CHAPTER 15

On Tuesday he headed to his father’s as planned. He could rely on Anabel if there was news from Linares—she would call him at a moment’s notice. He had meditated on whether they should go through with the video. It made him nervous, taking such a publicly flouting stance. Morally and practically speaking, it was the right approach, but if Linares’s involvement turned out to be effective, rendering the video unnecessary, would the risk be worth it? He concluded that they needed to act on every front. The combination of the Church, Claudia’s posts, and the video would have more impact than one thing alone.

Walking toward the house, Serguey saw his brother (from a distance, he seemed shirtless) standing on the front steps and hollering at a group of people. Serguey hurried, trying to make out individual words amidst the shouting as he got closer. On Victor’s side, below the steps, another man was facing the crowd, wagging an object at them. Serguey still couldn’t follow the dispute as he joined them, but it was now clear that Victor—clad solely in shorts, arms crossed, his muscular pectorals reddened from anger—and Norton’s son, Yunior, were calling the group rats and cowards. Yunior was shaking a rolled-up newspaper as if trying to slice the air, standing sideways against the crowd like a fencer daring his opponent.

“You sons of bitches know exactly what you’re doing,” he was saying. “Keep pushing it and you’re going to regret it.”

“Look at this shit,” Victor said to Serguey, tilting his head back at the porch.

In bright red, the word MERCENARIES had been written on the wall. Serguey turned to the group, recognizing the couple in charge of the CDR among them. The woman, whose body—awkwardly short, wide at the torso, legs so spindly she constantly seemed on the verge of toppling over—made Serguey think of Gregor Samsa. Her husband, his shirt tucked into a beltless pair of frayed pants, had a spiteful gleam in his eyes. Staring at them, an improbable question escaped Serguey’s lips, “Where the fuck did they get the paint?”

“And the eggs,” Victor said.

Serguey climbed the steps and looked into the porch. The dried up yolks had stained the lower parts of the wall in streaks. The shattered white shells lined the floor like tiny cracked skulls. It was as Felipe had said, what had taken place during the Mariel boatlift. The tactics hadn’t changed. Perhaps it was just the sight of the smashed eggs, but Serguey thought he could smell their foulness.

“When did it happen?” he asked Victor, staring again at the crowd.

“Fuck if I know,” Victor answered. “I went to see Kiko and came back to this. Yunior was waiting for me. He was passing by and saw it.”

Yunior was smacking his newspaper on a tall man’s shoulder. “You ain’t even from around this neighborhood, acere. It’s obvious you’re a mole.”

The man was wearing a blue guayabera with a pair of sneakers. His thick-veined forearms were muscular, his stance stoic like a soldier’s.

Serguey vacillated, but he felt he had to ask his brother: “Have you done anything stupid?”

Victor’s jaw protruded tautly like a growling dog’s. “No, but I have to tell you, I’m really close.” He shook his head, his eyes welling up with tears. “How I wish they would’ve tried while I was inside.” He pointed at the group. “But I’m sure it was one of these motherfuckers.”

The tall man had seized Yunior’s paper and was yanking it. “Watch it, negro,” he said. “Your granddaddy knew how to behave.”

Yunior pulled the newspaper free and put it to the man’s stomach like a knife. “I was his least favorite grandson, so that should give you some idea.”

“Why don’t you all get out of here,” Serguey said.

The CDR woman, taking two quick, unstable steps forward, said, “That’s what your family should do. No one wants you in this block!”

The small mob reacted with “That’s right!” and, Serguey thought, quite unimaginatively, “Mercenaries!”

He leaned toward his brother. “How many of these people do you recognize?”

Victor aimed with his index and middle fingers. “Just the CDR assholes. I found a guy this morning on the side of the house. He had a clipboard, said they’d sent him to check something on the gas meter.”

“Did you let him in?”

“Of course not. I chased that son of a bitch away.”

In addition to the CDR couple, there were three men and two women in the crowd. It couldn’t be a coincidence that, not being from this part of Santos Suarez, these people had magically gathered. This was a political performance, the strangers likely State Security pawns. Felipe was no longer their only target.

A strong chill rippled down Serguey’s limbs.

Yunior turned to the brothers. “It’s like a circus with these people.” He approached Victor, looking up at him from the sidewalk. “How do you want to handle it? I haven’t been in a good scrap in a while, and I’m itching for one, if you get what I’m saying.”

