The Lazarus Rumba (39 page)

When they got back to the train station in Las Tunas it was packed with people screaming and yelling at the negro conductor, who had promised he would wait, who, not persuaded by their rage, would not move his train from its spot on the tracks, who had set the entire Island's train schedule back some sixty hours. At first, they were going to simply arrest the conductor; but a Siboney indian lawyer who was traveling to the capital, and was a man inspired by idealistic causes, protested that his arrest was illegal and racially motivated, to which the barefoot police captain guffawed, for he was a very dark mulatto and all his men were darker than him. Still, the Siboney lawyer insisted—somewhat pleased by the hopelessness of his argument—that as long as the conductor was in charge of the train, only his employer in the capital had jurisprudence over him, not the local police. The mayor of Las Tunas reluctantly agreed and the owner of the train company, a cubanized yanqui (an American-Cuban) named Theotis Q.———(someone, somewhere, somehow, long ago, had stolen his surname so now anyone whose station forbid them from calling him by his Christian name was forced to address him as Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash), was wired.

He arrived in Las Tunas the following day down the opposite track, in his private two-car train, pulled by the most powerful locomotive of his fleet. Even though he was losing much money with this delay, and though he was known to be driven into fits of frenzy if any of his trains were a few seconds behind schedule, Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, did not fire the negro conductor. As it was, Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, also had a reputation as a progressive yanqui businessman, who as a young man had belonged to the American Communist Party. (It was there and then, it was said, that his surname had been stolen—or that he had simply lent it to a persecuted comrade who had forgotten to give it back.) He would not act so brashly. Instead, he invited the sixteen photographers and reporters that he had brought with him from the capital into the railway station and as he stroked his obscene raccoon-tail mustache, citing both Karl Marx and Adam Smith, debated with the Siboney lawyer the rights of his employee. It was in the middle of this debate, as Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, was scaling to Ciceronian heights, that Father Jacinto returned with the boy Julio César in his arms and the blue rooster perched on his right shoulder.

“All aboard!” the negro conductor screamed. “Se va el tren, chico. ¡Se va por fin!”

The following day, just as he had planned, Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, was depicted in all the front page stories in the capital as a kind and gentle employer, who cared for the rights of individual workers as much as he cared for profits; and one editor went as far as to claim that Cuba needed more yanqui bosses like Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, to show us how to run a company in a proper and Christian fashion.

At the railway station, after introducing himself and taking the boy Julio César from his arms, turning just slightly to give the photographers his better side, Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, chatted with Father Jacinto, learned that the boy was a runaway and that the priest had taken him under his custody and was planning on giving him a proper education at the Belén College in the capital. Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, offered Father Jacinto a ride to the capital in his private two-car train. (He would cast out some of the minor reporters.)

“It would be much faster,” he explained, “safer for the boy, now that the papers will make him famous.”

Father Jacinto, so devout in his hatred of yanquis, no matter what political persuasion, no matter what social station, a sin he relished even more than his hatred of the Franco nationalists, lifted his eyepatch—though the yanqui, being a man of the world, did not blink at the skin-sealed pocket of the Jesuit's left eye—and answered curtly: “Gracias, pero no, you Mister This … you Mister That.” And then he added after taking the boy back and walking past him: “Mucho gusto.”

“Igualmente,” Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, said in unaccented Spanish, not letting his disappointment show. “And please, oh please, call me Theotis … Theotis Q.”

Father Jacinto fastened a leather sash to Julio César's wrist with a Mary-Magdalene knot that he had learned to tie in the mountains of Spain with the republican rebels (so named because once it was tied it was undoable and secure as the Magdalene's chastity belt after the Resurrection), and tied the other end to his wrist with a lesser gordian knot. They passed through Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila, and through the tobacco fields near Cienfuegos, where they stopped and Father Jacinto napped. When he awoke, the boy was again missing. He had chewed through the leather lash and taken the Mary-Magdalene knot with him. He also took the blue rooster in the tin bucket. Father Jacinto jumped out of the train, and though he said nothing to the negro conductor, when he stopped back in the railway station, after having searched for Julio César around the town and down the port, the train was delayed again at the station. The Siboney indian lawyer, with his arm wrapped around the negro conductor, was ready to do battle with Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, again, for the yanqui had already been summoned from the capital.

