Pig's Foot

by Carlos Acosta

‘I’m sure that someone would have some use for ten pesos,’ added Gutiérrez.

  ‘Ten pesos!’ cried Gertrudis.

  Ten minutes later, Grandpa Benicio was in the boxing ring kitted out in blue shorts and black boxing gloves. There were a few people gathered around the ring who clapped as a black boy of about five foot six climbed over the ropes. His arrival was greeted by wild cheers and my grandfather realised that this was no ordinary boxer. The boy had slicked his hair back with so much brilliantine it was blinding; he had the sleek, silky skin of a horse and a face that betrayed not a hint of violence. He looked to be about seventeen.

  ‘Listen, Kid, my friend Benicio here is going to be your sparring partner today. He’s never boxed in his life, so go easy on him, OK? And you, Benicio, you don’t need to do anything, just roll with the punches, all right?’ Pincho Gutiérrez climbed out of the ring. The two boxers were formally announced. The Kid told my grandfather he was happy to take a few punches, but to only throw a punch when he was asked. They touched gloves and the sparring match began.

  The Kid started laying into Benicio from all directions like he was a punchbag.

  ‘The little bastard hit me hard,’ Grandpa would tell me years later. He had the speed of a panther and a jab that could inflict serious damage. My grandfather did as he had been asked; he took the punches and tried to make sure they did as little damage as possible.

  At some point his opponent said, ‘Now punch me.’

  ‘You want me to punch you?’

  ‘Yeah, punch me.’

  Benicio hit out, landing a harmless punch to the Kid’s chest.

  ‘Harder!’ said the Kid, throwing a jab at my grandfather’s face.

  Benicio threw a left hook, putting a little more force behind it this time.

  ‘Harder!’ yelled the Kid.

  So Grandpa did as he was asked, lashing out with his right fist and landing a punch on Kid Chocolate that sent him sprawling, unconscious, to the mat.

  The audience leapt to their feet, hands above their heads. Pincho Gutiérrez, looking horrified and open-mouthed, rushed to the ringside with Augusto and El Judío.

  ‘Hell, Benicio, you KO’d him!’ roared Pincho Gutiérrez, signalling to someone to fetch a bucket of water which he threw over the unconscious boy.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ mumbled the Kid a few seconds later. He shook the water from his hair like a wet dog then scrabbled to his feet. The audience clapped and cheered.

  ‘It’s my fault. I told him to hit me. But, Benicio, I told you to punch me, not fire a cannonball at me!’ the Kid said, smiling. Pincho Gutiérrez relaxed. ‘Guess I’m ready for the fight now,’ said Kid Chocolate. My grandfather apologised again. He took off his gloves and his boxing shorts and sat down next to Gertrudis who kissed him and told him she was proud that her man was a real man.

  It goes without saying that the champion won the fight that night, defeating Pablito Blanco with a KO in the seventh round. But to tell the truth it was like Augusto and El Judío didn’t even see the fight. They spent the drive home talking about the miraculous right hook by my grandpa Benicio that had knocked out Kid Chocolate, a boxer who not only never lost a fight but one on whom few fighters managed to land a blow, or even muss up his hair. The next day the champion went to visit Grandfather to ask him how he did it. Grandpa said it was easy, that all he had to do was follow the left jab with a right hook. And showed him. ‘You see, it’s easy. Try it.’

  The champion took Grandpa’s advice; he did a quick one-two, followed by a right hook.

  ‘That’s the way, Choco! Cross and hook! Cross and hook, Choco!’ Benicio cheered him on, but when he suggested they practise it together, Kid Chocolate said better not, it was getting late and he had to go. ‘But I’ll see you around,’ said the champion and, having thanked Grandpa again, he sauntered down the street, punching the air and chanting, ‘Cross and hook, Choco! Cross and hook, Choco!’

  Much was said later about Kid Chocolate’s boxing style, about how he had learned his moves watching movie footage of Joe Gans and all that. But anyone who really knows the story knows: Kid Chocolate learned to box from my grandpa Benicio.

