Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“Give you cavities,” I said with solemn disapproval.

“No, no. It’s not like processed sugar. The sugar of the sugarcane is pure. Doesn’t bother your teeth or make you fat.”

“Really?” I asked and was again assured of the cane’s innocence. It really was a fairy tale kingdom, I decided. The sugar didn’t even rot your teeth.

Crossing the intersection was a breeze and I was glad — unaccountably glad — to be alone. My father’s unending talk about Havana, about my height, the relentless self-consciousness of being with him was exhausting. I bought myself a thick chocolate doughnut and was quite happy with its unnatural sweetness.

My father enjoyed his coffee, too. “Ah,” he smacked as he finished it. “Not your grandmother’s coffee. But I feel refreshed. You were right. We needed something.” He squinted at the gray airport roads. “He’s late,” he commented anxiously. “We have plenty of time,” he added, but sounded unconvinced.

I fell asleep leaning against the wall. The weight on my eyes felt especially heavy, so heavy I couldn’t open them when I heard a voice penetrate my dreams, a voice I thought I had forgotten, and that I wasn’t happy to hear. It was the man I discovered in our old Washington Heights hallway, the Asturian who had brought my father’s letter to my mother. He was grinning and telling me that message again, or trying to, only his mouth was full of gooey, oozing sugarcane. I struggled to open my eyes.

I woke up to see him, the real Asturian, standing beside my father (actually dwarfed by my father) and studying my face doubtfully. He wore a brand-new blue pin-striped suit, with a white shirt and a blue tie. He was little and looked littler in this outfit, a man stuck into a box of fabric with a hole for his head. I noticed and remembered because Francisco made a fuss about it.

“Pablo!” Francisco smacked the Asturian on the shoulder with his hand and let it linger while his fingers squeezed with affection. “You’re dressed like the chairman of the board of ITT,” he continued. “I don’t know whether to shoot you or ask for a job.”

Pablo ducked his head and smiled sheepishly, both pleased and embarrassed. He answered in Spanish and I understood that he said something about looking respectable for the authorities. He specified which authority but I didn’t know that word. It must have had to do with getting a passport for me since that’s what he produced from his pocket, a pale green object, somewhat larger than a wallet, with the word PASSPORT in embossed gold letters and below it, also embossed in gold, the bald eagle, head turned ominously sideways to fix us with one eye, clutching arrows in its left talon and an olive branch in its right one. E PLURIBUS UNUM was written on a ribbon streaming from its mouth, and beneath the fearsome bird, United States of America was impressed in gold script.

“Mira,” Pablo said, opening it.

I scurried over to see what he showed my father. It was page four, mostly blank except for this on top—

THIS PASSPORT IS NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL TO OR IN COMMUNIST CONTROLLED PORTIONS OF

CHINA

KOREA

VIET-NAM

OR TO OR IN

ALBANIA

CUBA

A PERSON WHO TRAVELS TO OR IN THE LISTED COUNTRIES OR AREAS MAY BE LIABLE FOR PROSECUTION UNDER SECTION 1185, TITLE 8 U.S. CODE, AND SECTION 1544, TITLE 18, U.S. CODE.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Shh,” my father said and clumsily pulled both me and Pablo away from the package counter. From the moment Pablo joined us, we had the clerks full attention. He leaned forward to get a look at the object that so interested us; he could easily see it was a passport.

I thought my father was inept at how he reacted to the clerk’s scrutiny. He backed us out of the anteroom and onto the airport road. We left without watching where we were going. A taxi honked at us. We had to scurry away as it passed, missing us by inches. I looked down at my feet to make sure they weren’t squashed. During my nap, the sunny winter day had become a raw, foggy night. A heavy mist oozed moisture, a fine drizzle. We were quickly covered by a sheen of water. We hustled under a covered sidewalk leading to the terminal. I looked back. The clerk stared after us, not amused at our comic departure.

“That was dumb,” I said to my father. “Now he’s watching us. You should have acted like it wasn’t anything special.”

Pablo laughed. He had a row of tiny bottom teeth; two were black. “Sam Spade,” he said and rumpled my hair. His fingers smelled of tobacco.

“Nevertheless, Rafael is right.” My father straightened and appeared loftily unconcerned. “Let’s walk casually into the terminal.”

There were molded plastic seats in the Trans World Airlines terminal. I had never seen that kind before and I was amused that their slippery surface caused me to slide right off. I had to make an effort not to fall to the floor.

Pablo took out a Daily News. He spread it open in front of him, the passport concealed inside, so that to an observer he and my father appeared to be studying a news item together. I couldn’t see that well from my angle, but I could tell they were looking at a small black and white photograph stapled inside the passport. It was of a boy, a boy who had dark hair like mine and a nose like mine and high cheekbones with deep-set wide-apart eyes that also resembled the general look of my face. But my prospective doppelgänger had spread his mouth into a smile for the photographer, a broad goofy smile that revealed a missing front tooth. A tooth that I certainly still had in my head. “Coño,” my father said as he looked at me and then returned to the photograph.

“Let me see,” I said, trying to climb onto my father. I was too big for his lap. I leaned across his body and rustled the Daily News. “Is that supposed to be me?” I asked, I guess too loudly, because Francisco shushed me and Pablo groaned.

“Now you are not careful,” he said.

“Well, I have all my teeth,” I whispered with so much intensity that my father shushed me again. “And he has too much hair.”

“Your hair could have been …” Pablo used the fingers of his right hand to imitate a scissor cutting. Half the Daily News began to unfurl and he grabbed for it.

“Oh, right,” I said. And then I cried out with inspiration: “And I’ll keep my mouth closed!”

They shushed me. My father seemed quite angry this time. “How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t shout.”

“Sorry.” I slunk back onto my seat. “But he doesn’t look like me,” I said, having had a closer inspection. The resemblance was superficial. His face was narrower than mine, his eyes were almost in shadow they were so far back, and his nose was fatter, more squashed.

“Listen.” My father took hold of my bicep. His fingers were long and strong; they seemed to wrap around my skinny arm twice over. “This is very important. We had to use another boy to get the passport. I didn’t have time to get you to take the picture. There’s nothing seriously wrong about what we’re doing, but you can’t talk about it. They won’t look at it carefully. Just keep your mouth closed so they can’t see your teeth. Okay?”

“Okay. I said that first.” I pulled my arm free. It felt numb.

“And don’t talk about it to anyone. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I was miserable. My legs ached, my eyes burned. Was I sick? There was an uncomfortable heat snaking throughout my body and pulsing in my head.

We approached the ticket counter. My father held out the passports, ready to hand them over to the clerk.

You’re with Daddy, I said in my head, and you’re happy.

Francisco gave the ticket agent my passport. He opened it.