CHAPTER 1

The show was a success.

It was no surprise to Serguey, who during the past decade had seen his father direct over a dozen plays to critical acclaim. Still, he was delighted to witness Felipe’s greatness come alive in Teatro Mella, one of Havana’s premier venues. The audience applauded and cheered, calling for him to be brought onstage. A smile materialized on his father’s lips as he took the last few steps up the side stairs. For a man of fifty, he moved sprightly. His graying hair shone elegantly above his thick, dark eyebrows. His eyes gleamed under the lights as if filled with tears. He stared at the crowd, saluting those he recognized. The cast held hands behind him, forming a human fence, and bowed in appreciation. He stopped for a moment and blew a kiss in Serguey and Anabel’s direction. Serguey gave him a thumbs-up. In the periphery of his vision, he could see that his wife had blown a kiss back at his father. She continued applauding with fervor, her whole body stirring the contours of her dress. Serguey smiled at the genuine thrill in her reaction, spurred by the fact that her sister, Alida, had just made her acting debut.

The actors and Felipe took one final bow. The curtain glided down, and his father placed a hand over his heart as his figure disappeared. The lights became brighter, illuminating the yellow banisters of the theater. Their undulating design mimicked the motion of waves rushing toward the stage. The murmuring crowd inched gradually up the aisles, leaving a sea of red chairs behind. Serguey and Anabel remained in their seats.

“Alida was wonderful,” Serguey said. He took his wife’s hands. They were exceptionally warm, as if heated by fire.

“I’m so proud of her.”

A couple in their late teens was attempting to pass them in order to leave their row. Serguey and Anabel stood, springs squeaking as they pushed up the foldable seats. The girl’s canvas bag snatched on the armrest of Anabel’s chair, abruptly yanking her shoulder. Anabel slid the strap off politely as they traded a demure look. The boy, already in the aisle, went to assist his girlfriend a little too late, resorting to a timid stroke of her shoulder. He did a double take at Serguey and hesitantly asked, “Do you know the director?”

Anabel gazed at Serguey in mock amazement, implying his connection to the director made him important.

Serguey chuckled and said, “He’s my father.” He pointed at Anabel, then at the stage. “Her sister played the Pedagogo in the first act.”

The couple bobbed their heads and brought up their hands—a recognition and a goodbye. They stuttered their steps until the girl shoved the boy and he got his feet fully in gear.

As if the interaction had been a mere daydream, Serguey turned to his wife and said, “Were you nervous when Alida came on?”

She sat again. He did the same.

“Nervous? I was dying!”

They waited until most of the venue cleared, both of them absorbing the relative calm that immediately follows the raucous collective experience that is theater. Now he could focus more easily on the details. Anabel had put on her favorite clothes for the occasion: a navy cocktail dress that accentuated her breasts and narrow shoulders. The silky fabric fell tightly over her body to the base of her knees. On the way over, Serguey had wanted to run his fingers down her back, rest them atop her curving butt, maybe a little lower. Instead, Anabel had looped her arm around his elbow.

With the seats now practically empty, he looked around and shouted, “Hello!” He listened carefully for his echo. “I used to love doing that when I was a kid,” he said to Anabel. “My dad would bring me to theaters during dress rehearsals, and at the end of the night, when everyone had left, we’d sit and scream our names at the ceiling. Dad said he’d done the same inside a few cathedrals in Spain when he traveled there.”

Anabel said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it during Mass.”

“I don’t know if he did, but he got kicked out of the one in Toledo.”

His father was a daring man, Serguey knew, and this was especially true of his work. THE GREATEST DIRECTOR OF OUR GENERATION? had been the headline of a recent article in El Escenario. It made the case that Felipe’s bold approach to his craft—his willingness to break away from the norm in the contemporary stage—had solidified him as an “innovator” and “artistic genius.” He’d decided to reject adaptations of Greek, Shakespearean, nineteenth, and twentieth-century classics to concentrate on the original work produced by his trusted playwright, Mario Rabasa. He’d incited a trend that, in some critics’ view, defied recent decades of Cuban theater. Serguey couldn’t help laughing at the praise, even if he agreed with it at some level. The article had been printed on the heels of the announcement that Felipe would be presenting Virgilio Piñera’s Electra Garrigó—the play they had just watched—a 1940s Cuban parody of Sophocles’ Electra.

