CHAPTER 4

The trip back to his apartment offered no consolation. With all the uncertainty, he couldn’t calculate or strategize. There was no argument or concrete plan to put into practice, no list of scenarios and he could logically consider. What Serguey had was a sensation akin to fear incessantly gnawing at the walls of his stomach. There was frustration, teetering between calamity and self-pity. What was haunting him was merely abstract, a heavy dose of Why me? Why us? As if the universe had anything to do with it.

Mostly, he felt sorry for his father. His illustrious career—his life as he had built it—could be over. At this very moment Felipe could be in a dark cell, bloodied and beaten, and here Serguey was, feeling sorry for himself, hanging on to his mentor’s goodwill, to the promise of a phone call that wouldn’t be made for hours. A stain on his record, as this had a chance of becoming, could keep Serguey from ever achieving Gimenez-like status. Regardless of what Anabel said, whatever she might convince herself of, the ramifications for them were unavoidable: the son of a political prisoner had to be doubly patriotic in a country where ideals superseded the individual, where the red on the flag superseded the red in your blood.

Serguey chose the sidewalk reached by sunlight at this hour. It would have been a perfect day to spend at the beach. It would have been a perfect day if Victor hadn’t knocked on the door. Now he would have to go see his brother, no matter what news Gimenez’s call brought.

On Paseo Avenue, he slowed his pace toward an old lady who regularly sat on a wooden chair selling roses and sunflowers out of a grungy bucket. She liked to grin, as if proud of her missing teeth, at anyone who examined the flowers for more than a second, especially tourists whose empathy occasionally led them to overpay. Serguey had never heard the woman speak, though he didn’t think she was a mute. Was it a sales strategy? If she had been a character in one of Felipe’s plays, he might have written that slinging words with her tongue—eroded by years of regrettable speech—could drain years from her waning life. Maybe this was what the occasional tourist saw, or the local men who dropped change in her hand while crooning her name, which now escaped Serguey. (If he had been asked to guess, a gun pressed to his temple, he would’ve called her Lazara.)

He and Anabel had strolled by her many times, saluting with what they thought were gracious glances. They hadn’t bought a flower, and as he lingered now by the bucket, he was embarrassed. The woman exhibited her epic smile, and all of sudden Serguey felt as if he were staring at an Orisha in the flesh, willing to forgive him for his past transgressions. (Felipe might have written this, too.) Serguey didn’t believe in saints or gods, but if help from the beyond was somehow possible, if karma was real—if in fact the universe had something to do with what was happening—surrendering to the irrationality of the moment couldn’t hurt. He fished out his wallet and picked half a dozen roses. He handed the money to the lady. She folded it into a tattered, zippered handbag, which she then placed inside her bra, above her low-hanging breasts. Serguey didn’t want the flowers for himself or Anabel. Roses would go unnoticed on a day like today. His purchase, as he intended it, was an act of goodness toward the old woman, whose skin was like a burnt raisin and whose income, judging by the floppy flowers, barely fed her. The roses were an offering, so he gave them back.

As if expecting them all along, the lady grabbed the thornless stems and, grinning again, plopped them into the bucket.

When Serguey arrived at his building, he was met by a handwritten sign on the elevator’s door: broken. please use staircase.

Was life mocking him? Should he have kept the roses?

He found Victor sitting on the steps leading to his floor. He almost laughed, as if everything on this day had been a hilariously elaborate set-up.

“What’s this?” he asked, noticing dismay on his brother’s face.

“I just couldn’t go back to the house.”

“Why are you out here? Anabel didn’t let you in?”

“I knocked and no one answered. Your neighbor said she saw them leave.” Victor rubbed his right knuckles repeatedly in the palm of his left hand. He’d done this as a child whenever he was anxious, whenever his mischief was in danger of being discovered. “Did you find anything out?”

“My boss is going to call. We might not hear from him until tonight.”