Serguey placed his hand on Victor’s chest. It was warm, throbbing. “That’s what they want.” He tapped his other hand against his own temple. “Use your head.”

Victor released three short, loud breaths. “Dale, Yunior,” he said. “Go home. We’ll talk later.”

“All right,” Yunior said, no judgment in his voice. “I’ll bring a bucket and sponge tonight, help you clean this fucking mess.”

They bumped fists. Yunior directed the newspaper at the mob again, then traced his neck with it to mime beheading, and strode off.

The brothers began to walk up the stairs and past the gate onto the porch. Someone in the dispersing crowd shouted, “Felipe is a worm!” Serguey paced back to the gate, flipped his phone open, and moved it slowly over the group.

“Smile for the camera,” he said.

The man Yunior had confronted said “hey” to the others, nodding for them to leave.

“Your phone has a camera?” Victor whispered.

Serguey shook his head. “But they don’t know that.”

They gazed at the door. Two splattered yolks had defaced the sections where the original paint was still holding.

“Did you count the eggs?” Serguey said. “Was it a full carton?”

Victor grabbed the knob despondently. “I don’t think so. These idiots probably kept some for themselves.”

Once inside, Serguey shut the door. “Thanks for sending your friend home.”

“I would’ve fought them,” Victor said, “but Yunior’s newspaper wasn’t hollow. He would’ve cut somebody’s throat.”

Serguey sat in the living room, waiting for his brother to dress. According to Victor, Toya was expecting them. He didn’t want the paint and egging incident to interfere. His line the previous night about needing extra time to prepare for the video had been a lie. Serguey felt disappointed at his brother’s lack of faith that he could stick to his word, relying on a lie to force his hand. They would have time that night to prepare for the video, Victor had said. Serguey wasn’t in the mood for a spiritual consultation, for the performance he’d have to put on, but there was no harm in indulging his brother, especially after the calm way in which he’d handled the mob situation. And the deeper Serguey got into helping his father, it seemed to him, the less willing he would be to meet with anyone who wasn’t part of the ordeal. This was as a good a moment as any to see Toya.

Sitting on the sofa, he caught a glimpse of a cinder block by the front door, heaped sideways against the wall. He hadn’t seen it during the house cleaning. It felt incongruous, not matching Felipe’s taste.

Victor reappeared, fully clothed.

“What’s up with the block?” Serguey asked.

“I use it to work out. I don’t have a lot of space in my apartment, so I do it here.”

“So this is your personal gym now?”

Victor sighed heavily. “Serguey, why do you give a shit?”

“You’re right,” he said, getting up.

“I’m sorry.” Victor raked his scalp with his fingers. “I’m just stressed with all that’s going on. I guess I have these people on my back now. I can’t make a move. If this thing with Dad doesn’t get solved quickly, I have to plan for the long haul.”

Serguey had heard this phrase before: plan for the long haul. It derived from their maternal grandfather, Larido, whose black market predilections were now being replicated by Victor. Felipe had mentioned, when talking about Irene’s family, how people shouldn’t be fooled by Larido’s reticent personality.

“He was up to a million different trades on any given day,” Felipe had said one morning, not moving his eyes from whatever piece of writing had captivated his concentration, which meant he was being sincere. He put a lot more attention and effort into his lies.

Serguey had seen sacks piled up high in the countryside shack where they played as children, though he only witnessed Larido discussing business on one occasion. Two men had stood with his grandfather by the foot of his bed while Serguey played in the living room with a Rubik’s Cube he’d brought from the city. One of the men’s wet, uncombed hair seemed ironed onto his scalp. He wore muddy boots, a machete tucked into his belt. The other, better outfitted and with bloated eyes that reminded Serguey of a frog, was saying, “They’ve got me by the balls, Larido.” The phrase had been permanently imprinted in Serguey’s psyche. His grandfather didn’t allow cursing in his home. Larido, however, said nothing about it to the amphibian-eyed man. He slipped an envelope inside the guy’s shirt as if it were a mailbox, stabbed at it with his fingers, and said, “If you walk out of here with that, you’re in.”

