CHAPTER 24

Serguey was astonished to see his father’s name in a myriad of places: blogs, online newspapers, forums, Twitter. Claudia had invested her time and money intelligently and without moderation. Questioning her finances or how she got away with her work was suddenly a source of compunction for Serguey. She had delivered what she had pledged. That was all the validation a person in her position should need. There were articles condemning the Cuban government, calling the arrest an appalling injustice. He also came across the letter written by Felipe’s colleagues. It was largely apolitical, respectfully demanding more transparency in the case, and painting Felipe as an artistic beacon and ethical man. It contained the same civil, staid tone Felipe had employed in his essays reproaching Socialist Realism. Serguey realized he’d missed an opportunity to ask Mario about those who’d written the letter, but like Claudia, their actions were enough. He assumed, in any case, that the names at the bottom were not compromised. They might not even know about Liberty Now—their display of solidarity an earnest attempt to stand by a friend. A couple of pieces detailed Felipe’s career. One quoted the infamous essays, which, as far as Serguey knew, were only available in their original limited printing. How on earth they’d gotten access to them, he couldn’t begin to fathom.

The most recent posts spoke about dialogue between Cuba’s and Spain’s governments, supposedly mediated by the Catholic Church. Discussions had already taken place regarding prisoners from the infamous Black Spring. Felipe’s arrest had poured fuel over the fire, as Linares had projected. The writing, from what Serguey could interpret, bore a heartening tone. But what exactly it all meant was impossible to know. The state could be as irrational as a spoiled teenager, unhampered by contradictions or petulant impulses. Ultimately, it was encouraging news to see that Claudia and Mario hadn’t misled him: Felipe had support, lots of it. Cuba was no longer as isolated, its people not as silenced as they’d been in past decades.

The brothers showed Kiko their appreciation by treating him to lunch. Kiko had taken them to an internet café whose manager he knew well. He’d met the man while he was a university student, spending hours in line to get his projects done at this location. As anticipated, the tab had been pricey. The manager could forgo asking for I.D., to preserve their anonymity, but he couldn’t justify missing funds. Kiko assured Serguey he’d been saving for more than a rainy day and volunteered to pay half.

“Another contribution to the cause,” he labeled it.

They ate at a paladar, a house-set, family-owned restaurant whose ludicrously French name—La Fête—had been printed on a chalkboard and mounted on an easel by the gated entryway. The seating consisted of wooden chairs decorated in colorful wrapping paper. A mushrooming canvas canopy sheltered the dining area from the sun. Under it, a Spanish translation of the restaurant’s name—La Fiesta—hung in individually fluttering letters. Through a square hatch with a miniature serving counter, Serguey could see a female cook, large-breasted and with very short hair, inside the house. She was strenuously stirring the contents of what he imagined had to be a cauldron. On their table, the sewn ridges of the plastic-enveloped menus had started to unstitch. Serguey picked at them while Kiko ordered the roast pork with congris. The brothers chose a chicken sandwich with a side of mariquitas, the lowest-priced meal available. The waiter, a dapper middle-aged man, opened a round of beers with a primly twist and poured them as if from a wine bottle.

Kiko began to talk about the rough patch he’d hit with his mother. She had developed the habit of calling him every morning to vent about Kiko’s father and how capricious the heart attack had made him. Serguey felt a pang of guilt. His friend—devoted, trustworthy, unselfish—was opening up about his family issues, and all Serguey could think—maddeningly aware that he must soon overcome this sensation if he wanted to restore a reciprocal relationship—was how distant he’d been. Serguey listened intently to his friend. As a reply, he shared how frustrated he felt every time Felipe pretended to not need assistance, to the point that he couldn’t avoid wondering if Felipe only refused their—Serguey’s and Victor’s—help.

“You’ve never seen someone so proud,” he said. “It takes a lot out of you trying to risk yourself for someone like that.”

Kiko shrugged meaningfully. “He’s your father.”

His friend understood, and Serguey appreciated it deeply, but it felt good complaining to a person other than Anabel. “Even so.”

Victor didn’t contribute to the conversation. His parents, Serguey decided, weren’t anywhere near his favorite topic of conversation. How much had he revealed to Toya? She wasn’t the type of person who would betray Victor’s trust, so asking her was useless. But Serguey now feared that, eventually, his brother could wind up as aloof as their father, as absent as their mother. He envied how candidly Kiko spoke of his own parents, and wished that he and Victor could do the same about theirs.

