The Cuban

by Kim Rodriguez

  I scanned her naked body. “Well, I like you better out of them, anyway. Eat up. Doctor’s orders.”

  I pulled a pastry out of the box but then noticed her expression darken.

  “What’s wrong, mamita?”

  “I—” She looked down and then back at me, hesitant.

  “You can tell me.”

  “I don’t like doctors. You’re the obvious exception, of course.”

  “Why not?” I asked, but she turned her head in a way that made it clear she didn’t want to elaborate, so I let it go.

  “You’re like a cat, Amada. There is something very feline and aloof about you.” I kept the word unapproachable to myself. “Who do you like then?”

  She smiled at me, her beautiful face blossoming into a lovely expression. “I like you. A lot.”

  “I like you, too, sexy.” Once again I held back the urge to tell her I loved her. It was too soon.

  “So, what’s this?” She gestured to the pastry in my hand.

  “This,” I said, regaining my composure, “is your introduction to Cuban culture.”

  “Is it? I think I’ve already had quite an introduction by my Cuban lover.”

  “True. Then it’s your introduction to Cuban food.” I offered her the horn-shaped pastry filled with Bavarian cream and dusted with powdered sugar. “My mother called these caracoles. They were my favorite when I was little.” I watched Amada take a dainty nibble off the end. “No, sweetheart, this is how you eat them.” I ate half the pastry in one bite and put it down. We laughed and moved on to the next one, the syrupy Capuchino.

  “Oh, what are these little cones?” she said, dipping her finger in the pool of liquid. She sucked her forefinger and opened her eyes wide. “Yum.”

  “They’re named after the hats worn by the Capuchin monks. You need a special pan, but otherwise they’re easy to make. It’s sponge cake soaked in a ridiculous amount of simple syrup, but when I make them I add rum.”

  “They smell divine.”

  Because of the syrup, the bakery had packed them in their own special container. I took a plastic spoon and fed her a bite. “If you’re me, you just pick one up and drop it in your mouth, but since you’re a lady, I’ll feed you in a civilized manner.”

  “Rafa, this is delicious.” She rolled her eyes and licked all but a bit of syrup off her lips, which I was happy to do for her.

  “I can see this one has a lot of possibilities for us. Good to know.” We continued to giggle together as I fed us both pastry after pastry. I made her try the slice of Cuban cake, the quesito, the torticas de Morón cookies, which she called dry, and finally, we came to my favorite of all time.

  “This is the king of all Cuban sweets, the pastel de guayaba. A lot of people think they can make guava pastries at home with frozen dough, but it’s not the same. You can only get the real thing from a bakery because it’s so hard to make. We eat these for breakfast, as a snack, and as a dessert, and you can’t call yourself Cuban if you don’t like guava. This is a good one.” I pointed to the thick ribbon of filling. “See, plenty of fruit.” She bit into the corner and, like any decent pastel, crumbs went everywhere.

  “It’s so sweet.” she said, wiping her lips with a napkin. “It’s good.”

  I let her take as many bites as she wanted and then I finished it. “Simple pleasures, Amada.” Feeling stuffed, I moved the box off the bed and laid down beside her again. Nothing could be as good as this.

  “You didn’t get to go to a bakery very often as a kid, did you?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want to bring down our mood, but I always wanted to be honest with her. Maybe I didn’t have to share everything, but I wouldn’t lie. “I’ve had an interesting life, I guess.”

  “Tell me about it.” She pulled the covers over us and draped her arm over my hip. “And I’d like to know why Delfina is so important to you.”

  “I wasn’t always so alone. Until I was twelve, I lived in Playa Larga and had my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, and a brother.” She raised her eyebrows at the word ‘brother.’ “Yes, a twin. His name was Miguel. We were very poor, Amada. So poor that we sometimes went to bed hungry. My mother wasn’t a bad woman, but as life became harder, it broke her. She never smiled.”

