While Nina proclaims herself a runaway slave, she lacks a feminist awareness of issues related to sexuality, which acts as the intersectional element between racism and
machismo. Racial violence culminates in Nina’s femicide at the end of the novel. Jorge beats her to death while yelling: ‘Black bitch! – And he spat in my face –. You cannot be trusted. You bewitched my grandmother, you made her testify against me. But you will pay for this’.
1 Spanish original: ‘¡Negra puta! —Y me escupió en la cara—. En ustedes no se puede confiar. Embrujaste a mi abuela, la hiciste declarar contra mí. Pero tú sí las vas a pagar’; Negra, p. 315. Jorge’s repeated accusation of Nina being a ‘bruja’ (‘witch’) refers to her being both a woman and black. Therefore, his insults against Nina are indicative of the
machista ideology that has perpetuated since colonial times on the island.
The killing of Nina by Jorge is the culmination of a fate against which Nina could do nothing. From the beginning of the novel, Jorge makes it clear that he does not trust Nina. Nina’s femicide thus shows something important: Jorge does not evolve as a character. His time in jail does not change his contempt for women.
Yet, Nina is erratic and contradictory when facing issues of gender and sexual equality. Let us pause for a moment on her reaction at the gynaecologist’s office when doctors are examining her body to confirm her pregnancy. A routine exam in which she is neither disrespected nor abused becomes a traumatic experience from which she flees:
I opened my legs and laid down on the table. They placed the medieval instrument in me, that iron speculum that squeaks, creaks, violates my privacy, leaving me immobile.
Yes, I was pregnant; I was about six weeks gone. […] At that moment, several medical students entered with their professor.
[…] I felt exposed. One of them asked:
– You’re not the model?
I could not take it anymore; I wanted to close my legs, run away. I excused myself to the doctor; I wanted to escape from the office as soon as possible.
2 Spanish original: ‘Abrí las piernas y quedé tendida sobre la camilla. Me colocaron el instrumento medieval, ese espéculo de hierro que rechina, cruje, vulnera mi intimidad, dejándome inmóvil. Sí, estaba embarazada, tenía aproximadamente seis semanas. […] En ese momento entraron varios estudiantes de Medicina con su profesor. […] Me sentía expuesta. Uno de ellos preguntó: - ¿Tú no eres la modelo? No pude más, quería cerrar las piernas, salir corriendo. Me excusé con el médico, deseaba escapar del consultorio lo antes posible’; Negra, p. 53.This scene, which is naive in appearance, cannot be such if interpreted from a different angle. In this scene, Nina’s pregnant body is examined by a team of doctors, mostly men, with an iron speculum, which she classifies as a ‘medieval instrument’, reflecting the old techniques that are still in force in hospitals. In this regard, Nina is reacting to men’s invasive techniques against her privacy that leave her immobile. She thus reacts to another attempt by males to control her body. But is Nina really aware of her motive for reacting this way? And, even more relevant to this analysis: does Nina follow the precepts of gender equality and sexual freedom in her daily life?
Nina only manages to emancipate herself sexually with her friend Lu, while in her heterosexual encounters she follows the gender precepts inherited from the colonial era. Therefore, Nina behaves like a sex slave to white men (Jorge and Philippe). The cliché of her wild sexuality turns Nina into a caricature of the Cuban/Caribbean woman: a prostituted woman for foreigners (a
jinetera). Thus, Jorge yells at her: ‘Learn to be a whore so that you have control over men and, incidentally, over your life. Learn to use yourself so they don’t use you’.
3 Spanish original: ‘Aprende a ser puta para que tengas el control de los hombres y, de paso, el de tu vida. Aprende a usarte para que no te usen’; Negra, p. 30. Jorge thus presents
jinetería as the mechanism that will help Nina regain control over her life and body.
I agree with Segas that in France, Nina adheres to the cultural tradition attached to sexualised depictions of black women. Nina manifests her sexual voracity in, for example, the ease with which she begins her relationship with Philippe and in her encounter with drug dealers in a Parisian suburb. Nina comments the following on her way home after allowing them to touch her:
I return with […] a smell of sweat and hashish resin with beer, the kiss on the forehead that the prince of dealers left me, who, under my skirts, with a licence and delicacy, he accommodated me a little more ‘mystical matter’ and released me safely on the avenue.
4 Spanish original: ‘Regreso con […] un olor a sudor y resina de hachís con cerveza, el beso en la frente que me dejó el príncipe de los dealers, quien, bajo mis faldas, con licencia y delicadeza, me acomodó un poco más de ‘materia mística’ y me soltó a salvo en la avenida’; Negra, p. 101.It is surprising that she is the same woman who found a gynaecologist’s exam an offensive act. Her contradictory personality leads her to embody different ideas and positions depending on the situations in which she finds herself, with no logic. Therefore, Guerra does not succeed in presenting an effective approach to violence against women.
There are other contradictions in
Negra regarding Nina’s approach to feminist ideology. Eventually, Nina complains that ‘history has very seldom been told by us blacks’.
5 Spanish original: ‘la historia muy pocas veces ha sido contada por nosotros los negros’; Negra, p. 283. Yet, Guerra is embedded in the masculine and European literary traditions. There are citations to the works of Miguel Barnet, Cabrera Infante and Reinaldo Arenas, as well as Hemingway. I agree with Segas that the literary quotes are mostly taken from men’s works, such as Alejo Carpentier, Nicolás Guillén, Alexander Hersen, Samuel Feijoo, Eliseo Diego and Luis Gómez. Guerra makes a few references to feminists, and those mentioned are mostly white Europeans, such as Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir. As for Cuban feminists, she does not mention anyone other than Zaida del Río. Neither do Afro-Cuban writers appear. Segas wonders: where are Reyita (Daisy Rubiera’s grandmother) and the poets Georgina Herrera and Nancy Morejón? ‘Where are all the laudatory poems to the runaways of yesterday and today […]?’.
6 Spanish original: ‘¡Dónde están todas las cimarronas de ayer y hoy […]?’; Segas, ‘Negra’. Ultimately, the lack of a feminist approach manifests in Nina’s account of her death.
She narrates her deep release into death, her freedom and her body’s lightness in moving towards her mother. Paradoxically, there is no criticism of the dynamics of violence that have marked her existence, nor the criminal violence perpetrated by a male, Jorge, whom she still refers to as ‘the man I loved’.
7 Spanish original: ‘hombre que amé’; Negra, p. 317. At that stage, Nina focuses on her mother, ‘la negra’, in front of whom she becomes a girl and with whom she melts in body and soul: ‘I come back, I cuddle, I come back to becoming a piece of her. I return to the egg, to the origin of the sacred maternal river that passes and flows as always’.
8 Spanish original: ‘Vuelvo, me acurruco, regreso a ser un pedazo de ella. Regreso al huevo, al origen del sagrado río materno que transcurre y fluye como siempre’; Negra, p. 318. Nina’s encounter with her mother closes the cycle of her life, and the encounter of the two women becomes a motive for celebration: ‘My mother dances with her nine skirts; she stumbles gracefully and awkwardly, saving the choreography in a juggling, sneaky gesture. […] She winks at me, sticks out her tongue and continues dancing while fanning me with her colourful skirts’.
9 Spanish original: ‘Mi madre baila con sus nueve faldas; tropieza graciosa y torpe, salvando la coreografía en un malabárico, disimulado gesto. […] Guiña el ojo, saca la lengua y sigue bailando mientras me abanica con sus coloridas sayas’; Negra, p. 318. This encounter connects Nina with her original place, her mother’s belly, indicating that motherhood is for her a matter for women alone.