by Achy Obejas
They think I’m going to give them the satisfaction of pleading for a quick death instead of wasting away from the infected bites from the giant rats that share this stinking cell with me. Oh, how wrong they are! If I cling to this damn existence it’s to pass on the story of my life (even if it’s only to these walls) and how I turned into a killer. Nothing could have been further from my mind, but even killing can seem necessary when life deals us a bad hand. For sure, no one I killed was innocent. Whoever has died by my hand was paying for their sins. Everyone I got rid of had murdered, stolen, snitched, hurt, betrayed, and persecuted. This should be clear.
For what it’s worth, here’s my story…
Cojímar is a tiny town just north of Guanabacoa, which borders Havana to the east. It’s more a neighborhood than a town, although at the time of this story it was home to about 8,000 residents. Cojímar has a beautiful beach and a tiny port which bears the same name. Before the Revolution, it had an active trade in all sorts of supplies—liquor, hardware, and other miscellaneous items. There were clothing stores, shoe stores, and places to buy perfume, jewelry, etc. We had drugstores where we could get any kind of medicine and a druggist who thought he was as qualifled as a doctor when it came to filling prescriptions; he’d write the script himself without ever worrying about being wrong.
There is a church, Nuestra Señora del Carmen, named after the town’s patron saint. Her feast is held in July, in splendid weather. The Cojímar River, as beautiful as it is tranquil, empties out to the bay. Right off the port, there’s a fort called El Torreón. It was built in the seventeenth century, then destroyed by the British almost a hundred years later, then restored. It’s the only thing at the port, a huge block of stone looking out at the waters.
The story goes that the town arose from the workers who came to build it, and that before that, there were only indigenous here. I have fond memories of the place because my father would often take me strolling to the port and we’d pause in front of it. Pointing with his index finger, he’d whisper: “Freedom.”
Freedom, for those in the Cuban-Chinese community, is a sacred word.
When the Revolution triumphed, Papá was a prosperous merchant. Soon thereafter, private businesses were integrated by the government and folks who resisted indoctrination, and those who chose not to join the vulgar crowds, were persecuted. One night when I couldn’t get to sleep, I heard a heated argument between my parents, although back then I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. It wasn’t the first time, the argument actually repeated itself frequently, and none of the three of us could get any rest, although they never knew I was eavesdropping on them. My father and various other Chinese businessmen were preparing to escape by boat behind the backs of the government dupes. The idea was to flee to the United States with whatever they could get off the island. Of course, the treasure was considerable; we Chinese are a hardworking people and know how to manage things. We’ve shown that everywhere we’ve ever emigrated.
Since it was a fairly dangerous proposition, not exempt from tragedy, all the conspirators had decided to talk to their spouses and explain that they needed to stay on the island with their children until the men could get to the United States and file legal claims to bring them over. As my mother later told me, she was anguished because she didn’t want to break up the family, even if just temporarily. But Papá convinced her in the end. Well, Papá and the circumstances.
Things got tighter every day, and life got tougher for those who didn’t accept the commander-in-chief’s wild whims. That’s why my mother finally gave in.
But the escape didn’t work out. The coast guard surprised them and they were machine-gunned without mercy when the government’s henchmen ordered them to stop and they refused. My father’s death was a hard knock, though the actual killings weren’t enough for the Communists. They brought the bodies back and laid them at the foot of the imposing Torreón, which my father had so loved. They left them strewn there for twenty-four hours, so that all of Cojímar would learn the lesson. I saw it all; so did my mother.
From that day on, at eleven years of age, I began planning my revenge.
The first thing I did was start to act abnormally. Some people lose their minds after a devastating emotional shock, so no one was really surprised when the Wongs’ only son started behaving oddly. The neighbors would see me in all my foolishness. Some called me an idiot, others a silly little Chinese boy; most of the time, they’d try to reason with me, but I would fake them out with a blank look and a dazed smile. The crueler among them would engage me in mischief and then turn me in; it was never anything serious, just kid stuff.