  These were the years when Machado was president, the years which, according to my grandparents, brought terrible misery to Cuba. That’s what they used to say. It’s also what it says in the history books because obviously I wasn’t alive back then and I’m guessing you weren’t either. All I can think about is how things are these days, about the hundreds of balseros jumping into the sea with rafts or inner tubes or anything that floats desperate to get away from this country, about the power cuts and the shortages and, the way I see it, things are just as fucked up these days. Still, my grandparents insisted that things were even more fucked up back then, that Machado was a son of a bitch just like Commissioner Clemente.

  I agree with what Bacardí said, that no one is absolutely good or absolutely evil, we’re all a combination of both, a whole that is flawed and sometimes stinking, and that we should be proud of the fact because it is inasmuch as we are imperfect that we achieve perfection, if you take into account the fact that we expect human beings to be imperfect. I’m telling you this because I’m the most cynical, selfish guy on the planet, the sort of guy who sticks his nose into other people’s lives; I’m filthy, I’m pedantic, I’d even say I’m a yob. But there’s one thing in my favour: I can say ‘I was wrong’. Don’t laugh, not everyone has the guts to be able to say ‘I was wrong’ and really mean it.

  My grandparents also used to tell me that when Machado was president, he instituted a massive programme of public works, improving roads, building aqueducts, drainage systems, schools and hospitals. He built the vast stone staircase of the University of Havana and the stadium, the Capitol, the Parque de la Fraternidad and the Carretera Central. Of course the guy stole loads of cash while he was at it. But as you know, stealing is nothing new, particularly not now.

  Someone who works in a paint factory survives on the paint he steals every day. The same is true of someone who works in a tobacco plant, or as a builder. Engineers have no choice but to work as taxi drivers; doctors don’t steal, but they prioritise patients who can give them presents – a bottle of perfume or a crate of beer; even young people are abandoning their studies because they suspect their careers will not provide for them financially in the future. That’s why so many of them are becoming whores and rent boys because it’s the only way they’ll ever know what a disco is, or visit Varadero, and so it goes on, it all becomes a never-ending chain. Everyone steals. I stole a pile of fruit from my neighbours, I even stole a watch.

  Now the Romans, for example, they gave the world architectural wonders like the Coliseum using stolen money. The Vatican was built with stolen money. The Medicis in ancient Florence built their kingdoms on stolen money. The Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Big Ben, all of these wonders were made possible by money stolen from the people. With the sweat and toil of the oppressed. A friend of mine says that what’s important is not work, but what you become through work, because at the end of the day all men die, but their work lives on in spite of the suffering and the sacrifice. Just tell me, who in Cuba doesn’t admire the majestic Capitolio? What’s really sad is when, as years go by, a government’s legacy is barely noticed.

  Obviously this doesn’t change the fact that Machado was a bare-faced thief and Augusto was right when he said the man gave him the creeps. He already sensed something was amiss, but he had no idea how bad things would get.

  One day, in 1929, Augusto showed up with a face like a slapped arse and a copy of the newspaper. My grandparents asked what was wrong, but Augusto didn’t say anything. El Judío took the paper from him and read aloud that Julio Antonio Mella had been assassinated in Mexico. Alfredo López, leader of the Confederation of Cuban Workers, had also been murdered.

  ‘And who’s he?’ asked El Judío.

  ‘Julito was from round here. We should mourn him.’

  They watched as
Augusto walked out the door. That day on strict orders of the management, the laundry, did not open. Augusto did not go back to bed; he went off somewhere, into some dark corner, to pay his respects to the memory of his friend Julito.

  The 1930s began with a significant event, the general strike which was joined by more than 200,000 workers all over the island. The strike, which was a great success, had been coordinated by Rubén Martínez Villena who was immediately sentenced to death and had to flee to the United States. But according to my grandparents, 1931 gave them reason to celebrate. Kid Chocolate, who had left in 1928 to continue his career as a boxer in the United States, became world champion for the first time, becoming the first world boxing champion in the history of Cuba.

