Death Comes in Through the Kitchen

by Teresa Dovalpage

  Yes, I think Mom liked her—as a friend. As my girlfriend, not so much. But then she never liked any of my girlfriends. She said I was wasting my time with Yarmi. But time was the only thing that I could spend freely with her. I had so little to offer her: no pesos, no dollars, no CUCs . . .

  Yes, Yarmi had told me about the Yuma. She was already involved with him when we started going out together. But she didn’t love him. She made fun of him.

  Marrying the Yuma? No, compañera Lieutenant. I don’t think Yarmi wanted to get married—to him, or me, or anybody else. She was very independent. A loner in a way, so much so that she didn’t let me sleep at the apartment, not even once.

  “Everybody in their house, and God in everybody’s house,” she used to say, though she didn’t believe in God.

  If you say so—I could be wrong. I never understood her. Some of the stuff she did looked pretty strange to me. But I couldn’t ask questions. She would tell me to shut up or ask if I thought I was her husband or her daddy. Then she would laugh. At me.

  The strange things were, for example, those—what do you call them? The stuff she wrote and put out there, in the net or the web or whatever it is. Posts, that’s right. I didn’t read them because they were in English, but she translated one for me and it didn’t make any sense. It was all about making grilled steak. I don’t remember the last time I ate a steak! Yes, my mom has a paladar, but she serves mostly pork and chicken. Beef is too expensive.

  There was another post or whatever about a fancy schmancy pizzeria where you can only eat if you pay with CUCs . . . I have never been there, but maybe Yarmi went with her Yuma. Who knows?

  Sometimes she disappeared for a couple of days and didn’t bother to give me an explanation. Or she said she was visiting her folks in Los Palacios. She would come home late, after I had been waiting for hours outside the apartment, because she wouldn’t give me a key, and she’d tell me she had been busy at work when I knew that the Institute closes at five. But when I tried to act like a real man and order her around, she would say that our relationship was “for entertainment only.”

  What? No! I swear, if she had been sleeping with a Cuban, I would have never gone along with it. Who do you think I am, a cabrón? The Yuma was different because he was there first. He wasn’t around all the time. And he was a rich foreigner. He could give her nice clothes and take her to real restaurants, while I had to ask my mom for five CUCs if I wanted to invite her for a cup of coffee at the Plaza Carlos III Mall.

  I thought she was with him for the money. Though Yarmi wasn’t the kind of woman who would run after dollars or CUCs, like so many others. But again, I had to accept whatever she told me. And she didn’t say much, about the Yuma or anything else. She was pretty tight-lipped.

  She did cook, yes. But not for me. She and my mom would prepare the paladar meals together, or she fixed some dishes at home and brought them over. Once she made banana bread and our patrons liked it so much that it was gone before I had a chance to try it. She didn’t save anything for me, though. She said she wasn’t my mama to spoil me.

  This medal I’m wearing? Ah, that’s the Virgin of Regla, Yemayá. My mom insisted I wear it to protect myself from harm, the evil eye and whatnot. Yes, I believe in the orishas. I ask them for things, but they don’t always give them to me. I really like Changó because he is the most macho of the gods. I make offerings to him and say his name three times before I leave the house in the morning . . .

  Eh? I don’t know who did it! If I knew, I would have kicked the son of a bitch’s ass. If I knew, I would be here for a reason because I would have killed him!

  Padrino turned off the recorder. People didn’t understand what Santería was all about. The orishas were forces of nature. Oshún, Changó and Yemayá—those names meant nothing. They couldn’t care less how people addressed them. Their personalities were also man-made, like the ceremonial masks worn by tribesmen. That was why people couldn’t take the patakines, the folktales about them, too literally. The stories were just hidden signals and it was up to individuals to decode them.

  Padrino had kept praying to Oshún for guidance about Yarmi. He’d been trying to figure her out even before Matt showed up.

  Strange girl, that Yarmila. Something about her escaped him. Giggly on the surface, but her eyes didn’t laugh. They were bright, but too intense and focused, like an old woman’s eyes.

