by Jerome du Bois and Catherine King
5. Tapping The Power Of The Abakua Derivations
I'll meet you at the Crossroad.
--Bone, Thugs, and Harmony
From MININT, May 28,2005, assembled results of afternoon surveillance of the common room of the Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana, from a single wide-angle hidden video camera and six high-gain hidden microphones:
1:16 PM: Prof. Guillermo Gorgojo, tall, wiry, and bald, enters the empty common room from the camera's right, wearing a patched guayabera and fairly new khakis. He carries his green plastic briefcase in one hand and a half-empty bottle of mango juice in the other. He finds a table, sits down, takes some papers and books out of his briefcase, and then sits back, crosses his arms, and sighs. He closes his eyes and remains motionless. After a few minutes he comes to, finds a pen, and begins to write:
[GG Personal Journal, Saturday afternoon, May 28, 2005:] Waiting for Flash No More and his latest suite of prints, which I know nothing about except that there are twelve and they're called The Abakua Derivations. I'm trying to be excited, since he's beyond talented, he's a genius, but . . . Kiku's possible return to sanity, and what I can or can't do about it --I can't get it out of my head. What can I do? Go to Lage? That's crazy. If he thought she was coming back to her senses he would throw her into a hole so deep nobody could find her. But I was way out of any security loops anymore, since I disapprove of official corruption, and I certainly wasn't a member of any underground whisper networks --who would have a Communist in even precarious standing? Probably the loneliest Party member on the island. How could I get to her? Who do I know who knows her? Everybody's gone to the Party, or to the other, Dollar, Party. So there is no intersection between her and I, no intermediary--
Wait. Who delivers the insect atrocities? The Mantis, of course. Coño! That's even crazier than going to Lage. No, no, no. Not him. If I approached him to break Kiku out of prison he would flip me to Lage quick as a mongoose's gift to his master. Lage would lock me up and Kiku would be lost.
There's nobody else. My cousin Cristobal watches out for himself and his crew. He wouldn't stick his neck out, and I don't blame him, and I wouldn't obligate him. The system is corrupt, but he isn't. I'm alone in this.
So: Particularly depressed this morning. Mota hangover, too, along with the Kiku news and what I saw at Rosa's last night.
I'm certainly not a habitual user of the herb --who can afford it? well, I know who can, but I can't-- still, I'm grateful to Rosa for helping to break the monotony of the grey grind, the constant anxious attention to the crumbling, the daily searching and grubbing to fill the jaba vinyl. I remember, little more than a year ago, when my alumni artists --the recent ones, the New Inventados-- would often be at my place, or me theirs, with a fat joint (from their supply, of course), looking over their new work and listening to them drop names like Deitch, and Boone, and PS1, and Fraser. But that's fallen off; it's me, of course, since I began to refuse their invitations so often that they stopped calling. To be honest, I can't stand to look at the work, or most of the artists themselves anymore, in their ropa de marca, as if they're all trying to be rock musicians. Cell phones stuck to their ears like electronic remorae, sucking out the last few neurons. Maybe they're picking up my feelings.
That New Mango or whatever name marijuana was powerful stuff, better than any Kennedy I ever smoked. I saw things, lined up like display windows, all at once: Rosa, too fat and sassy, the gold pipe, the green gold delivered, the G5's steel as shiny as a lying smile, the outside world steadily buying her work . . . Her superficiality. After dinner I walked my cafecito around her apartment, hung ceiling-to-knees and wall-to-wall with her famous Pioneer Girl prints. All those little red, white, and blue uniforms . . . And then Rosa fired up her new laptop to show me some big digital photocollages from the brand-new show. Mas Pioneras, only bigger. (They were small on the screen, of course.) Obviously, she hadn't grown a year, an inch, one bit. She was still Pioneer Girl, eleven years old, who clipped some Alice-in-Wonderland profile gravure, slapped it on a Pionera uniform, and placed the small persona in many mundane or historical situations. La Pionera in a bottle, La Pionera in a space capsule, La Pionera having sex with George Washington, La Pionera riding into Jerusalem on an ass for all I know . . . It should have been obvious long ago. My eyes have gone as lazy as the rest of me. That faint rumbling sound you hear is Rodchenko rolling in his grave. Yes, I hear you, Aloysha, but what am I supposed to do? And Kiku, I know, my love, I'm almost ashamed to be standing here looking at this . . . this skim milk, when I know the strong meat of your art (I mean, before the insect pieces). We would never be here in this room together, little mango, and I shouldn't drag you in here even in my thoughts.
La Pionera: as if she ever was a Communist, an idealist. That insipid profile, facing east, facing west, like some Jill of Diamonds . . . She knows the game, she's the player and the played. And that makes me, who trained her, a sucker. This --this shopper is what I brought into the art world? And not her alone; that whole New Inventado Movement I helped launch has become slicker than a snail's trail . . . They're all around here, and they'll be showing up soon, and more during the coming week; my embarrassing progeny. Because of the American --that bullish American bolo Lisa Zeitgeist and her now-mandatory lecture, thanks to Lage and F. What if --
1:46 PM: Flash No More enters, pauses, looks around, and then, seeing Guillermo is preoccupied, approaches slowly, circling the room in a discreet loop. Flash No More is medium-height, compact and muscular, with a shock of short dreads and skin as black as coal. He wears a pristine white tank top tucked into white jeans. On his feet he wears simple, but spotless, white canvas slip-ons. He has a black portfolio under his arm.
[Mantis here, with some background: This young man, who is eighteen --maybe--nobody knows--he has no birth certificate-- is an ISA graduate student and professional tattooist. He first came to our attention as a selection of the Prodigy Program; later we investigated how he could afford both the tattoo license and good equipment. We found out he is an orphan who was taken in by the Oliva family out north of Santa Clara in Villa Clara six years ago. He called himself Erasmo then. His tattoo equipment was made by a Santa Clara friend, Beny, and his father, ex-Colonel Baltazar Mariano Roa.
I have retrieved part of a MININT interview in 2003 with Catalina Corona Oliva, who ran and still runs Oliva Farm, and who has three sons: the older two, Justo (known as Fab) and Alejandro (known as Rocco), are the well-known music producers who use the moniker The Farmer Brothers; and the youngest is none other than Yasmani Oliva, the sixteen-year-old rebellious art student. Sra. Corona said of Erasmo:
"He simply appeared in the front yard one morning, mute. It was just after May Day, actually, 1999. He was so . . . black, it was like looking at a chunky shaft of night standing in the sun, like he absorbed light. I have never seen a blacker Cuban. By his size, I'd say he was about twelve years old then, but with Erasmo it's always hard to tell. He looked strong and strapping, at any rate, not hungry or emaciated, but that first day he wouldn't or couldn't talk. He wasn't deaf, though. We fed him and talked to him, asking him questions in three languages, and the funny thing was that he seemed to be listening intently, his head tilted like a parrot, his big eyes just taking it all in. Claro, three days later he started talking in fluent Cuban Spanish. It's the truth. He said, 'My name is Erasmo. I come from the Oriente. I was born in the Sierra Maestra. There's a lot I don't remember.'" He also said that his parents were drowned in a flood near Sancti Spiritus, and that he had walked to Villa Clara from there. When I asked him why he came to our farm, he just said that he 'followed the path.' He wouldn't, or couldn't, elaborate, and he still hasn't."
The Olivas have provided documents which support his labor history with them, his earnings, and so on. He is known as the artist's tattooist, though he has many musicians in his clientele as well. Of the seventeen licensed Cuban tattooists, he is the only blank --he has no tattoos on his body. And he only tattoos Cubans, despite constant tempting offers from foreign tourists. He is a fast-track graduate student of printmaking at ISA.]
