Monkey Hunting

by Cristina Garcia

  Outside, the street looked smoky and distorted after the rain. The diseased oak in front of the restaurant was gone. Last week, men in blue jumpsuits had come with their helmets and electric saws and methodically dismembered it. In New York, Domingo knew, it was always cheaper to kill something than to save it. He popped a menthol cough drop into his mouth and sucked it to nothing. It burned the small sore in his cheek that wouldn’t heal.

  The Lucky Find

  HAVANA (1867–1868)

  A negress (with her first child) young and robust, birthed six weeks ago, good and abundant milk, very regular cook, basic principles of sewing, excellent handservant, particular skills, healthy and without vices: Calle San Juan de Dios n. 84.

  Shortly after reading the advertisement in El Diario de la Marina, Chen Pan closed up his secondhand shop and went to inspect the slave and her child at Calle San Juan de Dios. He’d seen notices for slaves before, next to rewards for runaway servants and ads for horses and plows, but never a mother for sale with her baby.

  The blazing sun bored through Chen Pan’s new Panama hat. The rainbow of awnings stretching across the street offered only intermittent relief. Chen Pan could have hired a volante to take him across town, but he much preferred to walk. A chain gang of slaves trudged over the cobblestones, scattering children and a loose parrot in the dust. Chen Pan touched the knife he kept in his vest pocket and stared at the overseer. His day would come, maybe sooner than the criollos feared.

  The vendors hawked fresh okra and star apples, sugarplums, parakeets, and pigs’ feet. Lottery tickets were for sale alongside the fruit preserves made by the country mulatas. There was a contortionist on a square of carpet, twisted like a buñuelo. Another man sold cocullos, giant fireflies, six for twenty-five cents. Twine-muzzled donkeys were strung nose to tail, barely visible beneath their burdens of fodder. Everywhere Chen Pan went, the grumous smell of salted beef thickened the air.

  A Chinese peddler sauntered by with toasted peanuts: “¡Mani tosta’o caliente, pa’ la vieja que no tiene dientes!” A newcomer with a queue trailed after him with an identical basket. “¡Lo mismo!” he shouted. “Same for me!” Other Chinese sold vegetables from baskets hung on bamboo poles. One skin-and-bones in floppy slippers juggled dishes, his pale green pottery clattering as he walked. The ginger vendor nodded when he saw Chen Pan. Others did, too. Everyone knew him in Chinatown.

  His regular customers called him un chino aplatanado,a Chinese transplant. The recent arrivals from China wanted to be like him, rich and unflinching. From them, Chen Pan heard heart-sorrow stories. Famine and civil war were rampant back home, they reported. Long-haired rebels were destroying everything. Boys were being kidnapped and carried from their plows against their will. There were mutinies on the high seas. Death voyages. Devil ships. On one journey, there was nothing to eat on board except rice. They thought we ate only rice!

  Six years ago, Chen Pan had left the forest the same day he’d killed the jutía. He’d cut off his queue and stopped dreaming of returning to his village. After two years on the plantation and nearly another battling his mother’s ghost, what else could be as hard? It had taken him four months more to work his way to the capital—hauling scrap metal, grooming gamecocks, and furiously gambling. Chen Pan never understood what the sight of Havana, with its seductive curve of coast, stirred in him; only that from the moment he arrived, he knew it was where he belonged.

  On Calle Barcelona, Chen Pan stopped to buy a cigar twice the length of his middle finger. It burned slowly and evenly, warming his lungs as he strolled. A handsome woman in a chiffon dress stepped from her carriage on the corner of Calle Villegas with several servants in tow. A calsero, wearing a red jacket and shiny black thigh boots, sat in the driver’s seat. The woman brandished her silk fan before entering the pharmacy with her entourage.

  Thirty-five pesos for the fan, Chen Pan thought, maybe forty in mint condition. Wherever he went, Chen Pan priced everything. Sooner or later, he knew, it would end up in his shop.

  At the Lucky Find, he sold all manner of heirlooms and oddities: ancient braziers, powdered wigs from long-dead judges, French porcelains, coats of arms, plaster saints with withering expressions, patriarchal busts (frequently noseless), hand-carved cornices, and a variety of costumes and accoutrements. Occasionally, Chen Pan perused the city’s streets for abandoned gems, but the pickings were no longer so plentiful. More often, he checked the newspapers for the funeral announcements of illustrious men, then approached the widows with cash for their treasures to help settle their husbands’ debts.

