CHAPTER 9

Not long after he hung up, Serguey found himself turning the front lock and facing Alida. She had knocked so lightly that he was half-expecting an empty hallway as he swung the door open.

“Hey,” she said and kissed his cheek. A whitish pigmentation had formed in the margin of her eyes, which Serguey attributed to oversleeping. “Any news on Felipe?”

He closed the door before responding. “They have him at Calderas.”

“Is he okay?”

“I think so,” he lied, not wanting to trouble her.

The slabs of her eyelids retreated as she moved her face toward his. “Are they going to release him?”

“I’m not sure what’s next.” He momentarily caressed her arm just above the wrist to offer assurance. “But I’ll figure something out.”

She inscribed an atmosphere of hope on her features, then grasped his elbow and began leading him to the sofa. “I’m having a hard time at my parents’. I tried going back to my apartment, but my roommates are unbearable. All they do is complain.”

“Must be driving you crazy.”

“It’s exasperating.” She slumped on the sofa, same as he’d done minutes prior, sprawling her legs over the armrest. “I’m already a wreck over this whole thing.”

Anabel was still in her nightgown when Serguey saw her come out of the bedroom and plod sleepily toward him.

“The world ended and I was asleep,” she said.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Serguey said.

“I heard you talk a little while ago. Were you on the phone?”

“Gimenez.”

“What did he say?”

He glimpsed at Alida. She had burrowed her face in the nook of her right arm. “He’s holding down the fort,” he told his wife, “says we shouldn’t worry. I have a leave of absence for a week.”

“Good,” Anabel said. She kissed him on the mouth, then stared at Alida, shaking her head. “It’s like having a disabled child.” She shifted her eyes back to Serguey. “I got coffee brewing. Help me bring some to my languid sister.”

In the kitchen, she inquired about the call. “Has the Sweden assignment fallen through?”

“No,” he said, perhaps too assertively. “State Security did ask about me, but Gimenez took care of it.”

She regulated the fire in the gas burner. “What are you going to do?”

“About my job?”

“About your father.”

He had to be upfront with her. “I want to help, but I’m worried that—”

“Don’t,” she said, her face mutating into a defiant expression. “You don’t half-ass helping your father.”

She opened a cabinet behind him. He slanted his head out of the way, a sugared scent (did it come from her hair or behind her ear?) stimulating him. She snatched three cups, the ceramic tinkling as she slid her index finger inside the handles and carried them like whopping rings.

The stovetop coffee pot began to gurgle, and she turned off the gas. She filled the cups, little streams of smoke twirling past the rim with a smell that seemed to expand Serguey’s airways.

“Why are you so adamant about this?” he asked her. He wasn’t questioning her motives. Rather, he was hoping that her reasons, compiled with his own, were sufficient to convince him to forget his job. “I understand we have to help my dad, but why are you so willing to give everything else up?”

She placed the pot among the two rear burners. “You shouldn’t worry about other things while you do what you have to do for Felipe. If you start weighing the Sweden assignment and your job against your dad, regardless of what happens, in the end you’ll regret it.”

“I understand, but this is my career, our apartment, our future. We can’t just dismiss it.”

She gave him a stern look. “Don’t you have a leave of absence? Use it to do what you can.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“It is.”

“I’m falling asleep!” Alida shouted from the living room.

Anabel grabbed two cups. “Get your own,” she told him.

He didn’t say much while they sipped their coffee. He wanted to ask Alida about her roommates, about their gossiping and griping. She seemed relieved to be with her older sister again. They were huddled together on the sofa, holding their cups and gazing at nothing in particular. He offered to play a movie for them on the DVD player. Yet another gift from Gimenez, though he believed that his boss had taken it from a batch of international donations at the Ministry, like many of the department directors did. Anabel said she wasn’t in the mood, but Alida went from languid to giddy, unloading her cup on the center table and rubbing her hands.

“Do you have anything that’s not American?” she asked. “I don’t like those action and special effects movies.”

“We have a few European films.” Serguey looked at Anabel. “Are you okay with that?”

