A Quiet Vendetta

From the trunk of the car I lifted the rug with Hernandez’s body inside and carried it to the edge of the high verge. I rolled him out from within, folded the rug and returned it to the trunk. I took a small can of gasoline from the back of the car and doused Hernandez’s body liberally. I stepped back and struck a match. I watched the flame for a moment, like a single candle against the night sky, and then I tossed it towards his body. The body ignited with a sudden whoosh, and flames swelled upwards. I was panicked for a moment. Such a fire would be visible all along the coastline, but by then it was too late. I hurried back to the car, started the engine without illuminating the headlights, turned around, and headed back to the road. At the top of the incline, perhaps three or four hundred yards from the fire, I killed the engine and sat watching for a while. No-one came. There was no sudden alarm raised. It was as if the eyes of Cuba were turned the other way. How long the body burned I did not know. After thirty or forty minutes I started the engine once again and drove away. I was half a mile from Hernandez before I switched on the headlights, and by the time I reached the house I had almost forgotten the man existed.

It was three days before Hernandez’s body was finally identified, more than a week before another constabulare came to Raul Brito’s shop to ask if Hernandez had been seen there in the previous days. Raul, forgetful at the best of times, said he could not recall the last time he had seen the man, and I acted patient and yet suitably ignorant of anything but books and cigars. I had already spoken with Raul, told him that all necessary documentation had been signed, and had given him the first thousand dollars of the ten he was due. Raul did not question me, I was his friend, and there was nothing requiring further discussion. I heard mention of Luis Hernandez once more in the subsequent week, and then there was nothing. He seemed to have been a man of little consequence in life, and equally lacked consequence in death. The lawyer never contacted Raul Brito regarding any incomplete documentation and the matter became unimportant. Each month for the subsequent nine months I gave Raul a further thousand dollars, and Raul – he of the old ways – never felt any need to consign the money to a bank. I was a partner in spirit, not on paper, and this arrangement served me well.

For three years my life with Victor became a simple and uncomplicated matter of moving from one day to the next with merely the darkness providing the seam between. He was schooled well, and by the time he reached thirteen years of age I could see in him the wide-eyed longing for the world that had been present as a young child. He asked me of America frequently, of the things I had done, the life I had lived in the New World. I lied to him in small matter-of-fact ways. It seemed unnecessary to tell him anything he would not have been able to comprehend, and thus he heard what he wanted to hear and he imagined the rest. The better part of a year later, as we entered the fall of 1996 and I approached my fifty-ninth birthday, Victor came to me one evening and sat facing me in the kitchen. Claudia had long since left for the night, and the house was quiet. He brought with him a book filled with pictures, landscapes and night-time horizons, and he showed me the towering image of Manhattan against a brilliant sunset.

‘You have been to New York,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper.

‘I have,’ I said. ‘I lived in New York for some years.’

‘Before I was born.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, before you were born. I left New York in the spring of 1982 and you weren’t born until the summer, and by then we had moved to Los Angeles.’

‘And you met Mommy there?’

‘Yes, I met her at the beginning of 1974 and we were married in May of 1977.’

‘Where did you live?’

I smiled. I could remember the sounds and smells, the faces of the people in the street. I remembered almost word for word the discussion that was held regarding a man called Jimmy Hoffa.

‘We lived in a small suburb of New York called Little Italy.’

‘Italy? Like the country?’

‘Yes, like the country.’

Victor was quiet for a time, pensive almost, and then he looked up at me and said, ‘What was it like, Daddy… what was America like? I find it hard to remember much at all.’

I leaned forward and took his hand. I held it as if it was my lifeline to something precious and eternal. ‘It is a vast country,’ I said. ‘Many, many, many times larger than Cuba. Cuba is just a small island near the coast of America. There are millions of people, tall buildings, wide streets, shopping malls larger than the Old Wall Ruins. Sometimes it is difficult to walk down the street because there are so many people coming the opposite way. It has everything good and everything bad that can be found in the world.’

‘Bad?’ Victor asked. ‘Like what?’

I shook my head. ‘Sometimes it is difficult to understand why men do the things they do. Some men kill, some men take drugs and steal other people’s property. Some men, out of desperation perhaps, feel that this is the only way they can live their lives. But against that it is possible for anyone to be happy in America. There is enough of everything to satisfy, and if a man works hard and keeps his word the whole world can be his.’

Victor was quiet again. I watched his face. I saw the light in his eyes, and I knew what he would say.

‘I want to go back to America, Daddy. I really want to go back to America and see it. I want to go to New York and see the buildings and the people. Could we do that?’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘I am old, Victor. I have come here to live the rest of my life. You are young, and when I am gone there will be all the time you need to see America… all the time you need to go anywhere you want in the world, and you won’t have your old father slowing you down.’

‘I don’t want to go alone, I want you to take me. I want you to show me everywhere you have been, all the places and the people-’

I let go of Victor’s hand and raised my own. I shook my head slowly. ‘Victor… I don’t know that you will understand even if I explain it to you, but I cannot go back to America. I am an old man now. I am nearly sixty years of age, and there is a great deal of America that I want to forget. We will stay here for a few years more, and then when you are eighteen you will be free to do whatever you wish and go wherever you might want to go. I will not stop you. I would not have it in my heart to stop you doing anything you wanted to do-’

‘So don’t stop me now,’ Victor said, and in his tone I heard that edge of fiery determination that I possessed as a young man. He was so like me in so many ways, and yet he was also innocent, and blind to the brutality of the world he desired.

‘I cannot-’ I started.

‘You mean you will not,’ he retorted, and he snatched the book and slammed it shut.

‘Victor,’ I said, my voice stern, unforgiving.

He glared at me defiantly.

‘We will not talk about this any more tonight,’ I said.

‘We will not talk of this ever again if you have your way,’ he replied.

‘Victor, I am your father-’

‘And I am your son. And I lost my sister and my mother too. I am lonely here. I spend all my time with Claudia, studying every hour of the day, and I cannot stay like this for the rest of my life.’

‘No-one is asking you to stay like this for the rest of your life… just for a few years more.’

‘A few days more would be too long,’ he said, and he rose from his chair. He looked down at me, a young man defying his father, and though at some other time I might have raised my voice to him, though I might have sent him to his room for his lack of compliance and misbehavior, I could do nothing but watch him silently as he spoke.

‘I am fourteen years old… old enough to know what I want, Father, and what I want is to go to America. No, we will not talk about it any more tonight. But we will talk about it again, and we will keep on talking about it until you are prepared to see things from my point of view. Then you will make a decision, and if the decision is that you will not take me then I will find a way to go by myself.’

He pushed his chair back with his knees, the sound like something ugly dragging itself across the ceramic tile, and then he turned and walked to the door.

He looked back as he stood in the doorway. ‘Goodnight, Father,’ he said, his voice curt and brusque. ‘I will see you in the morning.’

I listened as he made his way up the stairs to his room, as he slammed his door shut behind him, and I leaned forward, my arms folded on the table, and I rested my forehead on my hands.