Suspicion of Rage (6 page)

Did Angela know the rest of the story? The marriage was a horrible mismatch. Caridad's parents, the rich banker and his socialite wife, took them in, but by then Luis Quintana had joined the
fidelistas.
He wore a beard and carried a rule. On principle he refused to live in a mansion and so moved his family to his birthplace in Camagüey province, a flat land of sugarcane and cattle. Caridad couldn't stand it, of course, all those chickens in the yard, the dirt, the illiterate
mulato
mother-in-law who practiced santería, and Luis sleeping around. When Ernesto Pedrosa told Caridad the family was leaving Cuba, she decided that she and her four children would go with them. But when the car came, her two older ones were off playing. Caridad called and called; she begged her father to wait. It was impossible; her husband would be home any moment. Ernesto had to unhook his daughter's fingers from the doorjamb and carry her, sobbing, across the muddy yard.

Marta and Anthony remained in Cuba. Their father told them their mother had abandoned them. They joined the Young Communist Pioneers. They practiced marching with wooden rifles and shooting at the imperialists. When Anthony was thirteen, his grandfather, through bribes and lies, managed to fly him to Miami for a visit with his mother. Anthony went so he could confront her, to demand that she return home. Of course the Pedrosas never let him go back. He grew up in Miami with his heart torn in two.

Gradually Gail grew aware of a murmur, a shifting in the aircraft. People were standing up, trying to see past the heads pressed to the windows on the starboard side. There was an announcement in two languages to remain seated. No one paid attention.

Irene was rummaging in her bag, whipping the lens cap off her camera. "Gail, look! Over there, look. It's Cuba." She aimed the lens out the window.

From the haze a long stripe of green appeared, paler at the edge, a rim of lacy white—a shoreline. Then red soil, some houses, roads with sparse traffic. Royal palm trees soared from the fields. In the distance a brown haze. Blocks of buildings—the city. Anthony braced a hand on his daughter's seat back and said it looked as though they would circle and come in from the south. He turned to his son and asked if he could see the Malecón, the long curving wall that kept the ocean from flooding the city.

"Danny,
mira el Malecón, ¿tú ves?
We'll go there when the wind is blowing. The waves are so high they go right into the street." His son lifted the shade on his window, some glimmer of interest at last.

Gail reached up to touch Anthony's back. "Honey? You really should sit down."

He leaned over and kissed her. His eyes shone. "We're here."

 

Coming out of the passenger walkway, Gail kept a firm grip on Karen's hand. The terminal, larger and newer than she had expected, bustled with tourists. At customs, a young woman in an olive-green uniform smiled, stamped their visas, and slid them back under the glass.
"Bienvenida a Cuba."

As Anthony had predicted, their bags weren't searched. He tipped a porter to take everything outside. The pickup area was mobbed, and their little group was caught in a wave of sun-baked Germans heading for a tour bus at the curb. Then someone shouted Anthony's name. Gail turned to see a woman with bronze-streaked hair pushing through the crowd. Anthony waved. "Marta!"

His sister was broad-shouldered and round in the hips, wearing a plain blue shirt over dark pants. She embraced Anthony and kissed him. She saw her niece and nephew and her arms opened wide. "Angela, Luisito!
¡Ay, Dios mío, qué grandes son! Dale un besito a tu tía!”
She was crying and laughing at the same time, pressing her wet face against theirs.

She pulled them toward their cousins. Introductions, more embraces. Giovany was eighteen, his sister Janelle three years younger. Their father's Afro-Cuban blood showed in their curly black hair, their smooth
café con leche
skin. Their clothes were perfectly clean and neat— the only thing that might have pegged them as foreigners, if they'd been in Miami.

Marta hugged Gail next. "Anthony, she's so tall, like a model. Welcome to Cuba, Gail. My new sister, eh? And your mother! Irene, how are you? I want you to know my children. Janelle, Giovany, greet your uncle's new wife. Paula has to work, I am sorry she isn't here. You'll see her tonight. And the baby! You won't believe how big he is!"

Somewhere in the avalanche of words, Malta's children embraced their uncle and kissed him and said how happy they were to see him again. Then more hugs and kisses for their American visitors.