“Fine with me.” She pleated the flaps of her nightgown between her legs and said to her sister, “His father got him into foreign movies when he was young. He doesn’t watch often, but when he does, they’re usually European.”

“We have Dancer in the Dark,” Serguey said. “I don’t know if that’ll be too depressing.”

“No, not that one,” Alida said. “I love that movie, but it’s too sad. I need something more uplifting.”

“How about Amélie? I also have Cinema Paradiso.”

“Amélie! I’ve heard about it but haven’t seen it.”

“Play it,” Anabel said, disinterested. “She’ll like it.”

Serguey sat on the balcony while the sisters watched the film. The French words in the background began to meld with the soundtrack. He’d looked up the composer’s name, Yann Tiersen, and asked the person at work who usually got him movies—the head of the mailroom, whose cousin managed a music and video store in Homestead, Florida—to get him anything he could find by Tiersen. This had been months ago. He’d completely forgotten about it. Listening to the music again, he regretted not having pressed his coworker. How easy it was to forget something you liked. How fleeting beautiful things could be when your thoughts were elsewhere, when daily life took precedence. He wondered whether his father had ever had such a deliberation. He must have. Artists were often hampered by these questions—about beauty and the ephemeral nature of life.

Serguey stared at the drifting clouds. The Cuban sky, he had to admit, was as blue as blue could get. Did people in other countries think the same about snow and white, forests and green? The soothing music from the movie was gone. Serguey got a sickening feeling that he might never get to see snow or a real forest, that he would live and struggle and love and die on these streets without knowing what lay beyond the water bounding the island like an electric fence. That was the true tragedy of life, he decided: to live longing for other things in a country that rewarded sameness and servitude, ruled by tyrannical cynics of a breed worse than Gimenez, where politics was in everything and everyone. A country kept alive and miraculously made vibrant by hopeless artists like his father.

There was a bout of laughter, both from the characters in the film and the sisters. If Serguey were a smoker or drinker, this would’ve been the perfect time to indulge. But he wasn’t, so he got up and told the women he was going to get a newspaper.

He picked up a copy of Granma in a container-turned-kiosk around the corner on Twenty-third Avenue. Gustavo, the scruffy-haired attendant, asked Serguey why the sullen expression.

“Not my best day.”

“I’ve had plenty of those,” Gustavo said. “Too many if you ask me.”

Serguey perched himself on a nearby concrete wall, his feet barely above the sidewalk, and snapped the paper open. There were multiple articles on an upcoming summit to be held in Havana. Fidel, now habitually named “The historical hero of the Cuban Revolution,” had already met with some officials. In the picture next to the article, his scrawny face and bristle-shaped beard seemed too large for his neck. He looked impassively ahead as a female official, her neck craned forward, held him by the elbow. Change their clothes and you had an old patient with his nurse. This had been the revered leader of the Revolution. The man adored and cursed by so many. Like the rest of the country, he had finally decayed. The stalwart symbol of Cuban communism had become a parody, and yet the system persisted in spite of him.

For years, Serguey heard rumblings about a new Cuba, about the regime’s entropy and Fidel’s rumored flagging health being a harbinger for change. But at work, he saw that after Raul was made leader, no drastic measures were taken. Even Gimenez had undergone a stressful few weeks, waiting to hear on possible reshuffling at the Ministry, an infusion of younger blood at the top positions. As it turned out, Raul didn’t want to rock the boat. Serguey wondered if the population still expected adjustments, the implementation of new freedoms, passed out like candy at a school. Or had they become irrevocably jaded, as they should be?

The sports section of the newspaper talked about the Venezuelan baseball league. Nothing of interest to him. In the Culture page, there was an article on restorations done for the next Book Fair and another on a Salsa Festival in Santiago de Cuba. No mention of Felipe, of course. Political prisoners were never mentioned in the press. In Cuba, the label didn’t exist. Enemies of the state paid by Yankee imperialism? Plenty of those. Perhaps in the artistic circles the news of Felipe’s imprisonment was not news anymore. But no one would dare print anything about it, not in a government-sanctioned publication.

