CHAPTER 21

He made a pit stop at a corner café, two blocks from his apartment building. He had passed by it every day on his way to the Ministry. He never stopped for a coffee on account of the old men standing by the service window—a permanent fixture at the place. He had been tempted by their conversations, which consisted mostly of baseball games from the previous night or news of European soccer. But he had timed his eight-block trek to the office within a five-minute window, which didn’t leave much for banter, and nothing could make a Cuban man late for something like discussing sports.

As for coffee, Anabel usually had it ready by the time he came out of the bathroom.

Today, however, there was no hurry. Serguey didn’t want to appear distraught, to give Gimenez the pleasure of witnessing his explosive anger—his desperation—at the Ministry, a place where Gimenez’s minions could protect him from an unhinged, vindictive protégé. At the bottom of the contract he’d signed upon being hired, in laughably small letters, he’d read a statement similar to the one included in legally binding documents between employees and socialist companies: “It is prohibited to criticize or contradict company directors or the country’s leaders.” How glad he was to have been freed, if only symbolically, of such nonsense.

He ordered a cup and eavesdropped on the old men. Two of them were arguing Pelé’s and Maradona’s all-time ranking.

“Who got more World Cups than Pelé?” one of the men asked defiantly. “Fifty-eight, sixty-two, and seventy.” As he uttered each year, he repeatedly looped his right arm over his left and opened his hand, as if showing a card from a deck. “The only reason he didn’t win in sixty-six is that they kicked him into oblivion. In the game against Portugal, the Portuguese got away with a red card. Pelé was out there limping all game like a lame chicken.”

“Why didn’t they take him out?” asked a bald man sitting on a milk crate.

“Wasn’t allowed back then. Nowadays you get a bruise, they take you out on a stretcher.”

“I’d have to say Maradona,” Serguey said. “Best goal in World Cup history, and no one can pass like he did.”

“What do you know, young man?” the Pelé advocate said. “Were you even alive when Maradona was playing?”

Serguey took a sip of coffee. It burned the tip of his lip. He pretended it hadn’t. “I saw him get robbed in Italy.”

“How old were you then?”

“Old enough to remember.”

“You mean against Germany? Argentina didn’t get robbed. Besides, Maradona spent half his playing life doing drugs.”

“Not sure that’s true,” the bald man balked.

Serguey drank the coffee in one gulp, the heat overtaking the taste as it washed over his tongue and down his throat. He placed the cup on the service counter and said, “It doesn’t matter, anyway. When Lionel Messi is done, he’s going to be the best ever.”

His comment drew a raucous response from the men. They flung their hands in the air, wobbled their heads, and cackled. The one sitting on the milk crate jumped up and shouted, “That’s what I’ve been telling you! That boy’s a speed demon, ball attached to his feet!”

“He’s in Barcelona,” the other said. “Talk to me when he transfers to Real Madrid.”

Serguey contemplated if this would be his future: milling around with other retired men, disputing inane anecdotes and facts, pitting them against each other for the sake of entertainment and puerile pride. They were still going at it as he crossed the street into the next block. He’d been seeking a distraction, something different, trivial. He wanted his mind clear in order to face Gimenez. If not the conversation, the coffee had certainly done it. His tongue felt swollen and tender. He kept breathing through his mouth, hoping his thoughts wouldn’t stray back to what awaited him at the Ministry. He watched the familiar streets and buildings. When he turned onto Linea, he concentrated on the sound of transient cars. He had wished at one point that the trip to Sweden could yield a vehicle for himself after he and Anabel had returned. The Ministry could have assigned him one. Even if he’d had to share it, he would have been more than pleased. He could have taken Anabel and Alida to the beach himself. He could have picked up his father and Victor and taken them out to lunch.

Though these things now seemed less important, there was a dreadful feeling in relinquishing the opportunity for such future rewards. There had been a cost for doing the right thing, and it had been high.

