Rosa Jordan - The Woman She Was

Hers answered, Don’t ask. Just carry on. We have no choice.

His eyes widened, but whether in comprehension or because at that instant they both felt the old man’s body give up life Celia would never know. Castro folded the hand gently onto the blood-soaked chest, stood erect, and moved away. Celia turned to see which patient she should attend next.

“Look!” Liliana shouted. “They got them!”

Across the lobby a knot of police prodded two handcuffed men toward the exit, one a young Latino tough, the other a short grey-haired man. When the captives glimpsed Fidel, the younger man tried to lift his hand in an obscene gesture, only to have it knocked down by the barrel of a policeman’s pistol. The older prisoner spat at the officer and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Fuck you, Castro, and the horse you rode in on!” then, “Chinga tu madre, Pendejo!”

The crowd roared and surged toward them, forcing the police to form a cordon around the captives for their own protection. On the opposite side of the lobby, Fidel’s security people pressed him toward the exit.

Celia turned back to the injured. She was about to bandage a child’s leg when Liliana appeared beside her. “I can do that,” she said. “You take care of her.” She pointed to a woman whose eyeglasses had imploded into her face.

“Oh God,” Celia said under her breath, “I need—”

A pile of items rained down beside her—bandages, antiseptic cream, scissors, and more. She sorted through them and found tweezers, which was exactly what she needed. Behind her she heard Liliana ask, “Where did that stuff come from?”

José replied, “The boutique. Nobody was around so I helped myself.”

“Santa María, Madre de Dios, Gracias!” Celia heard Alma exclaim. Seconds later she understood the reason for such fervent thanks. Teams of paramedics descended on them like a flock of white birds. Celia and other medical people who had been first on the scene fell back, letting the newly arrived professionals take over. The injured were eased onto stretchers and carried out, friends and relatives trailing behind.

Celia went down on her knees again next to the old mulatto waiter, who, being so obviously dead, had not been moved. It was pointless to close his eyes but she did it anyway. There was nothing else to be done

She felt a stabbing pain in one foot and gave an involuntary shriek.

“Be still,” Liliana said in a soothing voice. “I have to clean your feet. They’re bleeding all over the place. There’s a piece of glass in this one.”

There might have been more useful things for Celia to do just then, but she did not look to see what they might be. She lay forward on the carpeted floor, next to the old mulatto, and allowed Liliana to practise all the medical skills she had learned in the past thirty minutes.

When Liliana finished bandaging Celia’s feet and informed her that she could get up, Celia sat down on a nearby sofa and looked around. Most of the people remaining in the lobby were in uniform, police or hotel employees. Luis was talking to the police. A hotel employee was coming their way.

Alma said, “Those were the terrorists. I know. I saw their shoes.”

“Their shoes?” Celia said blankly.

“Young man!” Alma called out to the hotel employee. “Can you help me find a restroom? If there’s still one standing?”

“Right this way, compañera,” he said, taking Alma by the arm. “You were magnificent, by the way. Are you a doctor?”

“Ambulance driver,” Celia heard her reply. “Retired.”

JOE had always seen Celia as attractive, but not in an eye-catching way. Earlier, though, she floating up the steps ahead of him as they entered the hotel with a breeze swirling the skirt of her pale blue dress high enough to expose tan skin from taut thighs to trim ankles, he had had second thoughts about her beauty.

If that had surprised him, what entered his mind as he crossed the lobby surprised him even more. As he walked through the wreckage toward a woman who looked pretty damned wrecked herself, that mysterious gold chain glittering on one ankle, something in the back of his mind crumbled like a piece of plaster disintegrating hours after the main explosion. It was the notion that Celia was going to haul him out of the wreckage of his marriage. That anklet. Not from him. Not from Luis. Not something she would have bought for herself. There was only one possibility: another man. Celia Cantú was not the woman he thought she was.

The woman she was now was a mess, hair white with plaster dust and the front of her dress as covered in blood as if she had been stabbed. She and Liliana sat, fingers entwined, staring at the old mulatto. He was one of three people, all dead, who had not been moved.

As Joe approached, Liliana looked up with reddened eyes. “He was our waiter.”

Joe laid a hand on her chalk-dusty hair. “He was bringing our food when the explosion happened. It must have caught him broadside. How did you manage to get downstairs so fast? Celia thought she saw you go into the restroom.”

“We did. But those men were in there.”

“What men?”

“The terrorists. Tía Alma was about to go in a stall when I saw feet in the next one over. I pointed, and when she saw two pairs of men’s shoes in the same stall we got out of there fast.”

“But you couldn’t have known—” Joe began incredulously.

“No. We just thought they were gay guys. So we went downstairs to find another restroom. That’s when I saw Fidel.”

“You saw Fidel? Before the explosion?”

“Yeah. He was in a conference room with a bunch foreigners.”

“Where the hell was his security?” Joe wanted to know.

“They were there but they didn’t take any notice of us until I tried to peek in for a better look. A guy in an army uniform with about a zillion medals pulled me back. Tía Alma asked him where we could find a toilet. He said upstairs and pointed over our head, where we’d just been. Tía Alma gave him one of her looks, and said, ‘We prefer one that isn’t being used by perverts. ’” Liliana paused and shook her head. “You know, her attitude toward homosexuals isn’t very modern.” She glanced at Joe. “But maybe they were perverts. Normal gays would use the men’s room, wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. Not my area of expertise,” Joe said gruffly.

“Anyway,” Liliana continued, “when she told him about the men in the ladies’ room they all went crazy. Two ran in the room where Fidel was. One grabbed Alma and told her to show him which ladies’ room and another one took me by the arm and dragged me the other way and—”

She stopped speaking as Luis walked up. “Where’s Mamá?” he asked.

“Here,” Alma said as she joined them. “Shall we go?”

Luis took her elbow and headed for the exit. As the others followed, Liliana slipped her arm through Joe’s and asked in a shaky voice, “Is this going to change things, Tío Joe? Like make it harder to fly back and forth between Miami and Cuba?”

“Probably,” Luis answered for him.

“There’ll be a lot of grandstanding,” Joe admitted. “Likely a lockdown on both sides for a while.”

They passed through the lobby door and were standing at the top of the steps when Liliana stopped. Turning to face Joe, she said, “Then I guess, I think—I don’t want to go to Miami.”

“Wait a minute!” Joe grabbed her by the arm. “You’re saying—”

Liliana began to cry. “I changed my mind, that’s all!”

“That’s all ?” Close to two thousand bucks he’d spent to get her out and she’d changed her fucking mind? Joe lifted a hand. He wanted to slap the flaky little snit from here to breakfast but settled for a finger in her face. “Listen, if you’re afraid—”