Serguey flipped to the Science and Technology section. He found a column on the advancements of data collection in Latin America and the Caribbean, titled “Reducing Childhood Hunger, One Number at a Time.” A computer program had been developed by a group of Canadian computer scientists—in coordination with Cuban affiliates—that could process data to determine the precise nutritional deficiencies in certain regions. The idea was to target the kinds of food that should be delivered to these areas in order to not only treat hunger but to do so more effectively. This fascinated Serguey, the notion that a specialized field could have such large-scale ramifications. In practice, the proficiency of the computer program would be limited by the logistical, political, and legal realities of multi-national projects, the latter being somewhat familiar to him. Nonetheless, it could make a difference. What purpose did he serve? He had never bothered himself much with existential reflection, but there was no escaping it now. He needed to make sense of what he was doing, plunging into a muddy hole whose muck he might never be able to wash off.

The Sweden assignment was nothing like the data collection project. He’d be drafting small-scale documents, offering legal advice to lower-level embassy administrators. Anabel would work as a secretary. It would be a start, he knew, not the final landing spot for them, but who, beyond themselves, would they be helping? Beyond a trip abroad, the acquisition of business clothes, and personal connections (one of Gimenez’s favorite phrases), what would they gain? To do so now, with his father in prison and his brother teetering on the brink of an arrest himself, would be unforgivable. He was incapable of such a betrayal.

A horn’s blaring scream reverberated through the air. A stunned Serguey watched a bus driver poke his head out the window and yell at a man speeding away on a motorcycle. Was it the same man from the night of the play, the one with the bag who’d given Victor a ride? He couldn’t tell, but it was possible. One often saw the same people in Havana, like ghosts ensnared in a looping afterlife. The motorcycle was not a Suzuki, however. Serguey could swear it was a German MZ 250, ubiquitous in Cuba, not in the best of shapes.

“Almost hit him!” Gustavo shouted from the kiosk. “Que come mierda.”

People on the opposite sidewalk were peering down the avenue. They thrashed their arms about in disbelief, appalled by such carelessness.

A man wearing a St. Louis Cardinals cap yelled to the driver, “Good reflexes there, chief!”

The MZ’s engine faded into a distant shifting of gears. Had the accident happened, the motorcycle would’ve been crushed under the grille, the man’s mauled body landing by Serguey. He had seen enough of those for one lifespan. No sense in sitting around, waiting for another calamity to settle at his feet. He folded the newspaper under his arm, jumped off the wall, and hastened back toward the apartment. He was going to ask Alida about her roommates, about what they’d been saying. He was going to pressure Kiko to set up the meeting with Claudia as soon as he could. He was going to urge Anabel to stay on top of her mother until the meeting with the priest had been arranged. More importantly, he was going to prove to himself that he was all in.

Climbing the stairs to his floor, he heard his neighbor’s lock click. The door opened and Carmina stretched her head out. As soon as she saw him, she said, “Serguey, may I speak with you for a moment?” Her hair was a collection of small cylinders. The rollers had done their job.

“Sure, Carmina.”

She approached him as if they were about to conspire against the rest of the building. “You didn’t go to work today?”

“I’m working from home. A special assignment.”

“Ah. You must be doing well if they trust you to stay at home.”

“They trust me, all right.”

Carmina lowered her voice. “The reason I wanted to speak with you is that you missed last night’s neighborhood watch. You and Anabel have been so good about it since you moved in, I was just wondering if everything’s okay.”

“Anabel wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to stay home.” Lying wasn’t enough. He either had to show remorse or assure Carmina that he would follow protocol. “I’ll report it to the CDR,” he added. The family in charge of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution lived at the end of the street. There was one in nearly every block—civilian eyes for the authorities, sniffing out black market trades or suspicious activities in exchange for preferential treatment. Serguey had only seen his committee’s members during one of the scheduled neighborhood meetings, which Anabel usually attended.

