CHAPTER 22

Anabel was sitting at the kitchen table with Victor. From the living room, Serguey perceived smidgens of a conversation about Anabel’s parents, something to do with their respect for privacy. He suspected that she was making a case to Victor for Serguey and her to move to her folks’ home. She had no clue that he had come ready to propose the same plan, with a small caveat.

He gave her a peck on the cheek and settled next to her. By the nearly empty glasses of water in front of them, he could tell they’d had lunch.

“Your food’s on the stove,” Anabel said. “Victor prepared it, so brace yourself.”

This was precisely why he’d married her. She had no proclivity for drama. The way she had taken care of Alida and remained even-keeled with Gimenez—through his cunning advances and offenses—Serguey could do nothing but admire her. But he needed to rid himself of his former boss’s specter, like removing the bandage to a mending wound. He shared with them what he had told the old man. He underscored limp-dicked geezer, relic, and clerk. He was proud of the bullets he’d fired.

“You should’ve let me go with you,” Victor said.

Anabel batted her eyes dismissingly. “You don’t mess with Gimenez that way. And definitely not at the Ministry.”

“It’s over,” Serguey said. “We’re done with him.”

She waited for him to eat his food—an onion omelet with homemade French fries—before she dove into her proposition: they could move in with her parents, taking over her old room. They could try finding a job through the Church once Felipe’s ordeal was over. “Something low-key,” she said, “to avoid the authorities.” She assured him that her parents would welcome their presence.

There was also the possibility of finding some kind of an occupation in the countryside, since Mantilla was not far from Mayabeque.

“I can find you some contacts out there,” Victor said.

“We’ll have to see,” Serguey said.

His grandparents had been peasants. Maybe he had retained some of it in him; maybe he could make it work, build a new life for them. He would have to speak to Victor about the regrettable incident the day they had gone hunting for birds, as Anabel had advocated. He couldn’t return to a place marred by such bad memories. It would be like inheriting Raidel’s house, the site of his mother’s death. Even Felipe’s house, as he’d told Victor, was no longer his home.

He pressed his thumb on the tines of his fork, catapulting the handle like a seesaw. The metal clanked on his plate. “I told Gimenez we’d be out of here today.”

Anabel smiled, her relief palpable. “Victor, you’re helping us pack.”

Victor flexed his arm. “I don’t do any heavy lifting.”

“You’re in luck,” she said. “The furniture is Roberto’s.”

They spent the early part of the afternoon cramming their possessions into travel cases they’d inherited from Anabel’s grandparents and two large backpacks Serguey had been given at work. Victor kept checking with Anabel what belonged to Gimenez. The furniture, television, refrigerator, DVD player, most of the ornaments and decorations around the house, the silverware—it was all his. Victor insinuated that she should take a few things. It felt embarrassing to Serguey. How tragi-comical it must’ve been to his brother, seeing to what extent they’d been living someone else’s life. Everything had been a charade, a loan, a favor from a contemptible man. Whatever possessions Victor could claim, they were truly his own. There was pride in that for a person.

Anabel combed through the apartment, looking for anything of theirs that might be left behind. They would not return, regardless of what might be lost. Victor lugged the travel cases and backpacks to the living room, piling them up to get an idea of how much they had to carry. Serguey perused his work papers—the ones State Security hadn’t seized—shredding anything that could be used against him later. His briefcase, which he’d bought right out of law school, felt awfully light when he was finished. His palms had grown accustomed to the undulating shape of the handle, which fit him like a knuckleduster. He’d heard the click of the latches day after day. These rituals had provided him with a sense of grandeur, of importance. In truth, he’d been a kid playing house.

As children, whenever he and Victor pretended to be adults, Serguey was always a superior to his brother: a bodega manager and his employee, a surgeon and his assistant. Serguey had memorized military rankings to make sure Victor was always beneath him. He even learned the difference between Brigade and Division General. But those games didn’t last long. Victor grew bored quickly. He didn’t enjoy fantasizing about being older as much as Serguey did. He was perfectly content with marbles and spinning tops. If he had to be an adult, he preferred games involving guns or swords. On the day they’d gone hunting, Victor was the one shooting the birds. Serguey just gave directions as to when and where to shoot.

