Teresa Dovalpage

A Virgin for Cachita

Martin poured milk in his cup of coffee and kept adding it until the mix became the same color as Cachita's skin, a light brown hue. The Chimayó café where he and Joe had stopped for tamales vanished. He saw only Cachita's smooth face and heard her Cuban-accented voice asking for an image of the Virgin Mary, "a really pretty one." After his return from Havana, Martin had seen an assortment of plastic and clay statuettes at several Old Town stores but they all came across tacky and amateurish. He wanted to get Cachita the best.

"What's going on?" Joe asked. "Nothing," Martin answered. "I was just thinking of Cachita." "Man, if there is a moment when you aren't thinking of Cacheeta, let me know." "Cachita," Martin corrected him. "She could easily be my daughter," he added. "I'm not planning to marry her, of course. That would be foolish." "You might as well do it. You're obsessed with her."

Martin savored his espresso. Its aroma brought back to mind the first cup of coffee he had had at Cachita's home. He remembered the short and curly hairs floating in the dark surface and smiled. Joe shook his head and ordered a couple of beers.

They had gone to the sanctuary looking for a statuette. Chimayó was the perfect place to find a good, original piece representing the virgin. Joe, who lived close to the town, had volunteered to get one but Martin didn't trust his taste. Joe was a retired surfer and, presently, a part-time baseball coach. What would he know about virgins? Martin preferred to choose one himself.

The tamales arrived. They were smothered in red chile and came accompanied by a bowl of soup and a chilled Corona. Joe started flirting with the perky Mexican waitress. He did it with such cleverness that made Martin jealous. Thin, pale and bespectacled, Martin was so conscious of his shyness that he didn't even have one pick up line of his own. At the university, where he taught Caribbean literature, he avoided meeting eyes with his female students. He didn't know how to dance. Unlike most of his Spanish-speaking colleagues, he had never visited The Cooperage, the best-known Latino nightclub and restaurant in the city.

How, then, had he won the heart of a young, pretty Cubanita? He would have told Joe, but his friend wasn't interested in listening to the story for the tenth time. While dipping a chunk of bread into the soup, Martin evoked again his recent trip to Havana. Like tamales in chile, his memories were wrapped in a piquant sauce.

It all started when Martin heard of The Santos' Book of Advice, a manuscript about the orishas - Afro-Cuban saints– allegedly written by the deceased scholar Fernando Ortiz and never published. Martin was writing an article about Santería when he conceived the idea of traveling to Cuba and looking for the manuscript. Though he doubted he could find it during his one-week trip to the island, he still wanted to visit the rural boroughs portrayed in nineteenth-century Cuban novels –the primary texts of a class that he had taught for years. He could tour the ingenios –the sugarcane plantations– and stroll around Jesús del Monte Avenue, a Havana street celebrated in verses by a renown Cuban poet. He could visit the Colonial Art Museum, the Taíno Town and the National Library...

Besides, he was curious to see what life was like in a communist country. The people there, he thought, were probably less selfish and consumerist than his mall-crowding, crap-buying fellow citizens. He soon arranged a tight schedule with a University of Havana professor, Gerardo Juan, who offered to be his guide.

During his first Cuban afternoon, Gerardo escorted Martin to Jesús del Monte Avenue. It turned out to be a dilapidated and smoke-filled street where enormous buses called camels and a few puffing 50's Fords terrorized a majority of pedestrians by their utter disrespect for traffic lights. Strolling on the cracked, garbage-loaded sidewalks was out of the question. All museums were closed because it was Monday. Tours of the ingenios left the city at dawn so they'd have had to wait until the following day to take one.

Around nine p.m. Gerardo suggested that they go to Café Havana, a nightclub located in the hotel where Martin was staying. Though he wasn't ordinarily a patron of nightclubs, Martin agreed to go. There, sipping his mojito, he listened in silence to Gerardo's litany of complaints. They ranged from food scarcity to the impossibility of obtaining permission to visit his niece in Miami. Martin didn't know if his new friend was discreetly asking for a twenty-dollar bill or for help in getting an American visa.

