“El periódico?”
My jaw clenched. Don’t take my New York Times. Don’t take my New York Times.
“No, pasa, pasa,” the woman said and waved me on.
It was the helpless thing that got me. There was nothing I could say or do at the mercy of two guards who may, or may not, be having a good day.
As I walked out into the steamy, overcast heat, my anger was lost in an instant when I saw Luis on the other side of the gate. I smiled widely, pushed my way out of the crowd, and jumped to Luis.
“Oh, I missed you,” I released in a deep exhale.
His sunglasses were on, but pushed up and resting over his eyebrows, and I kissed him all over his face and neck.
“Me too, Mel,” Luis said, as we met in the middle for a big smooch on the lips.
At Luis’s home I was beginning to feel more comfortable. I could communicate more with Ana, as well as their family and friends who popped in from time to time.
The back garden at the Hotel Nacional where I again sat while Luis worked one day on, one day off, had become more than a space. It had taken on a personality, speckled with guinea and parakeets snuggled into a small tree on the lawn, shaded by two straw hats, their strings tied to make an umbrella. The birds looked content and so was I. Completely detached from any existence in the capitalist world, I wrote and I read as a gringo couple, more alabaster than I, with overly sunburned shoulders and noses, jumped at the sound of bongos in the corner. The middle-aged pair, stiff as boards, made me smile with each awkward step.
Chapter 37
Santo
Ana invited us one evening to go to a fiesta. Luis returned from work, tired and tense, following twelve hours of hot sun and diesel, which never produced enough money. He took a quick shower and descended the stairs, crisply clean and smelling of Issey Miyake cologne, a gift brought from Italy by Anabel.
We hopped in the car, off to the house of Ana’s santo, or padrino, who is a priest of Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion that grew from the slave trade. For many years teachings were only passed by word of mouth, but today literature does exist for priests who focus on the core of Santería, which is to bond human beings with powerful, but mortal spirits called orishas. An orisha is a representation of Olodumare (God) and followers believe that the orishas will aid them in life if they celebrate associated rituals through dancing, speaking, singing, drumming, and eating with the spirits. In a mutually beneficial relationship, the orishas will only continue to exist with the presence of loyal worshippers.
Santería priests can be male and female and go through intense training of various sorts, but much is dedicated to learning both traditional medicine and herbalism, as they will become valued nutritional and spiritual advisors to Cubans. Following, there is an initiation, in which a priest is “reborn into a spirit,” making the commitment to serve one of the orishas. With this comes “special powers,” including the ability to predict the future. Divination is determined by the way in which a set of palm nuts or coconuts break and fall at the throw of a priest’s hand.
When slaves from the Yoruba tribe of West Africa, what is now Nigeria, landed in Cuba, they were not able to practice indigenous customs, including religion. For survival, they hid their orishas behind Catholicism, dressing them as saints. Santa Barbara veiled Changó, who embodies justice and strength and is associated with lightning and fire. Saint Lazarus disguised Babalú-Ayé, a caregiver to the sick. Ana’s orisha, Ochún, is the Yoruba goddess of the river, but long masqueraded as Our Lady of Charity. Sensual and sensitive, Ochún is represented by water, dance, the color yellow, sweets, and money, among other things.
Similar to that of the US, African culture in Cuba was suppressed for many years and it wasn’t until the 1920s and ’30s that African-Cuban culture, or Afro-Cubanism, was celebrated openly in any sort of way. When Castro came into power in 1959, he extended opportunities for education, health care, and artistic expression to all on the island, but religions of every kind were pronounced dead on the spot.
Castro himself had been educated by the most prodigious of Catholics, the Jesuits, but declared Cuba an atheist state as he took the reigns as the country’s fledgling president. Christmas trees, rosaries, the observance of Shabbat, and offerings to santos disappeared from plain sight. There wasn’t direct persecution for worship, but participating in religious services would exclude citizens from membership in the Communist party. Without the government affiliation there was no access to jobs or many of the social services suddenly available to all citizens, regardless of color or status.
In context, the lack of religion wasn’t an entirely horrible and radical ideal to everyone. Castro’s predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, a one-time moderate who became dictator following his own coup d’etat in 1952, had grossly mistreated and misrepresented most of the country, catering only to the upper classes. Batista had encouraged the construction of casinos with the promise of government backing and American mobster Meyer Lansky led the charge. Gambling, corruption, and police brutality ruled the island. Unhappy citizens began leaning toward the revolution that was occurring in Cuba’s countryside, as Fidel, his brother, Raúl, and Che Guevara pushed through, promising equality to all people.
As Batista fled the country on January 1, 1959, Castro’s leadership was a sign of hope for many on the island. There were those who saw the bar on religion simply as a shift of the new movement and jumped onboard with the Marxist-Leninist bundle, but others who wished to preserve traditions in worship were forced to move underground for the next forty years.
It was only in the back, windowless rooms of residences across Cuba that quiet exchanges of small gifts continued each year on January 6, the important Catholic calendar holiday El Día de Los Reyes, or the Day of Three Kings. Santería ceremonies, held to bring orishas together with followers, held an advantage during the tenuous times, Luis told me, because they can be carried out in the private homes of its priests, who fit their humble settings with altars.
