The Death of Fidel Perez. Elizabeth Huergo
silenced them, and he and his brother had fallen. Now her beloved son Tomás would return.
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
" Fidel silenced. Fidel fell."
Standing at the crowd's perimeter once again, Saturnina bellowed the words with conviction, drawing both index fingers to her lips as if she were silencing a noisy child and then extending her arms in midair. She watched the children scramble down the steep stairs, more than willing to play at this new dance of hers. She loved them and took pride in being the subject of their impromptu rhymes, the one who always shared with them whatever bit of something she had as if it were some great treasure. She was, as they teased her, their dotty abuelita of the streets, a perfect sort of grandmother, the kind always willing to sing and play through the heat of the long afternoons, the one who sheltered them in her lap after a beating or some other mishap: Of course they would oblige her in this game to see who could shout loudest, jump highest in glee.
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
The children's index fingers touched their lips, unable to control the swell of irreverent laughter. Then they jumped into the air again, arms stretched toward the skies, their feet striking the ground in unison. One big thud followed by peals of children's laughter and the excited bark of mongrels, then again and again in a game that seemed to find its own momentum: a rhythm that kept extending itself through the crowd. Hundreds of people gathered on nearby stoops and driveways and open windows began to join in, unaware that this was only a children's game, initiated by an old, mad woman who found herself standing in what appeared to be an enormous mandala, spurred on by the undefined void within themselves, a space normally filled with the invisible weight of anxiety and trepidation, its boundaries now obliterated by laughter.
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
The words galvanized the crowd into action, pushing them to the top of a curling crest, drawing more and more people together. The words confirmed the rumor, breaking the spell that for decades had left them inanimate, suspended in time, drawing each of them into the open air, entraining them all to the same realization, the same hope, and pushing everyone out into the streets.
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
" Fidel cayó. Fidel calló."
Out in the early-morning air they stood unfettered, aware only of what they wanted and needed to do, individually and together. The man with the bitten calf saw Saturnina and grinned, swooping her into his arms, spin ning her round and round while the children screamed in glee. Others began to imitate him, catching and spinning the women around them, faster and faster, in a frenzy of joy. Saturnina, distraught at their hilarity, extricated herself from the man's arms as quickly as she could. No matter how loudly she pleaded with all of them, she couldn't make them understand. Yes, Fidel had silenced them, and yes, he and his brother had fallen. But now her son would return. She had to make them understand. She watched the eddies of dancing neighbors swirl and break away and then form again, spinning faster before they broke apart, pulling away now into smaller clusters, walking, not dancing, moving step by step, without a clear destination, only a desire to create and reach some center. Saturnina had borne witness to the fall: She had touched the blood, and the blood had touched her, become part of her. Fidel and his brother had died.
" Fidel cayó y Fidel calló."
" Fidel cayó y Fidel calló."
"To the plaza!" someone shouted.
"To the plaza!" the crowd roared back.
"¡A la Plaza de la Revolucíon!" they began to chant, moving now toward the possibility they had held silently in their communal imagination for so long.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
" Wake up, Pedro. You're going to be late again," Sonya insisted.
Through half-opened eyes, Pedro Valle could see his wife Sonya standing over him. The light of the morning sun filtering through the shutters behind her made her glow like an angel.
"I'm awake. Go back to sleep, Sonya."
"I've been up for hours, you old fool. Are you really awake?"
"I'm awake."
"Your favorite neighbor was just at the door."
"That moron."
"He wants you to check the generator."
"He always wants something."
"He's not so bad, Pedro."
"Not so bad? The other day he buttonholed me. 'Hey, Professor, what'd Marx say about the dead and the living?' He must have practiced in front of a mirror for hours. 'You mean the weight of the dead on the brains of the living? I didn't know the Communist Party was scheduling meetings in our stairwell,' I told him. You should have seen the little cretin's face."
"You didn't really say that, Pedro?"
"Yes, I did," Pedro lied.
"He meant it as a compliment."
"He meant to entrap me."
"He probably read it in the paper. He knows you teach history."
"He's a cretin."
"If Carlito is such a cretin—"
"Compañero Carlito Cretino."
"Pedro, por Dios. He's so helpful."
"He's the block spy."
"You don't know that."
"You don't know he isn't. I don't know how my wife can respect a man who wears his underwear in public."
"Pedro, be charitable. He helps me when you're not here."
"I help you. I help you all the time. I wear my underwear inside."
"You wear everything inside. Are you going to get up?"
Pedro assured her he was. When she left the room, he pushed himself out of bed. He could feel his age: the life force that moved through him, and its counterpoint, the sinew-wrapped bones and skin he had become. He dressed quickly, wanting to avoid another knock on the door from his neighbor the comrade. Pedro could hear his wife opening the balcony doors that ran along the perimeter of their apartment. He could hear the mechanical clock on the dresser loudly marking the time. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning. He unlocked the front door and shuffled down three flights of stairs in his worn slippers, a box of matches in his shirt pocket.
Near the basement stairwell of the building was the water pump. The other tenants entrusted him with its safekeeping, depending on him to turn it on in the morning and off in the evening. The ritual protected the fragile pump and its miscellany of worn, half-broken parts from the power surges that followed the intermittent blackouts across Havana. Lit match in hand, he threw the switch, but instead of the familiar shudder of the engine, he heard nothing. The power was out this morning. He switched the engine off again and made his way back up the deteriorated stairwell.
"The power's out again," he told Sonya, shuffling past her in the kitchen. "You can tell Comrade Carlito the Cretin when he knocks on the door again. Tell him it's not my fault. Tell him to call for a rally against the government. Fat chance you'd ever catch our comrade doing that."
Pedro leaned into the barrel Sonya kept in reserve in the kitchen, pulled up a bucket of water, and shuffled into the bathroom. He stripped, squatted in the curtainless bathroom tub, and splashed the cold water on himself. The