So much for original material.

Serguey pictured his father pacing slowly around his living room, flaunting a copy of El Escenario at his friends. He’d be looking into each person’s eyes as he passed them, claiming that such academic and critical nonsense stood in opposition to art, that he was now doomed to personal failure and subsequent misery, since, when one thought about it (here he’d raise both his voice and the magazine in his hand), the focus had been placed on him and not what truly mattered: his creative work.

“No artist can receive such attention and remain pure,” he had likely said. “Not while he’s alive.” He might’ve paused and added, “And if they’re going to write such idiocy, why put a question mark? It’s insulting!”

Serguey also knew that a handful of those friends—the ones who had been around when his father was little more than a young, insecure playwright—would be fighting back smirks and chuckles. Felipe had been a playwriting professor for the better part of a decade. As a graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte, he had written his share of reviews and critical essays for national publications, dissecting plays with a mixture of objectivity and flare.

His father was an exceptional artist, Serguey had no doubt, but he was also the most contradictory person he had ever known.

The heavy base of the curtain billowed in shifting shapes: the stagehands’ night wasn’t over. As a child, Serguey had helped clean after several shows, sweeping and placing props in their respective boxes. Occasionally, an actor would mount him on his shoulders and walk him to the front edge of the stage. Serguey felt as if he were floating over the chairs, his belly tingling like it did when he zipped down a slide. Seeing the inner-workings and aftermath of a performance didn’t detract from his enjoyment of the plays. On the contrary, it enhanced it: what to him seemed so commonplace during cleanup had the ability to create a spectacle, a fantasy that was as real and unforgettable as the parading Muñecones—giant, expressly hideous puppets—during Carnival.

The few people left inside the venue had assembled in small groups at the end of the aisles. They spoke and gesticulated with passionate urgency. Even their grins and gazes were exaggerated, as if the characters in the play had taken possession of their bodies. A spurt of laughter with an infectious pitch spread from the back of the room. Heads began to turn toward a red-faced woman, her body bending under the weight of her own wild glee, as she tried, uselessly, to cover her mouth.

Anabel leaned her head on Serguey’s shoulder, unaffected by the noise, then straightened suddenly and scanned the seats. “I think Victor’s gone. Can we go?”

Serguey had already seen his younger brother exit the theater, though he’d dissimulated by pretending to inspect other faces for acquaintances. He took Anabel’s hand and led the way.

The lobby was packed with more of the same: animated conversations amalgamating into a dissonant choir. Serguey recognized some people here, but none that he felt obligated to greet. As he and Anabel squeezed their way through, he saw a lip-pierced young woman declare, “This is the best version I’ve seen.”

They emerged onto the sidewalk and decided to linger under the marquee. The night was humid and breezy. The traffic on Linea Street flowed with ease, as if propelled by the soft wind. The bottom of Anabel’s dress fluttered against her legs. For a moment he visualized himself lifting the hem, titillated by the thought of how his fingers might feel against the fabric, how they might glide across her skin.

She stared at him. He could tell she’d noticed something in his eyes, because she smiled and slid her own fingers across his hip. He turned away, feigning innocence. A bus was blocking the driveway that flanked the building. Beyond it, walled up in a parcel of land that had been unkempt for as long as Serguey could remember, trees rustled with an unhurried, cadenced harmony. He inhaled as if he’d just risen from underwater and looked to his right. Victor was standing against a column, lifting his cigarette in acknowledgement. Serguey nodded, his lungs slowly deflating. Victor took two deep drags, then discarded the cigarette butt and stomped on it.

“Please be nice,” Anabel whispered, pulling at Serguey’s cuffs.

