The news of his upcoming release came, like all the news from the Palace, in a little paper scroll inside a jar of peanut butter. After ten years in La Victoria—comfortable, calm, without any responsibilities other than to eat and breathe—he was now headed to the outside world, where the asphalt would stick to his soles like gum. He’d have to work now, that was certain. How would he deal with his stuff, his other lives, his businesses? He’d begged the president to do whatever it took to let him continue inside, with his little fridge, his friend, his free time. But Bona was sick and tired of waiting for the miracle that, according to Esther Escudero, Acilde was destined to bring forth. For the first time in years, he thought about Peri, Morla, and his life before he’d met Omicunlé. Bona was an idiot and Acilde had no way of explaining that he had access to the past via an extra body that was funding the research that would allow the Caribbean coral reefs to be repopulated in this shitty present.
Although the ceiling of his cell had been painted only a few weeks before, water stains had begun to reappear. In the past the humidity had allowed for the excessive fecundity that nourished the tropical jungle in Sosúa, but in 2037 it was an unbreathable and oppressive aggravation. The water stains had entertained him during nights of insomnia, while Giorgio and Roque slept. He could make out animal shapes and still lifes. He used them to distract himself during nights in the present that only made sense when dealing with other people in other times.
He got up off the floor where he’d been sleeping to check in on Iván de la Barra. They had been sharing a cell for months. He’d thought the old man, now disoriented and forgetful, would benefit from sleeping in an air-conditioned room. Later, when he saw the effort it took for him to get up off the floor, he’d given him his bed. Sleep, which Iván achieved thanks to pills his sisters sent from Cuba, gave the old man a healthy aspect that wakefulness stole away.
Acilde looked over at his little rusted fridge, at the green light from the hallway that streamed in through the also rusted cell bars, at the plastic rectangle he’d used to cover the door so the cool air wouldn’t escape, and at the bucket of water he used to flush the toilet. Now that he’d finally managed to complete almost all his plans, this, his control tower, seemed for the first time like a dirty and pathetic cell.
He waited until the sun rose. He woke Iván, shaking him a little carelessly. “C’mon, old man, get up—I need my bed.”