Fidel Castro had Iván’s blood all over him.
Isabel remembered the wake for her grandmother. It had been a quiet, somber occasion. There hadn’t even been a body to bury. Those who had come had spent most of their time comforting Lito and Mami and Isabel, hugging them and kissing them and sharing their grief. Isabel knew she should do that now for the Castillos, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. How could she comfort the Castillos when she still needed comforting herself? Iván was their son, their brother, but he was Isabel’s best friend. In some ways she knew him better even than his family did. She’d played soccer with him in the alley, swum with him in the sea, sat next to him in school. She had eaten dinner at his house, and he at hers, so many times they might as well have been brother and sister. Isabel and Iván had grown up together. She couldn’t imagine a world where she would run next door and he wouldn’t be there.
But Iván wouldn’t be coming over anymore.
Iván was dead.
The loss of him ached like a part of Isabel was suddenly missing, like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and all that was left was a giant, gaping hole. She shook again as her body was wracked with sobs, and Mami pulled her closer.
After a time, Isabel’s grandfather finally spoke.
“We need to do something,” he said. “With the body.”
Se?ora Castillo wailed, but Se?or Castillo nodded.
Do something with the body? Isabel looked around. But what was there to be done with Iván’s body on this little raft? And then Isabel understood. There was only one place for Iván’s body to go: into the sea. The thought made her recoil in terror.
“No! No, we can’t leave him here!” Isabel cried. “He’ll be all alone! Iván never liked to be alone.”
Lito nodded to Isabel’s father, and the two of them stood to lift Iván out of the small boat.
Isabel fought to get free of her mother, but Mami held her tight.
“Wait,” Se?ora Castillo said. She pulled herself away from her husband, her face streaked with tears. “We have to say something. A prayer. Something. I want God to know Iván is coming.”
Isabel had never been to church. When Castro and the communists had taken over, they had discouraged the practice of religion. But Spanish Catholics had conquered the island long before Castro had, and Isabel knew their religion was still there, deep down, the way Lito told her clave was buried beneath the audible rhythms of a song.
Lito was the oldest, and had been to the most funerals, so he took charge. He made the sign of the cross over Iván’s body, and said, “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.”
Se?ora Castillo nodded, and Lito and Isabel’s father picked up Iván’s body.
“No—no!” Isabel cried. She reached out as if to stop them, then pulled her hands back and clasped them to her chest. She knew they had to do this, that they could not keep Iván on the boat with them. Not like this. But as she watched Lito and Papi lift up Iván’s body, the empty place inside got bigger and bigger, until she was more empty than full. She wished she was dead too. She wished she was dead so they would put her into the water with Iván. So she could keep him company in the deep.
Se?ora Castillo reached out and took her son’s hand one last time, and Luis stood and put a hand to Iván’s chest—one last connection to his brother before he was gone for good. Isabel wanted to do something, to say something, but she was too overcome with grief.
“Wait,” Luis said. He pulled his pistol from his holster. His face turned mean as he aimed it over the other side of the boat, at one of the fins that skimmed the surface. Isabel was ready for the shots this time, but they still made her jump. BANG! BANG! BANG!
The shark died in a bloody, thrashing spasm, and the other sharks that had been following the boat fell on it in a frenzy. Luis nodded to Lito and Isabel’s father, and Se?ora Castillo looked away as they slipped Iván off the other side of the boat, away from the sharks, where he sank into the black sea.
No one spoke. Isabel cried, the tears coming without end, flowing up from the hollow place in her chest that threatened to consume her. Iván was gone, forever.
Isabel suddenly remembered Iván’s Industriales cap. Where was it? What had happened to it? It hadn’t been on him when he’d been put back in the water, and Isabel wanted to find it. Needed to find it. That was something she could do. A piece of him she could keep close to her. She pulled away from her mother and searched the little boat for it. It had to be somewhere … Yes! There! Floating upside down in the bloody water, underneath one of the benches. She plucked it up and held it to her chest, the only part of Iván she had left.
“I wanted to open a restaurant,” Se?or Castillo said. He was right next to her, and the sound of his voice, almost a whisper, made Isabel jump. “When we were talking that first night, everybody was telling each other what they wanted to do when we got to the US,” Se?or Castillo went on, “but I never said. I wanted to open a restaurant with my sons.”
Something sparkled on the dark horizon, and at first Isabel took it to be one of the stars in the white scar of the Milky Way twinkling in her watery eyes. But no—it was too bright. Too orange. And there were others just like it, all clustered in a horizontal line, separating the black waters from the black sky.
It was Miami, at last. Iván had just missed seeing Miami.
Mahmoud felt like he was back in Syria. Policemen with guns guarded the border from Greece into Macedonia, and he felt dirty again. Unwanted. Illegal.
Even without travel papers, Mahmoud and his family had been able to exchange their Syrian pounds for euros and buy train tickets from Athens to Thessaloniki, and from there to a little Greek town near the border of Macedonia. Now they were headed for the Macedonian town of Gevgelija, where they hoped to catch a train north to Serbia, and from there to Hungary. But first they had to find a way to sneak across the border.
Mahmoud pointed out a little tangle of tents and laundry lines just off the gravel road, and Mahmoud’s father pulled them into the camp to plan their next move. It was another little refugee village, the kind of makeshift town Mahmoud had seen again and again on the road out of Syria. Mahmoud and his father hunkered down behind a trash barrel and watched the border crossing. The Macedonian police weren’t turning people away, but they might be checking papers, and Mahmoud’s family hadn’t waited in Athens for official travel permits.