“Can’t we go to someone else? Maybe we can check some prisons and police stations.”

“Victor, if I’m going to help, I’m doing it my way. Chances are we might not be able to see Dad for a while.”

His brother thrust his hands into his pockets. “I get it. We have to be patient.”

“We have to be smart.”

Victor looked down at the stairs, then at Serguey. “Do you mind if I stay until your boss contacts you?”

“Come on,” Serguey said.

The living room and balcony were empty. Serguey called out Anabel’s name to no response. He rushed down the hall, incensed by the thought that the sisters had inexplicably left with Manny. Serguey exhaled when he saw Anabel’s beach bag sitting on their bed, her two-piece bathing suit bunched next to it.

She’d left a note on the kitchen table:

I’m taking my sister to her place. We’ll talk to her roommates to see what they know. One of them is an actor in your father’s play. I decided not to call your cell phone just in case. Be back soon. Love, Anabel.

Victor read the note over his brother’s shoulder. “That’s a good idea, not calling. That’s why I came in person.”

“This isn’t East Germany,” Serguey said. “We aren’t dealing with the Stasi.”

“How do you know they’re not listening?”

He dismissed Victor’s insinuation, crumpling the note.

Victor snatched a chair and sat. His nail biting and knuckle rubbing had been replaced by a strange calm. “I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said, “and with Dad, this could be political.”

“Why do you say that?” Serguey said.

“He’s always having people over at the house.”

“He’s done that since we were kids.”

“Yeah, but we knew those guys. Stuck-up artists talking about art and shit. Now I don’t know half the people who walk in. Sometimes Dad asks me if I’m going to be around. I didn’t make much of it until today. I just thought he wanted space to work on his plays.”

“He never told you anything about those people?”

“The old man and I live in different worlds,” Victor said. “My apartment’s separate from the rest of the house. What the fuck are we going to talk about? I mostly let him do his thing. It’s his house, and I’m always out and about anyway. I usually don’t even bring women to my place, which is a pain in the ass. I have to borrow Kiko’s guest room for a few hours, and that asshole listens through the wall. I know it.”

Serguey rolled his cell phone between his palms like an oversized die. “I thought you were more involved with Dad’s projects. You gave him money for Electra Garrigó, didn’t you?”

“I did, but I wasn’t involved. I heard him talk about not having funds for a big prop or something. He seemed like he really needed it. I had fifteen dollars with me, and I offered them. I made it sound like a big deal last night to mess with you. Anyway, Dad usually turns down stuff like that from me, but he took it this time. He gave the money to a guy who was there. Don’t know his name. I think he was a carpenter.”

“Goddamn it, Victor.”

Victor shuffled Anabel’s note against the table’s surface like sandpaper on ragged wood. “I’m embarrassed about the whole thing, okay? I know I’m supposed to be aware of what’s going on. I’m supposed to protect Dad and give a shit all the time.”

Serguey tried seizing the note from his brother. “That’s not exactly what—”

Victor slid the note closer to his body. “I have my own life. I just fucked up. People know when they fuck up.”

Serguey desisted. “I know, I didn’t—”

“I don’t need you to judge me. You think it’s easy for me to come here and ask for help? I’m used to solving things myself.”

Serguey skipped a few responses that came to mind. He simply said, “Dad was taken. That’s all that matters. Forget the rest.” He gave Victor a moment to speak further, but he appeared satisfied.

Serguey dialed Anabel’s number.

Victor shook his head. “You’re still going to call, after she told you not to?”

“She didn’t say not to. And they should’ve stayed here. It’s safer.”

Anabel didn’t pick up. Frustrated, Serguey dropped the phone on the table.

“She’s smart,” Victor said, leaving the note next to it and walking away to the living room.

