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In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
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Beta“Story of a Parrot” and “Confusing the Saints”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story Summary: “Story of a Parrot”
A third-person narrator describes the aftermath of an encounter between Hortencia de la Cruz, “an imposing, beautiful woman” (58), and a parrot. Hovering over the events is Hortencia’s husband Felipe, a failed writer.
Hortencia had wanted to be an actress, but her parents, Havana aristocrats, forbade it. To spite them, Hortencia married Felipe, who had neither money nor education. Her family supported the couple until they resettled in Miami after the revolution, where they now live humbly and loveless, never having children.
Just before Hortencia’s 60th birthday, a parrot flies into their house. Hortencia, who has spent the day reclining in her lounger, complains that parrots carry diseases and demands that Felipe chase it away. He protests that the bird is harmless, but Hortencia insists. The bird stares at her; Felipe thinks it wants to tell them something. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to chase it out, Hortencia collapses on the floor and begins weeping. The bird leaves.
For three nights, Hortencia is unable to sleep. During the day, the world seems brighter and filled with possibility. On the fourth night, she falls into an unsettled sleep and wakes as if from a nightmare. She hears Felipe on his typewriter in the kitchen and rushes out to confront him, saying she will never forgive him for chasing the bird away.
For a month, she keeps her back door open hoping the parrot will return, but it never does. One night, she looks up at the sky, whose stars resemble a spotlight on a dark stage. The bird’s absence feels like music, and she begins to sing a song in Spanish about crazy young love being an illusion that eventually dies. She thinks of a blue-eyed boy from La Concha and imagines young men storming Moncada, the historic barracks building stormed by Castro in the beginning of the revolution. Hortencia is there, and the young men desire her.
The next day, Felipe remarks that he has never heard her sing before and compliments her. She tells him that his writing is too romantic and out of style. She retreats to her lounger but cannot find a comfortable position. That night, she sings while Felipe types. For a moment, she is back with the blue-eyed boy then realizes it was “all a dream” (63).
Two months later, Hortencia is still talking about the parrot. Felipe asks why she chased it away if she “liked it so much” (64). She accuses Felipe of having called the bird diseased and complains that he “can’t stand to be surrounded by beautiful things” (65). She asks why he ignores her, and accuses him of having “poured all your passions into that stupid story” (65). He replies, “At least I’m doing something” (65).
A second-person narrator addresses Hortencia, reminder her that she could have joined the church choir when she relocated to Miami. She was waiting for and deserved bigger things. The second-person narrator urges her to sing, telling her that she is beautiful and loved. The narrative returns to third person, describing Felipe at his typewriter. He imagines a bird “moving to embrace him” as his fingers “find the keys like a lover in the dark” (66). The last line repeats the first: “Hortencia de la Cruz was an imposing, beautiful woman” (66).
Story Summary: “Confusing the Saints”
During the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis, first-person narrator Clarita, who works in Máximo’s restaurant with Felipe, awaits news of her husband Orlandito who has left Cuba on a raft. She prays to both pagan gods and Catholic saints about her drought and hurricane fears, and she reminisces about meeting Orlandito.
The story opens with an italicized narrative about orishas, lesser gods who plotted against the All-Powerful to take over the new world. An informant relayed the orishas’ plot to the All-Powerful, who retaliated by holding back the rain.
The narrative turns to Clarita, praying to Santa Gema as her grandmother did. A month passes without rain, two weeks without news of Orlandito. Fears and insecurities about her appearance plague Clarita. She worries that perhaps Orlandito “just wanted to disappear” (69) or that he only married her to get out of Cuba.
They met at her grandmother’s house in Havana. She was immediately drawn to him but thought him out of her league. The next day, he invited her to his sculpture studio to see his work. A fisherman who was a priest before the revolution married them before Clarita left Cuba. She promised Orlandito that she would find a way to bring him to America. He told her that she did not know how beautiful she was and would forget about him one day.
A boy who met Orlandito at a raft launching point visits Clarita at the restaurant. Orlandito asked him to deliver a letter and a sculpture to Clarita, but the boy lost them during the crossing. Knowing that Orlandito was thinking about her when he left comforts Clarita. She dreams about the Coast Guard notifying her that they have found Orlandito.
