Adrian McKinty - Fifty Grand

But today there hadn’t been a fight. We didn’t want to play baseball or hide-and-seek with them because we were just too hot and too tired after the Havana train.

“No, no fight, we’re good,” I said.

He smiled and looked at me for a long time and when I caught him, he turned away. He pretended to be fascinated by a creeper Ricky had twisted into a rope but after a moment he just couldn’t help himself.

“My little girl,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

“And my little man,” he said and ruffled Ricky’s hair.

“Hey,” Ricky said, pushing Dad’s hand away.

Dad grinned again and stared at us so hard it hurt.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said and shook his head.

“Stop that,” I muttered.

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me like that.”

“Well, kids, how are you liking your vacation so far?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I’m bored, there’s nothing to do here, when can we go back to Havana?” I asked.

“They don’t even have TV here,” Ricky said.

Dad grimaced. For a second, that old Mercado rage took, but he didn’t let it possess him; instead his face filled with and then lost its fiery color. Equanimity returned.

He reached into his pocket. I thought for a moment he was going for a present or money but instead he produced a hip flask. He took a swig and put the flask back in his pocket. Dad seldom drank even beer, and it was disturbing to see him swilling rum like some frito flojo on San Rafael.

“Yes,” he said apropos of nothing and then he lay on his back, put his hands behind his head, and gazed up into the palm tree. How he missed the sausages I have no idea. He muttered something to himself-the words of a song, I think-and then after a minute he turned to me.

“We better go inside. Isabella’s getting your cousins, we’re having an early dinner,” he said.

“I’m not even hungry yet,” Ricky said.

Dad ignored Ricky and lifted him onto his shoulders, something he hadn’t done since Ricky was about five. I took his hand.

We walked into the house.

Dinner. The UFC man’s dining room. A hardwood floor elevated so that you could see through the Spanish windows to the old coffee fields beyond. China plates, silver serving spoons, and even a chandelier that had been in the house since the twenties.

We had changed into our best clothes, Ricky in a stiff shirt and me in a black Sunday dress.

It was still hot. The house had an electric fan but it wasn’t working.

Around the table: Aunt Isabella, Mom, Dad, Ricky, me, Uncle Arturo, María, Juanita, Danny, Julio, and the new arrival, little Bella. I was jealous of María and Juanita that they had a baby in the house and I wondered when Dad and Mom were going to make a sister for me.

Servants were forbidden in Cuba, but Uncle Arturo had two: a black woman from the village called Luisa Pedrona who made the food and a girl from Las Tunas who brought it to the table. Aunt Isabella was famous for her inability to cook, but the fiction around the table was that she had made everything.

“These plantains are amazing,” Mother said.

“Did you try the ajiaco ?” Aunt Isabella asked.

Mom said that she had and that it was delicious too. She turned to Dad but he merely grunted and I could see that he’d hardly touched anything.

I wolfed it all. Luisa was good at Cuban specialties and this was a Cuban meal that included such exotic things as fish, beef, and fresh fruit.

The men talked baseball and the woman talked children and the children said nothing at all.

We were onto the coco quemado when the phone rang. Juanita got it and announced that it was for Dad.

The phone was in Uncle Arturo’s “study,” a small adjoining room that had a patio and leather chairs. It was where Uncle Arturo kept several hundred of the UFC man’s English books locked in a glass case, and it was where he had his own stash of Marlboro cigarettes and pornographic magazines in a rolltop American desk.

Dad bowed to Aunt Isabella, excused himself, and went into the study. The adults resumed their talk, which was something about President Clinton and the Miamistas. I was nearest the study door and couldn’t help but listen in on Dad’s end of the conversation.

“Yes? Yes? What is it?… Impossible. I’m in Santiago. You know what that train is like. How can I… No, no, no, of course not… They can go to hell… Yes. I’ll get the overnight. I hope this is not indicative of the state of the rest of the… Ok… Goodbye. Wait, wait, please tell José to remember the diesel.”

The conversation stopped.

Uncle Arturo was fortune-telling: “I predict that President Clinton and the pope will come together to Cuba for a visit. Mark my words. Remember this date.”

I remember. October 1, 1993.

The phone. The cradle. Father running his hand through his hair. He came back to the dinner table. His coconut pie was cold. He looked at Mom. He grinned at me and, reassured, I went back to my dessert.

“What was the call?” Uncle Arturo asked.

“Aldo got sick, my stand-in. They want me for the morning.”

Arturo was appalled. “You can’t go back. You only just got here. The kids haven’t had any time to play with their cousins. We haven’t even been to the beach.”

Dad shook his head. “No, no, everyone will stay. I’ll get the ten o’clock train back tonight.”

“Can’t they get anyone else? Why is it always you?” Mom asked.

“I’m the only one they trust,” he said, then walked over and kissed her on the forehead. Mom frowned, wondering, I suppose, if it was really Aldo or some hussy from the Vieja that Dad had been planning to see the whole time.

Sundown.

Games of canasta and poker and my favorite, twenty-one.

Uncle Arturo told a stupid joke: “What do you call a French sandal maker? Answer: Philippe Flop.”

Dad told a subversive joke: “What are the three successes of the Revolution? Answer: Health care, education, and sport. What are the three failures of the Revolution? Answer: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

Supper of nutella on toast.

The bed. Ricky on one side, me on the other.

The fields alive with insects and huge colonies of Jamaican fruit bats blotting out the moon.

Dad in for the goodnight story and the kiss.

Rum breath. Tears in his eyes. No story. Nothing. Not even goodbye.

Next day.

The beach. The tide out and the sand wet, freezing. Kelp on the dunes, see-through jellyfish. My hands blue. A cut on my right thumb hurting in the wind.

There was nothing to do. The others had gone on ahead and I was too late to catch them. I walked along making trails with my feet and wrote my name in the sand with a piece of driftwood. I picked up a length of seaweed and popped some of the float pods on the strands. They went snap and briny water came out of them, trundling down my fingers onto Aunt Isabella’s white shawl.

Farther along the shore I noticed a dead gull. Its wings were covered in what looked like a thick gray film but was really dozens of little crabs.

Drizzle, clouds.

Flocks of birds heading for South America. Other lands. Other countries. No one I knew had ever been to another country, but Ricky and Dad had once seen Haiti from the headland at Punta de Quemado.

More beach.

A dead shark with its black eyes pecked out. Its belly had swollen. I found a stick and cut it open to see if there were other fish inside. I poked, guts spilled. The perfume of death. Intestines. Stones. No fish.

I walked on. It started to rain. Now I was wet and alone. I cursed my stubbornness. Uncle Arturo had gotten everyone up at nine, for baseball and a day at the beach, but I woke in a huff about Dad, furious that he had gone back to his stupid job, ferrying stupid people across the stupid bay in his stupid boat. I refused to go. Mom begged me and was embarrassed but Aunt Isabella pretended I was sick and brought me moors and christians and soup and a shawl and a book of poems by José Martí.