“Fifth session”
a chapter from Three Trapped Tigers
by G. Cabrera Infante
translated by Donald Gardner and Suzanne Jill Levine with collaboration by Infante
I remember when I was my husband’s fiancée. No, I’m lying, I wasn’t engaged yet, but he used to come and invite me out to the movies or take a walk and the day came when he invited me home to meet his family. It was Christmas Eve and it was already late, about eight o’clock, when he came to pick me up, and I was already beginning to think he wouldn’t come and everybody in the building rushed to their balconies to see us and my mother didn’t go to the balcony, because she knew they were all looking and she was very proud of me because my fiancé was rich and because he’d come to pick me up in a convertible to take me to dinner in his home and she told me, “Everybody in the neighborhood has seen him, child. He’ll have to marry you now. See that you don’t disappoint us” and I remember how disgusted I felt with my mother. It was Christmas Eve but it was very hot and I felt very distracted because I had put on the only presentable dress I had, a very summery one, and to show I had put it on for a purpose I said to my fiancé as soon as I got to the car, “It’s really hot, Ricardo,” and he said, “Yes, extremely. Would you like the top down?” He was very considerate and courteous and so kind.
When we got to his house I felt very good, because everyone was dressed informally, although the house was a very snazzy one in the Country Club and his father was delighted to have me and wanted to teach me to play golf the next day and we decided to eat in the garden though we drank our cocktails indoors. I felt very good with Arturo too, that’s Ricardo’s brother who was studying medicine, and with their mother who was very young and beautiful, a bit like a Cuban Myrna Loy, very distinguished-looking, and with Ricardo’s father who was tall and handsome and never stopped looking at me the whole evening. I had had a little to drink and we were sitting in the living room, talking and waiting for the turkey to be golden roasted, and Ricardo’s father invited me to go on a tour of the kitchen. I remember I didn’t feel well and that Ricardo’s father gripped me tightly by the arm as we went to the kitchen and as the house was half in darkness because of the Christmas tree the brilliant, almost white, light of the kitchen bothered me. I went and looked at the turkey and then I saw the girl who had brought us our drinks and who helped the chef (they were very rich and had a chef instead of a woman to cook for them) and then I saw she wasn’t old and I remembered that Ricardo’s mother had said something about her not being very experienced and I saw her in the light of the kitchen, as she was moving between the table and the sink and the refrigerator with the salads and she never once looked at us and I thought that her face was familiar and I saw that she was quite young and it was then that I realized she was a girl who had been at school with me in my pueblo before I came with my family to Havana and whom I hadn’t seen for ten years. She was so old, doctor, so worn out and she was the same age as me, exactly the same age and we had played together when we were girls and we were very good friends and both of us had a crush on Jorge Negrete and Gregory Peck and we used to sit out at night on the steps of my house and make plans for when we were grown up and I felt so uncomfortable that I couldn’t say hello to her, because it would make her feel so bad, and I had to leave the kitchen. Then, when I was in the living room again, I just about went back to the kitchen to say hello, because I thought I hadn’t said hello to her because I was afraid Ricardo’s family would see that I was from the country and had been very poor. But I didn’t go.
The meal took a very long time coming, I don’t know how long: something had happened to the turkey and we went on drinking and then Ricardo’s brother wanted to show me all around the house and first of all I went to see Ricardo’s room and then his brother’s room and I don’t know why but I went into the bathroom and the curtain of the shower was drawn and Ricardo’s brother said, “Don’t look,” and I was so curious I opened the curtain and looked and there in the shower, drenched in dirty water, was a skeleton that still had bits of flesh on it, a human skeleton, and Ricardo’s brother said, “I’m cleaning it!” I don’t know how I managed to get out of the bathroom nor how I went down the stairs nor how I managed to sit at the table in the patio to eat. All I remember is that Ricardo’s brother took me by the hand and kissed me and I kissed him and then he helped me across the dark room.
In the patio everything was very pretty, very green because of the lawn and beautifully lit up and the table was very well arranged with a very expensive tablecloth and they served me first because Ricardo’s mother insisted on it. And what I did was to look at the meat, the pieces of turkey, very well cooked, almost burnt-looking in the brown gravy, and put my knife and fork across my plate, lower my hands and start crying. I spoiled their Christmas for them, these people who were so kind and friendly, and I returned home worn out and so sad and quiet that not even my mother heard me come in.
Biblioklept 