The Lazarus Rumba (72 page)

Monologue of Triste the Contortionist: The Thirty-Mile Swim

¿Qué cómo? How else? I swam.

No me crees. I see it in your eyes. You don't believe me. How else does a fugitive like me, un negrón tan jandango, get to see the most famous dissident in the Island. I took off from Playa Girón, walked into the waters, desnudito, así salí, y así llegué y te asusté.

Gracias. Gracias. The blanket is good. I was getting cold.

How else? I swam. The longest stretch was over thirty miles. No me crees. … I see it. You don't believe me. But one day (when we're both free), I'll show you. It
is
thirty miles from Playa Giron to the most northern point of Cayo Largo. Me llamo Pedro Ovarín. But no one has called me that in a long time. I've been known as Triste all my life. Ever since I was a kid, ever since I first put my left foot behind my right ear (like this), ever since I could graze parts of me with the tip of my tongue, in my abuelita's bed under the mosquitero, that other children dared not even touch with their hands (
that
I won't show you … I'm sorry. Perdóname if I am vulgar). I am a contortionist, a famous one who once loved one that you once loved. My abuelita said that I was a happy child till I started twisting myself into odd shapes. No me acuerdo. I have no memories of happiness.

¿Cómo? I swam. How else?

You are beginning to believe me. Your eyes are beginning to know who it is that I am. I promised him that I once loved that you once loved I would see you. So now you see me.

And it
is
thirty miles, though you don't believe me.

Gracias. Gracias. The soup is good. I was getting cold. I love garbanzo stew. What a great sense of humor Fidel has, no crees?—imprisoning you near a town called La Fé, where the gods shit colored stone, in a hole full of nightingales, surrounded by forests where they mine for nickel and tungsten.

Do you know what tungsten is? It's a metal that most fires can't melt. You can't bend it like this or like this (don't be so amazed, that's only my fingers, you should see what I do with the rest of my body); tungsten is not a contortionist, it won't bend, even in the fires that flow in the hidden underground rivers of the earth. It would make the best prisoner—tungsten is immune to torture.

He too was imprisoned on this island that is the eye of the Island. So he was once you. He that murdered the ones you love was as you are now, inside the eye, trapped in a hole from where you can't see ni puta mierda. Perdóname, my tongue is dirty. He was a good swimmer too—Fidel. ¿No me crees? But he never tried to escape from this island prison. I swam
in.
You believe me now. Yes, I'm tired.

Gracias. Gracias. The cafecito is good, better than the blanket, better than the stew.

I told you and you believed me. I promised him—not Fidel, but the one that I once loved that you once loved, and
he
believed me. I could see it in his eyes. So I had to swim in; and I'll swim out when the time comes, because I am a better swimmer than Fidel. He never dared swim out. He was pardoned, as a child is pardoned.

The one that I once loved that you once loved that his men murdered, do you remember his name? Is that why I have no memories of happiness?

Don't tell me! I swam. Water gets in my ears. It drowns all my memories.

¡Ay! Gracias. Gracias. The rum is good. Me encanta el ron, more than the blanket, more than the stew, more than the cafecito. I'll remember now. And then I can tell you why I came here. How I swam.

Give me a hint. What was his hair like? The one that I once loved that you once loved.

Don't tell me. I swam. I'll remember.

It was like wool, like tufts of black wool before it is woven into yarn. Ves, I remembered. My abuelita is wrong. I do remember happiness, even if sometimes it is twisted out of shape, like the ringlets of his hair (once, he let it grow long—he did not shear it until they made him—and just like his hair was then, wild and dark brown and twisted and twirled into all shapes, such was my happiness). That's what I had chosen. Do you remember happiness? Do you remember brushing your cheeks against his hair till they were scratched with joy?

You are beginning to believe me. What was his name? Do you know?

Don't tell me! I swam. The water gets in my eyes. But if I can just have a bit more, maybe things will clear up.