  Chen Pan had begun by collecting cast-off furniture and bric-a-brac in the back alleys of Havana. He’d fixed broken dressers one day, polished rusting urns the next, resoled old riding boots. Then he’d dragged his refurbished wares from door to door in his dilapidated wooden cart. At night he’d slept on Calle Baratillo, near the palace where the Count de Santovenia once hosted a three-day feast that ended with a sunset ride in a gas-filled balloon.

  Early one Sunday, Chen Pan had saved the count from a bandit’s assault. As a reward, the count had offered him protection for life. In this way Chen Pan had obtained his Letter of Domicile, which guaranteed his freedom. Then with the count’s support and the money Chen Pan won playing botón, he’d opened his shop.

  There’d been only a few businesses on Calle Zanja then, mostly fruit stands and a laundry. Now there were four Chinese restaurants, a shoemaker, a barber, several greengrocers, and a specialty shop where Chen Pan bought dried squid and duck’s feet. For steamed dumplings, he went to Paco Pang’s place (which everyone called Dogs Won’t Touch ’Em). And for his red wine, Chen Pan patronized the Bottomless Cup because they served the best eggs pickled in brine.

  Chen Pan noticed a young harpist plucking out a discordant tune behind the rejas of her mansion. The windows of all the finest houses in Havana were embellished with wrought-iron grates. On the plantation the criollos had locked up the slaves, but here in the city they locked themselvesin. Against whom were they protecting themselves? Chen Pan understood them too well. Without a second thought, the criollos took the lives of others to ensure their own survival. Then in defending themselves, bad somehow became good.

  In the interior patio of another house, double rows of cane-bottom rockers (ninety pesos for a used one in good condition) were occupied by gossiping women of all ages. A few pulled ivory combs through their hair. Others did needlework or watched the passersby with feigned disinterest. The women looked harmless, but they could be as wicked as their brothers. (How many innocent slaves had been put to death by these dainty ladies’ accusations?) At dusk they crowded into their carriages in a cloud of lace and perfume and rode along the Paseo Prado to the Plaza de Armas, redolent of gardenias, to listen to the parading military bands play their polkas and marches.

  A chino like Chen Pan in a white linen suit and a Panama hat was something of a spectacle, like a talking monkey or a sheep in evening dress. Many people glared at him before turning their heads. The Spaniards were the worst, often pelting the Chinese with stones. Chen Pan, though, was too well dressed for them to menace. (He made a point of dressing well.) And the police, who normally arrested dapper chinos on charges of gambling, were under strict orders from the powerful De Santovenias to leave him alone.

  Chen Pan knew that the Cubans would have preferred that he still worked for them in the fields, or sold garlic at their kitchen doors. The manner in which they spoke to him—and expected to be spoken to in return—infuriated him. But he had learned to control his temper. A gracious tip of his hat was more unsettling to the enemy than a stream of curses, and impossible to retaliate against.

  The criollos managed to find other uses for the Chinese. They relied on the herbalists and acupuncturists of Calle Zanja when their own remedies proved worthless. Everyone knew that los chinos had special unguents for sore joints, roots with abortive properties, seeds to rid the intestines of parasites. And their fire-heated needles relieved the worst case
s of arthritis.

  The house where the slave girl worked was freshly painted in yellow and lavender. Lucky colors, Chen Pan thought. Next door was a convent with crumbling walls where pigeons stirred and shed feathers among the ancient stones. The bell in the convent tower struck twelve as Chen Pan knocked on the door. Soon the siesta would claim all of Havana.

  Don Joaquín Alomá seemed surprised to see Chen Pan. He looked him up and down and immediately demanded one thousand pesos for his slave and her baby. No doubt, Chen Pan thought, he was trying to take him for a fool.

  “I’d like to see the girl first,” he said. “And the child, too.”

  A moment later, Don Joaquín shoved the girl forward and crudely pointed out her attributes. “You can cancel the milkman with this heifer in your house.”

  One thousand pesos was too much money, Chen Pan knew, but for once he didn’t bargain. He took note of the girl’s feet, wide with calluses an inch thick. Nothing like his mother’s shriveled lotuses. Her name was Lucrecia. She was long-legged and wide-hipped and had a star-shaped scar on her temple.

