Inside, the son of the man from Baní who had waited on them that day was preparing Cuban sandwiches to add to his wares. Argenis had to commemorate the return of the hateful memory, so he ordered the same thing his dad had way back then: a small bottle of rum and a Pepsi, which he mixed in a Styrofoam cup with ice and half a lime. He was getting good at making Cuba libres, and this one slid down his throat like an ocean breeze. Without stepping out of the shade of the store’s eaves projecting over the sidewalk, he checked out the latest-model SUVs that were parked outside Orestes Loudón’s tailor shop across the street, and decided to cross, netting a three-point shot with the empty cup into a nearby trash can. The drivers waiting for their bosses, wetting their Doritos with red sodas, watched as he walked in unannounced.

Just inside the door, they had added an Italian sofa, on which the owners of the SUVs were waiting to be attended. This little waiting room was now divided from the workshop by a heavy crimson curtain. The walls, which before had been bare, were now painted in a creamy biscuit color that failed to hide the hundred-year-old cracks in the Spanish masonry. Behind the sofa hung an enormous painting by some Guillo Pérez imitator. Argenis thought it was horrible. He pulled back the curtain and once more saw the table covered in rolls and snippets of cloth at the back of the shop and a flat-screen television on which two of Loudón’s helpers were watching La Opción de las 12 while sewing on their respective machines. The door to the little room beside it, where Loudón took his measurements, was closed. The assistants turned to look at him and then each other, before going back to their comedy show. He couldn’t understand why the tailor hadn’t taken advantage of his success to get out of that place; it still looked like a dungeon, even dressed up with expensive-looking objects.

Argenis could smell cigarette smoke coming from behind the door. When he opened it, the tailor smiled and, recognizing the jacket he’d made for Bebo and which Argenis now wore, reached his dark fingers out toward the lapel, smoothly taking it from him. “Never wear another man’s clothes,” he said, pausing a second at the sweat stain on the collar as he put the jacket on a hanger and hung it from the handle of a Persian blind.

“I thought you’d never come,” Loudón mused, offering Argenis a chair across from his sewing machine, a white plastic chair like the thousands that had, with their geriatric, potty-seat appearance, superseded artisanal wicker chairs of woven palm fronds. The tailor was wearing a red polo shirt and black pants, and thanks to the polo he looked younger than he had in the eighties. The rigid little mustache was still in place and he kept his nails spotless, though, like a guitar player’s, they were a few millimeters longer than was usual. Argenis silently wondered, Does he really remember me? and Loudón responded, “You look just like your dad, but you have a better build and color, because José Alfredo is dark-skinned, and fat besides.”