Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) (30 page)

I didn’t answer this mangy animal. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. I was that numb, that stung with inaction. Plus, I suddenly felt sick again. Being on my feet summoned forth those brutal waves of nausea. They rushed violently upward until I finally released the contents of my stomach, little as it may have been. I vomited and retched unable to stop. But rather than be repulsed by my retching, the toothless and mangy animal seemed amused by it all, watching me as if I were entertainment. It took the other mongrel, the one in blue, to finally get rid of him.

“
¡Dale tú chico!
” he said. “Why don’t you jump on the raft yourself and
you
get the hell out here! You’re not wanted here. You’re not needed here.”

The animal stood silent for a moment as he licked his wounds.

“Ey,” he finally said, shrugging his shoulders. “¿Qué pasa, chico? I haven’t done anything for you to talk to me that way.”

The mongrel in blue wasted no time in growling and barking back.

“You want to see what you’ve done, chico? Do you? Maybe arresting you will show you. Maybe
that
will do it. Don’t forget you’re still in Cuba and I can haul your ass to jail for anything I want. Get lost now, chico!
¡Lárgate!”

I straightened myself up. I tried regaining my composure as that taunting toothless animal walked off while pushing his bike in hand. But it wasn’t to join the cheering along the shore. He simply vanished into the chaos and clutter of Cojimar never to be seen again. There had to be a reason why this kept happening, why I kept drawing all this negative energy to myself. There had to be. I had no idea of anything at the moment and knew not where we went, but I followed along as the mongrel led our way. How punishing the midmorning sun. How searing its ascent.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “I thought you said a car
was on its way.”

“It is, compañera. It’s right over there.”

My eyes followed in the direction he pointed. No, it couldn’t be. The Hemingway Monument again. Where this horrible ordeal had all started and unfolded. Wonderful. Just wonderful. More reminders, more negative energy.

“All the way over there?” I asked. “That’s what you call the car coming around? Why don’t I just walk home?”

The mongrel in blue ignored me. We strode in silence toward this phantom vehicle and the monument which the town of Cojimar had erected in honor of Hemingway. What must they all be thinking? All the faces of Cojimar. With each step I took I felt their probing, questioning eyes.
Who was the girl being escorted by one of the mongrels? Was she being arrested or assisted? Was she being detained or deported?

How I wished this were the ancient city of Crimea rather than the tiny sea village of Cojimar. How I wished I were an ancient Cimmerian rather than a modern-day Cuban. That way I could hide in a shroud of darkness. That way nobody could track my movement from shoreline to street or see me walking side by side with one of the mongrels—except, I was not walking the mongrel, the mongrel was walking me, leading me on some invisible leash to
who-knew-where
. How desperately I wanted the clouds overhead to dissolve into the mists of a black Cimmerian fog where nobody could identify me or point me out as the girl who had cravenly stayed ashore while her companions had risked their lives at sea. Even the mongrel’s colleagues threw nasty glances my way. Every few steps they would stop us and inquire suspiciously.

“You all right, chico? ¿Todo bien?”

“Sí, chico, sí,” he would answer. “Todo bien.”

Mongrels
. All of them. It figures they were only worried about him. I was the damsel in distress, yet their concern was for the mongrel in blue. I tried disregarding it all. I still felt weak and dazed, stung from the encounter with that toothless freak. Nevertheless, I managed to catch plenty of snippets
swarming all about; snippets of speculation but with one central topic on everyone’s tongue: the policeman who had stripped down to his shorts and jumped aboard the raft.
Had he planned it all? Had it been spur of the moment? Had anybody else been in on it? Might it happen again? How could it be prevented, and who could be trusted now? What about his partner? Had his partner known anything about it?

What did it matter? Why should anyone care? Hadn’t Fidel said that
anyone
was free to leave? Including his own mongrels. Who cared whether the guy had stripped down to his shorts or taken off naked. The Americans would easily figure out why he had floated in half-clothed. But it wasn’t until I caught even more of their snide speculation that I truly began to worry. W
ho were those people he left with? Was it a random choice or planned? Did he know them intimately, or was it a last moment encounter on the beach? Who were those people? Where were they from?