GG (big smile): Que bola, Flash No More?
Flash No More (formal but easy): Quite well, Professor. I know I'm early, but I have that suite you wanted to see, the ones I told you about, the Abakua Derivations. Would you like to take a look at them?
GG (clearing the table into his briefcase): I certainly would. Please . . .
Flash No More: There are twelve.
(Guillermo Gorgojo slips the stack of 11 x 17 prints out of the portfolio and squares them on the table in front of him. He stares at the first one for a very long time, and then sets it aside. He spends at least a minute on each successive one, in complete silence. Flash No More is as still as a shadow.)
GG: (a long sigh) These are so beautiful, Flash No More. Very high level of abstract detail. I want to talk about these, but first I need to ask, since I oversee the printmaking budget: where did you get the copper plates for this project? I know we don't --
Flash No More: These are woodcuts, sir.
GG: What? (looking closer) That's impossible! This is far too fine-grained . . . Wait, I think I see it. Okay, but what kind of wood is it?
Flash No More: I don't exactly know. It's special. I get it from a friend in Santa Clara, Beny Manach Roa. He makes my cutting tools, too. My glyptics, he calls them. Beny's a show-off, but he's also a genius --he's part of the Prodigy thing, too, you know-- and he and his Dad --he's a machinist, a retired army colonel-- they've got some great lathes and grinders. I just bring them the steel.
GG: I've never seen an effect like this before from wood. It seems to be as fine-grained as ebony. Are you sure you don't know any more about it?
Flash No More (pause; then deadpan): Well, if you must know, the wood comes from a sacred mango grove near Ché's grave in Villa Clara.
(GG jerks his head up)
Flash No More (grinning): Yes! Tumba palo cocuyé! Muy bueno pa' hacer la nasa! [excellent for black magic]
GG: (laughing, then shaking his head): That was funny --but you should be more careful. That's dangerous talk.
Flash No More: Really? Black magic's illegal?
GG: (chuckles) Not that. You know I'm a Party member, don't you?
Flash No More: Yes, sir, I do.
GG: Well, then --you don't have to call me sir-- why did you think it was safe to slur Saint Ché?
Flash No More: Because you're the only poor Communist I've ever met.
GG (pause): How old are you?
Flash No More: I don't know. Pretty old.
GG: What does that mean?
Flash No More: Around eighteen, I think. I'm an orphan. I've forgotten a lot of my past; I had amnesia for years. Anyway, I was state-selected when I was fourteen --the Prodigy Program-- so I've met a lot of Party members --Evaluators. You're different.
2:03 PM: (Three ISA students, two male, one female, enter the common room from the right. After waving casually to the other two men, they take a table in the far corner and then go to the self-service coffee bar on the west side of the room to brew up cafecitos. )
GG: And you think just because I'm poor, I'm principled?
Flash No More: Well, it's a beginning. But it's not just that.
GG: Then what?
Flash No More: . . . Why have you stopped teaching?
GG: What are you talking about? I haven't stopped --
Flash No More: One academic graduate seminar. Nothing hands-on, nothing in a studio. I've been here two years, sir. I asked around, because I had read, and seen, some of your earlier work. You used to be a teaching president. I wanted to take a class from you, any class. And I found out that you began to taper off your schedule starting around five years ago--
2:05 PM: (Well-known Cuban artists and ISA graduates Abel Barroso and Yoan Capote enter the common room from the right, each one decked out in ropa de marca, from Yankee and Dodger ball caps to Nikes with Hilfiger and Sean John in between. Bling-bling hangs from their necks and wrists. They approach the trio of students. Guillermo Gorgojo sits up stifffy and stares fixedly at the group.)
Flash No More: . . . Professor?
GG (coming around): Yes?
Flash No More: I was wondering why you stopped--
GG: Yes, yes, I . . . But why would I tell you?
Flash No More: Why not? You probably will. The Abakua Derivations have started softening you up. (Pause while Guillermo gives him incredulous look) Why did you stop teaching, sir?
GG: (murmuring) The Abakua Derivations . . . Ooga-booga marijuana. (shakes his head, then tilts his chin at the group across the room and raises his voice): There's your reason.
Flash No More (looking over): The students?
GG: The artists.
(Guillermo abruptly turns back to the prints, carefully stacks them again.)
GG: Tell me about the designs. Everything's in a grid, I know, but within the grid . . . ?
Flash No More: It's cross-cultural --I've got derivatives of Mayan and Celtic knots, but, as you can see, the predominant motifs come from Abakua and Santeria, and older things.
GG: But they're incredibly intricate.
Flash No More: Well, I spend a lot of time with the night . . .
GG: What does that mean?
Flash No More: I don't know; I just try to pay attention to permutation. Sometimes I see a giant wall of dials. I'm choosing, and then turning, some of them, releasing energy. Everything overlaps. It's not just Abakua or Santeria or the others. The symbols are . . . sifted, even composted; they feed off each other, and transform each other. They're synthesized palimpsests.
GG: I was going to say --These are deep, deep patterns. You know, you could sell these right away, student or not.
Flash No More: Spoken like a true Communist. (big grin)
GG: (smiling) Cojones! You got me. (pause) But still, you could.
Flash No More: . . . I don't know. I'd have conditions.
GG: Like what?
Flash No More: Well. Those people over there (tilt of chin) make and sell art to the world --actually, to everybody except Cubans. I'm going to be the exact opposite. I'm going to sell only to Cubans.
GG: But most Cubans don't have any money, especially for art.
Flash No More: . . . Forever?
GG: What?
Flash No More: Will Cubans always be poor?
GG: Now we're getting into dangerous territory . . . Okay, so you'll build up an inventory. . . This is why you only tattoo Cubans, isn't it?
Flash No More: Yes, sir. The Cuban might leave the island, but (slaps his bicep) the island won't leave the Cuban.
GG: You don't have to call me sir . . . Do you mind if I keep these for a couple of days? I'd like to study them.
Flash No More: I'd be honored . . . Here . . . (and as he lifts the portfolio and opens the flap, a small white slip of paper flutters down to the table between them. Guillermo stares at it, then picks it up)
GG: THE NEW MANGO. (flip) WE ARE NEXT. (getting agitated) Where did you get this?
Flash No More: Yes, sir, I was going to ask you about that. It was slipped into my locker here at school yesterday sometime. It's some art project, right? Or one of the graphics students--
GG: No! (calming down) I mean, I don't know. I've been out of the classrooms for several years --I may not know some of the newer ideas, but I know I haven't authorized any kind of . . . conceptual effort, especially something so . . . ambiguous and public. This was in your locker, right? At school? No. This was not authorized. Those projects require a lot of review, and I haven't seen anything like this.
Flash No More: We are next.
GG: What did you say?
Flash No More: . . . It's on the card. I wonder what it means. You've seen this before?
GG: I saw one just like that, at . . . an artist's house. Last night. And one was delivered to me as well.
Flash No More: Well, then, that's one artist, one art student, one art school president; but you say it can't be about art? . . . I wonder what it means?
GG: Well, since yesterday, I've heard that it might be a new strain of mota, a new soft drink (lifts the mango juice bottle), a new song, a new political movement, even . . . new shoes, I think.
Flash No More: (after a moment) Pick up your New Mangos at the dollar store! One size fits all!
GG: Hah! Any color you want, so long as it's orange!
(laughing together. The group across the room turns their heads briefly as one.)
Flash No More (leaning forward confidentially): You know, speaking of what's next, I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea about what's going on over there. (tilts head at other occupied table)
GG: I don't understand.
