Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

Anyway, I didn’t care how grand the hall bathroom was; I wanted privacy. Once my father confirmed that any guest might and would use it, I decided not to go to the toilet until we moved to a real hotel. I asked when that would be.

“What do you mean?” my father laughed. “Don’t you think this is a real hotel?”

“You know …” I trailed off.

“I guess living with your uncle has spoiled you for anything but the Carlyle.”

“No it hasn’t!” Francisco had spoken in a neutral tone; but I heard a damning judgment underneath and wished I could retrieve my complaint.

“It’s not your fault. It’s what you’re used to.”

“No, I’m not. I don’t even know what the Carlyle is.”

Francisco must have been dismayed — he didn’t laugh. “The Carlyle is a hotel for rich people in New York. You know, this is really a perfectly charming place. Your uncle’s standard of living is — well, way beyond most Americans, let alone what people are used to in Europe. Even in the best hotel in Spain, although the bathroom would be in your room, it wouldn’t be any better than this one.”

Of course, if the bathroom were in my room, especially because it would have at least doubled its size, that would have made quite a difference. “Oh, it’s great,” I said.

“Okay,” Francisco said. But I had hurt his feelings. We walked back to my little room. My father said he was going to unpack and he left me alone.

I sat on my bed. The springs creaked with age. I looked at the close-by wall opposite and felt abandoned. Outside I heard an ominous clacking on the pavement; I thought it was the tread of an enormous horse. I went to the window and peered through a gap in the wooden Venetian blinds.

They were the footsteps of a Guardia Civil. He was dreadful. He was overweight, but that made him no less scary. In the uniform, moving inexorably under his cape and patent leather hat, like a sort of man-eating turtle, he was as terrible as any of his leaner and more fit brothers. I watched him go up the street, a slow patrol that I found as fascinating and as awful as King Kong’s destructive progress through a peaceful city and I imagined what it would be like to sleep there, alone, listening to the footsteps of the fat Guardia Civil.

“Dad!” I called. I was too scared to move. I shouted again. “Daddy!”

Francisco appeared with his shirt off and a clean one in his hands. “What is it?” He looked scared too.

“Is Carmelita going to stay here?”

“That’s what you were shouting about? You gave me a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry.”

He sighed and put on the shirt, buttoning it. “Yes. She’s going to be with us from now on. But we’ll talk about that in the morning.”

“No. I mean, is she going out with you?”

“Of course not. You think I would leave you alone in the hotel? Is that the kind of father you think I am?”

I was ashamed. After all, he had never left me, he had been driven out of the country by death threats, and stayed away to fight against imperialism. “No,” I mumbled.

“You know,” he said in a soft voice, “I took a chance coming to the States to get you. I could have been arrested and had my passport taken away. But I didn’t care because I wanted you with me.”

Think of what he had risked to come get me, I scolded myself. I was very ashamed. I lowered my eyes to the tails of his laundered white Brooks Brothers shirt. Maybe I didn’t deserve such a good Daddy.

“I kept it, Daddy. And I never told.”

“What?” He moved to me and lifted my chin. “I can’t understand you. What did you say?”

I was crying as I talked and the tears garbled what I said. “I have your secret letter. I know it was supposed to be destroyed but I kept it. Mommy was angry, I think.” Once I started crying it was hard to stop, although I no longer felt bad. I sobbed, became aware of my father’s mounting upset as he nervously tried to soothe me and tell him what was wrong, all the while feeling better beneath the tears.

[Note the cyclical testing of whether the father truly cares, characteristic of a battered child. Although no violence is present here, the emotional blows are similar. There is need for attention at any cost, even if it is painful.]

Carmelita returned while I struggled to stop weeping. She spoke softly to my father, shut the door and unloaded my sandwich from a red mesh shopping tote. She spread the wrapping paper on the tiny, almost doll-sized night table, and put my food on it while I calmed down. She watched us and rubbed her stomach gently with her right hand. I looked at her round contented face. She smiled at me lovingly.

“Now, what were you trying to say about a secret?” my father asked.

I took out my Indian wallet and gave him his letter.

To my surprise, when he unfolded the yellow paper’s deep creases and read the first few lines of his handwriting, he frowned from lack of recognition. That lasted for only a moment before the shock and horror at what he was reading came into his bright eyes. He broke off to stare at me as if I were something he was afraid of.

I was surprised at that reaction; and yet I wasn’t.

[My unconscious knew exactly what was going on. What marvels we are: seeing when we are blind and blinded when we see.]

I stammered fearfully. “I never told, Daddy! I was a good Communist. I never told.”

Carmelita said, “Comunista?” She was baffled and looked to my father for an explanation.

I ran to Francisco and pushed my way into him, past the letter. I called to his astonished, paralyzed face. “I kept the secret, Daddy. I was good.”

He pulled my head to him. “I’m sorry, Rafe.” The tone of his apology wasn’t to a child. The use of my more American-sounding diminutive is an indication of the closed gap between our ages. He was a huge man hugging a nine-year-old but his tone was man to man. “I’ve failed you. I don’t know how you can forgive me.”

“I love you, Daddy,” I wept into his starched shirt, ruining it for his important dinner.

“I can’t… Not now.” He moved me off him and spoke in a rapid Spanish, way too fast for me to comprehend, to Carmelita. In moments, I found myself in her arms, pressed against her hot and swollen chest, smelling garlic that somehow clung to the rough fabric of her blouse.

Francisco left. He came back in about half an hour. By then Carmelita had coaxed me to eat my sandwich. She spoke to me in Spanish about everything, with a cheerful and welcoming smile, but without any helpful dumbshow gestures.

“Feeling better?” my father asked and didn’t wait for an answer. He had finished dressing in a charcoal gray pin-striped Brooks Brothers suit. Carmelita exclaimed over him. He smiled and accepted the touch of her admiration — she stroked his hair and straightened his tie — while saying to me, “We’ll talk about that letter tomorrow. We’ve got a lot to discuss. That was a scary time and I shouldn’t’ve written the things I did. You don’t have to worry about any of that. Okay?”

“It’s not a secret?”

“It’s better, in this country and in the United States, not to talk about being a Communist. And you should know, that I’m not a member of the Communist Party. I haven’t been for seven years. Nor was your mother.”

“No?” I felt relief. I wanted to clap; but I knew that wouldn’t have been right either.

“I support Fidel.”

“Un fidelista!” Carmelita said as if she were announcing the arrival of a circus.

Francisco smiled at her and continued to me, “I support Fidel. But you don’t have to keep that a secret. Not even here. Okay? We’ll talk about it all tomorrow.”

“Okay, Daddy.”