Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) (11 page)

But if there were ever times in a person’s life when one had to be careful with what one wished for, this played out as such. Not only would I certainly see Papi again, but much sooner than expected. After a year and a half of his five-year assignment in Iraq, my father sent word he was coming home. Not for a brief visit, but for good. He didn’t elaborate. Not in the cable received and forwarded to us by the ministry.

But if we would have to wait to hear all about this unexpected shift of events in person, I wanted only one explanation the day my father came home from Iraq for good: Why hadn’t he brought us even one can of café? Just one! I understood no breads and cheeses; they would have spoiled on the long journey back. But how had he failed to bring home even one
jodida
can of coffee after writing all those letters about all those Middle Eastern coffees? Just like him!

“What happened?” Mamá asked, knowing from the look on his face and the disengaged expression in his eyes it could not be good.

“What do you think happened?” he said. “The usual thing that happens anywhere and everywhere: envious colleagues, jealous coworkers, backbiting and gossip, the usual knives in the back.”

“Alejo, can you be a little bit more specific?” Mamá urged. “Can you tell me who did what to you?”

But Papi would not reveal more. He refused to talk about whatever had happened, while subjecting us to an atmosphere of dark brooding and sullenness for days and weeks on end. We left him alone and afforded him his space.

“When do you return to work?” Mamá asked one day. “When do you go back to the language institute?”

“I don’t,” he said.

“You don’t? Well, how are we going to live?” she asked. “What are we going to do for money, Alejo?”

“Does it matter?” he replied. “Is the Cuban peso worth anything anyway?”

He had a point there, but we still needed
some
money. So while Papi languished in his state of abject misery and solitary dejection, Mamá mobilized quickly and managed to find a job right away. Of all things, too: patching up the horde of defective wheels and inner tubes to all those Chinese bicycles flooding the streets of Cuba during this Special Period. It turned out that Chinese rubber was highly corrosive and flimsy. It either melted quite easily in the Cuban sun or exploded without notice. Wheels were either eroding right on the asphalt or popping like crazy. Mamá hated the work. The first thing she did the moment she came home each day to was detoxify herself from the handling of all those dirty wheels and from inhaling the fumes of rubber cement. True, it wasn’t a glamorous job: repairing rubber and inflating inner tubes, sometimes by mouth even. And it was rather embarrassing too, considering she was married to a renowned linguist. But this was no time for conceit or pride. It was no time for self-indulgence or moping either. Whatever had taken place in Iraq, Mamá insisted on knowing the full story, but Papi would only offer her the same diluted and
watered-down version.

“I’ve told you, Inez: personality conflicts.”

“But you were the supervisor, Alejo. You were running the show. Personality conflicts with whom?”

“The underlings, Inez. The underlings banded together and turned on me.”

Mamá wasn’t buying it. She knew there had to be more to it than what his monosyllabic replies suggested. She knew he was keeping her in the dark about something, and she was right. One day my father finally opened up to the one person he had always felt a kinship with in our household: Pilar. He at last divulged to her the details of his fate in Iraq, but she swore me to secrecy. I was not to tell Mamá any of this. While Pilar and my father had always been particularly close, Mamá and I shared the same closeness, and Pilar knew this. I was not to utter one word to our mother or how it all revolved around this new friend of his, Ehn al-Salahm.

“I knew it!” I said. “I knew that guy had something to do with this. I never liked that individual just from what I read about him. What happened, hermana? Tell me!”

“Well,” Pilar began. “It seems that this fast and furious friendship not only caused envy and hostility among his coworkers at the language school, but speculation as well.”

“Speculation? What type of speculation?” I asked.

“Well, I didn’t know this, hermana, but apparently the men in the Middle East not only greet each other and say good-bye with a kiss, but when they’re really good friends, they hold hands and drape their arms around each other’s shoulders—whether or not they’re in public.”

“Really?” I said. “They hold hands in public? Grown men?”