Flash No More: I'll give you another hint: you might want to stick your head back into the studios and classrooms.
GG (studying the group): You know, they don't exactly look impressed with those two. Is that what you mean? (Flash No More nods) Hmmm. A new generation with a new attitude? Well, that is different. (abruptly looks up at the wall clock) I need to get to my office. An appointment with --I have an appointment. But first, I wanted to ask you: Do you know a young man named Yasmani Oliva?
Flash No More: From Santa Clara? An art student?
GG: That's the one.
Flash No More: Of course I know him. He's my foster brother. His family adopted me.
GG (sitting up straight): Really. Well, then you know what's going on? Why did he do that poster?
Flash No More: You'll have to ask him, s-s . . . Professor. I wasn't there, and, besides, I don't betray confidences. But part of the answer, I think, is what we were just talking about. (Tilting his head toward the student-artist group.)
GG: Hmmm. (Looking at watch.) I've got to go. . . There's a lot going on out in Santa Clara, it seems.
Flash No More: Maybe all over. I'll walk you out.
(both rise to leave)
GG (pressing the black portfolio between elbow and ribs): They almost seem to vibrate.
Flash No More (looking elaborately around, then leaning close to the black portfolio) : Sshhhhhh . . .
(they exit)
[Rewind] 2:05 PM: Transcript of high-gain microphone #4 in the common room of ISA:
Abel Barroso (approaching ISA students Ana Delmar, Nelson Prieto, and Jikary Zaya at the round table, addressing Ana): ¿ Que bola, Ana? Guys . . .
(Nelson and Jikary answer. Ana remains silent. Nods all around. The artists pull up chairs and sit without invitation. Yoan Capote holds out a hotel-style carafe.)
Yoan Capote: We just snagged this from Lisa's hotel room. Oh, she knows we'll bring it back. More coffee? Fresh, hot, and black, like I like my-- (abruptly breaks off and glances across the room at Flash No More).
Jikary: (pushing his cup forward) Lisa who?
YC: (taken aback) Lisa Zeitgeist, man! Cojones . . .
Jikary: Oh yeah; her. I've seen the posters. . . . Mmm. Good coffee. Thanks.
Nelson: I'll have some.
YC: We just got done showing her my new video. You guys saw a copy, right?
Jikary: Yes, Yoan; in class.
YC: Well, what did you think?
(the three students exchange uncomfortable glances)
YC: What's the matter?
Ana: It was confusing, all those quick-cuts --
YC: The MTV style?
Ana: Is that what they call it? Because I'm not used to it.
Jikary: So, what's it about?
YC: Commercialism, man!
(pause; then the students lean back, relieved)
Nelson: Good; that makes me feel better.
YC: Is that what you thought it was about?
Nelson: Hell no, man. Claro, it makes me feel better that I didn't. What do I know about commercialism? (gestures to wall-mounted TV, which is broadcasting [muted] a Castro speech, with stumbling subtitles for the deaf) We don't get a lot of commercials on this island. At least, outside the dollar zones. My friends don't have satellite dishes. Dio-- some don't even have dishes!
(laughing high five with Jikary)
Ana (to her friends): This is what I was talking about, remember?
YC: What were you talking about? Lisa loved my piece, by the way. She wants to edition it.
Ana: Exactly. Thanks for confirming what I'm saying, Yoan. How many Cubans are either going to see your video, or understand it if they do? Or care? Your stuff is not about Cuba, and it's not for Cuba.
YC: What a provincial view! It's international! What a narrow --
Ana: But I can't help it, see? You've been off the island, to Madrid and Paris and Mexico City. None of us has.
YC: But you could.
Ana: But I don't want to. I don't want to have to satisfy the "international" art world. Who are those people, anyway? I want --
AB (breaking in): People with dollars, chica.
Ana: Don't call me that, Benny. I want to make art about Cuba, here and now.
AB: Good luck. There's not much you can say that you can say. Some tried it at the beginning and got their cojones handed to them. And who are you going to sell it to? The extrañeros? No. They like the --what did Lisa call it?-- "the primitive-but-slick justapositions within the New Inventado."
Ana: . . . Forever?
AB: What? And why did you call me Benny? Who's that?
Ana: Short for Benjamin . . . Sorry, I forgot your name for a second. I know you're not a Jorge . . . Never mind.
(laughter from the other table distracts them all; a brief silence; then Barroso pulls out a cellphone)
AB: Check this out, Nelson. It's brand-new, one of those Samsung picture phones.
Nelson: Hmmm. Does it work?
AB: Cojones! Of course it works --you think I'm gonna have a phone that doesn't work? I mean . . . (sweeping hand down body)
Nelson: Everything Ginuwine.
YC: Ah, he's old. The new 50 Cent, now we're talking. Lisa's got that CD. It rips, man. Maybe we can all go up to her hotel room . . .
Jikary: No, thanks. Classes.
YC: Hey, listen, it's never too early to start on your network. You've never met her, right?
Ana (suddenly sitting forward again and speaking up): We'll be seeing her at the end of the week, won't we? We have to sit and listen to her horseshit.
YC: You mean the Lecture? But it's a cool--
Ana: It's mandatory, Yoan! That's one. Two: She's not even Cuban! Three: She's an American! Four: it's about New York and London mostly! Five --
AB: Mierda! There's a five?
Ana: --And a six, and a seven--
AB: Mierda! You kids ought to be grateful! So you have to attend the Zeitgeist Lecture, which, after almost ten years, is almost an institution at this institution. I mean, look around, you're in pretty good shape, you're not dragging your asses around town scrounging up--
(The three students exchange glances, and, as one, reach into their back pockets and pull out their jabas vinyl, worn plastic shopping bags, with stretch marks, nicks, and tiny holes from being filled and folded and sat on, over and over. And from other pockets they take out their worn blue ration books, the libertas.)
YC (after a moment): . . . What?
Ana: Nothing. Just . . . where's yours?
(both artists lean back)
AB (to Yoan Capote in English, bad New York accent): Boy, things sure have changed around here.
Nelson (cutting in before YC): Woody Allen to Caroline Allen, "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
AB: . . . That was quick. I thought you weren't into commercialism.
Nelson (pointing to wall TV): Cubavision snagged it a few times, and I have a good memory.
Ana: What if we just don't go?
AB: What do you mean? To the Lecture?
Ana: Yes, the Sacred Mandatory Ass-Kissing Lecture!
AB: Whoa, chi-- Ana; you won't like the answer. Six weeks of Tough Love.
Ana: Tough Love? That's what they're calling reeducation now? Doesn't sound so scary.
YC (breaking in): Also known as The Church, and sometimes The Barracks. I wouldn't fuck with it. When they're done with you, you come out a true revolutionary hero. If not . . . Do you want to turn out like Kiku the Cuckoo?
Ana (suddenly rearing up out of her chair and almost shouting): Don't you call her that!
(The artists lean back in unison)
YC: Hey, I'm sorry; I didn't know she was your --unh . . . Is she even still alive?
Ana: More alive than you!
Jikary (from his seat, reaching up and putting a gentle hand on her tense arm, guiding her back down to her chair, in a soothing voice): Think about your level, Ana. Take it easy.
Ana: (shaking off the hand and rising again): My uncle saw her fly, you know, so just--
AB: Oh, come on, that's just an urban legend.
Ana: No it isn't! He was there that night! Along with two hundred others, they say. She leapt, she climbed, she flew. And he saw them take her away, too!
Jikary (from his seat, again, with the arm, patiently, gently guiding her down): Your level, mi novia; stay level, no?
Ana (letting herself be seated by Jikary): Okay . . . okay. (Juts her chin up at the artists) Just don't say her name.
