“No. No thanks. I’m OK.” Did he mean his niece? Perhaps I should not have been so hasty.
“Man?” Lío tried again. “OK too.”
“No, no one. Really, I’ll be fine.” I just needed to get some cash, check into the hotel, order room service—
“Declina.” It was the woman behind the glass. She said it without judgement, without inflection, without interest. She slid the card back through the opening.
“But I have money,” I protested. I did. I didn’t live lavishly, or even well. For the last twenty years, I had lived in my father’s house, rent- and expense-free, in exchange for providing care and companionship. Until I’d failed to provide either. I had no idea how much money was in my account, but it was significantly more than whatever denomination the money changer had declined.
“Try again,” I asked, sliding the card back at the woman. She did. My MasterCard wasn’t even really a credit card. It was a cash card tarted up to look like a credit card. It should work as long as there was cash—
“Declina.”
“Other card?” Lío suggested. My panic increasing, I dug through my wallet. I gave the woman my credit union client card, then my father’s Royal Bank Visa card, which he’d rarely used, but for which I still had signing authority. Declina. Declina.
“I don’t understand.” My eyes darted from the woman behind the glass to Lío and back again, frustration mingling with fear and helplessness. Why hadn’t I brought cash? Why hadn’t I just stayed on the resort? Why had I come to Cuba at all?
“Welcome to Cuba.” I had not noticed the man standing behind me in a line of customers that had not existed when Lío and I began our non-business here a few minutes ago. The man was tall, tanned, dapperly dressed, undoubtedly a guest-in-good-standing at the hotel. He smiled at me with an air of detached, been-there bemusement. “It’s a mistake we all make—once,” the man said. He was holding a wad of Canadian cash in his right hand, his passport in his left. “The mistake is imagining Cuba is like any other place you’ve ever been. It isn’t. It’s not the Cubans’ fault. And it’s not even your bank’s fault…or at least not directly. Blame it on Uncle Jesse.” I didn’t mean to look puzzled. But I was. “Jesse Helms,” the man continued. “The Republican Senator? Helms-Burton? No?” Vague recollections of stories I’d edited. “Anyway, it’s an American law, part of the US embargo against Cuba. The Cubans call it the blockade, el bloqueo. It’s illegal for American companies to do business with Cuba—”
“But it’s a Canadian credit card—”
“So you’d like to believe.” The man smiled, a smug, knowing smile. “But I’ll bet if you dig deep enough, you’ll find your Canadian credit card company at some point subcontracted processing credit card transactions to some huge American-based multinational that can do it far cheaper than your bank in Canada. So when the nice lady here tries to process your transaction, a light on some computer somewhere in Mississippi or Tennessee flashes ‘No.’ So, even though it may be a Canadian credit card, the American company won’t process it because the US Government would fine the bejesus out of them for ‘trading with the enemy.’”
The man held up the Canadian dollars in his hand, his smile broadening even more. “Next time, remember to bring cash, lots of cash.”
“But what—”
“Your best bet? Get someone back in Canada to wire you cash but get them to do it right away. Nothing happens that fast down here.” With that, the man stepped past me and handed his dollars and passport to the woman. “Room 610. Whatever this is in CUCs, my dear.”
“No worry,” Lío reassured me. “I help.” He knew a couple, he said, who ran a casa particular, which sounded like a Cuban version of a bed and breakfast. I could stay with them until my money arrived. Once we got to the casa, Lío explained, I could call Canada and have someone there send me money. “Tomorrow, take you Asistur. Sign papers. Few days, get money.”
I had only the slightest idea what Lío was talking about. Asistur? Papers? A few days? Should I trust this person who’d picked me up just a few hours ago on a country road in the middle of nowhere, whose last name I didn’t know? Was this all an elaborate scam? Were they all in on it? But what choice did I have?
