—sitting, one legged and grimy against a wall, Ignacio stuffed that bill into the tin can he held in his filthy hands.
“So there,” he said, “are you satisfied? Now, look around you and tell me something: tell me if you’re seeing this lousy world changing one bit.”
“ Ay, pero Ignacio, don’t be so angry at me.”
“All right then, but don’t you ever preach to me again. Understand?”
FOR ALL HER MISGIVINGS ABOUT HIM, THEY HAD THEIR ENJOYMENTS. On a Sunday, Ignacio drove her to a beach resort out in Varadero, where María, glorious in an Esther Williams swimsuit, the sort with fancy seashell pleats accentuating her breasts and midsection (translation, her smooth belly, her fabulous burst of hair, the fig of her heart-shaped pubic mound), parted those warm, clear waters before her. They journeyed to a pueblo by the sea, about three hours east of Havana, their route, along the northern coast, taking them past expanses of marshes, mangrove swamps, and beaches to Matanzas, where Ignacio had been born in utter poverty and received his first scars. He didn’t know if his father was even alive, nor did he care, and his mamacita had died when he was a boy, which was how he ended up in Havana to fend for himself at an early age, he told her. Taking her around—what was there to see in a town that stretched only three or four blocks end to end along thecoast?—Ignacio told María, with all sincerity, that it was his dream to construct a house in that place, so that he—and she—would have a wonderful retreat to escape to from Havana, maybe even live there one day as man and wife. Then they returned to the city, and, as he often liked to do, he pulled over to the side of the road and had María undo his white pantalones so that she might attend to him in a manner that he particularly enjoyed: the wonderful sun just beginning to set on the horizon.
On another occasion, he drove her out to Pinar del Río to see her papito , whom she had missed very much. Laden with gifts, and arriving in triumph in Ignacio’s white 1947 Chevrolet, María had the pleasure not only of showing off her nice clothes and prosperous “novio,” whom her papito didn’t particularly like, but also of letting him see just how well she had done for herself in Havana. Olivia, her papito ’s haggish paramour, so gloomy in black, couldn’t have been more solemn, or envious. For that alone, María felt thankful to Ignacio, who, for his part, could only feel contempt for the slop of pigs, the filth of an outhouse, and, after a while, even what he called the ignorance of the guajiros.
Chapter TWELVE
S he was learning what men can be about, particularly when they like their drink. Her papito had sometimes been that way, that’s why he used to beat her, and, as she got to know Ignacio better, she learned that he could be that way too. In the bedroom, the only place where he actually seemed happy, he could be quite unpredictable. She would almost enjoy it, as long as he wasn’t being too rough with her, and rum sometimes made him that way. Once he had drunk too much, he’d start accusing her of denying him certain pleasures. She’d lock herself in the bathroom, and he’d smash in the door, throw her onto the bed, and take her from behind, all the while calling her nothing better than his little mulatta whore. And if she wept bitterly afterwards, he’d tell her, “Grow up and don’t forget that, if it weren’t for me, María, you’d still be sleeping in that shithole of a hotel and dressing like a tramp.”
Drinking, he became a different man, who made her life a nightmare. Even when he behaved in a reasonable way, taking care of him with her mouth became a labor, not of love but of drudgery. Sober it didn’t take much: just the sight of her lovely face in a posture of voluptuous submission, the proximity of her lips to that blood-engorged thing, and the merest licking of her tongue were often enough to make him gasp and cry
“So there,” he said, “are you satisfied? Now, look around you and tell me something: tell me if you’re seeing this lousy world changing one bit.”
“ Ay, pero Ignacio, don’t be so angry at me.”
“All right then, but don’t you ever preach to me again. Understand?”
FOR ALL HER MISGIVINGS ABOUT HIM, THEY HAD THEIR ENJOYMENTS. On a Sunday, Ignacio drove her to a beach resort out in Varadero, where María, glorious in an Esther Williams swimsuit, the sort with fancy seashell pleats accentuating her breasts and midsection (translation, her smooth belly, her fabulous burst of hair, the fig of her heart-shaped pubic mound), parted those warm, clear waters before her. They journeyed to a pueblo by the sea, about three hours east of Havana, their route, along the northern coast, taking them past expanses of marshes, mangrove swamps, and beaches to Matanzas, where Ignacio had been born in utter poverty and received his first scars. He didn’t know if his father was even alive, nor did he care, and his mamacita had died when he was a boy, which was how he ended up in Havana to fend for himself at an early age, he told her. Taking her around—what was there to see in a town that stretched only three or four blocks end to end along thecoast?—Ignacio told María, with all sincerity, that it was his dream to construct a house in that place, so that he—and she—would have a wonderful retreat to escape to from Havana, maybe even live there one day as man and wife. Then they returned to the city, and, as he often liked to do, he pulled over to the side of the road and had María undo his white pantalones so that she might attend to him in a manner that he particularly enjoyed: the wonderful sun just beginning to set on the horizon.
On another occasion, he drove her out to Pinar del Río to see her papito , whom she had missed very much. Laden with gifts, and arriving in triumph in Ignacio’s white 1947 Chevrolet, María had the pleasure not only of showing off her nice clothes and prosperous “novio,” whom her papito didn’t particularly like, but also of letting him see just how well she had done for herself in Havana. Olivia, her papito ’s haggish paramour, so gloomy in black, couldn’t have been more solemn, or envious. For that alone, María felt thankful to Ignacio, who, for his part, could only feel contempt for the slop of pigs, the filth of an outhouse, and, after a while, even what he called the ignorance of the guajiros.
Chapter TWELVE
S he was learning what men can be about, particularly when they like their drink. Her papito had sometimes been that way, that’s why he used to beat her, and, as she got to know Ignacio better, she learned that he could be that way too. In the bedroom, the only place where he actually seemed happy, he could be quite unpredictable. She would almost enjoy it, as long as he wasn’t being too rough with her, and rum sometimes made him that way. Once he had drunk too much, he’d start accusing her of denying him certain pleasures. She’d lock herself in the bathroom, and he’d smash in the door, throw her onto the bed, and take her from behind, all the while calling her nothing better than his little mulatta whore. And if she wept bitterly afterwards, he’d tell her, “Grow up and don’t forget that, if it weren’t for me, María, you’d still be sleeping in that shithole of a hotel and dressing like a tramp.”
Drinking, he became a different man, who made her life a nightmare. Even when he behaved in a reasonable way, taking care of him with her mouth became a labor, not of love but of drudgery. Sober it didn’t take much: just the sight of her lovely face in a posture of voluptuous submission, the proximity of her lips to that blood-engorged thing, and the merest licking of her tongue were often enough to make him gasp and cry
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