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Louis 1928 - 1999 This piece is a tribute to my dear Cuban friend Dr.Louis Rolando González who died suddenly. We were friends for thirty-three years. All that I have left now are his wonderful letters, his Communist Party membership card, (which he discarded in disgust,) and warm memories of an extraordinary human being. He never left the shores of Cuba in all of his life. I'm sorry to say that my dear old friend Louis Rolando has just died of a heart attack. His ex-wife telephones me to break the sad news. I cry. They're so poor in Cuba. In spite of the fact that Louis has been a doctor in a hospital all his life - his pension's hardly enough to live on. Sometimes Louis has to scrape together enough money to buy the stamps to write to me. I send him and his family lots of clothing and other things, (shoes etc.) over the years. Not long before he dies I write to him and offer to pay his airfare to Britain, so that he can come here and have a nice holiday with us. Because our letters take one month to reach their destination - his weekly letters keep on arriving after he's dead. At last, I receive his ultimate letter written from his deathbed minutes before he goes to the bathroom where he suffers the second heart attack that kills him. In that last letter, he discusses the probability of his death and says some very complimentary things about me. It is all very moving and very upsetting! I'm crying as I type this. In his last letter, he describes the symptoms and effects of the first attack in a dispassionate doctor-like way. He takes a notebook and records the changes every 20 minutes or so, the characteristics and location of the pain etc. He heads these notes: To: Dr X after my Post - Mortem Examination. To be sent to Jud Evans whose address is in my agenda. On the other page, he writes his 'Last Will and Testament,' naming his friend Dr Zamorra as his executor, and his son by Miriam as his only and universal heir of everything he owns. The good Doctor hasn't forwarded the notes yet, and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to receiving them anyway! What can you say about a happening like that? You can scream at the heavens in frustration and despair. Don't make me laugh! You're wasting your time amigo. There's nobody there. There's only the cold, scary, unfeeling, uncaring, infinity of the universe. If you wait long enough, say a couple of billion years, with a sufficiently sensitive listening device - it'll throw back the echo of your scream into your face! To remonstrate with fate's like pissing into the wind! An uncannily predictive passage.
I reproduce for you, an uncannily predictive passage from a letter that I write to Luis not long before his death. In the event, it's a remarkably prophetic piece that's written in response to a light-hearted request from Luis that I'd act as his Horatio. In fact I rather think he's got it wrong, and means Hardy, (from Captain Hardy - who held the dying Admiral Horatio Nelson in his arms and kissed him as he died on the deck of 'The Victory' at the Battle of Trafalgar. I don't bother to pick him up on it however - and indeed there may well be another Horatio in history that was involved with a dying hero for all I know. *** Beginning of excerpt from my letter. *** The amazing escape from death of Luis González. Of course, I'll be your Horatio if you slip away first Luis. I've carefully noted the way to El Cementario Colón! After a couple of hours drinking in El Casa Tango, I'll stagger down to Ave Italia, turn right down Zamia, then continue along Calzada de Zapata passing the Clinico Quirurgico Manuel Fajardo on the right. Entering the Cementario, I enquire at the Enquiry Office for Luis Gonzáles' plot. 'Why?' Says the cementario director; 'Didn't you know? Look behind you! D'yuh see that large monument to Marti over there? You do? Well just walk over there and cross over Avenida Carlos de Céspedes - watch out for the traffic! They're planting Dr. Gonzáles alongside our national hero Jose Marti, as an honour for all his work and assiduous performances to the many grateful women of Havana and elsewhere in his younger days. In addition, we believe that it will greatly increase the tourist potential of our city to have the graves of our two greatest Cubans side by side. It'll save time for the tourists. It'll save petrol, shoe leather, and most of all - it'll make money. So anxious were the authorities to cash in on this tourist bonanza that they've rushed ahead a bit. You see Luis is not actually dead yet. It’s too late to hold things up now, there's a huge crowd gathered. Thousands of people from all over Cuba, not to mention the foreigners who've made a special pilgrimage to witness the internment of the fabulous Luis. Too bad, he hasn't actually snuffed it yet, but never mind - he's a patriot and will be happy to make the supreme sacrifice for his fatherland. By the way, who are you? You're not this 'Horatio' guy that everybody's looking for are you? You are! My God Boy! You'd better get your butt over there pronto! They've got you a bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey especially flown in from Dublin. You've got to kiss the old guy as he lies near to death in his box! Better you than me buddy! And in front of all those people and TV cameras too! No time to talk now! Just go now! Vamoose as quick as you can!' Sprinting across Ave Carlos De Céspedes, I shoulder my way through the dense crowds that have formed an almost impenetrable crush around the Monumento a Jose Marti. You're waiting there in a half-sitting position in the ornate coffin - you smile. 'Horatio,' you say weakly, 'You've kept your word. You've come to say the those beautiful, timeless words.' I look down with sad, loving eyes, unscrewing the metal top from the Celtic liquid gold. I say gently... 'Now cracks a noble bottle best. Good afternoon sweet Doc I jest And flights of tourists would drink thee to thy rest! Put off that shroud!' I say ' and grab this vest Out you get and let's vamoose out west! Let's leave poor Marti to his well-earned rest, I know a place for booze that is considered best in all of Santa Clara, And in that bar, the barmaid's chest, Tis’ said - she will reveal upon request! You answer sotto voce 'Your hand dear 'ratio support my arm, Let's fly this horrid place to my pal's farm It's far too early for this funeral trick Let’s get to hell out of here quick! Sod the television cameras and their crews Let's get to Santa Clara and the booze! So, through the screaming crowds we make our way, And Jud and Luis leave, to live another day!' The above doggerel disguises the fact that if I did lose you Luis, I should be heart-broken - for I feel as if we've been friends for all our lives, and I can’t imagine not getting those welcome familiar letters popping through the letter-box at regular intervals. *** End of extract *** A week after receiving this letter my friend Louis was dead. |