As they drank their beers and later said goodbyes, Serguey’s thoughts drifted until they landed, with heightened urgency, on whether emigrating to the United States was the smartest move Victor could make. He doubted that a change in locale would lead Victor on the right track. In all likelihood, he wouldn’t have his older brother by his side: Serguey himself was deeply torn as to whether he should leave, or if Anabel would be willing.

In the following days, he made a few attempts at discussing Mario’s proposition with Victor. His brother grumbled each time, disregarding Serguey’s insinuations and hastening out of the room as if compelled by some unfinished chore. Serguey centered his energy on checking in with Anabel twice a day. He gave her progress reports, and in exchange, she vented about her sister.

“Alida’s still obsessed with going to Florida,” she said with a prolonged breath. Her voice, amplified by the receiver, seemed both urgent and defeated. One of the actors in the play, she elaborated, had paid her sister a visit and crowed about an aunt in Tampa who’d agreed to get him out. “My parents overheard the conversation, which led to a late-night family debate. I can’t believe they sided with her.”

“What do you mean?” He was grappling for an approving reason, something to justify Victor leaving the country.

“They gave her the green light. They think she’s too talented to stay here.”

This didn’t help him, though he was happy for Alida. Talent couldn’t be Victor’s motive.

“I’m also worried about them,” she said.

“Your parents?”

Anabel explained that although they liked to put up a resilient front, she could see they were frail. “It’s like they’re constantly tired but don’t want to show it. Dad is always falling asleep, and he makes this weird noise, like it hurts him to breathe. He forgets things too, but Mom covers for him. When I catch her resting and offer help, she pretends she doesn’t need it, but I can see that she’s frazzled. She coughs a lot at night. Alida mentioned that she was sick a few times last year but that she doesn’t like to tell anyone.”

Serguey wasn’t sure what to respond. He had sensed fragility in their gait during the post-dinner walk in Mantilla. To mention it now, however, would validate or worsen Anabel’s worries, so he waited for her to continue.

“I guess you’d have to live with them to notice,” she said. “But I’m getting worried. They’ve aged, Serguey. I know that seems obvious, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that they seem brittle.”

“Well, they’re not alone. They have you guys.”

“Alida doesn’t even seem to care.”

“You have to give your sister a break,” he said, more as advice than reproof.

Anabel let a few seconds pass before saying he was right. She began to talk about how, although she and Serguey had grown accustomed to their own space, maybe moving in permanently with her parents wouldn’t be too bad. It would remove the trouble of having to somehow find a new place, which without Gimenez was nearly impossible.

Anabel’s comment about Gimenez demoralized him a little. His former mentor’s name in his ear rang of guilt. He wasn’t sure from the subtle shadings in Anabel’s voice, however, if she, like him, saw moving in with her parents as a significant sacrifice—and a direct side effect of his failure.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her.

“Stop.” Her voice was no longer a breath but more of a moan. “None of this is your fault.”

He couldn’t dodge his regret, for putting them in their current position. “I was supposed to make our lives better.”

“You’re doing right by your family. You won’t lose me because of that.”

What would he lose her for? Victor? Her parents? There was so much to say, so much he didn’t know. He owed so many conversations to her, to his brother, his father. He owed them confessions, apologies, reassurances. He could draw encouragement from his own sincerity, from a vulnerability he’d managed to stifle for years. He could draw even more so from theirs. But if these conversations led to arguments, accusations, denials, they could lacerate his poise, nullifying the momentum he’d been able to build. Yet, there was a persistent sensation needling him: their personal lives had become like baggage aboard a ship, and the longer the trip took, the harder it became to leave the contents untouched. Avoidance had splintered his ties to his father and brother. It could do the same with his wife. He needed to confront the knotty truths sooner rather than later, no matter how much strength or sanity what had taken place and still lies ahead might extract from him.

“I’m sorry for bringing up this thing about my parents,” she said. “We can talk about it later.”

The “later” hit him like cool seawater in a gentle wind. If he were to lose Anabel, he’d never recapture the implicitness they so naturally shared, not with anyone else.

He promised her that he would return on Sunday, after he and Victor visited Felipe at Calderas. She replied that she should have news from Father Linares by then. Everyone was depositing their two cents into the coffer.

“I miss you,” she added, as if nothing else mattered, as if everything else were implicit.

He couldn’t abstain from apologizing again.