“Oh, how’s she feeling today?” Carmina said. “I can bring her some lemon tea. I also have some cough medicine.”

“There’s no need.”

“Nonsense. I’ll bring her some right over.” She began to walk away.

Serguey clamped her elbow as delicately as he could. “Honestly, Carmina. There’s no need.”

She stopped, a note of apprehension in her eyes. “I saw Alida come in with you earlier. She’s taking care of her sister, huh?”

Serguey sighed. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really have to go.”

“Of course! And don’t worry about the CDR. I’ll report it myself. You take care of your wife. She’s a keeper.”

“Yes, she is,” he said, his back already turned.

He cooked a quick lunch while the movie ended. He reheated leftover rice, sliced an avocado, and made scrambled eggs with cubed ham. He also poured two TuKola cans, Cuba’s brand of soda, into three small glasses. Anabel and Alida were pleasantly surprised. They drew the center table closer to the sofa and asked Serguey to lay down the plates and glasses, which he’d brought in a large serving tray. He took a chair from the balcony and sat across from the sisters.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Alida said, “but this kind of lunch makes it easy to stay with you guys. I can barely get any decent food with my acting salary.”

The soft drink and the ham were indulgences. Serguey couldn’t pretend otherwise. “I’ve been fortunate at work,” he said diffidently, mixing his portion of scrambled eggs with the rice.

“Whenever you come over,” Anabel said, sitting cross-legged, her plate perched on her thighs, “we’ll feed you right.”

Serguey wondered how much longer that would be true. He didn’t say it, however, preferring not to ruin the pleasant ambiance.

“That was a good movie,” Alida said. She batted her eyes discreetly at him.

“Yes,” he said. “Funny too.”

“Amélie reminds me of my roommates, how they usually are.”

Was she simpering now? He wasn’t sure, but she was clearly trying to engage him. She waited for him to respond.

“How come?”

She snuggled back deeper into the sofa, settling into the conversation. “They’re very whimsical and happy like that.”

“And you’re not?” Anabel said.

Alida puckered her brow. “Is that how you see me? That isn’t so bad. Anyway, Dosiel, for instance, always smiles really wide and is the sweetest, most innocent guy despite being tall and strong. I’d go for him if he wasn’t gay.” She picked out two pieces of ham with her fork and slid them off the tines with her teeth.

Serguey saw an opportunity to pry. “Is he one of the people who’s been complaining?”

“Complaining about what?” Anabel said.

He realized his wife hadn’t overheard the conversation between him and Alida when she’d arrived. He swallowed his food, a sensation like heartburn thumping in his chest. “Alida told me that it’s been hard for her because her roommates are griping about what happened.”

Alida explained that it wasn’t just her roommates. The majority of the actors in the group had been inconsolable, some because they loved Felipe and were concerned about him, others because they figured their careers might be affected. Theater directors could be afraid to take them in, especially those who had a lot to lose. A rotten fruit infects the ones around it, she’d heard someone say.

“My roommates aren’t saying that,” she clarified, “but a few of the other actors are. I hear all this and end up with spider webs in my head. I love Felipe and don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”

“I know I asked you this before,” Serguey said, “but does anyone suspect why he was taken in?”

“No, but they think that Mario has something to do with it. He’s been missing since Felipe got arrested. No one can get a hold of him.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“I think he’s from Miramar, but I didn’t have a lot of interaction with him during rehearsals. It was mostly your father and a few of the other actors.”

“You have to find him,” Anabel told Serguey. “He has to know something.”

Alida chimed in, “What did they tell you at the Consejo Nacional de las Artes Escenicas?”

Serguey discarded his plate at the corner of the table. “Does he work there?”

“That’s where he and Felipe get their paychecks.”

Serguey was embarrassed for his oversight. No matter how much of an independent artist his father was, he had to answer to somebody. He’d been allotted a great rehearsal space. He’d staged his latest play at Teatro Mella. Despite his claim that he hated elbow rubbing, some must’ve been involved. There was also payroll, administrative compliance, censorship, accolades. Everything was attached—some way or another—to the government. In Felipe’s case, it was the National Council for the Performing Arts, which belonged to the Ministry of Culture.