In 1992 Cuba dropped atheism from its constitution and in December of 1997 reinstated Christmas as an official holiday, just weeks before a visit by Pope John Paul II. He was the first pontiff to go to the Communist Caribbean island and hundreds of thousands of Cubans rallied for the papal mass. On its heels, a new Cuban paradigm based in Santería crawled from hiding and out into the open with celebrations that reflect a symbiotic relationship with Catholicism. Many Cubans, like Ana, today consider themselves practitioners of both religions and embrace integrated symbols, like the use of holy water and saintly figurines during the African ceremonies.
Mind you, I knew zip about any of this when I stepped into the front parlor of the small house, full of people, with Ana and Luis on that particular evening. A bowl of water, pink rose petals floating in its bath, sat just inside at the base of the door. Ana dipped her hands in and rubbed them together. I silently studied all as Luis took my hand, waiting patiently to pass through the crowd.
A makeshift altar sat directly in front of us at the back of the room. My view was limited by the comings and goings of others, an intricate, moving web of heat, but I could see a large, white cake, rectangular and three times the size of any regular birthday variety. Surrounding it were mounds of cupcakes and other sweets, as well as coins and beads.
Luis and Ana walked closer to the altar and turned left to greet el padrino, who was dressed in all white, which is a strict, year-long requirement of a priest who has just completed initiation. Timidly, I walked behind them, keeping my arms in. El padrino greeted me and I him. He asked us if we’d like a coffee. I didn’t want to appear rude, but declined so that I wouldn’t bounce from caffeine for the rest of the night.
His wife joined his side, greeting us warmly. She had a pretty face and an authentic smile and also wore all white in the form of a lace dress pulled off her shoulders with a head wrap of the same material. She pulled Luis close to her and nodded to me.
“Bonita,” she said, directing her eyes to
mine.
I blushed and looked to the ground as Luis touched my cheek with his finger. We lingered for a minute more but with so many people squeezing through, we moved toward the wall. My eyes were darts, shooting from side to side, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, trying to figure out what was going on around me. Luis laughed, noting how strange everything must have been.
Ana wanted to skirt the crowds and go outside. She turned back toward the door, and I followed suit, letting go of Luis’s hand. Blocked in a crunch of people momentarily with Luis to my rear, I sensed something and looked back over my shoulder. Luis was on his knees on a straw mat, facedown, in the direction of the altar. Two candles, tall and white, were lit in front of him. He moved, propping himself with his right hand while his other went to his hip as it simultaneously rang a tiny bell. The house could have collapsed and I wouldn’t have moved.
Luis changed the position of his hands, his left moving to the ground while his right took charge of the bell. He got up, walked to me, and smiled.
“Explain all of this to me,” I all but begged in confused interest.
He nodded and winked. “Outside.”
Ana rinsed her hands in the rose water one more time before walking out. Trailing her, Luis and I looped the side of the house and stood on the small patch of grass while she perched on the salon’s open windowsill, remaining an active member of the celebration without being swallowed by it. Luis pulled me into him and wrapped his hands around mine. This was an offering to his mom’s saint, Ochún, who, he told me, is considered the happiest of all the orishas.
“You’re Ochún,” he told me.
“¿Cómo?” I asked in disbelief, as much so as my father when I told him that he and Luis are similar in many ways.
My hands frequently on my hips, cocked out a bit, I stand like her, he said.
OK.
More, she’s kind and generous and loves to laugh. Ochún is hard to anger, but watch out if you do. She can be a bit of a sass. Much like my Libra predictions, she likes all things fine, is a lover of the arts, dance in particular, and is drawn to natural bodies of water.
Conveniently for Luis, Ochún is especially drawn to Changó. His lightning-and-fire saint is a feisty and powerful one. Red and white are the given colors, suddenly giving meaning to the similarly hued beaded bracelet that Luis sometimes wore.
Bells chimed again, in another act of worship before the altar. Two men suddenly stood in front of the offerings, one holding a violin and another a guitar. One of the more important rituals in Santería is a bembé, which invites the orisha to communicate with the community through drumming, singing, and dancing.
With notes rooted in bluegrass, the violinist began alone. In fluid precision, chords transitioned to classical, so moving I could have wept. The guitar slid in, raw and deeply honest. Its strings were invisible, singing a personal tale, far more intimate and profound than a new friend should be. Yet, I grabbed the leash and held tight.
As the two instruments melded, so too did all of the people in the room. They came together standing to face the altar and began to sway, forging a rolling and peaceful wave. The man with the guitar began to sing with a voice direct from the gods, in Yoruba. The volume rose and his voice was so clear my naked ear couldn’t find a single glitch. I was so far inside the music that when it stopped it was like a bolt, the sudden silence. Though with barely a pause, the music segmented into sounds of pure, unadulterated joy.
This was why I had first come to Cuba.
