Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano

anticipation. “I wasn’t on my way anywhere. I’m on vacation.”
    I scissored the spliff between the index and middle fingers of my right hand. Carlota held the lit match while I puffed. Deep inhalation. Hold. I leaned toward Carlota’s lips and exhaled slowly. We had to make the most of each toke. Our first kiss in more than two years was conscripted by the passage of aromatic smoke from my lungs to hers. Our mouths lingered. What began as practical puff-passing in an instant became lascivious as she slipped her tongue between my lips and put her palm on my khakis. I reached with my left hand and ran my fingers through Carlota’s hair, clutching her skull and pressing our faces closer together. I caressed down her cheek and over the front of her shirt—her nipples popped awake—then underneath to her abdomen, where I fingered the hernia scar that had anchored me to Carlota over months of fantasies. I plunged my fist between her legs to stroke her rhythmically through the denim. Then I looked down at the spliff in my hand. I breathed. Carlota smoothed her hair. A conciliatory mist rose as materially as the first puff. It was a good roach we still had to finish. I passed it to Carlota and we touched fingers. Carlota took a deep puff and put the smoldering roach in an ashtray. At the edge of the knit rug, the roach singed a knot of sheep’s wool, conjuring an unpleasant and arousing incense.
    It was a cool November night when I realized Elena had taken down the photos. Winter had come early. Anticipating a numbing dinner together with our mutual disenchantment—a malaise that had begun to take such definite shape in mind’s eye that I set an imaginary place for it to my right—I uncorked the sticky seconds of a Chilean Cabernet that Director González had found not quite to his taste. Elena and I sat in brooding camaraderie through our paltry, home-prepared dinner: arroz con mango, just like the joke. It spooked Elena that, for the better part of our two years together, the whole country had been going to shit. She was scheduled to leave for Africa at the start of the new year.
    â€œElena, what happened to the photos?”
    â€œWhat photos?”
    â€œThe ones of me you kept above your vanity.”
    â€œI loaned them to my palero.”
    â€œWhat for?” It was a casual question. I didn’t know enough about Palo Monte yet to guess anything other than my wife might want to show her santero friend what her husband looks like.
    Elena brimmed with chilly charm. “So that when I leave, you will never love anybody again.”
    Elena left in January and I began the residency at the pediátrico. At the beginning of the summer she gave it to me in a letter. I have to hand it to her: She broke it off cleanly. She wrote that she was in love with a local, happier than ever. I had too much pride to write back.
    I took Elena’s letter with me on the ferry, but I already knew the palero would tell me he couldn’t help. Nevertheless, I had to make the journey. The boat docked in Regla and I asked after the right place. The old woman who begs in front of the church remembered Elena the moment I described her eyes. “¡Qué bonita era! ¿Es tu esposa?” When I mentioned the separation, the beggar frowned as if to say: If your wife went to see the palero, it’s already too late . She pointed a bony finger to his rooftop. For good luck, I threw a five-peso coin on her plate. The old woman turned away.
    â€œBuenos días. Soy—”
    â€œI know who you are,” the palero said. He was a muscular old prieto dressed in white. “Nothing supernatural, doctor. I’ve seen your picture, haven’t I? Come in. Sit down.” The palero told me he was a specialist in romantic revenge. We sat in his small solarium and he showed me the little shrine where he invested objects with spiritual powers. “The photograph is consecrated to