Victor joined them. He was wearing a black V-neck T-shirt, the bottom of it fitted over an absurdly big belt buckle. The burnished vestiges of a recent shave coated his cheeks. “You didn’t have to wait so long,” he said. “I got out as soon as the curtain went down.”

“You’re still here.” Serguey dipped his eyes at the words engraved on the buckle: GUESS.

Anabel grazed Victor’s smooth cheek with hers, making a kissing sound. “How are you?”

“‘Not in jail,’ as my brother would say.”

Serguey shook his hand, more for Anabel’s sake than Victor’s. “So you finally came to one of Dad’s plays.”

“I’m becoming a cultured man.” Victor scratched his throat and grinned. “I actually helped finance the cost of materials to build the set.”

“Look at you, benefactor and everything.”

Anabel said, “If you two are going to be like this, I’m going back inside.”

Serguey interlocked his fingers with hers. “You’re right. This night is about Dad and Alida.”

Victor fished another cigarette out of his breast pocket but didn’t light it right away. “Your sister was amazing,” he told Anabel, glancing at the venue’s entrance. “Hopefully they’ll be out soon.”

Serguey stared at the glass doors of the theater, counting the seconds. As if telepathically summoned, Felipe and Alida appeared an instant later. The group exchanged hugs and kisses, their voices overlapping in lively hellos and congratulations.

Felipe said, “Isn’t this a miracle? My two boys together!”

“Yes,” Anabel said. “They’ve been singing each other’s praises.”

“Well, what did you all think of Alida?” Felipe asked. “‘Who needs ballet when you can act like that?’ is what I’d say.”

Alida bent her knees in a graceful bow. She was shorter and slenderer than Anabel, but had the same dark eyes, dark hair, plump cheeks, rounded nose. Serguey sometimes called them “teddy bear sisters.” Anabel absolutely abhorred it.

“We’re very proud,” Serguey said.

“It’s all thanks to Felipe,” Alida said. She ran one hand down his ribs, the other bracing the small of his back. “He’s a tough director, but there’s a gentle soul underneath.”

Felipe pretended to be annoyed. “No sentimentality, Alida. You’re a better artist than that.”

She laughed. “See what I mean?”

Anabel looked at Felipe. She stiffened her lips into a diminutive smile. “Are the other actors happy with her?”

Alida flushed with embarrassment. “Anabel!”

“They’ve been together a while, no? I don’t know how they feel about an outsider.”

Serguey was amused. Anabel was brazen. No hairs in her tongue, as the saying went. Victor was shaking his head emphatically, approving of her candor.

“Your sister’s grown up now,” Felipe said. “She can handle the drama.”

“He’s kidding,” Serguey said. “Of course they like her.”

Anabel grinned. She excused herself and snatched Alida away from the men, pulling her hand and inclining her face close to her sister’s. Serguey hadn’t experienced this kind of sibling intimacy with Victor, not even as children.

Victor said, “Dad, I’ll see you back at the house.”

“No, no. Let’s have a drink!”

Victor embraced him. “Some other time, viejo. I feel like walking.” He tapped Serguey twice on the arm, then walked toward Anabel and Alida and kissed them goodbye. Continuing across the road, he lit up his cigarette and blended momentarily into the shadows of Linea Street.

“Why don’t you talk to your brother?” Felipe asked.

Serguey sighed. “You know it’s not that simple.”

“We need to do something together. Maybe a lunch at the house. You haven’t been there in ages.”

Victor and I have barely spoken in eleven years, Serguey wanted to say. He let out, “I don’t think our problems can be fixed over lunch.”

“A father can hope.”

Serguey observed his brother again, now visible under the glare of a streetlamp. Victor hopped briefly into the gutter as four young tourists—blond-haired, pale-skinned, swank-clothed—walked in the opposite direction. His burning cigarette rose to his mouth as he swiveled his head and climbed back onto the sidewalk. He was, without a doubt, eyeing the ladies in the group.

“At least you got him to come,” Serguey said, still staring at Victor. “He even dressed up a bit.”

Felipe’s eyes, aimed at the distant shape of his youngest son, glinted with fatherly pride.

