The Island of Eternal Love

by Daína Chaviano

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A magical new novel "of loss and love across more than a century of Cuba's past."(Chicago Sun-Times)

Alone in a city that haunts her, far from her family, her history, and the island she left behind, Cecelia seeks refuge in a bar in Little Havana where a mysterious old woman's fascinating tale keeps Cecelia returning night after night. Her powerful story of long-vanished epochs weaves the saga of three families from far-flung pieces of the world whose connection forms the kind of family that Cecelia has long been missing-one cast from legendary, unbreakable love. As Cecelia falls under the story's heady sway, she discovers the source of the visions that plague her, and a link to the past she cannot shake.

Release date: June 12, 2008

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Print pages: 416

Sample

 

 

WAIT FOR ME IN HEAVEN

Lingao-fa decided it was a good night to die. A warm wind blew between the reeds rising timidly from the water. Perhaps it was the breeze, its spirit fingers caressing her clothing, that filled her with a sense of the inevitable.

She stood on tiptoe, the better to breathe the clouds. She was still slender, like the lotus adorning the pond, with its gauzy-tailed fishes. Her mother would sometimes sit alone by the pond and contemplate the bulbous stalks that disappeared into the quagmire, often stooping to touch them. And this would fill her with peace. She always suspected that her own contact with the flowers had endowed her daughter with the delicate features so many had admired since her birth: smooth, creamy skin; feet as soft as petals; straight, shiny hair. So, when it came time to celebrate her arrival—one month after her delivery—she decided on her name: Lotus Blossom.

She regarded the humid fields that seemed to swell on that afternoon just like her breasts when she had nursed her rosebud, little Kui-fa. The child was now eleven years old, and soon a husband would have to be found for her; but that task would fall to her brother-in-law Weng, her closest male relative.

With hesitant steps Lingao-fa headed inside. She owed her unstable gait to the size of her feet. To prevent their growth, her mother had bound them for years. It was an important requirement if she wanted to make a good marriage. That’s why she, in turn, now bound the feet of little Kui-fa, despite the child’s tearful protestations. It was an agonizing process: all the toes, except the big one, had to be bent toward the ground; then, a stone would be placed in the arch and held down by bandages. Although she herself had abandoned the custom since her husband’s death, a few broken, badly healed little bones had left a permanent mark on the way she moved.

She reached the kitchen, where Mei Lei was cutting vegetables, and she noticed her daughter playing by the fire. Mei Lei wasn’t any ordinary servant. She had been born to a wealthy household and had even learned to read, but by a series of misfortunes she ended up a landlord’s concubine. Only her master’s death had freed her from such affliction. Alone and with no resources, she offered her services to the Wongs.

“Did you get the cabbage, Mei Lei?”

“Yes, Madame.”

“And the salt?”

“Everything you ordered.” And she added timidly, “Madame mustn’t worry.”

“I don’t want the same thing to happen as last year.”

Mei Lei blushed with shame. Although her mistress never scolded her for anything, she knew that the last flood had been her fault. She was old now and forgot certain things.

“This year we won’t have any problems,” she said brightly. “The temple lords are elegantly robed.”

“I know, but sometimes the gods are vengeful. It’s good to have extra, just in case.”

Lingao-fa went to the bedroom, and the aroma of the simmering soup followed after her. Early widowhood had awakened the greed of several esteemed landowners, not just because of her beauty, but also because the late Shi had left her many fields where rice and vegetables grew, in addition to some cattle. Modestly but firmly, she had rejected all their proposals, until her brother-in-law suggested that she marry a Macao businessman. He was the owner of a bank that managed the clan’s finances, and their union would ensure the safety of the family fortune. She didn’t know what to do or from whom to seek counsel. Her parents were dead, and she had to obey her deceased husband’s older brother. One day she realized the decision could no longer be postponed. Weng presented himself at her door and told her, without preamble, that the wedding would take place on the third day of the fifth moon.

On the table was the silver comb her mother had given her. With a mechanical gesture she caressed the mother-of-pearl inlay, and after untangling her hair, she dampened it to refresh herself and then she stepped outside the front door. The moon emerged from behind the clouds.