The flowing wall of people began to break apart, each individual with rumba still evident in his or her steps. Cigars pushed into the air, like freestanding flags of freedom, and men and women puffed and passed them on, like joints at a college party. Someone busted out small, white plastic cups, each filled with smidgens of rum, which followed the cigars in close pursuit. Arms pushed hips and hips rolled to push out arms again and there wasn’t a soul in sight who wasn’t having a good time, Ana and I included. Luis, in his shyness, leaned against the wall and watched as we circled each other in our own mini rhythms of joy.
“Baila, chica, baila!” El padrino called to me through the window.
I grinned and held up my hands, my feet moving to the music.
Someone beckoned from inside: “Ana! Ana!” and she ran in, pausing to dip her hands in the plastic bowl once again.
Standing on the grass, looking in, I was out of place, but honored to be there. This was their world and they were allowing me an intimate peek.
Chapter 38
The Lost Boys of Cuba
The next day Luis and I were idle in the house, sleeping in. He only had to go to work that afternoon for a brief meeting. He drove away and I walked to the neighborhood grocery store. There weren’t any fruits and veggies, as those are typically sold by vendors on the streets so the small rows were lined with mostly foreign products. Though the freezer bins advertised meat, they were empty. I grabbed Mexican cereal, similar to our Raisin Bran, and the yummy guayaba paste that I like so much, as well as chorizo, olives, and crackers that could be paired with cheese.
Ana’s boyfriend, Abel, was going to celebrate his birthday with us that night so when I got back I made an antipasto plate and put it in the fridge, along with three red flowers I had picked off of a tree on the walk back. They would be for my hair after I showered.
Happy for cool water in such heat, I bathed and dressed in all black, threw on heels, and placed diamond studs in my ears. I pulled a taut ponytail at the base of my neck and plucked two of the flowers from their cool stems, fastening them to hide the black elastic. Luis liked my hair that way.
Abel came early so he, Ana, and I rocked in chairs in the parlor, toasting a beer to him. We talked until Luis arrived, my Spanish seemingly easier by the day. However, the heat was still a far reach for me. It could be rough at home, but this was unbearable. The windows were open, but nothing came in. I was slipping and sliding in my clothes and felt like I needed another bath, but there was no point to it.
At five Luis called to say he’d be there soon and at 7:20 he was downstairs. We were going to drop off the medical supplies I brought and would return for dinner around nine. I collected two mini tuna sandwiches I had made on crackers, as I knew he had probably skipped lunch, as he often did. Too busy, he frequently forgot to eat and would show up to the house shaking.
Luis was parked at the base of the steps. He was in a red polo shirt and dark glasses, his dark hair pushed back. I gave him a kiss and asked him if he was hungry. He said no, he had just eaten a pizza with tuna and that he brought some for me. I showed him the tuna sandwiches I had for him and we both laughed at our identical, but unsuccessful gestures.
After weaving through clusters of traffic and people, we reached Centro Havana. This area has the chaotic energy of a big city and is much more intense than Vedado, which in comparison feels like a suburb. On Avenida Italia, looking for Concordia, we slowed in front a church, not sure if it was the right one. A man came close to Luis’s window and confirmed that we were in the right place. He showed us where to park.
“Oye,” he said. “Tienes Proscar?”
Apologetic for not having the medicine he asked for, we parked and went inside. Luis asked how he knew we had medicine. I told him that the group met every Thursday night at seven and I was a foreigner. Easy math.
Going down a hallway a group of fifteen or so young men appeared in a room off to the left. The leader of the group waved for us to go in. Faces were bright and curious, but energy in the room was heavy. I assumed that most of the young men were HIV positive.
I told him that I had medical supplies and he said I should go upstairs and ask for Father Fernando. Above there was a room full of people busying themselves and almost in unison they nodded, “Buenas, buenas.”
Standing in front of a table full of covered dishes, an older gentleman with white hair and glasses came through a door to our right. I recognized him as Father Fernando from his photo on the website.
“Buenas,” I said.
“Hello,” he responded in English with a thick Cuban accent.
“I have medical supplies.”
“Yes, yes, come this way.”
Around the table and people and cameras we went. I heard a couple of other men speaking English. They were Americans with white T-shirts, Rockport shorts, and backpacks. A journalist held a long-lensed camera.
The Father led us to the back. “This,” he said, pointing to a four-paneled cabinet, “is our pharmacy.”
A doctor in the room opened the doors to show a display of half-empty boxes with sprayed flaps. Inside were a loose mess of Advil, Tylenol, and other bottles. Luis asked if they had any Proscar for the man outside, as well as skin cream, for a family friend living with AIDS, noting how hard it was to find it, but they had neither.
The doctor broke my box open and began rummaging through, pulling out medicines to hold up into the light. Father Fernando handed me a receipt as proof of the donations, which was a condition of the visa I had purchased. On the bottom of the white square read: GOD BLESS YOU!
“This is the only English I know,” he said with a large grin.
I thanked him.
We spoke briefly, as the journalist in me jumped out: How long had he been doing this work in Central Havana and why? Following the AIDS-related death of a friend’s son in the States, Father Fernando was inspired to leave the US and bring help back to his country where there was still great prejudice.
He began the group with one small meeting seven years earlier. Free of politics or religion, he aimed to create support for young men who had become infected, mostly by working the streets as jineteros, or male prostitutes, with little or no family to turn to.
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