Authors: James Grippando
Black Horizon (12 page)
“I can understand that,” said Jack.
“Here,” she said, handing them to Jack. “Please give these to Bianca. Tell her I am sorry. I have to get back to the gym now.”
Jack took the letters. He and Theo rose to say good-bye.
“Maybe we’ll see you around,” said Theo.
Josefina slung her bag over her shoulder. “Maybe.”
“We’ll be at La Floridita tonight.”
“Ah,
sí
, where the daiquiri was invented.”
“That’s what I hear,” said Theo.
“Expensive tourist trap. Have one drink to say you did it, follow Ernest Hemingway’s footsteps over to La Bodeguita del Medio, where he drank his mojitos, and then quit wasting your time and go to La Zorra y el Cuervo. Do you like Latin jazz?”
“Are you kidding me? I play the sax and own a jazz bar in Miami.”
She seemed to approve. “You’ll love La Zorra.”
“Thanks. So . . . see you around nine thirty?”
Josefina hinted at a smile, noncommittal. “Have a safe trip home.”
They watched her walk away, saying nothing until she reached the street corner a half block away.
“I think I got a date,” said Theo.
Jack shot him a look of disbelief. “That’s how you read that exchange?”
“How else would you read it?”
“Dude, we’ll never see her again.”
“Well, that’s not true. She’s your star witness, all the proof you need to show that Bianca is Rafael’s widow.”
Jack shook his head. “First of all, there is no law or treaty between the United States and Cuba that I can use to force a Cuban citizen to sit for a deposition or appear in an American courtroom.”
“We don’t have to force her. Maybe we can talk her into it.”
“Yeah, right. She was afraid to pass on Rafael’s letters, but she’s going to blow her Olympic dream and volunteer to testify under oath that her engagement to Rafael was a fraud, just so Bianca can get ten million dollars from the oil consortium in a lawsuit that was filed in Key West and that the Cuban government doesn’t even recognize as legitimate.”
Theo took a minute, seeming to process the boatload of information Jack had just delivered. “So you’re saying this was a total waste of time?”
“Basically, we got nothing.”
Theo reached for Jack’s bowl and scooped out the final melted spoonful.
“Ice cream was good. That’s something.”
“Yeah, that’s something.” Jack gathered up the empty bowls, rising. There was more on his to-do list.
“Come on. Let’s go collect some wedding photos.”
I
t was Jack’s first look at a Cuban farm. But it wasn’t in the countryside. The taxi pulled away, leaving Jack and Theo at the street curb in southwest Havana. On the other side of a chain-link fence were two acres of green urban land.
“This is a first,” said Jack. “A farm that backs up against the biggest hospital in a major city, with a tavern on one side and a bowling alley on the other. Can’t say I’ve seen that before.”
“Now you have. Let’s go to the bar,” said Theo.
“Business first.”
Jack opened the gate, and Theo followed him down a sandy path that bisected the farm into two separate parcels. They passed a plot of beans, then a smaller plot of sweet potatoes. Marigolds were at the end of each row, which Jack knew from his
abuela
was an age-old Cuban bug repellent. To Jack’s left, on the other side of the path, men were planting seedlings in neat rows. Their only tools were plastic water bottles with the bottoms cut off, which they plunged into the ground to create a perfect seedling hole. Skinny chickens in a variety of colored feathers roamed freely; a tattered patchwork of wire fencing along either side of the path was completely ineffective in keeping them out of the garden.
“I feel like any minute now I’m going to run into Eddie Albert, Eva Gabor, and Mr. Drucker,” said Jack.
Theo caught the reference to the ancient TV show, adding his own geographically appropriate rendition of the theme song from
Green Acres
.
“Verde
Acres is the place to be . . .”
Green
was the operative word, the whole idea behind the rise of urban and suburban farms and gardens in Cuba. More than a hundred thousand small farms sprang up in the 1990s and on into the next decade, when the Ministry of Agriculture distributed use rights (“in usufruct”) to an estimated three million hectares of unused state lands. It was the government’s answer to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Cuba’s loss of its source of pesticides, oil, and other staples of large-scale, state-run farming. People were starving. Of necessity, a
campesino
-style spirit and Cuban ingenuity took hold in the cities. Families grew what they ate, and their farming methods—no chemicals—caught the eye of environmentalists worldwide.
