The Ship of the Alvares Family

The man was sitting on one of the six chairs with blue-checkered upholstery in the den which was the size of a tennis court and was trying to gather the last eight years of his life.

He counted out his wedding, the birth of their first child, the first steps she had taken, the first words pronounced, the birth of the second baby, the third one…Nothing else came to mind. It’s so bleak, it’s so bleak that I wonder if it’s me who has lost the world or the world has left me. Then suddenly he made up his mind to find her. The room was filled with the smell of anemones.

Lazaro got up and headed out. His chest expanded with power; he cut like a sailing boat into the black night.

He looked for her for a month. He looked in every little nook in Havana – every shop, every drug store, every cafe and restaurant, entered every night club and institution. He stopped people in the street and gave them her description. Then went on. His trousers turned the colour of the dusty streets in twilight, his shirt was threadbare from the scorching sun and the rain that lashed at him, his shoes were in shreds as if he were the last of the homeless wanderers on earth. He ate when hunger chased him and slept where sleep knocked him down – he discovered the comforts of chipped benched, strewn along the boulevards of the city and the soft sanctuary of the grass spread under the park trees. He drank water from the stone fountains and the building downsprouts. She was nowhere to be found.

As he opened the front door of his home and shuffled his feet to the yellow sofa in front of the TV he felt that someone had been there. His olfactory sense was sharpened as if he was an animal. Whoever had been there - now he had no strength left to even get up. He closed his eyes to submerge himself into the deepest slumber he had had for forty years.

As soon as he woke up, he saw Sophia towering over him. She wore a new light blue dress, which outlined her supple buttocks, transparent in the light. He squinted and looked again just to be sure she was there.

Are you here, Sophia, he asked just to confirm the fact.

I have always been here, my love, she said and seated herself beside him. She had prepared two glasses of tequila on the table.

What about the children?

The children are getting ready for the trip, she quipped and pushed the glass in his direction. I have to tell you something, Lazaro.

Yes? He said and sat up as he always did when he heard that adamant note in her voice.

You are not a man, Lazaro Alvares, and she blew the smoke as if to form an exclamation mark.

If you wish I’ll bottom up this shot, and he reached for the glass.

Her hand stopped him.

Just leave that. Someone should drink the way you do so that it is known there men and there men. I pity you - not because of the way you disappeared, my love, but because you ca