Antonio Mercero, Agustín Martínez and Jorge Díaz poke their heads out of the balcony of their room at the National de Cuba, the same hotel where Ava Gardner, Walt Disney, Churchill or Rita Hayworth once slept. They contemplate the Malecón and the sea, which is slowly returning to calm after a sudden tropical storm. The image invites them to reflect on life and how, little by little, everything falls into place. They had never imagined that they would travel there as authors or that many Cubans would be interested in their new book, including the president himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Nor that Carmen Mola would take them that far.
“When we started with all this we were satisfied with publishing. But the project, which started as a diversion, progressed faster than we could have dreamed”, admits Mercero to La Vanguardia while finishing a cigarette after touring some parts of the city where the novel is set , such as Plaça de la Catedral, Plaça d’Armes or a sugar estate that could well be the genius described on its pages. His fifth book, L’infern, the second published in Planeta (Columna in Catalan), and which has nothing to do with the police cases of Inspector Elena Blanco, arrives in bookstores today.
The screenwriters return to the historical thriller that gave them so much joy with La Bèstia, Planeta award included, and they once again move to 19th century Madrid to attend the army uprising against Queen Elizabeth II. An event that leads its protagonists, Leonor and Mauro, to flee to colonial Cuba, a country full of contrasts where slavery was one of the main economic drivers.
“The majority were African, although there was a short period when villagers from Galicia and Asturias were recruited as wage settlers. They were promised work and a better life on the island, but many ended up as slaves. Fortunately, the scandal soon came to light. The same thing happened with the Chinese, but they opted for suicide and never managed to integrate”, points out Díaz. So much so that there is no trace of Asians in the current streets of Havana, although there is evidence of the passage of their ancestors through the island thanks to the great arch that gives entrance to the old Chinatown.
Strolling through the Cuban capital is an invitation to travel to the past. The few foreign visitors who do – tourism has not recovered since the pandemic – put their phones aside due to the lack of wifi and only take them out to photograph the old cars, which in addition to adding color to the streets make everything stink of gasoline. Decadent palaces also star in most photos. “They have not erased their colonial past or destroyed any of the four statues of Columbus, Elizabeth II or Ferdinand VII, which are kept in museums and which are in short supply in Spain”, recalls Mercero shortly before entering the Palau dels Capitans Generals, where ‘exhibit some of the luxurious carriages that roamed the streets of Havana at that time.
Mola’s story also encourages the reader to delve into the more cultural and theatrical Havana, since its protagonist is a suripanta, a woman who acted as a chorus girl in the tables of the Spanish capital. “In the novel we wrote a refrain that Leonor sings and which is real. It was like the Aserejé of the moment. All the works we mention exist. The Madrid clowns were the origin of the novel and the character of Francisco Arderius, who we rescue, excited us, since this businessman brought his show to Cuba. Now the successful Spanish actresses go to Hollywood, but before they came to Havana”, Antonio and Agustín say.
Beyond the cultural notes, the novel does not lack the bloody recreations, a hallmark of the house. “It wouldn’t be the same without the gore side. In all the novels we try to explore violence and in this one I think we go further”, explains Díaz.
The authors are inspired by “a historical ancestral rite that was carried out by a hacienda that had a cotton plantation in New Orleans. When we documented ourselves we ended up extracting oil from the story and we see that reality trumps fiction. Then we got together to see how we kill the characters”, says Martínez, who considers himself the cruelest of the group. “Antonio is the romantic and Jorge Díaz is the one who brings the historical tone”.
From history, they also rescue the fugitives, the slaves who managed to escape from the ingenues and took refuge in the mountains, “not to make a revolution, but to be free, despite the fact that this led them to live alone for decades”, points out Martínez. If they were discovered, they ended up being killed by rancheadores, a kind of bounty hunter. Many of these persecuted men promoted the independence of the island years later.
“We were attracted by the parallelism between the revolutions that took place in Cuba to end slavery and the system and Spain to overthrow the monarchy. The historical novel has a very beautiful thing and that is that it can be read like the present. Wage settlers are now exploited immigrants or victims of trafficking. Times change, but the essence is the same,” laments Mercero.
All three authors have shown once again that they are comfortable with the past. With the future, on the other hand, they prefer to be cautious and not reveal anything about the new story they are writing or with which publisher it will be published, Planeta or Alfaguara. “For the time being, we will stick with this promiscuity”, says Mercero. “Maybe we don’t sell and neither wants us”, seconded Díaz. Time will tell, although, for now, more than two million readers are loyal to them.
