But neither could the santera Margarita be underestimated; he could still feel her screams in his deaf ears: “I gave her to Yewá for a very powerful reason! There is no mistake!”
But to what powerful reason could Margarita be referring? Was she simply trying to avoid explaining? Then Gaytán remembered how disconcerted the oriaté who’d brought Elodia had been over the readings he’d done for her and the dead soul who’d kept coming up. And suddenly everything became clear to Gaytán. How could he have missed it before? What had he been thinking? Why, he really did deserve to have Margarita call him a fool!
“Elodia, my dear, give me your hand, I want to feel the beating of your heart when you answer this next question for me.”
She extended her hand and the old babalao took it between his.
“Now, tell me, why did you poison Dr. Casals?”
Elodia’s face froze for an instant, then hardened. She was quiet for a bit, as if she was asking herself the question for the first time and was searching out her brain for an answer. Then she began to speak, very slowly, so that Gaytán could follow what she said by watching her lips move.
“I had to do it, Godfather! He was going to leave me. He told me to stop going to his room. Do you understand what I mean? Ever since I was a little girl, I’d been getting in his bed with him as soon as his wife left for work. He showed me everything I had to do... Now he wanted the cook’s daughter, who was younger than me... I consulted a santera who threw the coconut shells for me and it came out Eyife, and she said that the orishas told her that we shouldn’t ask about what we already know — that I knew very well what I had to do!”
In other circumstances, Gaytán might have consulted his ípkuele. But he was too old, he’d lost the faith to blindly follow the oracle’s dictates. He felt that his Eternal Father had been filling his heart with doubt even as his mind got wiser — though in the end, mankind can never be God.
He stayed like that a long while, just staring at the four coconut pieces he’d been shaping to use in divination as Elodia told him her troubles. It was from that prodigious fruit that the most effective way to talk to the gods had developed, the best way to ask concrete questions and receive blunt answers. Now he had to ask what to do with Elodia, and he was well aware that this time he could not fail.
He took the four pieces in his hands. He said a brief and silent prayer, and threw the pieces of coconut on the yarey mat in front of him. Two faced down and two faced up. Eyife! The clearest of all the coconut oracle’s letters. An unquestionable yes: You do not ask about what you already know.
“Listen to this, my dear. Oyá, your real mother, says she left you years ago in care of Yewá because it had to be that way,” Gaytán explained. “You have been very good and as a result she will take care of you from now on. But she asks that you not consult her about what to do with this new life she offers you. You need to decide for yourself, and to answer before mankind for whatever it is you do.”
Translation by Achy Obejas
Settling of scores
by Oscar F. Ortíz
Cojímar
The rodents are relentless; they’ve been feasting on me for days. Everything hurts inside; I feel close to death, which is good news now. I’m sick of living. I could have had a happy childhood, like anyone else, but it’s not easy to carry the burden of dishonor. My soul weighs on me because I’ve been left alone. Papá and Mamá are not here anymore; they’ve gone on to a better place. I’m in agony but... I laugh.
They think I’m going to give them the satisfaction of pleading for a quick death instead of wasting away from the infected bites from the giant rats that share this stinking cell with me. Oh, how wrong they are! If I cling to this damn existence it’s to pass on the story of my life (even if it’s only to these walls) and how I turned into a killer. Nothing could have been further from my mind, but even killing can seem necessary when life deals us a bad hand. For sure, no one I killed was innocent. Whoever has died by my hand was paying for their sins. Everyone I got rid of had murdered, stolen, snitched, hurt, betrayed, and persecuted. This should be clear.
For what it’s worth, here’s my story...
Cojímar is a tiny town just north of Guanabacoa, which borders Havana to the east. It’s more a neighborhood than a town, although at the time of this story it was home to about 8,000 residents. Cojímar has a beautiful beach and a tiny port which bears the same name. Before the Revolution, it had an active trade in all sorts of supplies — liquor, hardware, and other miscellaneous items. There were clothing stores, shoe stores, and places to buy perfume, jewelry, etc. We had drugstores where we could get any kind of medicine and a druggist who thought he was as qualified as a doctor when it came to filling prescriptions; he’d write the script himself without ever worrying about being wrong.
There is a church, Nuestra Señora del Carmen, named after the town’s patron saint. Her feast is held in July, in splendid weather. The Cojímar River, as beautiful as it is tranquil, empties out to the bay. Right off the port, there’s a fort called El Torreón. It was built in the seventeenth century, then destroyed by the British almost a hundred years later, then restored. It’s the only thing at the port, a huge block of stone looking out at the waters.
The story goes that the town arose from the workers who came to build it, and that before that, there were only indigenous here. I have fond memories of the place because my father would often take me strolling to the port and we’d pause in front of it. Pointing with his index finger, he’d whisper: “Freedom.”
Freedom, for those in the Cuban-Chinese community, is a sacred word.
When the Revolution triumphed, Papá was a prosperous merchant. Soon thereafter, private businesses were integrated by the government and folks who resisted indoctrination, and those who chose not to join the vulgar crowds, were persecuted. One night when I couldn’t get to sleep, I heard a heated argument between my parents, although back then I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. It wasn’t the first time, the argument actually repeated itself frequently, and none of the three of us could get any rest, although they never knew I was eavesdropping on them. My father and various other Chinese businessmen were preparing to escape by boat behind the backs of the government dupes. The idea was to flee to the United States with whatever they could get off the island. Of course, the treasure was considerable; we Chinese are a hardworking people and know how to manage things. We’ve shown that everywhere we’ve ever emigrated.
Since it was a fairly dangerous proposition, not exempt from tragedy, all the conspirators had decided to talk to their spouses and explain that they needed to stay on the island with their children until the men could get to the United States and file legal claims to bring them over. As my mother later told me, she was anguished because she didn’t want to break up the family, even if just temporarily. But Papá convinced her in the end. Well, Papá and the circumstances.
Things got tighter every day, and life got tougher for those who didn’t accept the commander-in-chief’s wild whims. That’s why my mother finally gave in.
But the escape didn’t work out. The coast guard surprised them and they were machine-gunned without mercy when the government’s henchmen ordered them to stop and they refused. My father’s death was a hard knock, though the actual killings weren’t enough for the Communists. They brought the bodies back and laid them at the foot of the imposing Torreón, which my father had so loved. They left them strewn there for twenty-four hours, so that all of Cojímar would learn the lesson. I saw it all; so did my mother.