  On the day of his victory, my grandparents helped hang signs painted by El Judío above the laundry. ‘That’s our Kid Chocolate, Viva El Kid!’ read one of them. Another read simply ‘Kid Chocolate: World Champion’. Augusto insisted they take down the third sign which said ‘Kid Chocolate is Jewish’, something that deeply upset Judío Alemán.

  At two o’clock in the afternoon, they closed the laundry and Augusto invited his friends to take a stroll through the centre of town. There were signs everywhere celebrating the Kid’s victory; they hung from the windows of the houses, they were pasted in shop windows, everyone in Cuba was proud. Many people dressed in white and threw their hats in the air while the whoops of joy that echoed through the streets, joined by the blare of horns from a fleet of omnibuses, were a heartfelt addition to the jubilation. The Kid piled up the titles, junior lightweight, lightweight, featherweight, he fought a total of 152 matches, winning 136 – fifty of them by KO – losing only ten and drawing six which led him to be considered among the ten greatest featherweights of all time.

  My grandparents were very impressed by the Capitolio, built in a record time of three years, its interiors adorned with fifty-eight different types of marble and precious woods like mahogany. To my grandparents it seemed like only yesterday they had arrived in Havana when there was nothing on this site but piles of sand, stone blocks and steel and now here was the monolithic building. It was a blue and breezeless day, boundless was the bustle of business in the city, the spark of hope to be seen in every face, all brought about by the Kid’s boxing triumph. My grandparents used to describe Havana as sheer organised chaos. I figure it must have been a lot more organised than the chaos we have today.

  ‘Look, Benicio, it’s Melecio’s building,’ Geru commented as they passed the Bacardí Building.

  ‘It’s not called the Melecio Building, it’s called the Bacardí Building. The people who own it are Jewish.’

  ‘Enough already, Judío,’ said Augusto, spurring on the carthorse. ‘Sometimes you really are insufferable.’

  My grandparents said nothing.

  Back at the house, Augusto took advantage of Gertrudis being in the bathroom to take Benicio out into the courtyard.

  ‘I noticed that Gertrudis doesn’t wear a wedding band,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because it’s high time you made an honest woman of her, don’t you think?’

  ‘An honest woman?’

  ‘You should marry her, lad. And don’t hang about too long. I can tell you, by the time you get to sixty, you stop living.’

  ‘You stop living at sixty?’ Grandpa Benicio did not understand.

  Augusto replied that this was one of life’s great truths: after the age of sixty, you no longer lived, you survived.

  ‘Before you reach sixty, you get pleasure from love, from the temptation to seduce women, from putting on a new suit of clothes, making an effort so that you can swank and later conquer them. But after sixty, love becomes just a commodity. The time for seduction is over, because you can’t get it up any more, because the body’s defects can no longer be hidden by clothes, however new, however fashionable. The truth is you’ve become an old man and no one now can save you. You simply survive, Benicio. Vicariously through your children, for example. For those who have them, that is.’

  Augusto looked down. ‘To put it simply, you feed on memories. I don’t know about you but, to me, that’s not living, that’s surviving.’

  ‘And why did you never marry?’ asked Grandfather.

  ‘I did marry. I married an angel, the most wonderful woman in all the world. Olga, her name was. We met at university in the glorious days of our youth. I thought she was too good for me, because, well, I was a depraved young man. There I was going from brothel to brothel while Olga was the purest creature I had ever met. She clearly deserved a better man than I. It was she who changed me the day I gave her a gift of a basket full of bread rolls from the bakery on the Esquina de Toyo. She tossed the basket on the ground and said that if I wanted her to go out with me, I should stop buying bread rolls and start to change my ways. So I changed. I gave up the whores, the gambling, all of my vices, and I devoted myself completely and entirely to her. Never in my life have I met a woman who completed me as she did, with that mane of blonde hair tumbling to her waist, those eyes green as the ocean, that statuesque figure. I knew from the moment I first kissed her that, for me, Olga was the beginning and the end. And so I wasted no time. We were engaged within a month of our first date, and a month after that we were married. I spent every penny I had so that the wedding would be worthy of her – though to find something worthy of Olga was simply impossible. I proposed to her in the Gato Tuerto and then whisked her off to the Cabaret Nacional. It was the most wonderful day of my life. Two years later, Olga died of tuberculosis in my arms. She was only twenty-five. Since then, I have never loved another woman. And I never will.’

