The Mortifications (23 page)

Such as?

Willems said, Sometimes I have dreams.

What kind?

The kind where I see Soledad after a beating.

Describe one.

In the dream Soledad has a bruised eye and a swollen nose. The nose might be broken. It's bloody around the nostrils. I can feel my fists. My knuckles throb. I can hear Soledad breathing through her mouth.

The counselor asked, Are you aroused?

No, Willems said. I'm not. I don't think I am.

The two of you are alone, the counselor said. You stand across from each other and look into each other's faces.

Yes and no.

Explain.

There's another man in the room. I can't see him. He's behind me. Soledad can see him, and she looks at both of us. She looks over my shoulder to look at him. He looks over my shoulder to look at her. He wants to see her. He's confused, because Soledad's face is her own, but it's not. It's misshapen, because I've hit her.

The counselor asked, Who is he?

Uxbal.

For the first time during one of their meetings, the counselor got up from her chair. She brought a pitcher of water from across the room and poured Henri a glass, then sat down next to him. So close to her, Willems was suddenly afraid.

Are you showing Uxbal what you've done to his wife? the counselor asked.

I don't know.

Do you hit her in the dream, or is she bruised when the dream begins?

I have to hit her.

How does she look before you hit her? Is she happy? Depressed? Is she asking you to strike her?

No, she doesn't ask, but I hit her twice with an open palm.

And then she changes.

Yes and no. Her form is different from the start.

Her form? the counselor asked. How?

In the dream, she doesn't have cancer. She hasn't had surgery. In the dream her breasts are still there. I can see them under her shirt.

In your dream she is healthy.

Until I hit her.

How do you feel, the counselor asked, once you've hurt her?

I want to take her in my arms, Willems said.

Does she fall into your arms?

She doesn't.

Why not?

Because I'm the one who hurt her.

Uxbal does nothing?

He's quiet. He stays behind me like a shadow.

Do you say anything to Soledad?

I tell her I'm sorry. I tell her I love her. I tell her that she is beautiful.

Is she?

Incredibly so.

Even after you've struck her? Even with her bruised eye?

Always.

In the house the old woman served Ulises a plate of chilled cherry tomatoes sliced and mixed with olives and pimento. On the table she also placed grapefruit and fried plantains, which she'd been warming under the sun on the windowsill, and she told Ulises to eat, eat, but he could barely understand her. She spoke with what Ulises assumed was a distant countryside Spanish, though, unlike the Cuban slang he remembered from his childhood, her words did not run together. She made sounds that were close to words he knew, but it was as if she'd not had a lengthy conversation with anyone in a long, long time. Her clothes made him think the same. She wore a loose floral blouse and a canvas skirt, the kind made for farmers' daughters, but underneath her skirt she wore pants as well, fatigues the hunter green of a soldier's uniform. Ulises wondered how she didn't faint in the heat.

And she kept calling him Uxbal. He tried to correct her, but she waved her hands at him and pushed more food onto the table, some peaches and the thinnest pork chop he'd ever seen. She poured him a glass of what looked like water but was, when he drank it, clearly liquor. He thanked her and pecked at the food, but she kept waving at his plate, so he traded bites for answers. After an hour he knew that he should call her Granma, that Uxbal had not been to the house for some time, and that she couldn't see well at all.

You find everything in this kitchen with ease, Ulises said.

A map in my brain, Granma said.

How is it you know Uxbal? Ulises asked, but the woman laughed as though it were a joke. Are you feeling well? he said.

The same as always, Granma told him. Old and older.

How old?

She clucked at him. The food gets cold, she said.

It was an exhausting way to talk, so Ulises just kept eating. By the time he finished the meal, he'd made a mess of the kitchen. He'd been covered in dust from walking the road from Bayamo, and when he moved, it shook from his body onto the floor and made a ring of filth around his chair.

Clearing his plate, Granma noticed this too, rubbing one bare foot on the tile. She ushered him out of the kitchen, through a bedroom, and into the house's only bathroom, where there was a wide tin tub, nearly twice as wide as ordinary tubs, with a wooden chair inside it.

The old woman probably couldn't stand in the shower without it being a danger anymore, Ulises thought.

Granma left him alone to bathe. As the water ran, he watched the dust from his walk turn to silt at the base of the tub, and he worked it with his feet into the slow drain. When he was done, he went back into the bedroom and found clean clothes laid out for him: a denim shirt—the kind his father had worn—a green canvas belt, and a pair of dungarees. His sunglasses and hat were also on the bed.