Once all of Cojímar had me tagged as the neighborhood’s official cretin, I started to cultivate effeminate mannerisms and pretend to be disabled. When puberty arrived, I stopped being the silly Chinese boy and became the little Chinese faggot. All this was fine by me because I wanted to be seen as a completely defenseless creature.
The next step was to locate and study each and every person who had taken part in the massacre. The most dangerous of those responsible was Captain Correa, who everyone called Pirigua (I’ll never know why). Pirigua was a forty-something man, short but sinewy. He drank too much, especially rum, and smoked cigars, helping to project his stereotypical rebel image. He always wore the olive-green uniform of the hated Territorial Militia, wrinkled and marked by sweat stains under his arms, his chest, and knees. Just like every other militia guy I knew, he had a beard and a mustache. Pirigua’s men were cut from the same mold, and they all tried to copy him; Correa, for his party, tried desperately to be the Maximum Leader’s clone.
After the murders, Pirigua became the town’s master. He didn’t hesitate before harassing the widows of those he’d killed, especially those he found most attractive. Unfortunately, my mother was one of these and he was soon installed in my house. My resentment grew by the day…If he’d only known how many times I fantasized about cutting his throat as he snored and slept soundly in my parents’ bed, he would have died from fright. But I knew that if I did it, that’s as far as I would get. The others would outlive my revenge. So I stoically tolerated everything he did to my mother. She hated him as much, or even more, than I did, but played along because of me, because Pirigua never tired of threatening with all he’d do to me if my mother didn’t accept his passions (even if it was reluctantly). So that was our situation.
As time went by, my plans for revenge began to take shape, and once I had it clear in my own head, I started preparing to act on it. The hardest part was getting everybody accustomed to seeing me shovel dirt in a wagon and then run from one end of town to the other with it, making like I was playing at being a construction worker. Initially, I got stopped a few times and they took me down to the town jail, because they were sure I was up to some mischief, but my mother always intervened with Captain Correa and he finally ordered everybody to leave me alone. After all, I was not normal, there was no malice in anything I might do, and my atrophied brain really wasn’t up for delinquent activities. Pirigua’s men left me in peace and I spent the livelong day pushing that wagon full of dirt from one place to another. I always did it around the port, in a fairly orderly fashion that didn’t cause anyone any inconveniences.
What seemed like sheer idiocy to everyone in town was actually quite useful to me. For starters, it made me stronger. I began to develop muscles that, quite frankly, were rather rare for a boy my age. But it also made the militia completely indifferent to my presence, so that eventually none of Captain Correa’s men even looked at me as I went from one place to another with my wagon full of dirt. Whenever anybody stopped to make fun of me, I’d just look at them stupidly and say, “I’m a little Chinese construction worker!” They’d laugh and then let me be. After all, the little foolish Chinese boy was harmless.
Pirigua continued his visits, and when his drunkenness would render him unconscious on the bed, and my mother would run to the bathroom to wash her body and spirit of
that jerk’s residue, I’d sit by the bed and contemplate Captain Correa, thinking about all the things I’d do to him when the moment came. Although it may seem unbelievable, this gave me strength to continue with my plans for revenge, because I knew I could keep control of the situation. There was the pig, snoring effortlessly and without an ounce of strength to put up a fight if I picked up a kitchen knife and decided to dismember him alive.
Assimilating that power was addictive, and stimulating. Besides, one thing I’d learned from my father, before the tragedy, was that to put a plan in play, it was best to “see” it first through the prism of the imagination. So, as I sat at the captain’s side while he snored, I’d “see” exactly how I was going to cut him up into little pieces, and how he could do nothing to stop me, just as helpless as my father and his friends had been to stop the militia from gunning them down.
