Now is it their friendship I want, he wondered, or their dependency? I think it is very important to know. Am I sorry that they can talk to each other and to this man, am I frightened that there will be others like Campos? Am I so dull a man, even to myself, that I fear these others will take my friends from me? Am I so tired and so purposeless that I want to keep them with me forever, living off their need and their loneliness? You can't do that, Jonathan. They are minds, and you cannot make minds dependent on you. That would surely make you the devil.
Cuando se ven queridos,
No corresponden
They were laughing as they finished the song. Mr. Rebeck lay on his back and applauded. "Bravo," he said. "And brava for Laura."
"Did you catch my harmony on the second chorus?" Michael asked them all. There was no answer. "Don't everybody jump at once."
"Haunting," Laura said dryly.
"Subtle," Mr. Rebeck offered, with the air of a man trying to be both helpful and honest. "Very subtle."
"Fourth-dimensional," Michael said. "But I mustn't chide you for your stupidity. You have no means of comparison, no point of reference. Campos appreciates my harmony. I can tell by his sullen silence."
"What does the song mean?" Mr. Rebeck asked Campos.
The big man shrugged. "Means women are wonderful. Never was a tree without a shadow, a house without dust in the corners, and a woman who didn't love somebody sooner or later. Means men are sons of bitches. Soon as you love them, they run. Don't trust the sons of bitches."
"Simple folk wisdom," Michael said. "Handed down from the Mayans. Close your eyes, dear, and think of England."
"There are a lot of songs like that," Laura said. "All from the woman's point of view. Never trust men, they say. Beware of lovers. All men leave you. The faithful ones just die before they get ready to leave."
"There are just as many songs from a male standpoint," Michael answered, "only they're not sung. They're not funny and they're not beautiful. Love songs have to be one or the other, like people. So nobody ever sings them at Town Hall concerts. But every man knows a few."
"Sing one," Laura challenged him. "Sing one now."
"You have to be in an evil mood to sing one," Michael said, "and I feel rather amiable. Also, you have to sing it when you don't feel like singing, and I feel very much like singing. I'll sing it for you, if you like, but I want you to understand my handicaps."
"May I sing something with you?" Mr. Rebeck asked. "I can't really sing, but I'd like to."
All three stared at him, and he read the look in their eyes as a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. That was foolish, he thought. Why did I do that? I wish I had it back.
Michael spoke first. "Of course you can. Did you think you had to ask?" He turned to Campos. "Teach him 'El Monigote,' the one about the dummy. It takes five minutes to learn."
But Laura spoke quietly. "No. Teach us something new, something none of us knows. That's the best way to learn songs."
"I can't really sing," Mr. Rebeck said again, but Campos interrupted him.
"Know a lullaby," he said loudly. "They sing it to kids. You want to learn it?" The three nodded.
"Simple as hell," Campos said. "Like this." He sang the words deep in his throat, looking far up the road as he sang.
Dormite, niñito, que tengo que hacer,
Laver tus panales, sentar me a comer.
Dormite, niñito, cabeza de ayote,
Si no te dormis, te come el coyote.
"I caught the coyote bit," Michael said. "What's a coyote doing in a lullaby?"
"Like the bogeyman. What it means, sleep, kid, I got to wash your clothes and get something to eat, sleep, kid, little pumpkinhead, if you don't go to sleep, the coyote'll get you."
"Oh, lovely," Michael said. "They know how to raise kids in Cuba. No fooling around."
Campos ignored him. "Then it goes like this."
Arru, arruru,
Arru, arruru,
Arru, arruru,
Arruru, arruru.
Mr. Rebeck started to sing a few notes behind Michael and Laura. He had been afraid that he would not be able to sing at all, and when he heard the first notes of the new voice in the chorus he was so startled that he stopped for a moment. He had known that his voice would sound dry and rusty with disuse, but he found that it was actually painful to sing. His throat was full of sawdust and he could not swallow. His lips felt tight and crusted.
Still singing, Campos reached over and shoved the last bottle of rum into his hand. Mr. Rebeck drank from it and felt the wall of thorns in the back of his throat go down and the song step over it. He drank once more, to wash the last thorns away, handed the bottle back to Campos, and began to sing again.
Arru, arruru,
Arruru, arruru. . . .
When the chorus came to an end, he began to sing it all over again. He sang alone, his voice loud and joyous, losing the tune at once and finding scraps of it as he went along, changing the key when he couldn't hit the top notes. Laura and Michael smiled at each other, and he was sure they were laughing at him. I am making a fool of myself, he thought, but I was born to be a fool and I have had a long enough vacation from being a fool. Of course they are laughing. I would laugh myself if I weren't singing.
But he also thought, Sleep, child, sleep, little pumpkinhead—and he sang the meaningless syllables with his eyes shut because he thought he might stop if he saw them laughing at him.
Then Michael began to sing with him, softly, absently, not looking at him, not looking at anyone. They finished the song together.
Arru, arruru,
Arruru, Arruru.
Michael sang the last note and stopped, but Mr. Rebeck held on to the note as long as he could, until there was no breath in him and he had to let it go.
A black feather dropped into the dim light, and they heard a snort of disgust in the darkness above them. Then the raven plumped down into their midst, beating his wings wildly as if he had just fallen off the wind. He regained his balance, blinked at the four of them, and said, "What the hell is this, group therapy?"
Michael was the first to recover. He pointed at the feather in the grass. "You dropped something, I believe."
The raven looked ruefully down at the lost feather. "I'm a lousy lander," he said. "Never in my life have I made one decent landing."
"Hummingbirds land well," Michael said. "Like helicopters."
"Hummingbirds are great," the raven agreed. "You should have seen me when I found out I wasn't ever going to be a hummingbird. I cried like a baby. Hell of a thing to tell a kid."
"What are you doing up so late?" Mr. Rebeck asked. "It must be four in the morning."
"I'm up early. You're up late. Too hot to sleep, anyway. I was flying around and I heard the glee club. Celebrating something?"
"No," Mr. Rebeck said. "We couldn't sleep either."
The raven cocked his head to look at Campos. "This one I know from somewhere."
"Campos," the big man said. "I'm a terrible guard."
"Yeah," the raven said. "I remember you. I hitched a ride on your truck once."
Campos shrugged. "Ride all you like. Ain't my truck. Belongs to the city."
"Healthy attitude," the raven said.
"He can see Michael and Laura," Mr. Rebeck told the raven. "Like me."