“Yes, and it seems that on more than one occasion, Papi and Ehn al-Salahm were spotted holding hands walking through the various marketplaces and word got back to the embassy.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, Papi told me that when he showed up for work that Monday morning, two diplomats from the embassy were waiting for him at the language school. They marched him straight into conference and demanded an explanation as to all these alleged physical displays of affection—the hand holding, the shoulder draping.”

“What about it do you want to know?” he asked.

“Is it true?” they said.

“Of course it’s true,” he replied. “It’s the custom here. It’s what they do.”

“It’s what the Iraqis do!” they replied. “It’s the custom between Iraqi and Iraqi, not between Cuban and Iraqi. You’re a visitor here, do you understand?”

But nobody was going to correct or instruct Papi about a culture he had read about and studied all his life. “It’s the custom here between good friends
regardless
of where you come from. And if you don’t partake of the custom, you offend them. Is that what you want me to do? Offend our Iraqi hosts?”

“Precisely!” they fired back. “They are the host, and you are the guest. You are not supposed to be befriending anyone anyway. You’ll recall that, before coming here, everybody was expressly warned
not
to fraternize with the locals. You know that Middle Easterners snap and go crazy.”

“I’m not fraternizing,” Papi shot back. “Fraternization is nothing but a superficial act, civil artifice. Ehn al-Salahm and I are friends—actual friends. You understand?”

“Friends!” they said. “No wonder! Now it makes sense why your colleagues have been complaining. They see that you’re friends with one of the locals and they’re jealous.”

“Well,” Papi continued in self-defense. “If they’re so jealous, why don’t they make their own friends? That way they don’t have to waste their time worrying about me.”

“Because they’re busy actually working!” the officials shot
back. “You see, Alejo, if it were just a matter of you and this guy being friends, there would be no problem. But your colleagues are vigorously complaining that you’re never around, that all you do is delegate and take off, that you don’t teach any of the classes or correct any of the papers. That you give yourself the best shifts—oftentimes when your friend is around. They claim that when you’re not at the marketplaces with him, you disappear for the weekend, and there’s even speculation that the two of you have been taking unauthorized weekend trips. Do you know how we learned of this, Alejo?”

“How?” Papi asked.

“Because his wife has called and shown up at the language school several times looking for him and asking if anyone knew where he was.”

“So?” Papi said. “What about it? I’m not a marriage counselor. I’m a linguistics professor. What do I have to do with that?”

“What have you two been doing?” officials demanded to know. “Where have you two gone?”

“Mosul,” Papi said matter-of-factly.

“
Mosul!
” they reiterated, a look of horror on their faces signaling they must have heard wrong. “Mosul as in…all the way up in the northern part of the country? Mosul as in…hours and hours away by car?”

“Precisely,” my father replied. “You’ll recall that, before I signed up for this mission, I did so on one condition: thirty percent of my time could be devoted to research. Well, my research thesis happens to be on
Aramaic and its Dissolution in the Modern World—Causes and Effects
. The reason I’ve been taking these weekend trips to the north is because the University of Mosul happens to be one of the largest educational and research centers, not only in Iraq, but in the entire Middle East. And it just so happens that Mosul is where the Assyrians of Iraq still reside: ancient descendants of Mesopotamia and the last remaining group of the modern world to speak Aramaic still. That, compañeros, is why I’ve
been taking these unauthorized trips as you call them. Because the northwestern part of Iraq is the only place on the entire planet where Aramaic is still spoken and heard.”

Both diplomats felt their heads spin from so much download all at once.
Damned intellectuals! They thought they were so much better than everyone else
. “We understand,” they began smugly. “We get it. Your friend goes to keep you company, and to help you if any problems arise.”

“Precisely,” Papi replied. “Plus, I’m teaching him Spanish, so he uses the travel time to practice his conversational speech.”

“We absolutely understand,” they reiterated. “And do you two hold hands all the way there? And hold hands all the way back?”

My father wasted no time in joining the steps to this trite tap dance or choreographing it himself with obscenity. Neither of my parents were ones to swear, but one must remember that being coarse and vulgar was an inalienable Cuban trait, and Papi, despite his professional standing, could be extremely vulgar.

