Felipe Vargas did not remember ever seeing a Bible in a Cuban home, his own included, though his father, a physician, owned an encyclopedia and a large collection of leather bound books on various subjects. Nor had Felipe ever heard of a Bible study group until he came to the United States. What he did remember, though, quite well, were the ubiquitous household altars to pagan-like deities in the guise of Catholic saints and virgins, their plaster cast effigies layered in gaudy home-made capes and, on their holy days, knee-deep in sliced fruit and vegetables offerings, all in blatant violation of the First Commandment.
So though officially there was only God, deities there were many. The two main Cuban vírgenes were the black Santa Bárbara and the white Caridad del Cobre. The saint worshipped by Felipe’s mother was San Lázaro, not the famous Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead, but an obscure leper whom, Felipe years later discovered in one of his American Bible study classes, was briefly mentioned in Luke 16:13. How ordinary Cubans, unfamiliar as they were with the Scriptures, came to know this minor character, was a mystery to Felipe. And even more mysterious to him were the reasons why Cubans had endowed the leper with healing powers equal to those of Jesus himself. All Felipe could say when asked was that the pathetic Lázaro had somehow struck a deep religious chord in the Cuban psyche. A gaunt, bearded figure in rags, nearly naked and leaning on a makeshift crutch, with two equally miserable-looking dogs licking at the lesions on his bony legs, San Lázaro had a number of business establishments and a major street in Havana named after him.
The altar to San Lázaro dominated the living room of the Vargas home. When Felipe’s mom wanted something—more money, better health for herself and her loved ones, or misfortune for someone disliked—she would kneel before her San Lázaro and beseech his assistance, offering in return to add yet another bauble to the already bebaubbled cape she had once sewn for him on his holiday, December 17. If San Lázaro complied, she would thank him profusely, praise his great powers, sing to him softly as she sawed on the new bauble. But if he didn’t comply, as was usually the case, she would curse him viciously. Barbudo hijo de puta! . “Bearded son of a bitch!" and threaten to replace him with a more competent saint. Of course, she never did. An hour later she would be kneeling before San Lázaro beseeching his forgiveness.
A young pharmacist who lived down the street, Emilio Cuesta, also was a San Lázaro worshiper. When his paternal grandmother suffered a massive stroke, Emilio made a promesa, vow, to crawl to San Lázaro’s shine at the leper hospital of El Rincón, some twenty miles south of Havana, with an offering of 200 American dollars, a considerable sum for a Cuban in those days, to induce the saint to heal the old woman or, at least, keep her alive for a few more years. But after crawling only two blocks, wearing holes in his best pants and skinning his knees raw, Emilio decided to walk instead. Felipe, then age 14 and ever eager for an adventure, offered to accompany Emilio. A champion chess player and gifted linguist who had learned to speak English by watching American movies and listening to Frank Sinatra records, Emilio always had something interesting to say. Hiking 20 miles through the Cuban countryside with someone like Emilio Cuesta would be a doubly enjoyable experience.
At 2:00 AM, Emilio and Felipe set out on the pot-holed Rancho Boyeros Road that passed by San Lázaro’s shrine, Felipe carrying in his knapsack a thermos bottle of cold Materva, a popular Cuban soft drink, a thick guava paste sandwich and, securely tucked in his watch pocket, the exact change for the bus fare home. Emilio, having sworn not to touch food or drink until after he made his offering, carried nothing but the $200 for the saint, the bus fare home, and a vial of mercurochrome for his skinned knees.
They hiked by the light of a waxing moon through the outskirts of Havana, then down the middle of Rancho Boyeros Road, devoid of traffic at that late hour. Shifting shadows of swaying trees and clouds drifting overhead stirred in them vague fears of demons upset with them for having trespassed into their world of darkness. Now and again they crossed themselves for divine protection, por si acaso , just in case.
Three hours into the hike, their mood brightened as the sun peeped over the horizon. Along both sides of the road, lush fincas, farms, emerged into view, with machete-wielding guajiros, farm laborers, already at work, joshing one another and singing at the top of their voices. Emilio and Felipe exchanged hand greetings with the guajiros and, picking up their tunes, earthy guarachas played ad nauseam on the radio so every man, woman and child in Cuba knew them by heart, they hiked on to the saint’s shrine. Now that the sun was up and demons no longer a threat, they prudently walked along the edge of the road to avoid the growing number of trucks and busses speeding heedlessly in the opposite direction toward Havana, their drivers honking their horns just for the hell of it.
