Tonight is Christmas Eve,
to the woods we go, little brother,
to cut the Christmas tree,
because the night is still.
The three Kings and the shepherds
are following a star …
That’s what Tingo sings all over the Island on December 24 in the afternoon. And Sebastián, who hears him, runs out to find Tingo and help him cut the tree when he sees the Wounded Boy writing again in his notebook. What are you writing? Notes. What for?
for deciding that tonight won’t be Christmas Eve,
that we won’t go to the woods,
little brother,
to cut down any tree even if the night
is still, for deciding there won’t be any
kings or shepherds,
that the stars will go out
for deciding that the trees won’t be lit
on Christmas,
and they won’t set up the Nativity scene
for deciding that tonight there won’t be
any big family spreads
with white linen tablecloths,
embroidered,
or any sets of fine china
or any of the silverware you usually see
on this one night a year
for deciding we won’t cook congrí
or yuca, we won’t make a salad of tomatoes
with rings of onion,
we won’t roast suckling pigs in our patio pits,
that we won’t bring turrón from jijona (my favorite)
or from Alicante (which is also very nice),
that there won’t be cold beers
or red wine (in this sun-scorched land you have to
serve it chilled),
there won’t be any more walnuts
or hazelnuts,
much less dates,
they’ve never been grown here and they never will be,
and that there won’t be buñuelos or cheese with
guava jam (a dessert that would horrify the French)
for deciding that children won’t sing
carols
while adults make obscene jokes
for deciding that no one will feel overcome with
religious emotion,
since, even though Christmas on the Island
has always been a pagan fiesta,
there are those who go out to see the moon,
the clouds, the night,
and think they can see messages in them,
occult messages from immortal,
all-embracing powers
for deciding that the characters
moving in this Island should not remember
that tonight
is the eve of the birth of the Son of God,
according to the conventions
of the Western calendar
Why do you want us to forget something that makes us happy?
So you’ll get used to forgetting it, don’t take it badly, I’m trying to be merciful, run along now, I need peace and quiet, let me write, we’ll have time to talk later.
They say that on Christmas Eve someone saw the Barefoot Countess in the Fair of the Century. They say they saw her on the carousel horses, that they saw her going into the house of mirrors, in the labyrinth with no minotaur at its center (there never is a minotaur at the end of any labyrinth), just a mechanical old woman that was laughing all the time. They say she got her picture taken where, by just sticking her head above a cardboard painting, she came out with the body of a courtesan of the Sun King, of a Tyrolese peasant woman, of one of Velazquez’s Meninas, of Orville Wright in his biplane. They say she fished for sausages and frying pans in the Wishing Well, and that she washed her face in the Fountain of Eternal Youth. They say she drank beer in Don Ramon’s Tavern and sang while she drank songs of Manuel Corona and Sindo Garay They say she saw an Errol Flynn movie three times, and that she went into Mayra the Cardreader’s place and it was she (the Countess) who predicted the future. They say that that night they heard (they hadn’t heard it in a long time) Cirilo ‘s sorrowful flute. They say that, later, much later, someone saw her accompanied by a sailor, that they were walking arm in arm, passing by the Diana, like when you’re leaving This Side to go into The Beyond. They say they were going along reciting a poem by Rene Lopez, his most famous, the one that begins
Ye ships that pass by in the night
across the azure epidermis of the seas…
They say that the Countess looked happy as could be, that she laughed and tossed, as an offering, her ácana cane in the form of a serpent to Consuelo s Elegguá. They say the sailor kissed her forehead when they reached the little door that separates This Side from The Beyond. They say the Countess turned around and shouted, This is not an Island but a tree-filled monstrosity, and they say that she laughed, and how she laughed. And they say a lot of other things, of course, because telling stories costs nothing and people are capable of telling anything so long as it makes the others cry or get upset.
(Since it has been decided to abolish Christmas Eve, let s skip that day, turn the calendar and write: it is the morning of December 25.)
It is the morning of December 25. The deafening crash surprises Helena at the moment she is fixing breakfast for Sebastián. It is a deafening crash that sounds as if the whole Island had collapsed. She runs out into the Island and understands: nothing has happened, it was just one of the many tricks this damn place plays.