The maddening irony was the location: the main branch was a mere seven blocks away from the apartment. He had seen it several times. A yard bordered the building, a pre-Revolution mansion that’d been transformed, like dozens of others, into a public establishment.

He was too ashamed to offer Alida a reply. With a supplicant face, he asked Anabel to take care of the dishes. He washed his hands and mouth, and checked for food stains on his clothes. He picked up his key, cell phone, and wallet and said he’d be back soon.

“Call if you’re going to be late,” Anabel said.

He promised her he would.

He walked into the council building to find the lobby empty. He fanned his head in search of someone who could assist him. He perceived voices behind doors and up the stairs, but he didn’t want to intrude, causing a bad first impression. At one point, it was so quiet he could hear flies buzzing on a crumb-flecked plate that’d been left on the reception desk.

He didn’t see anyone for fifteen minutes. At last, a couple of middle-aged men entered the lobby. One of them was holding a briefcase, the other wearing a white shirt that domed over his large stomach like an igloo.

“Excuse me,” Serguey said. “Do you know where I can find the receptionist?”

The men paused. The pudgy one stared at his companion, bewildered. The other vacillated, opened his mouth as if to speak, then raised his index finger, telling Serguey to wait. He trotted to the nearest door, opened it slightly, and uttered something unintelligible.

Turning back, he said, “They’ll be right with you.” He nodded at his companion to join him, and both men disappeared up the staircase.

A young woman emerged from the office wearing a cream-colored blouse and a lengthy brown skirt. Her hair puffed out of her head stunningly, like soft coral. A tiny hoop earring protruded from the corner of her bottom lip. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

“Yes?” she said with a smile.

“I’m looking for Mario Rabasa.” Serguey remembered Mario’s last name from Electra Garrigó’s program.

The woman’s smile dissipated. “He’s not here.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

She shuffled some papers on the reception’s desk. “Who’s asking?” Her question was sharp. She wanted him to know that she was uncomfortable.

“I’m an old friend of his.” Serguey dithered, then appended, “My father and Mario work together.”

The young woman contemplated him, as if attempting to determine from his appearance whether she could trust him. “Mario hasn’t been in for some time. We don’t have information as to his whereabouts.”

Too formal, Serguey thought. Too rehearsed. He leaned over the reception desk and coaxed his voice into an imploration. “Look, I just need an address, a phone number, anything. I just need to talk to him.”

The woman surveyed the lobby. Satisfied that no one was listening, she leaned forward herself. “The police took everything. They’ve interviewed people here. I’m not supposed to talk about Mario.” She waited a moment, and then asked, “Is Felipe Blanco your father?”

“He is.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” She threw the fly-picked plate into a trashcan, averting her eyes.

“Listen, listen,” he called to her. “What’s your name?”

She looked around again. “Vivi.”

“Vivi. That’s beautiful. Listen, my name is Serguey. I don’t want to go knocking on doors without knowing who’s behind them, okay? Just tell me who worked with Mario. Point me to the right office. I won’t mention your name, I swear.” He suggested a scenario: “I walked in. You weren’t at the reception . . .”

She began rearranging the papers again.

“Just show me the room,” he insisted. “I don’t want to make a scene.”

She released the papers and said softly, “Second floor, last door on the right.”

Serguey rapped his knuckles on the desk as a way of thanking her. He dashed up the stairs, rushed down a corridor past the briefcase-carrying man and his stocky companion, who were still chatting, and slowed down as he neared the door the young woman had indicated. He knocked, and a tall, lanky man with eyeglasses appeared.

“I was on my way out,” the man started to say, tucking his shirt in. He halted at the sight of Serguey. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

“I apologize for barging in like this. May I ask your name?”

The man squinted behind his glasses. “José Parra. Administrator in charge of Human Resources. And you are . . . ?”

“Could we speak in your office?”

“What’s it concerning?”