Serguey spotted Victor lifting his arm. A man on a small Suzuki motorcycle pressed his brakes and swerved across the opposite lane, pulling up to the curve. He put his feet on the pavement while the engine idled. The visible entrails of the motorcycle seemed covered in soot or rust. The man bumped Victor’s elbow, pointing with his other hand at a large bag attached to the luggage rack. The front wheel slid limply to one side, the headlight emphasizing a grin of recognition on Victor’s face. He peered into the bag, then saddled himself onto the backseat and knocked on the man’s helmet. The man bent forward and straightened the wheel, the engine revving and clanging as he accelerated in the direction from which he had come.

Serguey turned to his father. Felipe was looking at the lobby, his hands clamped and twisted together in front of his chest.

“So Electra Garrigó?” Serguey said. “I remember you saying you’d never do it.”

Felipe unlocked his hands and smiled. “It was out of respect for Virgilio, but I got over myself.”

“You might be the best director in the country. You can do whatever you want.”

“I’ve had my fun with that.”

“I suspected you would. In all seriousness, the play was spectacular. So much energy.”

“Thank you.” Felipe kissed his oldest son on the forehead. “Get the ladies. Let’s have dinner.”

Serguey struggled not to wipe the smidge of saliva his father had pasted on his skin. “What about the actors?”

“I’ve taught them that family comes first. Besides, they see me every day.”

Serguey didn’t reply, distracted by a man who had exited the lobby and was moseying in their direction. He sneaked up behind Felipe and shook him.

“I see you’re hiding from your fans.” The man was tall and slender, his lips buried under a thick moustache. His face shone with a fine luster, which Serguey associated with imported lotion or aftershave. He wore a cream-colored jacket with black elbow patches and a striped shirt underneath. Serguey no longer felt overdressed in his own suit. He figured the man was an actor, his clothes a kind of costume.

“This is Mario Rabasa,” Felipe said. “My dramaturge.”

Serguey introduced himself. “I recognize the name. You were mentioned in the article.”

“In passing,” Mario said. “Your father got all the glory.” He leaned into Felipe, regarding Serguey with playfully narrowed eyes. “He’s not as handsome as Victor, but definitely more refined. More intelligent. I can tell just by looking at him.”

Felipe slapped the dramaturge’s stomach. “Please forgive Mario,” he said to Serguey. “He has a thing for young men, and he’s not afraid to humiliate himself and others in order to show it.” Addressing Mario, he added, “My son is happily married.”

“It’s fine,” Serguey said. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Mario widened his eyes. They were like a pair of giant marbles. “You’ve raised your children well.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Felipe gripped the bottom of Serguey’s neck, just above the collarbone, halfway between a caress and a choke.

“A few of us want to take you out for drinks.” Mario spread his arms dramatically, his hands pirouetting like a dancer’s. His shoulders, temporarily exposed, looked scrawny in the confines of the puffy jacket sleeves. He glanced up and down the street. “There’s got to be a place in this city where starving artists can invite their director to celebrate.” He dropped his arms casually. “Serguey and his wife are welcome to join.”

“Thank you,” Serguey said, “but we’ll pass.”

“I’ve already made dinner plans with them,” Felipe told Mario.

“Anabel and I have to be up early tomorrow,” Serguey lied. “Go enjoy yourselves. We’ll have dinner soon.”

Felipe protested, but Serguey insisted that it was best for him and Anabel to go home. Resigned, Felipe called the women over. He hugged them and praised Alida once more.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Serguey said to his father.

“Please do.”

Felipe and Mario headed back into the theater. Almost immediately, they had a new set of spectators. The dramaturge positioned his outstretched fingers below his ears and opened his mouth in a mimed frantic scream. Three young, drably dressed men shared an identical laugh, one of them miming his own excitement back at Mario. An older woman with dyed red hair in a polka dot dress grabbed Felipe’s elbow with the supple, confident manner of a personal guide. She picked something out of his hair, which caused Felipe to smile.

“Are we good to go?” Anabel said.