Café Havana recreated a 50's ambiance with its velveteen chairs and vaulted ceilings. An old Cubana de Aviación airplane was on display and Benny Moré and Ernest Hemmingway posters adorned the walls. It smelled of rum, sweat, perfume, chewing gum, and cigarette smoke. A salsa band was playing. The vibration of the steel drums and the shrill voice of the lead singer reverberated inside Martin's head. Intermittently, the drummer let out an ear-splitting whistle and shouted "A gozar!" Next to him, a bald mulatto managed to smoke an enormous Cohiba cigar at the same time he shook a pair of maracas.

Martin turned his attention to the dancers. A white-haired lady hopped around a muscular teenager who could pass for her grandson. A Nordic-looking couple shook every conceivable part of their bodies, except their hips. Three young Cubans - a blonde, a mulatta and a brunette - danced by themselves under flashing red and green lights. Despite her well-developed body, the brunette had a round, childish face. Martin wondered if she was already eighteen. She wore a sequined miniskirt and a cherry velvet top that sparkled like a flying flame.

Gerardo had ordered a ham-and-cheese sandwich, an omelet, a shrimp cocktail, and two daiquiris. It was understood that Martin would take care of the bill, since it had to be paid in American dollars. Martin didn' t feel like eating. He kept drinking his mojito while his eyes followed the contortions of the brunette's pelvis and the continuous rocking of her hips. Two Spanish men, over fifty and overfed, joined the girls. For a moment, Martin thought with secret pride of his trimmed figure. Had he been less shy, he'd have joined the group. No one cared about dancing expertise. The Spaniards moved like drunken Labrador dogs on an icy pavement.

At eleven o'clock Gerardo wove his way toward the bathroom. Martin sneezed, then yawned. He was ready to go, but his companion was enjoying the atmosphere, the appetizers and, above all, the free drinks. "If it weren't for you, I couldn't be here," Gerardo had commented. "I work like a burro at the university, but only get three hundred pesos a month. Fifteen dollars! It's not easy, my friend." Martin felt sorry for him, but decided that another half-hour was all he could tolerate of the salsa, rum, whistling and smoke combination. The drummer's invitation to have fun (A gozar!) sounded to him as empty as Gerardo's glass.

"Want to dance, Yuma?" the shapely brunette that had been showing off on the stage was by Martin's side. She bent over him and repeated, "Dance?" "I'm sorry," he answered, "I'm not Yuma. My name is Martin." She laughed. Her caramel, liquid eyes sparkled like her silvery miniskirt. "You American?" "Yes." "Then you are Yuma, chico."

Gerardo came back and shed light on the issue. In Cuban slang, Americans were Yumas. The United States was La Yuma. And no, it didn't have anything to do with the Arizona desert. "Maybe it's a mispronunciation of the word "united", Martin suggested.

The girl introduced herself as Cachita and informed Martin that she was a masseuse. Was he interest in a good, deep rubbing (She didn't bother to ask Gerardo.) She could go to his room if he was staying at the hotel, or he could accompany her to her apartment. "Only fifty dollars, Yuma" she puttered, "for three hours and a half. A bargain, uh?"

But Martin didn't dare accept her proposition -- the mere thought of the girl's manicured hands touching his skin made him nervous. As she got ready to leave the table, disappointed, he noticed two small charms hanging from a thin gold chain around her neck. "I believe this is Santa Bárbara, also known as Changó," he said in his best Castilian Spanish. "And the other one is Yemayá, the goddess of the sea." "You speak Spanish, Yuma!" Cachita exclaimed. "And you know the santos! Yes, this one is Santa Bárbara. The other one is not Yemayá, but Oshún. I'm a daughter of Oshún, the orisha of love."

They were soon involved in a lively conversation about Santería. Cachita had never read Fernando Ortiz's books on the orishas, but she possessed an empirical knowledge of the matter. Her mother, she said, was a well-known santera, and her grandfather had been a babalawo, a Santería priest.

