Free Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano Page A

nineteenth-century patriarchs. The universe, his universe, of nine children and, according to Abuela, between sixty-five and seventy grandchildren, really does revolve around him. He is at its locus, although many orbits, like my father’s, have set off so wide that the arc is almost unrecognizable.
    Abuela said, “Todavía no te has casado, Manolo?” She meant re married.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDon’t you want to have children?”
    â€œYou got started young, Abuela.”
    â€œY tu muy tarde, y todavía.” Lydia cleared the plates and I lit a cigarette. Abuela frowned and placed coffee before me. Abuelo is almost fifteen years older than her. Watching Abuela sweep the patio, I considered how here in the countryside nobody thinks twice about the age difference.
    After eating her own merienda in the kitchen, Lydia began work on la cena. I told her to put me to work, and Manolito came over to see what we were doing. “¿Qué coño estás haciendo aquí?”
    â€œSeparating the garbage from the rice.”
    â€œLeave it. That’s woman’s work.”
    Manolito spent a minute or two inside the pigpen sadistically teasing the fat young sucklings. “¿Quién será la que me quiere a mi?” Whenever I show up in Viñales, Manolito insists on killing a piglet. “¿Quién será? ¿Quién será?” He knew the one he wanted. He’d had his eye on her all month. But, glowering into their frightened eyes, he took a minute to rile them up, slapping asses and tweaking corkscrew tails. “¿Quién será la que me dé su amor? ¿Quién será?” He caught the fattest one, raised her face to his, planted a sloppy kiss on her snout, and yowled in her ear. “¿Quién será? ¿Quién será? ¿Quién será? ¿Quién será?” He dragged the squealing animal out of the pen and across the patio to the foot of a tree. The dogs barked ravenously in anticipation of their take. With the jerk of a lightbulb chain, he pulled the knife across her bristling throat. Her squeals ceased and the dogs leapt. Gutteral grunts grew softer as she drowned in her blood, the dogs lapping up the red mud. Manolito dragged the piglet to the bohío. When I strayed too close to the sow she lunged at the end of her rope. “¡Cuidado, Mono! That mama is a mean one.”
    Manolito sent my ten-year-old cousin to the neighbor’s with an empty two-liter bottle for some wine—distilled from cane with a touch of guanábana for color. Manolito poured two glasses. I sipped slowly but he goaded me, prying my mouth open and tipping my chin back if he had to. He poured it right down my throat from the bottle, so by the end we had both drank about the same amount.
    â€œManolito, you spend the whole day working beneath this sun and then immediately start drinking this awful wine. Why don’t you rest a bit?”
    â€œThat’s what I’m doing, Mono: resting. That’s why we’re drinking.”
    â€œWhat I mean is, why don’t you rest a bit from the drinking?”
    â€œWhat do you think I am, Mono, a vagrant? If I fall asleep after a hard day of work, I won’t have time to drink before it’s tomorrow already and I have to go back to work. I’m a man. I’ve got three duties: to work, to drink, and to fuck.”
    When the roast was ready, Manolito gave me the first taste. “Isn’t this the most succulent little piggy you’ve tried in your life?”
    â€œIt’s delicious.”
    â€œI feed them all coconut husks. The sow’s milk is sweet enough for you or me to drink.”
    Manolito stumbled off to his bohío, and soon my cousin Emilio arrived in his coast guard uniform. After he had showered and put on clean clothes, Emilio pulled two chairs out onto the patio and produced a small bag of marijuana. He crumbled up a bud and fashioned a big twist with a