The Lacuna

What a vast tapestry Lev must have woven in sixty years of living, the meetings of minds and bodies, armies of joined hands and pledged oaths—and now this household is nearly all that’s left of it. Only these few could tell a story of him from memory when he is gone. It’s such a small measure to stack against the mountain of newsprint fables, the Villain in Our Midst. What will people find in libraries one day, if they go looking? So little hope he will be honestly remembered. No future history in this man.

Today he turned over a handwritten letter to be typed. It seemed more private than public, some sort of will or testament. The heading said only: “February 27, 1940.”

“For forty-three years of my thinking life I have been a revolutionary; for forty-two of those years I fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to start all over again, I would of course try to avoid this or that error, but the general course of my life would remain unchanged. I will die a proletarian revolutionist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is firmer today than it was in the days of my youth.

“Natalya has just come up from the courtyard and opened my window so the air may come in. I can see a wide strip of green grass along the wall, the pale blue sky above, and sunlight on everything. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”

Natalya declared today it was time for a “walk.” It’s the name she and Lev use for outings, long drives into the country where Lev can scramble through cactus-filled ravines while Natalya spreads a picnic blanket in a grapefruit grove. “He needs to get out of this coffin,” she said at breakfast, even though she worries herself sick whenever he leaves the fortress. But she knows his hungers. With every passing month lived outside of Frida’s shadow, Natalya seems to be more of a person, a wife. That blue house was a mouth that swallowed her down. Or a dark necessity they passed through together.

Some words that have meaning in this house: Forgiveness. Trust.

As the Commissar of Picnick, she commanded the kitchen troops in the packing of lunch, while the Steering Committee of Outings spread out maps on the dining room table and made a reconnaissance. Keeping to deserted roads would be safe. They decided on Cuernavaca, by a route that would afford good views of the volcanos Popocatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl. It was noted that the American Faction would amuse the Mexican Faction by trying to pronounce these names.

The Rosmers were telephoned, as this adventure would require two automobiles: the old Ford on permanent loan from Diego, and their friend Jacson’s Buick. He appears willing to take his friends anywhere on short notice, probably because he likes being inside that immense car. Reba and Joe, Miss Reed, Lorenzo, food, wine, blankets, and one machine gun all fit in the Buick, along with the Rosmers. In the smaller Ford, the bodyguards Alejandro and Melquiades crammed into the front seat with the driver, who contained his displeasure with the cantankerous Ford. (Oh, for Diego’s Chevrolet Roadster, its powerful engine and smooth gearshift.) Lev and Natalya sat in back with their excited grandson, and the equally wide-eyed lad Sheldon, newest volunteer from the States.

Lev kept his head down as always, lying across the others’ laps in the back seat until the car was well outside the city, climbing a dirt road out of the dusty central valley. Large stretches of land lay uncultivated, studded with spiny plants fiercely defending their territory from no one who wanted it. Stockmen in wide-rimmed hats rode along the roadsides driving their cattle, whose large, down-turned ears gave them a look of hopeless sadness in the inhospitable landscape. Nopal plantations and occasional sugarcane fields gave the only glimpses of green.

“Shepherd, I was thinking,” Lev said, after it was deemed safe for him to sit up and look about. “We should always have a second driver in the vehicle. Do you think you could teach Melquiades?”

“Yes, sir.” Lev meant: in case the first driver is shot by a sniper. The passengers would need the protection of escape. It’s the kind of horror Lev needs to anticipate and solve daily, like working out the finances or fixing a broken hinge.

In time the road gained purchase on the shoulder of the mountain. Rolling fields of brown grass and oaks gave way to dry pine forest. The plan was to avoid the city of Cuernavaca, taking rugged roads to a gorge near Amecameca. The day was jueves santo, the Thursday before Easter, so every village church in the land was cloaked in a purple drape, mourning the dead Christ who was expected to return shortly. Alejandro crossed himself each and every time a church was passed. He did it inconspicuously, probably embarrassed in the present company: just a tiny movement of a curled hand at his chest, the smallest possible gesture that might still be visible to a sharp-eyed God.

At certain bends in the road, the pine forests opened onto breathtaking views of Popocatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl, the dazzling snowy peaks of the twin volcanoes. “Killer!” Sheldon sighed from the back seat. This boy was already known to Jake and Charlie when he arrived, from “the Downtown Branch,” and had never traveled outside New York before. Now he remarked on each vista, as unfailingly driven to it as Alejandro was to cross himself at each church. “Popo, po—” Sheldon tried, and gave up, which was just as well. The others were tired of laughing.

“Try Cuernavaca,” offered Seva, into whose mouth both Spanish and English have run like water in a faucet, since the day the Rosmers brought him.

“Cornavaca! Thanks, pal! And now I think I’m done in for the day.”

The little boy is especially fond of Sheldon, quick to come to his defense when the other guards tease. It’s no wonder Seva wants to follow him around, Sheldon is such a good joe: first to volunteer for the worst guard shifts, never taking offense at a joke, never taking a second pan dulce off the plate until they’ve gone around. On his first great adventure, Mexico has struck Sheldon star-eyed. Mexico, he says, is keen.

“The Aztecs called the city Cuauhnahuac,” Lev said. “It means, ‘near the woods.’” Who knows where Lev learns such things? He reads everything.

“But Grandfather, Cuernavaca means cow horn, yes?” Seva asked. “Why did the Spaniards change it?”

Melquiades suggested that the Azteca changed it themselves to keep from laughing to death when they heard the Spaniards try to say “Cuauhnahuac.”

The destination was a forested ravine with a shaded glen and a cold, rushing stream for swimmers with strong hearts. Lev took his grandson on a hike and they came back triumphant, Lev carrying his burlap-wrapped prize like a stout log over his shoulder. It was his favorite cactus, the viejito, “little old man” they call it because it grows long white hair instead of spines. Melquiades and Lorenzo together hefted the cactus into the trunk of the Buick and swear it weighed thirty kilos, at least. Stalin and high blood pressure notwithstanding, Lev may outlive us all.