“Se te fue otra vez, eh chico,” the conductor said. “Oye padre, me parece que el mocoso ese no te quiere.” Father Jacinto smiled patiently. “Yes, he left me again. Se me fue.” He threw up his hand with half the leather sash still tied around it. “But please don't cause any hassle on my account. I'll catch another train.”

“We'll find him!” a gruffy voice said in English. Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, had arrived. He had brought with him a team of yanqui investigators, with their dark glasses and telescopic binoculars and bulges, like tumors, within their dark suits.

“Lo encontraremos sin duda.” Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, spoke again in his perfect Spanish. They searched for seven days, Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, insisting the train on which Father Jacinto was riding remain in the station till the boy was found, this time throwing off the Island's train schedule by over one hundred and fifty hours. The national guard was called in, but Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, had offered his men a hefty bonus and a lofty promotion as reward for anyone who found the boy and he knew they would not be outdone by the ragtag third-rate peasant soldiers.

On the eighth day, in an illegal raid of a fishing trawler from the state of Louisiana, they found Julio César buried in a tepid shrimp stew, in a giant tin pot, in the boiler room. The local police were called in because the cook of the fishing trawler had chased one of Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash's, men with a cleaver, threatening to chop off all his appendages, starting with that little wee-pinky excuse for a dick, not because they had raided the boat but because apparently one of the investigators had made a crack about his shrimp stew, of how it smelled worse than a whore's twat at sunrise. The captain of the trawler, a Cajun named Richard Hadley, gathered all his men on deck and refused to let anyone take the boy, who stood by him, sopping with the foul-smelling stew. Richard Hadley had a heavy gait and a pronounced limp and the boat wobbled as he marched and questioned his men and questioned the boy. Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, had arrived, with Father Jacinto and an army sergeant right behind him. He congratulated his man who had almost been chopped to pieces.

“Sailor,” Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, screamed at Richard Hadley, “you are in danger of causing a serious scandal with your kidnapping of this native boy. As one American to another, I demand that you release him, and I assure you that no charges will be filed.”

Richard Hadley turned away from his men. He hobbled to the bow and looked up at Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, who was standing on the pier. “Sir,” he said, “first of all, I am a fisherman not a sailor, so please get that right. Second, I have broken no laws. This boy came on my ship of his own free will and may leave it just so. It is his choice. But if he wants to stay and join my crew I will not let you touch him. And third, please don't address me as one American to another. I was born in Louisiana and have been a fisherman all my life and have never wandered farther north than Richmond, Virginia. You, from the looks of you (no matter how tropical you try to look in your linen suit and your pale moccasins and your expensive Panama) were born in some great colonial estate in Connecticut and have never dug your rosy little hands into the earth, much less dipped them in the wonders of the sea. No offense, sir, but we are not brothers!”

“Let the boy speak!” Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, said, clearly offended, and astounded that the hick sailor had guessed the state of his birth; his raccoon-tail mustache drooped.

Julio César was eating bits of stew off his own body, which made Richard Hadley's men squirm, and he said nothing.

“Young man,” Father Jacinto spoke in broken English, stepping in front of Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash. Richard Hadley, who was limping back towards his men, turned and beamed a smile: “Oh golly, I haven't been called that in a long time.”

“That boy is a runaway,” Father Jacinto continued, pausing as he translated his thoughts. “He needs help. He might even be, well … como se dice … un poquito retarded. He has not had much education. I plan to give him that. I teach at a very reputable school in the capital, and—”

“Enough of this nonsense,” Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, said to the army sergeant. “Arrest that man! He is breaking international law!” As Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, shoved him towards the trawler, the army sergeant was clearly debating with himself whether his authority extended beyond the pier. Richard Hadley ignored them both. “Arrest him!” Mr. Blank, or Mr. Dash, said to his own men, who (though each held a nervous hand at the tumor on his side) were held at bay by the mad cook who still kept his rusty cleaver cocked in front of him.

