Unlike Betina, who scarcely believed in her own shadow, Malena was fiercely devout and visited the church of Our Lady of Charity in El Cobre at least once a week in addition to the three prayers she made daily. I know this doesn’t mean anything because there are lots of people who claim to be Christians when actually they’re complete bastards who would sell their own mothers. But Malena was not like that. Oscar thought that perhaps this was why the gods had bestowed on her the gift of pregnancy because, truth be told, during their marriage they had had sex only once a month and each time he had tied a string around his enormous penis in accordance with the traditions of his forebears.
‘Tell me the truth, Malena, have you slept with another man?’ he asked her over and over. But every time Malena would cross herself three times, swearing she had done no such thing, and every night she offered up a prayer for her husband who, though he was a good man, was sometimes possessed by demons.
Oscar, who always saw his wife as sacred, knew that she was sickly by nature; she was often woken by a recurring nightmare: a man raping her, pinning her against the timber floor. Sometimes, in the early hours, when he heard her scream in terror, he would run and fetch a damp cloth and press it to her forehead but when he asked what had frightened her, she always answered: ‘It’s just a nightmare.’ The same nightmare had tormented her for years. Oscar never believed that these moans and tortured cries were simply the result of nightmares. And so he became jealous. Sometimes he would follow Malena all the way to El Cobre to discover that there was indeed something else, but he never saw evidence of anything unseemly. He would study her in the presence of other men, he even watched how she behaved with his friend José, and finally he was forced to admit that Malena was a saint, a pure woman, utterly devoted to her husband.
But Oscar was highly strung by nature. If he had never dreamed of getting married it was because he was convinced that no woman could ever love him. Being four feet tall and with a dark-black complexion, he felt sure it was impossible, since Negro women dreamed of tall, handsome men, mulattoes preferably, with whom to bear children. Racism was commonplace among Negroes. Oscar was one of the darkest, and probably the shortest slaves, which was why the first time Malena told him that she loved him, he ran away, unable to believe that this cruel woman could dare mock him to his face. It was only thanks to the persistence of José, who invariably dragged Oscar along on his visits, that he finally realised Malena was serious; that she genuinely loved him.
Even so, Oscar had no idea how to make a woman happy. José, who was an expert on the subject, gave him tips on how to treat the fair sex. He suggested Oscar bring her flowers, make her laugh, massage her feet and her back, and recommended lots of sex on the grass and in the mud. Oscar picked romerillo, hibiscus and wild roses to which he added stems of sicklebush and wrapped this bouquet in a banana leaf to give to Malena who immediately pricked her fingers on the spiny sicklebush and began to laugh uncontrollably. Oscar sucked the blood from her fingers for a moment, and Malena went on laughing as he joked and perfomed silly tricks, then Oscar sent her sprawling face-down in the mud.
‘What on earth are you doing, Oscar?’ said Malena. By now Oscar had already climbed up on to her back and was kneading her neck and shoulders like a baker. According to José, this was how women were conquered; little different from a sow or a nanny goat, and this, therefore, was how Oscar treated her. After all, where goats and sows were concerned, Oscar was an expert. Have you ever tried to massage a sow? I didn’t think so. Well, Oscar had. He had given Malena flowers, had made her laugh, and massaged her shoulders. All that remained now was José’s final recommendation. Oscar turned Malena on to her back. Her vision was blurred from the mud and so when Malena saw Oscar holding a black cudgel thick as a mango sapling, she thought for a moment he was about to beat her.
‘Throw down that stick, Oscar . . .’ said Malena. ‘What are you doing!’ She quickly wiped the mud from her eyes. Only then did she realise what the thick cudgel actually was. She jumped to her feet, ran off and shut herself in her house for a week. Oscar went back to consult his friend, explaining that the last phase of his plan had failed.