He turned left on Avenida de los Presidentes and marched past the Ministry’s Protocol Building on Fifth Avenue. To his right, he could see the cul-de-sac split by a receptionist’s stall, culminating at the rear in a heavily guarded fence. Here, through that fence, Fidel and his advisers usually entered the complex. Minutes later, he arrived at the five-story Main Building on Third Avenue. He tapped his employee card at the door to gain access and was surprised to find that it still worked. Gimenez probably wanted him to return it in person. He saluted the receptionist and noticed that the base of the front desk had been polished: the Cuban flag, coat of arms, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plaque were starkly reflected on its golden surface. He rode an elevator to the third floor, which housed specialists and assistant directors to the Chief Legal Executive. He veered left at the end of a long hall and bypassed Gimenez’s secretary, Leticia, with a nod and a “good morning.” He knocked on the door to Gimenez’s office, rapping his knuckles below his boss’s name and title.

“Gimenez is in a meeting,” Leticia said, her pleasant tone an indication that she was unaware of the situation. She had chased after him just to be polite. A pair of blue hair clips bit into her close-cropped hair. Serguey considered complimenting her on them, but she’d never fall for it. “I’m not supposed to tell you this,” she continued, “but I think they’re discussing the first round of embassy assignments.”

She was either really unaware or proficiently merciless. “Where is he exactly?”

“Conference room upstairs. Should be done soon.”

“Can I wait in here?”

Leticia opened the door. “Go right ahead.”

Serguey sat staring at Gimenez’s desk, at the crystal paperweight, the Polynesian statue (or was it Peruvian?), the adjustable lamp. He knew that in the second drawer from the bottom, next to a stack of letters clutched by rubber bands, was a brown case garnished by a red-laced bow—a gift from a woman whose story Gimenez hadn’t divulged in detail. Inside that case was a silver-trimmed, black fountain pen. Gimenez planned to sign his contract as Chief Legal Executive with that pen, when his long-desired promotion was finally bestowed on him. He had saved a bottle of Scotch and assured his staff that he wouldn’t forget about them. Serguey wondered about the woman. Was she from another country? Had Gimenez made her up? Were the letters from her? And why a pen? As he pondered these questions, he almost smiled to himself, conceding that mystique was an important element in Gimenez’s game.

Outside, the purple-speckled windows of the Administrative and International Relations Building glinted in the sun. Serguey could see how a person beholding the world each and every day from this place could lose perspective. How the leather chairs, the computer monitors, the glass exterior, and the insinuation of freedom carried by the breeze from El Malecon could unleash an interminable bout of delusion.

“What few want to admit is that men in suits make the world go ‘round,” Gimenez had said once. “How do you think we’ve been able to keep this whole communist mess afloat?”

“Men in suits?” Serguey had numbly answered.

“Communism, capitalism, they’re just titles. The trick for us, of course, is to sell what we have a little bit more adamantly, especially to ourselves. In this country, what you say is a huge part of what you are. You say the right things long enough, you might get to do what others can’t.”

“You’re saying we have to be hypocrites.”

“Not hypocrites. Realists. There’s a difference.”

Serguey didn’t care for semantics. He didn’t care for the morality of it, either. That’s what the apartment and the prospect of travel were for—to do away with moral questions. “Satisfied stomach, satisfied heart” was the common expression. His own father’s life work was about morality, about dissatisfaction. One went to prison for that.

He did have to disagree with Gimenez on one thing: what you say is what you are. Felipe hadn’t said the wrong things, not publically, and he was still taken in. Serguey himself had played by the rules for so long. He’d been on the cusp of substantial rewards, and yet here he was, unable to salvage that future.

He heard the door handle turn behind him. Gimenez stepped in and squeezed his shoulder.

“I figured you’d be here by now.”

Serguey watched him take a seat at the desk.

“You want something to drink?” Gimenez asked, almost compelling Serguey to laugh. He took out a bottle of cognac, just like the one at his home, and two glasses from the bottom drawer. Serguey knew about those too, and the cigar box at the back of the drawer.

“No. I—”

“I’m going to level with you.” Gimenez poured the drink into both glasses. “You want to know why I betrayed you, why you’re fired, why I’m kicking you out of the apartment, if I work for State Security.” He gently pushed one glass to the edge of his desk. “You want honesty, and that’s what I’m going to give you. I’m not State Security, though yes, I spoke with them and told them you’d been aloof, acting a little strange. I had to.”

“You had to.”

“As for your being fired, I tried making a case for you. I really did.”