As this was going on, Estela swung in her rocking chair by the front door, flapping her handheld fan below her neck and swatting at flies. She didn’t reply when the men said their goodbyes and walked out of her front yard. In retrospect, the independence Serguey and Victor had been given to rove the countryside made sense if he put it in a certain context: their grandparents lived off illegal transactions and didn’t want the children embroiled in them. Better to explore the fields and hunt than interact with their grandfather’s business partners. Serguey made a mental note to ask Felipe about the intricacies of Larido’s trades, what they entailed, and to also learn more about Joaquin, their paternal grandfather—about his defiance and prison sentence. The large bedroom photograph notwithstanding, Felipe only spoke of Joaquin as one would of a deity: the details scarce, the tributes abound. It was up to Serguey to dredge into the trenches of his past, something he’d avoided for what now seemed too long. A person should know their family’s history, the untold secrets wrapped in one’s genes. Larido’s life could be a precedent for Victor’s behavior. His black market involvements could confer reason to Victor’s street-dealing tendencies, despite growing up in a house brimming with intellectuals and artists. Joaquin’s journey might’ve been the genesis of another pattern, continued by Felipe, presently bequeathed on Serguey. Perhaps it was all in the blood, he and Victor prone to follow different strands.

Or maybe it was all in Victor, and Serguey took more after the women.

He stared at his brother, trying to capture Felipe’s earnest tone when he’d spoken of their grandfather, and asked, “Do you need money?”

Victor found it hard to look at Serguey. “No, no. I’m doing fine. It’s just I had some good deals in the works. The timing sucks.”

Serguey placed his hands on his hips. The possibility that his brother would back out of fighting for Felipe was making his shoulders wilt. “Do you want to stay out of it?”

“No fucking way. I’m venting, that’s all.”

The certitude in Victor’s voice reassured him. “So, are you going to take me to your spiritual advisor or what?”

Victor showed traces of a smile. “After today, she might be yours too.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Serguey said, yanking his brother’s neck.

Toya lived five blocks away, in the opposite direction of Kiko’s apartment. Her home was buried deep inside a cluster of three ramshackle buildings. The one on the right had lost a large portion of its sidewall. It was now abutted by a huge blue canvas that, anchored by a row of leftover bricks, swelled and smacked in the wind. At the end of a long hall in the middle building, eggshells and chicken feathers were scattered on the ground. A pungent scent of tobacco and boiling meat emanated from an open window. Serguey peeked through the iron bars, but it was too dark to see. A sign hung from a nail on the door: bring an open heart.

“Do you think it’s meant literally?” he said.

Victor wasn’t amused. “The eggshells and feathers are for show. She charges some people for consultations. But the sign, she means.”

Victor knocked, a light rap this time, and Toya opened.

“The turns life takes,” she said and kissed Serguey. Then she directed something at Victor in Yoruba, planting her lips on his forehead. New lines had formed on her face, and she had lost a few pounds, but she still looked like the Toya Serguey remembered from his childhood and teenage years. She constantly rolled her blouse’s long sleeves, as he’d often seen her do, though they kept sliding back to her wrists.

“Godmother,” Victor said, “I hope you don’t mind the company.”

“She didn’t know I was coming?” Serguey said.

“Of course I did,” Toya said. “Your brother likes to be dramatic.”

Serguey followed them into a small room immediately to their left. It felt like the miniature version of a regular-sized home: the ceiling too low, the walls too narrow, like a barbacoa—a kind of cramped attic built inside Havana homes to maximize living space.

“Let’s do the reading first,” Toya said. “We can banter over lunch.” She looked at Victor. “I made your favorite.”

“Tortilla de papas?”

“With a bit of cream cheese. Don’t ask me where I got it.”

Victor nudged his brother’s arm. “These santeros got it all figured out.”

Toya laughed a sad, ironic laugh. “We’re the bourgeoisies of the Revolution.”

“Looks like it,” Serguey said. He was instantly concerned that his humor would be seen as tasteless.

Toya switched out her laughter for a haughty expression, making Serguey’s concern all the more real. The contours of her eyeballs, he saw, mushed into a thin layer of gelatin as she compressed the skin around them. He’d never considered that the inside of an eye was susceptible to such visible aging.

“What do you think of Santeria?” she asked.

He would offend her if he joked again, he was sure. But insincerity would insult her equally. He caressed his mouth and chin with a downward motion that ended at his chest, concealing his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

She noticed his reluctance to respond. “Do you think us mentally ill, like the government used to?”

“Of course not.”