‘That’s because you’ve got a prick like a horse,’ said José. I don’t know if people said ‘prick’ back then, but never mind. Anyway, José advised that from now on Oscar should treat Malena with love and tenderness. This he did. Though Malena refused to open her door to him, he would lay his bunch of wildflowers on the doorstep. He did so every day for months, and the outcome was always the same: still Malena remained silent, shut away in her shack. Until one day, after working in the vegetable garden, tired of waiting for her to respond and wounded by the lash of her indifference, he told José that it was all his fault.
‘All my fault? What’s all my fault?’
‘You put ideas into my head, you gave me hope.’ Oscar went on to explain that he had been perfectly content fighting wars and killing Spaniards, it had been José who had steered them away into this domesticated life, and all it had brought Oscar was pain. He had done everything José had told him to do, he had dared to hope, and it was all for nothing.
‘What am I supposed to do now?’ asked the Kortico.
‘What do you do now? You do what everyone else has to do. You accept the golden rule: sometimes life is fucking terrific, sometimes it’s terrifically fucked,’ said José, clapping him on the back. They talked for a little longer and in the end decided never to mention the subject again. Oscar picked up his sack of vegetables and went home. When he got there, Malena was waiting for him. They both stood frozen for what felt like a century. They were speechless. Like two sleepwalkers sharing the same dream, they moved to the bed and undressed. Oscar tied his penis with a length of twine and Malena’s eyes widened, unable to take in what they saw, but she said nothing.
For the first time they discovered each other’s bodies; came to know them by heart. Oscar penetrated her and Malena drew him in, her legs hooked around his waist, her mouth half-open. Afterwards, with Malena’s face resting on his belly and his hands stroking her still-trembling breasts, Oscar realised that she was the love of his life, that he would marry her and together they would fashion a new life. The rest you know. The couple settled in Pata de Puerco and lived happily for a while in that little hamlet. Which brings us back to where we left our story.
Now I’ll tell you something you don’t know, starting with the fact that from the moment Malena fell pregnant, Oscar became a dutiful husband, attending to his wife’s every whim with an almost religious devotion. Malena had only to lift her finger and already he was by her bedside waiting for her orders: a sweet grapefruit, or maybe she wanted him to boil water on the fire so she could take another bath – the third today. He massaged her feet and her hands, he went with her everywhere, he bathed her, dressed and undressed her, brushed her hair, took her out walking, put her to bed and woke her in the morning. Anyone would have thought his fondest wish was to have a child. He realised he could change the gruff manner many had criticised, and one morning people discovered that Oscar had teeth, that he was capable of smiling. ‘He has teeth as white as coconut flesh,’ they said.
Very soon the bellies of both women began to swell. Day after day, Betina’s belly came to look more like a watermelon, a vast vaulting bulge jutting out from beneath her clothes. Malena’s belly was almost the same size, something no one could explain given that she had become pregnant six weeks later. José taunted his friend Oscar, saying that he had clearly unleashed twenty years of seed, that he was a prize stud. ‘With a prick like that you could impregnate a cow.’
Oscar laughed. He didn’t draw his machete as he used to do; nothing seemed to bother him now, nothing could make him lose his temper. He had become helpful and obliging to his neighbours; he even ran errands for the Santacruz family. He helped Evaristo make kites which they gave away to the children every week. José had persuaded the other men that Oscar had not killed the mare, that he himself had seen some local
thug running away, someone he did not recognise in the darkness. The men believed him.
That same day, the two friends apologised to each other and they did not go back to working in the eastern cane fields. They spent their mornings working their little plot of land and making wooden toys for the children. In the afternoons the two couples would go strolling through the village hand in hand, happy and content. Oscar would kiss Malena, hug her, massage her feet, her shoulders; this he did every time his wife had walked ten paces. José and Betina simply laughed at him. It was as though he had suddenly gone mad, but with a harmless, contagious madness, one that was utterly hilarious.
One day during their afternoon stroll, the Kortico broke with his usual routine. Leaving his wife sitting with her sister on the grass, he took José aside and said, ‘I never thanked you, José.’
‘Thanked me for what?’