At 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, he opened his eyes to the sundry sounds of rain pelting concrete, tin, and bushes outside the window. It was a steady, insistent shower, awash with a harmonious rhythm. No lightning or wind. The brothers had breakfast, a café con leche and some toast, without saying much. This had been the theme of Serguey’s stay. Victor’s aversion to talking about the future, about the possibility of leaving Cuba, made Serguey fear bringing up the past. He hadn’t fulfilled his promise to Anabel to discuss the peasants’ attack in the woods, how they had dealt—or not dealt—with it. The uncertainty of what they would say, of what each of them remembered, seemed to strangle the words before Serguey could speak them. And where should he begin? What could he admit to his brother that would provoke an earnest response? How should he express feelings that might not make sense until after they’ve been uttered, questioned, and scrutinized? What assurance did he have that their ordeals could be openly debated without a permanent fracture, that either of them would be able to heal?

He exempted himself by rationalizing that if his brother started the conversation, he could trust its outcome more.

Victor complained about the weather, grousing that it might ruin whatever pair of shoes he might put on.

“You can go wearing flip-flops,” Serguey said, dipping his toast.

His brother was nervous. Perhaps what Kiko told him about hanging by a thread had gotten to him. Maybe this had been the source of his caginess and evasion. They were now going back into the lion’s den. Montalvo and his men might be waiting. Felipe’s release, if it was imminent, might come only at a price. Serguey had spent a portion of the previous night going over several scenarios. He concluded that neither he nor Victor could prevent any actions taken by the authorities, so they needed to carry on, charging bulls at the mercy of the matador’s benevolence. Whatever saints Victor worshipped, Serguey hoped he’d prayed to them.

The rain continued. So did Victor’s silence as they rode the buses to Calderas. The partially flooded streets made it a longer journey than it would normally have been. For the latter part of the trip, they skipped around puddles and feculent accumulations of trash that seemed to have been excreted by the prison, as if the complex itself were an organism. A feeling of predisposition began to overwhelm Serguey. He and Victor loved their father; they had proved as much to themselves. But he fretted that Felipe’s egotism could make them feel as though their efforts had been in vain, that he’d cling to a creed of self-reliance and dismissals.

The throbbing of an engine was getting closer, and the brothers were forced to abandon the middle of the street where it was less inundated. They jumped to the sodden edge of the road and waited for a van to roll by. Its windows were fogged, unyielding to Serguey’s penetrating glance. As they resumed their walk, he was assailed by a sudden awareness: if this was the last encounter they’d have in Cuba, he wanted it to be a restoration of their relationships, a return to the roles of father and sons in the emotional sense. He wanted something from Felipe that his current circumstances might not afford him the luxury of giving: honesty.

At the prison, they encountered no resistance. The mere mention of their father’s name got them through the front desk security check rather expeditiously. They were led down the same corridor to the same room in which they had previously met Felipe, though, this time, Yenier, the guard who’d been with them, was nowhere to be found. Neither was Montalvo. The brothers sat in the room and were told to wait.

Moments later, Serguey was relieved not just to see his father but to realize, as a guard bolted the door from the outside, that they were being allowed some privacy.

“Okay, so I was wrong,” Felipe said with a labored shrug, halting Serguey’s and Victor’s approach. “So I wasn’t out by the end of the week.”

“You son of a bitch,” Victor said, his voice steeped in compassion.

They embraced their father. Felipe buried his face in his sons’ entwined arms. Serguey attempted to step back after a moment, but Victor held on firmly, so Serguey surrendered to his brother’s wish. His father’s nose and mouth felt warm in the nook of his elbow. When they finally released each other, it was evident that Felipe was weeping.

Serguey scrutinized him. He was clean-shaven, devoid of scars. His plush hair had been trimmed to the skull. His fingers twitched, as if involuntarily playing a piano. The month in prison hadn’t been as calamitous as Serguey had expected. There was no alarming pallor, no attenuated body, no signs of rapid decay. The haircut gave Felipe a hardboiled look, inharmonious with his personality.

“I’m not much of a crier,” he said, wiping his tears.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry,” Serguey said.

They took their seats. Felipe snuffled and brushed his eyes. Victor appeared enraptured by his own relief that their father was fine.

“You’re looking better,” Serguey said.

Felipe raked his thorny scalp. “About a week ago, they gave me a spa treatment. They said the hair had to go because of lice. They even had Montalvo’s personal barber spruce me up this morning.”

“Did they hurt you again after the pepper spray?”

Victor put a stop to the conversation with a hand gesture, then swept the other hand across the underside of the table.