“¡Oye, chico! If what you’re doing is trying to accuse me of being a fucking queer, why don’t you just come out and say it! That’s what’s going on here, isn’t it? You think I must be a fucking queer and that Ehn al-Salahm and I suck each other off every chance we get.”

Both officials regarded each other with a stunned artifice, their eyes opening wide before proceeding with their mockery. “We’re not saying that, Alejo, of course not. We’re just telling you how it looks to us
and
your compatriots. This isn’t ancient Mesopotamia, Alejo. You know what our culture is like. It’s not just mega-machista, but uber machista. Nobody else from this mission has made the type of friendship you have, and that’s why they talk about it nonstop. Some of your colleagues even suggest you might be doing drugs, Alejo, indicating that you’re constantly wired and pumped up,
alborotado
all the time.”

“Drugs!” my father scoffed. “
Drugs!
Are you joking? If I
seem wired, it’s only from the coffee. It’s only because for the first time in my fucking life my body is drinking real coffee and it’s not used to it. It’s strong and makes me alert and enables me to put more hours into my research. I’ve noticed that after several cups of Moroccan coffee, my Aramaic is even better than ever.”

“How insulting!” they shot back, appalled by such hubris; all long-time residents of Havana were endowed with hubris it seemed. “Are you telling us we don’t have real coffee in Cuba? Are you? We’re famous for our coffee, chico. Just like we’re famous for our sugar and tobacco. Why else do you think we’re here?”

“Not like this coffee,” Papi said. “Not at all.”

“Well, you listen up, chico. We’re here to tell you something you need to know. Word of your antics has reached the wrong ears in Havana, and there are new stipulations for your continued involvement with this mission. This is a very sensitive project, Alejo, and we can’t afford any scandals. According to this cable from the Ministry of Economic Development, which came in overnight, this research of yours in Aramaic or Mesopotamia or whatever it is, comes to an end right now! Understand, Alejo? As of this moment, you are here to teach and teach only. You are not to fraternize or make any more friends. You are not to take any weekend trips anywhere with anyone. And you are authorized to visit the local marketplace only once a week! Is that clear, Alejo? Don’t forget this country is at war with the Americans right now, and by befriending the locals you not only endanger your life, but ours as well.”

“Are you telling me I’m not allowed to make friends while I’m here? Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly what we’re saying, Alejo! No more holding hands, no more putting your arms around another man’s shoulder, and especially, no more kissing.”

They both laughed uproariously at this.

“To hell with you!” my father burst out, rising up and stepping away from the table before storming off. “To hell
with all this! Effective immediately, I quit! I didn’t come halfway around the world to be treated like a prisoner! That’s not why I came all the way to Iraq! I could have stayed in Cuba for that!”

That was it, the reason his assignment came to a premature end. I remained transfixed by the end of this account, eerily entranced. I shook my head slightly in disbelief and fought back tears I felt forming. Not just from learning the truth, but because this depiction of my father seemed so uncharacteristic of the man I knew. I had always regarded Papi as a quiet and bookish intellectual. But the man Pilar just finished divulging revealed a passionate adventurer and courageous individual, one who would not be defined or hampered by social conventions.

No wonder he returned to Cuba without even one can of coffee. Customs officials had either confiscated it, or he wanted no reminders of his year and a half in Iraq. No wonder my father refused to talk about this even with Mamá. What a fall from grace. How demoralizing and ignominious an ending. I felt horrible now. I hated myself for all the times I had said I despised him and really meant it. Pilar was right. My words came back to haunt me and filled me with sharp pangs of regret. Never haunting me more than now, forced to observe him around the house with nothing to do, for now he had no job either. Little did my father suspect that when he resigned from his mission in Iraq, he’d be resigning from his entire career.

“What are you doing here?” the chief administrator of the language institute asked him when Papi showed up for work his first Monday back. “You resigned, remember? And when you resigned from your post, you resigned from everything.”