Carolina told me what he said, I wasn’t expecting it. “The answer is why I live in La Coloma,” Luis signed, “and why I am also a diver and still search for this cave. My father said there were more stone balls in the cave. I want to find them.”
I glanced at Opari. A tiny window of curiosity opened in our minds that neither of us could close. “I’d like to come back sometime, Luis, maybe next year. You can teach me to dive. I’d like to help you look for that cave.”
Luis signed that we were welcome anytime and he would be glad to teach me to dive, although he wasn’t sure I could go that deep.
“You might be surprised,” I said.
We spent the night in La Coloma, then said farewell to Luis and started early for Finca Maria. It was a long, hot, and difficult journey. Carolina remained quiet along the way, while Opari and I kept our conversation limited. Finally, rising up into the hills above Vinales, the air became a little cooler and drier. Ciela was waiting for us. She gave Carolina a warm and silent embrace the moment she stepped from the car. Biscuit was absent, but Ciela said he had been informed.
Carolina filled the next day by driving with Indio to Pinar del Rio and taking care of legal matters. Owen Bramley’s casket arrived the following day in a separate vehicle driven by a mortician. He was resting inside a simple but elegant coffin of hardwood and brass. We buried him at sunset under a sky of pale gold with fiery layers of orange and red. The gravesite had a clear view of three massive
On our walk back to the house, Carolina turned to me and said, “Z, I’ve been thinking about something and yesterday in Pinar del Rio I finally said, ‘Why not?’”
“Why not what?” I asked.
“Why not stay here?”
I looked in her eyes. I had seen the same expression many times in her life, the first being when she told me she was going to place a whorehouse in the most exclusive neighborhood in town.
“I’ve thought it through,” she said. “I could send for Star and Caine, they will love it here, and Jack can take care of the house. The work I’ve been doing here with Ciela is more important and rewarding than anything I could do in St. Louis.” She paused. “I need to get away from St. Louis for a while, Z.” She glanced at Opari. I could tell they had discussed this on their walk. “And you and Opari want to find Luis’s cave, don’t you?” She paused again. “Well, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Why wait for next year? Do it now. We will all go diving.”
I reached for Opari’s hand. “What do you think?”
Without hesitating, Opari said, “I believe it is an excellent plan, Carolina. I could not have thought of a better one myself.”
The decision had been made. Carolina telephoned St. Louis and relayed her plans to stay in Cuba and the reason why. The unexpected news about Owen shocked Jack, Star, and Caine, who had grown to be like a son to Owen. Jack understood and agreed to watch the house in St. Louis. After traveling by train to Miami, Star and Caine arrived at Finca Maria on the last day of December 1931. All the girls were bewitched by Caine, who was starting to enter puberty and acted embarrassed by the whistles from the girls and the teasing he received. But he didn’t run from the attention. Caine already possessed the dark good looks of his father. Star embraced the life at Finca Maria. She relished the food and slower pace of life and became close to all the girls. By February we had settled into a routine that we followed week after week, then month after month, and eventually year after year. While the rest of the world plunged deeper into the Great Depression, in western Cuba, little by little, we began our Great Obsession. Each Friday at noon, Carolina, Opari, Caine, and I loaded the DeSoto with supplies and Carolina drove from Finca Maria to La Coloma. We stayed in a bungalow Carolina purchased for almost nothing. It was close to Luis and near the marina where his boat was anchored. The bungalow was small and simple, and after Carolina had improved the wiring and plumbing, and redecorated, she named it “Pequeno Maria.” Every Saturday and Sunday, we sailed and explored with Luis, covering miles of coastline, sometimes fishing, but mostly diving, and always searching for the lost underwater cave with the stone spheres inside.
At first it was fun, a game, an adventure like treasure hunting. We had some difficulty finding equipment small enough for Opari and me to use, but once we did Carolina and Luis taught us all about rubber goggles, fins, and snorkeling, and Opari taught me a method of breath control she learned from Chinese pearl divers during the Ming Dynasty. Within weeks, Opari and I were able to dive with Luis, going down thirty to forty feet and staying down four to five minutes, while Carolina and Caine patrolled above in the boat. Luis called it “skin diving.” Opari and I fell in love with it. The more we did it, the more we wanted to do it, and the more I studied the stone ball in Luis’s house, the more I wanted to see the others. It was the same for Opari. Quickly, diving was no longer just “fun.” We became obsessed with finding the cave.
Luis’s father left behind a journal and several notebooks filled with detailed drawings of underwater landscapes and odd formations he had observed surrounding the cave. The problem was that all his notes pertaining to location were written in a personal code only he understood. Luis continued to use the notes as reference, but not for guidance. Instead, he carried out a systematic search based on grids he had drawn over nautical maps, coastal maps, and geological surveys. He was exploring each grid one at a time and there were hundreds remaining.
Usually, we drove back on Monday and our life at Finca Maria occupied our weekdays. However, during exceptionally good diving conditions Opari and I would stay through the week and continue diving with Luis until Carolina returned the following weekend. Many times early on, I thought we had found the cave or at least a landscape to match the drawings, but it was never the right one.
Our time at Pequeno Maria became completely isolated and we rarely talked of anything other than diving and the search. The area was extremely remote and the population sparse. At Finca Maria, though there were many of us living on the sprawling farm, the surrounding country was rural and news mainly concerned local events. Biscuit brought us baseball news when he visited and Indio kept us abreast of current events in Cuba, particularly the opposition to Gerardo Machado and his secret police, the “Porro.” Jack kept us informed about the world at large through long letters and telephone calls, which Carolina made from Pinar del Rio every week. On May 12, she spoke with Jack and learned that the kidnapped baby of Charles Lindbergh had been found dead. The sudden news saddened all of us and Carolina became depressed and melancholy for days. She said she missed planting flowers in spring and tending to her “Honeycircle,” and she missed Owen more than ever. Then she decided to plant a “Honeycircle” at Finca Maria in his honor. She placed honeysuckle bushes and wildflowers in a wide ring around his grave, and planted fragrant white mariposas throughout. Whenever she felt the need, she spent the whole day tending to the “Honeycircle.” It worked. She would always return with a smile, refreshed in mind and spirit.
Our life was basic, simple, and our routine changed little. Days were slow and full, yet time seemed not to exist. The days and months ran together like small streams into a river. In the evenings at Finca Maria, kitchen scents of cumin, sour oranges, onion, and garlic mingled with echoes of distant mockingbirds, and on weekends the scent of sea spray and salt. Four years slipped by and I barely took notice. Even though I was Meq and understood our unique perspective on Time, this “detached” feeling was brand-new to me, so I mentioned it to Opari. She told me not to worry. “It is common,” she said. “You are experiencing what the old ones learn to do gradually as segments of time become longer. I have felt two hundred years pass in the state of mind you are experiencing. It is said that before the Time of Ice, this state was given a name. It is called
I continued in the same exquisite balance and strange state of being here/not here for another year, learning the nuances and shadings, and learning how to “extend or contract” as Opari had said I would. There were odd “side effects,” which Opari said were normal. One I welcomed and one was a trade-off that frightened me. When I thought about Opari living in this state for two hundred years or more, I gained new respect for her and all the old ones. I welcomed the fact that while I was in this state I had not one thought or dream concerning the Fleur-du-