‘For Malena. You were right. She is the only good thing that has ever happened to me.’
‘Thank you, too,’ said José.
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Thank you for rescuing me when I was wandering the streets.’
Oscar smiled, showing the brilliant white teeth he had recently discovered in his mouth.
‘You know something?’ said José. ‘If you carry on like this, you’re in danger of becoming a good man.’
The two men hugged. Oscar wrapped his arms around the Mandinga’s waist, and his friend bent down to complete the embrace.
11 April 1898
Time, as it always does, continued to pass and so arrived the year of 1898 which began with an incident that was to change for ever the history of Cuba. I’m talking about the battleship USS Maine sailing into Havana harbour.
After thirty years of war against Spain, people had become immune to threats of annihilation. By now, both Martí and Maceo were dead and the population of Cuba was barely one and a half million. They say the centre of the island and all points east had been completely destroyed, that it looked like a vast rubble heap. February came and the yellow press began to speculate. Some said the warship had come to help us, others that it had come to overthrow us. On 15 February, the world exploded and shards of the battleship were scattered everywhere. Some two hundred Americans died: the United States blamed Spain; Spain blamed the United States. Eventually the USA, deciding to enter the war, began to arm the fleet and . . . What the hell am I doing talking about the USS Maine? Sorry, sometimes when I’m on a roll I get muddled and end up talking shit. It tends to happen when I’m hungry, because food, for me, is sacred. I swear, I’m capable of killing someone for food; I’m serious. It’s like that time back in primary school when I wrung the neck of that fucking cat for eating my lunch. But anyway, back to the story . . .
In April, while the whole thing about the USS Maine was still kicking off, Oscar and Malena were preparing for the momentous changes in their future. Malena was only seven months pregnant, but her belly was huge; she looked as though she might give birth at any minute. This in fact proved to be true, though no one knew it then. So, on that April morning, José and Betina set off walking to El Cobre with little Gertrudis, without the faintest idea of what the coming hours would bring.
The sun had risen early, lighting up the hills, the red earth of the Callejón de la Rosa, and the shacks of the little village. The day was set fair and the child of Oscar and Malena seemed ready to be born since, from early that morning, it began to kick and prod, desperate to get out of its mother’s belly. Oscar immediately went to fetch Ester the midwife who arrived within five minutes, nervous and agitated, her eyes sharp and shining. She kneeled between Malena’s legs, slipped a hand inside her and whispered: ‘The baby’s coming. Fetch some water.’
Ester shooed away the cockroaches crawling over the bed, the wooden floor and in the dark corners while Oscar dashed out with a bucket to the village well twenty yards from his shack, and he could still hear his wife’s howls of pain as he ran. Within ten minutes he came back to find the midwife not where he left her, but standing at the head of the bed. Ester was still shaking nervously.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Oscar, setting down the pail of water.
‘Nothing, I was just wiping sweat from her forehead. Bring the pail over here.’ Ester washed her hands. She seemed awkward, as though this were her first childbirth. ‘Push hard,’ she said. Malena began to push, screaming so loudly the walls of the shack trembled. She was poorly nourished and her body shuddered with every push as though she were losing slivers of life. The baby’s enormous, bald head popped out, eyes tight shut, and clearly in distress.
‘Come on, push!’ screamed Ester. ‘He’s coming!’
The broad-shouldered baby did not seem to want to come out. Oscar did not have the courage to say anything. He simply stood, as though hypnotised, staring at his child’s head between his wife’s legs; he clutched Malena’s hand and did his best to ignore her blood-curdling howls. Ester pulled the baby by the head and Malena writhed in agony until, in a final effort, they managed to get the baby out.
‘It’s a boy!’ the midwife said with a smile. ‘It’s a boy, Malena. A healthy baby boy, and big too. The worst is over now.’
Ester was about to cut the umbilical cord. ‘Not yet, Ester. Leave him attached to me a little longer.’ Malena held out her thin arms and Ester handed her the child. Still Oscar said nothing, staring down not at his son, but at the dark body of his wife which looked frighteningly delicate framed against the white sheets streaked red with blood.