We neared Hemingway’s bust. I felt weaker than ever from the brief but troubling walk. Worse, I felt ill at ease knowing that some anonymous mongrel and I would forever be linked by the morning’s turn of events. I felt naked now, thin and threadbare and wishing I could wrap myself up in the strands of anonymity, wishing I could plunge deep into some Cimmerian darkness rather than be exposed by Cuba’s specular sun. What a scolding castigating sun hung high overhead. How I wished that we, all those in Cojimar this morning, were ancient Cimmerians who dwelled in perpetual darkness rather than Cubans under the constant light of a microscope. Cubans whose actions were always exaggerated by some monstrous magnifying glass and whose every move was grotesquely amplified by the aid of some giant government crystal, like all the shiny crystals spread out before us now: microscopes and magnifying glasses in the form of row upon row of parked police vehicles—all meant to establish a presence in this crisis, all designed to send a message that, despite the desperation and disarray, there was still going to be order in the disorder, that all those who paced and kept constant watch could still see right through everyone.

“Here we are,” announced the mongrel. “Here’s the car.”

“But where are we going?” I asked apprehensively. “Where are you taking me?”

“Why, to the nearest polyclinic,” he replied. “Don’t you want to be seen?”

“Seen for what chico? I only fainted. It’s nothing more serious than that. What I want is to go home, that’s what I want.”

“I’m sorry, compañera, but I can’t do that. I’ve only been authorized to take you to the nearest polyclinic.”

“In a police vehicle?” I posed suspiciously. “Why not an ambulance? Why didn’t you radio for an ambulance?”

He grew quiet for a moment, those clear brown eyes of his capturing an abundance of the ambient light.

“Compañera,” the mongrel began. “I don’t like having to discuss this, especially with a young girl such as yourself, but fine, I’ll tell you why
not
an ambulance. You see, there’s currently a shortage of ambulances here in Cuba. Ever since this Maleconazo of ten days ago, we need all the ambulances we can get here, and we need them available at all times. Every day, for the last ten days, bodies have been washing up, compañera: the drowned and mutilated bodies of our countrymen. That’s what we need ambulances for, compañera: the corpses, the cadavers. Everything else is being handled in police vehicles, especially minor incidents. Everybody in Cuba may hate the police, but you certainly don’t think we should drive around with dead bodies in our back seats, do you?”

I didn’t know whether he was being serious or trying to comfort me. Those clear brown eyes of his glowed incandescently, but I didn’t know whether he was trying to inject humor into this morbid affair or telling me the truth.

“All right,” I said. “Fine, chico, I understand. But I’m not going to any clinic. I want to go home.”

“And where is home, compañera?”

“Centro Habana,” I said.

“Centro Habana!”

“Sí, chico, near the Malecón. Close to the Deauville, as a matter of fact. You do know where the Deauville is, don’t you? The site of el Maleconazo!”

What had gotten into me? Why was I mouthing off to one of the mongrels? Especially now that I wasn’t leaving? I guess Rigo’s behavior from this morning had rubbed off on me.

“I think the whole world knows now where the Deauville is, don’t you, compañera?”

“Let’s hope so,” I said. “Let’s hope the whole world not only knows
where
it is, but what led to it.”

Again, what had gotten into me? Why was I being so brash and openly hostile? I could easily be arrested and I knew it. Hadn’t the mongrel just threatened that mangy animal with arrest? But maybe it was time I threw some rocks, even if only in the form of words.

“You don’t trust me, do you, compañera? You think I’m up to something, don’t you?”

“Well,” I said. “Would it be that unlikely a supposition?”

“Fine, chica. Fine,” he said. “I’m not only going to show you I’m not up to anything, I’m going to show you that you can trust me. Get in the car!” he ordered.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Where do you think we’re going, chica? Centro Habana, that’s where—Centro Habana, off the Malecón, near the Deauville itself. I’m sure I’ll be fired, sanctioned severely, thrown in jail and never work in Cuba again, but I’m taking you to Centro Habana and dropping you off right on your doorstep just to show you that you can trust me. How’s that, compañera? Now get in!”

