23

THERE WAS HAVANA, STRETCHED ALONGSIDE the sea like an exotic garden of green palms, red-tiled rooftops and white, blue, and yellow houses. Leaning against the gunwale of the ship, shoulder to shoulder with other spellbound travelers, I saw with enormous satisfaction that the actual city, beginning with the noble promontory from which the Castillo del Morro rose, was much more beautiful than the one depicted in the engravings Maryse had sent. As we entered the majestic bay, occupied by dozens of vessels, from modest brigs to lofty ships-of-the-line, cries of admiration rang out from the deck of the Helvetica. Transferred to the dock in a dinghy canopied with enormous leaves, I stepped foot on land and threw myself into my friends’ arms, covering their faces in kisses and tears. Unable to articulate coherent sentences, we spoke in random fragments, brimming with emotion: “Oh, I’m so happy! You look wonderful! It’s about time! We’ll never let you leave! So now you’re a doctor! Here you have me! What a beautiful couple, it’s as if no time had passed!” As we walked toward a calash with enormous wheels, I noticed that Robledo, still welling with emotion, was holding a red silk parasol over my head, forgetting that, in the eyes of those surrounding us, I didn’t merit his gentlemanly attentions.

Once we were in the carriage and I’d had a chance to recover from the emotion of my arrival, I realized that the city smelled bad and that its narrow streets were unpaved, making for slow and uncomfortable progress for vehicle and pedestrian alike. I observed that many of the city’s inhabitants were Negro, their skin ranging in all shades from darkest to lightest. I also noted how important commerce was there: vendors filled the plazas and porticos, and it seemed as if everyone were selling something—bread, sweets, milk, water, flowers, vegetables, fruits, and a great deal of native produce I’d never seen before. The heat didn’t bother me particularly, although Maryse was quick to tell me that we were not yet in the hottest months. It was a different story with the dust which, kicked up by the carriage wheels and horses’ hooves, required me to incessantly fan myself with my hand, reminding me of the summer, twelve years back, when I’d marched to the Rhine with the Grand Armée.

Robledo’s house was on a corner and had two stories, both with high balustrades. From outside, the house appeared austere, if not exactly ugly, but its interior was enchanting: through the main door was an inner courtyard, the stable on one side and barrels and crates of provisions on the other; to the rear, three arches supported by rectangular columns, and beyond those, the fragrant foliage of a patio filled with rose bushes and lemon trees, the only vegetation I could identify. Finally, two stone staircases, one ascending to each of the house’s two wings, and then the mezzanine with the kitchen—whence scents of stews and fritters; higher up, a large foyer, clean mosaic-tiled floors beneath a blue coffered ceiling, furniture in dark mahogany, paintings of Spanish vistas and serene landscapes of Scotland and North America, an alabaster Ceres and a set of shelves filled with porcelain figurines and strange idols made of wood and clay—surely souvenirs from Robledo’s travels—a French piano alongside a formidable Chinese vase, everything caressed by the soft, rosy light filtering through the leaded glass that, fan-shaped, crowned large balustrade windows, closed against the heat of the street below. At right angles to the shady corner of the room was a verandah set with high-backed wicker chairs and decorated with a multitude of large earthen flowerpots and cages of spectacularly colored birds, including a parrot that called out, oven and over, in a croaky voice with heavily rolled r’s, “Marrrryse, Marrrryse.” More than a dozen slaves of both sexes served the household, moving from one room to another with great familiarity, talking and laughing among themselves as if there were no one else there. Unlike the postilion, whose extraordinary hat and elegant livery had surprised me, the rest of them went about in simple, loose-fitting attire, their heads covered in brightly colored kerchiefs. I learned that they slept in the mezzanine and in rooms off the inner courtyard where the carriages were kept. Having seen, from the outside, numerous similar, or even larger houses, I realized that Havana was swimming in money.

Nevertheless, the room I was offered was extremely simple: a narrow canvas cot covered with a mosquito net, a nightstand, and an armoire. A side door opened into the bathroom, where, in anticipation of my most urgent needs, I found awaiting me a marble tub filled with steamy water and a luxurious bronze-encrusted, ebony privy.

“What do you think of my house?” Robledo asked me at dinnertime.

“I like it very much.”

“And Havana?”

“I like it too.”

“Don’t be so diplomatic. It smells like manure, dried codfish, cured tobacco, and tasajo. And some other things too,” he smiled. Seeing my gaze pass over his gray wig, he said: “We’re among family here, Henriette. And anyway, you’re a doctor. I’m guessing that you’re asking yourself how my head finally turned out. I’ll show you now, before Maryse arrives,” and, with the same childishly vain gesture with which he used to exhibit his Absalom’s mane, he removed the wig. A few white tufts sprouted from his wrinkled skull; of his right ear, nothing remained but an opening in a stretch of skin that looked tough as wood.

Not knowing how to respond, I made an empty gesture that he interpreted as a signal that he could cover up again.

“Don’t think that I wear the wig out of vanity. It’s only to spare others an unpleasant sight. It was Maryse’s idea.”

“What is tasajo?” I asked, pretending that it hadn’t pained me to see his scars.

“A type of cured meat, usually horsemeat, eaten by slaves and the poor. It has a very strong taste. I doubt you’d like it,” he said, sweeping an invisible plate away with a wave of his hand. He began filling the glasses set in front of my place at the table with various liquids. Once the jugs had been removed by a thick-waisted Negress, he added: “Juices made from native fruits: this one is pineapple, this one is tamarind, this is coconut water, an excellent diuretic, this whitish one is guanábana, very good against the heat, this one, I think, is mamoncillo, this one is . . . this one is. . . . ” he said, pointing at a pink-colored liquid. “Tomasa, what’s this one?” he asked the slave in Spanish.

