Her Name was Eve and it was the first time I had ever seen her. I do swear on my mother’s life.
I don’t know how many things went through my mind when I saw her. She was naked, completely naked! And I had never seen anyone walking around the seawall naked before. Innumerable frustrations brutally possessed my brain. She was naked and was walking along the seawall at exactly five thirty-five (5:35) in the afternoon. Everyone was looking at her. How many people walk the seawall at five thirty-five on a Friday evening? I can’t even phantom. Some were shouting; others were mocking her with their eyes. She was naked and I am still baffled.
No one dared touch her. It was as though truth was walking through Havana. The very truth itself walks through Havana, I thought the headlines would say tomorrow. Fear of the truth is reasonable, digestible and sometimes, even transmissible. Some people screamed wildly, and no one dared to touch her, not even to get closer than four meters. “Where are the police?”, a toothless woman shouted. “Where are the police?”, said the Pentecostal minister. “Where’s the bakery?”, asked a not very tall man, perhaps a foreigner.
She ignored everyone. Eccentric, eccentric she was not. Not even hysterical. Cars stopped. She did not belong to this world. Truth does not belong to this world; it coexists but it does not belong. She walked slowly, repeating each movement as if that harmonious repetition held all her essence. I observed her feet. Perfect toes, deep black bending and returning to the same place. Each movement of her feet revealed and concealed, revealed and concealed, revealed and concealed, revealed and concealed her body weight. Knees bending and achieving over and over again perpendicular excellence with the ground. Heavy shiny thighs. Huge buttocks. “What a great ass!”, someone exclaimed, and their voice lost in the crowd. Narrow waist, zero lipids at all. Erect, firm, small breasts. Stretched neck, and her face, sublime, unique. She was like an African deity: Oshun or some other saint of the sort. Shaved bald, her head shone like the sun itself. Thin, perfect, truly perfect.
She didn’t belong to this world, and I stick to this.
I followed her along the seawall Malecon for just over half an hour. So many thoughts went through my mind since I saw her, but nothing morbid, not even erotic. Actually, she didn’t awaken the slightest sexual desire. She was an angel, and angles are androgynous, I know this because I have read a lot. But nothing I’ve read compares to this experience. Freedom, truth… the Absolute… ABSOLUTE itself! All these walking together along the seawall Malecon. And I was there because God wanted to reveal himself to me through her. I followed her along the Malecon seawall; she was already much more than an angel, all along the Malecon. She was the fusion of all that is unattainable but real, yes, all along the Malecon for half an hour, and it was then that around Belascoain, she threw herself right in front of that 1959 Chevrolet, metallic green and covered with those Nike and I LOVE YOU NY stickers. Her head smashed against the windshield, filling the street with her blood. The car stopped and out of the car came a huge white man with necklaces around his neck. “Why did you do it, Eve, why did you do it?” I am not worth this, I’m a piece of shit, and now you’re gone forever”, he shouted. Meanwhile, from within the car infernal disco music contaminated the air, and my mouth filled with foamy saliva, and it kept being filled with foamy saliva and I couldn’t take it anymore…
I went over to the white man and started kicking and punching him. Every blow was a complaint. And each complaint asked for more blows. And I kept hitting him. He was immutable by my blows. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. My fist trembled as it hit his chin and my feet hurt from kicking his calves so much. He was unharmed. And my whole body ached from hitting him so much. Then I grabbed him by the neck, his fat neck full of necklaces, and I spat on and yelled at him. I told him I would kill him, that I’d cave in (or crush) his skull, that if my complaints couldn’t be listened to, at least my hatred would do something. And I tore off one of his gold necklaces. He, then with his seven feet and his enviable three hundred pounds, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and threw me on the sidewalk. When I stood up I still had the necklace in my hand. I threw it and started running, and the entire Malecon seawall ran after me because they thought I was the one who pushed the girl onto the street in front of that 1959 Chevrolet. It was after 11 blocks when they caught up to me…
Her name was Eve and it was the first time I saw her, I swear to God, captain. And you know I don’t like swearing by God. I am an honest shoemaker and I’ve already told you what that girl meant to me, comrade officer. I was desperate, dead, tired of my dull life, of popular parties and reading at night. And she appeared, naked and God used her to reveal himself to me. I can’t say how many frustrations sodomized my brain, and now, here, I understand what I must do. Do you understand, captain? One spends life barely surviving and when they discover that everything is changing some useless person comes around driving an old car, and he ruins everything, and I didn’t stand for it, officer. I didn’t stand for it! Or ( I didn’t care, officer. I didn’t care!). I now understand what I couldn’t understand because I was blind and now, I see… I see, I SEE, Mr. Captain, I SEE!… And when the eyes are opened, it is impossible to close them again; impossible.
Her name was Eve and it was the first time that I saw her, and God used her to give me his message and she committed suicide, do you understand? S-U-I-C-I-D-E. I had nothing to do with it. I swear to God! and I don’t like to go around swearing by God. Do you understand, captain?
I knew that truth, freedom and all those things couldn’t walk so freely along Havana’s Malecon without sacrificing themselves. I did know it but I did not dare speak about it because I didn’t want to get into trouble.
I am a calm kind of guy, aren’t I, officer?
When Teodoro Garcia Moreno – dark skinned, 155 cm tall, 100 lbs, 68 years old, and who is a shoemaker – left the homicide office, captain Alexis Calzado Solo said to his secretary: “One has to listen to a whole bunch of shit every day. I’ve been hearing shit for 22 years and I haven’t gotten tired of it.” And then he lit a cigarette. “Oh and write down in very big letters: possible ideological diversion. The secretary nodded, typed something and asked if ideological was spelled without an h. The officer shouted if she had confused him with a Spanish teacher and told her to write however she wanted. The girl typed over again and took the paper out of the typewriter. She let it drop slowly on top of the desk. The captain was looking up at the ceiling, Smoke rising.