Homophobia in Cien botellas

In Cien botellas, Linda’s apartment is the meeting point for a myriad of characters who have an overwhelmed vision of life and, in particular, of the morals of the regime on sexuality. Linda suffers double repression for being a writer and a lesbian. She is a complex, rational, cultivated and brave woman, as well as a radical feminist with a ‘sibylline evil, in the manner of a snake’.5 Spanish original: ‘maldad sibilina, a la manera de una serpiente’; Cien botellas, p. 14. Zeta admires Linda’s strength in keeping loyal to her principles. She does not let anyone impose their views on her about politics, let alone about her sexual orientation. Zeta refers to her in the following terms:

In the chapter entitled ‘Mangos y guayabas’ (‘Mangoes and guavas’), in which ‘mango’ is a metaphor for heterosexuality and ‘guayaba’ for homosexuality, Linda recognises her lesbianism without speaking her unspeakable lesbian desire. We have already discussed how Linda’s strong personality in relation to her profession fascinates Zeta. Linda is also a rara avis in relation to her lesbianism and embodies a challenge to two modes of political violence on the island: just as her writing allows her to challenge the cultural censorship at the time, her lesbianism allows her to challenge the institutional homophobia.

Portela does not present Linda in positive (and Manichean) terms only but rather as a tormented character who, like many others at the time, reacts to the repressive measures with distrust. In the same way that antidepressants help Zeta to evade the situation on the island, writing allows Linda to be critical of the system. Her experience offers an insight into the political persecution of homosexuals from the perspective of the sufferers, at a time in which homosexuality was seen as a pathology that could be cured: ‘[T]hey programme us to eat mangoes. It does not matter if we eat them well or badly, with pleasure or disgust: the question is to eat them. Mangoes or nothing. They programme us not to admit any other possibility’.8 Spanish original: ‘[N]os programan para comer mangos. Da igual si los comemos bien o mal, con gusto o a disgusto: la cuestión es comerlos. Mangos o nada. Nos programan para no admitir ninguna otra posibilidad’; Cien botellas, p. 73. Linda, like many others in her situation, has tried to conform to the system: ‘I ate a mango. […] I don’t know what the hell I wanted to prove to myself, but I swear it was the worst experience of my life’.9 Spanish original: ‘Me comí un mango. […] No sé qué mierda me quería demostrar a mí misma, pero te juro que fue la peor experiencia de mi vida’; Cien botellas, p. 93. Later, she acknowledges that her confession is only a trial of what she will tell her family ‘because I am not going to hide inside my own house’.10 Spanish original: ‘porque no voy a estar escondiéndome dentro de mi propia casa’; Cien botellas, p. 95. Linda’s confession does not improve her relationships with her family. Soon, they migrate to Israel because of the shame of having a lesbian family member. Linda’s story reveals the social stigma that homosexuals endured in the disciplinary system at the time that, as we pointed out before, forced them to hide from public view and, on many occasions, live double lives to receive social acceptance.

Zeta becomes a defender of human rights without even noticing it by acknowledging a wide array of possibilities for sexual freedom. She addresses the basic premise that homosexuality is a natural part of human sexuality as follows: ‘Just as I had not chosen to be left-handed, neither had I chosen to want guavas. No one can deny their own nature without serious damage to their psyche’.11 Spanish original: ‘Igual que yo no había elegido ser zurda, tampoco ella había elegido desear guayabas. Nadie podía negar la propia naturaleza sin perjuicio grave de la propia psiquis’; Cien botellas, p. 94. This belief is a liberating experience for her and yet her open view on the issue makes her a Cuban dissident. Zeta provides evidence that other worlds are possible away from the strict government control. Hers, therefore, is a passive resistance to the system that is extended over time and effective in that, at the end, with the death of Moisés, it manages to endanger the perpetuity of the system.

