the island of eternal love (excerpt)
TRANSCRIPT
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As haunting as it is tantalizing, The
Island of Eternal Love is an ambitious,
provocative, and magical novel that
uncovers the secrets of a woman, a
family and an island ―all in one
spellbinding tale.
Alone in a city that haunts her, far from
her family, her history, and the island
she left behind, Cecilia seeks refuge in a
bar where a mysterious old woman's
fascinating tale keeps her returning night after night. It is a story of
three families from far-flung corners of the world ―from Africa,
Spain and China― that spans more than a century. Within it, a
woman’s suicide in China triggers an unforeseen chain of events; in
Spain, a curse plagues the women of a family, in Africa, a young girl
is ripped from her home and taken to a strange new world. As
Cecilia falls under the story's heady sway, she also pursues the
enigmatic whereabouts of a phantom house that appears and
disappears all over Miami.
Published in 25 languages, The Island of Eternal Love has become
the most translated Cuban novel of all time.
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DAÍNA CHAVIANO
THE ISLAND OFETERNAL LOVE
( e x ce r p t )
Novel
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she clutched the bowl of water just as the woman had
instructed her to do. Above her head, a flickering oil lamp
spewed shadows everywhere, perhaps attracting more spirits
than the old woman had intended to summon.
The assistant, who had left the room moments before,
now returned with a kettle that emitted an almost appetizing
vapor: rue and coriander boiled in wine.
Two have cursed you,
Three will cure you,
The Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity . . .
The Priestess made the sign of the cross over Angela,
following the prayer’s commands.
If your head should ache you,
Saint Helen won’t forsake you.
If your brow is sweaty,
Saint Vincent’s at the ready.
If your eyes should ail you,
Saint Ambrose will not fail you.
Saint Apollonia can, forsooth,
heal a sore or abscessed tooth.
Blessed Saint Urbain is the man
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to cure your rough and callused hands.
If your trunk with toil is bent,
pray to the Blessed Sacrament.
And if you suffer on your feet,
invoke Saint Andrew, then repeat.
Upon offering the prayer, she snatched the bowl from
Angela’s hands, hurling it into the corner. The water left a trail
of darkness on the wood.
“That’s all, child. Now go with God.”
Angela stood up with her mother’s help.
“No! Not through there!” The Priestess blocked her way.
“You mustn’t step in that water or the curse will return.”
It was already pitch-black outside when they left the
house. Don Pedro had been waiting for them at the rock that
stood some thirty paces away, at the edge of the village that
rose beside the frozen mountain range of Cuenca.
“What happened?” he whispered anxiously.
Doña Clara made a slight gesture. Many years of life
beside the same woman allowed him to understand:
“Everything is resolved, but let’s talk about it later.” For
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months neither he nor Clara had been able to sleep in peace.
Their daughter, a girl who until recently had run happily
through the fields, chasing after all sorts of beasts and birds,
had turned into another person entirely.
First came the visions. Although Don Pedro had been
forewarned, he still couldn’t conceal his surprise. His own wife
had alerted him the very afternoon he proposed to her: all the
women in her family, since time immemorial, had been
shadowed by a certain impish creature named Martinico.
“I started seeing him when I was a girl,” Clara told him.
“And so did my mother and all the women in my family.”
“And if we don’t have any girls?” he asked skeptically.
“The wife of the first born son inherits it. That’s what
happened to my great-grandmother, who was born in
Puertollano and married my great-great-grandmother’s only
son. She wanted to move to Priego, so she wouldn’t owe her
family any explanations.”
The man didn’t know whether to laugh at her or get angry
with her, but his fiancée’s face reflected the gravity of the
matter.
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“It doesn’t matter,” he said at last, when he finally
became convinced that she was serious. “Martinico or no
Martinico, you and I are getting married.”
*****
Although his wife would complain about the invisible
presence, he always thought it was a product of her
imagination. He suspected that the story, so deeply rooted in
her family, made her see something that didn’t really exist.
And in order to avoid what she called “the contagion,” he
made her swear that she’d never speak to the child of her
visionary inheritance, much less tell her tales of imps or any
other supernatural creatures. That’s why he nearly died of
fright the day that Angelita, barely twelve years old, staredfixedly at the shelf where he used to put his vases to dry and
whispered with an air of surprise, “What’s that dwarf doing
there?”
“What dwarf?” her father replied, casting a quick glance
at the shelf.
“There’s a little man dressed like a priest, sitting on that
pile of dishes,” the girl responded, lowering her voice even
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more. Noticing her father’s expression, she added, “Don’t you
see him?”
Pedro felt all the hair on his body stand on end. This was
the confirmation that, despite his precautions, his daughter’s
blood was contaminated with the family’s supernatural curse.
Frightened, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of
the shop.
“She’s seen him,” he whispered into his wife’s ear.
But Clara received the news joyfully.
“The girl’s a young lady now,” she said.
It wasn’t easy living with two women who saw and heard
what he could not, no matter how he tried. Most of all, it was
difficult for him to accept the change in his daughter. His wife
was already suffering from that mania when they met. Angela,
on the other hand, had been a normal little girl who preferred
chasing birds or climbing trees. She had never paid any
attention to the stories of apparitions or enchanted nymphs
that sometimes made their way through the town. And now
this.
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Clara had a long conversation with Angela to explain who
the visitor was and why they were the only two who saw him.
It wasn’t necessary to ask her to keep the secret. Her daughter
had always been a prudent child.
Only Pedro seemed defeated. Several times his daughter
caught him watching her with a dismayed expression.
Instinctively she understood what was happening and tried to
be more affectionate with him to prove how little she had
changed. In time, the man’s anxiety began to fade. He had
almost grown accustomed to the idea of Martinico the imp just
when everything else started happening.
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