Gracias. Gracias. Yes, that's good. It is no longer cold. I love rum. It heats me up inside, better than the blankets, better than the stew, better than the cafecito, mucho mejor. I swam. The longest stretch was over thirty miles.

You are beginning to see him, the one that I once loved that you once loved. His eyes? What color were they? Give me a hint. Don't … don't tell me! I remember. My abuelita was wrong when she nicknamed me Triste.

His eyes were sometimes the color of a long-aged cognac or sometimes the color of boiling honey. And I did not like it when I loved him and I did not see them, for when I loved him, the one that I once loved that you once loved's eyes closed, and just from under the lids, light-droplets the color that was the color of his eyes seeped out and clung desperately to his curled thick eyelashes like water on a dolphin's back and then were blown out into the air and dispersed and disintegrated as stars that have lost their course. This was the wilderness in him, that clung to his eyelashes in ochre dewdrops, that was my happiness, that my abuelita will never know. She called me Triste. And now they all do, and it is who I am.

You are beginning to remember happiness. I believe you. What did your abuelita call
you?
Do you remember his name?

Don't tell me! I swam. Why else wouldn't I remember. I swallowed too much seawater. It changes me on the inside. It blanches my memories. His mouth? His lips?

His lips, they were full, as if three or four extra layers of flesh had been stretched there and softened and colored over time by his breath, like the flow of the warm undersea shapes a coral reef. I remember. Sometimes too they were salty and when I tasted them I thought of the seawater. But we were far from the sea. We could not swim. Yet his lips were salty.

Gracias, pero no. Gracias, no. No more rum. Not yet. Not now. Not while I'm remembering what his breath tasted like.

Don't tell me! I'll remember. I was not Triste, though everyone called me that.

Like a late spring breeze peppered with pollen, yes, flowing with invisible nectars, not too warm, though warm enough; breath I could taste and swirl in my mouth and feel its heat in my chest when I let it in me, and much much more intoxicating than this rum. I'd be drunk for weeks and I'm still hungover to this day, even though I swam, and the sea with all its galvanic stings should have cured me.

You believe me. You know. That's good. Now I'll take some more. Gracias. Gracias. The rum is good. But it is a poor man's moonshine compared to his breath.

And when I loved him, the one that I once loved that you once loved's breath stuck to me and I did not bathe till I knew I could touch him again, and my skin, all of it, smelled of him, because his breath had sunk into my pores and spread throughout so that I was him, and when the guards would separate us, for weeks sometimes, sometimes longer, and I loved myself, it was him I loved and I called his name from my tiny cell where my head would bump if I stood up and where I defecated and urinated in one corner and crouched in the opposite corner, my head turned to avoid the stench, and
then
my abuelita was right.

What was it that I screamed when I loved myself as I was loving him. Give me a hint. Do you even know? What did your abuelita name you?

Don't tell me! I'll remember. I swam. The longest stretch was over thirty miles. I walked into the waters at Playa Girón and the three girls that were the girlfriends of the soldiers were alone on the beach and as I walked into the waters afterwards, their girlfriends stared, porque estaba desnudito, así como llegué y te asusté. They stood and shielded their eyes from the sun with their hands as if saluting me (like their soldiers had taught them, seguro), and they followed me, they waded in as if they smelled their soldiers' sweat and their soldiers' spit on me. But the seawater is harsh and it washes quick, ridding the skin of its memories, so the girls waded back to wait for their soldiers who were still with each other. I swam long (thirty miles was the longest stretch, from Playa Girón to the most northern point of Cayo Largo) and my encounter with the soldiers left me empty, so on the white-sand beaches of Cayo Largo I loved myself and he was not there, the one that I once loved that you once loved. His breath was not in me. And what's the use of loving yourself if you're only loving yourself, if there's no one's breath seeping through your pores, if there is not a trace of what it was like to once have your arms around him so that his smell was yours, not yours to keep, but yours as your own body is yours and will not be yours at the day of reckoning.

His body. I remember. My abuelita was wrong. Por favor, don't tell me. I remember.

