Miguel Mejides - Havana Noir

When my mother called me — thank God the building’s empty or the neighbors’ noises would have never let me hear her, especially now that her voice is not much more than a whisper — she said she was very tired. But it wasn’t exactly a complaint, more of a statement of fact. My mother, who had never been the kind of Catholic who sat in church pews or wore chains with little crucifixes, had had a priest visit just a few days before.

I had tried to make sure the priest was as young as possible, so he could make it up all fourteen flights. I found one who did all his rounds on a bike, so that the elevator not working didn’t strike him as a great obstacle. Nonetheless, he was exhausted when he arrived and needed some time to get himself together out on the terrace, looking at the sea and the nearby buildings. He said it gave him a great deal of peace. I told him about my mother, how much she enjoyed it too, and that I’d found a way for her to have pleasant days out on those few square meters. I didn’t tell the priest that we only had a few days before we had to move out of the building.

They spent four hours chatting. I spent the time sitting back on my mother’s lounge chair, with her pad and her pillow, trying to see our view of the city through her eyes. I imagined her opening her eyes in the hospital or in some other house. And then I closed my own eyes firmly to shut out this image.

After the priest’s visit, my mother slept for forty-eight hours straight. I think the absence of telephone, electricity, and neighbors helped. I don’t think it rained, or that the north wind blew, that humid breeze that smudges the windows and gives Vedado an air of impatience and cosmopolitanism. I think that after this dialogue with God, my mother began preparing herself to die.

Now, with tonight’s deadline approaching, I hear her say in a weary voice that she’s very tired. It’s midnight and she doesn’t even have the strength to stir in bed. Anyway, there’s nothing to see outside. Nor inside either. I’m going to find the battery-powered lamp in the kitchen so I can look at the calendar, the one that reminds me that we must leave the building tomorrow and that my mother still has two weeks of life.

I come back with the lamp and she’s fallen asleep, complaining through her dreams. What must it be like to never get relief, even from sedatives? Or to close your eyes and not open them again? Or to spend your last days in a strange place?

I start to fix the syringe. I do it very slowly, and it’s not because I’m clumsy; I’ve actually gotten quite agile with this business of giving shots. I review all the decisions I’ve made in the last few days. After my mother passes, I will not go to San Francisco; there’s nothing for me there. It’s possible my presence would disrupt my brother’s biorhythm and inhibit his successful life as a designer.

Nor will I go to Paris to look for the poster man. A person who’s incapable of writing two lines to ask about my sick mother is not anyone I can trust. In any case, I’ve got my presentation written. It doesn’t matter to me if it gets published. It felt good to write it. It was like old times, as if my brother and mother were out on the terrace with me, with our toy soldiers, dolls, or jigsaw puzzles, depending on the day.

Now I hold the syringe in my right hand. I make sure the needle can spit out the first few drops, which indicate all is well, and I make my way to the bedroom. I don’t need the lamp. I’ve gotten to know my mother’s body well in these dark but blissful days. I should move out of the building tomorrow. With my free hand, I go to the calendar and mark off my mother’s dying day. And then I go to her.

Translation by Achy Obejas

Marianao

It’s been two hours I’ve been staring at the sun. I like to look at the sun. I can look at the sun for an hour straight, without blinking, without tears.

I’m still staring at the sun, leaning against the wall at the corner, listening to the old women as they come out of the bakery, complaining about how shitty the bread is but eating it anyway cuz they’re dying of hunger. On this corner, you can smell the smoke from the buses as they pass by on the avenue, the stink from the many dogs who think they’ve found something in that awful piece of bread, the bitter stench of desperation, like in that shitty song my mother likes. It’s a disgusting corner and I think I like it even more for that very reason; I spend huge chunks of time here, waiting for something to come along, just staring at the sun. I’m singing a little bit of that song and don’t notice when Alexis comes up.

“Hey, man, what’s going on?” he asks.

“Nothing. You?”

“Hanging.”

“Cool,” I say, looking at Alexis. I suppose Alexis is my best friend. We’ve known each other from before we even went to school, from when his father and mine worked together at the Ministry. Later, they fucked over Alexis’s dad, but not too much, cuz he had good friends. They didn’t even take his car, although they did relieve him of his gun. That, yeah.

“Let’s go get a liter,” he says.

“Who’s got some?”

“Richard El Cao.”

“C’mon,” I say, and I forget about the sun and the bitter vapors... Fuck, it’s actually the bitter taste of desperation. Same shit.

El Cao always has liquor. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes he also has pills. He gets them easily: He steals a script from his mother, who works as an administrator at a hospital, and he signs her name, and then they give him the best pills at the pharmacy. Easy, right? But there are no pills today. We took the last ones yesterday, with four liters of liquor. Yesterday was fucked up.

Now we’re drinking, not talking. It’s always like this: At first, you hardly talk. It’s as if your brain goes dead for a while. Later, we talk a bit, especially if we pop some pills. Alexis and El Cao talk the most.

After we’ve been drinking awhile, Alexis says, “There’s a fight today.”

“At El Hueco?” El Cao asks.

Alexis nods.

“I don’t have any money,” El Cao says.

“Me neither,” I say.

“I do,” Alexis says, and since he’s been drinking, he tells the whole story of how he got the cash: There were about twenty liters of oil, the good cooking kind, in the trunk of his father’s car, and he stole three. He sold them, so he has money. Three hundred pesos.

“Let’s go,” says El Cao.

“Let me finish,” says Alexis.

We drink a little more. This liquor’s pretty good. When we finish drinking, that’s when we leave.

When we arrive, the fight hasn’t started yet. We’re told today it’s Yoyo’s stanford against Carlitín’s boxer. I like the stanford. His name is Verdugo and he’s won like twenty fights. He almost always kills the other dog. The boxer is also somewhat famous: His name is Sombra and they say once he clamps down, he doesn’t let go. There are already twelve people here, waiting. There are two black guys, with their gold teeth and Santería necklaces around their necks. They must be Carlitín’s friends. He’s always hanging out with black guys like that. He has business dealings with them, and sometimes he pulls jobs with them too.

The betting begins. Alexis puts his three hundred pesos on Verdugo. I tell him to set aside fifty, for another liter in case he loses. But he says no, that there’s still plenty of cooking oil in his father’s car and Verdugo’s gonna win.

They set the dogs. And everybody’s screaming. Myself included. They let them loose. Verdugo sinks his teeth into Sombra’s shoulder, drawing blood on the very first bite. It’s practically black, this blood. Drops of this practically black blood swirl around Verdugo’s mouth and drop on the ground. Then the screaming intensifies. Sombra starts to turn and gets ahold of Verdugo’s paw. He’s gonna tear it off. Verdugo’s gonna leap right over him and Sombra’s unaware. Then Verdugo hits his neck. Carlitín and Yoyo jump in to separate them but Verdugo won’t let go, and neither will Sombra. They jam sticks in their mouths to control them. Sombra lets go first but comes around the side; Verdugo still won’t let go. Yoyo finally pries his mouth open and Sombra drops: Two streams of blood pour from his neck, even blacker and thicker. The boxer’s dead. Everybody’s still shouting and the losers start to pay up. Carlitín kicks his dead dog. Alexis gets his winnings, two hundred pesos, and tells one of the black guys to pay the hundred they bet. The black guy says the fight was bullshit. Alexis says he doesn’t give a shit about that, what matters is his hundred. The black guy says he’s not paying shit. Alexis says he can stick it up his ass. The black guy pulls a piece and sticks it in Alexis’s face.