“I don’t think there’s a wire,” Felipe said. He looked at Serguey. “They interrogated me and slapped me around a few times. The first couple of days after you saw me, they had a prisoner take my food, making a scene out of it. But it never got worse than that.”

“I don’t think you’ve lost any weight,” Victor said.

This wasn’t true, but Serguey appreciated the spirit of Victor’s assessment, so he stayed quiet.

“They’ve been bringing me better food,” Felipe said.

Serguey said, “It’s like they’re grooming you.” He hoped it hadn’t come across as a reproach. He meant it as an invitation for his father to be frank.

Felipe lifted his hands but not his wrists, as if they were cuffed to the table. “They haven’t said it, but I suspect I’m on my way out.”

Victor banged his fist on the table and grinned, a premature celebration in Serguey’s view.

“Why do you think so?” he asked.

“They transferred me to a cleaner cell and have been letting me outside when all the other prisoners are gone. Montalvo even had a guard take me to his office for a smoke.”

“Did you tell him what he wanted to know?”

“What’s the difference?” Victor said to Serguey, suddenly disturbed.

“Some of what’s gone on in here, I’m not proud of,” Felipe said solemnly. “At first I didn’t want to accept the idea that I’d have to leave the country. But I think I’m ready. I was about to delve into the tail end of my career. Maybe now I can do the kind of work they’re accusing me of.” He looked at his sons with inklings of a smirk. “Or maybe I’ll just work at a bookstore in Madrid, if that’s where they send me. One of those really old shops with the spiral staircases and the smell of damp wood.”

“Dad,” Victor said, “don’t start sounding fucking senile.”

Felipe seemed rapt by his daydream. “Maybe you two could work with me.”

Victor grimaced and shook his head at Serguey. “Have you ever seen him like this?

Serguey shrugged.

“Prison really broke you, Viejo,” Victor said.

Serguey found his brother’s disappointment endearing. Their father’s mawkishness was a farce, the sort of trait a director would give a character. His smirk had been haughty and premeditated: the practical aspects of his future Felipe had already worked out.

Serguey dragged his chair closer to his father and whispered, “We talked to Mario.”

Felipe refocused his attention on his sons. “What did he say?”

“He’s leaving. He invited us to go with him.”

“You should do it. We could all reunite!”

“What about the house?” Victor said.

Their father sighed a lungful of air. He seemed to shrink in his own skin. “Let them have it.”

“We can’t just give it up!”

“The house was never really ours. In this country, nothing is.” Felipe’s pupils contracted as he reclined back, recoiling further into himself. “I know how they treat family members of accused dissenters. Did I ever tell you about Cabrera Infante?”

Serguey was familiar with the story. One of Cuba’s best writers, Guillermo Cabrera Infante had supported the Revolution and worked as director of the Film Institute and editor of a communist magazine. But then his brother made a documentary about Havana’s decadent nightlife, which didn’t sit well with Fidel because it showed the kinds of behaviors El Comandante was trying to eradicate in the new Cuba. As logic went for these things under the communist regime, Cabrera Infante was banned from publishing due to his brother’s mistake.

“He was our Joyce,” Felipe said, “and they forced him into exile.”

“What about grandpa’s things?” Serguey said, resisting his father’s digression. “Did they tell you what they did with them?”

Felipe pretended to gaze out of a nonexistent window. “We’re not getting them back.” He leveled his gaze on Serguey. “Would Anabel go with you?”

Serguey squinted and blinked, trying to rein in his frustration. His father was once again shirking a painful conversation. “We haven’t discussed it.”

“How is she? How’s Alida?”

“They’re back at their parents’.” He hesitated, then said, “State Security went after Alida, and Gimenez and I had a falling out.”

Felipe closed his eyes and nodded. “I’m sorry.”

A series of trotting steps reverberated just outside the room. Serguey heard what he identified as Montalvo’s voice, howling, “Where did they put him? No, I don’t care about that. Where did they put him?”

They all looked to the door, Serguey’s heart beating faster. They waited until the sounds subsided and eventually died out, somewhere far-off in the building, before trusting that they wouldn’t be interrupted.

“It’s fine,” Serguey said, alluding to his father’s expression of guilt. “Alida understands this isn’t your fault.”

“It’s somebody’s fault.”

“Mario said he was sorry too. He’s convinced that you’re going to be released.

“He’s a coward,” Victor said. “How could you trust him?”