  Yarmi hadn’t believed in the saints; she’d told Padrino so with such a charming smile that he hadn’t been able to help but smile back at her.

  At first he’d thought she was a daughter of Oshún because she had so many of the orisha’s traits. Yarmila swayed when she walked and her hips undulated like the ocean waves. Padrino had assumed she followed Oshún’s best-known path, the young woman who drags men after her, wiggling her ass and winking at them.

  But Yarmi wasn’t that simple. There was a lot more to her than she let on.

  After she passed away, he had invoked Oshún every day, begging her for a sign. But the shells were stubbornly mute. Oshún refused to get involved.

  I will look for a patakín and reach out one more time.

  The story that came to Padrino’s mind had been passed down to him by his own godfather, an Angolan babalawo he had met in Luanda in the eighties. As he recalled the patakín, Padrino also remembered the way the old man had pantomimed the baker’s change of plans and the orisha’s revenge.

  “Ah, my Padrino!” he said longingly. “Aché for you, wherever you are.”

  Oshún and the Sneaky Baker

  So there was this shrewd woman, a baker who made the best coconut pudding you could dream of. People came from miles and miles away to buy her pastries. The baker was nice to her clients, but never made offerings or cared to please any of the orishas because she was snooty like that.

  Ah, but one day she got involved with a handsome stud, a fisherman that all women in the village wanted to sleep with. They flirted with him shamelessly and tried to steal him from her. The baker, being very much into her young lover and wanting to be the woman of his life, decided to ask Oshún for help. If the orisha of love smiled upon her and recognized her as a daughter, she’d have a better chance of keeping the guy all for herself, even if she was a little past her prime.

  She knew that Oshún had a weakness for all things sweet—and what is sweeter than coconut pudding? She would use all her tricks to get the goddess’s favor! She went to the market and bought the ingredients that she needed, like eggs, sugar, and flour. She didn’t have to buy coconuts because she had a big coconut tree in her yard.

  On the way home she discovered a duck’s nest by the side of the road, half hidden by the shrubs. And there were four big round eggs inside!

  Duck eggs are bigger than chicken eggs, but their yolk is thicker and difficult to beat. They are ugly, with brown spots that look like pockmarks. Their taste is stronger and denser too and not suitable for desserts.

  So the astute woman kept the chicken eggs for her business and made the coconut pudding with duck eggs. It wasn’t, she reasoned, as if Oshún was going to complain about it. Orishas receive the spirit of offerings, not the material part of them.

  Once the pudding was ready, she brought it to the river and placed it on a piece of wood adorned with marigolds. She said a prayer to the orisha, beat her chest and asked for her blessing. Then she went home, feeling happy and smug.

  Ha.

  Oshún knew the truth. When the baker offered her prayer, it was tainted with guilt, as she knew in her heart that she had cheated the orisha of a proper offering.

  Oshún turned her face away from the pudding and discarded its spirit.

  A few days later, the fisherman went to see a babalawo. He was falling in love with the baker, he said. He had thought of marrying her, but wouldn’t do it without Oshún’s approval. Would the woman make a good wife or should he find a younger and
better looking one?

  The babalawo conveyed the man’s concern to the orisha and waited for an answer. And it came, loud and clear.

  “Stay away from her. She is a fake.”

  The young man was scared when he heard that. He broke up with the baker and took another wife.

  The baker, devastated, drowned herself in the same river where she had made her failed offering to Oshún.

  Chapter Five

  Fefita Comité

  The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution were considered Fidel Castro’s ears and eyes. They had been established in 1960, one on every block, as part of a nationwide network in which neighbors watched each other, aware that they all were being watched at the same time. But their role had diminished in the nineties, during the Special Period, when most Cubans were too busy finding food to put on their tables to worry about what others did. Only a few hardcore communists volunteered anymore for the Vigilance and Protection Subcommittee or kept records of the revolutionary commitment of their neighbors. People still belonged to the organization, but skipped the night watches and monthly meetings. Fidel’s eyes were going blind; his ears were plugged.