Jikary (to the artists): You're saying we could basically go to jail and get . . . regrooved . . . for refusing to listen to some American shark.
YC: Who could launch your career. You should think about that. What are you gonna do, drive a cab?
Jikary: My dad, who's a physicist, does that. Makes good money.
YC: You people . . . (to Abel Barroso) We should get back.
(standing up with Barroso) Oh --I almost forgot-- (digging in pocket of velour running pants) --do any of you know anything about this? (and drops a small white business card on the table. The students lean forward as one.)
Ana: THE NEW MANGO. (flip) WE ARE NEXT. . . Wow.
(the students exchange solemn looks, shaking their heads)
AB: You guys don't know anything about this? It isn't some art project? What about--? (jerking head toward where Guillermo and Flash No More are winding up)
(all heads shaking)
Nelson: Is this from Lisa Zeitgeist, too? I mean, did she give it to you?
AB: No, it was in my mailbox; not mailed, just stuck in there. As far as I know, she doesn't know anything about this. It's just, you know Habaneros; the gossip line, the old ladies with telephones, the CDRs . . .
Ana (still staring fixedly at the card): THE NEW MANGO . . . There was a song a few years ago --
AB: Yeah, you're right: "El Mango." Could it be a follow-up? (to Yoan Capote) You know some of those people.
YC: Yeah; Distinto. We should check it out. I'll call him.
(He picks up the card. The students lean back in their chairs as one, as if a spell has been broken.)
AB (murmurs): WE ARE NEXT. Who's next?
Nelson (murmurs in English): Excellent album.
AB: Excuse me?
Nelson (in English, and following): Won't get fooled again.
Jikary: Now you've got him started.
Nelson: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
AB: Oh, that song.
Nelson: Have you noticed--
Jikary: Here we go.
Nelson: --that whereas the title is "Won't Get Fooled Again," the actual lyrics state: "Pick up my guitar and play / Just like yesterday / And I'll get on my knees and pray / That we don't get fooled again." (back to Spanish) Big difference.
YC: We have to go.
Nelson: Because one is a declaration--
YC: We gotta go.
Nelson: And the other is a prayer. What if the title--
(both hustling away with the carafe and the card): Later--
Nelson: --was "Don't Get Fooled Again"? Much more admonitory . . .
Ana (when they're out the door): You do good work, Nelson. (laughter) Comemierdas.
Jikary (exaggerated) : Yaaaawwwnnn Capote.
Ana: That's for sure . . . (leaning to him to nuzzle for moment) Gracias, novio. You always know how to settle me down . . .
Nelson (squeezing it out in twee English): Will yew puhleeeze . . . ?
Ana (after friendly punch in his arm): Well-- what did you think of that card? Do you guys really not know what it is? Because I sure don't.
(both shake heads)
Jikary: And we pretty much know what's going on around here. I'm guessing it's a new album --maybe another compilation for the extrañeros? It's overdue, eh? Overripe? It's a good title.
Nelson: But why now?
Jikary: I know why. We were just talking about it. The Zeitgeist Lecture. Remember? She always flies in a few collectors, and there's those semi-official house tours. A micro-Bienal. Huh? Yeah, I'll bet it's a new CD somebody will come out with this week, and the artists will be playing it when the Benjamins arrive. It's advertising. They're trying to give Cuban music a new boost, maybe. It happened before, with Buena Vista and the Compay-Cooder thing. Why not again? That's my theory, anyway.
Ana: That was quick.
Jikary: I'm a thinker, all right.
Nelson (in a good Australian accent): You're a fair dinkum thinkum, my friend.
Ana: You know, that night my uncle witnessed what Kiky Ybarra did . . .
Jikary: . . . Yeah, what about it?
Ana: He said that one of symbols was still stuck on the wall when they dragged her away. It was a big orange mango.
Nelson: Really? (sitting up straight) Claro, that is spooky. And that was ten years ago, no?
Ana: That's right. I hadn't thought about it in years. That little . . . bringing it up made me remember. . . The New Mango. It is a cool title.
Nelson: We Are Next is even better.
From MININT, Saturday, May 28, 2005, CUBAMEX/hotmail e-mail intercepts:
2:30 PM: from Lisa Zeitgeist, Vedado Hotel, to Rosa Blanca Azul at her Prado apartment:
Red:
So glad you got hotmail, girl! Welcome to the 21st Century! We must be sure to get together while I'm in town. (I'm sorry about the visa thing. This government . . . I mean en El Yuma, of course.) In the meantime, I have a couple of concerns. (I'm meeting with Guillermo in about an hour. I'm hoping you're home and receiving. It would be nice to know what you have.)
Abel and Yoan just left. They were visiting with some ISA students, and they were surprised by the kids' attitudes; disrespectful, indifferent, snarky. One of them even brought up Kiku Ybarra! You taught last semester, didn't you? Did you notice anything? (I'm sorry it's been so long since we talked.)
Second: they showed me a little white card, like a business card, that was printed with THE NEW MANGO and WE ARE NEXT. With a little mango logo. They said the students had no idea, or said they didn't anyway. Hard to tell, Yoan says. So maybe it is an art thing?
Get back to me as soon as, okay?
Lisa Z.
2:56 PM: from Rosa Blanca Azul to Lisa Zeitgeist:
Lisa:
I'm home. Welcome back to the island! Yes, I almost forgot, this week is the LECTURE; plus, I've been so busy I almost forgot about the visa thing. And I've been playing with my new G5.
As for the students' attitudes . . . Well, you have been out of touch, in one respect: I'm teaching a graduate seminar now, so what the kids in the common room are talking about, I don't know. My students are halfway into the professional world, where I am. (I do know some of them refer to Yoan as "Yawn.")
There's something else, that relates to CL: I've been assigned to check out some backward-thinking kid, a 16-year-old, who made a counter-revolutionary poster. Guillermo, in fact, can fill you in on this, because he gave me the assignment yesterday. I'm making the arrangements now.
The "New Mango" thing is interesting. Yes, I got a little white card myself, left in my mailbox yesterday. I showed it to Guillermo last night. He got one, too. He says it has nothing to do with ISA, and I have no idea what it's about.
And of course we'll get together before the end of the week, and more before the end of the summer, I hope. I've got goodies, and I don't just mean Godiva (although I raided the Havana Libre gift shop last week. I have plenty left). I mean, I have access to the best beauty salon in Cuba. Be prepared for a serious makeover, Lisa.
Say hello to Guillermo for me.
Always,
Rosa
3:02 email from Heather Benlinederry in Scottsdale, Arizona to Rosa Blanca Azul in Havana:
Hey, Rosa,
Gas up that old DeSoto or whatever of yours, girl, because I'm coming back to town this year again. Yes! Change of plans, lots of intrigue, and I'm sure we can do some art business, but I want to have some fun, too. So put on your thinking cap. Details follow.
Luv,
Heather
3:10 email from Rosa Blanca Azul to Heather Benlinederry:
Heather,
That is great news. Hey, if you've got the dollars, I'm sure I can get the gas, and the fun, arranged. See you soon.
Say hi to Dill for me. I assume he'll be along.
Rosa
[Saturday, May 28, 2005, 4:11 PM. From the handwritten moleskine diary of Rosa Blanca Azul:]
Dear Pionera,
How I suffer so, Pionera, and you are the only one who knows. You have seen it all-- how I work every night, so, so late, and when I do go to bed, I go alone. For years.
I've worked so hard for all that I have, and then They come down here, year after year, and treat me like their servant. Dio give me strength! Heather didn't even say, "Sorry about your visa" or "Do you have any plans?" or "Are you free?" But I'll graciously give them the red carpet treatment like I always do.