Through a play his father had recommended, titled The Light of Darker Days, Serguey had learned that after the Revolution, Santeros were portrayed as people who spoke in strange languages and conducted violent rituals. Individuals like Toya were ostracized, turning Santería into an underground religion. In an awfully ironic decision, the supposed purge of racial discrimination in the island led to the prohibition of Afro-Cuban institutions. The government argued that it would be too divisive to officially recognize organizations dedicated to a religious culture that was mostly black. It was a blatant form of racism, but since more prominent faith-based traditions had fallen victim to the new regime’s extreme brand of secularism, the plight of the Santeros went largely ignored. However, the religion persevered. It conserved its language and idiosyncrasies, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, when everything and everyone in Cuba became for sale, it wasn’t rare to see flamboyantly clothed Afro-Cuban dancers and singers at a tourist-frequented plaza. Homes were adorned with altars of all sizes; ceremonies were carried out publicly; Santería believers attended Catholic mass on important dates, a barefaced embodiment of syncretism.

Santeros weren’t the bourgeoisies of the Revolution. They were one of its staunchest survivors.

Toya silently accepted his “Of course not” just as he had accepted Victor’s “No fucking way” earlier at the house. Her altar was straight ahead. Serguey recognized the more popular saints: Oshun, Yemaya, Chango, Obatala, Babalu Aye. He had seen similar renditions before. There was a painting on the wall—a reproduction of Wifredo Lam’s The Jungle—and a framed image of Christ bleeding on the cross, the crown of thorns haloed around his wilting head.

Victor crouched on one knee before the altar, rang a bell that was on the floor, said, “I’ve arrived,” and crossed himself.

Toya gestured at Serguey to do the same.

“Take off your shoes too,” she said.

Victor was already in the process.

They sat on a mat facing each other. Toya grabbed half a coconut shell filled with caracoles. She positioned herself at equal distance from the brothers, her knee bones cracking as she lowered herself and looked at Serguey.

“I’m glad you’re here for this. It was long overdue.”

She threw the cowrie shells twelve times, each instance uttering a word whose meaning escaped Serguey: “Okana, Eyi Oko, Ogunda . . .”

He couldn’t figure out whether it was really part of the ritual. Was she attempting to seduce him into believing? Toya said nothing specific, nothing he could make sense of until the end, when she gathered the shells and placed them back in the hollow coconut.

“How do you want this? The harsh truth or the spiritual version of it?”

“Shoot straight,” Serguey said, skeptical.

She delayed her answer until he lifted his eyebrows. “Your path,” she finally said, “has just taken a detour. Like a river forced to swerve in the direction of rougher waters. And your waters are about to get exceptionally rough. Much of what you have, you’re going to lose. There’s a debt to be paid, and it’s your time to pay it. You’re going to be tumbling near some big rocks. Whether you avoid them or smash against them will be up to you. And that’s your ticket. You will have choices. You just won’t know which one’s right until long after you’ve made them.”

Serguey’s elbows were jammed into his thighs, his body tilted forward. He rocked slowly as a form of acknowledgement. Thanks for the abstractions and metaphors, he was really thinking.

Almost instantly, Toya said, “I know you don’t believe any of this. Might as well be gibberish to you. But you’re going to need protection, and you can get it through your brother. The saints are with him because he’s earned it.”

Where had they been, Serguey pondered, on every instance Victor was arrested?

“Now,” Toya continued, “the last thing I’ll share is that one of you will have to make a sacrifice. I can’t tell who. The shells won’t show me that. But it’ll be a big one.” She paused, staring at Serguey. In this light—private and unforgiving—she looked older. “Why did you come here today?”

This was the chance to speak his mind, and he would take it. “Can I be honest?”

“The saints will respect you for it.”

“I just wanted to indulge my brother.”

She leaned forward, her spine straight and inflexible like a tower crane. She took Serguey’s hands just as Father Linares had taken Julia’s. Her fingers were long, like twigs, and her skin felt chapped, like dry clay. “Your spirit and Victor’s are like magnets that repel each other.”

She stopped again to look at him, a knowing smile sprouting from her lips. The magnet metaphor was his. He couldn’t recall if he’d used it in Victor’s presence.

“How can we fight it?” Victor asked sincerely.

Toya’s eyes stayed on Serguey. “Embrace the discrepancies. See the arguments as part of who you are. The saints fight all the time.”

An unlicensed therapist, Serguey mused. A vague consultation wouldn’t be enough to persuade him. “Do they ever figure out who’s right?”

“It’s not about who’s right,” she said. “Wisdom and intelligence are two different things. The simplest man could be the wisest.”

“Can you do something for Serguey?” Victor asked. “Something to give him more protection?”