It is the morning of December 25. The deafening crash doesn’t surprise Helena. She goes out into the morning, skirts the gallery, takes off down the little stone path that passes near the Venus de Milo, keeps skirting the fountain with the Boy and the Goose and continues toward Consuelo s house down the other little path that opens up between the Diana and the Discus Thrower. Before she even arrives, she observes the final timbers falling, the final pillars, and the immense column of dust that is rising from the ruins of what once was Consuelo s house.
No one knows what could have caused the collapse. Perhaps between the stronger winds and the heat of the sun, some crack in the roof may have opened wider than it should have, and the roof may have started to cave in together with the sand, and the rubble from it may have fallen down so fast that the force of the roof (when it caved in) may have made the columns (themselves already cracked) incapable of sustaining the weight, and they would have come down. When the columns give way, all that’s left to do is to wait for the din; in a matter of minutes the house, which has had its history, will cease to be a house and become a useless mound of rocks.
Consuelo s ancient house may be an unusable rockpile now, but I want you to know that the house did have its history, in it lived a thin girl, not very tall, with large eyes, mouth, and nose, who danced all the time, yes, she danced to the strains of Delibes, Adam, Tchaikovsky, Minkus, danced and danced, morning, noon, and night she never stopped dancing, and she danced so much she made it to New York by dancing and became the first ballerina of a dance company over there, and got to be one of the greatest ballerinas of the century, yes sir, she did a Giselle like nobody else and that’s something nobody can deny, and this is also where Julio Antonio the Handsome lived, they called him that for a good reason since I don’t think there’s ever been a nicer looking man in all the Island, and I’m not just talking about this Island, I’m talking about the whole Island (of Cuba), this is where Julio Antonio the Handsome lived before he went to Mexico with a woman who was also very pretty, she was a photographer, to meet his death (God doesn’t allow, they say, men as good-looking as he was to remain on earth, He wants them all as angels up there with Him), and this is where a very nice little black woman lived who danced rumba in the Torres Brothers Circus, and that little black woman would spend all day crying over who knows what tragedies in her life and that’s why they called her the Sad Rumbera, though she was a very good person, yes sir, and this is also where a scientist named Arsenio lived, who wanted to shield off the sun, put a roof over the
Island, install gigantic refrigeration machines, import snow, so that while living in Cuba we could live in Iceland, and it goes without saying that the projects that the scientist named Arsenio had were never carried out, and this is where a certain Valdés (the husband of Espera Morales) lived, the one they called The Communist, who was always reading Lenin and of whom, for that same reason, everyone was rightly terrified, and the little old ladies would cross themselves when they saw him passing by, and the women would shut their doors and windows, and the men would interrupt their pool games when they saw him appear, and the children would start throwing rocks at him, and The Communist would just say, The time will come for my revenge, and this is also where Captain Caspio lived, a sailor who knew more about sailing than anyone else and who never dared to go out in a ship, since he had the theory that the horizon wasn’t an imaginary line but a wall, and that ships crashed into it, and this is where a painter named Ponce lived, and a poet named Regino, and Lorenzo the pianist, and two acrobat brothers, and a priest named Carlos Manuel (like the father of our country), and another writer, Reinaldo, and Maité, the one with the little rabbit, and several well-known murderers whose names I won’t mention (I don’t like to bring bad luck), and of course this is where Consuelo lived, who spoke with the Virgin, and that alone is enough to make us cry until the end of time over the destruction of this history-filled house.
