"You embarrass me, Miguel," she fluttered her fan, "and I am sure you equally embarrass your friend. How can he greet me before he is introduced to me. You are lacking in manners not to have presented him?"
"Present Fidel? Margerita, are you serious?"
"And why not?"
Miguel shook his head.
"Aye de mi? I can see you are not a Cuban. Had you been Cuban, you would have taken one look at Fidel - that would have been enough - and had I presented him to you you would have been shocked."
"Stop talking in riddles, or I shall become angry with you. I see a handsome young lad who accompanies you in your coach. I take him for a friend of yours and I would naturally suppose you would introduce us."
Miguel winked at Fidel but spoke to Margerita. "Fidel may be a friend of mine and yet he is not a friend. It just happens that I bought him a few days ago. Look closely, my dear, can't you see he is not white? He is a slave. Therefore I could not possibly introduce you to him or him to you for, according to our custom here in Cuba, it would be like introducing you to one of the horses that pull our coach."
"I can't believe it. The boy is not black. I always thought all slaves were black."
Miguel motioned to Fidel to move nearer and the boy dropped on one knee on the bottom of the coach. Miguel loosened the neckband of his shirt and pulled coat and shirt down, revealing the boy's bare shoulder. "Look? Now will you believe?"
Her face whitened. "I see a scar. No, it is not a scar. Valgame dios? He's been branded."
"Of course, all slaves are."
"But why did you do this to him?"
"Look more closely, my dear. The Santiago arms are two falcons; this is a lion rampant. The brand is not of my doing. He was branded when I bought him."
"Is that true, Fidel?" Margerita's unbelief almost made her doubt Miguel.
"Por supuesto, senorita. I was branded before don Miguel bought me."
"Yes, Margerita, he's a slave and he belongs to me. I bought him only a few days ago in the Mercado. As a matter of fact, I bought two slaves and Fidel is one of them."
"What sort of a country is this where one buys a human being with money?"
"Just like one buys a dog or a horse or a cow. Exactly. You see, although I am an exception, Cubans do not consider a boy like Fidel human. In the eyes of the world he's an animal - a little higher in breeding than a horse or a dog because he has the ability to reason and to express himself but an animal nonetheless. This I do not subscribe to. Yet, despite my feelings in the matter, the other day I entered Solano's market as casually as I might go to my tailors to buy a new suit or to the jewellers to buy a snuff box. I went there to make a purchase of a man. It was not the first time, of course, because previously I have bought field hands - blacks often straight from Africa whom I purchased as I would an animal by looking at their teeth and the sleekness of their skins.
"But this time it was different. I went to buy a servant to replace our aging major domo and I ended up by buying two - the fellow Antonio and this Fidel here. Fidel looks up to Antonio as though he were a god. I must confess I myself was impressed with the fellow - he's good looking, intelligent and well educated and I would defy anybody to detect the slightest taint of Negro blood in the man. In fact," Miguel was almost apologetic, "Having been in prison, his skin was even whiter than mine which had been exposed to the sun. Do you know, as I considered his purchase, something strange happened to me."
"What?" Margerita asked.
"For one fleeting moment, I felt that I was for sale and he was buying me. I do not know what came over me but it was such a revulsion that I was tempted to free every slave I owned. Then my grandmother and I decided to do exactly that and from now on the Santiago family will employ only free labour."
Margerita placed her hand over Miguel's. Her fingers closed tightly around his. She glanced across at Fidel but his cheerful grin denoted nothing but happiness. She was near to tears but they seemed wasted.
"How pitiful?" She had been deeply moved by Miguel's words. "I shall be proud of you if you do free your slaves."
"But all Cuba will hate me," he shrugged his shoulders. "Well, let them. We Santiagos are a law unto ourselves."
The mask that formed the Quesada's face showed signs of coming to life. It started to move, like plaster cracking and the thin line of her lips parted sufficiently to allow the words to come out. Her eyes, steely blue, were fastened on Miguel.
"Am I right in believing senor, that these unfortunates are all of them persons of colour?"
Miguel nodded. "Yes, everyone held in slavery or sold in slavery has coloured blood. Even a single drop of Negro blood damns a man to servitude. All issue of female slaves in turn become slaves. Now this boy here," he pointed to Fidel, "I would judge to be a quadroon. That is, he has three-quarters white blood and from his looks I would imagine that some of it came from some Scandinavian, a sailor perhaps, whose blond hair has shown up in this lad. Negro blood is always on the distaff side, you know. Although the gentlemen of Cuba have been strict at drawing the line between white and coloured in public, they have always had a fondness for crossing the colour line behind the closed shutters of their bedrooms. Therefore we have many here in Cuba which you might not easily recognize as coloured. Some of them can boast noble blood in their veins. This Antonio that I bought - his mother was an octoroon girl and his father the Duke of Ramar. So, you see he is just one-sixteenth or possibly one-thirty-second coloured."
"The Duke of Ramar?' The senora was impressed. "You mean.....?"
"I mean that my slave is the natural son of the Duke. Through his father he is related to half the kings of Europe but according to Cuban law, he is as black as any black bruto newly arrived from Africa with a stick in his nose."
The senora sniffed. It was apparent that she did not credit the mingling of blue blood with black. In recomposing her mask, she narrowed her lips and then retreated behind the facade of what she fondly imagined to be aristocratic snobbishness.
Margerita leaned over and patted Fidel's hand. "Stop talking about slaves. You embarrass the boy and in truth you embarrass me."
But Fidel was not embarrassed. He was far too happy. That his feelings should even be considered was a new experience to him. Previously nobody had ever noticed his existence as a person. Now he was dressed in silk and velvet, riding in the Santiago coach alongside the master whom he worshipped as a god and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, who had patted him on his hand.
"The senorita must not distress herself over me. Truly, I had rather be a slave to don Miguel than be Governor of Cuba. You see senorita, Antonio and I are together and we love him." He reached over for Miguel's hand and carried it to his lips.
Miguel drew his hand away quickly and gave Fidel a slap. "The boy's an actor, Margerita, a born actor. He loves to dramatize himself. You should have seen the show he put on at Solano's to get me to buy him. He knows how to play on one's sympathies. See how he has affected you. I think I'll send the beggar to Spain and put him on the stage. All his swooning and posturing. But in spite of it all, he's a good boy."
Margerita settled back in the corner of the coach and Miguel found her hand hidden under the folds of her skirt. Fidel, who had never been out of the city before, stared out the window and the senora looked blankly at the passing landscape, so different from the pinched grey-greenness of Spain. The coach had left the city far behind and was now well on its way to Marianao, beyond which lay the finca.
Note: Miguel comes up with the idea to give Fidel to Margerita for her protection from night thieves. Margerita says she would love to have Fidel but that she does not believe in keeping slaves. Margerita says she'll accept Fidel on one condition, that if he belong to her he be free. You shall belong only to yourself she says. She has the coach pull over and performs a type of knighting ceremony with a sword to make Fidel's freedom official and gives him a gentlemen's last name. Margerita chooses to name Fidel, Fidel Dorado, Fidel meaning faithful and Dorado meaning golden as in his hair, eyes and silk suit color. Fidel the Golden.
pgs 96-103
The Street of the Sun by Lance Horner
author of Mandingo
