The Price of Paradise

by Susana López Rubio

My belongings consisted of five things: a wool suit, a hat, shoes, a photograph of my parents, and a can of pickled sardines a Portuguese couple had given me on the ship. I could, however, count on five other secret weapons. The first: my self-confidence. Ever since I was a child, I’d been immune to shame, and my motto has always been to ask for forgiveness instead of permission. The second: my blue eyes, inherited from my mother and accompanied by my father’s good looks. The third: my imagination. The same imagination that, instead of helping me memorize a long line of Goth kings, generated excuses so I could play hooky from school. The fourth: my youth. I had just turned nineteen, and this annulled my fears, turning me into a cub eager for adventure. And, lastly, the fifth and most important: hunger. Hunger for life, for a future, for color—a hunger grown not in a matter of months but years. They say faith moves mountains, but hunger is never far behind.

“‘Need will teach you more than school.’”

Everyone goes through difficulties in life. Health problems, money troubles, struggles with love—all of them more or less serious. Not even royalty is immune to misfortune. For example, the woman in the green dress, the one standing, hypnotized, in front of the Revlon lipstick display, could very well have been taking care of her old, infirm mother. The gentleman trying on the Italian Borsalinos might have worked at a job that made his life miserable. Every customer who walked through the door was carrying his or her personal torments: from a chipped nail or an incurable disease to a love betrayed or any other kind of heartbreak. But as long as they were at El Encanto—whether they were buying a suit priced at thousands of pesos or a little trinket or simply strolling through the store—they’d forget their cares, if even just for a while. That was the magic of El Encanto.

Those eyes seemed like quicksand: easy to fall into and impossible to climb out of.

“When you’re afraid, put my hat on and remember that the best way to beat monsters is to read science books.”

The lion had the name and address of the gazelle.

If you shake a hornet’s nest, you have to deal with the stings.”

So I wouldn’t get bored in my golden cage, César would give me a roll of pesos and another of dollars every day so I’d get excited about going shopping at El Encanto accompanied by sly Marita, his snitch of a little sister.

I’d come to Havana so hungry that I took huge bites of the city every night.

as they say in Cuba, a closed mouth attracts no flies.”

Stirring up shit just brings out more flies.”

It’s a conditioned reflex, like with Pavlov’s dog,” he concluded. “Whose dog?” “Pavlov was a scientist who rang a little bell before feeding his dog. Eventually, he discovered the animal connected the two things: whenever he heard the bell, he started to salivate.”

If we don’t love too much, we don’t love enough.”

Since it wasn’t in my character to dwell on people who weren’t important to me, I stopped thinking about them.

Wrinkled up like a raisin.”