It has even been said that, before she lived in the Island, Consuelo the Mulatta lived in a little wooden house that rose by the mouth of the Almendares River, facing the tower of La Chorrera, near the mysterious Loynaz family mansion (the same one Dulce María would describe in an unusual novel). Consuelo, who was very young, lived happily with her mother, who was black and old, a former slave of the Simoni family. Having been a slave, Consuelo s mamá was a bit of a witch and a wisewoman. The mother never wished to speak about the daughter’s father, so little was known about Consuelo ‘s father, except that he must have been white: the mother’s blackness had disappeared from Consuelo ‘s skin. Being the daughter of a white man, Consuelo didn’t lack for craftiness; racial mixing makes one suppose that, along with beauty, Consuelo possessed the indispensable attributes (craftiness, clairvoyance, and wisdom) of the perfect Cuban woman. They lived from embroidering. The honorable families (that is, the ones with money) in Havana would bring them nightgowns, bridal trousseaus, linen sheets, and white dresses. They say that in those years Consuelo wasn’t yet aware of her divination abilities. On one of those days Consuelo told her mother, Every time I take my eyes off the embroidering I see fishes, lots of fishes. Her mother opened wide her blue-haloed eyes, worn out from suffering and embroidery, and asked, In dreams, you mean? No, I never dream, Mamá, you know that, I see fishes when I’m awake, right here next to me, next to you, when I take my eyes off my work, when I’m not looking at the thread or the cloth, that’s when, Mamá, I see fishes. Her mother dropped the embroidering ring, stood up, went out into the radiant morning, looked far off, into the horizon where ships were sailing. When she sat down again she said, There’s danger. Her daughter looked at her, not understanding. There’s danger, a storm’s brewing. Consuelo still didn’t understand. Her mother got impatient, The fishes, child, the fishes! This conversation would have taken place around eleven in the morning. By three the waves were breaking over the reef and landing practically in the patio of the house. Half an hour later the sea had begun to rise visibly and it reached the stairs of La Chorrera and the sea mingled with the river, and with tremendous effort Consuelo managed to get her mother up on top of the table, and then she climbed onto another table when the sea entered the house and set about tearing it from its tired foundations, and the mother said, Don’t worry about me, I’m a daughter of Yemayá, thanks to her my time has come, worry about yourself, you still have many things to do, and frightened, I told her, You can’t abandon me, Mamá, you can’t leave me alone, and she didn’t reply, how could she reply, poor woman, when the sea was carrying off the house and we saw it going away (the house, I mean), entering the river, going away, that little house we had lived in for twelve lovely years, swept off by the sea like a little ship without a captain, defenseless, my little house (a poor house, true, but mine), swept away by the waves. The tables didn’t withstand the waves, either. First the mother went out, as if on a raft, not happy about it but not afraid. When the mother realized the time had come to leave she shouted to Consuelo, Trees, child, lots of trees, and don’t forget the Virgin! This time the daughter still didn’t understand her message. It was Consuelo’s fate to watch her mother swept out to sea, until she was no more than a little dot, nothing, in the midst of that immensity. The water began to carry off her own table, except it was her luck that it smashed against the walls of the tower, and a courteous policeman (sometimes they exist) saved her from a sea that was set on destroying Havana (it wouldn’t be the first time — much less the last — that the sea tried to destroy the city). Two weeks later, the sea retreated without completely fulfilling its labor (not completing its labor to its final consequences was precisely its labor).The seas retreat left unimaginable amounts of debris in Havana, algae, marine fossils, dead fish, remains of submerged galleons and drowned men. It was at that baneful time that Consuelo became conscious of the fact that she had been left homeless. I don’t know if everybody knows all that phrase implies, left homeless. There’s no dilemma that can compare. There’s no hopelessness that can compare. There’s no terror that can compare. It’s that when a house is swept off by the sea, you don’t just lose the roof that protects you from the elements, from the rain, from the coldness of the moon, you don’t just lose the place where dreams, great ideas, and petty deeds are safe from the (stern) gaze of others, of the ones who look for you and study you to find out where in your body you hide your weaknesses, where you store up what shouldn’t be visible, it’s that you don’t just lose what protects you and warms you, the place that allows you to be the most you of all the yous you can be, it’s that a house isn’t just a place for shelter and for modesty, a house is also the depository of your dreams, where you kept the candy boxes after the candy was gone, stuffed full of letters and photographs, that picture of the magazine model you wanted to look like, the place where you shared chimeras and ghosts, the place where you washed clothes (which is a manner of purification), and where you prepared food (which is a manner of communion), and where you bathed (which is a manner of becoming like the Lord), and where you slept (which is a manner of approaching the mysteries), a house is also the place for defecation (which is the manner of becoming skilled at returning to the earth what belongs to it), and the place of love (which is the