“It’s guava, Master Julián.”

“Guava, of course. I don’t know how I could have forgotten the name of one of my favorite fruits. Well, there you have it. Stir them with the spoon before you taste them. There’s a pinch of sugar at the bottom of the glasses.”

I set about tasting a sip from each of the glasses. They were delicious, and quite distinct one from another. I thought that, in Cuba, it would be a blessing to be on a diet. In the midst of the tasting, Maryse arrived and sank into a chair, freshly bathed and wearing a new wig of dangling curls and an embroidered linen robe. Her scar, covered by several layers of white powder, was invisible, although her left eye did look smaller and more almond-shaped than the right. As for the rest of her, no one would have guessed that she’d already turned fifty.

“Why don’t you dress as a woman, my love? You’d be cooler. I have several robes and some of my dresses could be altered to fit you.” Seeing me shake my head, she said: “Who could give you away?”

“Your servants.”

“They are discreet people. Not one of them would dare tell what goes on inside the house. An old Cuban custom.”

“If you’ll allow me to make a suggestion, perhaps it would be better to dress as a man one evening and as a woman the next,” said Robledo, lighting a cigar. “That way you’d be free to accompany me to my favorite café and to the gambling houses. The next day you could go with Maryse to the shops on Muralla Street and go for a drive in the quitrín along the Prado.”

“Forgive me for asking so many questions, but what is a quitrín?”

“It’s a light carriage pulled by only one horse. It has two wheels and a collapsible hood. Made for vain ladies. My chiquita linda has one. I prefer my calash, for obvious reasons.”

“Two carriages?” I said, impressed.

“We’re rich, my love. That’s the truth of it, though I’ll tell you that I still haven’t gotten used to it,” said Maryse.

“We’ve planned several outings and trips for you,” Robledo put in. “We’ll be in Havana for only two or three weeks, more than enough time for you to see what the city has to offer. Then we’ll go to my old coffee plantation in El Cuzco. We’ll pass through several little villages and you’ll see for yourself how beautiful our countryside is. Oh, how you’ll love it! I understand that you like to ride horses. Well, you’ll ride so much you’ll get bored of it. Maryse will come with us on our excursions, isn’t that right, chiquita linda?”

“On my mule, Adolfina,” my friend replied. “I’ll come with you as long as you go slowly.”

“We’ll hunt, fish and have just a wonderful time,” Robledo went on. “In two months, when the milling season begins, we’ll visit a sugar refinery. There you’ll see how sugar is made. But the best part will be the coffee plantation. We’ll live there during the dry season. We have French and German neighbors, jolly people who love to dance and play cards. I’ll teach you to play . . . oh, for heaven’s sake! What’s that card game called?”

“Monte, my love.”

“Right, we’ll play lots of Monte. And we’ll dance until we collapse. I’m reserving the first dance with you right now.”

“That’s enough, baldy,” Maryse said tenderly. “Are you trying to make me jealous?” Turning to me, she added: “Come on, Henriette, go put on a dress! We’ll take a ride along the Prado before dinner, that’s what all the ladies in Havana do.”

“Just this once. Things are less complicated when I go as a man.”

Traveling by quitrín was like riding on a gun carriage, albeit somewhat more comfortable. It was well-designed for the poor condition of the roads. The enormous wheels rotating on either side of my head and the two long planks of flexible wood that supported the leather chassis upon which the carriage’s box rested made it possible to ride without being ejected from the seat. The Paseo del Prado was outside the city walls and led down to the sea, ending just at the entrance to the bay, very near a fort that, together with the Castillo del Morro, protected the entrance to the harbor. The Prado was traversed in both directions by numerous quitrínes seemingly identical to our own, all carrying women adorned with fans, wearing flowers in their hair and ruffled dresses and, astride each horse, Negro postilions dressed in tall hats and long boots. A few discreet gentlemen on horseback also rode along, generally in pairs, with whom Maryse exchanged almost imperceptible greetings chiefly involving her fan. The spectacle seemed somewhat ridiculous to me in its rustic formality, although on our ride toward the sea I’d been captivated by the landscape at twilight, by the layers of oranges, pinks, and violets that streaked the sky as the sun sank sumptuously in the distance, to the left of the city. On the way back, a sweet, lilac dusk upon us, Maryse took my hand and said: “Now you’ve become who you wanted to be: a bona-fide physician with a diploma. And since I know that nobody ever ceases to want things, I ask you: what is it that you desire now?”

“Exactly what I’m doing: spending some time with you. You don’t know how often I’ve wanted to come see you. In the midst of everything, especially in the darkest moments, you were always with me. Oh Maryse, if you only knew how much I’ve needed you!”

“You have lived through a great deal, my child, you’ve seen more than enough for your years. Some of your letters made us cry. Ah, Henriette, if life could be expressed in numbers and you were to add up all that these Creole ladies you see enjoying the cool of the evening have lived, the final tally wouldn’t come to half of our combined sum. I’ve missed you a great deal too, you know? No one to talk to,” she sighed. “Not a single true friend, I mean to say. Here no one knows anything of wars or revolutions or travel or operas or books or anything else. They aren’t even aware of their own boredom. They haven’t awoken yet. Their moment in history has yet to come. In any case . . . how long are you thinking of staying?”

