you want, I can tie you up the way you like,” she offered.
Hugo pressed his fist under Felicia’s chin until he choked off her breath, until she could see the walls of the living room behind her.
“If you come near me, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”
Hugo slept on the sofa and left for sea the next day. His twin daughters were born without him on Christmas Eve.
* * *
Toward the end of the summer, Felicia’s condition worsens, as if a heavy curtain is drawn over her brain. Her own voice is mute to her, far away, and the chandelier wavers in the fetid air. She smokes stale cigarettes her husband left behind years ago, smokes them down to the butts until her son snatches them from her burning fingers. Ivanito’s lips are moving, Felicia can see that. She sees his teeth and his eyes, his cheeks and his jet-black hair swelling and shrinking like an accordion. What is he saying? Each word is a code she must decipher, a foreign language, a streak of gunshot. She cannot hear and see him simultaneously. She closes her eyes.
Felicia remembers the moment she decided to murder herhusband. It was 1966, a hot August day, and she was pregnant with Ivanito. The nausea had persisted for weeks. Her sex, too, was infected with syphilis and the diseases Hugo brought back from Morocco and other women. That afternoon, as she was frying plantains in a heavy skillet, the nausea suddenly stopped.
It gave her a clarity she could not ignore.
Felicia dropped a rag into the skillet and watched it go limp with oil. She removed it with a pair of tongs and carried it dripping into the living room. The oil sizzled onto the floorboards.
She lit a match and approached her husband, asleep on the couch. His head was thrown back against a pillow, his mouth open, his throat exposed and still. She noticed that his lids barely covered his blank, rolled-up eyes.
Felicia carefully brought the blue flame to the tip of the rag. She smelled the quick sulfur and the plantains frying in the kitchen. She watched until the delicate flames consumed the rag, watched until the blaze was hot and floating in the air. Hugo awoke and saw his wife standing over him like a goddess with a fiery ball in her hand.
“You will never return here,” Felicia said and released the flames onto his face.
She laughs when she recalls her husband’s screams, the way he bolted out the door, his head a flaming torch. She plays this over and over in her mind, from one angle and then another, in bits and pieces like a torn photograph. The fire ate the flesh on Hugo’s face and hands, and the stench remained on Palmas Street for many months.
Felicia feels herself getting younger in her sleep, so young in fact that she fears she will die, be driven beyond the womb to oblivion. She grieves in her dreams for lost children, for the prostitutes in India, for the women raped in Havana last night. Their faces stare at her, plaintive, uncomplaining. What do they want with her? Felicia is afraid to sleep.
Her mother visits her with packets of food, greasy meats that slide on wax paper. She refuses to eat them, considers them poison. Her mother tries to talk to her, but Felicia hides in her bed. Her son will not leave her, that much she knows. She opens her mouth but her thoughts erase themselves before she can speak. Something is wrong with her tongue. It forms broken trails of words, words sealed and resistant as stones. She summons one stone and clings to it, a drowning woman, then summons another and another until she cries, “Mami, I grieve in my dreams.”
Ivanito Villaverde
The day after his grandfather dies, Ivanito asks his mother if he can go to the Hungarian circus in Havana. He’s seen billboards with fire-eating clowns and a pretty woman in a feathered headdress. A boy told him there were albino elephants from Siam. But Ivanito never found out if it was true.
His mother’s days begin with the ritual of a Beny Moré song called “Rebel Heart.” The record
Hugo pressed his fist under Felicia’s chin until he choked off her breath, until she could see the walls of the living room behind her.
“If you come near me, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”
Hugo slept on the sofa and left for sea the next day. His twin daughters were born without him on Christmas Eve.
* * *
Toward the end of the summer, Felicia’s condition worsens, as if a heavy curtain is drawn over her brain. Her own voice is mute to her, far away, and the chandelier wavers in the fetid air. She smokes stale cigarettes her husband left behind years ago, smokes them down to the butts until her son snatches them from her burning fingers. Ivanito’s lips are moving, Felicia can see that. She sees his teeth and his eyes, his cheeks and his jet-black hair swelling and shrinking like an accordion. What is he saying? Each word is a code she must decipher, a foreign language, a streak of gunshot. She cannot hear and see him simultaneously. She closes her eyes.
Felicia remembers the moment she decided to murder herhusband. It was 1966, a hot August day, and she was pregnant with Ivanito. The nausea had persisted for weeks. Her sex, too, was infected with syphilis and the diseases Hugo brought back from Morocco and other women. That afternoon, as she was frying plantains in a heavy skillet, the nausea suddenly stopped.
It gave her a clarity she could not ignore.
Felicia dropped a rag into the skillet and watched it go limp with oil. She removed it with a pair of tongs and carried it dripping into the living room. The oil sizzled onto the floorboards.
She lit a match and approached her husband, asleep on the couch. His head was thrown back against a pillow, his mouth open, his throat exposed and still. She noticed that his lids barely covered his blank, rolled-up eyes.
Felicia carefully brought the blue flame to the tip of the rag. She smelled the quick sulfur and the plantains frying in the kitchen. She watched until the delicate flames consumed the rag, watched until the blaze was hot and floating in the air. Hugo awoke and saw his wife standing over him like a goddess with a fiery ball in her hand.
“You will never return here,” Felicia said and released the flames onto his face.
She laughs when she recalls her husband’s screams, the way he bolted out the door, his head a flaming torch. She plays this over and over in her mind, from one angle and then another, in bits and pieces like a torn photograph. The fire ate the flesh on Hugo’s face and hands, and the stench remained on Palmas Street for many months.
Felicia feels herself getting younger in her sleep, so young in fact that she fears she will die, be driven beyond the womb to oblivion. She grieves in her dreams for lost children, for the prostitutes in India, for the women raped in Havana last night. Their faces stare at her, plaintive, uncomplaining. What do they want with her? Felicia is afraid to sleep.
Her mother visits her with packets of food, greasy meats that slide on wax paper. She refuses to eat them, considers them poison. Her mother tries to talk to her, but Felicia hides in her bed. Her son will not leave her, that much she knows. She opens her mouth but her thoughts erase themselves before she can speak. Something is wrong with her tongue. It forms broken trails of words, words sealed and resistant as stones. She summons one stone and clings to it, a drowning woman, then summons another and another until she cries, “Mami, I grieve in my dreams.”
Ivanito Villaverde
The day after his grandfather dies, Ivanito asks his mother if he can go to the Hungarian circus in Havana. He’s seen billboards with fire-eating clowns and a pretty woman in a feathered headdress. A boy told him there were albino elephants from Siam. But Ivanito never found out if it was true.
His mother’s days begin with the ritual of a Beny Moré song called “Rebel Heart.” The record
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