William Kennedy - Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

“I’m deeply sorry I missed that. Is this what animates your book on the slums?”

“Ethereal slumgullion, a mythically nutritious new literary form. Are you aware my first novel comes out in September?”

“The story of the political kidnapping?”

“That’s the one. It’s about my uncle, the pool hustler.”

“Am I in it?”

“Under another name.”

“Any true believers in it?”

“Under another name.”

“Will I recognize them?”

“I call them politicians.”

Renata put Gloria to bed and monitored her until she was asleep. Then she called Max at the number he’d left and told him to get a cab and come up here. Twenty minutes later he walked in with suitcase and briefcase in hand, wearing a white guayabera and tan shoes, a bit of leftover Cuba in his style, the first Renata had seen him in a year. He put down the bags and kissed her on the mouth, tried to linger, but she backed away and sat in an armchair. She pulled her skirt over her knees and he smiled. He thinks I’m on guard. She did not want to be alone with him, but it was necessary.

“Those bags,” she said. “You don’t have a hotel room?”

“I’m not staying. In transit, you might say?”

“Where are you coming from, and where are you going?”

“Miami, and I’m not sure what’s next.”

“You flew in?”

“I did. A charter.”

“How flamboyant. Do you want to stay here?”

“A tempting offer but I don’t think it’s in the cards.”

“You’re mysterious, Max. What is going on?”

“Everybody’s dying and I’m sick of it. First Inez Salazar, and then an actor I knew, both in Miami on the same day, now Bobby Kennedy shot, and an hour ago I hear Cody Mason’s on the way out with cancer — all this in two days.”

“I know about Cody. I told Gloria we’d go to his concert tonight. That great talent disappearing. How did you hear about him?”

“I was at the Havana Club and he came in. He’s thinner, but he looks pretty good. His son says he’s out of time.”

“You talked to Roy?”

“He tends bar. Smart and radical, like you.”

“Why are you talking about these deaths?”

“They seem connected.”

“Is death following you? Is that why you left Miami?”

“Problems came up. I saw Alfie in Miami the day before yesterday. He always speaks well of you. He’s done ridiculously well since Havana.”

“Is he as wild as he used to be?”

“People don’t change.”

“Was he with Inez when she died?”

“He took care of her, paid her rent and medical bills, but after she developed cirrhosis he wouldn’t go near her. He took it as an omen. Is liver disease an omen?”

“We create our own omens.”

“I saw her in the hospital, bloated and almost comatose. Her eyes followed me and I’m sure she was cursing me for being alive.”

“Poor Inez. Life was so unfair to her. She probably saved my life in Cuba the night they shot Quesada, and then what she did for me at the embassy.”

“I remember the embassy,” Max said. He picked up a small statue from an end table: bearded man on crutches, his bandaged head bleeding, a cloth around his loins, two dogs at his heels. “Lazarus in Albany. Babalu Aye, a bit of Havana.”

“I’ve tried to keep Cuba in this house. That, for instance,” and she pointed to a painting of an arresting figure, Sikan, a woman in black and white net body wrap holding a fish that embodies the god Tanze, a discovery that threatens Sikan’s life. “It was the one painting I took when we left Havana,” Renata said.

“You miss the old life. The country clubs, partying till dawn, all that shooting.”

“I did love it. Not the shooting.”

“I think you loved the shooting.”

“I loved what was sensuous and unpredictable in how we lived.”

“You don’t have that?”

“Sometimes. I went to North Carolina for two weeks with a group from the university to register black voters. And I went to Selma for the march, the second one, after the blacks were gassed and run down by men on horses and beaten.”

“You’re still fighting the revolution.”

“Of a different kind.”

“Were you hurt?”

“No. No battle scars.”

“What about your social life? No nightclubs.”

“None like Havana. I never go. I’m too old for children’s games.”

“You were no child when we played our game.”

“Shhhh,” she said, shaking her head and pointing to the ceiling.

“Would you go back to Havana?”

“It is not possible.”

“It’s possible if you want to do it,” he said, and when he smiled she saw a gauntness that was new: his cheeks, his neck slimmer than ever, his guayabera loose on his frame. The thin man. Was he sick? He seemed younger than his true years, hadn’t lost his hair, something of that old magnetism still there.

“I didn’t expect you to come to Albany,” she said. “I thought you’d wire the money through a bank.”

“Was your bank really going to foreclose?”

“They threatened, which is why I called you.”

“Don’t you have money coming in?”

“Daniel tells everyone his annual salary is below the federal poverty level, and I could make more begging on the street. The museum doesn’t pay serious money to my kind. They use wealthy women who take no salary, the same as in Havana. But we’ll be fine if we get through the summer.”

“And after that?”

“Daniel’s book will be published. That will bring a check.”

“How big a check?”

“Not big. We do not do anything that makes money.”

Max pulled a two-inch fold of cash from his trouser pocket and took off the rubber band that bound it. He counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills and pushed them aside, counted another ten. “Two thousand,” he said, and began a third pile.

“Two thousand is all I asked you for.”

“I’m giving you six. You want ten? Have ten.”

“Six? Ten? My god, hombre, no. We could never pay it back.”

“No need. Tell me a number.” He counted out six piles, then made them into a single pile.

“Six thousand?” she said. “Un milagro!”

Max handed her the money, then pocketed the still hefty wad. She put the six thousand in her purse.

“Do you always travel with so much cash?”

“It’s very spiritual to carry large sums, a holy form of danger. I once carried eight hundred thousand in two suitcases.”

“ Madre de Dios. Eight hundred thousand. Why?”

“I was delivering it.”

“Political money?”

“I took it to an embassy.”

“Ah.”

“You think my money is evil. I see it in your eyes.”

“I don’t know you anymore, Max. It’s been a long time.”

He leaned toward her and went down on one knee.

“It stuns me to see you, Natita. After all these years I’m still tortured in your presence. It’s an obsession. I’ve never been able to love anyone else, not even your sister.”

“Max, get up. This is bizarre.”

“You should’ve married me,” he said. “Leave your poverty and marry me now.” He put his hand on her knee.

“Max Osborne marries whichever woman is next to him.” She lifted his hand off her knee.

“Don’t scold me. I’m your fool. Love me. Love Max the fool.”

“Get up. Fools don’t kneel for anybody.”

He stood and he leaned over to kiss her. She did not turn away.

“Sit down, fool. You haven’t asked about Gloria.”

“No. Tell me,” and he sat. “What’s the matter with her? Why is she sleeping when her father is here?”