“I don’t have any plans. I only know that I don’t want to go back. At least for now.”

“The situation is bad in France, isn’t it?”

“It couldn’t be worse, really. Everything is in complete confusion and, since the war had at least offered a means of making a living, now only a very few have any money at all. Even the king is in debt. But the thing I resent the most is the lack of freedoms. Every single letter that gets printed has to pass through a censor. But there’s censorship and then there’s censorship, and what’s happening in France today is insufferable. Even romantic novels are looked down upon. What’s not an affront to the divine right of the monarchy is an immorality that won’t be tolerated by the church. It’s as though the Republic had never existed.”

“But it did exist, my love. One day it will come back.”

“Yes, but not in the near future, which is what really matters to me. You’ll be surprised to learn that I, who never was a Bonapartist, would be inclined to exchange Louis XVIII and his émigrés for Napoleon, even with his thirst for glory and all his defects. We’ve reverted to the last century, plain and simple.”

“Well, my sweet, as far as that goes, I’ll tell you that Cuba is a perfect disaster. The reality is that any law here is made purely at the governor’s whim. The one we have now, an Artillery General, isn’t so bad. But even so, there are times I want to flee this island.”

“Haven’t you been thinking of taking a long trip with Robledo?”

“Would you come with us?”

“I wasn’t thinking about me.”

“We’ll talk about that later. Robledo is no longer the same man you met in Baden-Baden.”

“Yes, I know. He showed me his scars. But I think he’s quite strong for his age.”

“Strong he is, my dear. He makes love to me twice a week. But he’s seemed very distracted these past few months. At first I thought he had another woman on his mind or that he was preoccupied by something. He’s losing his memory, Henriette. And there’s something else. He enters and leaves places without seeming to realize what he’s doing. Other times he says things that don’t make any sense, although his words are always beautifully strung together. The other morning I found him weeping in the garden. He doesn’t want to see a doctor. Perhaps you know of some remedy.”

“I’ll observe him more closely. This does happen sometimes, although generally in people of more advanced age. How old is he?”

“Sixty-four.”

“How is his stomach?” I asked, thinking that perhaps Broussais’s recommended treatment could be useful in the initial stages of senile dementia, since, unfortunately, this is what he seemed to be suffering from.

“He could eat a horse.”

“I can’t tell you anything yet,” I lied mercifully. “Perhaps his retirement has been bad for him. I remember that sugar production was very important to him. Try to see that he’s occupied with something.”

“I’ve thought of all that. But he sold his sugar mill, with all its lands and slaves, in order to placate me. I wrote to you about that. It’s not that he’s renounced sugar completely. He’s invested some of his money in Prussia, in beet sugar factories. He swears that soon it will be an excellent business in Europe. What’s happened here is that Spain signed a treaty with England in exchange for a huge pile of pounds sterling. Soon, slave trafficking will be illegal. It’s thought that this treaty, even if it doesn’t put an end to slavery, will contribute to its escalating cost. The day will come when a strong man will be worth more than a thousand pesos and the cost of sugar production will rise precipitously, in turn raising the price of sugar. According to Robledo, the price of beet sugar will become increasingly competitive. The only bad part is that he has nothing to do with the management of the factories. He has also invested part of his capital in a shipping company, steamships that will soon begin making the trip between New Orleans and Havana. The coffee plantation he bought in El Cuzco is not functioning; it’s just to live in. The truth is, he doesn’t have anything to keep himself busy.”

“Well, then, the trip around the world you mentioned doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. It would keep him interested.”

“I’m scared, Henriette. Do you know what he did the other day? He went into a gambling house and, after winning a sizeable sum, left by the back door. Francisco, the Negro who drives his calash, waited for him for three hours to no avail. Finally, he went into the establishment and discovered that he’d left. He found him at sunset wandering about in the square. He came to his senses when he sat down to dinner. He talked and behaved completely normally, as if the lapse in time during which his mind had been blank had never happened. If this could happen to him in Havana, his hometown, what might happen to him in a foreign country where nobody knows him? Over there he wouldn’t have a Francisco scouring the streets looking for him.”

“Yes, you’re right,” I agreed, now convinced that Robledo’s was a veritable case of early senile dementia. “I’ve noticed that the slaves in Havana are quite free to move about. I’d imagined it rather differently. You know, crushing work, lashes of the whip, shackles, terrible food.”