  “What did she look like?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember her face. “She looked like me. Light eyes, dark hair, fair skin like you. She was beautiful, but she had lines on her face and she was always so tired. Her name was Carmen Rodriguez De Leon, and she was only thirty-eight when she died. My father was named Lázaro De Leon Mendoza, and he was murdered at the age of twenty-two.”

  “Rafa! How did it happen?’

  “They told my mother he’d been seeing a woman in another town and when the woman’s husband walked in on them one day, he shot my father in the back of the head. I don’t know if that’s true, because my mother never talked about it, but that was the gossip. She was so angry she destroyed every photograph of him she had, so I have no idea what he looked like.

  “My father’s parents lived next door to us, and my grandfather’s best friend was a man named Anselmo. He was such an interesting guy, always at my grandfather’s house. I remember he would read to us from Don Quijote from time to time, and because of him I’ve always wanted to read that book. Anyway, Anselmo never wore anything but white from head to toe. I found out later it was because he was a santero. Do you know what that is?”

  “No.” My Amada drew a little closer to me, her interest clearly piqued.

  “It means he was a Santería priest. Santería came to Cuba from Africa, and it’s a very mystical faith that many Cubans believe in.”

  “Like Voodoo?”

  “Sort of, but Santería evolved specifically in Cuba. It’s a very secretive religion, and it’s not monotheistic like Christianity. Offerings are made to the deities or Orishas using different rituals and initiations. Everyone in Cuba knows what it is and respects it, whether they choose to believe in it or not. We all grew up around it.

  “The problems started when Anselmo became convinced that his spirit guide wanted my brother and I to be initiated as practitioners. My grandfather was honored, and my mother allowed it because she thought eventually people would pay us money to help them. When we were babies, she’d also been told by a fortune teller that she should always listen to us because we were special and had great vision.”

  “Didn’t he have any children of his own to teach?”

  “That doesn’t matter. You have to be selected by the spirits, and if they don’t want you, you can’t be initiated no matter who you are. We learned everything from Anselmo, and after he felt we were ready, he had us dress in white clothing for a year.”

  “Why white?”

  “It represents clarity and purity, and some say it repels negative spirits. If you pay attention, you’ll occasionally see people walking around Miami dressed all in white. They’re being initiated as santeros and santeras.” The next part was difficult for me, but I continued because I could see she was taking it well.

  “When we were at the end of the year, and Anselmo was about to conduct the final initiation rite, my brother began to act strangely. Miguel had always been different and very difficult to be around, but at that time he confessed to me that he’d heard voices his whole life, and now they were getting louder and saying terrible, frightening things to him. He became paranoid that people were trying to kill him, and that final week he was completely out of his mind. My mother wanted to take him to a hospital, but Anselmo said that a bad spirit was trying to prevent him from becoming a priest, so he asked her to give him one more day to see if he could get rid of it. But that night my brother managed to sneak away without anyone noticing, and two days later, he washed up on the shore. His death was ruled an accidental drowning, but I know he killed himself.”

  “Rafa, I’m so sorry.” Amada kissed me on the cheek and wrapped her legs around me, hugging me tight. “You don’t ha
ve to go on.” Her green eyes met mine, soft and sweet as every other part of her.

  “It’s fine. I want you to know.” I gave her a peck on the lips and continued. “Many years later, after I became a physician, I realized he had to have been schizophrenic. He would have been fine on the right medications, but they had no clue. I also think he might have ingested something toxic, perhaps an herb that triggered the hallucinations. Remember that liquid mercury you were going to touch? It’s basically illegal because of how poisonous it is, but it’s considered a very powerful ingredient in Santería spells. Many people have it out in a little dish in their homes without realizing the poison they’re breathing in when it evaporates. If consumed, it doesn’t take much to kill you. There are lots of things in Santería you have to be very careful with because it’s an old, primitive religion. It has to be updated to reflect what we know now about health and medicine, but so few people understand both sides of it.