As Malena held him up to her face, the baby began to wail. Slowly, he opened his dark eyes and looked at his mother who smiled up at him weakly. For what seemed an eternity they stared at each other as mother and child met for the first time. Then Malena glanced at her husband. ‘You have to be strong, Oscar. Never forget that I loved you from the first day I met you. When he grows up, tell Benicio to be even-tempered. Tell him that, and let him be a comfort to you too. Tell him avenging past wrongs brings only present suffering. Tell him that.’
Before Oscar had time to take in these words, Malena’s voice flickered out as though someone had snuffed a candle; her hands slipped to let her son’s body rest on hers. She was dead.
‘Malena! No, Malena, no! Please God, no!’ Ester shook her, but it was useless. Oscar fell to his knees, still staring straight ahead; he shed no tears. In his place, another man would have roared, tried to revive his wife, thrown water in her face, run for help, slapped her if he had to. But Oscar did not move. He simply stared at the same fixed point: at his wife’s eyes, suddenly lifeless.
‘I swear I don’t know how this happened, Oscar. In all my years as a midwife, I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Cut the cord.’
‘Oscar, think about what you’re going to . . .’
‘I don’t want to think. Cut the cord right now and leave, I’ll take care of everything.’
Ester did as she was asked. Quickly, as though he had suddenly emerged from his trance, Oscar got to his feet and walked Ester to the door.
‘Maybe she was undernourished,’ said Ester. Oscar was not listening. He paid her for her services, and then coldly told her to leave, saying that he would take care of everything. When Ester was only a speck on the horizon, he went back inside his shack, removed the pig’s-foot amulet he had inherited from his mother, and hung it around his son’s neck. He propped up his wife’s body so that he could continue to gaze into her dead eyes, then lay down next to her, with the baby between them, suckling at Malena’s breast.
Some hours later José and Betina arrived back from El Cobre. The blood that had coursed from Oscar’s veins now formed a vast pool that spread across the floor of royal palm. The bodies of Oscar and Malena were cold, their skin purplish-yellow; a swarm of blowflies and cockroaches were already feeding on the putrefaction.
One by one the people of Pata de Puerco, heads bowed, dressed in their Sunday best, walked in a slow procession past the house where José and Betina kept vigil in the
silence only death can create. Afterwards, the bodies were carried in a cortège to the ruins of the old sugar plantation where Oscar had been born and where, on José’s instructions, they were to be laid to rest.
Oscar Kortico and Malena de Flores died on 11 April 1898, the day on which their son – my grandpa Benicio – was born and the very day the United States Congress, in the wake of the explosion of the USS Maine, drafted a joint resolution stipulating that, from that moment, Cuba was to be a free and independent nation.
Melecio is Different
And that is all there is to say about Oscar and his wife Malena. So much love and so much pain and all for nothing. These days, no one dies of passion as they did then; in 1995 people get married just for the extra rations of beer and cake, just to throw a party. And I’ve always said that life does not believe in love, life does not believe in anyone, and that when you least expect it, you find yourself six feet under. Basically, love is something that hurts like fuck and soon becomes a memory, and memories, as we all know, are fleeting and almost always fade. I’ve only ever been in love once, with a beautiful mixed-race girl called Elena. In fact, she turned out to be a complete bitch. But that’s a different story, one that later, if I’ve a mind to, I’ll tell you.
Let’s move on. Malena died, Oscar died, the Maine was blown up. The Yanks – Yumas we call them – joined forces with Calixto García and his troops to kick the Spanish out of Cuba. Calixto blockaded Santiago and the whole surrounding region while the Americans blockaded the western part of the island, especially the port of Havana. A contingent of Americans landed in the east to meet up with Calixto García and together they agreed to take the small villages around Santiago. First they took San Juan, then El Caney, and then one by one they took every town until they came to El Cobre.
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