Tag: G. Cabrera Infante

“The Hatchet Job” by José Lezama Lima, from The Death of Trotsky as Described by Various Cuban Writers, Several Years After the Event—or Before | From G. Cabrera Infante’s Novel Three Trapped Tigers

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A chapter from Three Trapped Tigers

by G. Cabrera Infante

translated by Donald Gardner and Suzanne Jill Levine with collaboration by Infante

THE DEATH OF TROTSKY AS DESCRIBED BY VARIOUS CUBAN WRITERS, SEVERAL YEARS AFTER THE EVENT—OR BEFORE

THE HATCHET JOB

Legend has it that the stranger didn’t ask where he might eat or drink, but only where he could find the house with the adobe wall around it; and that, without so much as shaking the dust of his journey off both his feet, he made for his destination, which was the last retreat of Leon Son-of-David Bronstein: the prophet of that new-time religion who was to become the eponymous founder of its first heresy: messiah, apostle and heretic in one. The traveler, one Jacob Mornard, warped and twisted, and accompanied only by his seafaring hatred, had finally arrived in the notorious sanctuary of the Exile whose family name means stone of bronze and whose frank, fiery features were those of a rebellious rabbi. Furthermore, the old man was distinguished by his haughty and farsighted gaze underneath his horn-rimmed glasses; his oratorical gestures—like those of the men of the Greek agora not of the Hebrew agora; his woolly and knitted brows; and his sonorous voice, which usually reveals to ordinary mortals those whom the Fates have destined, from the cradle, to profound eloquences: all this and his goatee gave the New Wandering Jew a biblical countenance.

As for the future magnicide: his troubled appearance and the awkward gait of the born dissident were sketches of a murderous character which would never, in the dialectic mind of the assassinated Sadducee, find completion to cast, in the historical mold of a Cassius or even a Brutus, the low relief of an infamous persona.

Soon they were master and disciple; and while the noble and hospitable expatriate forgot his worries and afflictions, and allowed affection to blaze a trail of warmth in a heart that had anciently been frozen with reserve, his felonious follower seemed to carry in the stead of a heart something empty and nocturnal, a black void in which the slow, sinister and tenacious fetus of the most ignoble treachery was able to take roots and strike. Or perhaps, perchance it was a mean cunning that looked for revenge; because they say that at the back of his eyes he always carried a secret resentment against that man whom, with faultless subterfuge, he was in the habit of calling Master, using the capital letter that is reserved only for total obedience.

On occasions they could be seen together and although the good Lev Davidovich—we can call him that now, I suspect, even if in his lifetime he concealed with an initial this middle name that spelled yarmulke, and carried false credentials—took extreme precautions—because there were not lacking, as in the previous Roman tragedy, evil omens, the revelatory imagery of premonitions, or the ever-present habit of foreboding—he always granted audience in solitude to the taciturnal visitor, who was at times, as on the day of misfortune, both adviser and supplicant. This crimson Judas carried in his pale hands the manuscript in which his treachery was patently written with invisible ink; and over his thin blueish and trembling body he wore a Macfarlane, which would, to any eye more given to conjecture and suspicion, have given him away on that suffocatingly hot Mexican evening: distrust was not the strong point of the Russian rebel: nor systematic doubt: nor ill will a force of habit: underneath the coat the crafty assailant carried a treacherous hoof-parer: the magnicidal adze: an ice pick: and under the ax was his soul of guided emissary of the new Czar of Russia.

The trusting heresiarch was glancing attentively over the pretended scriptures, when the hatchet man of the Party delivered his treacherous blow and the steely shaft bit deep into that most noble head.

A cry resounded through the cloistered precincts and the sbirri (Haití had refused to send her eloquent Negroes) ran there in great haste and eager to convert the assassin into a prisoner. The magnanimous Marxian still had time to advise: “Thou shalt not kill,” and his inflamed followers did not hesitate to respect his instructions to the hilt.

Forty-eight hours of hopes, tears and vigil the formidable agony of that luminous leader lasted, dying as he had lived: in struggle. Life and a political career were no longer his: in their stead glory and historical eternity belonged to him.

