Eccentric Neighborhood (19 page)

Several of Alejandro’s friends dove into the water but it was too late. He was never seen again.

Abuela Valeria was destroyed by Alejandro’s death. Abuelo Alvaro’s disappearance had been a heavy blow, but there had been no desperation in her grief. Alvaro had died of natural causes—he was terminally ill before he walked into the ocean, never to return. But Tío Alejandro’s death was different. He was only twenty-nine, and Abuela Valeria was sure he was innocent of the vile rumors that were circulating about him. She couldn’t reconcile herself to the undignified way in which he had died and the fact that everyone was gossiping about it. The drinking and the carousing that had supposedly gone on and the company Alejandro had been keeping—the spoiled playboys of Guayamés partying it up with their girlfriends—were very difficult to live down. From the point of view of Guayamés’s upper crust, it was all proof of Alejandro’s guilt, and his death was the price of his sins.

Abuela Valeria knew what was on everyone’s mind, and yet she sat proudly at Alejandro’s wake, not shedding a tear as the mourners milled and buzzed around her. I confess I admire her for the way she behaved. I’m sure she would have liked to caress Alejandro’s face one last time, combed his hair with Eau Impérial, and sealed his eyes with a kiss. She would have liked to say good-bye to him when his coffin, with the Rivas de Santillana coat of arms engraved on the lid, went through Emajaguas’s front door. But the empty space between her arms as she sat in the living room was all Abuela had to remember Tío Alejandro by.

Straight and proud, Abuela Valeria sat at the wake dressed in black silk from wrist to chin. She never once acknowledged the condolences her neighbors whispered in her ear as they entered and left the room; she never once answered the priest when he began to recite the Rosary, praying for Tío Alejandro’s soul—each Hail Mary was born stone-dead on her lips. Her wound was so deep it hardly hurt at all.

“I
NEVER CONSIDERED GETTING MARRIED
while Father was alive. But Aurelio wouldn’t give up. He was patient; he could wait forever, he said. And when Alvaro passed away Aurelio knew he had a better chance.

“He courted me for years and came every summer from La Concordia to visit me on Sundays. In 1926 he graduated from Northeastern and returned to the island with a master’s degree in electrical engineering. He had also obtained a diploma from the Boston Conservatory of Music. He immediately went into business with his father at Vernet Construction. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked every time he came to Emajaguas, holding my cool hand in his. I told him how much I liked him but that I couldn’t possibly marry him. Aurelio didn’t pressure me to decide.

“A week after Father disappeared into the sea, Aurelio phoned me at Emajaguas. I was still devastated, but he wanted to know if it was all right to come visit, and I said yes. We sat out on the terrace, looking toward the bay, and Aurelio kissed me on the lips for the first time. ‘I have a salary now,’ he said. ‘Will you marry me and come to live at La Concordia?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered with a smile.

“And as proof of my trust in him I added: ‘Father once told me never to sell Las Pomarrosas, “because once you sell the land, you can’t start over, because you will have sold your heart.” But since I’m starting over with you and I’m leaving Emajaguas, I want you to sell the farm. That way I’ll be putting my heart in your hands.’

“The wedding was to be a small affair, as Valeria didn’t want to spend any money on me. But Lakhmé, Dido, and Artemisa would all be there. And so would my dear Siglinda and Venancio. Aurelio’s father, his three brothers and two sisters would also be present. Aurelio’s mother, Adela Pasamontes, however, couldn’t come to the wedding because she was seriously ill. I asked Mother if the ceremony could be held in the garden. I wanted to spend my last few happy moments with my sisters in the paradise I was leaving.

“The night before the wedding I went to bed early because I wanted to look rested the following day. But as soon as I lay down on the bed, sleep abandoned me completely. Valeria had hung my satin wedding gown on the closet door and laid my Brussels lace veil on a chair nearby. The dress was only faintly visible in the dark and glimmered like a ghost. The veil had settled next to my bed like a cold mist. I looked away and sighed.

“It was four o’clock in the morning and the stars were beginning to fade over the palm grove next to Emajaguas, but I was still awake. I felt like a warrior keeping vigil before battle, my armor laid out at my feet. Just thinking of Aurelio caressing me made me feel faint. Would love be the answer to all my problems, as Siglinda insisted? I kept hearing Father’s voice when he used to take me to the beach to look at sailboats when I was a child: ‘You can be like them when you grow up, Clarissa, as free and happy as the wind.’

