THE JAMAICAN GIRL

The passionate portrait of Clifford was in front of the child. Rare as they portrayed it as a defeated military, and the elegant bearing of the courtier didn't really give the idea that he suffered from diarrhea in San Juan. That was sometime in the seventies and the era of the twin plants of Hernandez Colon. At that time the history of the Caribbean was written by the Americans and the Columbians. He didn't understand the need for so much neutrality between the islands when the villains were the English like Drake or Budoino Enrico, the Dutch. The child looked at the portrait with some perplexity but gave no mind to the matter. He accepted, like any child, anything the books said. The Spanish ones were ok. They spoke about Lezama with his cup of coffee, the baroque writers. But when it came to the History, everything was strange. And however, he had to accept it all. They were going to put the twin plants in Jamaica and the child had no idea what the twin plants were, nor did he ever know it. However, when he came to study at the university, a girl appeared to him who used the proper name of his nearest relative. And this, or course, he didn't understand at once. He remained absorbed with the Caribbean stories of Garcia Marquez. The Caribbean didn't have a more positive defender. And all of that with the idea that his books sold by the thousands everywhere, made it extremely attractive.

Of Drake just a few images, portrayed with his silver armor. Of Enrico some things, the portrait that is in the library, where you can see the soldiers loading the arcs. That portrait is of Enrico. What would remain in the library? No idea. He continued walking with her, with the girl who used the name of his relative.He went with her from here to there, without knowing what to do. He sat her in the back on the car, and days later he took her by the hand. Since she used the same name as his relative, he didn't know if he should be her boyfriend or not. And the writers of Latin America were getting worse. Borges came, Vargas Llosa came, who promised to write the History of the Goat, still not written then. But the real history of the Caribbean, he really didn't know. Now they have reviewed it. Clifford didn't lose in the eighteenth century, but girls with the physical type in Clifford's portrait studied with him in the faculty of sciences. If he lost, why are there so many English type girls throughout all these parts? The one with him was of the Jamaican type, black although well fed and smooth, not sallow like the Puerto Rican ones.

And naturally he thought of writing a story. That always happened to him. He wrote stories about worms, about all types of animals. Fables, stories, poems. He gave them to the girls of the Clifford type for them to read. The Jamaican was still with him, and he even moved in with her to make purchases at the Cash and Carry at Domingo Dominguez, now defunct. Tremendous large wholesale food store. The Jamaican girl came and went from the apartment, with no idea of what they were going to do, if they were going to marry, because of the problem of assuming another identity. He assumed that her relative was aware, but he didn't know if he was going to marry her. The Jamaican girl also didn't know what the twin plants were. She didn't even know that she was Jamaican.

Then a relative of his cousin approached him. The boy had a literary magazine in stencil, which mainly published poems, but through a girl named Amarilis, wife of the owner of the Paradise cinema, began trying to collaborate with poems. The first one sent, rejected, was a heroic poem about Bach's music. Then he began sending stories and those were published. Since the head of the writers was the cousin of his relative, it became difficult for him to explain to the writers why he ran around with a girl who had the same name as the chief's cousin. Soon and probably for the same reason, the head of the writers to their stories to the weekly pro-independence. Surely, with the idea of compromise, now that he was with this girl who surely managed his studies. Fortunately, he knew the head of the weekly, because he had met him at an advertising agency.

His life with the girl from Jamaican could not keep on being "this no man's land". Something would have to be resolved, a resolution should be taken as soon as possible, so he married her even though she used the name of his relative. His brief relationship with her ended almost immediately, but it was good that he marry her and resolve the problem in favor of his relative.

II

They say that you never make a portrait of a defeated military. From his grandfather who had lost a business because he was pro-independence, there was, however, a big portrait in his house. So the portrait of Clifford, who in reality was a successful soldier in 1605, was associated with a military defeat of 1797. That soldier was Jamaican and a portrait had never been made of him. But the habit of seeing a portrait of a grandfather who had lost politically, made him think that Clifford was the loser. So when he saw the daughter of his relative in Trujillo Alto, that was the Clifford type, like the girls from Utuao, it didn't bother him the least. Of course he was no longer with the Jamaican girl. He spoke with the daughter of his relative and explained what happened.

"Now you know the truth." He told her. " But why did you look for me?"

The daughter of his relative looked at him.

"I want to get married. I haven't been able to marry." She told him.

He put his hand on her forehead and noticed that the girl had a fever. He remembered the Jamaican girl told him that they were together to do a good deed then everything happened. Someone in the laboratory went to look for the daughter of his relative. The girl soon had a son, and this had the virtue of lessening the carrier status of the Anopheles.

"Clifford lost the plaza with a fever." He told her.

"No", she told him, " He won the plaza in 1605, the plaza that was much coveted by Drake, but he went home with the dengue." The soldier that you thought had lost, was in reality a man who like I, had won much, much…You should never win so much.

Translated by Ron Rodriguez©2015