Felipe aimed his finger curtly at Victor. “Mario’s not a coward. There’ll come a time in your life when compromising decisions won’t be as black-and-white as they seem when you’re young. Now you feel untouchable because there’s always tomorrow. For Mario and me, that window’s shrinking. No one’s trying to be a hero. It’s too late for that. We’re just not built for prison.”

“Who is?” Serguey said.

“The man who took my food, he’s been here eleven years. He doesn’t seem to mind it. There’s a curious enjoyment in his face, like a child who gets punished for torturing lizards and is right back at it the next day. He doesn’t know what else to do. The second time he snatched my plate, I made him fight for it. He spilled the food on the floor, then slammed me against the wall. I think I made his day.”

“You didn’t eat?” Serguey said.

“I’ve subsisted days on end with nothing but cigarettes and rum, especially when I was writing plays.” Felipe twirled his index finger and raised his eyes, as if something were drilling into his brain. “You get lost in the writing.”

Victor said, “I thought about bringing you cigarettes, but these assholes would confiscate them.”

Felipe squeezed Victor’s arm. “That’s okay. What I’ve missed most is talking to other artists. Chatting with Montalvo wasn’t the same. He’s not intellectually bright. But one’s own head isn’t a fun place without stimulation, so I appreciated being able to discuss theater.”

Serguey chuckled. “With Montalvo?”

“He did his best.”

“Well, it is your favorite topic.”

“That’s a good dig. I deserve it. Can I be honest though, without getting too sentimental?” The curtains had gone up, and Felipe had walked on stage. “Do you know what’s kept me calm in here?”

Serguey held off as long as he could before asking, “What?”

“Your mother.”

Victor’s head sunk meekly, hopelessly. Even he knew what was coming. “Dad, don’t do this now.”

“In another life, we would’ve had a wonderful marriage.”

“You don’t get another life,” Serguey said, bringing his index finger down on the table. “You get this one. And mom isn’t here anymore.” He signaled at himself and Victor. “We are.”

“Right after that asshole killed her,” Felipe continued, “I seriously considered ending it all. That was another period when I didn’t eat for days. I drank a lot. I wanted to go to the trial and stab him. I know,” here he cracked a smile replete with agony, “how very Greek of me. When you and Victor were brought back, I realized I had to straighten myself out. But instead of relying on you two, I plunged into my work, surrounded myself with friends. Eventually it became a habit. You boys were there, in the periphery, but I could never bring myself to pause and really see you. I just kept going.”

Victor’s ears burned red as irons in a fire. His lips were pursed with an accretion of ire and sorrow. Serguey beheld his large frame as if he were staring at his gaunt little brother, the boy who’d crushed the butts of his father’s cigarettes with his bare feet so he could wake Serguey with the stench from his soles. Serguey wondered whether Felipe knew that Victor had done such things, whether they were part of the memories he had of their childhood. Irene would’ve known. She would’ve remembered. Serguey also wondered whether his father had noticed that Victor had never, not once, spoken his mother’s name after she’d been killed.

“You were suicidal?” Serguey said. “You were a wreck?”

Felipe swallowed. His mouth quivered, but he composed himself quickly. “I’m not good at this.”

“But you’re very good at talking about yourself.”

“Serguey,” Victor said. “Forget it.”

Serguey puffed his chest, prideful and hurt, disappointed that his fears and predisposition had been confirmed. “I’m happy that you’re going to be released, and I don’t fault you for what’s happened. But the past, our childhood, our mom, that’s my and Victor’s world. It’s our territory. You chose not to be in it, to keep us in your periphery, like you said. One confession of guilt isn’t going to do away with it.”

“You’re right.”

“And to do it here, in this place.” Serguey braided his fingers together and wrenched them as he would a rope, the tension creeping to his teeth. “Do you know how much Victor and I have had to put aside—to avoid talking about—in order to do what we’ve done out there for you?”

Felipe overlapped his arms on top of his stomach, as if repressing the onset of a stomachache. “Montalvo told me about your arrest. He said only one Blanco will slip through his fingers.”

“Serguey,” Victor repeated, “forget it.”

The noises outside reappeared, this time as a congregation, bottling the silence inside the room. The voices were hollow and gulping, like water slopping out of an overflowing bucket, slithering away from the door. Serguey kept his attention on his father. Felipe was deflecting, hoping to steer the course of the conversation elsewhere. Maybe it was part of the witticism—his ability to seamlessly deflect—that made him a favorite among his friends. For the past few weeks, he’d been generating demons with whatever he had divulged to Montalvo. His own sons were now an inescapable extension of his actions, the type of collateral damage one mourns for a lifetime. Serguey had to believe that, despite everything, his father was capable of that type of regret.