We drove in silence back toward the downtown where Lío had dropped off Mariela. Lío stopped on a narrow street outside a three-storey apartment-like building, which looked like every other down-at-the-heels building on the block. Lío snatched my duffel from my hand, pushed open a paint-peeled door with no sign I could see to advertise its purpose, and waved me inside. “Up,” he said. The door closed behind us and, as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I could barely discern a long, crumbling stone staircase with random chunks of missing concrete. The walls were unpainted, and exposed wiring hung from the ceiling. At the top of the first set of stairs there was a landing, and then yet another flight of equally uninviting stairs leading to a third floor, which appeared to be guarded by a wrought iron gate. When we got to the top, Lío reached past me and unhooked the latch, pushed the gate open and….
We entered a different world. Suddenly I was in a brightly lit hallway with freshly painted powder blue walls complementing intricate blue and gold mosaic floor tiles. Directly in front of me, I could see what looked like a huge dining–living room filled with antique furnishings that opened onto a balcony overlooking the street. Lío guided me to the left and down a long hallway. To my right, there were a series of doors, behind which, I would learn later, were the casa’s guest bedrooms. On the left a half-wall opened to the sky above and an interior courtyard below. At the end of the hallway, there was a small kitchen that resembled a set for a 1950s-style family sitcom—Formica counter tops, a round chrome kitchen table and vinyl covered chairs, a clunky fridge and stove.
In this delightful setting, Lío introduced me to Esteban and Silvia. They were both small and round and welcoming. They hugged me, kissed me on the cheek like a long-lost friend. Silvia had prepared a plate of sliced meats and fruits.
“You must be hungry,” she said, urging me to eat. “Lío called to tell us about your troubles at the hotel.” She shook her head in disgust. “El bloqueo,” she said.
I can’t remember when Esteban began making mojitos.
“We grow the mint in a garden on the roof,” he explained proudly. “Not just any mint. To make best mojitos, you start with yerba buena, special Cuban mint.” He snipped leaves from the base of a stem. “Never rip them,” he showed me. “You want to hold the flavour inside.” He then added a dozen leaves to each glass’s base of freshly squeezed lime juice and cane sugar. “A mojito is like life,” he continued expansively. “You must find the sweetness in the lime.” He paused, picked up the bottle. “Then you add your white rum…always Havana Club,” he said, looking at Lío and smiling. “The best.”
Somewhere between the second and third mojitos, I finally remembered to call Sarah. Silvia led me to the living room where she placed the call from a cordless phone. “
I’m sorry for all the trouble,” I told Silvia. “But I’m good for it, I really am. I’ll pay you back as soon as—”
She placed her fingers on my lips. “I know you will. No problem. You’re a friend of Lío’s. You’re a friend of ours. It’s ringing.” She handed me the phone.
“Sarah? Hi, Sarah. It’s Eli.”
“What’s wrong? Are you OK?” Did I sound drunk?
“No, no, I’m fine. It’s just that I’m in Havana—”
“What are you doing in Havana? You’re supposed to be—“
I tried to explain—about the resort, the bellhop, Lío, the Nacional, the credit cards, the bloqueo–embargo, the casa, Esteban and Silvia.
“You’re sure you’re OK? You sound funny. And there’s a lot of noise in the background.”
There was. Others had apparently joined Lío’s and Esteban’s kitchen party. They were, I would discover over breakfast the next mo
rning, a young Australian couple backpacking through Cuba. They had been staying at the casa for the last few days while they explored Havana and planned to spend their last night in Cuba at a jazz club on La Rampa.
“I have the money,” I explained to Sarah when we’d finally sorted through the preliminaries, and I was able to ask her to wire me cash. “I just can’t get it at it. You were the one who said I wouldn’t need cash.”
“You wouldn’t have if you’d stayed on the resort the way you were supposed to.” We were bickering like siblings.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “I’ll send you the money. What’s the address again?”
“Asistur, A-S-I-S-T-U-R,” I began reading from the note Silvia had prepared for me. “Paseo de Martí—”
“Are you sure this is OK?”
I wasn’t. I had no idea what Asistur was, or why she should wire me money there. “I am,” I answered. “Absolutely.”
