José Defaus Ballesté's head, resting on the pillow, moved slowly to one side and after a broken gasp, he whispered to his wife, “The priest and I came up with a plan to get the wedding of Teresita and Francisco to be celebrated as quickly as possible.”
“Do not tire yourself out with these thoughts! It's water under the bridge.”
José was weak, but he gathered all his strength to get rid of the weight of the secret that had been pressing on his chest for many years. However, he noticed that while he was speaking his wife was calm, as if she already knew what he was going to reveal to her.
“No one had to know that Teresita was pregnant.” He paused before explaining, “But the wedding could not yet be celebrated because, since the groom was her brother-in-law before the death of her first husband, the bishop needed time to give them permission.”
“The marriage is valid, right? Well, I don't care how you got it. Now, stop talking.”
“Of course it's valid, we didn't cheat.” José took a long pause to breathe. “They could get married since ecclesiastical and civil law allowed it, but it would have created a long wait. Permission was going to take several months to arrive and we couldn't wait.”
“José, rest. You can tell me another day.”
“No, I have to tell you now, I want to clear my conscience. The priest, without committing any sacrilege and saving our reputation, had that idea. We hid it from you so you wouldn't suffer with worry.”
“Really, I don't care what you did. What I want is for you to recover. Don't be stubborn, José. Don't talk anymore.”
“The marriage act could not be registered on the day of the wedding; however, one night several months later Teresita and Francisco signed the papers in the sacristy.” He looked at his wife and carefully choosing his words he said slowly, “The act was registered when baby Teresa was three months old and they officially became husband and wife. I’m sorry I hid it from you.”
“There is nothing to forgive, everything is already settled. Now rest and try to sleep,” his wife whispered to him, without showing any concern.
Teresa trusted José and, although at some point she suspected something, she never wanted to know the shenanigans that her husband was up to as he solved family matters.
The dying man's grandchildren, Teresa, María, Francisco, and Joseph, ran around the house without really knowing what was happening. Eight-year-old Francisco, whom everyone called Cisco, ordered his brothers to stop screaming. Teresa, the oldest, was crying hysterically while María tried to console her.
“Grandpa is sick, but don't cry Teresa, I'm going to see how he is doing, you stay in the yard,” Cisco told them seriously. Cisco entered the room where his grandfather lay and approached the bed. The sick man seemed relaxed, so Teresa told her grandson, “Come in, say goodbye to Grandpa who's about to fall asleep.”
The boy approached the grandfather, placed his lips on his forehead, and said to his grandmother, “Grandpa's forehead is very cold.”
Teresa noticed that her husband's complexion had turned white. She touched his hands and noticed that they were cold. “Come closer, my José has just died,” Teresa cried, sobbing.
That evening, José Defaus Moragas went to the other world sleeping and did not know that Cuba no longer belonged to Spain. Nor did José Martí see how his impassioned speeches and his poetic literature led to independence; although in reality, it was not the independence he had dreamed of since Cuba became a republic under the authority of the United States.
While his father was spending his last hours of life, Mariano was heading to the Las Ovas station at the end of July 1898 to catch the first train to Havana to buy products and utensils that were not available in the Pinar del Río Abastos market. Traveling to Havana was no longer so exhausting. Since they had inaugurated the last section of the railway line that linked Havana to Pinar del Río, the trip was faster and more comfortable. He took the train at the Las Ovas stop, where Lucas accompanied him by car. The small station was inaugurated on July 16, 1893, but it was built a few months before the train arrived, in an area that bordered the town and that was beginning to be deforested. A handful of bricklayers and carpenters built a one-story wooden building that they painted blue, and to protect themselves from the rain they made a large arcade supported by four yellow columns. The windows and door were white and the roof gray. There was only one platform and Mariano sat outside on one of the wooden benches, waiting for a long time because he liked to arrive at his appointments well in advance. While waiting for the train, he looked at the palm trees and remembered the only ones there were in his town. They had been planted by Mr. Prats, a rich Indian man back from Cuba. As a child, he would go with his father to admire that beautiful mansion surrounded by gardens with exotic trees and he would be amazed looking at the two palm trees. When the train arrived, he stopped thinking about Malgrat and started reading a book on the train. He arrived mid-morning at the old Villanueva station in Havana and he decided to walk through the old neighborhood. He liked to walk slowly, observing the crowd. The streets were packed with people of all kinds: rich, poor, servants, freedmen, soldiers, and street vendors. The shopkeepers were coming out of their grocery stores, fruit shops, tailor shops, and tobacco shops, shouting to advertise their wares. An exuberant black woman approached Mariano without any modesty. He told her that he was not interested in her services and she walked away acting offended.
Little by little, the smell and hustle and bustle of the city transported him to the day he arrived in Cuba with Mr. Sarrá, carrying with him a cardboard suitcase and a backpack. He still remembered the fear he felt because of that hustle and bustle and because of the aggressiveness of the Cuban women.
He smiled thinking that his rudder had suddenly turned, his life had turned in a direction that he had never imagined. Then he was a boy of seventeen years old, and now he was a man of forty-two, with a godson who was the same age as he was when he arrived in Cuba, and three small children. He thought fondly of Nieves, of Juan, the eldest son who was already three years old, of José, who was one and a half years old, and of Teresa, who was a two-month-old baby. He promised himself that as soon as the new photography studio in Pinar del Río opened, he would have his entire family photographed and send the photograph to his parents. That day he also could not suspect that Nieves was going to give him two other girls, whom they were going to call Clotilde and Ramona.