I didn’t know why, but without so much as another word or thought, I slid into the back of that police vehicle. The mongrel in blue held the door open for me as I melted into the backseat. He wasted no time in closing the door and
walking round to the front. I may have been making the biggest mistake of my life, but what did it matter? Wasn’t I alone now? Wasn’t Rigo gone for good? What was there for me to look forward to? I had no one or nothing. What did it matter where this mongrel took me? Whether he was transporting me to Villa Marista or some other interrogation center. Whether I would be beaten or tortured or locked up for good. They could do whatever they wanted with me. How would anyone even find me since I was supposed to be gone?

Could I really rule out such a scenario? Hadn’t I just heard with my own ears they’d be looking for me? The people who the mongrel had run off with. Wasn’t I the only remnant of that group? The sole and stranded survivor of it. This mongrel knew something and his kindness was all a ruse. He had witnessed some portion of my exchange with Rigo and planned on delivering me into the hands of his superiors. I’d be pumped for information. I’d be coerced into providing names and addresses. If the government didn’t already know, it would soon learn about Nelson and the group Insurrection and my involvement in it. Just as it already knew whose daughter I was and the disgrace that ended my father’s life and career. My fate with the university was well-documented and now they would connect this incident to Rigo. I was cursed, really I was. And it wasn’t just the Curse of Cojimar. It was the Curse of Cuba.

How wrong this mongrel had summed things up. He was definitely carrying a corpse in his car, definitely riding with a dead body in the backseat. He just didn’t realize it. I was dead, just as I’d been dead for so long. Nothing I saw registered through my eyes. Nothing I thought penetrated my head. I felt nothing and the mongrel was simply transporting me to be buried, interred in some secret cell. Just in case I was wrong, just in case he really was dropping me off at my doorstep, I planned on carrying forth alone. Whether locked up in some facility or holed up inside my house, I was withdrawing from the world and going into seclusion.

That was all I felt grateful about with this mongrel: the seclusion and isolation in this backseat. The way he left me
completely alone and rendered me solely unto my thoughts. The way he let me relive those last moments with Rigo as I delved into some inner space and lost all track of time. I kept expecting my captor to launch into some preliminary interrogation, to trick me into divulging information on the others. But my expectations went unfulfilled. Nothing of the sort took place. No probing or prying. No insinuations or innuendo. Nothing at all. Just calmness and quietude. Just a Cimmerian silence.

And how peculiar too, that here of all places, in the backseat of a police vehicle, as my head drooped lifelessly against the car window and I cried in silence in the presence of a total stranger, I finally felt alone. I could finally embrace the privacy I had craved all morning. The mongrel only asked for my address. No more than that. He obviously knew Havana with all its twists and turns. Only one commentary broke through the dispassionate daze of my despair, pulling me out of myself.

“That was my friend, you know…my partner.”

“Who was you friend?” I asked obliviously, my tone midway between dazed and detached.

“The one who left with your companions."

I was no longer dead. My head shot up like a bullet in the backseat of that car. But that bullet was not taking my life, it was giving me life, especially as my eyes shot two more bullets right at him.
So that was it! Why he looked so familiar!
This was the mongrel who’d been hanging around the other mongrel, who’d been shifting back and forth and hovering in the background. For the first time that morning I took note of his physical appearance.

If he was younger than Rigo it couldn’t have been by more than a few years, midtwenties certainly. He was taller than Rigo, thicker and sturdier too, probably from the much better diet afforded the mongrels, all the generous morsels of meat thrown their way to keep them well-fed and happy. He was fair complected. His eyes were a stunning clear brown, small but sharp. He had thick black hair he combed back and to the
side. I had to admit that, for a mongrel, he wasn’t bad.

“You knew him?” I asked.

“Knew him? He was my partner, chica, my best friend. I had no clue, no idea that he was going to do what he did.”

The mongrel not only shook his head seemingly in disbelief, a chord of distress rang out in his voice. I, in turn, had no idea what to say. I was that astonished, that dumbstruck. But might this be a trick? Might this sudden revelation be some technique to loosen me up and get me to spill my guts? The thought crossed my mind, but his demeanor pointed to the contrary. He was being truthful and fell silent after the revelation. His eyes even reflected a mild hurt through the rearview mirror.