Serguey stared at his glass. “I don’t care.”

Gimenez undid the top button of his shirt and drank his cognac. “You were here on a contract. You were not a permanent part of the staff. That was a tenuous position to begin with.”

Serguey chuckled and scornfully bobbled his head.

“You were here because I brought you in,” Gimenez continued, “because I was trying to give you an opportunity to show these people what you could do.”

“And I was grateful.”

“I know you were, but that’s not the point.” Gimenez poured more cognac for himself and raised the bottom of the bottle toward Serguey’s glass, encouraging him to drink. Serguey didn’t move. “The boys on the fifth floor told the boys upstairs about your father. They asked me to terminate your contract. They said you’re not worth the risk.” Gimenez took a sip and stared at Serguey.

Serguey took his glass and cradled it in his hands. “What did you tell them?”

There was tension in the veins of Gimenez’s forehead, in the flaps of skin pulling at his jaw as he elevated his chin. “What would you have told them if you were in my position?”

“Definitely not what you did.”

“I told them that you were willing to sign a letter denouncing your father as a counterrevolutionary, stating that you also have nothing to do with your brother. Then, you were going to have a meeting with the director and personally share your story with him. There would’ve been a couple of State Security agents present to record it. They might’ve tailed you for a few days, just to make sure you were not meeting with anyone. Think of it as a vetting process.”

“And if I didn’t do those things?”

“State Security would have a field day with you.”

“They already did.”

His boss dumped more alcohol into his own glass, stalling. “I’m sorry to hear that. I really am.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the letter was an option?”

“Would you have done it?”

Serguey drank his cognac. It burned his already sensitive throat.

“I couldn’t attach my name to yours. Put yourself in my position. Even now, by letting you walk in here, I’m blindly trusting that you have nothing to do with your old man’s problems.”

Serguey extended his arm toward Gimenez, spilling some alcohol. “Maybe you’re wearing a wire.”

“No. I’m just trusting that you’re the same person I brought in here the first day. Had you played your cards right, you might’ve gotten an assignment in a year. That’s if they had found your story convincing. It wouldn’t have been Sweden, but you could’ve gotten there. To the Serguey I know, this whole thing should’ve been nothing but a hiccup, a stepping stone. But they say you dug deep for your father. Your name became marred, and in that case so could mine.”

“God forbid.”

“Listen kid, I love you and Anabel, but I’ve worked my ass off to get to where I am. If you were going to fuck me over, you should’ve told me, because I promise you that I can fuck you right back.”

“Like you did your previous protégés? You’ve already done that. Montalvo sends his regards, by the way. Anabel too.”

Gimenez grabbed the armrests of his chair. “You’re being childish, Serguey. And I won’t apologize for what I told Anabel. Don’t mistake my generosity for weakness. You weren’t in this for the long haul. You got sentimental on me.”

“Sentimental?”

“With your mind and personality, you could’ve gone far.”

Serguey slammed his glass on the desk. “It’s my family we’re talking about!”

“Your father’s in theater, right? Ever read the Greeks? Shakespeare? Family means shit. They always ruin you.”

“This from the man who said he’d gotten here because of family.”

“Because of my family name. I might’ve left that out. Who knows, maybe you got your father’s artistic spirit. Maybe his rebellious nature runs through your veins. That’s what State Security was worried about.”

Serguey considered seizing the glass, flinging it the way Victor had thrown the bottle from the balcony. Instead, he stood calmly and walked to the window. From this viewpoint, the city was largely neat and charming, with traces of modernity: painted concrete, rows of giant flagpoles, shiny glass windows. The snow globe effect, as someone had described the life of the Cuban bourgeoisie, a life that’d been proclaimed as extinct. To Serguey, it was clearer than ever that the world was nothing more than a tug of war between classes, the deprived being allowed insignificant victories—the false sense that unity, hard work, and integrity could counteract the political and economic systems of an oppressing force. This game had been going on not for decades but for ages. Not just in Cuba but everywhere. It’d been going on between him and Gimenez.

“I never wanted this,” he said.