“It’s your fault, damned old man,” she muttered angrily, looking at the brilliant disc that housed the capricious old man in the moon. He was the one who tied together the feet of those destined to marry—and few escaped his plan. He was why she had become Shi’s wife, and why she now had to face her troubling destiny.

It was the last time she would see that bluish light over the countryside, but she didn’t care. Anything was better than bearing an endless torment. She cared nothing for Weng’s mockery. He had often ridiculed her beliefs. She knew that her husband’s spirit would tear her to shreds in the next life if she ever were to remarry. A woman can only be the property of one man, and that conviction certainly bore down on her more than never seeing her loved ones again.

That night she dined early, tucked in Kui-fa, and remained at her bedside longer than usual. Afterward she said good night to Mei Lei, who was about to go to sleep at the foot of the child’s bed, and quietly went out to the patio, where she remained for hours contemplating the constellations. . . . It was the cook who discovered her hanging from the tree the following morning, next to the pond of golden fishes.

Lingao- fa was buried with great honors on a foggy dawn in 1919. Her death, however, was not totally useless to Weng. In spite of the fact that the merchant had lost all possibility of a business relationship, the family’s prestige grew, thanks to her display of conjugal fidelity. Besides, as the relative charged with the future upbringing of Kui-fa, his capital grew with the riches that passed into his hands. Of course, the money and jewels that were part of Kui-fa’s dowry remained in chests in the bank in Macao. And as far as the cattle and crops were concerned, the businessman resolved to multiply—as long as he could—whatever he was now charged with administering.

Weng felt great respect for his ancestors, and although he wasn’t superstitious—unlike some other villagers—he did nothing to avoid the honors accorded him by the interminable line of dead relatives that accumulated from one generation to the next. Because he felt such loyalty to his dead, Weng resolved immediately that his niece should be treated like one of his own children, a very uncommon decision in a place where girls were seen as a burden. But in truth, all obligations aside, the businessman understood the practical side of his tutelage. Kui-fa was as pretty as her mother, and she possessed a dowry with no shortage of relics and family jewels, in addition to the lands that would be turned over to her husband as soon as she married. Three years before, Weng had taken as his charge the son of Tai Kok, a cousin who had died under somewhat unclear circumstances on an island in the Caribbean Sea where he had gone seeking his fortune, following in his father’s footsteps. Siu Mend was a quiet child, gifted in mathematics, whom Weng wished to initiate into his business affairs. There was no one better than that boy, he thought, as a husband for his niece. She would soon be of age to negotiate a marriage.

For the moment, little Kui-fa would remain in the care of Mei Lei, who would be responsible for ensuring her virtue. The nursemaid would sleep on the floor at her mistress’s feet, as she had always done, which might ease Kui-fa’s sadness at her mother’s absence.

In any case, her new home was a noisy place where all sorts of people freely came and went. Apart from Uncle Weng and his wife, in the house also lived Grandfather San Suk, who almost never left his room; two married cousins, the sons of his uncle, with their wives and children; the boy called Siu Mend, who spent his days studying or reading; and five or six servants. But it wasn’t her cluster of relatives that most aroused her curiosity. Occasionally she spied some pale visitors with round, washed-out eyes, wrapped in dark, tight-fitting clothing and speaking a barely comprehensible Cantonese. The first time Kui-fa saw one of those creatures, she ran into the house screaming that there was a demon in the garden. Mei Lei calmed her after going out to investigate, reassuring her that it was just a lou-fan, a white foreigner. From that time on, the child devoted herself to the comings and goings of those luminous beings that her uncle treated with special reverence. They were tall, like the giants in stories, and they spoke with strange music in their throats. On one occasion, one of them surprised her while she was spying on him. He smiled at her, but she took off in a flash, looking for Mei Lei, and didn’t return until the voices had faded into the distance.