Ulises was tired from the food and thought he should nap before trying to talk to the old woman again, but when Granma saw that he was bathed, she put him to work. She took him around the house and pointed out small, waiting repairs: three trellises had cracked from the weight of the tomato vine, a flower bed was in desperate need of weeding, a pipe under the kitchen sink dripped, the kitchen door would not close all the way, and the legs of an end table in the small living room were rickety. On the kitchen table Granma had placed a toolbox. She took Ulises there last, pointed to the tools, and went into her bedroom, perhaps to take the nap he had wanted.

Ulises moved first through the house—the kitchen door, the pipe, the table legs—and then outside. Of the weeding he made steady work, but for the broken trellises he had to scrounge for scrap wood. In the end he found some old window parts in a closet that would do. He found some rocks as well, and he buried them at the base of the trellis for more support. The whole time he fought what he thought were bees or, at least, extraordinary Caribbean flying insects. They hummed as they zipped past his ears, but he couldn't catch sight of them.

The work was light compared to what he'd done for Willems. He fell into an old pattern easily, tuning out the world and focusing his efforts on one task at a time. Consequently he didn't notice the light rain that passed over the house, wondered how his shirt had gotten so wet, and had it not been for the squawk of a cuckoo, he wouldn't have looked up to notice a boy watching him labor. The kid sat atop a gray bicycle that was too small for him and rubbed his arm while he watched. Ulises waved, but the boy did not wave back. Ulises stood up, which caused the kid to grab his handlebars, and when Ulises offered him some tomatoes to take home, the boy rode off.

In the house, Granma was waiting for him, though she'd changed her clothes and now wore an impossibly thin linen robe, which did little to preserve her modesty. She didn't seem to mind, however, and she took Ulises by the arm and led him back into the bathroom, where she'd drawn a fresh bath. Ulises stood by as Granma disrobed, and when he made to leave, she grabbed his arm and motioned for him to help her. She smelled terrible, and Ulises wondered how he hadn't noticed that before. Perhaps he'd had his own stench from traveling. He'd not showered in the bartender's apartment in Las Tunas, and the hostel in Bayamo hadn't had a bathroom. But Granma somehow kept her musk pent up in her clothes, beneath the skirt and the hunter green pants. She seemed to think it might drive him off, because she held fast to his arm even after sitting down in the wooden chair.

Ulises realized he was to bathe her. Strange as this seemed, she had fed and clothed him. If she needed this help, this might be her only wash for a long time. Touching Granma's arm, Ulises smiled at the old woman till she let him go. Into the bath he poured some shampoo, and when there was a good lather, he began with the woman's hair, going slowly. Granma's face relaxed, and her body leaned against his. He went slower, and now when she spoke, she spoke slowly, and Ulises could understand much more, though still not all, of what she said.

How long do you stay?

Ulises understood the old woman's eyes were still seeing Uxbal, and Ulises decided not to correct her anymore.

I'm just passing through, he said. I am looking for someone.

When you were last here, she said, I can't remember. You've wasted tomatoes.

Am I supposed to come get them? Ulises asked.

Someone gets them, she said. But not for a long time. A year? I don't know. No clocks. Do the back.

It's been a long time since I was here, Ulises said. Have you changed the house much?

Cleaner, she said. You never kept it clean. The walls aren't accidentally white. Your clothes are together. Same closet. I think you'll leave tomorrow.

Why do you think that? he asked. And where would I go?

The mountains. You have
guaro
here. Take it with you. I can't drink it. My heart jumps. You'll take it?

Is that what you served me at lunch? he asked.

She nodded.

All right, he said. I'll take it. Am I the only one who visits you?

Barely, Granma said.

Have you seen my daughter? Did she come through here ahead of me?

I met a young woman, and she took our tomatoes, Granma said. Don't scold me: I told her to. She was beautiful. She was like a filthy saint. I fell asleep. When I woke, she wasn't here. I'm old. I dream a lot.

I don't think it was a dream, Ulises said.

Don't say that. You look like a dream. Your arms are not real. You've gotten stronger now, bigger too, but you should be older and thinner.

Granma reached out of the tub and touched Ulises's face. She ran a hand over his cheekbones and across his forehead. Her hand went higher, and when she discovered his scar, she asked, What did they do to you?

Who? Ulises asked.

Granma pulled away. The water is cold, she said. Help me out.

Ulises lifted her from the tin tub, and she hurried to wrap her body in the robe, which stuck to her wet sides, and suddenly she was bashful, as if a stranger had walked into the room.

She said, I miss you, but I want you to go in the morning. The girl looked like your wife, but a thousand years ago. You look like yourself, but a thousand years ago. I must be dying.

Granma took a towel, walked into her bedroom, and locked the door.

Ulises did not know what to say, so he cleaned the tub and dried the water off the floor. He went into the kitchen and poured himself some of the
guaro,
and he sat there thinking how strange the woman was and wondering how she knew his father and his family. And though she was not far away, just locked away in another room, he missed her presence. She'd smelled like lemons coming out of the bath, and Ulises thought of the women in his house, not as they were at that moment but when they were both healthy and sane, and how pleasant they always smelled. He missed their talking and the quiet way they moved.