When I killed the first guy and buried him at night, near the port, no one found out. They had no idea that I’d strolled with the dismembered body buried in the mound of dirt in my wagon right under their noses. Who was going to suspect a foolish Chinese faggot? That’s how rumors began to spread that there was a curse on Cojímar. Most people in the know, those who weren’t all that superstitious (like Captain Correa and his remaining henchmen), knew, or believed they knew, that the curse was pure myth…Those “disappeared” militia, the henchmen said, had fled for Miami. The misery they were enduring under the Communist system was pushing them to leave the country and turn their backs on the dictatorship. But neither Correa nor any of the others ever said this publicly; I only knew about it because of some confidences he shared with my mother.
My mother was nobody’s fool, and I’m sure she soon suspected the truth, though she never said a word. I would surprise her sometimes while she was gazing at me; when I’d turn to her and smile with that beatific expression I’d developed as an organic mask, she’d smile too, and something would filter between us without a need to speak directly. That ethereal thread of silent complicity brought us closer together and gave us strength. Mamá understood then that keeping Correa happy was a fundamental part of the game, because it gave her a certain power over him (the most feared man in Cojímar) that we would not otherwise have. And she also understood that this power she had, if used astutely and subtly, could save our lives. That’s why it was such an important part of my plan to keep Pirigua alive until the very end; although that was a hard bargain with myself, for sure. To cope with the situation, I’d imagine Captain Correa like that pig you fatten all year in order to slaughter it at Christmas.
One evening, I noticed my mother was acting different, irritated. Pirigua had taken a trip outside Cojímar for reasons I didn’t know and so we had more space to ourselves. I sat down in the corner of the living room and watched her pace from one end to the other, wringing her hands. I didn’t ask what was going on, but I did smile at her, the same as always, and my eyes invited her to share her torments with me.
She finally decided to let me in on her thoughts, but in keeping with the style we’d established of communicating without talking directly. Mamá approached me and held my hand.
“Come with me, son. Let’s take a little stroll, like when you were younger and your father would take you down to the port.”
She didn’t need to say anything more. Her restlessness had everything to do with our tragedy and revenge. Papá, the port, the walks that always ended up at El Torreón, where my father would pause and point and whisper (with an intense light in his eyes) the word freedom.
I let myself follow her. Mamá took note of the calluses on my hands, the result of the constant back and forth with the weighty wagon, and she caressed me very tenderly, as if with that gesture she could make me understand that she was giving silent assent to my activities. Real Street was deserted, weirdly deserted, as if everybody was hiding from some terrible monster let loose in the neighborhood, looking for someone to devour. Fear floated in the air. In those days, the government wouldn’t stop yakking about a fictitious yanqui invasion which never materialized but which kept everybody on their toes and distracted from the country’s real problems—things like the lack of food, censorship, the total denial of human rights…Actually, why go on? It was always better to blame yanqui imperialism. And the yanquis were coming soon (or so they said)…Fatherland or death and all that.
We arrived at the Port of Cojímar without being bothered, since the days when people made fun of me were now in the past; I had become something of an invisible person, no longer a novelty. We walked holding hands without making any stops until we had circled the port, then went back to Real Street. The afternoon became night. My mother guided me toward El Torreón and I knew in an instant that I needed to sharpen my senses and pay close attention to whatever she said or did, whatever she revealed that was roiling inside her.
“Remember how much your father loved this place?” she asked without waiting for a reply. “Do you know why? In a boat not far from here, the first Chinese arrived in Cuba. They left from a port called Amoy, in the south of China, in the 1840s. The ship was called the Oquendo, it was a Spanish brigantine. The English ruled our land then, and they’d taken it upon themselves to repress our collective spirit, and to addict Chinese youth to opium. Those first exiles that came to Cuba did so under horrendous labor contracts, practically slaves, just like black people.”