“Unfortunately, all of those things do happen, but only on the plantations. House slaves aren’t so mistreated. You won’t see foremen carrying whips in the houses. House slaves are often sent out into the street to deliver a letter or to buy or sell something. In general, they are used like servants, particularly the coach drivers like Francisco. It’s the most envied job among them. It’s not uncommon for the house slave women to take in laundry or sewing on their own account, though they give the lion’s share of their earnings to their master. Sometimes they are even allowed to go to their cabildos, which are houses where they get together to sing and dance with free negroes, gathering according to their common tongues and places of birth in Africa. Of course, it all depends on the master’s particular disposition. But nothing even similar exists on the plantations. There they do brutal work and endure cruel punishments. If a house slave steals something from the master or misbehaves, he or she will be sold through an advertisement in the newspaper or will be sent to work for a few months on the plantation. This is their greatest fear. But even within the limited parameters of the domestic world, slavery can be as low and abhorrent here as anywhere in the world. There’s nothing to stop the master, Robledo, say, and his son, should he have one, from making free use of a slave’s body, even if she’s just a little girl. What happened to Claudette happens here with equal or greater frequency than in old Saint-Domingue. It’s the same odious type of society. Here, just like there, the slave is responsible for all wealth; the slaves’ work is in everything that you can see. A truly shameful thing. It’s true that Robledo hasn’t wanted to free the slaves working in the house, but, in truth, it wouldn’t really make much sense to do so. Despite the fact that he has no more than twenty slaves, he’d be accused of belonging to some abolitionist conspiracy and run out of Havana, and that’s assuming they don’t also confiscate all his assets. Don’t forget that Cuba is a colony. The Spaniards from here are precisely the ones who’ve gotten the richest through trafficking in slaves. They’re the ones in charge. Slavery reigns on this island. No one can escape that sad reality. Wherever you are, slavery surrounds you. When I married Robledo, when I moved to Cuba, I fell into a trap from which there is no escape. Yes, I could have left him; I could have gone back to France. There’s opera and theater there and surely I could have made a living as a singing or acting teacher, at least in the provinces. But what sort of life would that be? Do I not owe him my very life? Do I not love him and feel loved by him as never before in my life? And so, I’ve become a prisoner of my own conscience. I don’t know if I’m making any sense.”

“Perfect sense,” I said dully, reproaching her, my heroine, just a bit for having accommodated her ideals to suit the interests of a slave colony. I was sympathetic to her situation with respect to Robledo, but the truth was that she allowed herself to be directly served by slaves. “I’ve been wondering . . . . Isn’t there any concern that a great rebellion like the one in Saint-Domingue might occur, or even a revolution like those in South America?”

“Ah, my dear, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Here everything revolves around those two questions, though always in sottovoce. But I’ve no head for statistics. I’ll let Robledo explain the situation to you. It’s a question of numbers. Any independent conviction you may have will be met with irrefutable numbers: so many slaves, so many whites, so many plantations, so many thousands of pesos, so many Spanish soldiers. As I said, it’s a trap. The entire business of sugar, slaves, and politics is a labyrinth that no one I know has been able to find a satisfactory way out of. May whatever is meant to happen, happen. Yes, yes, I know. You’ll think I’ve changed, and I can’t say that you’re wrong. Sometimes I don’t even recognize myself anymore. It must be the years I’ve accumulated and my love for Robledo. That, more than anything.”

Over the course of dinner on the verandah I revised my first impression of Maryse. She hadn’t changed as much as I’d supposed. Her convictions were the same as always, it was only that she’d sacrificed a part of them to her feelings for her husband. Hadn’t I gone to extremes that many would condemn when I had a child with an enemy of my country? All of a sudden I felt completely at home in her company, as if we’d gone back to the days of the Théâtre Nomade. Seeing her smile, her expression reflecting how happy my arrival had made her, I had a premonition that my stay in Cuba would be longer than I’d initially imagined. When I went up to my room, I took the rolled-up canvas of my Mujer out of its cardboard tube and spread it over the bed to have a look at her. Her military attire complemented the austerity of the room’s furnishings. She seemed quite pleased to be there.

If I stayed nearly a month in Havana it was due less to the modest attractions the city had to offer—bullfights, a circus that included equestrian numbers, a New Orleans theater company’s performance of The Caliph of Bagdad, no less—than to the dances and dinners to which I was invited. The first of these, organized, of course, by Maryse, was intended as my introduction to society. As word spread that I had studied at the University of Paris, a halo of prestige began to appear over my head. The men were all eager to shake my hand and to ask me about the treatment used in the French colonies for yellow fever, an illness that was besetting many travelers and ship’s crews on the vessels in the harbor. I would invariably offer my pat response, which seemed to amaze them: “Malignant fevers are always treated with leeches applied to the stomach and a liquid diet.” After dancing with Maryse, who made fun of me the entire minuet, I found myself surrounded by a cluster of young women in plunging necklines, their shoulders and faces white with powder, all too eager to teach me the fandango and the quadrille. Almost all of the musicians were Negroes. They played loudly and well, drawing each piece out interminably. What most fascinated me was the informality with which the members of that society, old-fashioned in so many ways, treated one another. All of them, including the counts and marquises, called one another by the most comical names I’d ever heard in Spanish, all with diminutive endings: Cuquito, Chichito, Toñito, Pepito, Lalita, Mimita, Cachita, Lupita; or else, as was the case particularly with husbands addressing their wives: mi chinita or mi negrita, or even mi viejita. By the end of the evening some people had begun using the informal form of address with me; for others, my name had changed from Doctor Faber to Don Enrique, settling at last, encouraged by Maryse, who was dying of laughter behind the unfurled peacock feathers of her fan, on Don Enriquito.

At a dinner organized by one of Havana’s great families, I met three of the most notable and well-admired people in that city: Intendant Ramírez, champion of arts and letters; Bishop Espada who, perhaps because he was among the rare survivors of yellow fever, was very interested in knowing my opinions on public health and personal hygiene; and Tomás Romay, the country’s preeminent physician and a man of liberal ideas and great erudition. Since the attendees at those dances and dinners were generally the same from one to the next, I had ample opportunity to talk with Romay. His friendship would be a great source of support for me a few years later, when all the rest of that frivolous sugar aristocracy would turn its back on me. Among his many merits was the fact that he had introduced to the island a vaccine against smallpox, which he tested on his own children in order to persuade those who were hesitant to use it. Of the many works he had published, I was familiar with those on the topics of yellow fever, the unsanitariness of slave ships, and the benefits of building cemeteries on the outskirts of towns.