This house was also a pleasant place, quiet and undisturbed. He'd wanted to ask the boy on the bicycle about life here, who the woman was and for how long she'd owned his childhood home. He wanted to know enough to ask the woman to stay, to feel comfortable staying. He had been moving for days now, and it seemed like the time to rest. He wanted to wake up in the second bedroom and plan the next day around the ripe oxhearts that needed picking and the flower beds that needed weeding. He wanted to be touched again on the head by the old woman, and he could see her kissing him on the cheek, cooking vegetables, and washing his clothes. The house was a tiny castle, a little kingdom.

In the morning Granma emerged from her room in a clean blue dress and with her hair done. Ulises thought she looked like someone he should have known. Granma wore a perfume different than the bath soaps, and the house filled with the scent of lavender. Ulises decided he was aching for Soledad at home before she went to work. At the courthouse his mother wore polyester dresses and put her hair up. She was well gathered, Willems used to say. Granma made Ulises breakfast, bread and guava paste, some fried tomatoes, a banana, and some coffee, which was exceptional. The old woman walked around Ulises, and he noticed how careful she was to not brush up against him, and this, he figured, was how he would act if a ghost came to live in his home.

Where did you get the coffee? he asked. It's wonderful.

You brought it, she said. From the hills.

The old woman shook her head, and Ulises felt sorry for her. He could not imagine the terror of being near blind and finding yourself either in the presence of the past or never having left it but having grown old. Or maybe she thought that she'd grown old faster than everyone around her. More likely she realized she was entertaining a stranger and was terrified that he'd given her a bath.

Do you know I've forgotten? Ulises said. I don't even know which hills you're talking about.

The old woman shook her head again, and Ulises knew he was being cruel, but he had no idea where he was going after breakfast, and he couldn't imagine his father hiking into the hills just for some wild coffee beans. Granma looked at Ulises and blinked twice.

I meet you at the river, she said. Or, I did. Now my hip. It's too far to walk.

Of course, Ulises said. He thought she was speaking of the same river behind the packinghouse, the one that fed the nameless lake and came down from the mountains. I remember, he said, and this seemed to cheer the old woman up, because she smiled for a moment.

Can I take some food with me? Ulises asked.

Granma came over to him and touched his shoulder. A moment later she kissed him on the face, and Ulises knew this was what happened when Uxbal came—he stayed the night and left the next morning with a sack from Granma's pantry.

She walked with him only as far as the last flower bed behind the house, and the whole time she held her left wrist in her right hand as though it was broken. Ulises walked slowly beside her and saw how, in her near-blindness, she was hesitant outside. He marveled at how well she must have known her home. She moved among the rooms of the house without struggle, had a place for all the pots and utensils, and she was quick. Outside, where the ground softened in the rain or hardened in the sun, she was shy in her steps.

Seeing her weak footing, he wanted to stay more than ever, to take her down to the river for lunch and back home again for an afternoon nap. She seemed a prisoner, though Ulises knew that was an exaggeration, but she had been so sweet, so kind to his foreign body and face, that he was indebted to her. Facing south, he saw the thin river leading up into the hills, toward the canopied forest. Ulises held Granma for a moment before he left, and she cried a little. She already missed him. Really, she missed Uxbal, but Ulises was more than happy to take Granma's wanting for his father as his own.

Roberto followed Ignacio, who followed José, who followed Gerardo. Isabel, renewed by her decision, by the idea of abandoning all fathers, zealously consumed the remaining rebel men. The sex she offered them was functional, but under the circumstances it was also glorious. These were men who'd not touched the other women in the camp in years, who could not see through their own grunge the pleasantness of skin anymore, and it took a will like Isabel's to ignore the stink of their armpits, the foul clothing they wore, and the situation of their rotting teeth. Her presence reminded them that they were, indeed, human. Her skin, her hair, her breasts, her legs, her lips—these were great and hidden things they had forgotten.

She found each of them in a different place, and she didn't bother as she had before in bringing them somewhere dark. They were all tucked away in the forest, and unless they fucked out in the open, in the clearing by the sabicu trees, privacy was not hard to assume. Isabel had the men behind trees, near anthills, amid a swarm of hummingbirds, and at the mountain creek. She had them, that is, wherever she found them, and they relented like prophets in the Bible, as though her naked body were a burning bush. They were struck with a mixture of panic and excitement, and they suffered a choking fear when she spoke to them like children, her sentences all commands. They heard her voice, and though they did not know her, they followed. She asked for nothing. She no longer bit her lip or swallowed her moans, and she could be heard screaming with pleasure.