They passed through the town of Mazorra, home of the national insane asylum. Inmates garbed in soiled blue pajamas aimlessly roamed the street or sprawled out on the sidewalk, oblivious of one another’s existence, arguing with someone or staring at something that that only they could see. Two elderly Spanish nuns walked amongst them, offering them galletas , large wavy crackers, which they snatched and devoured without acknowledging the hands that fed them. Moved by pity, Felipe went up to one of the inmates, a skinny teenaged kid with a shaved head, and offered him his guava paste sandwich, but on seeing Felipe approach, the kid burst out crying and hid behind a tree. One of the nuns explained to Felipe that the kid was terrified of strangers, but that he would accept the sandwich if she was the one who offered it to him. Felipe gave the nun the sandwich, and the nun in turn gave it to the kid, who, still cowering behind the tree, proceed to eat it in dainty nibbles, as the nun stood guard lest another inmate snatch it from him.
The other nun blessed Felipe, Qué Dios te bendiga, hijo mio , God bless you, my son, and went on doling out crackers.
“It’s a good thing that you are fasting, too, amigo,” Emilio said, laying an arm on Felipe’s shoulder. “This will increase the chances of San Lázaro healing my grandmother.”
Felipe had not yet taken a drink of the Materva in his thermos bottle. Reflecting on Emilio’s comment, he swore to abstain from drink as well, until the offering to the saint was duly carried out.
Farther down the road, they passed the national airport in the town of Rancho Boyeros, after which the road was named. A group of bleary-eyed, sunburned American tourists bearing souvenirs--maracas, mahogany baseball bats, palm frond hats, cigars and l wallets with Cuban motifs made in Taiwan--were entering the terminal for their return flight home, while a group of pale-skinned wide-eyed compatriots that that had just arrived were boarding a bus for Havana, some to visit the historic sites in the city, others to imbibe rum drinks by the quart in hotel bars, cook their pale skins on the beaches, take in the sultry shows at the Tropicana night club, lose a fortune in the Mafia-controlled casinos, or patronize Havana’s famous Havana’s Colón and Pajarito red-light districts, Cuban mulatto prostitutes reputedly being the cleanest and most skilled in the world.
At around 10:00 Emilio and Felipe arrived at San Lázaro’s shrine in El Rincón. For such a hallowed place, the shrine was not all that impressive, a bare, windowless room, no larger than a theater lobby. Against the back wall was a plain altar bearing a plaster-cast statue of the saint, the statue larger than the ones in private homes but with identical features: the same gaunt, ragged leper on crutches with two dogs licking at the lesions on his legs. Piled up around the saint were offerings of fruit, spices, clothing, live chickens and, along the walls, discarded braces and crutches attesting to the saint’s healing powers. In keeping with Catholic tradition, the shrine had no doors. Folks could enter and leave as they pleased, stay for minutes or hours, day or night, seven days a week. And unlike other places where two or more Cubans gathered, the only human utterances heard were the occasional wail of a supplicant or a cry of thanksgiving.
A crowd of pilgrims, some patently ill or suffering from medical treatment gone awry, others, like Emilio, seeking a cure or relief on for a loved ones too incapacitated to come, milled about the entrance. Then, as if on cue from an inner voice, the healthy ones got down on their bellies and proceeded to creep into the shrine, Emilio among them, oblivious of his skinned knees. Suddenly filled with the sprit, Felipe handed his thermos bottle of Materva for safekeeping to a deaf old woman in a wheelchair and crept into shrine with the others.
Stretched belly-down on the floor, he watched Emilio deposit his 200 American dollars on a silver tray, which the ruddy hand of a Spanish priest behind the altar promptly took, lest a sham pilgrim, of whom there were always a few, steal the money as well as the tray.
Confident that San Lázaro would heal his grandmother, Emilio rose to his feet, crossed himself, and strode out the shrine, followed by Felipe, likewise confident that the trek, fasting, and offering would work the intended miracle, and proud that he had somehow contributed it.
Outside in the courtyard the sun shone brutally hot against a cloudless blue sky. Felipe and Emilio had been looking forward to a swig of cold Materva, but the old woman to whom Felipe had entrusted the thermos bottle was nowhere to found. As in those days there were few public drinking fountains in Cuba, tap water being too polluted to drink, and because they had no money between them to buy a soft drink, only enough for the bus fare to Havana, they had to go thirsty, and hungry, until they got home.
They boarded the bus and took the front seat across the aisle from the driver, a stout, moon-faced fellow with a thick black mustache and a jovial, booming voice. >“Buenas tardes”! Boomed the driver to the passengers.
“Buenas tardes”! Boomed back the passengers.
Felipe, exhausted, nestled up against the Emilio and was soon fast asleep. As the bus sped toward Havana, he dreamt an out-of-body kind of dream in which he saw the very scene he was in. Emilio and himself insidede the bus, sleeping, everything the same, except that the man driving the bus was not the moon-faced fellow but the gaunt, leprous San Lázaro, his crutch propped up behind the driver’s seat and his two emaciated dogs napping in the aisle beside him. Despite the frequent potholes and increasingly heavy traffic on Rancho Boyeros Road, the bus made good time, and in less than hour arrived in Havana.
