Don Paito: The Most Unknown Hero in History

By Manolo Sabino

After traveling through the restless paths of history, I verified how harmful it has been for humanity, the slogans launched by the Populists. The first that came to my mind was the one launched by the French revolutionaries against the Queen of France: Marie Antoinette. The one that hurt me most was when a member of Versailles told Maria Antonietta: that the people were complaining, because they did not have bread to eat. And Maria Antonietta replied: “If they do not have bread they eat sponge cake.”

But, like all the slogans of the populists; it was proved that it was a vile fallacy: Well, while they spread it throughout France, in its Capital, Paris; They cut off his head in the guillotine to the charismatic Queen Marie Antoinette of Vienna. That even at the time of his death, he will show his dignity; that she was the daughter of Maria Teresa of Austria: “When the executioner tried to take the collar off her dress, with his hands, where he would cut it off; while he was taking them off, Marie Antoinette said to him: Take your dirty hands from my neck, you’re going to make me dirty! I will do it!”

When I learned of the wild attitude of the French revolutionaries led by the bloodthirsty Maximilian of Robespierre; I understood that Jose Martí was an advance: In the 19th century, our Apostle told us: “Men go in two camps: Those who love and build and those who hate and destroy.” And that, because of his bloodthirsty actions: Robespierre belonged to the side of those who hate and destroy. As well; that in Fidel Castro and his brother Raul: Robespierre had his counterparts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Sep 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781506530048

Manolo Sabino

George Washington nos dio un ejemplo de democracia, al rehusar presentarse para un tercer mandato. Con ello dio un ejemplo al mundo de lo que es ser un Democrático. También mostró: que el desarrollo de los países no estaba en las monarquías ni en las dictaduras: sino en el sistema democrático; que los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica habían instituido. George Washington lo demostró, no sólo celebrando Elecciones Democráticas, sino desarrollando a su País. En los pocos años que los Estados Unidos llevan establecidos; hoy es el país más poderoso del Planeta. Washington, es tan querido por sus coterráneos; que ellos lo llaman: El primero en la guerra; el primero en la paz; y el primero en el corazón de sus compatriotas.

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Copyright © 2019 by Manolo Sabino.

Library of Congress Control Number:              2019913130

ISBN:                  Hardcover                     978-1-5065-3006-2

                            Softcover                       978-1-5065-3005-5

                            eBook                            978-1-5065-3004-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Rev. date: 10/15/2019

Palibrio

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Suite 200

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796112

To my dear Sonia, of course.

By Manolo Sabino

As the hands of the old clock on the wall struck 8:13 in the morning, standing in front of a wooden washboard, Angela Sabino was scrubbing her husband and two-year-old daughter’s clothing along with her own when she felt a movement in her womb along with strong pains. Her intuition was telling her that the baby growing in her stomach was now ready to come out into the light of day. After asking a neighbor for help, she confined herself to a room in her house in Sola, a peaceful and friendly little town located on the coast along the Cuban Northern Railroad in the flat province of Camagüey.

By the time that the hands struck 8:33, the powerful cry of a newborn baby overtook the former silence of the López Sabino household, announcing his triumph: he had reached the light of day. Next came the voice of the midwife saying A beautiful baby boy! At birth his mother would call him Paito, but would register him as Manuel López Sabino. She took him to Esmeralda when he was still an infant and registered him as having been born there, and because of that, Paito’s birth certificate says that he was born in Esmeralda, but his heart tells him that he was born in Sola, a town that he has never visited, but his conscience insists that he was born there. And when his memory recalls, his thoughts tend to repeat: you gave your first cry in Sola, but you gave your first smile in Esmeralda. And there is something that comforts him: both towns are in Camagüey.

Being born in a house with a dirt floor, palm board walls and a palapa roof meant that Paito was born poor. But God was kind enough to grant him, while he still lived in the soft belly of his beloved mother, a knack for finding solutions to the obstacles that life likes to put in front of us; it makes him feel triumphant.

His parents separated while he was still a baby. As a result, his mom went to live with Mrs. Leonila Rodriguez Sanchez, her mother, in the proudest Camagüeyan town in Cuba: Esmeralda.

While watching his mom spend her days washing other people’s clothes to pay the bills, at the age of five, Paito worked as a shoe shiner and sold newspapers to help her.

At the age of ten, he joined a sugarcane cutting squad. He was the only child, but the pride instilled in him by his father’s genes enabled him to achieve the quotas assigned for each cutter. That made him feel like the proudest Camagüeyan in the Milky Way; like the man of the house.

