“Two men are skinning an animal. They are buccaneers in linen shirts stained with blood. The stains are ocher because the blood is dry, but the blood on the grass at their feet hasn’t yet dried. A shifting mass of ochers and reds is accumulating on top of the sap-green of the grass; in that puddle, the paint has been applied directly from the tube onto the canvas. A few blades of grass are very precise, like scientific illustrations, and that precision in the midst of all the imprecision mimics the way vision moves in and out of focus. The blood on the grass is the blood from the cow they are opening up. On the right of the painting, a black man is cutting it open, a purple rag around his head and a period weapon on his shoulder. A musket? No, it’s an arquebus. He is a man with powerful muscles. The muscles have a Goyaesque appearance – the brushwork is thick and appears careless, but that carelessness is the brute force unleashed by the painter’s hand. The muscles convey that force. On the other side of the cow is a boy with much lighter skin, long hair, and a felt hat. He is grabbing one edge of the gash his friend has created and pulling to free the skin. He has a knife between his teeth. The teeth, small and ashy, peek around the silver blade. The light glints annoyingly off the blade, and his lips brush against it dangerously. Both of their hands are made of thick points of light, like the ornaments on a chair in a Vermeer. The cow’s head, applied with a spatula, like the features of the men, hangs to one side. The black man is holding up a hoof, which I put everything into. Caravaggio would gladly have signed that hoof. The hairs around it, Maestro, what a pleasure they are! Here and there the paint runs, because I spilled the melted ice from my drink on the canvas – I was painting with it laid out on the floor and I took advantage of the accident. From the hole the men are opening in the cow a vision appears. Water – clear, shallow water, like in Boca Chica. The buccaneers are looking into the depths of the water, as if waiting for something.”

Céspedes took off his Ray-Ban sunglasses and Argenis could see his blue-green eyes, like balls of marble. He was crying. Like a bird exposing its wet wings to the sun, he opened his arms wide, the way he did to move about. He went to a metal filing cabinet, all its drawers open and full of brushes. He caressed their tips, pulled a few out and put them back again. Then he crossed to a work table covered in dirty rags, dried-up paint tubes, and electricity bills. When he touched its surface, several used plastic cups fell to the ground. He finally reached a wooden Cohiba cigar box on one corner, opened it, and took out a brush. It was an angled brush with honey-colored bristles. The old man ran his fingers over the mahogany-wood handle, stroked his chin with the bristles, and told Argenis, “I bought this brush in Italy in 1976, on my only trip to Europe, and I swore I’d give it to my heir whenever I found him. It’s for you, my dear Argenis.”