The Longina mystery

Eduardo Vázquez Pérez

HISTORY has twice called attention to the life of Longina O’Farrill; firstly, when she worked as the nursemaid of Nicanor MacPartland, who later became known as the Cuban student and communist leader Julio Antonio Mella, and secondly, when Manuel Corona dedicated a moving song to her. Although independent of each other, these two events became related. If it hadn’t been for the extraordinary fame of the song, Mella’s biographers would not have recorded the name of his nursemaid.

"In the mysterious language of your eyes/ there is a theme which highlights sensibility/ in the sensual lines of your beautiful body/ its admirable curves arouse illusions."

Since the creation of the song in 1918, there have been many rumors about the relationship between the author and his model, but everything would point to more in the vein of a romantic spirit than reality. As María Teresa Vera told Lino Betancourt, who passed it on to me in a delightful exchange of details, Corona was asked to write it.

María Teresa (Teté) Vera, the par excellence interpreter of Corona and his faithful disciple, first sang "Longina" on October 15, 1918, not in a theater but in the humble tenement room where she lived in Havana and which, as a consolation to the poor, was called La Maravilla (The Marvel).

A few days earlier, in the same room, a group of trova musicians had come together for one of their regular sessions, including Manuel Corona (Caibarién, 1880). Alcohol had warmed their creativity and the bottle was empty when a limousine stopped at the entrance to the tenement, and Commander Armando André descended from it. A music lover and sponsor of trova singers, he was accompanied by an African-Cuban woman dressed in white.

André, at the time director of the Mario García Menocal government’s Subsistence Board, provided more alcohol and the party continued. When he left, he talked Corona into composing a song for the woman accompanying him. Corona, knowing that October 15 was Teté’s birthday and thinking of the economic aid that would surely be forthcoming from the grateful politician, said, "Come back on the 15th – María Teresa’s Saint’s day – and you’ll hear it then." He asked the for the young woman’s name. Longina, was the reply. "Well then, the song will be called "Longina."

And so, on October 15, 1918, in a humble tenement room, the brilliant song was heard for the first time. Those present were moved by its beauty, but unaware that they were witnessing a historic moment, given that transcendence is always a mystery. The popular imagination wove myths around its composer and the reasons behind his inspiration. The song contains delicate touches and subtleties which stimulate erotic play with the physique of the idealized woman, without exceeding the poetic mode of trova musicians of that period. Other images, such as "from that pearly seashell mouth," obviously do not fit the song’s model.

The work of every artist is also related to his or her era and culture. Lamentably today, when schmaltz can be heard with alarming frequency, there are people who cannot appreciate the subtlety of "admirable curves arouse illusions." Nowadays, when it is fashionable to even reveal underwear, little is left to the imagination. However, the mystery of "Longina" lies in the fact that, despite current more aggressive lyrics, the 93-year-old song still seduces.

Five years later, Corona dedicated another song to Longina, titled "La rosa negra", which begins, "I have seen you again, Longina, the seductive/ but sensational woman/ you are the most beautiful rose in this delightful tropical garden." However, it did not attain the expressive height or popularity of the first composition.

Corona was one of those people endowed by nature, who attracted talent and hunger in equal measures. Black and poor, the success of compositions such as "Mercedes", "Aurora", "Santa Cecilia" and "Longina" itself, did not bring him any comforts. He took from life the fleeting splendor of interminable sprees and left us his glory. One of the most important Cuban composers, who recorded more than 100 pieces for the RCA Victor, Edison and Columbia record labels, died destitute on January 9, 1950 in a room in Marianao, Havana, loaned him by the owner of the Jaruquito bar.

Manual Corona was buried in his native town of Caibarién, in Villa Clara province on the same day.

For her part, Longina O’Farril became a prisoner of her oblique fame. As the years went by, the young woman, with "a body decorated with beauty" and "a majestic walk," as the song says, only left her anonymity when people’s curiosity prompted them to seek out the woman who inspired such a beautiful composition. For that reason, prior to her death, she asked to be buried beside Manuel Corona, the man who had made her famous. She died many years after him, but was buried in Colón Cemetery in Havana. It was not until December 25, 1989 that her wish was fulfilled, and her remains now rest in the Caibarién cemetery. (Habana Radio)

GRANMA