Serguey thought about texting her, but he decided that, at this point, he might as well wait. He had to resign himself to a lack of control over the circumstances. He prepared some linden tea, grabbed two glasses from an overhead shelf, and stirred two teaspoons of brown sugar into each glass. He listened absentmindedly to the clinking of the spoon. He realized that the gravity of his father’s arrest hadn’t truly affected him. A son should’ve been devastated, terrified, irate. He hadn’t instinctively rushed to the nearest police station, as Victor had suggested, or the State Security offices, as he had contemplated. He wanted to believe there was no reason to panic, not until Gimenez’s call. Worst-case scenario, he thought, they shut down the play and ban Felipe from directing on a big stage again. Men of his father’s prestige rarely went to prison. The government seemed to know that stripping artists of their work—of their voice, as Felipe referred to it—was punishment enough.

Serguey saw his brother standing on the balcony, watching the city. He was wearing a pair of Ecko Unltd jeans, white Adidas sneakers, and a Nike T-shirt. He looked like so many young men in Havana, men who prided themselves in the brands stamped on their clothes, their spiky, overly gelled hair, the cell phones clipped to their belts, as if these things signified a superior ability or advantaged position—the mark of a shrewd mind, con chispa, or family in another country, en el yuma. Or both.

The sun, now somewhere behind the building, wasn’t as oppressive as it had been in the morning. The brothers sat in the balcony holding their respective glasses, which were dripping from the humidity.

Victor sipped his tea and frowned. “You should’ve put some rum in this.”

“I try not to drink alcohol.”

“You mean to tell me you have no beer in this house? No Havana Club? They have to give them out like bread at your job.”

Serguey drank his tea slowly.

Victor chuckled. “You’re worse than Dad.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got his smug attitude. But even the old man drinks beer and tells dirty jokes now and then. You’re too fucking uptight.”

“I don’t think of it as uptight.” Serguey finished his tea and rested the glass on a narrow patio table, a gift from Gimenez.

“What do you call it?”

Serguey raised his eyebrows. “Mature? Serious?”

“Boring, conceited, out of touch.” Victor delivered the words with an emphatic rhythm. He meant each one, carefully selected, and he wasn’t finished: “How does Anabel put up with it?”

Serguey allowed an instant of silence to settle between them. It was hard to deny his condescension toward the world Victor knew. Did his brother see it as contempt? For some time now, Serguey had been able to elude many of the gritty, dispiriting aspects of life in Cuba. There was the hunger and sickness and persecution, the “aspirin to cure everything” and “only pair of shoes” and “inner tube rafts” reality of it, which was no longer his reality. There was the deadpan bureaucracy, which he regularly circumvented thanks to his connections, and the endless imperialism-bashing speeches and stodgy political discussions, which he avoided by watching films and American television shows on his DVD player. There was a pervasive, deeply entrenched lack of hope in Havana. He recalled perceiving it in his teenage years, when the Special Period was at its worst. This attitude had not only prevailed, but it had gained strength. Victor was closer to it. He saw it and lived it every day. Serguey didn’t have to, not from this apartment, not in the places he and Anabel frequented thanks to Gimenez. He no longer had to buy pizza from government establishments or grungy street vendors—as Felipe had done for him and Victor—when his boss often took him to fancier lunches near the Ministry. He could treat the flower lady on Paseo Avenue as an ornament, like most tourists did, while in Victor’s neck of the woods she would be a social case, the neighbors’ responsibility. He didn’t have to hop on the back of some street hustler’s motorcycle, make a living selling stolen goods in the black market like his brother. Serguey’s ambitions, particularly after he had met Gimenez, were all branched from a singular goal: to remove himself from the Cuba most people knew, the Cuba in which he’d grown up, in which his father and brother still lived. He wanted to join his mentor’s Cuba, to have it be his. He’d begun to get a damn good taste, and now he wanted to remain.

“If you don’t like the tea,” he finally told his brother, “don’t drink it. Linden calms me when I’m nervous.”