Romay’s candor also afforded me an inside view on the prevailing political and economic opinions held by the educated Creoles.

“It’s a well known fact that Baron Humboldt greatly influenced Simón Bolívar’s independentist thinking,” Romay said as we strolled by the light of the moon through the jasmine-scented garden of some well-off landowner whose name I no longer remember. “But the Baron, despite his unquestionable knowledge and the fact that he actually came here for a visit, didn’t discern any major political differences between Cuba and the colonies of South America. It’s a pity that Señor Arango is away traveling. No one could better explain to you the unique characteristics of this island. Hundreds of wealthy families in Havana owe their fortunes to his astuteness, to such a degree that many compare his genius to that of Aranda or Floridablanca, although in my opinion, the latter has more in common with the English, in his calculations as much as his utilitarianism.”

“I’m thinking of staying on in Cuba for a while. Perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to meet him.”

“In any case, when Arango received the news of the great Negro rebellion and irreversible destruction of the plantations in old Saint-Domingue, he convinced the Spanish officials that Havana should fill the sugar vacuum that these events had created in the market. To that end, he secured the unhindered introduction of slaves and all manner of benefits for sugar production, including local refinement and exportation by way of ships belonging to friendly and neutral countries. But even though the proliferation of sugar plantations brought enormous wealth and triggered the general blossoming of Havana, some continue to see slavery as a problem. Please understand, when I say a ‘problem,’ I’m not referring to the immoral character of the institution, which I condemn without reservation, but rather to the fact that the increasing importation of Africans will soon create dangerous conditions on the island, conditions similar to those that provoked the disastrous revolution on Saint-Domingue; that is, a significant imbalance between the white and black populations. According to last year’s census, the number of Negros in Cuba already considerably exceeds the white population. Arango himself, the man responsible for this state of affairs, has begun to defend, in private, the idea of bringing white people into Cuba. Naturally, I am in favor of this idea, although I’m not harboring much hope.”

“It’s rumored that Bolívar plans to send a liberating expedition to Cuba. Is there any truth to it?”

“Gossip. It will never happen. If Cuba weren’t an island . . . perhaps. But we are surrounded by water, my friend. The best defense there is. And in any case, except in the minds of a few foolhardy individuals, the idea of independence won’t find fertile ground in Cuba. The situation in South America, as I was telling you, is different from our own. Here we depend entirely upon slavery and sugar, something that never happened down there. If the plantation owners, following the example of Bolívar’s revolution, decided to free their slaves so that they could fight against Spain, not only would they ruin themselves financially, but the freed slaves would join with the free Negro population in a war against whites, making no distinction between Creoles and Spaniards. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the discovery, just a few years ago, of a dangerous conspiracy of free blacks that, aided by Haiti, would have had serious ramifications for the island. Fortunately it was nipped in the bud just in time. So, you may rest assured that no plantation owner will feel inclined to initiate a war that, in addition to landing him in the poorhouse, could also cost him his head, and not only his, but those of his family and friends as well. Frankly, I don’t see it ever happening. In reality, the most certain ally that Cuba’s sugar producers have is the Spanish Crown. It’s precisely the Spanish troops, deployed in every city and town, that prevent slave rebellions. And it’s not that they haven’t happened. Every so often a particular group of slaves will rebel and kill three or four whites on their plantation, but the uprising is always suffocated before their pernicious example can contaminate a neighboring plantation. Without the presence of those Spanish troops, we’d be lost. But there’s something else: the plantations’ property lines are circular, and the land between them belongs to the King. As we say here: the King is everyone’s neighbor. His presence is as permanent as the land itself. On the other hand, the Creole landowners also depend on the powerful alliance between slave traders and businessmen; the former supply the manpower essential for the growth of their sugarcane and coffee crops; the latter, the loans needed in order to buy provisions and machinery from abroad. This formidable group, which even our intendants and governors fear, is comprised almost exclusively of Spaniards. As you can see, Doctor Faber, we Creoles simply lack the strength to separate from Spain. Like it or not, the King’s throne is firmly planted on our island.”

“You’ve painted a truly hopeless portrait of your situation. And yet, I still think that once South America is liberated it will become very difficult for Spain to prolong its dominion over Cuba.”

“You’re mistaken, my dear friend. The solution to our political situation shall not be found in Cuba or in the hypothetical independence of the South American colonies; the solution lies in Spain itself. It is crucial that the liberals triumph there, decisively and definitively. Only then will the Constitution of 1812 be reinstated, giving us a chance at autonomy: a local Government with a permanent delegation to the Spanish court, free press, secularization of university education, roads, canals, ports, schools, laws favorable to us. Once the situation here changes, Cuba will honor its treaty with England to the letter and slavery will gradually disappear. This would be the best-case scenario for us.”

I took my leave from the good doctor under the impression that it would be nearly impossible for his political opinions, instilled in him by the radically unequal society into which he’d been born, to escape his well-intentioned fatalism. Perhaps, as Maryse had so astutely observed, Cuba’s moment in history had not yet arrived.