Victor directed his hands at Felipe while looking pleadingly at Serguey. “We might not see him again.”

His brother was right: in many ways, this meeting could be a farewell. He quietly skipped a handful of seconds, avoiding his father’s gaze until he spoke. “I don’t know what Montalvo told you, but you’re an international phenomenon.”

It took a moment to register, but Felipe couldn’t resist his own sense of importance. His lips began to shape a smile, which he swiftly suppressed, and murmured, “I’m some phenomenon, all right.”

Serguey tried lugging him away from the shame he’d experienced, provoked by Serguey’s berating. “Some theater people wrote a letter demanding your release.”

Felipe gave a slight nod. “I bet I can tell you exactly who was involved. Vilma and José Angel.”

“I met them in person. They came by the apartment to show their support.”

Felipe extended his arms across the table, his fingertips forming an arrow. “I am grateful, Serguey, to both of you.”

Victor grasped his father’s hand. Felipe remained patient until Serguey did the same.

“I’m going to demand that my family be permitted to leave with me,” he said.

“Don’t get cocky,” Victor said. “If you fuck up your release, I won’t forgive you.”

“You take what they give you,” Serguey said. “We’ll figure out the rest.”

Felipe cuddled their fingers. “I’m proud of you.”

Somewhere in the complex, a scream prowled through the halls like an aftershock. It reached the room with the urgency of a siren. Footsteps rushed again in an unidentifiable direction. Serguey dreaded that their visit might be arriving at its end. He leaned forward and asked, “Will they come after Mario?”

Felipe shook his head unconvincingly. “I believe we’ll all be reunited again somehow. Maybe then we’ll be able to fix things.”

“Are you going to be okay if they send you to Spain?” Serguey asked, anxious that they hadn’t dedicated a suitable amount of time to the logistics of imminent exile.

His fear materialized when a guard opened the door and barged in.

“Time’s up.”

“So quickly?” Victor protested.

“Time’s up,” the man repeated, as if these were the only words he’d ever pronounced. He clutched Felipe’s shoulder.

“Stick together,” their father said, standing. “Whatever happens, you stick together.”

As he was hauled out of the room, Serguey was glad to see Victor hold his temper. In Calderas, they would never have a say.

They plodded away from the complex under a light rain. A fraction of sunlight had perforated the clouds somewhere behind them, making the wet surface of the street iridescent, like a mirage. They refused to open their umbrellas. Victor’s shoes were caked by a mixture of mud and sand. The umbrellas hung at their sides, beads gliding like quicksilver down the folded canopies toward the metal tips. They didn’t speak until after they had taken the first bus back into the city. They stuck around a state-managed cafeteria for lunch. The name, Las Alegrias, was painted in jovial cursive on a dirty wall behind a crummy counter. They settled on pan con croqueta and mango juice, Victor’s treat. As they ate, the aproned server, perched on a high chair next to the register, ran a nail file between her fingers like a violin bow. At the opposite end of the counter, a man with cratered skin and a red Levi’s T-shirt gaped at the sparse menu on the wall, next to a picture of Che Guevara smoking a cigar.

“Do you think the old man ratted people out?” Victor asked Serguey.

“Does it matter?” Serguey’s sandwich bread was so dry, it disintegrated onto his paper plate. The croqueta stuck to the ceiling of his mouth with every bite. “Are these made with chicken or glue?” he told the server.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Honey, the prices here are in Cuban pesos.”

Serguey didn’t respond. He had been probing for a distraction. It pained him to see Victor ashamed of their father, especially since they had been in a comparable situation and had stayed quiet. He swallowed his juice as if it could intoxicate him—as if it could drown Calderas and his own childhood from his mind—and spoke no more of Felipe.

The man at the end of the counter gave up on the menu choices. He whistled at a child who was tracking a lizard in a knot of naked bushes, and they both walked past the brothers. As soon as Victor looked ready to go, Serguey told him that it was best to part ways. He was going to Mantilla to spend the night with Anabel and find out what Father Linares had said. He warned Victor that he was to stay at the house until they had unqualified confirmation of Felipe’s release. Victor didn’t argue. He peered at the bushes where the boy had been playing and sullenly nodded at his brother’s decision.