Rocking in the chair, he felt he was going mad from worry when, finally, he heard the familiar sound of the front gate. He jumped from the chair, ran over to the entrance of the house, and almost wept with joy when he saw María Eugenia slowly making her way up the path. He saw she was carrying the photo album.
“Eladio, hola!” María Eugenia cheerfully waved to him. “I’m home!”
It had been a long time since Eladio had seen María Eugenia in such good spirits. “Hola, señora,” Eladio replied. “I was worried about you, you left without letting us know you were going — you’ve been gone all day.” He knew it was not his place to scold his employer’s wife but he’d been so concerned about her that he was past caring about behaving in a proper way. This day had devastated him.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, Eladio, but I had to run an errand. I needed to do something that I did not want Luis to know about, and I didn’t want to have to tell him a lie. So I slipped out of the house. I’m sure he’ll be happy when he sees what I’ve done.”
María Eugenia stepped closer to Eladio and took one of his hands in hers. She looked so happy, with her eyes sparkling and a huge smile on her face. “You know how worried Luis has been that he can’t find the seafood to serve his friends?” she whispered in his ear, as if telling him a secret, and waved the photo album.
Eladio thought he was going to pass out. It took all the self-control he could muster not to fall to the ground. How could he say to her that her husband was dead? Oh God! He wished it was him lying on the bench in the garden, not Señor Luis!
“Yes, Señora María Eugenia,” he replied. How was he going to tell her? He couldn’t bring out the words; this was worse than what he’d already done. It was starting to get dark and Señor Luis had been lying outside on the garden terrace for close to ten hours.
“Well, I wasn’t supposed to do it,” she said, “but knowing how important it was for Luis to make this dinner perfect, I sold my wedding ring! We were saving it for a time when we had nothing at all to eat. But I knew that this crisis was, for Luis, even worse than starvation. You want to know what I did with the money I got for the ring? It was worth more than I had thought — it was white gold, Eladio, not just regular gold. Luis never told me it was white gold!”
María Eugenia held out the photo album and began turning the pages. “You see, Eladio, I’ve been thinking about the dinner, and all that seafood — the lobsters, the crabs, the shrimp — and how there is nothing to be found in Havana.” She began to laugh triumphantly. It was so strange to hear the señora laugh that all Eladio could do was watch her helplessly. He should have told her immediately, the moment he saw her. It was a mistake to wait. “Well,” she said, “I thought and thought about where Luis was going to get the seafood for the dinner. He would never consider serving anything else, he’s stubborn, we both know that, no?” She leaned over to Eladio and — looking around, as if to make sure she was not being overheard — whispered, “You know Ricardo had to sell his family’s painting of José Martí to pay for last year’s dinner?”
“Yes, señora, I heard that,” Eladio muttered. “Very sad.”
“Well, we don’t have anything like that — only my ring — so I had an idea.” María Eugenia opened up the photo album and looked up at him. “You know, there are three pictures missing — maybe Luis took them — I have to ask him about that when I see him.”
Eladio jumped back as if the pictures he had slipped in his pocket earlier that day were burning a hole. “Yes, señora, I know those pictures,” he mumbled.
María Eugenia looked so happy, so pleased with herself, that now Eladio felt suicidal. For a fleeting moment he wondered if it was possible to wring his own neck.
“I decided,” she said, “that since Luis and his three friends were great fishermen, why couldn’t they fish for the seafood for the dinner themselves? I know it’s against the law for Cubans to fish for lobster, crab, and shrimp — but, Eladio, they know the waters around the coast of Havana like they know the backs of their hands. After all, that’s where they used to fish!
They would be too smart to get caught!” María Eugenia was so thrilled with her solution to the dilemma of what to serve for the dinner that she was beside herself with joy. “Don’t you see, Eladio? Fishing for the meal is the perfect answer! They would feel young, happy, and resourceful! They could drink the rum you make — just like in the photos!”
“But, Señora María Eugenia, what about your ring? You said you sold it for the dinner. I don’t understand.”
“Oh, Eladio, you’re right — I’m sorry — I forgot to tell you the most important thing!” María Eugenia seemed years younger as she almost sprinted away. “I sold the ring and bought a small boat with the money — I went to the pier by the old Yacht Club, you remember, where the señores used to row? Luis told me there were old boats for sale there. I traded the ring for one of the boats, not a very big or fancy one, but it won’t sink — I made sure of that. It needs some work, but it’ll do!” María Eugenia placed the photo album on a table and began to walk away, the smile on her face making her look like the young girl Luis had married forty years before. “It’s the Special Period, you know, Eladio, everyone wants and needs something — everything anyone has is for sale — so it wasn’t very difficult to buy. And now all our problems are solved! The dinner — with seafood — will take place... I’m going to find Luis and tell him not to worry anymore.” She turned to Eladio. “Where is he?”
He couldn’t answer. He only could shake his head as she walked past.
He didn’t follow. Instead, he took his seat again in Luis’s chair, knotting and unknotting his hands. She would find his body. It was better that way, because if he spoke, she would know he was lying.
But there was one more thing he would do for his employer of more than forty years. He would push out to sea in the little boat, dive for crab and lobsters, haul a net for shrimp until he had found all he needed and more. Then he would serve that dinner, and he would make it a feast. The three friends would eat his catch and drink his rum — they would drink and grieve — and they would toast the eternal honor of Señor Luis.
Johnny Ventura’s seventh try
by Pablo Medina
for Gerardo Alfonso Piquera
Jaimanitas
On September 23, 1995, Johnny Ventura settled into the bow of the Ana María, a fifteen-foot launch he built expressly for the voyage, and took his last look at the city of Havana, illuminated dimly by the first rays of dawn. It was Johnny’s seventh attempt at crossing the Straits of Florida, and having consulted a babalao in Arroyo Arenas, he was certain that the Ana María would land him in La Yuma, if not in Miami, then somewhere along the Florida Keys, where he could claim his right to political asylum. He had spent six months in jail after his previous attempt when the raft he’d put together in the back room of his mother’s house had fallen apart in rough water three miles from shore and he and his two companions had been forced to swim back, landing on the Malecón just as a patrulla drove by. If he failed again, he was certain the authorities would make him rot in jail. That is why he had been extra careful, consulting the babalao (not that he believed in any of that Santería nonsense) and paying a hefty amount, in fulas, for a Russian outboard motor that sputtered and smoked the two times he started it but otherwise ran beautifully.