At least the proprietor of that hole-in-the-wall café never tried anything, but with so little money in her pocket, and having used up the remainder of her paltry savings, she’d head back to la Cucaracha fearful that, because she was falling behind on the rent, her landlady might evict her. After a while she started to pay for her room by cleaning up the place-mopping the halls, scrubbing its toilets, and sweeping out its musty entranceway. Watching life in that hotel unfolding around her, she became aware of all the comings and goings of la Cucaracha ’s tenants, especially the professional women who took men up the stairs in the late hours of the afternoon into the night. One of them, a redheaded whore, always winked at María sweetly. On those evenings, terrified to go out by herself-even in the countryside in Pinar del Río nights always made her a little fearful-she’d pass the time sitting on a bench in the reception area, listening to radio melodramas with la señora, and nice music, by way of live concerts broadcast by CMQ. A musty bladed fan turning overhead, and moths dissolving into dust in the buzzing ceiling lights, they’d converse, Matilda, a widow, recalling the promise of her youth when she fell in love with the man she eventually married, a simple shoemaker from a town called Cárdenas, who died in her arms at the very foot of the staircase after a fall.
“And what is it that you’d like to do?” she asked María, and because María never gave an answer, la señora shook her head disapprovingly. “You should make up your mind, or else find a good man to marry.”
Languishing there in boredom, María was in her room one evening, examining her naked body, smooth and stately and curvaceous in a full-length mirror, something which she’d never had the opportunity to do in the countryside, where the only espejo they had, hanging off a post outside their bohío, was the broken one, the size of a man’s palm, before which her papito shaved himself every third morning. But there she stood, a gorgeous apparition of cinnamon-colored flesh, with breasts so perfectly shaped that even she found their symmetry startling, her nipples dark as raspberries, a shock of black hair, dense as a crow’s nest, shooting out from between her long legs. Surprised by her own grace and voluptuousness, and stepping one way and the other, María had to admit that she looked pretty good, better than she could have imagined. And the mirror? If that mirror were a man, it would have been salivating; if it were a carpet it would have taken flight; if it had been a pile of wood it would have burst into flame, so lovely was María. Of course, she forgot that people could look inside-and, turning, glimpsed her across-the-courtyard neighbor, the fellow with the pompadour, out on his balcón, doing something to himself frantically, a cigarette burning between his lips, his face wincing in ecstasy as she hurriedly closed the shutters.
She came to a decision: seeing that men wanted certain things from a woman like her and that she hadn’t had much luck with finding jobs of a normal sort, María became resigned to taking another route, as so many young girls had before her. And that was to entangle herself in the labyrinthine nightlife of Havana, for which the city was famous.
Oh, if she’d only known just how seedy that could be.
Pero, Mami, didn’t you always tell me how terrible you felt about being alive when your beloved sister, my aunt Teresa, was dead? Didn’t you tell me, after you’d been drinking those Cuba Libres, that you really didn’t give much of a damn about yourself? That even the way you looked seemed a curse to you sometimes, as much as you ride me about my own?…
Chapter FOUR
Even those jobs didn’t come easily. Warned by her matronly dueña, María had to be careful about getting mixed up with the wrong sorts. “And believe me, querida,” Matilda told her, “ Havana is full of them.”
Nevertheless, for days María went to just about every club and saloon she could find, usually in the late afternoons. And while she overwhelmed most everyone she met with her beauty, there was just something about her too precious for even the most jaded of proprietors to despoil, though there were exceptions, some club managers looking her over so lustfully that they made her nervous. That she had never danced anywhere except in a cervecería-beer joint-in the countryside, the sort of place where the men pissed off a back porch, or had any professional training, did not help matters. Most, taking her for a rustic bumpkin or a child of the slums-they just knew from the wide openness of her expression, the gaudiness of her clothes-advised her to go back home, before she wasted any more of her time or, worse, ruined her life. But she had to eat.
You don’t know what that’s like, Teresita, unless you’ve had to go through it yourself, sabes?
At first the establishments she approached were, so it seemed to her, of the better sort, but she had no luck. And so, instead of going to those nicer clubs along the Prado, or out in Vedado, near Calle 21, she started lowering her sights.
AT ABOUT ELEVEN THIRTY ONE EVENING, SHE FOUND HERSELF knocking on an alleyway door in la Marina, the brothel district, not far from the harbor. A squat and corpulent Catalán, with a melted wax face and Xavier Cugat mustache, needed only one look at María before inviting her into his establishment. He called it a “gentleman’s club,” but it was just a sad-seeming place, filled with smoke and darkness and lots of drunken men. His office, at the end of a dingy and rank-smelling hallway, was just as bleak, cases of liquor piled against the walls, a haphazard collection of showgirl photographs pinned to a board behind his desk and, alongside it, a sofa, which emanated its own history of grief. There, as he looked her over, he couldn’t have been more blunt: The job, if she really wanted it, would involve showing herself off, he said. There’d be no stage to perform on, just several tables that had been pushed together in a nearly lightless barroom, over which, in her new high heels and with her new dress off, she was to stride before that crowd, enticingly. He would pay her five dollars, just for that.
It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d ever be proud of, but she would do it out of hunger, her stomach prevailing over her pride, may God please forgive her.
Of course, he wanted to see what she had to offer. When María, trembling, disrobed, at first just down to her slip and undies-she wore no brassiere, didn’t own one-the Catalán, having watched her carefully, told María, “Now off with the slip.” And when only one stitch of clothing remained, that was too much as well-“Quítalo, todo,” he demanded. Sighing, she did as he had asked and was soon standing naked before him, one hand placed over her breasts, the other over what cubanos euphemistically called the papayún. Tilting her head back, in shame, she closed her eyes, as if to pray. “Don’t be afraid, mi guapita,” he said. “It’s perfectly natural to feel a little shy the first time-but just remember, you have to start somewhere, after all.” Courteously and with an almost avuncular manner, he handed her a black silk robe, reeking of perfume, its fabric covered with falling purple blossoms, and told her, “Now, come with me.”
Why she somehow trusted him was beyond her future understanding; perhaps she felt protected by God-she had “la fe” then, and strongly so. Or, as she often also thought, she just wasn’t thinking too clearly: being young and alone and hoping naïvely for the best, as if people were naturally good, will do that to you, sabes? Sighing, her stomach twisted into knots, she followed him into that bar, which, in the style of Spanish taverns, lacked windows, its interior hazy with shifting plains of smoke. Some big band danzóns blared from a jukebox. The room itself (in memory) smelled vaguely of urine and spilled beer, sawdust, stale fritters, and flatulence (perhaps), and was so dimly lit that its darkness almost came as a relief to her. Patiently (and out of hunger) she waited beside the Catalán, who, banging on a pot to gain his patrons’ attention, made a quick introduction in what she took as English-“What’s your name anyway?” he asked her. And then, without further adieu, once she had climbed atop the long table, he yanked off her robe, and María, tottering in high heels, revealed her naked graces before a room filled with men, mainly Americans, who, in their cups, whistled and hooted at her.