After leaving Café Havana at two a.m., Martin had changed all his plans. He wouldn't tour the ingenios, which would probably be as much of a disappointment as Jesús del Monte Avenue had been. Instead, he agreed to meet Cachita for lunch at one o'clock, and dismissed Gerardo after handling him two ten-dollar bills. Talking to a real, reputable santera beat burying his nose in dust manuscripts. This was his last thought before falling asleep. He dreamed of Cachita giving him a foot rub.

Sweet Oshún is the goddess of flirtation and love. Honey, amber and cinnamon are consecrated to her. Cut off five pubic hairs, smear them with honey and boil them in coffee water. Once a man has drunk it, he'll be crazy for you.

"María, my Mami, is so thrilled to meet you," Cachita said to Martin, as they got off the turistaxi. This time around the girl was wearing diminutive navy blue shorts and a see-through white top. Martin tried hard not to ogle at her pointed nipples. "Mami is impressed when foreigners know of our santos."

The decaying, two-story house that Cachita and her mother shared with a dozen families reminded Martin of an old New Orleans mansion. It had been built circa 1900. A poignant smell of fried onions pervaded the place. Most of the doors were ajar. As the walked through a red-tiled corridor, Martin could not help but to peep inside the rooms. In a windowless cubicle, a woman ironed school uniforms while five kids shouted and played around her, and a man stared at a black and white TV set. Inside another room, a couple exchanged insults and a seven-year old boy threw a tantrum without getting anyone's attention.

A middle-aged, chubby woman with a towel loosely wrapped around her body stopped to address Cachita, "Mija, if you want to take a bath, hurry up! No water after four, remember." And she moved on, her wooden sandals clapping on the tiled floor and the flesh of her arms quivering like homemade flan. The man who had been watching TV dashed by Martin's side, carrying a chamber pot that left a strong, offensive odor in the air.

"We are having problems with the bathroom," Cachita explained. "The toilet flooded a month ago. Now the shower drain is used for everything. Well, for almost everything. Liquids only. But don't worry. If you need to go pee-pee, there is a urinal in my room."

Cachita and her mother occupied what had once been the kitchen of the house. Life-size statues of santos stood in every corner of the room. Oshún presided over an altar covered with a yellow tablecloth and adorned with sunflowers and a copper pot full of honey An assortment of toy ships, blue vases, and pink seashells rested at Yemayá's feet. Changó, god of thunder and battles, brandished a rusted sword. Babalú-Aye, lord of sickness and health, leaned on two wooden crutches.

María was a dark, thin woman with girlish eyes. Squeezing Martin's hands in hers, she led him inside and offered him a place to sit - an worn out wicker armchair that had been built for just one person. Cachita shared it with him. "The santos are very happy to have you here, Señor," María said. "You may want to greet them. Cachita will tell you how to do it." Martin nodded. He felt as if he had landed on another planet. He had attended conferences and read several volumes about Santería but had never been in personal contact with a practitioner. He was somewhat scared and found the six-foot tall Changó, with his long, black human hair and his way too realistic sword, particularly threatening. To conceal his uneasiness, he looked around and noticed a Barcelona poster glued to a peeling wall. Under it there was a photo of Cachita holding hands with a sixty-something hefty man. "Have you been in Spain? he asked her. "I wish," she snuggled up to him. "I've never traveled outside Cuba. My Papi sent me the poster last year.

Martin stood up and examined the photo closely. Cachita didn't resemble the man at all. "Is he your dad?" "Yes. He and my mother are divorced and he lives in Madrid now," she raised her voice, "Mami, why don't you make coffee for Martin?" María disappeare behind a faded curtain. "And you, come back and sit with me," Cachita ordered him, "You are tall enough, you don't need to grow more, chico," she added playfully.

Martin obeyed. Then, sensing it was the thing to do, he put an arm around Cachita. She smiled and kissed him on the lips. After coffee was served, Martin discovered a short, curly hair floating on his drink. So as not to embarrass his hostess, he pretended not to notice. The Cuban coffee, sweetened with honey, was good and strong.

