The business of death


In Cuba, everything is negotiable. Even death. This is what happened two weeks ago to the Qunitana family. Their mother, an elderly woman of 71, had died of renal failure. After the doctor certified the lady’s death, what the family lived through was a tragedy with overtones of black comedy.

The night of the wake, there was no water, and the ration of coffee allowed by the government could not be made. The guy in charge of making the coffee did not have enough gas in the stove and his coffeemaker was broken. The sad-looking fellow in charge of dressing and putting make up on the body did not have enough sawdust to stuff the recently deceased.

Five CUCs (convertible money=120 Cuban pesos) made the miracle happen, and the missing sawdust appeared. Later when it was time to buy the flower arrangements the tragic events continued. In the flower shop, a very sleepy and obese woman explained to them, grumpily, that she did not have the ink to write the names on the ribbons which would identify those who sent condolences.

The obese lady was going to return to her improvised bed, among faded flowers and roaches that infested the place, when a green bill with the red “5 CUC” changed her mind. At 3 am, at almost 1 km from the funeral home, they decided to walk along 10 de Octubre Avenue with the six flower arrangements on their shoulders, since there were no signs of cars for hire in the deserted street.

By morning, the state cars that had been previously rented arrived around noon. After expressing their condolences to the family, one of the drivers, a black man in his fifties who was smoking a cheap cigar, justified the delay by saying that “the gasoline truck had not arrived at the base.”

Just when everyone thought the mishaps had ended, a frightening downpour broke in the same instant that the funeral procession reached Colon Cemetery. One of the two gravediggers charged with performing a Christian burial for la señora Quintana, alleged that with “such a downpour we have to wait, I am catching a cold.” His work mate complained to the disgusted family that they had gone 27 hours without sleeping, and “I believe he has the H1N1 flu.”

All the relatives held their tongues and flinched as if they had seen the Devil himself. “Well,” said the elder son of the deceased, “he who hopes for much can wait a little.” One hour and a half after the rain stopped, they slipped 40 pesos under the table to each gravedigger, and la señora Quintana could finally rest in peace.

As a finishing touch, one of the gravediggers told them calmly that after two years they would have to come up with more money in order to place the bones in an ossuary and to have flowers placed on the vault.

“Only here, even after death, do you have to keep paying money,” shouted one of the upset sons of the deceased. The gravedigger, embarrassed, shook his head nonchalantly and pronounced the sentence: “Sir, business is business.”

Photo: Jack 1962, Flickr