Vargas and Emilio awoke to the booming voice of the driver—Paradero! “Terminal!” Stiffly, they debussed and transferred to the local bus that would drop them off at the corner of street where they lived.
It was the custom in those days for local busses in Cuba to came to a full stop only for women, children and elderly or handicapped men. For able-bodied males, the busses would slow down just enough to allow them to climb on board on the run by grabbing on to a door handle, and to get off by hopping out onto the street and jogging four or five momentum-breaking steps to keep from falling on their faces. As Felipe and Emilio hopped off the bus, they were surprised to find their parents, siblings, and neighbors apprehensively milling about on the sidewalk, some crying, others fingering rosaries and crossing themselves.
At the sight of the two pilgrims, the group burst into a joyful cheer, and as one all rushed forth to greet them with hearty hugs, backslaps and kisses.
“Gracias a Dios! “Thank God you’re safe!” “We were so worried when we heard the news on the radio!”
Emilio and Felipe cast the group a puzzled look. “News? What news? What on earth are you talking about?”
“The shootout on Rancho Boyeros Road,” they excitedly took turns explaining. “Between the revolucionarios and a squad of Army recruits. Busses and cars caught in the crossfire were riddled with bullets. Many riders were killed or wounded. We feared that you were among the victims.”
Emilio shrugged, shook his head. “No, we didn’t run into any shootout. In fact, the bus ride from the shrine was so peaceful that we slept all the way.”
“Yes,” added Felipe. “If there was a shootout it, must have happened after we arrived in Havana.”
“At what time did the bus arrive?” inquired Emilio’s father.
“At 12:05, Papá,” Emilio said. "I saw the time on the terminal station clock.”
“But according to the radio the shootout took place at 11:45, when you were still on the road. If you didn’t get caught in it, then you must have at least heard the gunfire.”
“No, Papá,” Emilio insisted. “We did not hear anything. Nada. As I said, we slept peacefully all the way home, and when we arrived, none of passengers mentioned anything about sounds of gunfire. Most of them probably were napping, too.”
“Oh, well,” Felipe’s mother cheerily cut in. “You’re both home safe. That's all that matters.”
“Yeah,” nodded Emilio’s father," though no quite convinced. "The radio reporters probably got the time of the shooting wrong, or maybe the clock in the terminal was off. It’s one of those antique pendulum clocks.”
That evening the famished pilgrims were treated to a potluck feast of black beans, fried plantains, yuca con mojo, roasted pork and flan smothered in melted sugar, all washed down with ice-cold Materva.
The pilgrimage to San Lázaro’s shrine and the $200 offering worked, though not quite as Emilio had intended A week later, his ailing grandmother died, but, as Emilio eloquently pointed out, she had died painlessly in her sleep, and with a trusting, beatific smile on her face, as if personally ushered into heaven by San Lázaro himself. Emilio was not about to question the compassion and wisdom of the saint.
At the wake, amid the sobs, and mumbled rosary prayers of the mourners, Felipe took Emilio aside and recounted in detail the dream he had dreamt on the bus to Havana.
Emilio’s eyes widened and, for a long moment, fell silent, his mind groping in vain for words to express thoughts for which no words existed. Finally, he muttered. “I had the same dream, Felipe, exactly as you describe it.” Then gazing deep into Felipe’s eyes? “Do you understand what that means?”
Felipe understood. “Un milagro,” he muttered!” “A miracle!”
“Yes, a miracle. Papá was right,” Emilio said, glancing across the room at his father, who had taken a seat by the coffin and was softly talking to his dead mom. “The battle erupted just as our bus was arriving in Havana. I checked the time. We were right in the thick of it, yet missed it altogether." Then smiling at Felipe: “Our dream was real, amigo. it was San Lázaro who was driving that bus.”
A neighbor walked in bearing a tray stacked with guava paste and cream cheese bocaditos, snacks, which the mourners quickly finished off, their eyes then turning discreetly toward the door, hoping that another neighbor would appear with another tray of bocaditos, or maybe cold drinks.
On his death bed 68 years later, 1500 miles away from home, on a snowy January in New York City, Felipe Vargas, U.S. Army war veteran, retired mathematics professor, novelist, screen playwright, father of five, grandfather of twelve, watched his long life flash by before his eyes, as in a fast-forward film. At the scene of the pilgrimage to San Lázaro’s shrine, the film went into slow motion, the colors brightened, and Felipe vividly saw himself crawling into the shrine, lying prostrate on the floor, his gaze on the gaunt figure on the altar, and the gaunt figure knowingly, compassionately returning his gaze. Then smiling peacefully, Felipe closed his eyes, and the scene went blank.
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