  “How did you get that?” Chen Pan asked.

  “She’s prone to accidents,” Don Joaquín interrupted. “Don’t worry, she hurts no one but herself.”

  “What’s your son’s name?” Chen Pan tried to catch the girl’s eye, but her head was bowed too low.

  Don Joaquín grabbed the boy and thrust him at Chen Pan. “See, he never cries. In a couple of years you could put him to work as well. Then breed his mother with a few young bucks and populate your own plantation!”

  Chen Pan ignored him. If he bought the girl and paid her a small salary, would she still be considered a slave? It might be handy to have a woman at his place, to clean and cook his meals. Perhaps he could train her to help him in his shop. Chen Pan was on the verge of firing his Spanish assistant. Federico Véa worked only limited hours and refused to use an abacus, insisting on calculating everything in his head. Moreover, Chen Pan distrusted the way Véa’s tongue slipped and stalled on every syllable.

  Don Joaquín cleared his throat as he counted Chen Pan’s money on the solid mahogany table (worth five hundred pesos, at least). Then he gave him the writ of ownership. “Now get out of here, you dirty chino!”

  Chen Pan turned and looked at the girl. “Vámonos,” he said.

  Lucrecia bundled her son in a scrap of flannel and followed Chen Pan out the door. The air was as dense as old paint. Lucrecia turned to face the convent, where a nun, snow-white as an egret, nodded to her from a balcony. Chen Pan noticed a mole the size of a peppercorn on the back of Lucrecia’s neck, just below her blue cotton turban. Beyond her, thin clouds curled in the sky.

  “¿Como se llama?” Chen Pan asked her again, bringing his face close to the boy’s. His eyes were brown and alert, two coffee beans.

  “Víctor Manuel,” she whispered.

  Sweet rabbit! Maybe, Chen Pan thought, he could pretend to be his father. He pointed out a pair of crows to the boy in a breadfruit tree, but Lucrecia shielded his eyes, then crossed herself twice. Chen Pan wondered what sort of foolishness the nuns had taught her. In Chinatown, the Protestant missionaries besieged him constantly with the decrees of their god, Jesus Christ. But Chen Pan distrusted all forms of certainty.

  Lucrecia trailed him through the streets, staying three or four steps behind him. The stores were closing their doors to the midday heat. Peddlers jostled for Chen Pan’s attention. Tangerines. Dried snake meat. Fresh eggs from the outskirts of town. One by one, they set down their loads to stare at him and Lucrecia walking by.

  “To hell with all of you!” Chen Pan sputtered, and returned their stink-eyes.

  Chen Pan’s home was not fancy, inside or out. He lived in three rooms over the Lucky Find. In this way he saved money, afforded more merchandise, issued loans to other chinos for a nominal fee. Chen Pan believed that if you spread a bit of money around, blessings grew. To hoard it was to invite disaster. His furnishings were sparse—a hardwood table and chair, an iron bedstead with a plank bottom, a wash basin, and a worn velvet divan he’d salvaged from Calle Manrique. In the kitchen, he’d set up a modest altar for the Buddha.

  He also kept a pet she-duck named Lady Ban. She protected the wood beams by eating the termites and guarded Chen Pan’s shop at night. “The slightest rattle and Lady Ban is up in arms,” he told everyone. “She’s a regular Manchu warrior!”

  “Don’t eat the duck,” Chen Pan instructed Lucrecia on their first day together. He pointed at Lady Ban. “This duck is not for eating.” But he wasn’t sure that she understood what he said. The girl had barely uttered a word since he’d purchased her on Calle San Juan de Dios.

  “¿No entiende?” Chen Pan asked impatiently. She returned his question with a stare. What language would he need to speak with her? Chen Pan showed Lucrecia the shallow pan of sand where Lady Ban relieved herself. It would need to be cleaned out, he explained, every other day.

  Chen Pan thought of how a man could start out with one idea—like sailing off to Cuba to get rich enough to return home an important man—and end up with another life altogether. This never could have happened in China. There the future was always a loyal continuation of the past.

  Lucrecia rocked the baby as Chen Pan showed her their quarters. “Rest,” he said, indicating the sagging bed near the window. “This is where you and your son will stay.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, her milk-swollen breasts rubbing against her muslin shift. The baby yawned so wide his tiny mouth trembled.