  “Naturally there were no words for how grief-stricken we were, especially my mother. Anselmo and my grandfather insisted that I should take the final step and go through with the initiation, but she refused. She would have nothing to do with it anymore, and she just wanted me away from it. That was the day we packed up what little we had and moved to Havana. I never saw my grandparents or Anselmo again.”

  “The fear she had of losing you is understandable,” said Amada. I detected a peculiar tone in her voice, and I was pretty sure I knew why.

  “Yes, now I do understand it, but at the time it was very hard for me to adjust to losing almost everyone I loved at once. My mother was more depressed than ever, and I had to learn to fend for myself in a big city. People liked me, though, and they mostly helped me.”

  “Because of how handsome you are,” she said.

  “To be honest, probably. Blue eyes are rare in Cuba, and my appearance was the only bit of luck I had in my young life. Women have always been attracted to something about me, so I flirted with a lot of waitresses to get a free meal here and there.” I rubbed my nose against hers, trying to keep the mood light. “It works on you, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. I can’t resist you. I’m as weak as all the rest.” Her hand slipped along my backside under the covers. “But what about Delfina? You said she saved your life.”

  “She did, but that was very recently. I told you that I was an Internacionalista—”

  “I looked it up today when I got home. When I was missing you.”

  “Oh, baby.” I kissed her sweet lips. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Forget it. Go on,” she said.

  “I’ve worked all around the world, but this tour in Haiti was different. Every one of us was miserable from day one, and the morale was very low.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I have my theories now. None of us really knew, we just all felt the same thing. We worked in the countryside and Amada, the things we saw, I just don’t want to tell you. Our group was sent to contain a cholera epidemic, and it was Hell on Earth from the moment we arrived. To make things even worse, there was a young Haitian woman in the village who developed a crush on me. Her name was Martine, and at first I believed her when she said she was sick. But pretty soon I figured out what she really wanted.”

  “Sex?”

  “Definitely sex, but I also think she was looking for a husband. She tried everything, and I wanted to let her down easy, but when her advances became too much, I had no choice but to ban her from my clinic. It enraged her, so she attacked me and started screaming obscenities in French. She had to be escorted out by two of our officers, and people told me later she’d threatened my life and said I would be sorry.”

  I noticed that Amada’s mood had changed, so I asked what she was thinking about. I assumed she was displeased about the idea of me with another woman because she suddenly seemed distant, but I was wrong. I should have known her reflections would be far more sophisticated.

  “’’It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love,’” she said.

  “What’s that? Another poem?” I loved it when she read to me. I was awed by her knowledge, but I also loved how she pronounced every letter as she spoke, something that was so difficult for me to do. It was a pleasure to listen to her.

  “It’s the beginning of El amor en los tiempos del cólera by Gabriel García Márquez. I actually read that book in Spanish,” she recalled. “I read so slowly in Spanish though, so it took forever, but it was worth it. Your language is so beautiful.”

  “Everything is poetic to you, isn’t it? Love and death, pleasure and pain. Even though you don’t like people, it’s the human condition that moves you.” My cultured, elegant Amada, so unlike me. I touched her pale face, unable to find a single imperfection in her porcelain skin.

  “Maybe so.” She took my hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “So what happened with the girl?”

  “I never saw her again. But the next day I started to feel off. I couldn’t concentrate and I couldn’t remember important things. Every day it got worse, and then after about a week I started to get very depressed. I couldn’t stop thinking about my brother, and one night I had a dream that he came to visit me there at the foot of my bed in Haiti. Miguel appeared exactly how I remembered him, just twelve years old, dressed all in white. He told me I’d been cursed and that I should leave right away. After he told me he loved me, I woke up at three in the morning, sick with a high fever, and I knew if I didn’t leave that one way or another I would die. Regardless of what was making me ill, I had to go find help. By the time I got to Miami a few days later, I had a fever of 105. In the hospital, they assumed I’d contracted a bacteria or virus in Haiti, so they gave me strong antibiotics, but it didn’t help.

