Lola, is the name of a very popular Cuban legend
There is no Cuban who does not know that Lola was killed at three in the afternoon. There are questions that every Cuban can answer. But it is no longer the case to ask questions about Lola. Since this is only the exact moment of her death, all we know about this character, according to the correct criteria of the Cuban intellectual Ciro Bianchi.
We can't say anything else about Lola, except the supposed time of her death. We will never be able to specify the date she was killed, or the exact place, not even the identity of the characters involved in the story.
It is said that she was a prostitute who was stabbed to death by one of her lovers with a knife in the chest. It was further added that the crime actually took place at three o'clock in the afternoon one day in 1948.
The perpetrator of the murder was apparently a renowned physician who thought that the incident, given the victim's poor life, would occupy only a few paragraphs in the crime report of the newspapers of the time without knowing that it would be recorded forever.
The murderer could not even imagine that President Grau San Martín, already at the end of his term, which ended on October 10, 1948, would refer to the event in one of his last speeches. In fact, it is said that the president interrupted his speech, looked at his watch and announced to the audience that it was already three o'clock in the afternoon. He then clarified: "The moment Lola was killed."
This simple but pertinent comment, because it was expressed by the President of the Republic, had an immediate impact and remained engraved in the collective imagination and memory of Cubans.
The above is an interesting story, full of imagination if you like and even credible. But it is not true.
It is not excluded that Lola is a prostitute. Nor that President Grau alluded to the event in one of his speeches. It can even be admitted that the criminal was a doctor ... But this story about Lola is a story that collapses under its own weight.
Unfortunately, at that time, a variety of similar anecdotes of crimes of passion proliferated, making it even more difficult to establish their origins or protagonists. It was therefore impossible to verify the legitimacy of the rumors spread.
Beyond the harshness and violent and macho content of the alleged story, the Cuban has completely stripped it of these meanings and transferred it in an erotic and festive way into his daily code of social conduct.
When you see another person leaning forward, for example, you are usually in the mood to jokingly warn them that Lola was killed in that position.
In Cuba, three o'clock in the afternoon is defined by the expression: "la hora en que mataron a Lola" (the time Lola was killed).
Being better than Lola or like Lola, then refers to a state of maximum enjoyment.
A woman whose real name is unknown is also affectionately called by the name Lola. It is also done just as a joke, or simply to imply a certain intimacy and even complicity in the course of the conversation.
Adiós, Lolita de mi vida ...! (Goodbye Lolita of my life) was the expression of a well-known sports announcer of the island to recount in a baseball game the moment when the ball went out of the park (home run).
The latter is also often used as an ironic farewell.
So in what year was Lola killed? Who was this woman who survives in the Cuban collective imagination? Who killed her and why? These are questions that remain unanswered, even if we never tire of saying and repeating ad nauseam that Lola was killed at three in the afternoon.
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