Marta held Karen by the shoulders. "You are twelve years old only? No! You are very grown-up."

Gail's head was spinning. More people came out of the terminal, crushing them closer together.

"Let's get out of here." Marta looked around and spotted a man in a tan windbreaker standing nearby. She pointed at the suitcases."Cobo,
el equipaje"

The man tossed his cigarette to the concrete and stepped on it. With big, square hands, he easily heaved the bags into the back of a Toyota minivan. There were two vehicles, and from luck or privilege Marta had found spaces at the curb. The other was a faded little blue car with rust around the wheel wells, some make that Gail hadn't seen before.

"Gio,
los primos contigo."
Marta told her son that his cousins would go with him.

Before Gail could speak, all five got into the blue car, with Karen squeezed in back between the older girls. Spanish rap music blasted through the open windows as they pulled away.

Gail stared after them. The car swerved around a bus and vanished. Anthony turned her toward his sister's van. "Come on. They'll be there before us."

Marta took the front passenger seat. Behind them, Anthony sat in the middle so that Gail and Irene could look out the windows. The driver, Cobo, leaned on the horn to force a car out of the way. Marta opened her shoulder bag—brown imitation leather—and took out a pack of cigarettes: Hollywood. Gail wondered where they were made. Marta lit one and slid her window down halfway. She asked about their flight from Cancún. Was it all right? Were they hungry? Everyone wanted to meet the cousins and Gail and her family. Ramiro would be home later. Papi would be with them for dinner. She laughed and reached over to give Irene's knee a nudge. "You will meet our father. He doesn't speak English so good, but he likes to flirt with pretty women. Be careful!"

The billboards along the airport exit road weren't advertisements; they were political messages, such a cliché of what Gail had heard about Cuba that she wanted to grab her mother's arm and tell her to look, but Anthony was between them, leaning forward to talk to his sister.

En marcha hacia el futuro.
On the march ... something ... the future.
Celebramos el Triunfo de la Revolución.
We celebrate the triumph of the Revolution. Fidel Castro in his green uniform. Che Guevara on a billboard announcing
Socialismo ahora y siempre.
Socialism, now and forever. The paper was peeling, and rust ran down the signs where they'd been nailed to the posts.

Neither Marta nor Anthony seemed to notice, as if these fading relics were only part of the background, like the electrical wires drooping overhead or the weeds along the road. Marta tapped her cigarette ashes out the window. Her nail polish was chipped. When she turned to speak to them, her profile revealed a resemblance to Anthony in the straight nose and full lips. She was older, forty-five, and a frown of concentration had drawn deep lines between her brows. Where her hair parted, gray showed through. She wore no wedding ring. Her jewelry consisted of a watch with a stainless steel band and a narrow gold chain around her neck. She was clearly a woman with more important things to do than look in a mirror.

"Irene, you will see
La Habana Vieja
tomorrow," Marta announced. "I'll be your tour guide, eh? I took some days off from work so I can be with you." Marta listed what they would see. The Capitol, the Malecón, the
Plaza de las Armas,
the cathedral—

The stream of words was exhausting. Gail's attention shifted to the scenes passing by the window. Run-down factories. Small stores with glass fronts. So many buildings trimmed in bright blue, as if no other color could be found. She saw people sitting under a mildewed bus shelter, others walking a path along the side of the road. A young woman in jeans and a Florida Marlins sweatshirt pushed an elaborate baby stroller. Gail supposed she had relatives in Miami.

Closer to the city, they followed a truck laying down a fog of blue smoke through a quivering exhaust pipe. The back of the truck had wooden sides, and people were holding on, not workers but ordinary people, nicely dressed, women mostly, and some children. Why were they in the back of a truck? "Anthony—"

"Look at that old car!" Irene pointed. "It's a 1953 Dodge, I swear it is. My dad owned a car just like that." Metal pipes formed the front bumper of the ancient machine, and brake lights had been welded on top of the rear fenders.

Anthony told her that it probably had a truck engine. "They put it together with wires and chewing gum, believe me."

Marta laughed. "Yes, we are geniuses with our old cars!"

Irene said, "You've got a very nice van, though."