He couldn’t bring himself to drop his armor and shield, not after years of contention. Why give Victor the pleasure of highlighting his hypocrisy? Why let himself be openly criticized, when his brother had always shown contempt for his accomplishments, an unwillingness to respect his job, to appreciate what he and Anabel had built together? It was Victor asking him for help, not the other way around. Serguey was the one with the connections, with the means to make a difference. He was the one in the fortunate position, with the imminent ability to have the city at his disposal.

And why should he negate what he’d worked so hard to achieve? Wasn’t that what most Cubans aspired to: some kind of relief from the drudgery and scarcity of communist life? He had chosen to see Havana for its beauty and enduring heartbeat: Spanish fortresses and lighthouses turned into museums; centuries-old churches and cathedrals; wrought iron gates and fences encasing colonial-era houses and courtyards; cobblestone roads leading to open plazas or cul-de-sacs, large balconies and eerie lampposts watching you along the way. There was a tropical, communal spirit that buzzed in the parks of El Vedado, in Old Havana’s narrow streets, at bodegas and bus stops in each municipality, and in almost every inch of sun-drenched shoreline during the summer. There were theater, film, and book festivals; African-themed music and costumes; children flying kites and chiringas from rooftops; old men fishing along the esplanade or playing dominoes on street corners; the unbearably loud, smoke-spewing trucks carrying resilient commuters; the ringing of bicycle bells as workers sped into and away from roundabouts and hurried home.

He didn’t dare paint this picture to Victor, however. His brother’s response would be swift: Havana was more than a romanticized collection of historical and cultural images. Serguey wouldn’t argue against this point, but he could dispute there was nothing wrong with viewing the city this way, and more importantly, that the lifestyle he had started to attain was its own form of survival. It was a triumph, in fact, deserving of respect and yes, even praise, not derision or envy or spite. It was proof that the system, for all its flaws, could produce success stories.

In admirable form, Victor chugged down the entire contents of his glass, then forced a burp. “Still tastes like crap,” he griped, putting the empty glass on the balcony’s ledge.

Serguey watched the glass as if it were a toddler at the edge of a pool. “Be careful.”

“What?”

“You’ll knock it over.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Victor surveyed the street from above. “There’s nobody down there. This neighborhood’s dead.”

“You’ll hurt somebody.”

“And they’ll put me away for good.”

“Give me the glass.”

“What if I throw it? You afraid your neighbors will file a complaint?”

Serguey jolted from his seat in anticipation. The pugilist in his brother was getting ready to unleash a barrage. “Victor, give me the glass.”

Victor grabbed it and stretched his arm into the open air. “It’ll just be a splash.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Just a little splash.”

Serguey seized Victor’s wrist.

Victor laughed wildly, surrendering the glass. “You’re one sad human being.”

Serguey ground his teeth, showed the glass to his brother as if it were a rock, and said, “I should smash it on your head.”

Victor stopped smiling. His top lip quivered with rage. He got close to his brother’s face, their warm breaths daring each other. “What I hate most about you is that, no matter what you say, you don’t have the balls to do it.”

The sound of jiggling keys and a turning lock interrupted them. Serguey moved away from Victor. The door opened, and Anabel entered.

Serguey approached his wife and kissed her. “How’s Alida?”

Anabel chucked her bag on the center table. “She’s more composed now. I convinced her not to tell anything to Mom and Dad. I don’t want them worrying.”

“Of course.”

“What did Gimenez say?”

“He’s calling tonight. Victor didn’t go home, as you can see.”

His brother waved from the balcony.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Anabel asked him, massaging her temples.

“Are you inviting?”

Serguey said, “Anabel, I don’t think—”

She cut him off: “This isn’t the time, okay?”

“All right. Did you find anything out?”

“The actors are as clueless as we are. Alida’s roommate seemed really scared. They don’t know if this is going to wreck their careers. They’re also really worried about your father.”

“I’m sure they are.”

“Don’t be cynical, Serguey. Alida cares, and I’m sure her friends do too.”