He talked about the santos with María, but not for long. She had to go. Her goddaughter had requested a spiritual cleansing, a limpieza, which needed to be done that very day. "Don't forget to greet the santos," she warned Martin before leaving, "they have brought you to our humble home."

Once they were alone, Cachita offered Martin another massage –for free. His blood pressure rose precipitously as he accepted. Cachita closed the door. Martin remained seated, with the empty coffee cup in his sweaty hand. "Why don't you take your clothes off," she asked. Shaking, he began to undress. "Yuma," she faced him with a sly grin, "are you still a virgin or what?"

They didn't separate for the rest of the week. Ingenios and museums were forgotten. So was Fernando Ortiz's manuscript. Martin didn't get to see much of Havana because Cachita preferred to spend the evenings at the hotel swimming pool or eating in the dollar-only restaurants, and he wanted to please her. She was also fond of the hotel shops and of an expensive boutique (with Macy's prices) called La Maison, where Martin bought her a three-hundred dollar Donna Karan outfit. María allowed her daughter to come and go and kept making secret offerings to Oshún in the background.

The affair moved at a dangerous speed. By the following Saturday, Cachita and Martin were engaged. She swore she was in love with him since the night they met at Café Havana. In a Santería ceremony, Oshún had confirmed her feelings - he was her true, only amor. Cachita said she longed to take care of Martin, iron his clothes, clean his Albuquerque three-bedroom house, and cook his favorite meals while he taught at the university. Martin, who had never received so much attention from any woman, hardly knew how to deal with it. "You'll go to college, too," he told her, "and learn more English, if you really want to live with me in New Mexico." "That is La Yuma, right?" she asked. "Yes, the United States.

Cachita explained that the only way she could go to La Yuma was if they got married. He should ask a friend to send his birth certificate and his single certificate (Martin wondered what that meant) to Havana by DHL. Then they would go to a notary public and "legalize their union," as she said. Afterward, as the wife of a Yuma, she could go to the American Interest Section and ask for a visa. She would need around two thousand dollars to start the process. The money for her ticket could be sent later on.

But Martin's cash had melted fast in boutiques and restaurants. His credit cards couldn't be used in Cuba. With tears running down her cheeks, Cachita agreed to wait. Before leaving the Havana airport, Martin gave her all he had left –two hundred dollars. In return, she offered him her virgin of La Caridad charm. "Don't think I want your money," she sobbed. "If I take it, it's only because I need it to buy food for Mami. But I'd like to have a statue of the Virgin Mary, a really pretty one. Could you send it to me from La Yuma, amor?"

If you want the Virgin Mary to concede you mercy, take her baby Jesus and hide him. Keep him away from her until your wishes are fulfilled.

Finding the proper statuette in the Chimayó stores proved to be a frustrating job. The works of most local artists made a poor impression on Martin. "This one looks like a fat Barbie doll," he said, examining a clay figure. "That one over there is discolored." Joe huffed, following him to shop after shop.

As the last resort, they visited an artist's studio. Upon entering, Martin stumbled over a three-foot tall retablo. The painting on wood represented the virgin of Guadalupe wearing a blue cape and surrounded by a floral frame, with angels at one side and a young Aztec man kneeling below her. A luminous aura encircled the figures. The colors were bright, yet not too flashy. Martin stood admiring the retablo for a while and finally said, "That's it!" Joe whistled. "Did you take a look at the price?" Four hundred dollars, dang! Martin hesitated. The artist approached them. That retablo was a one-of-a-kind piece of art, he said, all hand-made. t had taken him weeks just to complete the heavily ornamented edges. Besides, the church priest had blessed it. He wouldn't mention that to every customer, but he had noticed Martin's La Caridad charm and could tell he was a Virgin devotee.

"If I were you," Joe said, "I'd send the girl a hundred bucks and a five-dollar plastic virgin." "But you are not me," Martin replied.