  “I was on the verge of death, in and out of consciousness, and that’s when I remember seeing Doña Delfina over my bed. She said to someone, ‘They did something very powerful to him in Haiti.’” Le hecharon algo muy fuerte en Haiti. “She rubbed something on my chest and gave me a sponge bath with herbs I remembered from my childhood, something like what Anselmo had used when he tried to save my brother. In fact, I can’t smell lemongrass without thinking of that time. And she also gave me something to drink—it was vile—and prayed over me all night. I slowly recovered, and the doctors were very proud of themselves, but no one knew Doña Delfina had been there.”

  “Who brought her?” Amada drummed her fingers on my thigh, impatient to hear the rest.

  “She’d been visiting Sandro’s new baby two floors below, when one of her guides spoke to her and told her she would become a mother that night, too. She went into a trance and ended up in my room, although she doesn’t remember how.”

  Amada arched an eyebrow, but I continued, still amazed by the story myself.

  “When I was discharged, Doña Delfina and Sandro were there to pick me up, and she insisted I stay with her to recuperate. Every day she gave me a special bath, fed me, and prayed over my bed. By the end of the week, I’d made a full recovery.”

  “Rafa, is it possible that it was a physical illness and the antibiotics did eventually work?”

  “It is, yes.” Anything was possible, that much I knew.

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “No, even though I’m a scientist, in this case I honestly believe it was Voodoo. The mind is a very powerful thing, more than we know.”

  “So how did you end up on the ship?” she asked.

  “After I recovered, I told Doña Delfina about my childhood and how I understood what she did. She asked that I stay and work for her, and after the way she took care of me, there was no way I could refuse her anything. I cooked and tended bar—”

  “She owns everything? The bar, the restaurant?”

  “Oh yes. But very few people get to go to the back room and have a consultation with her. It’s by personal invitation only.”

  “So you worked for her as a cook?” Amada absentmind
edly ran her fingers up and down my lower back, which turned me on. It was terrible that I couldn’t feel her touch or sometimes even look at her without getting excited, but it happened every time.

  “Yes, a cook. Other things, too. Sometimes when someone came in, she asked me to check them and see if their illness could be physical. If I thought it was, she would send them away and tell them to go to a doctor. If I couldn’t immediately find a physical cause, then she would proceed. So far, I haven’t been involved in that part, although she does want to initiate me. She says she became my godmother the day she brought me back from the other side, so I should let her if that’s what the Orishas want.”

  “So that’s why you call her Madrina. But ... Orishas, Rafa?” I could see that Amada still didn’t believe in the supernatural part of my story, and I completely understood. It was unbelievable.

  “I know what it sounds like, sweetheart, but you have to remember I grew up around it. Most Cubans have. I don’t question it, but you have every reason to. I’m just telling you what happened. I respect your right to choose what you believe, and I won’t be offended.”

  “But didn’t that judge warn you not to give medical advice to anyone?”

  “He meant outside of our trusted circle. They all see Doña Delfina on a regular basis and are indebted to her one way or another. They would protect her by any means necessary. Most of those men were around during my recovery, and they saw what I went through, so they trust me as much as they trust her. I can help them and the people they bring to her without fear of repercussion. Besides, I don’t perform any procedures and I can’t prescribe anything. All I do is give my opinion and recommend they see a licensed doctor if that’s what’s necessary.”

  “And the ship?” She moved up and started to trace my shoulder and tricep with her fingertip.

  “Sweetheart, you have to stop that or there will be no more talking for a while,” I warned, taking her hand in mine to keep it still. “One day, after a couple of months, Doña Delfina called me in to tell me her spirit guide said I should go out on a big ship. He told her that on this trip I would find something very important, and when I did, I should bring it back with me. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted, saying I would make plenty of money in the meantime, and when I returned home, my future would be settled. Again, I couldn’t say no to her, and it seemed like a reasonable way to save money, which I knew I should do, so I went. Three days later I was on the Ruby, and three months later I met you.”