"Anyone who works hard can have a car, but it takes time." Marta sent some ashes out the window. "We have shortages of everything because of the blockade."

Gail shot a glance at Anthony. The corner of his mouth turned up, and his hand, resting on her knee, gave it a little squeeze.
I
told you.
He put his arm across the back of her seat. "When we cross the river, look down. There's a park. It's pretty this time of year. We should take a walk there. Would you like that?"
 

She understood: This was his city, if not in reality, then in his heart; he wanted to share it with her. She smiled back at him. "Yes, I'd love to see it."

Feeling a little overheated, she shifted to catch the cool breeze from the driver's open window. Images swept past her. A house with purple bougainvillea spilling across the roof. Small, boxy cars crammed with people. A collarless dog limping along the sidewalk. Gray concrete apartment buildings. Shade trees. Men at a card table playing dóminos. A red-and-yellow awning, a sign announcing "Burgui"—a hamburger joint. The word
Venceremos
—we will conquer—stretching in faded blue and red across a long, low wall. The paint was peeling off. Everything needed painting.

The van swerved around a pothole.

Gail held on, staring mutely, Havana pouring into her mind.

 

The Vegas lived in a sprawling, flat-roofed tri-level built around 1950 for someone with a great deal of money. The house showed its age: The decorative aluminum railing on the porch had pits in it, and several of the glass louvers in the huge windows across the front had been replaced with wooden slats. But still, an impressive house. The palm trees, climbing philodendron, red-and-green crotons, and an overhanging poinciana tree led Gail's mother to say it looked just like home. Cobo carried their bags up while Marta showed them .around.

Gail asked where the kids could be, and Marta replied, as she hurried across the wide living room with its polished terrazzo floor, that Giovany might have taken them for a drive through the city.

Dining room here, reception room there—heavy furniture, chairs with cane bottoms, gilded mirrors. Bedrooms upstairs, garage farther on. Then up a curve of free-floating black granite steps, down which, Marta explained, Janelle would walk in her gown the night of the party. On the second floor, Marta pointed out who would stay where.

A quick look at the master bedroom, darkened by heavy curtains. A big television in the corner. Liquor bottles on the glass-topped dresser. Then back downstairs.

Into the kitchen with its dated appliances and tile floor, scrupulously clean. Marta insisted they have something to drink, a soda, coffee, a beer, whatever. Anthony said no, they would unpack and be down later. He motioned for Gail to follow him. Irene said she would stay behind; she wanted to have some
café cubano, por favor.
Marta laughed.
"¡Qué chistoso!
All
the coffee we have,
mi amor,
is
cubano."

They returned to the last room on the second floor and closed the door. The voices from downstairs could barely be heard. Anthony grabbed Gail's hand, pulled her close, and gave her a kiss so deep they went backward onto the bed, bouncing and knocking the headboard into the wall. Gail started laughing when he went for the button on her pants. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think?"

"Oh, my God, we can't, not now."

Pinning her hands, he kissed his way down her neck. "Why not?"

"I feel like a trespasser, like somebody is watching us. What if Karen comes back?"

He rolled off. "Maybe we should have a hotel."

"Oh, shut up," she said, elbowing his ribs. "Later. I'll make you beg for mercy."

Paula's room could hardly have been more feminine. Pink pillow shams, lace curtains, a fuzzy pink area rug on the terrazzo floor. A baby crib full of stuffed toys took up one corner. Over it, cartoon characters had been taped to the wall, but Gail didn't recognize any of them. Getting up, she looked at Anthony lying across the frayed pink bedspread. The room was awful, but strangely enough, he seemed completely at home. Usually so fastidious with his clothes, he had pulled from the depths of his closet well-worn slacks and knit shirt for the flight to Havana. Even his white sneakers were old; in Miami he'd worn them only to hike on the beach.

Gail asked, "What happened to Paula's husband?"

"They got a divorce."

"I know that," she said.

"It's hard to be married in Cuba." Anthony sat up. "There's no place for young couples to live. They move in with their in-laws. I don't think he and Marta got along." The driver had left their bags in a neat pile just inside the door. Anthony went over and knelt to unzip his suitcase.

"Who is that man who brought us here? Cobo. Who is he?"