As he disposed of all the torn papers, a loud banging at the front door stopped him. He impulsively shoved the papers to the bottom of the trash and slipped the briefcase under the bed. He rushed down the hall, overwhelmed with the sensation that he would no longer be able to hear a knock without expecting the worst.

Victor asked, “Who is it?”

The muffled voice outside the door said, “Alida.”

Victor turned the lock, and she shambled in, dropping a hefty canvas bag by his feet. Her lips formed two small bubbles, like a child holding her breath, stifling tears. She bypassed Victor and clung to her sister’s neck.

“I can’t take this!”

Anabel grabbed Alida’s elbows and tried, as gently as she could, to move her sister back. She cradled Alida’s chin and said, “What happened?”

Alida sighed, avoiding Anabel’s inquisitive eyes. “They came to the apartment and went through everything.” She made as if to weep, but with the intractable aplomb of an actress, she summoned up the strength to continue. “They interrogated me and Dosiel. They said they’d already talked to the other actors in the play and demanded to know where Mario was. We kept saying we had no idea, but they wouldn’t leave us alone. They asked what we knew about Felipe, if we knew we’d been working with a counterrevolutionary. We denied everything, but they didn’t care. They threatened Dosiel with prison, told him that negros belong in the Eastern Combine or Oriente.”

“What did these guys look like?” Victor asked.

Alida stammered, “I . . . I don’t know. They looked like civilians.”

“Was one of them fat?” Victor insisted.

She narrowed her eyes in an effort to recollect. “Maybe.”

Serguey approached Alida but looked at Victor. He brought his index finger to his mouth, warning him to say no more.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Alida. “They’re just trying to rattle you.”

She corralled his body in her arms, the top of her hair brushing his Adam’s apple. “What am I going to do? I can’t sleep knowing they can show up any time they want.”

He wanted to tell her that he empathized. He glanced at Anabel, whose grim expression he couldn’t exactly read. “I think you two should go to your parents’ house.”

Anabel crumpled her eyebrows. “You’re not coming?”

Serguey discharged himself from Alida’s grasp. She went to her sister, nesting her head on Anabel’s shoulder.

“I can’t leave Victor by himself,” he said. “Not now.”

Victor said, “Are you joking?”

“These people are putting an all out offensive. If we split up and you get arrested, what then?”

“And what if they take you both?” Anabel said.

“We can watch each other’s back,” Serguey said. “I fucked up with my dad. I’m not doing it with my brother.”

Victor remained silent. Tears fogged his eyes, his face enveloped by an implausible susceptibility. He swallowed before he spoke. “Serguey, I appreciate—”

“There’s no debate,” he interrupted. “I don’t know if it’s the best decision, but it’s the right decision.” He told Anabel that he wanted to be there for her and Alida, but he and Victor had to finish what they’d started. “You’ll be fine with your family. Let State Security worry about me and my brother, with you and Alida out of the picture.”

“Why can’t we all stick together?” Alida said. It was evident in her spirited voice that she’d come with her own agenda. Before she could present it to the others, it was already disintegrating.

Anabel’s face was still grim, still indecipherable. “Okay,” she said, her voice a wisp of smoke. She wasn’t accepting defeat, simply demonstrating loath agreement. “I can handle myself. Let’s get everything out of here.”

Serguey kissed her forehead, grasping at her hands. She tendered no reaction.

“Good thing you came,” Victor said to Alida. “We have a lot of stuff to take.”

She didn’t care for Victor’s crack at humor, but after a nudge from her sister she began listening to his instructions as to what she should carry.

Serguey walked assiduously to the far end of the apartment. He scanned every room, recording one final mental image of the place. There was no atmosphere of solitude or incongruity, as one often senses in emptied homes. Instead, it felt too familiar. He wanted to be repulsed, besieged by a compulsion to leave. At the very least, he wanted to be indifferent. But he could see in Anabel’s eyes that it pained her to lose the apartment, that there maybe was an entrenched feeling of entitlement simmering in her. She had cleaned and cooked and fought and slept and fucked in this place. She had dreamed in it. She had been motivated and patient. Serguey revered her willingness to give it all up for the sake of his family’s well-being, but it broke his heart to snatch away what for a while they called theirs, and which in Cuba they would surely not regain.

