramar. A mother calls names in the street:
¡Vladi! ¡Niurka! ¡Manuel
! Feeling dizzy, I swirl my tongue around the bottom of the coffee cup to lick up the last of the sugary grounds. I realize the street has gone silent. The children have stopped playing. “Yorki?” He doesn't answer.

I get up from the sofa and peer into the kitchen: empty, and Yorki has left the window open onto the street below. A small posse of women has gathered outside the entrance to the apartment house. Seeing me, one of them cries, “¡Allí 'stá!” I duck back inside and turn the bedroom doorknob, but Yorki has locked himself in. Hijo de puta betrayed me without even looking me in the eye.

I grab Yorki's sunglasses from the living room shelf when the front door sways open and my stomach tenses. A sturdy man stands in the doorway. “Doctor? I'm here to help.”

Another man holding a baseball bat comes up behind the first. “You're a prize catch!”

“You'll go straight to the hospital and they'll fix you up. Our government is fair. You'll get a trial.”

“Just like Ochoa did,” says the man with the bat.

I won't let them lock me up again. I dive head-first out Yorki's window onto the roof of the front portal. The men come after me and I jump twelve feet to the grass, the shock stinging my legs, a few feet away from the knot of neighborhood women. “¡Cuidado! ¡Es él!” one of them cries.

“That's right,” I growl, “I'm the murderer. And I'll kill you like I did that chulo.” The women scatter. I hear the shouts of the men clambering down the front stairway and run around the back of the building. I hop on Yorki's moped, run it down the alley, start it with a kick, and weave through the back streets of Vedado, leaving the man with the baseball bat swinging in the dust. I slip on Yorki's sunglasses and ride down Paseo ahead of the shouts echoing from the balconies.

Shaking from the adrenaline, I hide the moped in the ruins of an abandoned building behind Cine Chaplin. During the darkness of a crowded matinee, I enter through the broken back door of the theater and collapse in a front-row chair:
Fresa y chocolate
.

The flickering screen and the breathing of the other moviegoers momentarily soothes my rattled nerves. I am here among other people, where I belong. I am not a monster. I am a man, a doctor. Maybe it would have been easier if my mother had taken me down that hole with her. It probably would have been much easier.