I know Heather and Lisa talk about me between themselves, behind my back, so we'll just do the same, eh, Pionera? I can't be expected to keep it all bottled up inside, can I?
They have never appreciated me, Pionera. They treat me like a concierge instead of the connoisseur I am. Claro, they've never even noticed: my amazingly fluent and idiomatically flawless English has gone unrecognized by Heather and Lisa.
But we have our secrets, don't we, Pionera? My undercover Rolodex. How many American and European names, phone numbers, addresses, connections since I started this Grand Tour with Heather and Lisa? Yes, you know, Pionera: --244. 244 seeds to plant and grow and cultivate, once . . . when . . . what? When something happens.
What are we waiting for, Pionera? What's over the horizon? I'm tired now, so, so tired. Does that Yasmani kid really see something? Is it The New Mango? And if so --if that's what's on the horizon-- then what the hell is it?
[end of diary entry]
Saturday, May 28, 2005, 4:34 PM, MININT/CUBAMEX cell-phone intercept between artist Yoan Capote and Cuban musician "Distinto:"
YC: Distinto! Que bola?
Dist (music in background): Que bola, Yoan? Wait, let me turn this down. . . . Something new I'm working on . . . Okay. Hey, how's the art world?
YC: It's great. I just finished a new video, and the American curator Lisa Zeitgeist is in town this week --you know, for that Lecture. She liked it. And there'll be some buyers in town, too, so it looks good. . . Hey, I wanted to ask you, though, if you've heard of anything called The New Mango. Abel and I --"
Dist (in English) : Haysoos Marimba! (back to Spanish) It's synchronicity! It's a sign! Chango Marango!
YC: Dude--
Dist: This is confirmation! Hallelujah! Thanks!
YC: Dude!-- what are you talking about?
Dist: The New Mango! That's what I'm working on! What you just heard, man! I came up with this killer riff . . . It's a sequel to "El Mango," see: I don't know why I didn't think about it before. I used to be part of Charanga, you know --
YC: Yeah, that's why I called you. What made you decide -- ?
Dist: I got this little card in my mailbox yesterday--
YC: Oh, mierda . . .
Dist: Huh? --and it said-- on one side, THE NEW MANGO, and the other side --
YC: We are next.
Dist: Yeah! Did you get one, too?
YC: I sure did. And it wasn't from you?
Dist: Hell, no. What is it, anyway? Juice? Clothes? Jewelry?
YC: I don't know, Distinto. I thought it was music, that's why I thought of you, because of "El Mango." But you're telling me you didn't make these cards?
Dist: No way, but I sure am glad I got one. It's a sign, man! I think this'll be a pretty cool song! But as for who made it . . . no idea, Yoan. Who can afford to do this kind of throwaway stuff, anyway?
YC: I know. Okay, thanks. Talk to you later.
[end of transcript]
[Mantis here, with a short testimony about the following compilation of telescoping surveillances. I have had The Abakua Derivations in my own possession, in my hands and before my eyes, for a short while. As a lifelong skeptic, let me say this: what you read about these artworks in the following passages is true. And now, for the sake of a smooth narrative, allow me a little poetic license as I describe Lage eavesdropping on Guillermo in his office examining the new artworks. I can accurately describe their actions because I have access to the digital video records of Lage's secret office --thanks to F's compusiveness-- also Lage's own records and verbal recollections, and Guillermo's voluminous journals.]
Saturday, May 28, 2005. 3:03 PM. Carlos Lage enters his spy sanctorum, carrying his diabetic medicine kit in one hand; with the other, he closes the mahogany door, which locks automatically. He sits down in semidarkness at a low counter, facing a row of television monitors, some with live feeds, some blank, some with jerky stop-motion. He sets the diabetes kit down to his right and pulls a keyboard up from under the counter. He starts tapping, and the monitor just in front of him switches its feed to a live shot of Guillermo Gorgojo's office at ISA. It is empty at the moment. The camera angle, far up on the office's rear wall, looks down at the desk, facing the door. The camera has zoom capability.
Carlos Lage waits impatiently. He checks another monitor --the ISA common room-- where three ISA students are now getting up to leave. No Guillermo.
He is curious about how his old acquaintance is holding up under various pressures, including his latest cruel gift --a portrait of him; how weird; it still jarred him. He himself is thirsty, jittery and sweating, he can feel a headache coming on, and he needs to check his level, but as he reaches out to the blue teardrop of the OneTouch meter Guillermo enters his office with a black portfolio under his arm, and Lage moves his hand to the zoom knob. Guillermo's face looks tired, but he seems excited for some reason. He zips out of sight to a corner of his office.
Lage wipes his brow. Guillermo reappears abruptly, sweeps his desk clean of papers with one hand, and sets up a portable desk easel. Then he slows down, and carefully slides the contents of the black portfolio out onto the desk, stacks them on the portfolio, and sits down in his wooden swivel chair, composing himself. After a glance at his watch, he takes the top print and sets it on the easel. The camera looks over his shoulder.
When Guillermo checks his watch, Lage is reminded to check his level. He grabs the meter and, his fingers trembling, manages to set it and take the sample. He reads the result: 206. Mierda. He needs an injection now. With his eyes on Guillermo and the drawing, both of which seem increasingly blurry to him, and with the unconscious expertise of habit, he unwraps the sterile sleeve from the syringe, uncaps it, and draws his insulin into the barrel.
Just then Guillermo's shoulders cringe, and his face jerks left, as if he's just been slapped. His shoulders begin to rise and fall in slow rhythmic shudders.
Lage puts the needle down and reaches for the zoom knob. He turns it until the drawing fills the screen. His vision is clearing, as if the zoom was working on his eyes as well as the camera lens. The angle of the camera is a close match for the angle of the easel, so the drawing, with occasional darkenings from Guillermo's shaking shadow, is presented fully and clearly to Lage.
Lage knew little about art, but these complicated geometric abstract designs --twelve on the page, in three rows of four square cells-- each cell filled with extremely fine lines and a vibrating energy-- these designs seemed to reach straight to the heart of visual curiosity and delight; at first, anyway, but maybe that was just to get you to look, to tease the tendrils, and make you look deeper, and fall under a spell, perhaps, or several spells . . . Drawings come and go, dropping in, whispering away, here's another, even more beautiful than the last, each a kind of complicated mechanism, or dynamic diagram, or vortex, or lock, or key, to release, or slowly balance, corpuscular rhythms, a linking dance, you don't even have to look anymore, let the magic work . . . maybe chemical . . .
After awhile the throbbing, changing designs are blocked by a black shadow. Lage comes back to himself, sees Guillermo's arm rise up and obscure the screen: he is looking at his watch. This breaks the spell, and Lage, as if starting over, reaches out again for the needle he laid down earlier. But before he picks it up he notices that his headache is gone and he feels a lot calmer. His brow is dry and he isn't even thirsty. He looks back at the screen, where Guillermo is packing the drawings carefully away and dismantling the easel. The dark wood of the desk surface seems to shine; he can see the veins of the grain. Better check his level again, Lage thinks; he really does feel better. Once again he uses the meter: 103.
What? He lifts the barrel of the syringe close: a full standard dose of his insulin. He looks back at Guillermo's now-bare desk. His vision seems muy claro, even polished. He can feel the blood surging strong in him. He even feels almost content, without the constant gnawing of something in the back of his throat, in the back of his mind. What has he been doing the last unknown minutes but looking at those drawings? What were those things, anyway? Where did they come from? Who made them? And what did they do to him?