José Lezama Lima

(1912-1965)

“The Story of a Stick (With Some Additional Comments by Mrs. Campbell),” a chapter from Three Trapped Tigers by G. Cabrera Infante

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“The Story of a Stick (With Some Additional Comments by Mrs. Campbell)”

a chapter from Three Trapped Tigers

by G. Cabrera Infante

translated by Donald Gardner and Suzanne Jill Levine with collaboration by Infante

The Story

We arrived in Havana one Friday around three in the afternoon. The heat was oppressive. There was a low ceiling of dense gray, or blackish, clouds. As the boat entered the harbor the breeze that had cooled us off during the crossing suddenly died down. My leg was bothering me again and it was very painful going down the gangplank. Mrs. Campbell followed behind me talking the whole damned time and she found everything, but everything, enchanting: the enchanting little city, the enchanting bay, the enchanting avenue facing the enchanting dock. All I knew was that there was a humidity of 90 or 95 percent and that I was sure my leg was going to bother me the whole weekend. It was, of course, Mrs. Campbell’s brilliant idea to come to such a hot and humid island. I told her so as soon as I was on deck and saw the ceiling of rain clouds over the city. She protested, saying they had sworn to her in the travel agency that it was always, but always, spring in Cuba. Spring my aching foot! We were in the Torrid Zone. That’s what I told her and she answered, “Honey, this is the tropics!”

On the edge of the dock there was this group of enchanting natives playing a guitar and rattling some gourds and shouting infernal noises, the sort of thing that passes for music here. In the background, behind this aboriginal orchestra, there was an open-air tent where they sold the many fruits of the tropical tree of tourism: castanets, brightly painted fans, wooden rattlers, musical sticks, shell necklaces, earthenware pots, hats made of a brittle yellow straw and stuff like that. Mrs. Campbell bought one or two articles of every kind. She was simply enchanted. I told her she should wait till the day we left before making purchases. “Honey,” she said, “they are souvenirs.” She didn’t understand that souvenirs are what you buy when you leave a country. Nor was there any point in explaining. Luckily they were very quick in Customs, which was surprising. They were also very friendly, although they did lay it on a bit thick, if you know what I mean.

I regretted not bringing the car. What’s the point of going by ferry if you don’t take a car? But Mrs. Campbell thought we would waste too much time learning foreign traffic regulations. Actually she was afraid we would have another accident. Now there was one more argument she could throw in for good measure. “Honey, with your leg in this state you simply cannot drive,” she said. “Let’s get a cab.”

We waved down a taxi and a group of natives—more than we needed—helped us with our suitcases. Mrs. Campbell was enchanted by the proverbial Latin courtesy. It was useless to tell her that it was a courtesy you also pay for through your proverbial nose. She would always find them wonderful, even before we landed she knew everything would be just wonderful. When all our baggage and the thousand and one other things Mrs. Campbell had just bought were in the taxi, I helped her in, closed the door in keen competition with the driver and went around to the o
ther door because I could get in there more easily. As a rule I get in first and then Mrs. Campbell gets in, because it’s easier for her that way, but this impractical gesture of courtesy which delighted Mrs. Campbell and which she found “very Latin” gave me the chance to make a mistake I will never forget. It was then that I saw the walking stick.

It wasn’t an ordinary walking stick and this alone should have convinced me not to buy it. It was flashy, meticulously carved and expensive. It’s true that it was made of a rare wood that looked like ebony or something of that sort and that it had been worked with lavish care—exquisite, Mrs. Campbell called it—and translated into dollars it wasn’t really that expensive. All around it there were grotesque carvings of nothing in particular. The stick had a handle shaped like the head of a Negro, male or female—you can never tell with artists—with very ugly features. The whole effect was repulsive. However, I was tempted by it even though I have no taste for knickknacks and I think I would have bought it even if my leg hadn’t been hurting. (Perhaps Mrs. Campbell, when she noticed my curiosity, would have pushed me into buying it.) Needless to say Mrs. Campbell found it beautiful and original and—I have to take a deep breath before I say it—exciting. Women, good God!

We got to the hotel and checked in, congratulating ourselves that our reservations were in order, and went up to our room and took a shower. Ordered a snack from room service and lay down to take a siesta—when in Rome, etc. . . . No, it’s just that it was too hot and there was too much sun and noise outside, and our room was very clean and comfortable and cool, almost cold, with the air-conditioning. It was a good hotel. It’s true it was expensive, but it was worth it. If the Cubans have learned something from us it’s a feeling for comfort and the Nacional is a very comfortable hotel, and what’s even better, it’s efficient. When we woke up it was already dark and we went out to tour the neighborhood.

Outside the hotel we found a cab driver who offered to be our guide. He said his name was Raymond something and showed us a faded and dirty ID card to prove it. Then he took us around that stretch of street Cubans call La Rampa, with its shops and neon signs and people walking every which way. It wasn’t too bad. We wanted to see the Tropicana, which is advertised everywhere as “the most fabulous cabaret in the world,” and Mrs. Campbell had made the journey almost especially to go there. To kill time we went to see a movie we wanted to see in Miami and missed. The theater was near the hotel and it was new and air-conditioned.

We went back to the hotel and changed. Mrs. Campbell insisted I wear my tuxedo. She was going to put on an evening gown. As we were leaving, my leg started hurting again—probably because of the cold air in the theater and the hotel—and I took my walking stick. Mrs. Campbell made no objection. On the contrary, she seemed to find it funny.

