Chan Chan

It crept up her spine like a malevolent spirit, leaving a clear path of prickled skin up her back. She had not heard that song in over 30 years and though the air was indeed quite cool she knew it was not the wind that chilled her. Her eyes darted towards her husband’s whose thoughts were now with the political news clip he had scrolled to on his phone. Annoyed by his persistent absence she looked over at her daughter, Marina, whose stretched-out arms now swayed beside her as she embraced a tune that was otherwise crippling her mother. 

How had she gotten so big? Here they were, half of the family, sitting in Marina's backyard as her two kids and Nola’s three ran around enjoying a rare cold night in a Miami winter. Marina's husband finally had the opportunity to light his new fire pit and the bag of marshmallows they were just roasting now laid on the ground attracting a few scout ants. 

The fire light lit the faces of the five adults, hinting at shadows whenever the spark began to die out. Nola and Marina were taking turns selecting songs to play on the small red speaker that sat between them. It was Marina's turn and she had selected a song that Caridad had last heard an ocean away, in a dark room, in the biggest city in Cuba. 

Thirty-eight years ago Raul had moved her and Nola to Havana for what he called “work opportunities”, but what Caridad always knew to be his insatiable pursuit of political power. He had ripped her away from the Dominican Republic, from her family, from her roots, to raise a child that was a product of his affair with a woman whose skin was much lighter than hers. This was his version of a “fresh start”, a solution to the shame he had brought upon her, an escape from the constant questions over the child that never swelled her belly. 

She still remembered how he had confessed his sins as his mistress bled to death on a hospital bed; bringing Nola to their home, rendering Caridad the mother of an innocent child spawned from the loins of contrite parents. Raul's guilt kept him busy though. He worked his connections non-stop to afford Caridad an elegant apartment near the plaza, where she would spend her lonely evenings watching Nola delight herself with the three-tiered fountain. 

It was in that cobblestone plaza that she first heard the tune that now gripped the air around her. The man who played the haunting song was as black as night, his caramel guitar hung perfectly around his crisp-white guayabera as though it had always been there. He would stare at her from across the pebbled floor as he strummed his fingers humming into a makeshift microphone that brought his melodic voice to her ears and up her skirt.

She hated everything about him, the whiteness of his teeth against his glittering skin, the manner in which he fingered the rim of the straw fedora atop his head; mostly she hated the way his rhythm carried the women towards him, enchanting them to dance in ways that made her resentful.

Yet his gaze would navigate beyond the array of colorful dresses and broadened hips until he found her, always sitting on the brim of the fountain, close enough to hear him, far enough to conceal her desire. She would turn her head abruptly whenever their eyes met but he would stare at her, sometimes all night until she looked back again.

This is how it began. A series of glances that turned into a sly game of proximity. "How dare you's" softened into "we shouldn'ts", "no's" morphed into moans, and the lustful game of longing cat and lonely mouse culminate in a night of passion, inside a dimly lit room while the heavens roared just outside their window.

She knew she was pregnant even before he exited her. Never had her skin prickled for anyone else's touch; never had her body opened the way it did under the weight of his love.

The following days found her tirelessly scrubbing away his scent from her clothing, her skin, her thoughts. When she finally returned to the plaza she stared at him until he followed her into their familiar alley. The narrow walkway that carved its way through the pastel buildings provided the privacy they needed to quietly argue over a nonexistent future. A short distance away Nola casted pebbles into shallow puddles giggling whenever the dirty water speckled her pristine white shoes.

Caridad demanded that he take her to a curandera to cure her of the mistake she had so berated her husband for. She needed to get rid of the transgression growing inside her because she was not built for humiliation. She couldn't carry such a shame forward the way Raul did. Neither her piety nor her pride would allow her husband to find an equal footing in their marriage.

Chan Chan refused.

"What you're asking me to do is wrong. Aren't you a Christian?"

"What I am is married." Caridad whispered. "Take me to a curandera or I'll do it myself."

"Do you know how many women have died doing that?" Chan Chan asked, with despair.

"I rather die with my dignity than live with your shame."

Chan Chan blinked, as though he beheld her for the first time. Accepting now what he had romanticized then. The woman whose restraint he had interpreted as sophisticated was now standing before him bathed in arrogance. He knew she would kill the baby with or without him and so he lied.

He took Caridad to his mother, whom she had never met. Told her she was the best curandera in Havana. Led her to an abandoned building where he hummed the one tune that reminded him of her. His mother chanted words that Caridad interpreted as a spell. Made her drink a vile spirit that was nothing more than cheap rum but it made the saintly Caridad heave as though it were evil itself.

Once his mother had ceased chanting, Chan Chan revealed to Caridad that the potion had not killed the child. Instead it had bound its existence to both him and her. Aborting it would kill the two of them instantly, scaring their bodies post death with the undeniable markings of a shared voodoo. As he spun his tale he sprinkled palpable doubts, fears of what people would say once their mutilated skins were left exposed to speculation.

"You have cursed us both." Caridad raged through clenched teeth. "The child will be too dark for Raul to believe it is his."

"Just as Nola is too light for anyone to believe she's yours."

For weeks thereafter Caridad laid with her husband nearly every night, often recalling the smell of Chan Chan's skin in order to bear the ordeal. When she finally informed Raul that she was pregnant he stared at her quietly. The subtle delight in his face quickly fading the longer he looked at her. Eventually realizing the cause for his distant wife's newfound desire.

"Do you believe that everything that's hidden is eventually revealed?" Raul asked, extending a bridge where only a chasm existed. 

Caridad stared back at him in defiance.

"That's what the bible says."

"But do you believe it?" He asked again.

"For your sake, let's hope not." She answered, glancing over at Nola, who played quietly with her watercolors.

Raul nodded, never again making another suggestion on the matter.

Eventually he arranged for a new fresh start, moving their small disjointed family to Miami this time where Caridad birthed a dark-skinned baby girl she refused to name. Nola suggested Marina. 

That's the name Raul wrote on the small piece of paper the nurse handed to him with a celebratory hug.

Thirty-eight years later Chan Chan's song crept back up Caridad's spine just as his fingertips had done that fateful night.

"Ugh! I don't like that type of music." She blurted, looking over at Marina.

"What type of music?" Marina asked. "Cuban music?"

"It sounds like voodoo."

"It's just naming different cities in Cuba, and something about a forbidden love. Right, papi?" She asked looking back at Raul.

"That's right, chiquita." Raul answered, dropping his gaze.

"We're thinking about visiting Cuba this year." Marina shared. "I've always wanted to go."

"Oh so you're Cuban now?" Caridad asked with disdain.

"Ay mami," Nola interjected, "she's only saying she would like to see it."

"Right." Marina continued. "Besides who knows where any of us are really from. It's all a mixed bag of tricks at this point."

"Well we'll know soon enough." Nola beamed.

"Know what?" Caridad asked with a tempered fear.

"Our ancestry. Marina and I just mailed our swabs back to the genealogy lab, they said we'd have our results back in a few weeks."

Caridad looked over at Raul who stiffened in his chair.

"And what was the point of that?" Caridad asked, masking her panic as curiosity.

"Just for fun." Nola answered.

"Right, imagine what we could discover." Marina added, as she closed her eyes and swayed to Chan Chan's last recorded song.