Mona and Other Tales (8 page)

Behind the carts
crammed with big-bellied women, the thunder of horses' hooves;
behind the horses, the honking trucks, then the bicycles, and after,
thousands of people on foot. And above everything, the great dust
cloud that rises and comes down, settles and comes up again as if
exploding, enveloping us. Ahead and behind us, up above and
below, everywhere, is this huge cloud of dust raised by the cavalcade.
And I kept you company when you were at your post, though you never lent me your rifle again. We did the same guard duty, and we talked. Like this. Day after day. After day. “Look at this photo,” you said. “It's my mother, poor thing.” “Look at this photo,” you said. “It's my girlfriend; I'm really going to get her good as soon as I get out. I've been here eleven months, just think what a dry spell!”
Ahead and above,
below and behind, the great dust cloud. And now this singing. An
anthem. You're singing too. And I pretend to be singing, though
I'm not. We keep sweating a lot.
I'd been there just over a month when forty-eight men and seven women came down from the Sierra. All covered with mud, exhausted after the long walk. You and I bring them water in canteens. Then we all wait for the arrival of the captain. And for his speech. “My dear people,” he says, “we cannot admit any more rebel soldiers who come with nothing except goodwill. We need rifles. Without rifles we cannot accept anybody.” Rifles! Rifles! You leave your post for a moment and we walk down to the coconut grove, where there is some shade. We crouch. We pick some mallows and begin to eat them. We stay there for a while. But not long, because I can't stay in the camp and you have to return to your post. “I'm leaving,” I say. When we are both standing you reach under your shirt. “Take this,” you tell me, and hand me a knife, sheath and all. “Go to Holguín and knock off a novice soldier. Get his rifle, and come back here.” I don't say anything to you. I don't thank you. It's late. I come down from the Sierra and get back to Velasco. At dusk I leave for Holguín. “You dig it in,” you said.
From out of the dust comes the sound of a transistor radio above the ruckus. The voice from the radio, the anthems.
The big news. The dictator fled: it has been confirmed. There is a
list of those who escaped. A list of those arrested. Shouts of “Viva.”
Great uproar. The Pupo sisters burst out laughing. A horse rears,
threatening to kick some women, who move aside, screaming. And
we are already in Atejón. In five minutes we'll be in Holguín.
I wait until midnight before going into town. I knock on the door. “Who is it?” Grandpa whispers behind the closed jalousies. “It's me,” I say. “It's me.” He opens the door very cautiously. “Boy,” he says. Behind him, my mother, wrapped in a bedsheet; and Grandma. Both are screaming; both cry as they embrace me. The sheet slips, Mother is almost naked. “Hush,” Grandpa whispers. “Hush, we're going to wake up the neighbors.” “Oh, my boy,” Mother says, and keeps hugging me. I manage finally to get untangled and push her away. And on my feet, in the middle of the living room, I start talking. “I just came back to kill a casquito, get his rifle, and go back to the Sierra.” And I take out the knife. Then, for the first time, I draw it from its sheath and look at it, dazzled. Its brand-new blade glimmers. It has a horn handle and a daunting edge like a switchblade. My mother screams, and shrinks back in the rocking chair. “You're crazy,” Grandma says. “You think you're already a man at fourteen. Enough nonsense. Get to bed.” Grandpa comes up mumbling, trying to take the knife away. But I jump quickly and evade him. I reach the front door and run out. “Don't shout,” I hear Grandpa saying. “They are going to burn the house on account of that fool.”
The caravan of bicycles goes by, pushing us aside again, lifting the
dry, dusty soil; some have flat tires and are being carried on shoulders or dumped on the oxcarts loaded with women and young men.
One of the Pupo women is calling out for her son, who got lost. We
hear the strumming of a guitar; the singing continues. The parade
is spectacular. The third bottle of Paticruzado reaches us. Sweaty,
we keep marching close together. Your moist arm touches mine,
already soaked.