  A few years before, Fefita had been the most vigilant eye in that building and on the entire block. People had feared her. But now, she was just an old gossip. Padrino found her outside her apartment, talking to another woman. He heard the words “death” and “a disgrace” as he was going upstairs. He introduced himself as part of the Unidad team working on Yarmila’s case. Once she recovered from the initial shock of seeing a compañero dressed as a santero, Fefita shook his hand.

  “Come in, come in,” she said, eagerly. “See you later, Marita.”

  She led Padrino into her home, whose layout was identical to Yarmila’s. It was better furnished, though, with a new TV set and a VCR nestled in a small entertainment center. There were also two mismatched chairs and a maple credenza that was missing a leg. It had been replaced with a pile of fifth and sixth grade textbooks.

  “I was just wondering when you guys would call me again,” Fefita said, inviting Padrino to sit. “I talked to Lieutenant Martínez the day Yarmi’s body was found, but I have a few more things to say.”

  Padrino produced his small tape recorder and placed it on the credenza.

  “Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I’m sure that all these things you want to share are important.”

  “Ah, compañero, I don’t mind it at all.”

  She actually looked pleased by the fact that her words were being saved for posterity.

  Only the good die young. Yarmi was a good person. Not a saint, but how many saints do you know in these days and times?

  Of all the awful things I’ve seen in my life—and I’ve seen my fair share of them in sixty-seven years—finding that girl in the bathtub, so rigid and all wet, ranks top of the list. I can’t stop having nightmares about it.

  We had sort of a mother-daughter relationship, though I had only known her for a few months. She moved into our building last year to be closer to the Institute of Literature and Linguistics. She worked there as a translator. And I bet she was a good one.

  Yes, she was also a cook at La Caldosa. Such a waste, a girl with a college degree cooking for a bunch of CUC-earning comemierdas. But we all do things we aren’t proud of, don’t we?

  Yarmi reminded me of my daughter, Haydecita. They were the same age and even looked a bit alike, with big brown eyes and a pretty oval face. Yarmi knew how lonely I was and sometimes came to keep me company in the evenings. Not every day because she had her own things to do, but at least once a week. That touched my heart. I have neighbors of thirty years who have never bothered to knock on my door and make sure I’m still breathing.

  Ay, compañero! Haydecita lives in Spain. She married a Galician, a guy old enough to be her grandfather, but things didn’t work out and now she is on her own in Barcelona. She said Galicia was cold and gray and that she finally understood why her ancestors had crossed the Atlantic to settle in Cuba. She works as a housekeeper now.

  That’s what I was telling you about. I am not proud of my daughter’s choice. I told Yarmi many times and she would say, “She will come back. Just wait.” She gave me hope, unlike all these mean people who said I should be grateful that Haydecita was out of Cuba and able to send me money. As if money were everything!

  But it’s true that I need it . . . I was a schoolteacher for forty years and got enough medals and awards to fill this apartment. The problem is that my retirement isn’t enough for me to make ends meet. I get one hundred eighty pesos monthly. At the Plaza Carlos III Mall, a bottle of cooking oil costs six CUCs. Do you know how much that is in pesos? One hundred fifty-nine! You do the math.

  Let’s be clear: I am not blaming the revolution. I’m stating a fact. I say it to you and I’d say it to Fidel, if given the opportunity. Though I’m afraid El Comandante doesn’t know what’s going on. No disrespect to him, but he is getting on in age, as we all are. Maybe no one has informed him about the disparity between pesos and CUCs.

  Sure, back to Yarmi. She was a caring person, which is rare to find today. Once, I told her that I was likely to spend a sad and lonely Christmas, the first one without Haydecita. I didn’t think she would remember because we had just met. We weren’t close friends yet. But on December 24, at nine in the morning, that girl showed up in my apartment with two pork chops, a dish of arroz congrí, and a caramelized flan. She woke up at 7:00 a.m. to make a feast for me.