He thought of a few things to say, but nothing seemed to suffice, so he chose to take this final walk as a silent, ceremonious act.

Anabel shattered his presumptions when she said, “I understand your wanting to stay with Victor.”

Perhaps she hadn’t been paying attention to the apartment after all. Her pain was associated with a different kind of loss.

“If I don’t follow through,” he said, aware of what he had asked of her, “if I don’t stick it out with Victor to the end, I’m going to regret it, like you’ve told me.”

“I know.”

This time she took his hand, and they returned to the living room together.

“This one’s impervious to tragedy,” Alida said to them, pointing at Victor, halfheartedly attempting a joke of her own.

The group departed from the apartment burdened by the weight of the various bags, cases, and backpacks. As they passed Carmina’s front door, Serguey stopped and yelled, “We’re going to miss you, Carmina!”

Almost immediately he heard a scuttling, then a faint thump, then more scuttling, like a mouse behind a wall. She still didn’t dare open her door. The sound of their laden steps ebbing lower and lower was proof enough for her final report to the authorities.

They trudged out of the building to nearby Linea Avenue. They waited for one of Victor’s friends, whom he had called the moment Serguey and Anabel agreed to leave the apartment. The man, nicknamed Carlitin, packed his delivery minivan with the couple’s belongings. Anabel sat on Serguey’s lap in the passenger seat. Alida and Victor rode in the back.

Carlitin spent the trip to Mantilla gushing about how he’d gotten away with using the minivan, which belonged to a state-sanctioned bakery, for personal errands and a side business he’d recently arranged.

“No more running around in my uncle’s motorcycle,” he said happily, as if everyone in the car could appreciate precisely what this meant.

Serguey stared at Carlitin—assuming him to be the mysterious man in the Suzuki from the night of the play—and saw no mystery in his features. He was a hustler like his brother, using all the tools at his disposal.

The business, Carlitin explained, consisted of erasing boxes of bread and pastries from the books and selling them to independent restaurants, the paladares. His manager at the bakery was in on it, so he felt buoyant about the whole enterprise. The quality of the food was exceptional, Carlitin assured them as he would a potential customer, since the bakery delivered mainly to pre-approved tourist locations. As they neared Mantilla, he made a pitch to Victor, gloating that they were looking to expand the delivery routes.

Victor laughed off the proposal. “I’m too hot,” he said. “I’m like a spark on a dynamite fuse: you set me on the wrong course, shit will blow up.”

After arriving at their destination, Victor took Carlitin aside for a short chat. The two men slapped hands and bumped shoulders, animatedly nodding their heads. Carlitin began to drive off a half-minute later, saying “Good luck!” out of his window.

Prior to entering Antonio and Julia’s house, the group agreed to behave as naturally as possible. The conversation was aimed at Alida, whose hands were now shaking. Victor’s effort to lighten the mood at the apartment hadn’t worked, not for long. She kept gnawing her nails as if playing a harmonica. Serguey asked her to say nothing specific about her experience with State Security. There was no reason to worry her parents more than necessary. She waggled her head a tad too enthusiastically for him to trust her.

Julia seemed disconcerted when she opened the door. She struggled to smile and said, “But . . . what is this?”

Anabel hugged her. “We’re setting up camp.”

Julia craned her neck to catch a better glimpse of the bags. “All of you?”

“They told me the food’s good here,” Victor said.

Julia looked at Anabel, pitifully confused.

“This is Victor,” Serguey said. “My rude younger brother.”

Victor gave the woman a kiss. “I was my parents’ favorite, so you can understand why I’m so spoiled.”

Julia laughed nervously. “Look at this one,” she gestured at Alida, “spoiled with the best of them.”

Alida’s mellow reply was, “Hey, Mami.”

They filed inside, the hefty bags forcing them to stand far apart in what was a narrow living room space. Serguey saw that poor Julia didn’t know quite how to react to this abrupt siege. Her eyes darted from person to person, not sure whom to address, what to say. Serguey looked across from him at the woven three-chair back settee, the seats sunken and frayed like an inverted hat. He didn’t feel confident asking everyone to sit. Antonio’s chair was out of the question. Standing stiffly between the TV and the round center table, on which stood a green vase teeming with sunflowers—Julia’s favorite—Serguey was confronted by the reality that invading his in-laws’ household made them not only irrevocably complicit but collateral damage of his homeless misfortune.