Holding him was like handling a caged bird. In every muscle, even the tiny ones that wiggled his monkey toes, there twitched the hollow-boned urge to fly, so that it felt as if I would let go, he would take off from me (like the magic balloons abuelita bought me at the circus the first time we went) and soar into the boundless blue sky and become a speck and then vanish, as if he had found a portal to another world. How could I let him go then, even after I had loved him, hidden by the tall gray-green stalks in some unshaven lot of the cane field, even though the dagger leaves stabbed at us, and we knew that the guards knew we were missing, and even though he could not really fly away, for he would have done it a long time ago and abandoned all his tormentors, those heartless bestias who also professed to love him, but in the end murdered him.

Don't stir. It is not something you don't already know and have not known for a long time. You would not be here in this island that is the eye of the Island, trapped in a hole from where you cannot see ni puta mierda.

I'll have some more rum. You should have some yourself. Gracias. Gracias. This at least numbs the brain, dulls what I remember. It is almost as strong as the seawater.

Though when I wake, I always remember. My abuelita was wrong.

We were lovers almost from the start, and though he was very young, fifteen then, he was not innocent. He had been a lover before. This I knew from the first night, when after a performance, he came to my sleeping cart with a bottle of bourbon. I could not stand the bitter taste of it.
He
drank it without grimacing. He said his maestro had taught him.

What was his name? The maestro? The one that taught the one that I once loved that you once loved how to drink bourbon and how to fly?

He talked at length about him. There was not much room inside my cart, so he sat on my bed and swigged the bourbon straight from the bottle, and he pushed closer to me, letting his hand wander up my thigh, saying how great I looked all twisted and bent on the St. Peter cross. (
Chévere, your arms and your legs looked like black serpents choking a young tree! And your long white nails were the twenty fangs with which the devil ate the baby Jesus.
) He'd had too much. I took the bottle from him and he fell back and passed out in my arms. I leaned my face close to his and his breath smelled like fresh cut pine wood. I kissed him on the cheeks, tucked him in my bed, and left my sleeping cart. I finished what was left in the bottle, growing more and more accustomed to the tongue-pricking taste of the liquid that was the color of his eyes in the gaslamp light. I remember. My abuelita was wrong. Although I was not sure if the great pity I felt was for him or for me. In the morning when I returned to my cart he was gone. Four nights later he came back and he did not pass out and I did not leave.

What did your abuelita nickname you? What was his name?

Don't tell me! I'm swimming in rum and I'll remember.

Much later, after the liberators came down from the mountains, bearded and thin, but not thin like the one that I once loved that you once loved was thin, not lithe like him, but thin like starved, so you could count their ribs, even the little tiny one that's no longer than the thumb at either side of the belly, after they had decided who would share in their liberty, and after they had excluded us and hunted us down and forced us to learn the process of love again, taught us like children what was right and what was wrong, o mejor dicho, forced us to unlearn what was wrong, to forget everything back to the first time when that uncle who is only three years older takes me to a barren field on the edge of his father's finca, and forces me to pull down my work pants—they are stained and sticky with the sweet syrup of the cane stalks, so a lo mejor he just wants to wash them in the river—and I am tired and do as my uncle says, and even though my skin is black-black-brown, darker than the darkest cup of cafecito, de negro puro, as my abuelita says, I can see a patch on my lower legs, from where my work pants were rolled up to where my boots cover the ankle, where my skin is impossibly darker from the mud-sputter of the felled stalks; my uncle likes this, and when my ankles are resting on his shoulders in that barren field at the edge of his father's finca, he passes his tongue over that darker part of my legs, and I concentrate on his rosy tongue as it too blackens from the mud of the cane fields. I'll never let my uncle know how much it hurts because he sees it in my eyes watching his tongue, sees that beneath the riptide of pain passing over my body there runs a more powerful undertow of pleasure, a lightning current of joy, which I won't forget, long after my uncle who is only three years older has disappeared and a brigade of other men has taken his place. I remember; no matter what the liberators who came down from the mountain and decided who will share in their liberty did, no matter what my abuelita named me.