Bianca’s old friend—the photographer at her wedding—was lucky enough to work on one of the oldest urban gardens in southwest Havana.
“Can you tell me where I can find Olga Mendez?” Jack asked one of the workers in Spanish.
The man rose from his stooped-over position, arching his back to iron out the kink. He wiped the sweat from his brow and pointed toward the tin-roofed bungalow at the back of the property. It was in the late-afternoon shadow of the hospital that stood directly behind the farm. Jack thanked him and continued down the path. A huge feral cat darted across Theo’s shoe tops as they approached the front door.
“Now, that’s what I call rodent control,” said Theo.
Jack knocked on the door. A young woman answered. Her puzzled expression disappeared as soon as Jack mentioned Bianca. His client had obviously followed through and gotten word to Olga that Jack was on his way. Olga invited them inside, and Jack drew on his every facility with the Spanish language to answer a flurry of questions about Bianca. She led them to the kitchen, where several dozen empty beer bottles were lined up on the table.
“Guess we found the party house,” said Theo.
Olga laughed, obviously understanding. “No, no. Is for our salsa,” she said in English.
She opened the cupboard and showed them the finished product. Hundreds of recapped beer bottles were filled with a red sauce. She handed Jack one of the clear Corona bottles so he could see it.
“Is the best,” she said. “All from
el jardín
. We sell at the market in
Habana
on Sundays.”
“Very cool.”
“If you need any help emptying the beer from the bottles, I’m available,” said Theo.
She laughed again. “
Botellas
from
la taberna
.”
There wasn’t much in the kitchen, but they tried the sauce on a slice of sweet potato.
“Wow,” said Jack. “There should be a law that requires mango in all salsa.”
“And Cuban limes.”
“Is sour orange,” said Olga. “Like in
mojo
.”
Jack wanted more, and the Cuban people were so generous that they’d give you every last bit of food in the cupboard, even if it meant their going hungry for the next two days. Jack kept it to a mere sample, cutting himself off and shutting down Theo, the human vacuum.
When the small talk was over, Olga brought out a handful of photographs and laid them on the table.
“These are all I have,” she said.
Jack went through them, one by one. Olga narrated and identified everyone by name. Bianca looked like a girl, barely a woman. Rafael didn’t look much older, and it saddened Jack to think of his life cut so short.
“This one is what you want,” said Olga, saving the best for last.
Jack felt a rush of adrenaline, the way any lawyer would upon hitting pay dirt. It was a photograph of Bianca and Rafael outdoors, standing on the fourth step of a wide stone staircase. Rafael was dressed in a gray suit, blue shirt, and striped tie. Bianca wore a simple white dress and was holding a wedding bouquet. Mounted on the blue stucco wall behind them was a large brass plaque.
“Ministerio de Justicia
,” said Jack, reading it aloud.
“This was right after the ceremony, right outside
el ministerio
. See how happy they are?”
Jack’s gaze locked onto the smiling newlyweds. It wasn’t a marriage certificate, but it was the next best thing.
“May I take this to Bianca?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. All of them. She should have them.”
Jack thanked her, then took the conversation in a slightly different direction. “Did you stay in touch with Rafael after Bianca left the island?”
“Not really. Sometime he come by the market in
Habana
and say hello. He loved
la salsa
.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“It makes one month.”
“After he started working on the rig?”
“Sí.
We talked about that. He work two weeks on the rig, two weeks off.” Her expression saddened. “He was on this two weeks.
Que triste.
”
Jack gave her a moment, then followed up. “Do you know anything about Rafael and a woman named Josefina?”
“How you mean?”
Jack tried to be delicate. “There’s a rumor that Rafael was seeing a woman here in Havana named Josefina.”
“No. Not Rafael. That’s crazy.”
“But . . . how do you know? You said you hardly saw him since Bianca left.”
“He loves Bianca.”