Anabel’s and Alida’s Quinceañera portraits presided over them from the wall, perched high on either side of their bedroom door. The contours of the photographs had a dreamlike, bluish hue. The sisters’ features doddered between childhood and womanhood, marking their history in this place, their attachment to those who, day after day, looked at their images with fond remembrance. He and Victor were intruders, desperate men whose roots belonged elsewhere. Out of deference, they refrained from speaking until one of the women did.

Julia finally placed her hand on Alida’s neck, then her forehead. “What’s going on with you? Do you have a fever?”

“She’s fine,” Anabel said. “We’ll tell you more in a bit. Where’s Dad?”

Julia was happy to change the conversation. “Limping his way through town. He’s been complaining that his legs are cramping, so he wanted to stretch. He’s probably arguing and cursing with the bodeguero about last night’s game.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard Antonio curse,” Serguey said, his stab at allaying the mood.

Julia shrugged. “Baseball does that to him. He confesses it on Sundays.”

Victor said, “If I ever had to confess to a priest, I don’t think he’d stay in the booth.”

“It’s called a confessional,” Alida said, her eyelids drooping from apparent exhaustion.

Julia squeezed Victor’s shoulder. “What a bragger. You should be more modest, like your brother.”

Serguey raised his eyebrows and dipped his head toward Victor. Don’t say anything stupid, he was trying to communicate.

Victor smiled broadly at Julia. “Yes, I should.”

She told them they could put the bags in Anabel and Alida’s bedroom. Serguey was taken aback by the tidiness. The piles of clothes he’d seen in previous visits were gone. The foldable closet door was shut all the way, no boxes spilling from it. White-and-green patterned crochet blankets covered the grooved and slightly slanted twin beds. Had Julia suspected they’d be returning? She began telling stories about the sisters fighting over the same toys, about Anabel hiding under the bed to clutch her sister’s ankle while barking.

“I don’t know how many times this poor angel came crying to me,” she said of Alida, “terrified that there was a vicious dog under the bed.”

“Wow, Anabel,” Victor said. “You have an evil streak in you.”

“She’s as harmless as a little hamster,” a lilting voice said.

The group turned in unison to the room’s entrance. Antonio stood with a haughty grin and set gaze so undeviating that it appeared mortared on his face.

“We didn’t hear you come in,” Julia said.

“The next door neighbor told me he saw the youngins, so I slipped in through the back door. I wanted to see if an old limping man could still sneak up on people.”

Anabel and Alida each snuggled under their father’s arms. Antonio stared at Victor. “Who’s this, Alida’s boyfriend?”

“No,” Victor said. “She won’t accept my advances.”

“Good for her.” Antonio shook Alida gently. “I raised her right.”

Serguey said, “Antonio, I think we should go to the dining room and have a talk.”

His in-law’s grin thinned into a pained smile. “We should.”

Antonio and Julia had been expecting things to develop just as they had. They intuited that State Security would get involved beyond Felipe’s case, badgering family members and friends. Antonio revealed that he’d spoken again with Father Linares. The priest warned him that even he and his wife might get a visit from the authorities.

“The good news,” Antonio said, pulling up his afflicted leg and folding it over the other, “is that Felipe’s situation has gotten traction abroad.”

“The Father told you this?” Anabel asked.

“He said not to get your hopes up too much, because in the end it’ll be up to the government. But whatever can be done, it’s being done. They’re in talks already. Father Linares has faith that a resolution might be near.”

“I appreciate it,” Serguey said. He regretted not having asked Claudia if she’d heard about the Church’s participation. To believe that the wheels were in motion while being unable to actually witness it required—Serguey thought ironically of himself—more faith than Linares could ever claim to have.

They arranged for Anabel and Alida to stay. Julia said that if they all needed to move in permanently, including Victor, they could make it work. She insisted that the brothers stay for dinner.

“When life’s going badly,” she said, “it’s best to cherish every second with loved ones. God rewards unity in times of plight.”

The brothers couldn’t find it in themselves to reject her invitation. It was especially difficult for Victor, who had caused an impression on Julia. She mostly directed her attention to him when she spoke, and she blushed when he told her she had a beautiful, caring family, which no doubt had to be because of her. She’d never reacted to Serguey’s praises in quite the same way.

