Almost two years have passed. Halley wrote four letters to me immediately after her release from Bellevue that I should append to this, although my personal things aren’t with me at the moment, and for safety’s sake, pending the outcome of my next case, I am filing this manuscript immediately in the Prager archives. Her letters won’t reveal much, but they meant a great deal to me. She wrote that I was the first man she truly loved and she added, poignantly, that now she knows how Gene must have felt. Today, Halley is back at work for Edgar. Their relationship, he tells me, and he’s trustworthy about such things, has been strictly professional since her release. He said her whole manner was changed when she returned to the job. She became cool, sometimes abrasive in her dealings. Just as effective, but much less popular. To avoid arousing Stefan, I have neither seen nor spoken with her since Bellevue.
A month ago, Edgar reported that Halley is engaged to be married to a Pakistani, a resident in thoracic surgery at New York Hospital, who plans to practice in the States. Edgar added that today Halley is a devout Muslim and one of his most valued employees which proves, he joked, that peace in the Middle East will last.
That last detail, her conversion to her fiancé’s religion, worried me sufficiently to ask whether Halley and her husband had made definite plans to be married. “Their plans are definite,” Edgar said. “I have an invitation to the wedding.” I was relieved. She might have acquired a false faith to woo her betrothed, but that is a quite normal form of self-murder for the sake of love. Stefan Weinstein is to be complimented in restoring Halley to stability, but some credit must be given to my treatment that she did not revert to her old, destructive self.
As for my condition? I plead guilty that in my invention of a new treatment for Halley, I failed to protect myself. I loved her. But that wasn’t a destructive experience. Indeed, I believe I resolved my two most difficult and troubling conflicts. I can, at last, bring to fruition my construction of these case histories: in the expiation of my failure with Gene I found relief from the guilt of my betrayal of my father; in the impersonation of incest with Halley, I was able to forgive my mother. I loved my little girl just as my mother must have loved her little boy. That, of course, is not rational — but why should a cure make more sense than the illness?
I married Diane six months ago. As I’m sure any professional would guess, she loves me today with complete confidence in my feelings for her. Since my “admission” to her and others that I had been suffering from an emotional crisis when I handed the tape to Phil Samuel, her sympathy hasn’t wavered. Absence may not make the heart grow fonder, but repentance certainly does. By the way, my repentance is perfectly sincere. Although Diane may not know everything I am doing these days, my commitment to her has no reservations. When I saw cousin Julie at this past Seder I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, but not for the old reason. I could no longer recognize why she had been, for so many years, the lost prize of my youth.
Five months ago Diane accompanied me to Tampa to bury Pepín. They called me after messages left for my father at his number in Havana weren’t returned. A handful of senile or doddering relatives came to the service that I arranged. Baffled by Pepín’s atheism and embarrassed by the funeral director’s startled look when I informed him of Grandpa’s ir-religion, I arranged for a Methodist minister to speak. He babbled so much nonsense at the funeral home I told him to keep it short and sweet at the grave.
Diane rode with me to the burial at the Centro Asturiano de Tampa Memorial Park Cemetery. It was over and we were walking back to the car when a taxi appeared and a tall, very thin, bald man got out. He was in a long white Cuban dress shirt, a guayabera, and his skin was so tanned, at a distance he might have been taken for a black. It was Francisco, of course. Diane and I waited for him to reach us. I noticed he limped. He stopped in front of me and demanded, “Is it over?”
“We tried to reach you.”
“I was in France,” he said, staring into my eyes. “Meeting with a publisher for a book on Fidel.” His eyes were set farther back than I remembered, sunken compared to his high cheeks. He swayed, as if he were dizzy. I put a hand on his shoulder. He peered past me toward the graves. “What happened?” he asked.
“We just finished—”
He cut me off. “How did he die?”
“In his sleep. Heart failure. As peacefully as it could happen.”
My father’s old face looked frightened for a moment. “Show me,” he said.
I moved aside. He walked with me. The path was uneven. Because of his limp, he stumbled, and I put my arm through his. He clutched it tight against him, with all his old strength and command. He allowed me to guide him to his father’s grave.
He stood and stared at the coffin without a flinch or a tear. After a long silence, he said, “A world is gone.”
He didn’t talk in the car or argue at the hotel while I got him a room. He nodded in reply when I asked if he wanted something to eat. Diane said she’d go up to the room to take a nap. We went to the hotel coffee shop and Francisco ordered a hamburger. “They only know how to make them in the States,” he told me.
He asked a few questions, whether Diane and I had children. “Not yet,” I told him.
“I would like a grandson,” he said. “I don’t want you to be the last of the Nerudas.” I wasn’t sure if that was meant as a criticism.
“You’re forgetting Cuco.”
He shook his head. “He can’t have children. He had testicular cancer and the treatment made him sterile.”
“Is he all right?”
“Yes. The operation was done a year ago. He’s in complete remission. He’s made a fantastic recovery. But he couldn’t come with me. There’s … These days, in Cuba—” Embarrassed, Francisco waved away the beloved country’s woes. “He couldn’t take the time.”
“Give him my love.”
Francisco nodded. “He said to say hello.”
“You plan to continue to live in Cuba?” I asked.
“I will die there,” he said in his dramatic voice that could transform melodrama into a reasonable comment.
“I have something to apologize for,” I said.
He shut his eyes, irritated. “Not this.”
“No,” I said and touched his thin arm. “You misunderstand. The last time I saw you, I told you I didn’t think I could change the world and it made you angry. You were right to be angry. I was wrong. I apologize.”
Francisco sat up straight, his head back as if to gain perspective on me. “You can’t mean that,” he said finally.
“I do. It’s wrong for a son to say that to his father. Whether or not I can change the world, for your sake I have to try.”
He seemed embarrassed and he busied himself with the last french fry on his plate. In a moment I knew why. A tear rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away and soon he was telling me Fidel was going to survive despite the fact that he was utterly alone and at the mercy of the United States. I didn’t believe a word he said, but I listened happily to the music of his resonant voice. When he left the next morning, he embraced me at the airport and kissed Diane, telling her, “Give me a grandson,” so earnestly that she had to look away.
I’ve tried to go over this text in the past few weeks. I know it requires revision and supplemental data, mostly to quell academic quibbles. Unfortunately, a recent visit to Albert prevents further work at the moment. Albert called and asked for my help two weeks ago. He has been benched by his coach in an effort to intimidate him into taking steroids and has gotten into other trouble thanks to a teammate. I believe I may have identified another example of Evil Disorder and will spend most of the next six months as an advisor to the football program.