There are also male characters who are forced to hide their sexual orientation for fear of being incarcerated. Perhaps the most extreme case is that of Santiago, an emasculated homosexual who dies after being forced to show his masculinity to his father, who is a military officer and a defender of revolutionary values.

Sebastián’s story provides a testimony of the impact of disciplinary mandates on male homosexual dissidents at the time. Although the Unidad Militar de Ayuda a la Producción (UMAP) camps were disbanded in 1968, Zeta suggests that the ideology behind their creation was still present in some sectors of Cuban society during the Special Period. Zeta says: ‘many people despise fags, both in the new and just and luminous society and in the others’.12 Spanish original: ‘mucha gente desprecia a los maricones, tanto en la sociedad nueva y justa y luminosa como en las otras’; Cien botellas, p. 189. Sebastián’s father, who is a military general, ‘was not at all satisfied with the fact that his son, educated with such care and sacrifice in a new and just and luminous society and I don’t know what else, was a shitty faggot’.13 Spanish original: ‘no estaba nada conforme con el hecho de que su hijo […], educado con tanto esmero y sacrificio en una sociedad nueva y justa y luminosa y no sé qué más, fuera un mariconcito de mierda’; Cien botellas, p. 188. The father believed that military service could re-educate his son.

To his father’s dismay, Sebastián’s stint in the army fails to have the desired outcome, as the young man becomes the company commander’s personal secretary: ‘[T]he miserable secretary, his son, to the greatest misfortune, was a shitty little fag who deserved not to send the tanks, but to have the tanks run over him, crush him like a cockroach’.14 Spanish original: ‘[E]l miserable secretario, hijo suyo para mayor infortunio, era un mariconcito de mierda que merecía no ya propinarles mandarriazos a los tanques, sino que los tanques le pasaran por arriba, que lo aplastaran cual cucaracha’; Cien botellas, p. 191. The whole experience of military service traumatises Sebastián: ‘The point is, he was moaning. He howled. He stirred. He was making a mess with the sheets. [He claimed that] they did not kill him, that he was going to behave well. But he was not behaving well’.15 Spanish original: ‘El caso es que gemía. Aullaba. Se revolvía. Formaba un barullo con las sábanas. Que no le mataran, que él se iba a portar bien. Pero no se portaba bien’; Cien botellas, p. 193. These thoughts foreshadow his tragic death, murdered by an unknown assailant. Despite the apparent normality with which Gofia tells of Sebastián’s final outcome, a feeling of sadness floods the group of friends. Yet, the institutional homophobia and, as we discussed earlier, political violence against all those who posed a threat to the system were intensifying. Similarly to Sebastián’s story, Zeta describes the police attacks against Gofia and Mari la Roja for being lesbians when they moved in together: ‘they received expletives, threats, warning reports, a couple of fines, they were even arrested once, accused of […] disturbing the tranquillity’.16 Spanish original: ‘recibieron improperios, amenazas, actas de advertencia, un par de multas, incluso fueron detenidas una vez, acusadas de […] perturbar la tranquilidad’; Cien botellas, p. 197.

Linda’s experience at being urged to consume ‘mangoes’, Sebastián’s forced military service and the police attacks against Gofia and Mari la Roja, among other events, represent failed attempts to ‘straighten out’ homosexuals at the time. Although homosexuality was depenalised at the start of the 1990s, Portela indicates that same-sex relations were still seen as a deviance and a crime against the stability of the system. If the mere existence of the homosexual community upsets the system, Portela seems to tell us in Cien botellas, they have no choice but to seclude themselves in the haunts of Havana. From there, Zeta and her friends carry out passive resistance against the political violence against dissidents in revolutionary Cuba.

Finally, Zeta’s miscellaneous approach to reality leads her to accept the unacceptable as inevitable. Such is the case, for example, with her violent relationship with Moisés, an aggressive version of the Cuban macho. Her relationship with him makes Zeta a victim of gender violence, as we shall see next.