“Please, can we speak in private? I think it’d be best.”

“Not until you tell me who you are and why you’re here.”

“My name’s Serguey Blanco. I’m Felipe Blanco’s son.”

The man rammed his hand against Serguey’s chest. “You need to leave.”

“I just need to know where I can find Mario Rabasa.”

“The authorities already took all the information. You’d have to check with them.”

“A phone number, an address, that’s all I need. Please—”

“If you don’t leave now, I’m going to call the police.”

Serguey glared at him, tightening his jaw and fists. “My father was a colleague of yours, a respected director, and you’re going to dismiss me like this? I’m trying to find out what happened.”

“Your father wasn’t a colleague.”

“Oh, right. You’re in human resources. Where are the artists here?” Serguey started down the hall.

The man clasped Serguey’s arm. “Your father’s a counterrevolutionary,” he said, inflating the sound of the words. He wanted to be heard, Serguey could tell. He wanted to be witnessed disposing of an unwanted parasite. That would get him points with his communist paper-pushing superiors. “He tarnished this center,” the man continued, “and those who collaborated with him.”

“You’re a fucking joke,” Serguey said.

Parra softened his tone. “Do you know how long it’s going to take before we can breathe without someone listening to our breaths? State Security already interviewed half the building. Your father was beloved here. He was trusted. He was given preferential treatment and awards, and he shit on all of us.”

“Mario’s address,” Serguey said, calmer now. “That’s all I need.”

Parra ignored his plea. “Mario’s another selfish prick. I hope they’ve taken him too.”

Perhaps it was the man’s non-threatening lankiness or the petty intonation of his last words that made Serguey swing his right hand at him. There was a quick thud. Parra whimpered, bringing his fingers to his top lip. Stunned, he wiped away a pinch of blood. He widened his eyes and looked over Serguey’s shoulder at the two men, who’d been observing the exchange.

“Call the police!” he yelled with half his mouth.

The corpulent man waddled into an office. The taller one dropped his briefcase and charged at Serguey, who’d released his anger with the punch and now, spent of bravery, cringed and hoisted his forearm as if wielding a shield. The man latched on to Serguey’s arm and pulled. Parra, apparently over the initial shock, put a headlock on him.

“Sons of bitches!” Serguey shouted as they forced him down the stairs. People had already congregated in the lobby, standing to the side like a crowd at a parade. Vivi appeared to be refuging herself behind the reception desk, glancing at him with restless eyes as she wrote something down.

Approaching the front door, the man pulling Serguey’s arm said, “Let’s pin him down until the police come.”

Panicked, Serguey threw an elbow at Parra. He let go enough for Serguey to release himself from the tall man and scurry down the stairs. He ran for a couple of blocks, reminded of years before, the amalgam of flurry and distress he’d experienced while running away from the boys who wanted to see Kiko’s watch. Eventually, he looked back. No one was chasing him. He stopped to catch his breath, keeping his heart’s thumping echoes from jamming his throat. He threw his body against a wall, buttressing himself with his left palm to keep his knees from folding. Despite his fear, he was partially roused by the scuffle. He’d needed no convincing, no persuasion from Anabel, no example set by Victor: he had scolded and punched Parra of his own accord, forced himself to act instead of calculate, to viscerally take a stance.

A few minutes later, just as his breathing and heart rate began returning to normal, he saw Vivi’s abundant hair rushing in his direction. There was no one with her. He wasn’t sure if he should still flee but decided not to when she lifted her hand, asking him to wait. She handed him a piece of paper the moment she reached him.

“Call her,” she said, seizing an inhaler from a pocket in her skirt. She gave herself a shot before adding, “She should know about Mario.”

Serguey looked at the paper. There was a phone number and the name Vilma in clunky lettering. “Who is she?”

Vivi took another shot. The hiss of the inhaler prompted him to gently cup her elbow.

“She knows Mario. I have to . . .” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, then paced away from him and back toward the Cultural Council building.

He secured the paper inside his pocket and shouted a “thank you,” but Vivi didn’t turn.