  Haydecita had sent me money so I could celebrate but I didn’t feel like buying anything, much less cooking. If it hadn’t been for Yarmi, I would have been depressed and hungry the whole day.

  Yarmi was always bringing me stuff. Last thing was a plate of besitos de coco. She made a bunch of them, so cute and round, all sprinkled with cinnamon. I don’t know where she found the coconuts because they are never distributed through the ration card. Perhaps she bought them in the agromercado.

  How could I describe her? She was nice and had manners. Above all, she was bright. She noticed everything, unlike so many people that go around with their heads in the clouds. You talk to them and words pass through their ears and come out their asses. But she listened to people. At least, she listened to me.

  I saw her for the last time on Tuesday the fourth, the day of my tai-chi class in Trillo Park. We ran into each other. She was coming into the building with a chicken wrapped in foil as I was leaving for the park. She said she was going to make croquettes and promised to bring me some the next day.

  It must have been around ten in the morning. The tai-chi class starts at ten thirty and I usually leave home half an hour before.

  I returned at noon. No, I didn’t see anybody coming in or out of her apartment. But I don’t spend day and night watching my neighbors, no matter what some people say.

  Well, her private life—for one thing, Yarmi wasn’t promiscuous. She didn’t have a line of men outside her doorstep or anything like that. Actually, the only guy who visited her was Pato Macho, and even he wasn’t there all the time.

  I’ve known Pato since he was eight years old. He was my student at José Joaquín Palma Elementary School. It took him a long time to learn how to divide and multiply. He was slow and read backwards. I had a few students like that; there was something wrong with their brains’ wiring. But he was a good boy, not a troublemaker.

  Pato was under his mother’s thumb until he fell in love with Yarmi. I think he got himself an older partner because he likes to be told what to do. And he put up with her having another man because he wasn’t used to standing up to a woman. Issues, compañero, issues. We all have our own.

  No, Pato Macho wouldn’t have killed Yarmi! I wouldn’t put my hands in the fire for anyone, but this kid is the last person I would suspect. He is a sweetheart.

  Now, his mother, that’s another story. Isabel is so domineering and bra
zen that I don’t understand why her husband has stayed with her all these years. But on second thought, where is Luis going to go that he’s worth more? The guy’s dumber than a barrel of hair. So is Pato; like father, like son. She is the bisnera there, the only smart one. No wonder they call her La Jefota.

  So after Pato started going out with Yarmi, Isabel took that mariconcito, Taty, under her wing, to have someone to order around . . .

  Yes, the gusanos! You took the words right out of my mouth because I was just going to bring them up. They were the reason why I wanted to go back to the Unidad and talk to this young detective again. The other day, I couldn’t think of what to say when she asked me if I suspected anybody. I was still in shock, you know.

  Yarmi was friends with that couple, Carmela and Pablo. They are counterrevolutionaries. They write for a Miami paper. They criticize the revolution. An American guy visits them. People say he is a spy!

  I advised Yarmi not to hang out with the gusanos. “These two are trouble,” I told her. But she had a mind of her own. You couldn’t tell her what to do. She always said that Carmela and Pablo were decent people. Misguided, but good at heart.

  Yarmi wasn’t a counterrevolutionary, though she didn’t participate actively in the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution or the Federation of Cuban Women. She seldom went to meetings and I never saw her do any volunteer work. But that’s the norm today: everybody is too busy working for money!

  Young people aren’t into politics. They have better things to do, Haydecita would tell me when I complained about her lack of commitment. Yarmi was the same way. But I felt that I had no right to criticize her, and even less so when I had resigned as the president of the Committee. I am so sorry now. I should have gotten on her case about that friendship. What if the gusanos were the ones who killed her? Ay! I will never forgive myself for that! I failed her, and I failed the revolution . . .

  Thank you, compañero. I’m okay now. Well, not okay, but better. I’ve finally gotten it off my chest. Now it’s up to you to do something about it.