Jack glanced at the wedding photograph. “I’m sure he did. But they were apart for a long time.”
“He still loved her as much as before. Maybe more.”
Jack and Theo exchanged glances. The former prison inmate was about as jaded as they come about long-distance relationships, and some of it was wearing off on Jack. “That’s a really nice sentiment,” said Jack. “But can you tell me why you believe it’s true?”
“He told me.”
“When you saw him last?”
“Sí.”
“Rafael said he still loved Bianca?”
“Not in those words.”
“What did he tell you?”
She drew a breath, then let it out. She breathed deep a second time, and Jack sensed a bit of a digression coming on.
“Did you know Rafael was student at
la universidad
? To be engineer?”
“Yes, Bianca told me.”
“And you know what job he worked on the oil rig?”
“He was a derrick monkey.”
“Sí.
Such dangerous work for student of engineering. Is that not strange to you?”
“I was told that the pay is good, and he wanted the money.”
“No. Not about money.
“How do you know that?”
“We talked. Rafael explained.” She took another breath, as if the words were no longer coming with ease. “Have you ever been on an oil rig, Mr. Swyteck?”
“No.”
“Ni yo tampoco
. But Rafael tell me it is the highest point on the rig. If you climb to top, you are hundred meters above water.”
“I’m sure it’s pretty scary up there.”
She shook her head. “Rafael not scared. He
wanted
to be up there.”
“Why?”
“He told me why. He say, on a clear day . . .” She paused again, a lump coming to her throat. She pushed through it. “He say, on a clear day he can see all the way to Key West, Florida.”
Her words went straight to Jack’s heart, and her point became clear. “All the way to Bianca,” said Jack.
She nodded slowly, sadly.
There was silence in the room. Jack’s gaze returned to the wedding photograph on the table. He picked it up, gave it another good look, and then glanced at Olga. A tear ran down her cheek.
“Gracias
,” he said, more convinced than ever that his client had lost her husband.
J
ack woke at four o’clock. The sun was streaming through the hotel window and hitting him in the eyes.
Sun? At four a.m.?
He checked his phone. It was four
p.m.
Saturday afternoon. His flight to Miami was leaving in two hours.
Idiot!
He tried to lift his head from the pillow, but it was too heavy.
Friday night had begun at La Zorra y el Cuervo (The Fox and the Crow). When the “fox” (Josefina) proved a no-show, Dr. Theo had prescribed all-night bar hopping. They made several stops in Old Havana, circled back to La Zorra, closed it down sometime after the live jazz stopped at three a.m., and then found more clubs. By the time they’d found their way back to the hotel, a new day had dawned on the diurnal half of Havana. Whether he was getting old was open to question, but Jack was admittedly too “mature” to be hitting local bars in foreign countries and drinking whatever firewater flowed from the well. The last thing Jack remembered was the sunrise over Havana Harbor. He’d slept through his last day in Cuba.
Gotta get up.
Jack sat up slowly in bed, massaged away the pain between his eyes, and moved to the edge of the mattress. The room spun for a moment as his toes brushed the carpet.
“Oh, my head.”
There was a pounding on the door. Jack forced himself up and answered. It was Theo, his backpack over one shoulder.
“I’m on the six-thirty flight to Jamaica,” said Theo. “You want to share a taxi?”
Jamaica?
It took a second for Jack’s brain to catch up. Jack had a nonstop to Miami. Felonious Theo, embargo buster, needed a more circuitous route back to the States.
“By ‘share a taxi,’ I assume you mean I pay and you ride.”
“With no extra charge for the pleasure of my company.”
“What a deal.”
Jack switched on the TV to keep Theo occupied, found his overnight bag, and started packing. Cuba’s state-run television had nothing about the spill, which was just as well, since Jack was feeling more polluted than the waves that marked the grave of the Scarborough 8. As he stepped out of the tiny bathroom with his Dopp kit in hand, he suddenly remembered all that he had forgotten to do.
“Shit! I was supposed to be at the Ministry of Justice this morning to look into Bianca’s marriage license. I can’t believe I slept in.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. They’re not open on weekends anyway.”