A casquito is on guard duty, standing in front of the electric plant. He moves once in a while. He walks from one side of the metal entry gate to the other, shouldering his rifle. He whistles. He goes to and fro. He stands still. Then the casquito looks around, and, slowly, I keep moving closer. At times I furtively reach back to feel the knife still there, under my shirt. The casquito is wearing very shiny boots; he's strong and slender under his tight khaki pants. He seems to be a very light mulatto, though I cannot see him very well in the darkness. I keep getting closer. The casquito is very young. I cross in front of him, stop at the other corner, and look back. I think he's also looking at me. I continue walking. I stop. I go back. Now, a bit closer, I stop again and look at him. He also looks at me. We have been eyeing each other for a while. Now he walks by the large gate from one side to the other and faces me. He teases me. Perhaps he thinks I'm gay, and that I am just leading him on. He takes a few steps toward me. He whistles. Goes back. He faces me and again scratches himself. He keeps whistling. I remain on the corner, looking at him for a while. Finally, I start walking home. I knock on the door. Now it's way past midnight. Nobody asks who it is. The door opens, and there again is my mother, wrapped in the bedsheet. She hangs around my neck. “Oh, my son,” she says, “you're crazy. Give me that knife. Don't you see you are the only thing I have.” Still crying, she puts her arms around me. In the hallway I see my grandparents, motionless. They look alike. My mother keeps talking to me, and I think how ridiculous her words sound. And seeing her like that, embracing me, all teary-eyed and saying so many silly things, I feel like punching her. But I don't. And even though I don't know why, I begin crying too.
Throngs of people, and then the frightened dogs, barking, rolling in the dust, and yelping when people thoughtlessly kick
them. And the creaking of the oxcarts, the clip-clop of the horses,
the drone of the trucks. The bicycles disappear on the dusty road.
And you by my side, still shouldering your rifle, your uniform
soaked and covered with dust. You talk. And talk. And talk. A
woman comes up to you and gives you a salacious smile. You keep
talking and I try to listen to you. Once in a while I catch myself
feeling for the knife under my shirt. We are entering the town
already. “You damn son of a bitch,” shouts one of the Pupo girls
when someone pinches her bottom.
I spend a day under the bed, hiding. “Don't make him any fried eggs,” Grandpa says. “The noise might give us away.” In the evening Uncle Benedicto parks his car in front of the house. My mother quickly throws a towel over my shoulders. Grandma traps me under an old hat. Mother and I climb in the car, which starts moving without the lights turned on. The car takes us to Atejón. “It's dangerous to continue in the car,” Benedicto says. “Either the casquitos or the rebels could stop us, even take the car away.” And now the boring peregrination with my mother. We go to Arcadio's, to Guilo's. Anywhere we know someone. One day here and another day somewhere else. Anyplace where we can get some food. Until finally, after a lot of my mother's pleading (I never once opened my mouth to ask for anything), I manage to get to my aunt Olga's. And I stay (while Mother goes back to town), and carry water and firewood for Aunt Olga, working all day long to pay for my bed and board while hiding from the police. At times, when I'm taking the empty water cans to the brook, I begin to sing. And one day I spent some time fishing for
pitises.
And once, night was catching up with me while I was still at the brook. I then took out the knife you gave me, which I always carry beneath my shirt, and started looking at it. I slid my finger along the edge—was it ever sharp. And I stayed for quite a long time there, handling it, and whistling, not very loudly, under the
cupeyes
by the brook. I got back very late. My aunt was impatient. That day only half of the water cans were filled. But the following day I filled them up. And the next. And the next. And the one following. Always like that: filling those water cans. Here on this good-for-nothing hill, where you can't see any rebels and you can only hear the distant shooting. And I wonder how's your life in the Sierra. And I keep carrying water. Going to and coming from the brook; sometimes I bathe in the water hole; and sometimes I try catching pitises just for fun; sometimes I whistle a lot. And sometimes I think it would be best to . . . And here in the water, with my pants rolled up, I am just doing some thinking when I hear shots. Nearby shots. And then the rumble of crowds of people approaching and the shouts of “Viva!” And I drop the water cans, and start running down the savanna toward the main road. “Batista fled!” I hear at the gate of the Pupo sisters' farm, and the crowds start to come. And there, my clothes in tatters, I run with the crowd on the way to town. Right behind me are the people from Guayacán. The bicycles appear. An oxcart crammed with women is coming down the hill very slowly, following us. We're going past Cuatro Caminos, and that's where we meet our first group of rebels. They are coming from Velasco on foot, shooting in the air, shouting,
“Viva
Cuba, cojones,”
and lots of other things. You are with them. I call out to you at the top of my lungs. As soon as you see me, you abandon your group and come running. You throw your arm around my shoulders, and begin talking.