“I know she does. That’s not what I meant.” Serguey looked toward the balcony. Victor was leaning against the railing, his back to them. “You should’ve called me,” he told Anabel, his voice hushed.

She sighed. “I was just trying to be careful.”

“Don’t listen to him, Anabel,” Victor shouted without turning. “You’re smart.”

Anabel flashed a halfhearted smile. She kissed Serguey, tapped his chest, and took the glasses from him. She dipped her nose into one of them. “You gave your brother tea?”

Victor’s voice called out: “He’s a sadist!”

Serguey assisted Anabel as she reheated Gimenez’s paella in a pot. She added more rice, red peppers, and canned sausages Serguey had been given by the stockroom supervisor at work. She sautéed habichuelas and fried a few plantain slices. Their generous food supply was also a result of his boss’s kindness. Gimenez never hesitated to let Serguey get his hands on goods primarily allotted to supervisors at the Ministry. Serguey often carried boxes and bags to Gimenez’s car, already aware of what portions his boss had proffered him.

Victor was napping on the sofa, his snores audible from the kitchen.

“How’s he holding up?” Anabel said.

“Not sure.” Serguey scooped plantains out of the frying pan with a metal skimmer. “He’s edgier than usual, but so am I.”

“You’re the one who needs to keep a cool head.”

“He’s not a child, Anabel.” Serguey dug out the last two pieces of fried plantains too brusquely, hot oil dribbling onto his hand. “Damn it!” he cried. The plantains flew off the skimmer, ricocheted off his pants, and stuck like snails to the floor.

“Neither are you,” said Anabel. She fetched an ice cube from the freezer and wrapped it with a dishcloth. “Keep this against the burn. Let me finish here. Go lie down for a few minutes.”

“I’m fine. Let me clean up.”

“Go to the bedroom, please. And change your pants. Sprinkle some talcum powder on the grease stains.”

Serguey didn’t want to argue with his wife in front of his brother. He didn’t want to give the impression that there might be cracks in their relationship, especially since, to his mind, this wasn’t the case. He left the kitchen in silence, used the talcum powder as she had asked, and waited in bed, eyes shut, until she came to get him.

“Go wake your brother,” she said, “and tell him we’re eating in the living room, so you can be near the phone.”

They used faded doilies Anabel had inherited from her grandmother to hold the plates. She and Serguey ate with forks. Victor ate with a spoon, chewing like a ravenous dog.

“Love what you did with the rice,” he said to Anabel, his mouth full.

Anabel said, “The good stuff came from Serguey’s supervisor.”

“People in high places.” Victor swallowed vigorously and quaffed his water.

Serguey put on a scowl, disgusted. “Dad could never get him to close his mouth. He’s never had manners.”

“I like to savor everything. Anabel’s a wonderful cook. It isn’t my fault.”

Serguey regarded his own plate for what felt like a long time before he took the next bite.

After dinner, Victor and Anabel washed the dishes. Serguey waited by the phone, growing impatient. Outside the apartment, dusk was graining into night. Specks of white and yellow lights from the hotels hung statically in midair. They were a contrast to the unlit windows of the smaller residential buildings, windows that seemed, in an alluringly bizarre way, like hollow sockets on an ancient face. Serguey considered the possibility that Gimenez might not call. Victor would give him the insufferable “I told you so.” Their inactivity, disguised as patience, could go from wise to egregious in an instant.

Victor’s exalted voice and what he perceived to be his Anabel’s giggles mingled with the clanking of metal and porcelain. The water rushing through the faucet and spiraling into the drain muffled their words. Serguey turned on the radio, which stood behind the phone. Industriales had lost their game, suffered a 9–2 pounding to last place Sancti Spiritus. He had made the right decision not following them this season. He lowered the volume and for an instant wished that Alida were present. She didn’t know him well enough not to have faith in him as a problem-solver, as a family leader. He could comfort her. They could talk baseball and ballet and acting. Anabel and Victor’s conversation—its chirpy intimacy fueling Serguey’s envy of his brother’s talent for charm—could become harmless white noise. Instead, he was holed up, chained by inertia, gradually recognizing that they might ultimately fail their father, that Victor’s cheerful attitude and his own unwillingness to act might sooner or later reveal that they cared about Felipe only so much.

