Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

“Zev still loves her.”

“She obliged him to speak to her in Spanish. If a man loves you, she says, he must prove it every day. When Zev spoke to her, always in Spanish, he reminded himself of what he felt for my mother. She’s a real Cuban, very warm and loving, but when she tells me what Zev did to Batista’s soldiers, there is no pity in her voice. I ask her why not. She says, Your father is a man.”

The man in the street lit a cigarette and glanced up; the flare of the match revealed his eyes. I waved to him. He looked away.

She said, “Americans think anything can be made into some joke. Do you like rice and beans? If not, you may have to learn.”

We stood near each other, easy in our nearness, familial. It wasn’t an American feeling. My cousin was very attractive, but I had no trouble with that. I put my arm around her shoulder. She leaned against me, as if we’d grown up together, two Latin kids, always touching. “I like rice and beans,” I said.

I wasn’t detained in Cuba. Nothing was done to me; nobody asked questions. On the last night of the film festival, I was invited to a grand dinner, with hundreds of others, at the Palacio de la Revolución. Long tables in parallel lines, with wide aisles between them, were laid out with Cuban foods. Guests walked the length of the tables, loading their plates, then returned for more. At the end, they served cakes and excellent Cuban ice cream. Without announcement, Fidel appeared and the crowd swarmed toward him, surrounding him, but this was an elegant crowd of well-dressed people, and they felt the necessity of leaving him a little space in front. I couldn’t approach closely, but I could see his head and shoulders, the top of his green army uniform, his beard and intense black eyes. He was the tallest man in the hall, perhaps six-foot-five. His head was large, leonine, heroic, bending slightly toward those who asked questions, listening with utter seriousness. I saw a monument, not simply the man called Fidel, but the living monument of himself. He seemed, in that instant, while talking to a man in the crowd, to be talking beyond that man to me. “Of course,” he said, “we would publish the works of Kierkegaard. If somebody came to me with the manuscript, say, of his great work Either/Or, I would think it is worth a million dollars.”

When my plane landed in Miami, I went to a phone and called Zev. It was 5:00 a.m., but he’d said to phone him the moment I arrived. I was sure he’d want to hear from me. Besides, I was too excited to wait. As soon as he said hello, I began telling him I’d met Consuelo, and I told him about his brilliant daughter, Zeva, how she spoke several languages, how well she danced, though I’d seen her only as a spangled figure among others, all burdened by colorful feathers. “Zev, why didn’t you say the baby was a girl?”

“I couldn’t remember for sure.”

“Oh, come on.”

“When you get a little older, the differences between boys and girls matter less.”

I told him Fidel is willing to let them go to the States, but with conditions. Either the million dollars is returned to the revolution, or Zev’s women never leave. “It’s up to you.”

“He spoke to you personally?”

“Not exactly. It was indirect, but we were in the same room. I’d been followed by the police. He certainly knew who I was.”

“Right, right. Well, I have the bank and the number, but only Zeva can open the box. The key is her thumb. Wait in Miami. I’ll catch a plane this afternoon. Stay with my friend Sam Halpert. I want you to call him, but listen carefully. When you hang up, look around, look at the people. Look good. Then take a walk. Make four or five turns like you’re lost, you don’t know the airport. Don’t go into toilets. Stay in plain sight. Then find another phone and call Sam — Sam Halpert — and then look around again. You’ll recognize the one who’s following you. Describe the guy to Sam. Whatever he tells you, do it.”

“Zev, you’re scaring me.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

The phone went dead as I shouted, “Wait a minute.” I dialed him again. What the hell did he think I was, a person with nothing to do but hang around Miami? The phone rang at his end. Nobody answered. Too damn bad. Zev would fly here for nothing. I slammed down the receiver and started toward my San Francisco flight, so angry that I forgot to look around at the faces, but there were none, anyhow, just a man lying on a bench with a Miami Herald covering his face, sleeping.

I didn’t notice him.

I didn’t notice his white shoes, either.

Blind with feeling, I thrust along the passageways where slender neon tubes of pastel light floated, a modernistic touch, suggesting a chemical bloodstream fed the airport’s extremities. My big leather shoulder bag slammed against my hip, my breathing was loud. I talked to myself, finishing the conversation with Zev, telling him he was my favorite uncle. I’d admired and loved him since I was a kid, but … I owed him a lot, nevertheless … I’d never forget that he paid my college fees, still … that he pulled strings in New York to get me summer jobs, and, when my high school sweetheart became pregnant, Zev found us the doctor in New Jersey and paid for the operation. Then I stopped raving and let myself wonder if maybe it wasn’t anger that I felt but fear.

The philosophers say nothing in the mind is inaccessible to the mind. They are wrong. The mind is promiscuous. It collects more than you can ever possibly know. It —not me — had seen white shoes, and taken in the man on his back, sleeping under the newspaper. Minutes after the phone call, as I stood at a coffee counter, still tumultuous, I saw white shoes dangling from legs on either side of a stool and I remembered — I’d seen them before — remembered what I didn’t know I knew. I remembered the newspaper, too, which the man was now reading.

I left my coffee untasted on the counter, went to a phone, trying to be efficient, though hurried and frightened. I dialed Information, then Sam Halpert. Not once did I glance back at White Shoes, but I’d have bet a million dollars his eyes were set high in his head, which I’d seen as a blondish blur, complexion pocked and gullied from cheek to neck, as if he’d been washing in acid. Somebody picked up the phone, and, without any hello, said, “Can you hear me good?”

I said, “Yes. Sam Halpert?”

“Start laughing.”

“I have nothing to laugh at, Mr. Halpert.”

“This is a hilarious phone call, if somebody is watching you.”

I laughed, laughed.

“Don’t overdo it, kid. What does he look like?”

“Blond. Ha, ha, ha. Maybe six feet tall. Late twenties. Your average white trash.” The expression surprised me. It came flying out of fear, as if to strike the man. “Ha, ha, ha. Blue-and-white Hawaiian shirt, white slacks, white shoes with pointed toes. Ha, ha, ha. I’m scared out of my mind.”

“I want you to talk to me. Move your mouth, shake your head, laugh. Then hang up and go look for a taxi. Don’t run. Don’t dawdle. Don’t get ideas about calling a cop. Tell the taxi driver to go to Bayside, and to drop you at the flags.”

“The flags?”

“You’ll see like a park, flags at the entrance. An aisle of flags. Walk through the flags. There’s shops on either side. Go straight, straight, straight till you’re standing on a concrete ledge facing the bay. Below the ledge you’ll see a parapet. Go down to it and walk right. Repeat what I said.”

“Taxi to Bayside. Aisle of flags.”

“Laugh.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Through flags to water, down to parapet, walk right. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

“The taxi will cost maybe fifteen bucks. You got fifteen bucks?”