Flags and more
flags. Front and rear. High and low; in the arcades that suddenly
spring up in the streets; on the telegraph poles at the first wide avenue; hanging from the laurel trees; on the doors and windows of
every home. Scattered on the ground. Tied to a long series of ropes,
and flapping in the wind. Flags. Thousands and thousands of flags,
hastily set on remote corners. Red rags and black rags. Colored
papers. Papers, papers. Rags. Because we are already entering Holguín. And all of us below the flags. And everybody is hollering.
Shouting vivas. Singing. And ahead of us, tied to mops and broom-sticks or any kind of pole, flags fluttering. And cars blowing their
horns nonstop. And all the boys from the hill on one side of the
road, watching us pass by. “There go the rebels,” someone shouts.
“There go the rebels.” And now everybody flocks to you. And the
whores from La Chomba and Pueblo Nuevo approach you. And
one of them touches your face. “But look how young he is,” she
says. “He doesn't even have a beard.” And you look at her and burst
out laughing. Flags. Flags.
And suddenly there is loud noise, louder than before, and shouts of “To the execution wall! To the execution wall!” The people are shouting, “They caught a Mansferrer Tiger!” and they all run toward the center of the commotion. The rebels try to prevent the lynching of the henchman, and run to protect him with their rifles. An old woman goes up and manages to hit him. The crowd roars. They ask for his death. The henchman says nothing. He simply stares ahead. He seems to be in a distant world. And we continue advancing along the avenue full of flags. Until, ahead of us in the middle of the street, a tall, thin woman appears, all dressed in black. She's the mother of one of the henchman's victims. The woman stops the group. “Please, I beg of you,” she says, “don't kill him, don't kill him. Punish him, but don't kill him!” Shedding profuse tears, she keeps pleading. But all of you, and all of us, start walking. The woman is being left behind, in the middle of the street full of flags. We get to a children's playground. Someone has fixed the town's power lines, and the lampposts light up. All the radios are blaring now with the latest anthems, which I had not yet heard. A group of rebels take the henchman to their headquarters. You stay in the park, surrounded by people. The women from La Chomba offer you cigarettes. They take you to a bench and begin asking you questions. You talk, always smiling, always showing off your rifle, but you don't allow anyone to touch it. I keep watching you. The crowd around you is growing by the minute, asking you questions, offering you praise. I raise my hand. I try to say good-bye, to tell you, “I'll see you around.” But I can't get close enough. You are surrounded. It seems they are about to carry you on their shoulders. Now the military marches are louder. Near me, someone is mocking them at the top of his voice. “Viva, viva,” some raggedy boys shout from the top of the fountain with the turtles. I am making my way on one side of the park, where the crowd is thinner. It is night already. I hear the first rockets. Suddenly the sky explodes in fireworks. I turn on Diez de Octubre Street and reach my neighborhood. Everybody is very excited; some of my neighbors greet me enthusiastically. I rush to get home. My mother and my grandparents are on the porch, waiting for me. The three of them embrace me at the same time. “Son,” they all say. I go in. “You must be starving,” Grandma says. “Can I fix you something?” “No,” I say. And I sit in the dining room. Right then, Tico and Lourdes come in. “Hey, big man,” Tico tells me. I shake his hand and hug Lourdes. Over the radio, which Mother has just turned on, a woman recites a patriotic poem. The anthems keep resounding in the streets. And now Grandpa comes in from his produce stand, carrying a red-and-black flag with a big number 26 in the middle. “Say, young man!” he says, and hands me the flag. “Go out in the street with it,” Mother tells me. “All the neighbors are waiting for you.” I stand there for a moment, holding the flag. “I'm tired,” I finally say, and throw the flag into the bathroom. And I turn on the light. I take out the knife under my shirt and put it on the edge of the john. Before undressing, I take a look at my miserable civilian clothes, sweaty and muddy. Over the radio, the woman keeps reciting in a thundering voice. The marches reverberate in the street along with the rejoicing from all over town. “Hurry,” my mother says outside the door. “We are waiting for you.” I don't answer. Naked, I go under the shower and open the faucet. The water falls over my head, slides down my body, and is completely reddened with dust when it reaches the floor.