In a little convoy comprised of Robledo’s calash, Maryse’s quitrín hitched with an extra horse, two saddle horses and two pack mules, we left the walled confines of Havana behind. Along the way we were accompanied by many peasants—called, in accordance with subtle differences, guajiros, monteros, or sitieros—who were returning to the countryside with their strings of pack animals after having delivered their goods, before dawn, to the markets in the city. In the place of frock coats, which not one of them used, they wore blue-striped shirts that hung down, smock-like, over a similar style of pants; they wore hats woven from a fiber called yarey, kerchiefs around their necks, and shoes of yellow leather. They were scraggly-looking men with sun-worn faces. Their horses were of a small but lively breed; they walked with a quick, short gait, so sure-footed that some of their riders dozed in their saddles. We passed through several villages, really just tiny hamlets with a few rough stonemasonry houses clustered around a square. The most common type of dwelling was the bohío, a kind of hut with an earthen floor and peaked roof made from tightly bundled dry palm fronds. This humble sight contrasted with the entrancing landscape of the countryside, with its abundance of small brooks, gentle, tree-covered hills, and the green of palm trees, cornfields, banana groves and dense cane fields that stretched out along both sides of the road, from which the chimneys and rooftops of the sugar mills appeared like tiny islands.

After spending the night in a village popular with city folk for its medicinal spring waters, we arrived at a place called Caimito, which is also the name of a purple-fleshed fruit. There, while Maryse and the carriages continued along the main road, Robledo and I followed a path that led up into some mountains of white rock. From that height, facing north, we could see the ocean, Havana off to the right, and to the left, an impressive mountain range that stretched, palely blue, toward the west, finally disappearing into a fog that seemed to emanate from its own peaks. Extending his arm, Robledo indicated Mariel bay and pointed out the sugar mills that surrounded the small town. We dismounted and drank rum from his silver owl flask. At my friend’s insistence (“In Cuba, all men, and not a few women, smoke; people would think it strange if you didn’t”), I lit a cigar, and tried, amid choking gasps and bouts of dizziness, to follow Robledo’s instructions on how to savor and exhale the strong and aromatic smoke. We rejoined Maryse in a village near the foot of the mountain, where a delicious suckling pig awaited us, prepared in the rustic style of the countryside (roasted in a hole dug in the ground over a grill made from green branches). We ate so much that we decided to spend the night there.

Starting out again early the following morning, we entered the intense natural world of a region called Vuelta Abajo, a land of gorgeous accidents and intricate virginal vegetation; a kind of Eden furrowed by deep paths and rocky streams, the banks of which were overgrown with watercress, pomarrosa, and bamboo, which the locals called caña brava; we passed through gorges whose rock faces were riddled with caves, shrubs, and creepers growing straight out of the limestone walls; we descended into hidden glades, upholstered in ferns, liana, and flowers I’d never seen before, about which fluttered butterflies of the most extraordinary colors and birds that Robledo recognized immediately: “That’s a mockingbird, it has a long and beautiful call and distinct mannerisms. That’s a tomeguín, a kind of finch that also sings. Look at those parrots, they’re the same type as the one I have in Havana. We call those little ones bijiritas, and those over there, black as crows, are totíes.” We entered forests in which, unlike in Europe, so many different types of trees grew that they looked like authentic botanical gardens: “Cedar, pine, trumpetwood,” said Robledo, ticking off names: “Guásima, yagruma, mahogany, majagua, paraíso, quebracho, ceiba, and the palm, always the palm.”

We decided to spend the night in a rustic inn in a tiny mountain village, Maryse in high spirits because Robledo’s memory had not faltered even once since we’d left Havana.

“It must be the country air,” I offered, to say something.

“I think it’s his desire to show you all the wonders of his country. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, he’s quite proud of them,” said Maryse. “Oh, if he would only get better! Then the three of us could go on that trip. I’ve wanted to take a trip around the world for years: Veracruz, Acapulco, cross the ocean, Manila, Canton, Bangkok, Singapore, Rangoon, Madras, Bombay. . . . I’ve learned all these name from travel memoirs. I have it all planned out. I’d love to see those ancient Buddhist temples up close, and of course, in Arabia we’d travel by caravan to the Nile, and then we’d go to Cairo to see the pyramids and the sphinx. We’d have to go to Jerusalem, obviously, and to Damascus and Bagdad and Istanbul and Samarkand, don’t you think that Samarkand is a fascinating name? Sa . . . mar . . . kand, it sounds like an exotic fruit. But I’ve forgotten about Greece and Japan, and, well, there are the islands of Captain Cook and Monsieur de Bougainville. Yes, my love, I have it all planned out. I’ve wanted to see those places since I was a little girl, and then the operas, as you know, many of them take place outside of Europe,” she added with the dreamy enthusiasm of other days. “Be honest with me: do you think that Robledo will ever go back to how he was before?”

“No one can ever go back to who they once were,” I said cautiously. “Perhaps his disease won’t advance, or will progress slowly. His current state is not hopeless.”

“Tell me the truth, Henriette,” she pressed. “I’ve faced worse things in my life.”

“The truth is that he suffers from an erosion in his brain, something that usually occurs in people of very advanced age,” I said frankly. “We occasionally see it in people of Robledo’s age, and even younger, although that is extremely rare. It’s possible that the damage began with an inflammatory fever, but the workings of the human body remain a mystery. Sometimes our organs heal themselves. In any case, when we get back to Havana I’ll treat him with leeches and prescribe a special diet for him. His memory has been clear these past several days. That’s a good sign. Perhaps, as I said, the country air does him some good. It seems to me that it would be an excellent idea for us to spend some time at his house in El Cuzco.”