The sun had splayed purple-tinted rays behind a series of clouds above the horizon. Serguey, Anabel, Victor, and Alida were sitting on mangy wicker chairs in the backyard, engulfed by the darkening air of twilight. Julia was toiling in the kitchen after having refused any help. Antonio was taking a lengthy shower. It was moderately quiet here, near the edge of Mantilla. A child’s overwrought screams during a game of marbles, a dog woofing and chasing after a cyclist—these were the only sounds reaching them. Antonio and Julia’s next-door neighbors had owned chickens at some point. The birds occasionally stole under the fence and scoured for worms in Julia’s yard. She didn’t mind except for the droppings. Antonio had strategically positioned cinderblocks along the fence, deterring the chickens from passing. Eventually the birds disappeared, and now that Serguey thought of it, he’d never asked his in-laws what’d become of them.

He was happy to see Victor reclined, his eyes bolted, his legs extended and crossed at the ankles. His brother, almost supine, emitted the kind of serenity only the overly confident or utterly naïve possess. He had a switch, as if he ran on batteries, and at this instant he was recharging. Anabel had cupped Serguey’s hand in hers. Alida was transfixed by the horizon—perhaps a look she hoped to one day replicate in her plays—inviting an audience into her inner world, while a part of her remained elusive. Felipe had selected her for obvious reasons. The story on Alida’s face, although fascinating, wasn’t complete. It made it that much more enticing.

Anabel didn’t have as broad a range of emotions mapped on her countenance. What she did have was the kind of grit Serguey often lacked. And he found splendor and comfort in her fortitude. He cuddled his wife’s hand and smiled to himself. She nodded slightly, not looking at him. He began concocting something to say, but Alida beat him to the punch.

“I’m more sure than ever that I’m leaving.” Her eyes were wide open, as if daring the sun.

Anabel released Serguey’s hand. “Don’t start again.”

“She’s right to feel that way,” Victor said. He spewed the words so delightfully, they seemed to have been bursting in his mouth like ripened fruit.

“Victor, go back to sleep,” Anabel told him, a drop of venom in hers.

“We all know you like to be the master puppeteer behind the scenes.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Victor sat up straight. Serguey had a hunch that it’d go downhill from here.

“It means you like telling my brother and your sister what to do. If Alida wants to leave, let her. She’s an adult. I’m out there on the streets every day, and let me tell you something, there’s nothing out there for her. With my dad’s problems, she’s tainted. Sorry, Alida, but it’s true. What happened today with State Security won’t go away. Do you think she’ll be able to rehearse and do shows with that on her conscience? Do you think the people she works with will just ignore that?”

“Lower your voice,” Serguey said.

“What do you know?” Anabel said to Victor, shifting her body toward him. “You’re in no position to give advice or opinions.”

“Then how come you were telling me back at the apartment that you wished Serguey could be more like me?”

Anabel’s features became infected with the same venom that’d been in her voice. She stared dolefully at Serguey. “That’s not what I said.”

Victor said, “You like manipulating people, Anabel. It’s the truth.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Serguey asked his brother, though the real question in his mind was, what had happened during lunch while he’d been at Gimenez’s?

“Nothing, I just hate it when one of you two tries to be condescending or dismissive with one of us. We may be younger, but we’re not stupid. We know what we want.”

“He’s right,” Alida said. She’d found a stronger ally, someone she could identify with. “Victor and I are emotional people, but that doesn’t mean we’re immature or irresponsible.”

“You think he’s a responsible person?” Anabel said.

“Who got us here today, huh? Who took us to the restaurant the other night?”

“We’re all mature,” Serguey said, maintaining a composed tone and spreading his arms. “We’re all capable of making our own decisions. It’s just instinctive for an older brother or sister to be protective, same as parents. It’s a weird fucking dynamic, but we have to learn to navigate through it. If we start fighting now, then everything goes to shit. And that’s the real truth. We want to act mature? We focus on what needs to be done and deal with ourselves later. There’ll be plenty of time to sit around and blame each other, and that’s if we’re lucky. So let’s relax, enjoy the food that Julia’s preparing, do what we have to do, and we can talk about leaving or staying or who is what later.”

