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forebears.
    â€˜Tell me the truth, Malena, have you slept with another man?’ he asked her over and over. But every time Malena would cross herself three times, swearing she had done no such thing, and every night she offered up a prayer for her husband who, though he was a good man, was sometimes possessed by demons.
    Oscar, who always saw his wife as sacred, knew that she was sickly by nature; she was often woken by a recurring nightmare: a man raping her, pinning her against the timber floor. Sometimes, in the early hours, when he heard her scream in terror, he would run and fetch a damp cloth and press it to her forehead but when he asked what had frightened her, she always answered: ‘It’s just a nightmare.’ The same nightmare had tormented her for years. Oscar never believed that these moans and tortured cries were simply the result of nightmares. And so he became jealous. Sometimes he would follow Malena all the way to El Cobre to discover that there was indeed something else, but he never saw evidence of anything unseemly. He would study her in the presence of other men, he even watched how she behaved with his friend José, and finally he was forced to admit that Malena was a saint, a pure woman, utterly devoted to her husband.
    But Oscar was highly strung by nature. If he had never dreamed of getting married it was because he was convinced that no woman could ever love him. Being four feet tall and with a dark-black complexion, he felt sure it was impossible, since Negro women dreamed of tall, handsome men, mulattoes preferably, with whom to bear children. Racism was commonplace among Negroes. Oscar was one of the darkest, and probably the shortest slaves, which was why the first time Malena told him that she loved him, he ran away, unable to believe that this cruel woman could dare mock him to his face. It was only thanks to the persistence of José, who invariably dragged Oscar along on his visits, that he finally realised Malena was serious; that she genuinely loved him.
    Even so, Oscar had no idea how to make a woman happy. José, who was an expert on the subject, gave him tips on how to treat the fair sex. He suggested Oscar bring her flowers, make her laugh, massage her feet and her back, and recommended lots of sex on the grass and in the mud. Oscar picked romerillo, hibiscus and wild roses to which he added stems of sicklebush and wrapped this bouquet in a banana leaf to give to Malena who immediately pricked her fingers on the spiny sicklebush and began to laugh uncontrollably. Oscar sucked the blood from her fingers for a moment, and Malena went on laughing as he joked and perfomed silly tricks, then Oscar sent her sprawling face-down in the mud.
    â€˜What on earth are you doing, Oscar?’ said Malena. By now Oscar had already climbed up on to her back and was kneading her neck and shoulders like a baker. According to José, this was how women were conquered; little different from a sow or a nanny goat, and this, therefore, was how Oscar treated her. After all, where goats and sows were concerned, Oscar was an expert. Have you ever tried to massage a sow? I didn’t think so. Well, Oscar had. He had given Malena flowers, had made her laugh, and massaged her shoulders. All that remained now was José’s final recommendation. Oscar turned Malena on to her back. Her vision was blurred from the mud and so when Malena saw Oscar holding a black cudgel thick as a mango sapling, she thought for a moment he was about to beat her.
    â€˜Throw down that stick, Oscar . . .’ said Malena. ‘What are you doing!’ She quickly wiped the mud from her eyes. Only then did she realise what the thick cudgel actually was. She jumped to her feet, ran off and shut herself in her house for a week. Oscar went back to consult his friend, explaining that the last phase of his plan had failed.
    â€˜That’s because you’ve got a prick like a horse,’ said José. I