By the time I got back to the kitchen, Silvia had retired for the night, the Australians had gone, and Esteban and Lío were deep into their debate about the relative merits of their favourite rums. It was probably not the first time they’d asked a stranger to decide.
I lifted the shot glass of Havana Club Lío had proffered, pretended to savour the aroma, and swallowed it in one gulp. The alcohol burned my throat. I then picked up the glass of Lío’s Ron Santiago, did the same. It burned my throat too.
“I don’t know,” I said, smiling, drunk. “Maybe we need to do it again.” My two new friends laughed, clapped me on the back.
“Again!” Lío said, picking up his bottle.
****
The next morning, Lío drove me to the Asistur offices, which were located beside a boulevard that separated Old Havana from Central Havana. Lío had explained that Asistur was a government-owned company—“Every company government company,” he said simply—that assisted unlucky visitors with everything from lost luggage, to travel documents, to unexpected medical needs, to bail bonds (“Cooper no need!” Lío had laughed at his own joke), to acting as a conduit and money-skimmer for cash sent from abroad (“Cooper need”).
Lío not only drove me to the office but also accompanied me inside and interpreted for me. I still couldn’t decide whether Lío was genuinely helpful or just making sure I didn’t skip out on what I owed him. Or both. Regardless, I was grateful.
While Lío spoke to the woman at the reception desk, I read the typewritten notice in English on the wall behind her. “Serving customers since 1991,” it said. “To do so requires the disposal of a highly-qualified personnel….” Maybe I could land a job translating Cuban English into comprehensible English. When Lío finished, the woman appeared to appraise us both carefully.
“Nationality?” she asked me in English.
“Canadian.”
“Sit,” she said, pointing to two red leather chairs. We sat. And waited. Eventually, the woman picked up a telephone and spoke to someone. When she hung up, she looked at me, pointed to a staircase. “Second floor. Wait for Vivian.”
As Lío and I headed for the stairs, the woman held up her hand. “Only Canada.” Lío shrugged. Upstairs, I sat alone in a hot, empty, airless waiting room for what seemed like forever. Finally, a woman—Vivian?—emerged, looked around at the empty room and asked, “Canada?”
I followed her back into her office. “Passport?” I handed it over and the woman disappeared down a long hallway. She returned five minutes later with my passport and a sheaf of forms for me to fill out and sign.
“When?” I asked as I slid the last signed page back across the desk. “The money? When?” I realized how rude—and Neanderthal-like—I must sound. I wanted to tell her I really could speak in full, rich sentences with subjects, verbs, objects, sub-clauses, adjectives, even occasional metaphor and simile, and that I understood she probably could too, but we were trapped into word-grunts because I couldn’t speak Spanish. It was all my fault. “Sorry…please.”
She smiled for the first time, as if she’d heard what I hadn’t said. “Is OK. Understand…. Money? Depends. One day…a few days. All depend.” I wasn’t sure what anything depended on, but I thanked her anyway. “I call casa when cash come.”
3
“You have money in your room?”
“Yes.” I did. My cash had finally arrived, but by the time Sarah’s wired $2,000 Canadian had passed through all its various curious currency conversions, mysterious fees, inevitable taxes, and invisible hands, my share was just 1,274.70 CUCs. After I paid Lío his one hundred, plus another fifty for all his help, I’d put the remainder in the bottom of my duffel in my room at the casa, all except for twenty CUCs. That should have been more than enough to cover the cover plus a few drinks at the jazz club Esteban had recommended. And it would have been. Except—
“You get money,” the man said. “Bring here. Sixty CUCs. We wait.”
“OK.”
How had I ended up here in the back seat of this Lada outside Esteban’s and Silvia’s casa, squeezed between a skinny, menacing young man on my right demanding my cash, and a now silent woman-girl on my left who hadn’t earned it?
Menace Man opened the car door, got out, waited while I struggled to my feet. “Remember,” he said, “we find you.”
“Yes.”
I’d found the jazz club Lío had recommended. It was in a large, low-ceilinged room in the basement of a building on La Rampa. Perhaps a dozen tables—I wasn’t counting—circled a dance floor. Beyond, there was a small raised stage with a single stool and a microphone. I took a seat to the side, near the bar, ordered a Cuba Libre.