Poverty tends to scar the soul; to leave cracks in the heart. And extreme poverty even more so. Of all of the disappointments that life had in store for him, there were two that forever marked him, and that have never left him, not even when he is sleeping; which when he thinks about them, the tears start to pour out until no more are left. They stepped into his life when he still had his baby teeth; when the soles of his feet slid bare over the ground of his beloved Camagüey, stroking its pleasant earth, because they still hadn’t yet known shoes. Not all of the memories formed during the three years that he lived in the house of his maternal grandmother, Leonina Rodriguez Sanchez, were pleasant; some were infused with much bitterness. The one that left the biggest mark on him happened when he was only two. At too young of an age, Paito learned what the wise words of barbershop proverbs say: A constant guest is never welcome.

When his maternal grandfather, Angel Sabino, died, his grandmother married Rafael Jimenez. His grandfather-in-law had a livestock farm in Magarabomba, a municipality between the towns of Esmeralda and Florida.

According to the gossip that reached them, Jimenez spent more time in Magarabomba than Esmeralda because he had a lover at the farm. When Paito and his mom arrived at the house, he wasn’t home. When he arrived and found out that they were living there, he convinced his wife to kick them out and send them to the garage, which was to the right of the house. And the following day, his mother, in her loving mother voice, told him, my dear, go to the dining room and tell your grandmother to serve you some lunch.

What did you come here for? Jimenez asked him.

My mom said that grandma would give me lunch.

Tell your mom that there’s no lunch! ordered Leonina Rodriguez Sanchez, his maternal grandmother.

A ball of nerves because he didn’t really understand what was happening, Paito entered the kitchen and sat down in a corner… to cry over his misfortune.

That moment, which was the most destructive blow in Paito’s budding existence, turned into a constant source of anguish for him. From then on, whenever people talked about his grandmother or he heard someone say the word grandmother, his mind would be visited by that sad and unfortunate moment.

Of all the memories that left their mark from that distasteful episode, there is one that when Paito thinks about it, he is visited by a moving image: He sees himself sitting on the floor, crying over his distress. Then he sees his mother arrive… and start a heated discussion with Leonila. When Jimenez saw her arrive, he went to his room. And after his mother and father finished their debate, his mom went up to him, and in a triumphant mother voice, told him, Go to the table son. Your grandma is going to serve you lunch.

After eating the food that his grandma served him, he went up to his mom and asked her, Mom, why is your dad, Jimenez, so mean?

My dear, Jimenez isn’t my father. He’s Rafael and Luis Jimenez’s father. My father is Angel Sabino, who is also the father of your aunt Eloína, Cecilio, Caridad, Teófilo, and Eliduvina. But my dad died ten years ago.

After that, Paito found out that Jimenez and his grandma’s attitude was because his mother was being courted by a neighbor. At the time, it was 1931 and she was a divorced woman with furtive lovers – a woman cataloged by society as a sinner, and even more so if she had children. And his mother had two and was only eighteen years old.

Months later, after the occurrence of such an upsetting moment, the strongest hurricane recorded in history hit Esmeralda. It was known as the Hurricane of 1932. It left death, misery, hunger, and destruction in its wake.

Its whipping winds made the sea swallow a coastal town inhabited by fishermen, Santa Cruz del Sur.

Paito and his mom were evacuated by the Cuban army. The soldiers arrived at their house riding on Pecheron horses, and after getting them up mounted on them, they took them to Antonio Prieto’s store. They spent the night there and slept on bags of beans.

The next day, when they returned home, Paito saw that only ruins remained where the carport had been. The hurricane had turned it into a heap of rubble. When Paito realized that the place where they had lived was now a disastrous heap of rubble, he felt a nail pierce his heart. His mind could feel a wave overloaded with negativity. He could foresee that his life was at the mercy of a very powerful force. And not only during the following days when he closed his eyes could he perceive it; but still today, when he thinks about it, his childhood will come back to him.

The image of that disastrous heap of rubble that had once been the garage that had been his home entered into his life with the pernicious intention of becoming eternal. Even despite the fact that with the exception of his sister, the entirety of the characters in this moving story has ben it the sky and him, even today, he still keeps it in your mind as if had been yesterday.

A few days after the hurricane, something happened that would remain encrusted in his awareness for eternity. There are many stories of the love between dogs and their owners, but I think that this is one of the most moving of them. It started one morning when Paito’s mom sent him to Antonio Prieto’s store to buy coffee and sugar for breakfast. While he was coming back, passing alongside the bushes on the side of the street, he heard a strange whimper. From the tone, it sounded to him like that of a puppy, so he stopped. When he heard the cries lessen, he started walking again. When the puppy realized, thinking that he was going to abandon it, using its innate canine ability, it upped the volume of its cries. This made Paito’s heart swell and he ran to save it. When he got to where the puppy was, his eyes took in the image of a beautiful, tiny little female puppy making cries of anguish and shivering with cold. When she saw that he was at her side, the puppy started to wag her tail at an impressive speed. This just increased the commotion; it made it look like the tail was going to fall off of her body. While Paito was taking her up into his arms and hugging her against his chest to warm her up, his fingers caressed her tiny body and he told her, Don’t worry, my Markesita, I’ll never abandon you. In reality, Paito never knew why he called her Markesita. He did it without thinking; it was as if a greater power had put the name in his mind so that he would call her that. But what he did know was that after saying my Markesita, her laments turned into cries of happiness, and a tone of gratefulness overtook her. And his Markesita also overtook his heart.