Serguey nodded, and they started down the sidewalk. The women picked up a conversation they’d been having about the play and the crowd’s reaction. He walked behind them, paying more attention to the sound of their footsteps. Home wasn’t too far away. Only nine blocks. It was best to let them relish the moment without his intrusion, enjoy the refreshing weather. Alida would be spending the night. She had left a change of clothes at their place that same morning.

Then, like a slow motion reel, Serguey watched a boy not older than seventeen bump into Anabel’s shoulder as he tried biting into a slice of pizza. Following the impact, the boy clutched his food, which jutted from a paper sleeve. Only after he had secured his late-night snack did the boy glimpse at Anabel.

No apology came. Instead he grinned and said, raising the slice above his forehead, “These aren’t free, honey.”

Anabel sneered but said nothing. She and Serguey had an implicit accord to avoid public conflicts.

Alida had made no such agreement. She said to the boy, “Are you blind or just an idiot?” With this she began to turn away from him, as Anabel had already done, but not before glancing at Serguey.

“You should watch where you’re going,” Serguey told the boy in the deepest voice he could conjure.

The boy chewed off a piece of the slice with a smirk, staring back at him. Serguey inhaled the warm, piquant smell of cheese, tomato sauce, garlic, and oiled dough. For an instant he was transported to 1986, his first memory of tasting pizza. It had been at a government-sanctioned cafeteria, the waitresses always sour and in a hurry, a legion of flies hovering over everyone’s plates.

The scent of the boy’s slice, here on the street, was much more enticing. He had bought it with convertible pesos, the equivalent of American dollars. An expensive treat.

“Don’t get mad,” the boy said, casting a suggestive glimpse at the sisters. “Looks like you’ll be eating better than me tonight.” He didn’t wait for a response—he wasn’t looking for a confrontation. He ambled away with bouncy steps, his baggy jeans exposing the elastic band of his underwear. A gray T-shirt was draped over his neck like a towel.

Anabel and Alida had resumed their conversation. Serguey allowed himself to ignore the boy, struck now by the purposeful layering of emotions when Alida had briefly looked at him. He wondered if her acting skills allowed her to manipulate her expressions in such a way. There was no layering with Anabel. At most there was subtle withholding, which he could usually decode. He appreciated and preferred his wife’s straightforwardness. Even Victor’s. His father was an adept actor himself, and that had often not been beneficial to Serguey. He knew, for instance, that Felipe’s dinner idea had been largely a performance piece, thus why he’d declined. His father’s words had a propensity for emptiness, after all. He loved to profess family unity, only to merrily scamper back to the world he truly loved: the theater.

Part of Serguey, however, regretted not having accepted the invitation. The oily aroma of the boy’s pizza had remained somewhere inside his nose. It prickled at the back of his tongue. With the family together, Alida’s debut, Felipe’s success, they could’ve splurged, having a reason to. And without Victor there, Serguey could’ve bragged about his improving situation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about the Sweden assignment—his first trip abroad—which he was on the verge of obtaining. Felipe would’ve celebrated it, even if just as a formality or segue to his own boasting. But Serguey wasn’t about to change plans, to plunge himself into the capricious endeavor of convincing Anabel to sacrifice private time with her sister. He simply hoped that they would want a full meal when they got home.

Approaching a street corner, Alida hurried to a nearby lamppost and used it to stretch her legs. They tensed and folded like malleable rubber.

Anabel said, “First a performer, then everything else.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Alida said. “This play has me thinking. I might want to be a serious actress instead of trying out for ballet again when this is over.”

The straggling voices of strangers reached Serguey’s ears: a swarm of six or seven, most likely students. They were dissecting technical aspects of the play, what they saw as the director’s brilliant artistic variations on previous versions. Serguey felt saturated, fraught with irritation. He’d suddenly had enough of his father and Electra Garrigó. He quickened his steps, catching up to the women.

“I’ve been around theater most of my life,” he told Alida. He watched her and Anabel’s expectant faces for a few seconds before adding, “If I were you, I’d stick with ballet.”