“Música?” I’d asked when the waiter brought my drink. My Spanish was clearly improving. “When?” I pointed to my watch.
“Soon,” the waiter said. I waited. It was not soon. In fact, I never heard the música. After a while, a slight, dark-skinned young woman in a low-cut white top and blue-jean mini skirt came into the room and sat down, alone, at the table beside me. She smiled at me. I smiled back. She smiled again. She nodded then, beckoning me over with her eyes. Why not? I sat down at her table. She smiled. I smiled.
“English?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Español?” she asked.
“No, unfortunately not,” I said, then pointed a finger at my chest. “Eli.”
“Gertrudes,” she said, placing her open hand across her chest. “Trudes.” I tried not to stare. Though she seemed to understand I couldn’t understand, she spoke to me earnestly in Spanish anyway. I tried to catch a word or phrase I understood. Finally, I called the waiter over.
“Can you help?” I asked. “Translate?”
He spoke to the woman in Spanish, but it was clear he already knew what she’d said, where this was headed. “She wants to know if you want to have a wonderful night?”
“Maybe…no…OK. But not sex.” I imagined, ever so briefly, an interview with the woman, neglecting to account for the fact neither of us could speak the other’s language. The waiter apparently failed to note my caveat while translating my words. The woman stood up, put her arm in mine, led me to the exit. As we passed a Cuban couple near the door, I caught the look of disgust on the woman’s face. No, I wanted to tell her, it’s not what you think. I just want to talk to her. I’m a journalist….
Like a fish at the end of a line, the woman kept my hand in hers as she led me to a side street where two young men stood beside a black Lada, smoking and talking. A taxi? There was no sign. The men barely acknowledged either of us as Trudes opened the car’s back door, pushed me in, closed the door, hurried around to the other side of the car, and slid in beside me. The two men casually butted their cigarettes on the street and got into the front seats, still talking about whatever it was they’d been talking about, and drove off. They had not exchanged a word with the woman, with me. Who were they? Where were they taking us? I could feel my heart ra
ce, my mouth was dry. I’d come to Havana seeking adventure, craving something more interesting than the resort. Was this it?
They drove in silence through darkened streets for what could have been ten minutes, seemed like an hour.
“Where are we?” I asked finally. “Where are we going?” Trudes didn’t answer. Did she understand anything I’d said? She just smiled and kept my hand in her clammy one. I was not a journalist. I was a dumb-as-dirt foreigner. I wanted to ask if we could go back to the club now, have a do-over.
The Lada finally came to a stop in front of a building in what seemed a much more suburban residential neighbourhood than any I’d seen so far. The one who would become Menace Man got out of the passenger seat and opened the back door. The woman kept her hand in mine as she crawled out after me. We followed the man into what turned out to be a ground-floor apartment. A family watched television in the living room. One man exchanged a nod with Menace Man, but no one else even acknowledged our presence. Menace Man stepped aside then, and Trudes took over, leading me down a long hallway to a small bedroom with a single bed. She’d obviously been here before. It was a girl’s bedroom, pink, with dolls neatly lined up on a bureau, girl’s clothes hanging from the closet. Did the room belong to a little girl who was now sitting in the living room watching TV with her family?
Trudes had given up on any talk, small or otherwise. She handed me a condom from a bowl on the night table—the little girl’s night table!—shucked her top and began to undo the button on her skirt.
“No,” I said, putting the condom back in the bowl.
She looked at me, tried to puzzle out what I meant, slipped off her skirt anyway. She stood in front of me in her bra and panties, looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to make the next move. She was young. How young? Not the little girl whose room this was. But young, too young.
“No,” I said again.
“No?” she replied.
“No.” We stood and looked at each other for what seemed forever. Finally, she held up her hand to indicate I should wait here. She slipped her clothes back on, left the room. I should leave, get the hell out. But to where? I didn’t have a clue where I was.
The Sweetness in the Lime Page 6