The Tropicana is in a place on the outskirts of town. It is a cabaret almost in the jungle. It has gardens full of trees and climbing plants and fountains and colored lights along all the road leading to it. The cabaret has every right to advertise itself as fabulous physically, but the show consists—like all Latin cabarets, I guess—of half-naked women dancing rumbas and singers shouting their stupid songs and crooners in the style of Bing Crosby, but in Spanish. The national drink of Cuba is the daiquiri, a sort of cocktail with ice and rum, which is very good because it is so hot in Cuba—in the street I mean, because the cabaret had the “typical Cuban air-conditioning” as they call it, which means the North Pole encapsuled in a tropical saloon. There’s a twin cabaret in the open air but it wasn’t functioning that night because they were expecting rain. The Cubans proved good meteorologists. We’d only just begun to eat one of those meals they call international cuisine in Cuba, which consist of things that are too salty or full of fat or fried in oil which they follow with a dessert that is much too sweet, when a shower started pouring down with a greater noise than one of those typical bands at full blast. I say this to give some idea of the violence of the rainfall as there are very few things that make more noise than a Cuban band. For Mrs. Campbell this was the high point of sophisticated savagery: the rain, the music, the food, and she was simply enchanted. Everything would have been fine—or at any rate passable; when we switched to drinking whiskey and soda I began to feel almost at home—but for the fact that this stupid maricón of an emcee of the cabaret, not content with introducing the show to the public, started introducing the public to the show, and it even occurred to this fellow to ask our names—I mean all the Americans who were there—and he started introducing us in some godawful travesty of the English language. Not only did he mix me up with the soup people, which is a common enough mistake and one that doesn’t bother me anymore, but he also introduced me as an international playboy. Mrs. Campbell, of course, was on the verge of ecstasy! Continue reading ““The Story of a Stick (With Some Additional Comments by Mrs. Campbell),” a chapter from Three Trapped Tigers by G. Cabrera Infante” →

“Fifth Session,” a chapter from G. Cabrera Infante’s novel Three Trapped Tigers

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“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.

Mass-market Monday | Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Three Trapped Tigers

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Three Trapped Tigers, G. Cabrera Infante. Translated by Donald Gardner and Suzanne Jill Levine with Guillermo Cabrera Infante. Avon Bard (1985). No cover artist or designer credited. 473 pages.

A busy buzzy book honking and howling and hooting, I am loving loving loving Three Trapped Tigers—it sings and shouts and hollers. The novel starts with a  polyglossic emcee announcing the parade of honorable horribles who will strut through the novel (if it is indeed a “novel”). Very funny, very engrossing, grand stuff, love it.

Here’s Salman Rushdie, reviewing the novel in the LRB back in 1981 (he’s just fumbled around answering “What is this crazy book actually about?”:

So much for the plot. (Warning: this review is about to go out of control.) What actually matters in Three Trapped Tigers is words, language, literature, words. Take the title. Originally, in the Cuban, they were three sad tigers, Tres tristes tigres, the beginning of a tongue-twister. For Cabrera, phonetics always come before meaning (correction: meaning is to be found in phonetic associations), and so the English title twists the sense in order to continue twisting the tongue. Very right and improper. Then there is the matter of the huge number of other writers whose influence must be acknowledged: Cabrera Infante calls them, reverently, Fuckner and Shame’s Choice. (He is less kind to Stephen Spent and Green Grams, who wrote, as of course you know, Travels with my Cant.) Which brings us to the novel’s most significant character, a sort of genius at torturing language called Bustrofedon, who scarcely appears in the story at all, of whom we first hear when he’s dying, but who largely dominates the thoughts of all the Silvestres and Arsenios and Codacs he leaves behind him. This Bustromaniac (who is keen on the bustrofication of words) gives us the Death of Trotsky as described by seven Cuban writers – a set of parodies whose point is that all the writers described are so pickled in Literature that they can’t take up their pens without trying to wow us with their erudition. Three Trapped Tigers, like Bustrofedon’s whole life, is dedicated to a full frontal assault on the notion of Literature as Art. It gives us nonsense verses, a black page, a page which says nothing but blen blen blen, a page which has to be read in the mirror: Sterne stuff. But it also gives us Bustrolists of ‘words that read differently in the mirror’: Live/evil, drab/bard, Dog/God; and the Confessions of a Cuban Opinion Eater; and How to kill an elephant: aboriginal method ... the reviewer is beginning to cackle hysterically at this point, and has decided to present his opinion in the form of puns, thus: ‘The Havana night may be dark and full of Zorro’s but Joyce cometh in the morning.’ Or: ‘Despite the myriad influences, Cabrera Infante certainly paddles his own Queneau.’