manner for everyone to experience the joy of being expelled from Eden), and the place where you have the illusion that something in the universe belongs to you, where alone Pascal ceased to be terrified by the infinite expanses, since it is also the place you have built to your own scale, where you don’t feel like a miserable speck on an infinite plain of space and time, it’s putting limits on the Universe and saying categorically, This is my place, and it’s good because it’s my place. That’s how Consuelo explained to her relatives the sensation of having lost the house. She explained it like that, grandiloquently, because she was a grandiloquent, sentimental woman, and also because it’s necessary to put on record here that, being a character, she had the same defects as her author (which is why she had to mention Pascal, an author Consuelo hadn’t met even in her dreams). It was, however, very explicit, so that her relatives would realize that being left homeless might be the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone. They didn’t give her shelter, however. They claimed not to have enough space, they bemoaned not being able to help her (do we always need an excuse, a way of refusing that doesn’t make us see how ignoble we are?). Consuelo began living with the beggars in the Plaza Vieja. There, in the arcades, in the galleries of palaces that had seen better times, she found a temporary roof to live under, to keep her from getting soaked in the rain or catching sick
from the damp cold of dawn. Faced with her relatives’ rejection, she decided to seek an interview with an old client who would perhaps be disposed to help her, the most honorable Miss Silvina Bota, social columnist for an important daily, who doubtless knew all the spheres of power (as she liked to repeat) and who belonged to a Ladies’ Association for Neighborly Welfare. A bit old, a bit fat, Miss Bota nonetheless had the air of a little girl who didn’t know what to do with her great age. She wore a sailor suit and a pageboy haircut. Her eyes were as sweet as her deliberate speech, full of learned words, Anglicisms, Gallicisms, archaisms. Consuelo was especially fascinated by her little hands (covered with jewelry), that pair of defenseless doves that flew about her words. She received Consuelo in her elegant office, her aged girlish face more gracious than ever. Consuelo repeated her monologue (which we will not transcribe again here) and felt she was being listened to attentively Miss Bota had the ability to bite her nails without mussing her Avon rouge. No sooner had the embroideress finished her mournful discourse than Miss Bota asked in her soprano voice, And you say you are living in the arcades in the Plaza Vieja? Consuelo nodded, fervently Miss Bota rose from her handsome Spanish Renaissance chair, and blurted, But you have a roof, those ancient and luxurious palaces were built for eternity, what are you complaining about? don’t be so ambitious, Consuelo, when it rains you don’t get wet, why should you want more than that? On another of those days, the beggars decided to demonstrate in front of the Presidential Palace, they called it the March of the Homeless. Consuelo was the organizer. Since the demonstration was cruelly repressed, she had to flee, and thought that Marianao would be a good place to hide. And thanks to that act of fleeing (who can boast of knowing God’s designs?) she met La Niña Ibáñez, who was a little old lady who had suffered a thousand misfortunes and perhaps for that reason always looked vivacious, her blue eyes twinkling, ready with a smile. La Niña Ibáñez, who had brought her storekeeper husband to ruin by giving away groceries to people without money, put her up for several days, gave her money and food, introduced her to Godfather with the aim that he would employ her, and introduced her, with different intentions, to Lico Grande. Lico Grande (a huge man, seven feet tall, so black he looked Mandingo) devoted himself with equal luck to watchmaking and gardening. He believed that God manifested himself in every thing in Creation, from the most insignificant ant to Miss Bota, and he liked to exclaim at times without rhyme or reason, I’ve realized that everything wants to keep on being what it is. Because of that, because God was a man, a mountain, a river, or a tree, Lico Grande devoted himself to planting the oddest variety of trees in the Island, which already belonged to Godfather. The latter (being a Galician, he couldn’t resist the sight of a mulatta) hired Consuelo. Lico Grande and Consuelo were married. There are those who say it was during the First U.S. Intervention, there are those who say it was when Tiburón was president. The date doesn’t matter: the Island remained the same no matter who was president (which is why you can’t say time elapses there). What’s certain is that in those years (to use a measure of time we can all understand) Consuelo knew about her powers and had the full use of them. So, for example, days before she met Lico Grande, wherever she looked she saw forests. On another occasion she started seeing crowns full of light. One night, next to a ceiba, the Virgin of La Caridad del Cobre appeared to her. It was nothing out of the ordinary, she explained, not according to what we mortals would call out of the ordinary, and yet it was out of the ordinary in a way that she could not (or would not) explain. There was something about her, she used to say, that looked realer than reality itself, a lightless radiance, a bodiless body, a mouthless smile, a voiceless conversation. As a result of the vision, Consuelo walked around crying inconsolably for days and days. We've come to think that the Virgin made revelations about the fate of the Island. We never found out what she said.
Thine is the Kingdom Page 27