She continued: “The hours of forced labor were abusive. Everyone worked in agriculture or as domestics, with a miserable salary of five pesos a month, two sets of tops and pants, a blanket, and two pairs of rope and rubber sandals. The diet consisted of rice, cornmeal, dried beef, codfish, and a few tubers. Those who worked in the countryside lived in barracks where they slept in hammocks made of rope and hemp. It seems crazy, but it feels like we’re going back to those times. In the days of our pilgrim ancestors, the labor contracts were for ten years and then you could go back to your birthplace, if that’s what you wanted, so long as you could pay the passage. But our compatriots didn’t leave. They chose to stay on in Cuban land and make this our home. Sometimes I ask myself how it’s possible, after nearly two centuries of such hard work and sacrifice, that new slave masters could arise like this to displace us again.”
She went on: “The ancestors who came from Amoy, Canton, Shanghai, and Manila created strong communities, well-organized, which preserved our symbols and our religion, always obeying and respecting Cuban laws and customs. They also enthusiastically set about to learn all manner of trade and honorable work, and in due time they greatly improved their economic fortunes. By the end of the 1850s, there were Chinese-owned businesses in Havana: restaurants, laundromats, grocery stores, fruit and vegetable stands, ice cream shops, and small lots for cultivation by the riverside.
“Everything was achieved with long hours of sacrifice. The Chinese work day isn’t like that of Westerners. To this you add a tenacious management style that has always allowed us to save for the future. Another thing that has always characterized us,” she explained, and Mamá paused and looked me directly in the eyes, “is our loyalty and respect for others. In the long struggle for Cuban independence, we Chinese threw ourselves into the fight with vigor and valor alongside the liberation army. General Máximo Gómez, talking about our people, once said, ‘There’s never been a Chinese traitor, or deserter, in the Cuban army.’ And as a sign of appreciation of our courage and fidelity, a park was built in the capital to honor Chinese veterans.”
At this point, Mamá paused again and pointed to the fortlike Torreón, its impenetrable stone walls.
“Loyalty, my son, is very important. Unfortunately, your father’s expedition was betrayed.”
So there it was…finally. It had taken a lot for her to tell me, and she’d certainly danced around it for a long time, but the moment had come to reveal the truth: There was a traitor among our people.
“In every ethnicity, although it’s not common among ours, there are greedy and unscrupulous people who envy other p
eople’s achievements and riches, and this causes them to commit terrible acts. Your father was a prosperous merchant and I, so it seems, an attractive woman. There was no lack of envy in our community. Do you understand me?”
She looked at me and I smiled.
Then she caressed my shoulders with her hand and we walked back to the house. We moved without hurry, enjoying the evening, the views, the strange and black emptiness of the neighborhood, the moon. Mamá was quiet until we reached the front door of one of our neighbors.
“Isn’t this Mr. Lin’s house?”
That’s all she said, and that’s all I needed. She gave me a knowing look and I answered by nodding and smiling again.
Captain Correa returned to Cojímar the next day. Since he’d practically moved in with us (Mamá made sure he was comfortable), he now told my mother his problems. The trip to Havana had been disciplinary. They’d asked for him so they could reprimand him because of the disappearance of some of his men. What was going on in Cojímar? How was it possible that a guy like Captain Correa—revolutionary hero and all that—was letting this happen with his troops? Poor guy, he was so disconcerted about the scolding, I felt bad for him…But there were also some things my mother had put in my head that I wanted to confirm. Papá had been a jeweler. When the Communists impounded his business, he managed to hide two bags full of diamonds and other gems. Mr. Lin, like all the others trying to escape, knew these details and was the only one who, on the agreed upon day, did not show up at the port at the appointed time.
“Your father was a prosperous merchant,” my mother had said, “and I, so it seems, an attractive woman. There was no lack of envy in our community…”
Two days later, they found Mr. Lin’s head at the foot of El Torreón, his tongue cut out. All of Cojímar headed to the port to see it. I went with my mother, and while everyone else whispered and gossiped, I studied my mother’s face and the movement of the militia men with feigned indifference. Standing there, checking out everything, I had the feeling the circle was finally closing. If I wanted to take the final revenge for what had been done to my father, I needed to up the ante. Captain Correa would begin to put the pieces together soon…