“I have a wife, three children, and a godson whom I love very much. And a family in Spain that I will soon see again. I am happy,” he said to himself, observing a mulatto woman loaded with children.
While he was thinking about all this, he arrived at the store of the three shopkeeper brothers, Pablo, Pepe, and Pedro, who welcomed him with great joy. The two eldest suffered from gout and had rheumatism, but they were doing well. On the other hand, Pedro, the one who never got sick, discovered at that time that he had kidney stones.
“You can't imagine how painful kidney cramps are.”
“You know, if you drink more water, and not so much alcohol, it would be better for your kidneys.”
“Let's have a drink to celebrate your arrival!” Pedro said with a smile.
“Don't kid me, not even a drop of liquor for me,” Mariano replied.
In the evening, Mariano had an appointment with Felipe at the Main Square. At the appointed time, a horse-drawn carriage approached him.
“Come in, Mariano.”
“Felipe! As always, so punctual!”
The horse-drawn carriage took a long tour of the city while they talked, catching up on the latest events.
“Felipe, I never told you why I fled Spain.”
“Even if the civil guard looked for you, you will continue to be my friend.”
“You have to know that I am a fugitive,” Mariano said shyly. “My father prepared the ground for me to flee because a woman denounced me. It was a little thing, but it has marked me all my life. For my father, it was a dishonor that a son had to go through court; and fearing gossip, he told everyone that I was going to Cuba because I had been drawn for military service and that I would soon receive my draft card.”
“Forgive my curiosity. But what trick did you play on this woman to make her report you?”
“If you have a little time, I will tell you. I am excited because I have never told anyone, not even Mr. Sarrá was aware of my true story.”
“Don't worry, your story will go with me to my grave.”
Mariano started from the beginning, narrating the prank that he and his friend Pepito pulled in the Barretts House that was in town and explained that since the train arrived, and with it the first industries, a nightlife establishment had opened in Malgrat.
“House of Barretts, that meant a brothel, right?” Felipe asked him.
“Yes, barretts means a man's hat. There was a brothel in a working-class neighborhood of Malgrat. It was in the upper area, called Castle, which actually had a castle and a small medieval tower. This brothel was run by Lola, a widow, who called herself Señora Iglesias. In it, several women offered to give pleasure to the surrounding men. Generally, they were workers, widows, or other humble women who did it to feed their children. But during the holidays, Lola's house was very crowded and during this season she had prostitutes arrive from Barcelona.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!!! This is getting hot” Felipe told him, laughing.
“Don't make fun of this! It was customary for rich men to secretly take their sons to brothels for their first sexual experience. It was said that the widow Iglesias was the most expert.”
“Wow, what a custom!”
“Believe it or not, most goody two shoes complained and blamed the place and the women for the loss of their children, but they were the first to frequent it.”
“What hypocrites!” Felipe looked at him with a frown and raised eyebrows. “In Cuba, prostitution is not hidden; and although it is not authorized, it is practiced everywhere. You see what happens in Havana - there is a prostitute stationed on every corner and the authorities turn a blind eye until someone turns a prostitute or a whorehouse into the authorities, but that rarely happens.”
“Pepito and I were sixteen-year-old brats, determined to find out what these women did. One evening, we hid behind some bushes and waited for the men to arrive. When it got dark, we approached the house and hid behind a wall. We spied, through the small windows, on the women and the clients. The rooms were dimly lit, but the shadows revealed the male passion and the sexual services offered by the women.”
“Oh, my God, I can imagine what you created when you were discovered!”
“Don't get ahead of me, Felipe. They didn't discover us that day. We spent a lot of time watching the comings and goings of the men. It was the eve of a party and there were more women than normal and quite a few men. Some of them we knew, because they were rich people from the town, others were workers who spent their weekly salary in that joint. Next to the house there was a warehouse, called Cave, because it was so dark that it looked like a cave, where men entered to drink red wine, before or after going to the widow's establishment. The rich traveled in tartans and rarely stopped in La Cueva.”
We returned two or three more times, but the last time we discovered two new women. They were a little younger than the ones who usually practiced. We would have liked to spend some time with them, but we didn't have a single coin. Pepito, who was a smart boy, had a plan: we would go to Lola and blackmail her to obtain free services. The widow was sitting in a booth and when she saw us she told us, ‘Here we charge in advance.’”
“If you don't let us pass, we'll tell the mayor that you receive many illustrious men, even a priest.”
“Scoundrels!”
“The widow began to scream like a madwoman and called the bailiff who was in a small room enjoying himself with one of the women. Pepito had not counted on that inconvenience. In a few minutes, all hell broke loose. The sheriff arrested us and other kids who were waiting their turn and who got involved in the fight, and the widow reported us.”
“And what did your father say when he found out?” asked Felipe.
‘He didn't get angry because of the childishness, but because of the consequences it entailed. That's why, when the court's complaint arrived at the city hall, the mayor, who was his friend, called him and covered up the story so that no one would know that I had been reported. The whole town believed that I was running away so as not to enlist in the army. It was more noble to be a deserter than a rebel or a criminal.”
“I'm still your friend, don't worry. You didn't do anything wrong. The only thing that can happen to you is that you won't be able to return to Spain. I'll try to find out and let you know.”
That same night, Mariano confessed to Nieves the secret he had kept for so many years. She looked at him seriously and then said laughing, “Being such a handsome man, I imagined more erotic adventures.”
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