[Mantis here. Later that night, at his apartment, Guillermo wrote about his own experience with the drawings at his office desk that afternoon. I include it here, because it is necessary background for the tone of his afternoon meeting with Lisa Zeitgeist (that's why he was looking at his watch), and for my secret visit to his apartment the next day. He had taken the drawings there, and Lage wanted me to examine them.]
Saturday, May 28, 2005, after midnight. From Guillermo Gorgojo's journal:
The Abakua Derivations split my soul today, breaking me down in a dozen ways. Erasmo Oliva --Flash No More, who came out of nowhere, it seems; in fact, I have the image of him springing full-grown from a plateau on top of a mountain in the Sierra Maestra, where he's from-- Erasmo has created something beyond art, an array of perceptual triggers that reach deep into the older folds of the brain. They also function --I know it sounds crazy, but most people haven't seen someone levitate, either, have they?-- they function as a switchboard of receivers and transmitters of psychic energy. They work off each other, the cells. They also broadcast visual energy.
When I set the first black-and-white, four-by-three grid on the easel, and sat back, my eyes habitually, after the quick overall scan we all do, began in the center, as we all do when given balance, lingering on knots and knurls and swirls; but, like an itch, the lower right corner of the piece soon drew me, as if a little spider spun something there. When I shifted my eyes down to that cell, I saw that it resembled a swirl of long black hair, all curved in one direction about a central spiral, as if I was gazing down upon the top of the head of a spinning woman caught in mid-spin.
And as soon as I thought that thought the swirling began again, the hair in the cell rotating, and after a few rotations it simply swirled up out of the cell and wiped out every other cell in an expanding accelerating engulfing like a hurricane of hair obliterating all but her hair! and then it slowed, and a pale oval began in the eye of the hurricane, and grew, like a moon waxing, until I beheld, once again, looking out from this paper, my Kiku's face, framed by long, thick, glossy black hair, which kept growing until it overwhelmed the frame and trailed beyond the easel and out onto the desk. Her small face regarded me calmly, without judgment or rebuke. And then everything blurred because tears were streaming out of my eyes.
I wiped my face, her face dissolved, the hair whirled again, and then slowed to form into a three-way propellor lazily turning, whoof, whoof, whoof . . . until the grid resolved itself again with its reassuring rectilinearity.
I took a deep breath and put another drawing on the easel, and another, and another, with a volition not my own and after intervals decided by a force outside of me. I saw lots of crossroads, three-way, four-way, six-way, all-ways, some having to do with twisted time. Corners are crossroads, too. And then . . .
In the next drawing, the cells seemed to look at me, read my mind, and then turn and whisper to one another. After a minute, at once, they all turned into drawings of insects --oh no! not insects again!-- but quickly congealed into one complete insect, exquisitely depicted against a white background, in long-limbed elegance and green regalia: a Mantis. It held its pose for a moment, an ungainly crane the color of limes.
When the insect turned its triangular head toward me, its eyes grew and its body shrunk until once again I beheld a face, half-human, a familiar one, regarding me with a puzzled expression, as if it was gazing in a mirror. Why did Jeronimo d'Anconia Reyes resemble me, or my dead evil twin brother, who was long gone? Jeronimo and I were not related. Oddly, in my trance, his eyes had a sad cast to them; they were not the same as the implacable iron marbles I had seen from time to time over the years.
"What is next?" asked Jeronimo-as-Mantis, arching its armored eyebrows, prompting me as he disappeared back into the print. I slipped one print after another onto the easel, and the cells of the prints opened like flowers, each one petaled with wonder and beauty, and terror and truth, and history and blood. One after another the drawings ground me down and ground me up, wrung out the tears and twisted my muscles like wrenched rags. After half an hour I leaned back, exhausted, automatically checking my watch. Lisa Zeitgeist was due soon. I had to collect myself.
I was no stranger to psychological manipulation: I was a Revolutionary Cuban, subjected to such clumsy mojo my whole life. ¡Venceremos! But these prints bypassed rhetoric and plunged straight for the heart. These abstract designs were --what did Flash No More call them? "Synthesized palimpsests." Yes. But they were more; murmuring within them, unstoppable but unrealized, were all of Cuba's dreams.
[end of journal entry]
Saturday, May 28, 2005, 4:06 PM: From MININT, transcript of a meeting, by video and audio surveillance, between ISA President Guillermo Gorgojo and Lisa Zeitgeist, American museum curator, at Guillermo's office in the ISA:
(sound of door knock; then door opening. Short, round Lisa Zeitgeist clops in)
Guillermo Gorgojo (sound of chair scraping back): ¿ Que bola, bolo?
(the following conversation is in English)
Lisa Zeitgeist: Hello, Guillermo . . . I'm sorry, What did you call me?
GG: ¿ Que? Nothing. I just stuttered. You look great. Please, sit down. I'll get some coffee.
LZ (sound of chair scraping): You look thin, G. Aren't you eating enough?
GG: About as much as most Cubans. Here's your coffee. It does get tiring, though, running around in the shower to get wet.
(both chuckling)
GG: So, are you looking forward to this year's Lecture?
LZ: Uh-huh . . . Guillermo, what's The New Mango?
GG: I don't know! (pause) Sorry; it's just that I only found out about the thing yesterday, and now it seems I'm getting that question from everyone. THE NEW MANGO. WE ARE NEXT. Carlos Lage thinks it's a student art project. How do you know about it, by the way?
LZ: Two of the artists in my --I mean, Abel and Yoan showed me the little white card. They also showed it to some ISA students this morning. They didn't know anything about it.
GG: Of course, if it's unauthorized, the studenst would keep quiet.
LZ: Of course, if it's unauthorized, it would be dangerous.
GG: A mango seems pretty harmless.
LZ: But WE ARE NEXT isn't. It sounds like replacement--
GG: Progress?
LZ: --revolution. Or, I should say, counter-revolution. What are you going to do about it?
GG: Excuse me?
LZ: You're the authority it's unauthorized against. What are you going to do about it?
(pause)
GG: Would you like some more coffee?
LZ: Yes, thank you, but don't change the subject.
GG: Here you are . . . I wasn't changing the subject. I was being polite, and giving you the same opportunity . . . I don't answer to you. Whatever the New Mango is, and whatever I do about it, won't affect your Lecture. It is, after all, mandatory. The rest is none of your business, is it?
LZ: I could talk to Carlos Lage about it.
(slight ringing sound as phone is moved)
GG: Here you go. He's number one on the speed dial there. (pause) Don't try to push me, gringa. I'm a 40-year-old native Cuban Communist, and I've earned every year of my life. You've had a great deal going on here for ten years; persuading Ca-- the Ministry to make the Lecture mandatory was smart. It makes you seem legitimate. But I know who you are.
LZ: I'm someone who helps bring hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of dollars to this island every year. Not just the art; the art brings cachet, enhances the tourism --
GG: I know; you're a cash cow.
LZ: Excuse me?!
GG (unperturbed): Isn't that the American term for your operation here?
LZ: How cynical. I help launch and maintain artistic careers. I hope I enrich people's lives as well as their pocketbooks. You do, too, don't you? You started the New Inventado--
GG: No, I didn't, but I guided it, that true. And now, claro, I'm a millionaire! (bitter laugh; pause) As I said before, I don't answer to you. But I have paid attention to a certain pattern that's emerged. The first five years you came down here on your mini-tours, over that time about a dozen artists left the island --permanently. I'm not saying you had anything to do with that. Carlos Lage would know more about that anyway. My point is, in the last five years no artist has left the island, and I think I figured out why. They have it pretty good down here now. I did some internet research, and every one of those earlier dozen is having a very hard time with their career. Some are even, Dio have mercy, teachers. This new crew, they're sticking around; and they're flourishing. Maybe they're the reason your lecture is mandatory.
