Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“How is your mother?”

“I don’t speak to her.”

“You don’t speak to her?”

“You don’t know?” Cuco frowned. He looked at the remains of our lunch, moving one of the bread crumbs with a thick index finger into a puddle of water. It floated a little and then he crushed it. “She defected,” he said, obviously ashamed. “At the last Pan-American Games, she disappeared. We heard she was in Miami.” He sighed and returned his gaze to me. “They don’t tell you about me, but they tell me about you. He tells me,” he nodded toward Francisco, counting his change, still talking in great good humor with one of what he calls “the Gusanos,” the worms who deserted Cuba in her hour of need. “He says you are a great man in this country.”

“He doesn’t mean that as a compliment.”

“Yes. He does. He says you are a great doctor. He says you work for the poor. He says you could be wealthy and treat only the privileged classes, but you fight for the black children. That is what he says of you.”

I couldn’t answer right away. I found myself watching Francisco. Another man had come up to the register and now there was a three-way conversation going. I didn’t look at Cuco when I said, “I betrayed him.”

“Yo sé,” Cuco whispered. “My mother told me what you did. She didn’t forgive you.” He grunted bitterly, presumably at this irony, and then continued, “But he does. He says you don’t want to be a Neruda, but you have no choice. You can’t escape your blood.”

“What?” I couldn’t help myself from chuckling at Francisco’s melodramatic narcissistic fantasy. I forgot about studying him, and instead looked at my brother. I put a hand on his bicep. I was startled by the size and strength of his muscle.

“He says, you are a Neruda.” Cuco was grave. And his eyes were sad. “That is a compliment.”

I understood the sadness. I kept my hand on his powerful arm. “So are you,” I said.

It was Cuco’s turn to watch Francisco talking. We could hear the music of our father’s voice, not the individual notes. Eyes on Francisco, Cuco asked, softly, “You think I am?” And then asked me again, this time with his wounded eyes.

“Oh yes.” I nodded. “We’re both Nerudas.”

When Diane returned she said, “Sally’s got messages for you.” Francisco had finished talking with his new pals and was headed our way.

“Anything urgent?”

“They’re your messages,” Diane said with mock primness. “I told Sally you’ll call back.”

I went to the pay phone. My messages weren’t urgent, but one alarmed me anyway. Phil Samuel had called to ask if I wanted a copy of his new study. He could fax it or mail it. If the latter, he wanted to know whether he ought to send it to my home address.

“That’s weird,” Sally commented.

“Did he leave his number?”

“Yeah. Do you have a pen?”

I copied the number down on an old American Express receipt I found in my wallet. The phone was next to the two restroom doors. I looked back and saw Diane waiting for me. I decided to call Phil later.

Grandpa was already in the back seat of the car, head resting on Cuco’s shoulder, asleep. Francisco stood on the curb. The sun blinded me as I got near, gleaming off the chrome trim of Pepín’s Buick. While I blinked at him, Francisco said, “Unless you have an objection, I’ll arrange for my father to go in next month. He seems to like it.”

“You’re staying until he’s settled?”

“Yes, of course,” Francisco said haughtily.

“Remember,” Diane said, “if you transfer all his assets to you, then Medicaid picks up the bills. Otherwise they’ll clean him out first.”

Francisco squinted at the shimmering windows of the restaurant. “I don’t know …”

Diane touched his arm. “I’ll get the name of someone down here who can advise you how to handle it. There’s no reason for his life savings to be wasted. You and Cuco should have it, that’s what your father would want.”

“There’s no legal danger,” I said.

“What?” Francisco’s tone was sharp, ready to discipline. “Who said I was worried about trouble with the law?”

“You didn’t, I just—” I began.

He cut me off. “Do you have reservations for a flight tonight?”

“We’re going back tonight?” Diane asked me.

“I haven’t had a chance to make reservations,” I said to my father.

“We should stay until tomorrow,” Diane said.

For the first time he was cold to her. “No,” he said, opening the rear passenger door, “you’re leaving tonight.”

We rode in silence. Grandpa didn’t wake up when we stopped in his driveway. Cuco called his name several times, but not until he gently eased the old head off his shoulder, did Pepín’s eyes open. “Are we here?” he said in Spanish. He peered at the overgrown azalea bushes he used to trim every weekend. “But this is my house,” he continued.

“Yes, we’re home,” Cuco said.

Pepín asked plaintively, “Aren’t we going to the old people’s home?”

I stayed behind the wheel, silent, unable to move. Francisco didn’t reply or shift his eyes from staring ahead at his father’s porch. While they helped him out of the car, Cuco and Diane explained to Pepín that we had already been to the nursing homes. Pepín remembered as they shut the rear door. “They were nice,” I heard him say as it slammed. We were alone in the car, becoming uncomfortably hot the instant its air-conditioning was off.

“Life is hateful,” my father said with quiet conviction, seemingly to himself. I heard him pull on the door handle and quickly, faster than I could think to stop myself, I touched his arm.

“Wait,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him let go of the handle. I removed my hand. I didn’t have the courage to look at him. Nor did he want to see me. We faced forward, watching Cuco and Diane guide Pepín up the steps. Diane glanced back at one point, noted us, and moved on. Cuco also gave us a hard look while he held the door for them to enter, and again as he shut it behind him.

“Well?” my father demanded. “In a few minutes, we’ll suffocate in here.”

“Do you want me to turn the air on?”

“No. Just say what you have to say.”

“I was a very disturbed child,” I said, letting go of the wheel, my hands feeling the sloping dash. The vinyl was warm to the touch and the sun bleached my hands.

“There’s no reason to go over all that,” my father said impatiently, but without rancor. “You’re sorry. I know. You wrote that in your letters. Of course you’re sorry. I believe you. Is that it?” He shifted closer to the door, ready to leave.

“I was ten years old, Dad. My mother had committed—”

He cut me off quickly, fearfully I felt, but also in a declaiming voice, as if he were making a speech. “This is a new thing that’s happened here. I was amazed when I picked up Newsweek at the airport. And I found some of this nonsense in the Nation magazine. I mean, it’s everywhere, even the New York Review of Books. And television, too. All those silly chat shows. Not chat, I don’t mean chat—”

“Talk shows.”

“That’s right. They call them talk shows. God. It’s hilarious, their idea of talk. I mean, it just saturates the culture.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I rested my forehead against the steering wheel, neck exposed, and indeed, felt ready for decapitation.

“You don’t ?” He was so emphatic I had the illusion I felt his breath on my cheek. “You really don’t? Well, it makes sense. If you live surrounded by it, and it’s part of your work too, of course, so … Well, we’re all creatures of our time and place. I suppose I can’t blame you for falling for it.”