The Cuban Guitarist

Eyes wide, Omar ducked beneath the sea. One strong breaststroke, fins gripping the water and down he went: spear trailing by his side. A few bubbles hung: suspended passing notes resolving into the dancing mirror above. He arched his back and swam close to the seabed. He could see the fragments of shell, coral and the grains of sand. He reached the stack of coral and let his buoyancy slowly lift him up. A neon-bright bluefish flashed its brilliance before backing into its hole. A shoal of thirty golden bass, dancers swaying their lamè covered hips in perfect harmony with the shadows of the waves above, moved across the open sand ahead of him. Omar searched the bottle-green thick distance beyond, saw a flash of yellow-eye in the dark marbled deep and heard a single note played high on the guitar's soundboard. A homeless clear note sustained for a while by pulsing vibrato and slowly fading. The trumpet fish was coming. Omar took his spear from his side and placed against his shoulder. The long, slim blue trumpet fish's dorsal and anal fins, way back down its body like the flights of a dart, gently rippled, bringing it effortlessly towards Omar. He began to move his feet. A rolling arpeggio over a falling bass now started up. The trumpet fish sensed the movement. It froze for a moment, eyes darting, dazzling saffron. It began to turn around. Faster now: Omar kicks, shoulders rocking with the forward thrust, fish in the sights and finger against the trigger. The fish turns to see his pursuer and ... Slap! Hit the soundboard; silence the strings. Line flies from the reel, the spear strikes, a sudden thrashing, a flamenco rasgueado, lungs now yell for air and Omar kicks for the dappled turquoise blue above. He gulped the cool comforting air, reeled in the line and carefully held the, still thrashing, trumpet fish behind the gills, avoiding its needle-full mouth. He took the steel semicircular spike from his float, undid its clasp and stroked its precisionally honed point. He looked into the trumpet fish's cold, terrified yellow eye, took the curved spike and, with the care of a silk embroiderer, lovingly pierced the fish's iris, and guiding the steel brought the point exactly out through the centre of the other eye. He fastened the safety clip of the curved spike and attached it to the float. The fish was his. Yes, the fish was his. He looked around for the shore, and, head down, kicked a slow eight bar Habanera introduction letting the notes of a Cuban love song fill his head: the song of a fisherman's lost love.

Few eyes were on Omar as a ripple of applause trickled around the half full restaurant. He thanked them but avoided the eyes of the crazy Englishman in the tacky tourist shirt who had been wildly applauding every number for the last two nights. Yesterday, he had approached Omar with a three Peso note and asked him, in poor Spanish, something about guitar strings. Victoria was late again. He had already reached You and the Night and the Music. She never used to be late; they always arrived together, all those years ago, when they were young and in love. He first saw her dancing, between the beach and the roadway, in the shade of the palm trees. She played the maracas as no one else could: played them with her whole body. Her hips like golden fish swaying in time to the rhythm of the waves, and her eyes… those eyes. When he looked into those eyes he saw everything the world had: tenderness, warmth of an island lagoon, the passions of a wild and storm swept sea and deep, bottomless seas of blue, blue love, ocean below and heaven above. He wanted for nothing more. Night after night, they had played their eighteen songs, always the same eighteen, here at the hotel on the island of Cayo Lavisa. She followed every twist and turn of his playing. He was a good guitarist, had never played a wrong note in public, and visitors told him he was good enough to play in the clubs of Havana or Miami. One had offered to arrange his exit from Cuba … for a percentage of future earnings. He had suggested leaving to Victoria but she said she loved her country; her father had died in the revolution. So, they had stayed at Cayo Lavisa. Then, one evening, she failed to arrive. He stopped playing after My Way and returned to their small apartment at the back of the hotel. He heard Victoria talking, called her name and, hearing a noise, looked around the side of the house to see Carlos, the waiter, climbing out of the window. Omar never spoke of it and neither did Victoria but after that he could never catch her eye… no, he could never catch her eye. Each night they had still played together but the passion had gone from her dance. His playing was still perfect except that the heartbeat of his music, the pulsating vibrato, had died. He had tried to start again, suggested they leave, go to Havana or try for Miami. He had savings hidden in his guitar: enough for the two of them but she would not leave. But … he could not catch her eye. Tonight he was playing Yesterday, and still she was not there. He left his guitar and returned to the apartment frightened of what he might find, but she was alone. Packing, she was leaving with Carlos, she said. They were going to Havana. They would get the last boat to the mainland and the bus in the morning. Where would Carlos get the money for Havana? He was only a waiter. Her eyes flashed and for the first time in months, he caught her eye and he knew where Carlos was planning to get the money. He grabbed his spear gun, ran back to the hotel, brushed the crazy Englishman to one side, his guitar was gone, out into the back yard, he ducked down, crept low across the sand, reached the rubbish bins and slowly lifted his head until he could place his spear gun over the top. Carlos was standing over Omar's smashed guitar and counting Omar's money. The white of his eye flashed in the dark as he turned to see what the noise was. He heard a click and the sound of a reel of line spinning out but he never had time to make out what the thing was that came hurtling towards him because the spear went through his eye, through his iris, and lodged in the back of his skull. Carlos's other eye blinked twice, closed and his body fell like a stone in water to the ground. Omar watched his money scatter, as fish in the shallows, While he reeled in his line, walked over to Carlos, put his foot on his neck, pulled out the spear, picked up his money and left.

Omar packed his money and a little food into his float. He tied six water bottles to his line, slipped into the sea and melted into an ocean of night and stars.

The Englishman had asked the waiters about a CD of Omar's music, and been told that Victoria had some. He made his way to her apartment. A yellow light shone from the open door. The Englishman called out. He put his head in the doorway and tried again. A foot was protruding beyond the bed: a small, slim bronzed foot wearing a golden shoe. He went in. Victoria lie, lifeless, where she had fallen: a golden fish on the blue tiles with her head in a pool of darkness. The Englishman thought to shout out for help but there was a shiny contraption across her face. He knelt down beside her. It was a semi-circular spike across her face, a large fastened clasp, which went in through one eye and precisely out of the other. The Englishman felt his lobster dinner crawling back. He grabbed his mouth, turned to run for the door but … he feinted on to the tiles: his red Che Guevara tee shirt soaking up the black blood.

Omar crossed the reef. He looked up, located the North Star, checked his mask, cleared his snorkel tube, stretched out, and began to kick a slow Cuban guajira Intro. A tremolo accompaniment trickled along following him like a showl of silvery fish: Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera. Florida was seventy miles away. Omar closed his eyes.