“Won’t do any good. He’s not open to it.” Toya leaned to one side and began to laboriously stand. Serguey tightened his grasp on her hands and bounced up. He assisted her, making sure she didn’t lose her balance as she got to her feet.

“He’s kindhearted, though,” she said. “Not as much as you, Victor, but kindhearted nonetheless.”

Serguey’s face flushed, incapable of evading his embarrassment. He retracted his hands.

Toya turned to Victor, pushing up her sleeves. “He dislikes being compared to you. Really gets under his skin if he’s not being celebrated as the better brother. Felipe didn’t do him any favors by being vocal about his superior intellect.”

It was obvious to Serguey that his brother had spilled his guts to Toya. He wondered if the meeting had been a set-up, a trick to berate him, to teach him a lesson. “Did you tell my father that when he visited you?”

“I told your father the truth, same as you. And he took it the same way.” She tipped her head toward the wall behind the altar. “He did give me Lam’s painting. That was nice.”

“I didn’t bring anything,” Serguey said self-consciously. “Victor didn’t tell me—”

“Not necessary.”

Victor passed the cowrie shells to Toya. She put them away in the cabinet from which she’d retrieved them, a fusty, severely nicked piece of furniture whose contours were no longer sharp. “Offerings are nice for the saints if you believe.” She grunted as she pushed the shells to the back of the shelf. “Otherwise you’re mocking them. It’s better this way. No gifts.”

“Then Dad’s gift must have offended them. I don’t buy that he believes any of this.”

“Serguey . . .” Victor said.

“At least he didn’t give me a copy of El Monte.” Toya simpered at her own joke. She approached the painting. “I love Lam’s work. I saw this one as a child at my uncle’s house. Your father had nothing but good intentions with it. He’s always been full of good intentions. They just pour out better on the stage or with friends than with his family.”

I won’t argue that, Serguey thought.

Toya walked deliberately to the entrance of the small room, halting on the threshold and facing the brothers. Despite her restrained movements, she was restive. She’d arrived at an age when the body found itself at a tipping point, a battle between rapid decrepitude and mulish resistance. Toya was doing everything in her power to be resilient.

“You know, a few of Felipe’s friends used to visit me for consultations.”

Serguey couldn’t discern if she was making small talk or implying something worthwhile. “Was Mario one of them?”

“No. Victor asked me about him too. We’ve been doing work on Mario, but he’s hard to track down. The people who came were other acquaintances of your father. The majority showed up only once. I think they were embarrassed, because they always came really late. Your father kept sending them my way. Maybe it was for the experience, or research for their stories.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Victor said. “It was only two or three guys.”

“Serguey, I’m going to sound very intrusive.” She nodded to herself. “I guess I’ve been sounding like that since you came in.”

He held her gaze. “It’s no problem.”

“Don’t begrudge Victor for today. I was the one who asked him to bring you. I thought it’d be good for him.”

He stepped toward the window and glimpsed at the wall on the adjoining building. “I won’t.” The wall was stained with dark-green mold at a height which made it seem as though the area had outlasted a massive flood. As he now considered it, the interior of Toya’s compact home had a humid dreariness, an aroma and aspect that he correlated with smeared wet charcoal. “I appreciate everything you told me. My brother believes in you, and I respect that.”

“All right.” She rubbed her palms together. “Let’s have some food.”

“Are you boiling some kind of meat?” Victor asked.

“That’s for later.” She massaged her stomach, grinning. “For the saints.”

Serguey declined the potato and cream cheese omelet, blaming a hearty lunch Anabel had made. He was repelled by the intense odor of the simmering meat and the grungy appearance of Toya’s skillet. A voice at the rear of his head murmured that he was wrong for feeling this way, that maybe it wasn’t these things at all, but rather the conversation that had transpired. Victor took his omelet to go, perhaps aware, the way siblings can be, that Serguey wished to leave.

Toya walked with them to the sidewalk. She paused under the slender shade of a lamppost and, from the breast pocket of her blouse, subtracted a cigarette. Making a megaphone of his hands, a man blasted her name from the far end of the block. He was wearing flip-flops and tattered denim shorts, the hanging white threads like piñata strings. His hyperbolic strides reminded Serguey of an ostrich. Toya’s broad smile, a cavity separating her teeth, was a sign of real elation. She kissed Victor’s forehead, sending him and Serguey on their way with another burst of Yoruba before the man arrived.