“I finally got out of bed, wrapped my Mexican serape around my shoulders, and crept down the stairs and across the garden to the carriage house. I knocked timidly on Miña’s door.

“Miña was putting on her uniform to come down to the house. Urbano had already left; I’d seen him feeding the animals in the cold morning mist at the back of the garden. Miña tied on her apron and began to comb my hair, which was slick and short like a boy’s. Then we sat on the edge of Miña’s bed, huddled next to each other.

“‘I can’t go through with it, Miña,’ I whispered. ‘Aurelio is two years younger than I am, and I’m not sure I’m in love with him. I’m bowing out.’ Miña burst out laughing.

“‘You can’t fool me, Clarissa. That’s just an excuse. You’ve been having second thoughts because you’re thinking of your father. Forget Don Alvaro,’ she said, patting my hand. ‘He’s dead and Aurelio is very much alive. Sure, you have doubts, but it’s not your fault. It’s that little piece of ice that got stuck in your heart when you were born.’

“And then she added, lowering her voice: ‘Aurelio’s a good man. He’ll know how to melt it.’ And she gave me a long hug. A few minutes later we went down the stairs together, and Miña brewed me a strong cup of coffee.

“The wedding took place on the morning of June 3, 1930. Everyone said I was a beautiful bride. I have a photo of Aurelio and me standing by one of the windows, encircled by the train of my gown as if we were standing in the middle of a silken pond. Aurelio is wearing his rented tuxedo and a top hat. We both look very serious, very much aware of the solemnity of the occasion.

“After a short reception and a champagne
brindis
in the garden, attended only by the closest family members, we changed clothes in separate rooms and ran laughing to the car under a shower of rice. We drove to La Concordia in Aurelio’s convertible Pontiac coupé, which he had named El Pájaro Azul, The Blue Bird of Happiness. From then on, Aurelio was the center of my life.”

“Y
OUR FATHER, AURELIO, BOUGHT
a small house for us in downtown La Concordia, near the train station. It was a middle-class neighborhood where the houses had corrugated tin roofs and stood in small lots so you could smell what your neighbor was cooking through the open windows. Aurelio bought the house with his hard-earned savings. It was made of wood and had a small balcony in front, then a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen, all in a row like carriages on a train; a long, narrow hallway in the middle led to the bedrooms at the back. The furniture was wicker, painted white, and there were lace curtains over all the windows. Aurelio had taken care of every detail.

“The only luxury we had at Calle Virtud was the Bechstein grand piano Aurelio bought with money from the sale of Las Pomarrosas. The farm brought three hundred thousand dollars, and the piano cost ten thousand. Aurelio put the rest of the money in the bank in my name, and ten years later, he invested the rest to help build the Star Cement plant. It was definitely a good business deal.

“The piano was so large it looked like a whale aboard a rowboat. To get it inside, Aurelio had to have our front door taken off its hinges. The piano took up most of the living room, so that there was nowhere left to sit down. It was an extraordinary object, totally out of place at Calle Virtud. But Aurelio loved it. Whenever he played it, music flooded the whole house.”

“When I first arrived in La Concordia and stepped out of the Pontiac I felt faint. The heat of La Concordia was like a slap in the face. Aurelio had to help me up the steps. ‘I’ll get you something cool to drink; lie down for a while and you’ll feel better. Our bedroom has a nice window that opens onto the back patio, which is shaded by a beautiful mango tree that rustles when there’s a breeze, as if it were raining.’

“I did as Aurelio suggested and went into the bedroom. Aurelio followed with my two white leather suitcases. Then he went into the kitchen to make me a lemonade, but when he came back with the iced drink in his hand he found me sitting on the edge of the four-poster bed with my suitcases still closed. The gabled tin roof had trapped the heat under the attic and the room was an oven. ‘I can’t possibly stay here,’ I said, about to burst out crying. ‘The heat is stifling, but I’m freezing—I’ll never be able to sleep. Please take me back to Emajaguas.’ I was bathed in sweat and shaking all over.