But we wouldn’t make it to the mountains of El Cuzco, which we could already make out in the distance. Maryse’s panicked voice drove me out of my cot at seven in the morning. At dawn, while she slept, Robledo had left the inn. According to the guajiro who saw him leave, he’d gone off on foot by way of the same road we’d been traveling. We all went in search of him. We found him sitting on the banks of a little stream, sunk in a deep stupor, his bare feet in the water and his pockets filled with flowers. Bees had stung his right hand. He allowed us to lead him back to the inn like a child and, once there, I used my smallest pincers to remove the stingers from his hand. At noon, while Maryse helped him to drink some broth, he came to his senses, buried his head in his arms and cried silently, ashamed. A short time later, after he’d recuperated a bit, Robledo himself decided that we should return to Havana.

Cuban apothecaries were prohibited from selling leeches to anyone not a doctor and, as the druggist didn’t recognize me, I had to go back to the house to look for my diploma.

“Here it is,” I told him, spreading the parchment over the countertop.

“I’m very sorry sir. This isn’t valid here,” he said after reading it closely.

“What do you mean it isn’t valid? It’s a diploma from the University of Paris,” I protested.

“I don’t doubt it, but in Cuba foreign doctors are forbidden from practicing without the authorization of the Protomedicato.”

“The Protomedicato?”

“Well, yes. It’s a tribunal of doctors.”

Suddenly I remembered that among the papers Maryse had sent me in Paris was information about medical instruction in Cuba and the Protomedicato. The apothecary told me that I would have to pass two exams, one in surgery and the other in medicine. “But it would be best for you to inquire yourself,” he added.

When I returned in a foul mood and without leeches, Maryse guessed what had happened.

“It doesn’t surprise me a bit, my love. We used to complain about the French bureaucracy, but here it’s ten times worse. In order to resolve any public matter, no matter how minor it may be, one’s petition has to pass through the hands of at least four or five pen pushers, each of whom orders further investigations or asks you to submit letters of recommendation or declarations of good conduct signed by your neighbors, or copies of your birth certificate, or an inventory of your assets or your marriage license. You’re in the city of red tape, signatures, and rubber stamps. And how those miserable little bureaucrats put on airs! They’re the earls of the inkwell, the marquis of the escritoire. Forget it, they’re a herd of asses! Don’t worry, I’ll speak with Doctor Romay about the leeches.”

I treated Robledo for three weeks. Fruitlessly. He docilely accepted the liquid diet I prescribed, but, seeing how quickly he was losing weight and that his health was not improving, I discontinued it.

“I can’t do anything for him,” I told Maryse sorrowfully. “I think the deterioration of his brain is irreversible. You should speak with Doctor Romay.”

“I already have,” she sighed. “He believes there’s no cure for his disease. He says there are several cases like Robledo’s in the Insane Asylum. Oh, Henriette, such a strong and kind-hearted man! He’s given me everything! Who could ever have thought that he’d end up mad? Do you remember when we met him in the roulette room?” she said, starting to sob. “How striking he was with his mane of hair and his pearl, all in black. The number nine. I was instantly captivated by him. Do you remember? A madman, my God! How can it be possible? Tell me the truth: will he die soon?”

“No. Or, I should say, not because of his dementia. He’ll get worse bit by bit. I’ve seen advanced cases in the Salpêtrière. The time comes when they are no longer aware of their own disease. They don’t suffer,” I said, hoping to console her at least a bit. “They burn out slowly like a wax candle. He could well outlive you.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought of what Maryse had said during our ride along the Prado in the quitrín. Why was it that certain people, like she and I, were destined to lose the ones we loved the most? Would my life continue down that same path? I’d traveled to Havana in order to leave my sadness behind and now, instead of feeling happy and at peace within myself, I felt despondent and nerve-wracked by Robledo and Maryse’s misfortune. My head began to hurt terribly and I closed my eyes, resigned to the many sleepless hours ahead. Suddenly, from somewhere beyond my closed eyelids, appeared the resplendent face of Fairy Godmother. I was back in her forest clearing, stretched out on the grass, the autumn leaves falling slowly all around me.

“I can’t help my friends, Fairy Godmother. I feel as hard and bitter as a green apple.”

“That’s why you are here,” she said, sitting down next me. She was naked and as big as any full-grown woman. I had never seen her that size. Seeing my admiring gaze, she coquettishly unfolded her wings, now so large they nearly filled the clearing.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. My medical knowledge is useless and I feel terrible.”

“Don’t talk like that. Medicine is not my strong suit, but I know that you have healed many people.”

“How do you know that? I don’t remember speaking to you about it.”

“In dreams, Henriette. Sometimes, when you’re asleep, you come to visit me.”

“I’ve been thinking that Maryse and I will never be happy. Just when we start to be, something terrible always happens.”

“I know. I’ve heard your complaints. The only thing I can tell you is that things are as they are. Do not complicate the world any more than it already is.”

“I need your help, Fairy Godmother.”

“I’ve already given it to you. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the golden key?”

“You said I should use it to open my own door.”

“That’s right.”

“And have I done it?”

“Of course you have. Thanks to the key you went to Paris to study. Thanks to the key you’ve come to Cuba.”

“And now I’ve nowhere to go. It frightens me to see my friends suffer. It’s like suffering myself. I don’t want to stay, but where am I to go?”

“Suffering is not so bad as you think. One learns a great deal.”

“I’m tired of suffering, Fairy Godmother.”

“Well then, you could always turn yourself inside out. You know, as though you were a glove.”