The drought continues. Clarita prays for rain. Felipe recommends an herb woman. Clarita tells the woman that the only thing she wants is for the drought to end. The herb woman tells Clarita the rest of the orishas’ story.
During the drought, the orishas fought among themselves, one blaming the other. Only one, Oshun, though to transform into a peacock, fly to heaven, and beg the All-Mighty for mercy. The herb woman reminds Clarita that suffering is older than humans.
Clarita continues to pray for rain—to Santa Gema, Santa Barbara, the Virgin of Charity, and the All-Mighty. She says that she is learning to fly. She will rise to heaven and pray to the Lord, and “he will take pity on me” (78). The story ends with an italicized narrative about a long rain that restores the earth from the drought’s effects.
Story Analysis: “Story of a Parrot” and “Confusing the Saints”
“Story of a Parrot” and “Confusing the Saints” both revolve around couples in which one partner fears his or her love is unrequited by the other. This dynamic of unequal love recurs throughout the collection, not only in romantic relationships, but also in the love/hate relationship between Cuban immigrants and their native country. As in many of the stories, Menéndez incorporates enigmatic narrative elements that require imaginative leaps to interpret, allowing for multiple possible meanings.
"Story of a Parrot” can be understood as an exploration of Felipe’s unrequited love for Hortencia. Having been born into an aristocratic Havana family, she feels superior to Felipe because he is neither moneyed nor educated. Even after the revolution levels their circumstances, she retains her sense of superiority and regrets her decision to marry him. Both partners in “Confusing the Saints” express insecurity in the other’s love. Orlandito is anxious that the narrator will forget him when she realizes how beautiful she is, while the narrator believes from the beginning that handsome Orlandito is out of her league. When she hears that he has left with the rafters, she fears it was his way of escaping their marriage. Because readers only know Orlandito through the narrator, his true motivations and feelings remain shadowed by her interpretation of them.
The narrative of “Story of a Parrot” is self-referential, which draws attention to storytelling as artifice. When the parrot first flies into the house, Felipe remarks that he read an article in the newspaper about wild parrots overrunning Miami and notes that “it might make a good story” (58). He and Hortencia grapple over and with the parrot, and Felipe later lovingly composes on his typewriter. These story details raise the possibility that “Story of a Parrot” is a narrative Felipe has written about his feelings for Hortencia. The first sentence repeats in the last, describing Hortencia as intimidating and admired, but also self-absorbed and petulant—the exact dynamic the couple enacts. While he compliments her singing, she derides his writing.
From Felipe’s perspective, Hortencia’s behavior with the parrot is emblematic of her pattern of cycling from superiority to regret. She insisted Felipe chase away the parrot because it is dirty and unhygienic, then regretted it, longing for the parrot’s return. She loved singing but declined the opportunity to sing in the church choir deeming it beneath her. Now in midlife, she feels that she has wasted her time and talent. The second-person voice that interrupts the story is potentially the voice of the parrot, which Felipe joked had a message for Hortencia. The voice agrees with her regrets, but also acknowledges that Hortencia deserved more, thus affirming the description of Hortencia as both admired and self-absorbed.
The narrator in “Confusing the Saints” channels her fears for Orlandito’s safety into prayers to both Christian saints and pagan gods. She “confuses” the Catholic saints, believing Santa Gema to be the patron saint of lost things instead of Saint Anthony, and forgetting that Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers. In addition, at Felipe’s urging, she seeks an herb woman versed in the gods of Yoruba religion, which traveled to the Americas through the slave trade. In this sense, she also “confuses” religious traditions.
The narrative does not explicitly resolve Orlandito’s fate, but the italicized passages that bookend the story suggest hope for a positive outcome, if not for him, then for those who have suffered because of the drought. The first italicized passage narrates a story about lesser gods in Yoruba cosmology inciting the All-Powerful’s rage, prompting him to hold back rain. The herb later woman explains that one of the lesser gods sought mercy from the All-Powerful. The narrator vows to do likewise, in terms that could also fit Christian tradition: She will fly to heaven and appeal to the Lord, and he will pity her. The story’s final italicized passage elaborately describes a cleansing, restoring rainfall. Although cryptic, the ending suggests that positive outcomes can only be achieved by bringing seemingly disparate viewpoints into conversation. This notion harmonizes with other stories in the collection that explore couples torn apart by seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints and Cuban immigrants who struggling to acclimate to a new world.
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