“You would’ve made a great judge,” Victor said.

Serguey glared at him. “You can be such an asshole.”

They avoided conversation over a supper of rice, red beans, chicken thighs, and tomato salad. The scheduled blackout hit right on the dot, as Antonio liked to say, mocking the government’s efficiency at ruining dinnertime. He positioned two kerosene lamps and a few candles around the table. Everyone’s face, partially eclipsed, bore a devious aura. They spoke only to praise Julia’s cooking. Antonio talked about how his daughters would be safe as long as he had a say in it. He went out of his way to thank Serguey and Victor for taking care of them.

“They’re the ones who take care of us,” Victor said, which made Anabel frown and Julia beam.

Anabel ordered a grouchy Alida to help their mother with the dishes, then led Serguey to her bedroom as Victor immersed himself in small talk with Antonio. She didn’t bother to bring a light, as if the darkness of the room gave them more privacy.

“I didn’t tell your brother that I hoped you could be more like him.”

“It’s fine.” He paused, struggling to make out her features. He desperately hoped that no irreparable fracture was erupting between them. “It’s always been awkward between the three of us, and maybe that’s how it’ll always be.”

She looked down and tapped her feet. “I feel like crap.”

“Me too. All this tension brings out the worst in people.”

Anabel kissed him. He held her close, beseeching his mind to always remember how warm she felt against his chest.

“You make sure to call me at least once a day,” she said. “If I don’t hear from you for more than forty-eight hours, I’m going to assume you were arrested.”

He concurred. “We’ll be careful. Try to go with your parents to church on Sunday, maybe speak with Linares. We need to figure out where my dad’s situation is headed, if we need to prepare for a long battle.”

“Of course.”

“And don’t fight with your sister. Let her decide what she wants. It’s not like she can leave tomorrow.”

She sighed. “I can’t promise anything.”

“I’ll take that. And no playacting as a dog under the bed.”

That extracted a tender laugh out of her, which he also entreated himself to remember.

The brothers chose to take public transportation back to Santos Suarez, even if it meant not getting home for a few hours. Victor didn’t want to call in any more favors in case they required them in the future. Serguey carried a cumbrous backpack with enough clothes for a handful of days. They rode on the bed of a truck, which for ten pesos took you into the city. They were bounded by a collection of swarthy, anguished faces, looking under the starless sky and frigid wind like an artist’s rendition of the dead. The truck swayed and rattled, pitting bodies against jagged metal. It stopped every few kilometers, loading the bed with an interminable number of commuters, cramming the brothers within arm’s reach of the cab roof.

Straining his words versus the noise and drastic quaking, Victor attempted to speak about what he’d said in the backyard, specifically about Anabel. Serguey shut him down.

“Save it for another time,” he said during a stop. “Call Kiko and see if we can drop by tomorrow. I need him to give me Mario’s number. And I don’t want us to rely so much on Claudia. I want to see for myself what people are saying on the internet about Dad, and if any of what she said is actually true.”

“So now you don’t trust her?”

“It’s not that. We have to be proactive. We got nothing else to lose at this point.”

Victor’s eyes wandered with purpose, as if seeking his own reflection. “Just the way I like it.”

That night, the incongruity Serguey had experienced sleeping in his father’s bed gradually dissipated. Anabel’s absence made the mattress feel colder, gratuitously spacious, but otherwise he felt recognition of something regained, akin to what he’d undergone while cleaning the front of the house. Fidelio Ponce de León’s absent painting watched him from the wall (he could still picture it clearly). The heft of Joaquin’s photograph, also absent, hung above his head like a ghost but didn’t unsettle him. Maybe if he concentrated, he could hear Irene’s voice somewhere in another room. This was, after all, his childhood home. After his former boss’s treachery, it was best to see the apartment as a suite at some remote hotel. Such a perspective softened the loss. If he and Victor were to lose the house—if this were yet another price to pay for helping Felipe—Serguey would have to add it to his bag of burdens. Tonight, however, he wanted nothing beyond being enveloped by the singularity of a familiar sensation. He slept well, dreaming of Victor and Kiko working the fields at a youth labor camp. Serguey repeatedly told Victor to go home, that he was too young to be there, but Victor refused, saying he was going to sell all the tomatoes they could pick.