When he got home, his mom told him that hunger had taken over the house and that they couldn’t feed another mouth. But the love rooted for his Markesita was such that Paito took a shoebox from inside his mother’s dresser and put Markesita in it. Afterwards, he hid her under the bed. He shared his milk for breakfast with her, until one day, when his mom was mopping the room, she went to mop under the bed and Markesita barked at her. Markesita’s barks were so loud that they scared her.

After taking her out from under the bed, his mom told him, But I told you to take her back to where you found her.

I’m sorry, mom, but Markesita was dying of cold and hunger. When I thought about it, my heart wouldn’t let me abandon her.

Overcome with tears, his mom told him, Keep her here, son, but make sure that your grandma doesn’t see her.

The hurricane’s path through Camagüey made his mother hit rock bottom. The result was that Esmeralda’s main coal baron offered her a job as a maid in his house.

Back then, in 1934, coal was the fuel of Cuban households. His mom had to cook, clean the house and wash the clothes. Food and a room for herself were the payment that she received. As the Spanish saying goes, everybody takes advantage of the wood from the fallen tree.

If his childhood left him brimming with sadness, it was because of the overwhelming love that Paito felt for his mother. As soon he could think, he had lived trying to alleviate her suffering from scarcity. The powerful hurricanes that thrashed around his childhood tended to blow in brimming with misery. They made his feet discover shoes and his body discover brand-name clothing when he was on the verge of puberty. The first outfit that he owned was made by his mother. She used a wheat flour bag that she bought at the Villarreal Bakery. It cost her one cent. The outfit wrapped him up for so long that he even felt affection for it. It was at his side, up until the verge of puberty.

What I remember the most about the first and only outfit that I used during my childhood, Paito would say, his eyes filled with tears, was that it had patches on top of other patches. And that when my mom saw me with those clothes full of patches and barefoot, her eyes would swell up with tears. And to not see her suffer, I would turn into a real-life actor, and would fake a happiness that didn’t exist. But deep down, I was suffering even more than her. Because when I saw my mom suffer, it broke my heart in two.

The marks left on him from that dark period were rooted so deeply in his mind that sixty years later, when he sees someone using jeans full of patches, – and they call that fashion! – he is brought back to his childhood and his eyes cloud up. And his conscience repeats: silly boy, he doesn’t have a personality; he hasn’t even experienced the charisma that only the soft belly of our female progenitor can infuse into us. And he covers his body with blue jeans teeming with holes, in the mistaken idea that it will draw attention. Poor idiot: tell me what you wear and I’ll tell you who you are.

When Paito’s childhood finally moved on, it left him full of marks. The one that tends to come to him the most, after just even hearing the words chicken or hunger, happened while his mother was still at the coal baron’s house.

During the previous year’s Christmas celebrations, an unforgettable event, his mom asked him what gift he wanted the most for Three Kings’ Day.

He had told her, I want a singing rooster. So, his mom washed the clothes for some neighbors under the condition that they would pay her with a chick. And on that long-awaited date of January 6, the cry of a baby rooster from under his bed turned him into the happiest child in his beloved town of Esmeralda. But like the wise old saying goes, joy is short-lived in a poor man’s house. On the first Christmas that he spent alongside his baby rooster, as the clock struck 3 o’clock in the afternoon, playing with the only toy that the kings had brought him, his mom came up to him with her face overcome with sadness and her eyes brimming with tears: Son, we haven’t eaten for two days. And the owner hasn’t come home for three days. It’s painful, but I’m begging you to let me cook your rooster. Because the only thing that we have in our humble house is a bit of salt that a neighbor gave us.

What uncle Cecilio, your brother, told me is true, mom. Children communicate with their parents telepathically. What you just told me was the same thing that I was thinking. Cook the rooster, mom. Just don’t do it while I’m here.

After hearing his request, Just don’t do it while I’m here, her eyes were overcome with tears, and the only thing that he couldn’t handle was watching his mother cry. The end result was both of them crying out their miseries.

An hour later, what my palate felt while biting into the chicken thigh that my mom brought me on a plate has no words to describe it. All I can say is that during my childhood, I couldn’t stomach chicken thighs; not even seeing them on my plate. Because they reminded me of my unforgettable pet rooster.

And at sunset on this unforgettable day, my mom came up to me, her eyes bathed in tears, and told me, "Son, you didn’t eat anything today. I want you to go to the Hotel Unión, to the cafeteria, and ask for a piece of bread from the people eating there. And don’t forget to thank whoever gives you the