Gimenez’s unbuttoned shirt exposed the white hem of a tank top. His ironed pants fell straight to his smart shoes. He was collected, orderly, with just a touch of informality. But the lines converging on his mouth—exposing a lifetime without sufficient laughter, without sufficient love—they didn’t lie. The wry smile, the protruding belly, the strange neatness of his person, devoid of a woman’s presence and energy, of children: Gimenez was a lonely man. For a second, Serguey found himself gazing at his own father, at a parallel world in which Felipe was an experienced prosecutor and Assistant Legal Director at the Ministry of Foreign Relations. A man dedicated to his work, his vision, his personal goals. Serguey found himself gazing at the driven men he’d adamantly believed he should become.

“I wanted none of this,” he said again.

Gimenez edged his chair toward him. “It won’t bring you peace of mind, lying to yourself like that.”

“I don’t know. I feel unburdened. It takes a lot out of a man to be two-faced.”

Gimenez wet his lips with his drink, then sucked them against his teeth. “All the worries you have, I don’t. The petty musings and preoccupations of the lesser man, one could say. The only way you’ll travel outside this country now is to leave it for good. Me? I’ve seen a lot of the world. I’ve dined in fine restaurants, driven nice cars, met exotic women.” He paused, took a deliberate sip, and raised his glass. “And this is as warm a companion as any.”

“That’s all fleeting,” Serguey said, “all distractions. When your head hits the pillow, that’s what counts.”

“If you want to be a philosopher, go ahead. If you want to believe that this is all a fantasy, that we take none of it when we die, that it’s unfulfilling and superficial, be my guest. If you want to believe I’m unhappy because it softens the blow, I won’t stop you. But the moment you walk out that door, you don’t know where you’re going to wake up tomorrow. You’re a suspected dissident, the son of a political prisoner. Your life here’s over. Meanwhile, I’ll still be drinking my cognac.”

The words slid off Serguey like warm water. The old man was hurt, wounded enough to become acerbic. There was pleasure for Serguey in this paltry battle of “who’s got it better?”

“They let you off the hook upstairs?” he asked tauntingly. “Because I have to tell you, if I made you look bad in any way, if I made them question your recruiting skills, that would make my day.”

Gimenez twisted the corner of his mouth into a gawky smile. “They took me off the Stockholm assignment. That hurt a little. I had to sign a statement denouncing you. Like I told Anabel, you have seventy-two hours to leave my apartment, so we can sever all connections.”

“Okay, so I’m a stain on your record. Not enough retribution for having me and my brother physically abused, but I’ll take it.”

Gimenez scoffed. “You got yourself and your brother physically abused. As for me,” he showed the number with his fingers, “three months of travel restrictions. After that, I’m going to Peru. Just need to clear an advisory board evaluation. I’ve never been to Lima, so I’m looking forward to it. By this time next year, I’ll be back in Europe. Where do you think your father will be? What about you and Anabel? Your lowlife brother?”

“Anabel and I will be rid of you, so that’s a start.” Serguey fished the keys and employee card from his pocket and lobbed them at Gimenez, who failed to catch them. “State Security is going to interrogate me again. They’re still looking for names. I think yours is as good as any.”

“They’ll never believe you.”

“It’ll get them thinking.”

“Ah Serguey, you have no idea who I am.”

“You’re a man with no empathy, a hypocrite.”

“I’m a survivor.”

Serguey remained equable as he spoke. “You’re a hyena to the lions. When this whole system crumbles, and it will, you’ll be dragged through the streets with most of your friends. There are plenty of people out there itching to get their hands on you. But until then, I’m going to be that fishbone you can’t get out from between your teeth, deep enough in your gum to drive you crazy.”

“I picked you for your guts, Serguey. Turns out you were weak. Don’t forget I was a prosecutor. Empty threats don’t scare me.”

Serguey distanced himself from the window. “Anabel was right. It’s easy to see why your sister left.”

Gimenez pouted his lips. “She let her husband ruin her life, like you’re doing with Anabel. You two should take whatever you need from the apartment. God knows you can use it more than me.”

“That was your mistake from the beginning. We didn’t need you. We used you. We took advantage. You wanted to adopt two young people, so we played the role. Anabel always found you repugnant.”

Gimenez forced a laugh.

“You’re a relic,” Serguey continued, “a limp-dicked geezer. No one will remember you or put flowers on your tombstone. If you’re okay with that, then you’re the weakest man I’ve ever known.”