Then he asked the artist, "Do you take MasterCard?" They left the studio with the retablo protected by bubble wrap. "I need to find a safe way of sending it to Cachita," Martin said. "I wish I could go back right now. Did I tell you that when we made love, Cachita?" "Yes, yes, you told me," Joe cut him off. "I may end up going to Havana myself. I'll take that expensive crap to your Cacheeta, if you want me to."

María's home looked pretty much the same as it did a month earlier. There was an addition, though –a brand-new Panasonic TV set that had displaced Changó in his corner. Joe knocked at the door. María opened and looked at him inquisitively. "I'm looking for Señorita Caridad Perez," he said. "Yo soy Martin's friend." "Martin?" "Welcome!" Cachita came out too and kissed Joe on the cheek. "Martin is my Yuma boyfriend, Mami," she whispered in Spanish. Joe handed her the package, "Here is your virgin."

"Gracias. When is Martin coming back? Soon?" Joe examined her with critical eyes. She was pretty, no doubt, but looked shrewd beyond her years. "Martin can't come back until the summer," he said. "His classes just started." "What about the single certificate?" she asked. "Did he get it yet?" "I don't know." "Did he send anything else?" "Only this package." María and her daughter exchanged a rapid glance. "Excuse me," María said. "I have to run some errands for a friend. Come in, please. Let me offer you a cup of coffee, Señor, and then I'm on my way. You can stay here with the girl."

After savoring his coffee, Joe turned to Cachita and said, "So you're an expert masseuse, I hear." "I am," she grinned. "Would you like to have a good massage? Only fifty dollars, because you are Martin's friend." He liked her impudent gaze. "Well, hell, why not?" The package with the retablo lay, unopened, next to Oshún's altar. "I tell you, Mami, Yumas are so damned tight," Cachita complained. Her mother had been in line for two hours, waiting for the Maisí dollar shop to open. "I spent a whole week with Joe and he only gave me twenty lousy dollars before leaving. He wouldn't even take me to a cafeteria, always counting his centavitos.

"What a cheap ass!" "The other one was less stingy, wasn't he?" "Yes, but he isn't coming back until June. Does he think I'm going to wait for him eating slices of air?" she shrugged. "And did you see the shitty thing he sent? A piece of painted wood I could have bought here, at Cathedral Square, for ten pesos. Pts!" "What about the Swedish guy?" asked María. "Forget it," Cachita sighed. "He's too young." "He's ten years older than you! Too young to marry me, I mean. He can find a wife in his country. The same goes for Manuel, the Mexican." The security guard waved them in, glancing at Cachita's lycra shorts.

"Manuel is so rich," María said dreamily. "He owns a grocery store in Morelia. Imagine that! You could eat anything you want and never be concerned about food prices." "Don't get your hopes too high. Manuel is a flake. He hasn't called me in months. He's like most foreigners. A lot of blablablá when they are here, but later if I saw you, I don't remember." "I believe, daughter," María stated, after a brief pause, "that your best bet is the old Spaniard. He is really in love with you. He has come back three times. And he just sent that expensive color TV set. You'd better stick with him." "I will. That's why I wanted a Virgin Mary. I'd have taken the baby away from her until Antonio had bought me a ticket to Madrid. But what can I do with that big piece of lumber? What kind of virgin is it, anyway? She doesn't even have a baby Jesus!"

They stopped in front of the condensed milk shelf. "Buy ten cans," Cachita told her mother. "The hell with my diet. Antonio doesn't care if I get fat." She glided gracefully toward the meat counter and began to check the prices of ground beef. A new, gleaming Virgin de la Caridad charm dangled between her breasts. Right at that time, high school baseball coach Joe Baca was mentally balancing his checkbook and wondering if he could afford another trip to Cuba in the near future. He decided against it.

Right at that time, Dr. Martin Sanders was welcoming his new graduate studies class and discussing the syllabus, "During our semester together, we will analyze the position of women in contemporary Cuban literature. As a possible research topic, I suggest that you focus on the improvement of the social role of women after four decades of change and revolution."