During the day, Kui-fa spent hours by the fire, listening to stories from the old woman’s youth. That was how she learned of the existence of the God of Wind, the Goddess of the North Star, the God of the Hearth, the God of Wealth, and many others. She loved to hear about the Great Flood, caused by a lord who, filled with shame at having been defeated by a warrior queen, banged his forehead against a gigantic bamboo tree that punctured the clouds. But her favorite was the story of the Eight Immortals who attended the birthday party of the Queen Mother of the West, by the Lake of Jewels, and who, to the rhythm of music played by invisible instruments, participated in a feast where the most exquisite dishes were served in abundance: monkey tongue, dragon liver, bear paws, phoenix marrow, and other delicacies. The climax of the banquet was dessert: peaches fresh from a tree that blooms only once every three thousand years.

Mei Lei dug deep into her memory to satisfy the child’s curiosity. Those were peaceful years, like only those lived unreflectively can be, years that, at life’s end, are recalled as the happiest. Only once did something happen to interrupt their monotonous existence. Kui-fa fell gravely ill. Fever raged through her body, as if an evil spirit was trying to steal her young life away. No doctor could find the cause of her illness, but Mei Lei didn’t lose her head. She went to the Temple of the Three Origins with three paper banners on which she had written the characters for heaven, earth, and water. In the tower of the temple, she offered the first banner to heaven; then she buried the one belonging to the earth beneath a little pile of dirt; and finally she plunged the last scroll deep into a stream. A few days later the child began to recover.

Mei Lei dedicated a corner of her room to the adoration of the Three Origins, sources of happiness, forgiveness, and protection. And she taught Kui-fa always to keep in harmony with those three powers. From that time on, heaven, earth, and water were the three kingdoms to which Kui-fa directed her thoughts, knowing that in them, she would always find protection.

The rainy months passed, and the time arrived when the God of the Hearth would rise to the celestial regions to take note of the people’s actions below. Later on, the harvest season began, and after that came the gusts of the typhoon season. The months passed, and again the God of the Hearth began his ascent, carrying with him divine gossip that mortals attempted to sweeten by smearing the statue’s lips with honey. And the peasants went back to their planting, and the rains returned, as did the season of one thousand winds that shredded the paper kites. And amid the kitchen aromas and the god-plagued legends, Kui-fa became a young woman.

At an age when many young girls were already nursing children of their own, Kui-fa still clung to Mei Lei’s braid, but Weng didn’t seem to take note. His head was filled with the counting of numbers and projects, like grains of rice, and that feverish activity had postponed his niece’s wedding indefinitely.

But one afternoon, as they were chatting in one of the teahouses (where the men went only to make deals or find prostitutes), he overheard some neighbors commenting on a young woman of marriageable age and with a good dowry, who was nonetheless condemned to an undeserved spinster-hood by a greedy uncle. Weng pretended he hadn’t heard a thing, but he blushed to his roots, already tinged with gray. When he returned home, he called Siu Mend on some pretext and watched the boy as he went over some papers. The adolescent had become a robust young man, decidedly handsome. That same night, when the family gathered for dinner, he decided to announce the news:

“I’ve been thinking Kui-fa should get married.”

Everyone, including Kui-fa herself, raised their eyes from their plates.

“We will have to find her a husband,” his wife ventured.

“It’s not necessary,” Weng said, fishing for a piece of bamboo shoot. “Siu Mend will make a good husband.”

Now all eyes were directed toward the astonished Siu Mend and then toward Kui-fa, who fixed her gaze on the platter of meat.

“It would be good to celebrate the wedding during the kite festival.”

It was a propitious date. On the ninth day of the ninth moon, it was customary to climb to a high place, either a hill or a temple tower, in order to commemorate an event from the Han dynasty, when a teacher saved his pupil’s life by warning him that a terrible flood would demolish the earth. The youth fled toward the mountain, and on his return, he discovered that all his animals had drowned. That commemorative festival heralded the season when the winds howled fiercely and endlessly, with the promise of future storms. Then, from the mountaintop, hundreds of paper animals were launched into the air with their gaily colored forms: pink dragons, butterflies that fluttered furiously, birds with moving eyes, warrior insects . . . Each year, an entire assortment of impossible beings fought eternal, legendary battles for the dominion of the skies. ...