“I suspect that this boy is a lot brighter than you think, Father,” Richard Hadley said. “We have talked. We have talked a lot.”

He took off his T-shirt and revealed his marvelously tattooed torso, with muscles so thick and layered that you could distinguish each single one slithering on another, so that his whole upper body seemed like a sack of serpents. He dunked the T-shirt in a water bucket and hobbled over to Julio César and wiped the boy's face, then he whispered something to him and patted him on the back. The boy spoke. He said that after he had fled from the train station two men had stolen his rooster from him and had chased him to the port, for they said they were hungry and the rooster wasn't a meal big enough. The rooster had tried to fight, opening wide his wings and darting at them, struggling for over an hour before they wrapped a sugar sack around him. Meanwhile, Julio César, afraid they were after his other lung, ran and hid in this boat. When the crazy cook found him in a storage bin in the cellar, cuddling with the rats, he took him to Captain Richard Hadley. The captain was kind, and when Julio César could not sleep, Richard Hadley told him a story of his life (
for our lives are many stories—not just one—often at much odds with each other
), how as a boy he had dreamt he wanted to be a fish, but his muscles were always so big and dense, even as a child, that he could not swim, and he could not be a fish, and his elders told him that the sea was not for him. When he was twelve, he stowed away in a trawler just like the one he owned now, and a lovelorn, whisky-sweating captain taught him how to fish, and later how to swim. He was joyful, for though his muscles kept on growing denser, and at first when he jumped in the water he sank, as if he were wearing the heaviest of diving belts, soon he learned how to fill his lungs with great breaths, till they were like balloons that counterbalanced the weight of his muscles, and he became an expert swimmer, and could now be with the fish in their world, as they lived and as they died. Richard Hadley told the boy that he was fortunate, for he knew the method of his own death: his serpent muscles had grown so ravenous, that no matter how many chunks of tuna he ate, they (the serpent-muscles) remained hungry for more, so much so that they began to eat at his bones after they got a whiff of the marrow. Eventually all his bones would be eaten, and his body would collapse (so in fact, the muscles were unwittingly plotting their own ends, a suicidal rebellion, a doomed feast). “I am like a house undoing itself beam by beam,” Richard Hadley said. There was only one good note to all this: because there are so few muscles in the head, his skull would be spared from the bone-feast, and his brain would be undamaged. “And that's where I store all my stories,” Richard Hadley said, “under lock and key.” He turned an invisible key at his temple and made a clicking sound and winked. Julio César begged to hear some of the stories, and as he napped in the captain's cabin, he dreamt of a boy who began as a boy and ended as a fish, boiled in a stew.

“I don't want to leave,” Julio César said, his breath short after having spoken so long. He got on his knees and hugged Richard Hadley around the hips, his arms not quite reaching all the way around, and pressed his ear to Richard Hadley's backside to see if he could hear the ass muscles munching on the bone, and he rubbed his cheeks against Richard Hadley because he felt so warm, as if the serpent-muscles burned with energy even when they were still.

Father Jacinto was silent, unable to comprehend the inscrutable joy in Julio César's dark eyes, a joy that he had tried and failed to draw out ever since he met the boy; and now this yanqui trawler captain, this painted white man, un chusma, had succeeded even without trying.

“No quiero irme,” the boy repeated.

Captain Richard Hadley made a chewing sound with the side of his mouth and fooled the boy into believing it was his serpents gnawing at his bones, so that the boy jumped back away from him, frightened. Richard Hadley laughed and went to the boy and spoke to him in whispers and Julio César shook his head vigorously and the captain consoled him by placing both his hands on the boy's shoulders and wiping his face again with the wet T-shirt.

Finally, even though Julio César was still shaking his head vigorously, Richard Hadley spoke: “Father, he'll go with you tomorrow. Tonight he will spend with us; we are going to prepare a great farewell feast for him.”