The images Serguey had been trying to suppress the entire day came at him in excruciating succession: his father in the back of a car, a gun aimed at his chest, being driven to a prison in another province; his father crying, pleading, or worse, fighting back and losing, again and again. Maybe the system had already swallowed him up into that growing darkness Serguey had labored so fervently to escape. He looked through the sliding doors at the night sky, dusky and indeterminate. The phone sat beside him, silent and useless. He was suddenly convinced that this day had established the makings of a disaster.

In the brief time he’d worked as a defense attorney, prior to Gimenez’s recruitment, Serguey had listened to more experienced lawyers, men he respected—red-eyed, half-inebriated, with loose ties barely hanging from their shirts—talk about clients who’d been abused and raped, their families threatened and shamed. One of the lawyers had said, “In Cuba, the music is so amped up, no one hears the screams.” At the time, Serguey had tuned out all of it. For a Cuban lawyer wishing to keep his sanity, the absence of first-hand experience was sufficient reason to reject the peripheral truth of his own practice. However, words that he had once dismissed as exaggeration now made him shudder. He’d been nudging that volume louder and louder.

He pressed his hands into the cushions of his sofa and watched their impressions dissolve. The apartment was silent, the water no longer running. He began to stand, but he heard Anabel laugh and Victor say, “What an asshole!” They were walking toward the living room.

As he sat back down, the phone rang. He picked it up.

“Good or bad news first?” Gimenez said.

“The good news.”

“He’s still in Havana. Calderas Prison. The bad news, it’s political.”

Serguey’s eyesight blurred. He felt as if a rock had been stuck in his throat. “What’s the charge?” he choked out.

Victor and Anabel huddled close to him, straining to hear Gimenez’s voice. Serguey raised his hand, telling them to retreat.

“I don’t have many specifics,” Gimenez said. “I was told that you should go to the prison tomorrow morning. You probably won’t see him, but at least they can give you a date and time. There’s an interview process. That’s what they’re calling it. The guy you want to speak to is José Manuel Montalvo. He’s a retired colonel who works for State Security. He was described to me as ‘not very bright, but not unreasonable.’ That’s all I got. I’m giving you an indefinite leave so you can take care of this.”

Lawyers under contract at the Ministry didn’t get indefinite leaves. If Felipe was indeed a political prisoner, he was now like a disease-carrying patient whose family had to be corralled, observed.

“Am I fired?” Serguey asked.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Gimenez said. “For now, I have to ask that you please keep my name out of this.”

“Thank you, Roberto.” The name sounded awkward in Serguey’s tongue. “For the food as well. Anabel enjoyed it.”

“I’m glad. Good night.”

Serguey hung up. He looked up at Anabel and Victor. “They have him at Calderas. It’s political, so they won’t let us see him tonight. We’ll go tomorrow morning.”

Victor scratched his head. “Not as bad as the Eastern Combine, but Calderas sucks. I met someone who did ten years there. He went crazy.”

“What do you mean ‘political’?” Anabel asked Serguey.

“It means they want to fuck with him,” Victor said.

“Or that he did something,” Serguey said.

Victor started to pace, rubbing his knuckles. “They’re messing with him.”

“It makes no difference.”

“He’s fucked. We are fucked.”

Anabel hugged Serguey.

He waited for her to let go, then stepped toward the balcony, gazing down at the city below. He was searching for inspiration, something outside the astringent air in the apartment, the buzzing of Gimenez’s voice in his eardrum.

“If it’s the one honorable thing I do in my life,” he said to himself, “I’m going to get him out.”

He had so little faith in his words, he had to repeat them.