LZ: Maybe conditions are better on the island now.
GG: Maybe. For the artists, anyway.
LZ: And Cuban art sells worldwide.
GG: But only if the artist lives here.
LZ: Well, there is something to the inventado, you know.
GG: Somehow I don't see those guys I saw earlier, Abel and Yoan --I don't see them scrounging through any derrumbés. At least not the way they were dressed.
LZ: Of course not; they hire people to do it for them. See? Conditions are better both ways. Everybody wins.
GG: No, Lisa. No. You come down here a couple of times a year and stay in a hotel. I live here. Don't you talk to me about conditions. Don't tell me who's winning.
LZ: Okay, okay. What's the matter with you?
GG: Do you really want to know? Have you seen La Pionera lately?
LZ: No, not on this trip. What's that got to do with your mood?
GG: But you have seen her recent work?
LZ: In photos, yes, online. So?
GG: She's still making art like a fake little eleven-year-old pionera.
LZ: Come on, Guillermo, it's called a signature sytle. You know that. Plus, these new ones are big digital photocollages, right? So --
GG: Oh, big leap! Giant progress! Now she's boring on a larger scale!
LZ: Collectors disagree. A solo show in Washington DC! (pause; sounds of foosteps) Where are you going? What's that?
GG: It's from the sketchpad of a kid out in Santa Clara named Yasmani Oliva. Look at that nautilus . . .
LZ (after a moment): Yes, very well done, if you like realism.
GG: Oh, he's realistic all right. He made a poster that said "Down With Fidel."
LZ: Oh! Is he the kid Rosa's supposed to straighten out?
GG: That's him.
LZ: Hmmm . . . all these little seaside creatures . . . it looks like something out of Haeckel.
GG: Or Durer. Or Robert Hooke. And he's sixteen . . . He has a very confident hand, but who cares about that these cut-and-paste days? There's some old-style talent out there in Villa Clara. You know what was on the other side of the poster?
LZ: The other side?
GG: Uh-huh, he painted on both sides. The assignment side, I guess you could call it, had a nice rendition of Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge as a background for two words, in Coca-Cola style letters, Coca-Cola red: VAMOS BIEN! (chuckles) That would never fly, either, of course. I like his style, I suppose. I probably shouldn't say that aloud.
LZ: But what's this got to do with Rosa?
GG: I'm not sure. It's just that --this kid is an illustrator, not an artist. He's depicting beautifully, he's faithful to reality, but he isn't inventing anything. I don't think he even thinks of himself as an artist. But he's still better than Rosa.
LZ: Better at what? This stuff doesn't sell nowadays.
GG (after a sharp look): You're right. Never mind.
LZ: So what about--?
(but Guillermo raises his hand abruptly)
GG: Just a moment. I want to show you something; something else from Santa Clara.
(Guillermo moves to his side table, where the portable easel is already set up. He slides one of the Abakua Derivations out of the black portfolio and places it gently on the easel.)
GG: Take a look.
(after a very long interval, in which Lisa Zeitgeist leans forward and seems to grow more compact and still with every passing moment, until finally she takes a deep breath and straightens up)
LZ: Incredible! Jesus, you're right, Guillermo, this is new. Did you see, I mean, when you really kind of suspend your looking --you know?-- did you see . . . movement?
GG (nodding): Oh, yes; and lots of . . . transformation.
LZ: Yes! Oh, yes! But . . . I don't see anything political here; some religious symbols, but --
GG: It's not the work; it's him. I need to put this away. (he slides the print back into the portfolio)
LZ: What do you mean, about him? Is he a dissident? one of those independent library people? What's his name, anyway?
GG: Erasmo Oliva, but he has another moniker. In English, his name is Flash No More. Not a joiner, really --
LZ: Flash No More? What a fantastic name!
GG: And he won't sell to foreigners.
LZ: Hah! This stuff really is incredible, Guillermo. Didn’t you see? (almost shrill) Didn’t you see? I see so much crap, and crap that just sits there, or familiar crap, or crap that sells but so what? This work has so much energy; it spins, it throbs, it makes me . . . it's hypnotic. I have some people coming in this week that this would be perfect for. Let me take this and show them--
GG: I don't think so, Lisa, no. He loaned them to me --hey, no! (shuffling, rustling, footsteps, as Lisa Zeitgeist, world-famous art curator, grabs one end of the black portfolio) Lisa, let go, don't be ridiculous, I'm not letting you take--
LZ: Damn you, Guillermo! Let me have -- !
GG: NO! (yank) And get the hell out of my office, tiburon! Now! I don't know who you think you are!
(pause; clomping footsteps as Lisa Zeitgeist gathers her big black bag and huffs to the door)
LZ: I'll show you, Carlos Lage or not. I'll talk to that artist, Flash No More. With a name like that, he'll be easy to track down. I'll get those prints.
GG: Finding him isn't the hard part, lady. He's black as lava and just as obdurate. These new young artists are different, I think. Maybe your days here are numbered, Ms. Zeitgeist. Good day. And good luck.
(slams door on her opening mouth)
GG (leaning against the closed door as heavy footsteps recede in the background): ¡ Cojones! (holding up the black portfolio) What are you? Why are you here? Why me? (setting it down on the side table, caressing the cover) More questions . . . but just two faces: Kiku and Jeronimo. (closing his eyes, resting his open palms on the portfolio) . . . Tell me what to do.
[end of transcript]
[Mantis here. Bluntly, the portfolio told him what to do, and I'm here to describe it, since I ended up, unwittingly and unwillingly --at first, anyway-- in the middle of this drama.
The next morning, Sunday, May 29, 2005, I reported as usual to Carlos Lage's office. He seemed to have garnered fresh energy since I had last seen him on Friday. He stood up behind his desk as fresh and erect as a soldier on parade; I almost saluted him. He barked out his orders briefly, but with a smile, so when I wheeled and left I was smiling, too --partly because this time, though I would be a creep, I would not be a thief. Progress, I thought ironically; bullshit, more likely. What was to prevent me being a thief next time? and the next? and the next? How could I know that this time, in a whirling synesthesia of gardenia, roses, ghosts, and music, I would begin my redemption? This is my testimony of that morning.]
My cadres reported that the local CDR at ISA reported that Guillermo woke up early Sunday morning and left a message with his assistant that he was taking a hike out into the country. After confirming that he actually took a long-distance bus out to Villa Clara, I felt confident and calm as I slipped my superkey into his apartment lock.
I stepped in and . . . hesitated. I took another step, just enough to close the door softly behind me with my right hand. It clicked. I stepped back until I felt the reassuring hardwood of the door. I took a deep breath, leaning againt the door.
In all the times I had creeped --it's an American detective term, and it fits-- in all the times I had creeped Guillermo's flat, I had simply strode right in and taken care of business. Now I was glued to the door. I wasn't panicky, my heart wasn't hammering, but I was aware of . . . anomaly. I scanned the room quickly.
Familiar art clutter everywhere; because of all the rectangles, early morning shadows chop the room into long black sticks, lying down or leaning.To my left the double glass doors to the secure balcony and the collection of Insect Portraits; then, moving my eyes right, Guillermo's desk in the middle of the room, and in the middle of the desk, the black portfolio holding the Abakua Derivations; then the hallway down to the bedroom and bathroom; kitchen doorway next to the hallway; bookcase next to that, after a gap-- wait, what's that on the floor between the kitchen and the bookcase?
I moved, finally, responding to the repeated, regular clicking I had been hearing since I closed and locked and leaned against the door.