  This gave Grandpa Benicio pause for thought. This was the first time in the three years since he had met Augusto that he had heard the man speak in such a manner, head bowed, tears in his eyes.

  ‘That’s how life is. When it decides to fuck you over, it fucks you good and proper. At least I came through it. El Judío, now he really suffered. You see him all the time joking and laughing, anyone would think he’s the happiest man in the world, but it’s all an act to hide his grief. First his parents abandoned him. They came here from Europe intending to go to the United States, but when El Judío stood firm and refused to leave Cuba, they left him. Then he found himself a paramour, but before long she cheated on him with another man. Eventually he met the love of his life, the woman he married, the woman who divorced him and took what little he possessed, including his house. It was a disaster. Once he started bragging to me about how he didn’t need money because he had friends. I’m rich in friends, he told me. I laughed in his face and told him straight out that no one in the world has more than two or three real friends and that if he wanted proof, he had only to come to my house at three a.m. that night.

  ‘El Judío knocked on my door in the early hours. I took him to a little farm I used to own down Cotorro way. I took hold of one of my pigs, I slit its throat and I smeared him with blood from head to foot. He glared at me, his eyes like a dinosaur, roaring at me asking what the hell I thought I was doing, but I went on smearing his clothes until he was nothing but a mess of pig’s blood. “Who did you say your friends were?” I asked him. He said he had lots of friends, that he didn’t know where to start. “Give me one name.” “Esteban the cobbler,” he said and without wasting a minute we went to Esteban’s house near Cuatro Caminos. “I was in a fight and killed some guy. The cops are looking for me. Can I hide out in your place?” said El Judío with a look of terror on his face. His great friend Esteban made the sign of the cross three times and said no way, don’t come bringing your troubles to my door. So we went and we knocked on the doors of all the supposed friends of our friend the beak. They all said the same: get the hell out of here, sort out your own problems. Only Julio, who looked like a starving wretch and whose clothes were falling off him, had the decency to offer his friendship in time of need. As soon as he opened the door and saw El Judío covered in blood, the fir
st thing he did was ask what he could do, how he could help. You need to come with me to Cotorro, said El Judío, and without a thought the guy pulled some clothes on and came with us. When we got to my farm, we told him it had all been a lie, that we had been trying to find out Judío’s true friends. And this decent, loyal man was the only one of Judío’s friends who ate the pig I killed that night.

  ‘It was then that El Judío realised that when you laugh the whole world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone. That’s why he’s my friend, because we are bound by the memories of the miserable lives we’ve had to live. So when you see him tomorrow morning, drink a shot of rum in his honour, because his life is well and truly fucked up.’

  After Augusto had finished his confession, the two men stood in silence for a long time. Grandpa Benicio felt he had to change the subject, so he went back to talking about marriage, explaining that he knew without a doubt that Gertrudis was the love of his life, it was simply that back in Pata de Puerco people were not in the habit of getting married.

  ‘What do I do after I buy the ring?’ asked Grandfather.

  ‘I’ll tell you. We all go to a church, you get married and we throw a big party.’

  ‘Marry in a church? We don’t believe in God, Gertrudis and me.’

  ‘Neither do I, chico,’ said Augusto, ‘but that’s just how it’s done.’

  That same day, Grandfather began saving money so that he could buy my grandmother a ring. In the laundry, El Judío, who heard about what he was planning from Augusto, constantly teased him, falling on his knees, his Bolshevik hat clutched to his chest, simpering, ‘Of course I’ll marry you, sweetie-pie.’ One time my grandma nearly walked in on them. El Judío, acting the fool, started pretending to play the guitar and my grandmother looked at him suspiciously. ‘He does it to hide his grief,’ thought Grandpa Benicio. In that moment he realised that Judío’s pain was truly terrible since he was constantly play-acting, and Benicio stood looking at him sadly.