Gimenez stirred his glass and glared at Serguey. “I think it’s time you get out of my office.”

Serguey didn’t move. “When I was a kid, my dad used to sit around with his friends and make fun of people like you. You were a punch line to them.”

“And where are they now?” Gimenez put his glass down and stood. “Where the fuck is your father now?”

“You’re a lawyer, Roberto, which in this country really means you’re a clerk, an ass-kisser. Like I pretended to be for you. You whore yourself to those fat Italian diplomats like a jinetera.”

Gimenez’s face flushed. He stepped to the door and opened it. “Seventy-two hours.”

Serguey took his time. “You should check on the apartment tonight if you don’t want to lose your stuff. We have no way to lock the place, and the next door neighbor is the curious type.”

He walked out of the office, bypassing everyone in his way. Though he hadn’t sensed any friction or unease when he had walked in, he now felt like an outcast, a thing to be derided and omitted. No one, he realized, would miss him. What exactly had been his function? What could he say he’d really accomplished during his time here? Leticia didn’t call after him. Neither did the other assistants. He had no allies at the Ministry, no compatriots in his struggle. They were probably glad—and if they didn’t yet know about his situation, they would be—that Gimenez’s mutt had been whipped and banished.

He glanced at the Ministry’s logo before he reached the doors and felt sick, a stranger in his own clothes. Once outside, he untucked his shirt like a child leaving school. He wanted the sun to comfort him, the air to give him a modicum of freedom. As he made to cross the street, a silver VW with tinted windows pulled out of the Ministry parking lot and rolled by. A pallid arm extended from the backseat and ditched a cigarette butt in Serguey’s general direction. It skidded on the asphalt and rebounded off the curb, close to his feet. He construed it as an act of aggression, though he had no idea who was inside the car. He quickened his pace, as if he could catch up to the vehicle, and began to head home faster than he’d come to the office.

The old men were still outside the café. This time they were debating Kasparov and Karpov.

“What about Bobby Fisher?” Serguey heard the bald man on the milk crate ask.

He kept on, shallow bursts of breath fueling his hurried steps. It wasn’t panic gripping his lungs. It was impulse, a bucking will, as if the burning of his muscles would actually lead him somewhere. He hustled under the intermittent shade of banyan trees, their sinewy tentacles excavating like snakes into dry ground. Moving swathes of sunlight shocked his eyes like a flashing projector. In El Vedado, nature prevailed more audaciously than in the gritty entrails of the city. Here, trees canopied your daily commute, brown-spined roots allowed you to keep your feet dry after a puddling rain. At the most impressive homes, clipped bushes served as front yard decoration—a barrier between the fortune inside and the outside world.

Serguey had strolled by here many times. The houses and buildings, for all their patchy decline, were often brought to life by upkeep and size. A few modern residences battled for attention with their ornate window grates, an effective combination of protection and elegance. Some had a resplendent color, it didn’t matter which—blue, yellow, pink—accentuating the baroque columns fringing the entrances. He and Anabel made a game out of imagining who lived in these impressive homes. She preferred to think that it was people like them: young, determined, lucky. Serguey believed them to be of higher standing, amply experienced, years of proper work and enviable connections boosting them forward. A number of these houses bore an arrow-shaped sign next to the door, specifying that they accommodated tourists willing to conduct cash-only transactions. As he raced by them now, he wanted to mock himself. How selective their minds had been. He’d seen rowdy children in the streets, running in packs after egging a porch. He’d seen stray dogs, splotchy and starved, neck-deep in garbage cans, growling and gnawing at each other over ant-coated bones. He’d heard the old men with nothing but coffee in their stomachs debate who and what was best in the world, a world none of them would ever get to experience. El Vedado was not impervious to poverty. As Victor had said, it’d gotten bad everywhere. But this neighborhood offered glimpses of something more, something desirable, and that’s what they chose to see, to imagine. Serguey realized that the stories in this neighborhood didn’t belong to him, just as he hadn’t really been a part of the Ministry. Maybe it was better that way, better for Anabel and him to have made up the stories. They could easily undo them now, disown them at a moment’s exhale.