Back in Cuba

There is nobody reading this, which is actually kind of liberating, so I will plug away.

Now 22 years old, he returned to Cuba, having earned his undergrad and masters in business from Columbia in only four years. He was immediately set up in the family jewelry business. His brother was away on business until the next evening, so they needed him to open the shop. The next morning when he walked into the shop, he noticed a light coming from the back room. Since it was a fairly small village, he wasn't too concerned, but four years in New York City had made him cautious. He opened the door to the back room and there, sitting on a cot, was an overweight man leaning over to tie his shoes. He seemed completely unaware that anyone had opened the door.

I could hear him grunting as he struggled to lean over his massive stomach to tie his shoes. I could even smell him. He didn't smell clean. It looked like he was living in the back room, but no one had told me that anyone was living there. "Excuse me," I said. He didn't look at me or move. "Discúlpeme," I said a little louder. This very unlikeable man lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were red and swollen and his face was extremely puffy. It had that greyish color, like someone who drinks and smokes too much and oxygen isn't circulating. As I watched, he slowly faded away. I was staring at an empty cot in a dark room.

Later that night, my brother returned and we all gathered for supper at my parents. Still confused about what I had seen in the back rom, I secretly confided in my mother. She was a very spiritual woman and I needed someone to assure me I wasn't crazy. Before I was able to tell her that the man in the storage room had faded away, she said, "Holta! Say no more!" I was afraid I had alarmed her. She called over a nephew and told him to fetch my older brother quickly. When my brother came into the room, she sat the two of us down with pencil and paper and commanded us to write down what we had seen in the jewelry store. For fifteen minutes we both scribbled furiously. A small crowd of relatives gathered in mother's tiny parlor, but my brother and I kept writing, possessed by the need to tell our stories.

When we were done, mother gathered the papers and began reading, getting more and more excited with each word. Soon she called over Papa. "Look," she exclaimed. "I told you. He's here. He's here." Father read the papers and shook his head. "It can't be. The boys are playing a trick on you."

"How?" mother asked. "Roberto returned home only yesterday and Pepe was on a business trip until this afternoon. They have not spoken."

As Mother bustled around the parlor pulling out old family albums, she explained to me that while I was living in New York, my father's brother had come to him pleading for a job. He had lost his family and his business and had taken to drinking. My father allowed him to sleep in the back of the jewelry store and paid him a small salary on the pretense that he was providing security for the business. The brother had been estranged for many years and I had not seen him since I was a young child. Mother handed me a photo of my father and four other men standing in front of the jewelry store taken about a year before my return to Cuba.

"That's who I saw." I pointed to one of the men without hesitation.

"I have seen him every day since he died in that back room three months ago." Pepe was shaking his head, relieved that someone else had also seen our dead uncle.

The elderly gentleman stopped speaking; his lips tightened like someone who has said too much. His family stood around him in silent reverence, the silence once again broken by the peals of the ourthouse clock.

"We have taken enough of your time," he said politely and gracefully strode toward the parking lot.

"Thank you. Thank you." Each of his daughters and his wife clasped my hand and gave me hugs. "This is more than I have ever known about my father," said one of them.

I will never know if this very reserved, distinguished gentleman continued to see ghosts throughout his life. I do know that from that point on his daughters and grandchildren looked at him in a different light...as someone who shares their interests and beliefs and has a lifetime of stories to tell.