“Miña had told Aurelio about my sickness just before the wedding; how, when I was born, I had come back from the hospital with a tiny splinter of ice lodged in my heart and Miña had had to carry me around the house strapped to her chest for a month until I finally grew warm. It was a strange story and it had worried Aurelio, but in his usual gallant manner he pretended nothing was amiss. He didn’t say anything to me.

“‘Why don’t you let me play something on the piano for you? It’ll make you feel better before we drive back to Emajaguas,’ he suggested. And he went into the living room, sat down on the piano bench, and opened the lid. ‘Come and sit next to me, Clarissa,’ he called. I stepped out of the bedroom shivering and sat next to my handsome young husband. He began to play Beethoven’s
Appassionata
sonata. The music was so beautiful and Aurelio played so well that I gradually forgot I was cold. I calmed down and stopped shivering. When Aurelio finished playing he began to kiss me. He was a very good lover. He had delicate, almost feminine hands, which were as sensitive when he caressed my body as when he caressed the piano’s ivory keys. Soon the little piece of ice that was stuck at the center of my heart began to melt. We went into the bedroom and made love on the four-poster bed. It was as if a tidal wave of music swept me away.”

W
HEN I WAS YOUNGER
I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.

—
The Autobiography of Mark Twain

S
ANTIAGO VERNET OFTEN TALKED
to his children about his mother, and they enjoyed his stories. Elvira Zequeira was a rebel and a revolutionary who often hid
mambises
—black rebel soldiers—in her house at Santiago de Cuba. Elvira had a twin brother named Roque Zequeira, whose best friend was Henri Vernet. Roque met Henri in Paris. They both had studied engineering at the Ecole des Ponts et des Chaussées, and when they graduated in 1875, Roque suggested that Henri come to the island to try his fortune.

Henri was from the South of France and he came from peasant stock. He was born in Saint-Savinien, a drowsy little town on the bank of the Charente, where marshes abound and dozens of channels flow like arteries down the walls of a heart. Henri went to Paris to study engineering on a government scholarship because his father had been killed at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. It was an unfortunate accident; a truce had been reached and Charles Vernet’s battalion was already marching home when a musket ball ricocheted off a tree and hit him in the back of the head.

Henri’s mother made great sacrifices to send him to study in Paris; she waited for him in Saint-Savinien with her five children. She had high hopes for Henri. She was sure that, with his help, the family would finally pull itself out of poverty. But when Henri graduated, he couldn’t resist the temptation to sail with Roque to America. He had nightmares of returning to the marshes of the Charente, where no one was ever in a hurry and barges floated lazily down the river laden with cabbages and artichokes. Henri had gotten used to life in Paris; the air sparked with activity and minds were razor-sharp. When Roque invited him to go to America, Henri agreed. Someday he would come back with a lot of money to help out his mother and little brothers.

They sailed to Santiago de Cuba together. Henri stayed in Roque’s house. There Roque introduced him to his sister. “She’s a little hummingbird,” Roque said, picking Elvira up by the waist. “But watch out. When she wants you to do something you’d better do it or else find the lowest window to jump out of the house.” Elvira looked at Henri’s Sèvres-blue eyes and long, brown curls tied in a ponytail and fell in love with him. The fact that Henri was a soldier’s son made it difficult for him to express his feelings, and it was Elvira who asked him to marry her. He said yes, and soon Santiago Vernet—Abuelo Chaguito—was on his way. He was born in 1879.

Roque and Elvira Zequeira were orphans; their parents had died within months of each other in a boating accident off Punta Santiago, the southernmost tip of Cuba—or so Chaguito used to say. The children inherited the large, rambling house on the outskirts of town. After he married Elvira, Henri moved in, and the three young people helped one another out in every way. Henri and Roque pooled their savings and, making use of their newly acquired engineering abilities, built the city’s first commercial ice plant, Vernet Ice, which had its own electric generator—also the town’s first. Santiago was the capital of Oriente, Cuba’s richest province and the hub of much of its commercial activity. There were forty sugar haciendas in the outskirts; tobacco, cacao, and coffee flourished in the nearby Sierra Maestra. The city had magnificent homes and people gave extravagant parties all the time, so ice was a sought-after commodity.