Between the open arch to the kitchen and the bookcase stood Guillermo's aqua-and-blue tuck-and-roll vintage record player, which he inherited from his twin brother. It was plugged in and open. I leaned carefully over it. A 45 RPM record was spinning endlessly, the needle arm at the central pivot, just butting up and retreating and repeating that last spiral in the groove, over and over . . .
Guillermo's brother Ernesto was a criminal who died bad, under lots of knives; he tried too many scams too many times, and pissed off too many of his associates. In any other time besides the Special Period, he may have survived or talked his way out of his corners; but those were tough times, everybody felt the bite, so both the criminals and the authorities made an example of him. Despite all that, Guillermo once wrote, Ernesto had excellent taste in music. Not that it would ever redeem him, Guillermo also wrote. (I couldn't make out the title of the record that was revolving there now, though, on Ernesto's old record player.)
I don't think Guillermo broke a major law in his life; the worst thing he's ever done is buy bootleg liquor. Those two could not have been more opposite.
Now that I thought I had figured out what had spooked me as I entered, I straightened up and headed for the desk, where I had seen the black portfolio with the strange artworks that Carlos Lage wanted me to examine. Before I could get to the desk, though, the glass doors to the balcony slowly swung open from the force of an outside wind. Instead of the hot wind one would expect from pre-hurricane season, though, and the pungent stink from the Insect Portraits stacked outside, I felt a strong surge of cooling wind come curling in from the balcony, which carried with it an even stronger, almost overwhelming scent of gardenia and roses, all spiraling around my head. The doors yawned open and the wind kept curving in around my shivering body like a giant generous hand made of invisible unfurling flowers, each bursting with perfume, enveloping me in a swoon, but the giant hand caught me and gentled me back into Guillermo's chair. I am overly sensitive in all sensory modes, so this was . . . I needed a moment, a long moment, and in that moment the needle arm on the record player interrupted its eternal return and, in concert with the wind, maybe, and the ghost of Ernesto Gorgojo, it retracted itself to the beginning of the disc, and when it lay itself down into the black groove a black man's voice sang out strong and clear, in American English:
Sometimes in our lives--
We all have pain--
We all have sorrow;
But if we are wise,
We know that there's always tomorrow.
Lean on me, when you're not strong,
And I'll be your friend,
I'll help you carry on;
For it won't be long,
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on.
Please swallow your pride,
If I have things you need to borrow--
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you don't let show.
Lean on me, when you're not strong,
And I'll be your friend,
I'll help you carry on;
For it won't be long,
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on.
I was held in the giant hand of the gardenia-rose wind, which impressed me, possessed me, and caressed me, round and round my shaking shoulders, as rare and bitter tears ran freely down my hollow cheeks . . .
So just call on me brother, when you need a hand.
We all need somebody to lean on.
I just might have a problem that you'd understand;
We all need somebody to lean on.
Lean on me!
When you're not strong--
And I'll be your friend,
I'll help you carry on;
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on.
The song ended, and the clicking began again. The wind sighed away, and the usual warm evening wind returned; the strong gardenia and rose scents lingered, though, until I left a while later.
I tried to compose myself. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. Deep breath. Deep breath. I reached out for the precious roll of toilet paper I knew would be there on Guillermo's desk --he cried a lot-- and as I leaned forward my eyes fell on the long white envelope sitting in the exact middle of the black portfolio --Jeronimo-- like a name tag, like a little wave, like a friendly greeting even-- written thereon.
Well, now. That snapped me back to reality. I sat up straight and looked around for signs of a trap. That windy music thing seemed a little contrived, after all, didn't it? (He said to himself stupidly.) But how . . . ? And why? Of course not. That was something . . . other. I remembered what I already knew about the uncanniness of the prints sheathed like psychic weapons in the black confines of that portfolio.
I leaned closer to the envelope, until my nose was almost touching it. I tilted my head this way and that: no wires --don't be a fool, Jeronimo!-- but it smelled, I swear, like mango.
I picked up the envelope and set it aside. I spread my long fingers over the soft, rich, black nubby leather of the flap of the portfolio, as if stretching to form difficult piano chords --for a piece by Lizst, maybe. (I remember too much sometimes.) I pressed my hands down and held them there.
I believe nothing, but I felt a dial turn in the middle of my chest --there's no other way to describe it-- and the portfolio didn't vibrate, I did.
It only lasted for thirty seconds, but in that time I hummed like an electric motor, smooth and sweet and reliable.
Finally I opened the white envelope, and drew out a note on one sheet of lined paper. Guillermo had written:
Jeronimo,
We were never friends, and neither were we enemies, at least directly. Perhaps that leaves us some neutral ground, a wide grey zone, where I may tiptoe across my cowardice, and you might slide around your culpability, in the name of redemption for both of us. How? You know how. The redemption is a person. The one who stands at the intersection of our two lives. The woman at the crossroad. Her. Kiku Ybarra.
I know you've been in my apartment on Carlos Lage's orders, many many times. As a detail man, he would make sure you took a look around. And you --I know about your eidetic memory, your loyalty --which I do admire-- and your . . . oversensitivity. So, you have haunted me for at least ten years. A doppelganger, the Germans call it, I think. A ghostly double, a second shadow. And me with a twin brother who already haunts me. . . So:
Who meets who at the crossroad? And how many roads meet there, anyway?
It's enough to make a man believe in all kinds of magic.
I know you know me through my journals and my surroundings, and I'm counting on you seeing the beating heart within the words, which span over ten years of "scribble, scribble, scribble," as she used to tease me.
I just might have a problem that you'd understand, and I'm going to state it plainly. I think you're right up to date with my journal. (Lage's jittery, isn't he?) I think Kiku is coming back to her senses, and I don't want it to happen in . . . wherever she is --you know, Jeronimo; that's the point. That's the key.
I want to break her out of prison, and I want you to help me. You may have no reason to, but if you've been reading my journals over the years, I simply have to count on l'esperanza that your heart still beats, because I have no one else to turn to.
If this obviously incriminatory note lands me in prison, so be it. Make your move, Mantis. I've made mine. I'll meet you at the crossroad.
Guillermo Gorgojo
Sunday, May 29, 2005, 5:00 AM
I crumpled up the envelope and tossed it into the wastebasket under the desk. Then, as I folded the note once, twice, three times, so that it was reduced to the size of a little white business card, I noticed the hair on my arms was standing up. I felt no fear, but I looked to the glass balcony doors. They were slightly open, and the soft wind was warm; so why did I feel so chilly?
I slipped the folded note into my shirt pocket, and buttoned the flap securely. I tilted my head at the black portfolio, and decided to leave it undisturbed. And then I did three things I have never done before, in all my thousands of silent shadowy visits over thousands of suffering lives --and certainly never in Guillermo's apartment:
First, I backed slowly toward the door, making sure the haunted record player kept going round and round (why? he knew I was going to be there. Yes, but-- Why not turn it off, then? I don't know!); I reached behind me and turned the knob by touch, opened the door, and slipped outside;
Second, I ran to my car, astonishing myself at my own obvious exposure. People gawked. Once at the car, I locked myself in, but before I could leave I had to stop shivering. I was so cold. In the late May heat, with the windows partway down, my trembling hand kept missing the keyhole. I forced myself to slow down and watch the key glide slowly through the air to . . . okay. It's started; time to get out of here.
Third, I had already decided that I had no intention of telling Carlos Lage about Guillermo's note. I had never done that before.
I drove around potholes in the early, orange Havana evening, my hands firmly on the wheel, into growing darkness.
Posted by Jerome at July 31, 2005 09:00 PM | TrackBack