“What do you mean?” I asked and, looking in her eyes, I felt myself moving deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest, as though a path that only I could traverse were opening up in the dense thicket.

“I mean that if you keep all of your suffering trapped inside yourself, you’ll choke on it. But if you turn yourself inside out, the suffering will be on the outside. It’s the same with love. You no longer even think of Bousquet. Do you know why? You choked yourself on loving him in secret. But the ones to whom you gave everything, those are the ones who will live in your heart forever. To love is to surrender oneself. To suffer is to surrender oneself. You must turn yourself inside out. Otherwise, you’ll choke yourself, and your sorrow will become guilt and your love will turn into fantasy.”

“Are you insinuating that I should stay with my friends and surrender up the suffering I feel for them?”

“I’m not insinuating anything.”

“Sometimes it’s not so easy to talk with you, Fairy Godmother.”

“The things you come up with! It’s the same as talking to yourself. But now you must leave me. It’s time for you to go back to your bed. I have an appointment with a little girl who fell off her horse and has been left crippled. She should be arriving any minute. She’s already begun to dream.”

“Goodbye, Fairy Godmother. You have no idea how much I love you.”

“I love you too,” I just heard, as I shot out of the clearing and flew toward the brilliant flash of a lightning bolt.

It turned out to be much easier than I’d imagined. I found two bottles of rum and knocked on the door to Maryse and Robledo’s huge bedchamber, in the other wing of the house. They greeted me in their nightshirts and I told them that I couldn’t sleep and had come to drink with them, a proposition they welcomed without hesitation. The bottles and glasses arranged on the bedside table, we immediately began to reminisce about the night of the phallus when, gathered in my room in the guesthouse in Fulda, I’d had my first taste of rum, Maryse trying to convince me not to accuse Vincenzo, Robledo taking her side and appealing to me to take pity on those without the good fortune of being beautiful, untying the ribbon that bound his magnificent mane of hair, telling us of his worldly adventures in the islands of pearls, me talking with unaccustomed ease about my Mameluke disguise, my days in Austerlitz, and the explosive campaigns in Prussia, Vienna, Berlin, and Warsaw, although not about the dark days in Pultusk, and the glasses of rum filling and emptying, and Maryse remembering the grand theater at the Palais Royal and the salon in Talma and the learned conversations with Señor Olavide, though she did not mention Justine or Portelace, and Robledo describing the various buildings on his plantation, the process by which sugarcane was converted into juice, the juice into molasses, the molasses into sugar, though he said nothing of his previous life as a married man, or of the cause of death of his first wife, all of us showing joy on our faces and hiding the black ribbon of our mourning, and the glasses of rum filling and emptying, and Maryse, putting up almost no resistance, singing, a capella, an aria by Gréty, followed by renditions of the latest popular songs in Havana, El Caramelo, and Tata, ven acá, both well-received on stage at the Teatro Principal, and then, keeping my words light, as if in passing, I broached the subject of Robledo’s illness, yes, senile dementia with all its symptoms, down to the last detail, what we should and should not expect, always speaking in the first person plural, as if we were all suffering from the disease, Robledo quite agreeable, shrugging his shoulders as if the topic didn’t concern him, saying, “What can you do, we all have to die of something,” and the glasses of rum filling and emptying, and me replying, “There’s no reason for us to be too down about it, we still have many months ahead of us, we have years yet, if you ask me,” and Maryse thanking me for including myself in that plural with an appreciative look, and me ratifying my pledge to them with kisses on both their cheeks, and the glasses of rum filling and emptying, and Robledo drawing me and Maryse to his side, assuring us he’d bring us up to date on his beet sugar and steamship concerns, excellent businesses, he insisted, we wouldn’t lack for money, and he thought it perhaps best to make his condition public, that way he’d feel more comfortable, not having to feign a perfect state of health, and Maryse responding that there was no reason to go overboard and announce his illness to the newspapers, for example, and me agreeing with Robledo’s proposal that we invite all his friends to a grand banquet, “and, at midnight, I’ll take the floor and explain the circumstances in which I find myself,” and Maryse conceding with a gesture of resignation, “Just so long as you don’t mention the name of your illness, because you’re neither demented nor old,” and me suggesting a new name, something like amnesia fever, “a recurrent fever like malaria,” and Maryse saying that she disliked the word “fever,” but that “recurrent” wasn’t bad, although, on second thought, we ought to come up with some exotic cause, perhaps a slowly progressing illness that he’d contracted in China or in the Pacific Isles, and Robledo enjoying himself immensely, the glasses of rum filling and emptying, and me in favor of not offering too many details, Pinel Disease, for example, “named for a famous Parisian doctor who specialized in disorders of the mind,” and, after agreeing with me, Robledo commencing to repeat the word “pearl” twenty or thirty times, standing up from his chair, his face smooth with the bliss that sometimes accompanies madness, and wandering about the room looking for something, something that he wouldn’t find and that wasn’t inside the armoire or in the dresser drawers or under the bed or beneath his wig or inside one of his shoes, and Maryse emptying the last of the bottle into his glass and approaching him, “Here, my sweet baldy,” putting the glass in his hand and raising his elbow until the rim brushed against his lips, and Robledo beginning to drink in tiny sips, holding the rum in his mouth until I instructed him to swallow it, and, the rum finished, allowing himself to be led to bed, where we all flopped down together, drunk in each other’s arms, thinking that we could manage because things weren’t really that bad. But we were mistaken.