  Chen Pan went downstairs to the Lucky Find. In his absence, the Spanish assistant had reopened the shop and sold a musty oil painting and a seventeenth-century map to a tourist from Boston. One hundred sixty pesos for both. Chen Pan was pleased, although he suspected Véa of pocketing a portion of the sale.

  He took the money and went to the market, to a stall that sold toys and children’s clothes. Chen Pan selected a wooden train, a rag-stuffed horse with a painted grin, calf-leather shoes, and a minuscule linen suit. He ordered all of it delivered to his shop in an hour.

  Then he visited a fabric kiosk. Basic principles of sewing. Chen Pan tried to remember all the fripperies he removed from the whores on Calle Rayos. Voluminous dresses with endless ribbons and bows. Satin corsets with whalebone stays. Lace petticoats. Bustles that made their nalgas swell. Beneath all this were slips and silk stockings rolled above the knee. So many buttons and fasteners to undo, it frustrated the clumsier men.

  Lucky for Chen Pan, his fingers were nimble. The ladies favored him. Plump dumpling girls were what he liked now. He hated to feel any ribs whatsoever. He went for the older ones, twenty-five and up. No paying two hundred pesos for a virgin like some of his friends. A waste of money, in his opinion. The ladies praised Chen Pan for not ripping their garments. No violent pushing, either. Smooth tiger from China. Never left a bruise.

  Chen Pan bought forty yards of gingham, another twenty of a fine scarlet satin. Assorted fluff and ribbons for the underthings. A brand-new pair of scissors. A tin box filled with needles, buttons, and thread.

  On his way home, he stopped at a restaurant called Bendición for meat pies, tamales, and sweet potato fritters. Chen Pan was perplexed by the names Cubans gave their shops. La Rectitud. La Buena Fé. Todos Me Elogian. How could anybody guess what was sold inside? Once he’d walked into a shop called La Mano Poderosa, only to find huge wheels of Portuguese cheese for sale.

  Lucrecia had swept the apartment clean and was chopping an onion in the kitchen when Chen Pan returned. Very regular cook. He watched as she peeled and diced two potatoes, dropped them into a pot for soup. In a few days, he would teach her how to make milk pudding for his breakfast. And in the spring, when fresh bamboo shoots were available in Havana, he’d show her how to cook them in a great earthen pot with boiling rice.

  A whimpering came from the bedroom. Lucrecia went to her son and settled him at her breast. He suckled eagerly, his fists resting possessively on her chest. Chen Pan showed Luc
recia his purchases, offered her a stretch of the satin to touch. She didn’t admire the fabric. Instead she stared at him again, her lips pressed together by the icy muscles of her face.

  There was a loud knocking downstairs. It was Federico Véa. The Lucky Find was crowded with tourists from England who needed Chen Pan’s assistance. What the British considered precious amused Chen Pan: silver letter openers with strangers’ initials and farm animal figurines. They would pay a premium, it seemed, for anything sporting a pig. He noticed that their teeth were small and mossy, like woodland creatures’.

  After they left, Véa complained that nothing at the Lucky Find had a fixed price. How could he be expected to remember figures that changed from one hour to the next?

  “Those pigs you sold for fifty pesos apiece were ten pesos yesterday,” he huffed.

  “Of course they went up!” Chen Pan bellowed back. “The price is what a customer needs to pay!”

  When he returned to his apartment, Víctor Manuel was asleep. Chen Pan arranged the baby’s clothes and the rag horse for him at the foot of the bed. Lucrecia watched him closely.

  “¿Que quiere con nosotros?” Her voice could have sharpened knives.

  “Nada. I want nothing.” Chen Pan wasn’t sure this was true, but could he simply set them free?

  Lucrecia ate her food in silence, gave him no thanks, stiffly rinsed the dishes. Then she slept, fully dressed, curled around her infant son, her coarse hair spread loose on the pillow. Chen Pan forswore his usual cups of red wine and settled on the velvet divan. For once, he insisted that Lady Ban sleep by herself in the kitchen.

  He thought of going to Madame Yvette’s. It was Thursday night and the voluptuous Delmira from Guïnes would be there. Maybe he should take her the river of satin. She’d know how to thank him. Chen Pan thought of Delmira’s rained-on earth scent, her kindling thighs. Best of all, Chen Pan loved the salve of her pink padded lips working every inch of his pinga before swallowing him whole.