Cucaracha out of the blue—she thought he was away—and told her, taking a look around, that the place made him sick to his stomach, and that he would find her another. But did she really want to go? She had gotten attached to la señora and knew most of the shopkeepers along that street, and most of the other prostitutes besides Violeta, even the two she found out had pee-pees like men. And while she surely would have liked to live in a nicer place, she had made that forlorn room, her first home in Havana, comfortable enough and knew that she’d miss the daily life there, the way her neighbors cooked their meals on pans on their balconies, the caged birds, the barking dogs, the guitar playersand drunken singers (Ay, papito!), the crying babies, and even the Peeping Tom across the way—they made her feel anything but alone.
But one day, she left.
Eventually, she allowed him to “make her into a woman,” as they used to say, but it had not been an easy thing to accustom herself to. With her heart in her throat, she first bedded Ignacio down on a brand-new mattress with clean sheets in the bedroom of a sunny third-floor solar that he had gotten her in a better neighborhood, near a marketplace. On that afternoon she discovered the sorrowful history of a man whose body was covered with scars, his back in particular, a mess of claw-shaped welts, his cruel papito ’s gift to him as a boy. The actual act of penetration made no great impression on her, it was more or less what she had imagined, a little painful and almost pleasurable, but she had learned from the whores of la Cucaracha that nothing pleased a man more than to hear a woman scream at the top of her lungs as if she were being torn to pieces by a horse.
The whole ritual of it, however, she found discomforting and wished she had covered over the crucifix above her bed with a black cloth.
The moment he had removed her dress and undergarments and stripped down himself, proudly displaying the brutish and tearful proof of his desire—“Go ahead, look and admire it,” he told her proudly—she began to drift outside herself. Fondled, spread open, pulled at, bitten, and feeling the dampish and warm bundle of his inguinal sack— sus huevos —rolling over her taut belly and upwards over her rib cage as he, among first things, smothered his enraged cosita with her breasts, she couldn’t help but think about Christ’s last moments on the cross. As his blunt thrusts raised a wormy vein on his forehead, his eyes turning upwards inside their lids, she envisioned the journey Jesus Christ, upon his death and resurrection, had made, down to Purgatory and then Hell, before ascending to Heaven. And while he buried his head between her thighs, kissing the corona of her femininity, Mary Magdalene went kneeling before Him, to wash His feet with the tresses of her hair.
And so, even as she screamed, she kept praying that God forgive her,for however much she believed Ignacio when he muttered that she was the kind of woman he could really care for, María, dallying in the Holy Land, felt nothing for him beyond pity and a vague gratitude for the way he looked after her, and for his generosity, sentiments which she, being so young, had perhaps confused with the devotions of love.
Chapter ELEVEN
A fter that afternoon, beautiful María got used to Ignacio’s visits. Was she in love with him? She hardly thought so, but she slept with Ignacio often enough to make him happy. And while María preferred to keep those duties a secret, she found it comforting to know that such arrangements were common. Some of the girls in the troupe were always looking around for men with money, often gossiping about how nice it would be to have someone of means to look after them, no matter his callousness. Most of their would-be suitors weren’t prizes, though they’d hear of dancers who had run off with an American, to places like Cincinnati and Arkansas. At least Ignacio was generous, and he
But one day, she left.
Eventually, she allowed him to “make her into a woman,” as they used to say, but it had not been an easy thing to accustom herself to. With her heart in her throat, she first bedded Ignacio down on a brand-new mattress with clean sheets in the bedroom of a sunny third-floor solar that he had gotten her in a better neighborhood, near a marketplace. On that afternoon she discovered the sorrowful history of a man whose body was covered with scars, his back in particular, a mess of claw-shaped welts, his cruel papito ’s gift to him as a boy. The actual act of penetration made no great impression on her, it was more or less what she had imagined, a little painful and almost pleasurable, but she had learned from the whores of la Cucaracha that nothing pleased a man more than to hear a woman scream at the top of her lungs as if she were being torn to pieces by a horse.
The whole ritual of it, however, she found discomforting and wished she had covered over the crucifix above her bed with a black cloth.
The moment he had removed her dress and undergarments and stripped down himself, proudly displaying the brutish and tearful proof of his desire—“Go ahead, look and admire it,” he told her proudly—she began to drift outside herself. Fondled, spread open, pulled at, bitten, and feeling the dampish and warm bundle of his inguinal sack— sus huevos —rolling over her taut belly and upwards over her rib cage as he, among first things, smothered his enraged cosita with her breasts, she couldn’t help but think about Christ’s last moments on the cross. As his blunt thrusts raised a wormy vein on his forehead, his eyes turning upwards inside their lids, she envisioned the journey Jesus Christ, upon his death and resurrection, had made, down to Purgatory and then Hell, before ascending to Heaven. And while he buried his head between her thighs, kissing the corona of her femininity, Mary Magdalene went kneeling before Him, to wash His feet with the tresses of her hair.
And so, even as she screamed, she kept praying that God forgive her,for however much she believed Ignacio when he muttered that she was the kind of woman he could really care for, María, dallying in the Holy Land, felt nothing for him beyond pity and a vague gratitude for the way he looked after her, and for his generosity, sentiments which she, being so young, had perhaps confused with the devotions of love.
Chapter ELEVEN
A fter that afternoon, beautiful María got used to Ignacio’s visits. Was she in love with him? She hardly thought so, but she slept with Ignacio often enough to make him happy. And while María preferred to keep those duties a secret, she found it comforting to know that such arrangements were common. Some of the girls in the troupe were always looking around for men with money, often gossiping about how nice it would be to have someone of means to look after them, no matter his callousness. Most of their would-be suitors weren’t prizes, though they’d hear of dancers who had run off with an American, to places like Cincinnati and Arkansas. At least Ignacio was generous, and he
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