was now Cuba's most luxurious club, a place where partying parishioners went to worship the nightlife under starry Cuban skies.
"They drink there and they gamble there," her father went on. "God only knows what else they do. It's not the proper atmosphere for a child."
"I'm not a child."
"Nevertheless, you're not 21, the legal age for entering such an establishment." Delia wanted to point out that this was Havana not Dubuque, that they were probably a lot looser about such things here, but decided it would not help her cause.
"But if I can look 21and I don't drink or gamble or do anything but watch one show, what can it hurt," she pleaded.
"It would be breaking the law," said her father. This was not just a convenient parental ploy; Delia's father obeyed laws, even speed limits. "We are guests in a foreign country and it is incumbent upon us to respect that country's laws." For all Delia knew, twelve-year-olds could legally enter the Tropicana, but even if they could, she'd never convince her father it was so. She had but one recourse – deceit.
Fortune had taken a keen interest in Delia's affairs during this Cuban summer, watching over her and acting on her behalf, so it didn't surprise Delia at all when her father told her that he had to go to Santa Clara for several days, leaving just a day before Carmen Miranda arrived. Delia would be left in the care of their housekeeper Josefina, a wonderful woman who could not be distracted from her television set after nine o'clock by anything on this earth, let alone by a teenager slipping out the back door for an evening at the Tropicana.
Carmen Miranda arrived in Havana on the fourth of July in the glorious summer of 1955. There were fireworks aplenty in that nation to the north, but none here where they should have been. The previous night, with Jorge still fence sitting on the subject of taking her to the Tropicana, Delia decided to play Carmen for him, hoping this would propel him in the proper direction. She first got the idea of dressing up as Carmen Miranda after seeing the movie Scared Stiff, in which Jerry Lewis had done the same thing. Practically everyone had at some time impersonated Carmen – she was an easy study – but for Delia this particular performance was like an insurance policy: No matter how bizarre her own performance might be, it couldn't be as outlandish as this one.
She donned a costume of red, gold, orange and yellow silk scarves pinned together along with a crown of bananas, put a recording of "Cuanta la Gusta" on the player and strutted before Jorge. As the energy from the recording infused Delia, she moved with sensual abandon before her awestruck audience, their eyes locked. As the song ended, and she flew into Jorge's arms, she knew that the speed limit would be broken tonight.
The Tropicana was a frenzied, pulsating place, as animated as the tourists and Havana socialites who crowded the casino, bar, dance floor and every table, there to be entertained by a half dozen celebrities, three full orchestras and the Tropicana's own ballet troupe. It had not been easy for Jorge to secure a table, and when he did, it was some distance from where Carmen Miranda would shortly perform. He liked the table just fine, not wanting to be conspicuous in such a place. Delia wished they were closer but couldn't say anything, and just being here was the high point in her sixteen years plus four months. She looked as mature as any seventeen-year-old in the place, sipping the wine Jorge had bought her and wearing another bright outfit that Carmen herself might have worn, but without the tutti frutti hat, of course, for that would be presumptuous.
Miranda's Boys broke into a spirited overture, and suddenly there was Carmen Miranda herself, bouncing to the beat of "South American Way." Jorge turned to see the look on Delia's face, but there was no look on Delia's face because there was no Delia. He scanned the floor, fearing she had fainted in her excitement. Nothing. Then he spotted her, crawling on hands and knees between the tables, toward the stage. He closed his eyes afraid to watch but finally had to look again. He spotted her as she squeezed unnoticed between the chairs occupied by the sleek black-haired man and his sleek black-haired companion, disappearing under the table next to where Carmen Miranda sang and danced.
Then Carmen jumped into one of Delia's favorites: "Mama mama mama eu quero, mama eu quero, mama eu quero mama, da a chupeta, da a chupeta . . ." A few lines into the song, one of her most famous and one she had probably sung hundreds of times, she stopped and stared into the immense room before her as though she had become lost. "Para bebe" came a whisper from under the nearest table. Carmen dove back into the song, and few in the audience were aware of the lapse. There were no further lapses and the song appeared to be headed toward a successful conclusion.
About the only warning the black-haired couple had of the impending disaster was the dancing of the olives in their martinis, a nervous samba in time to the music coming from the stage. It was gentle enough at first, but then the table that gave cadence to the martinis above and shelter to the young lady below shook as energetically as a table at a three-ghost séance. Delia was out of control. Carmen Miranda finished her song, the audience roared its approval and Delia jumped to her feet, sending the table and its occupants reeling backward into yet another table and another couple like so many genteel but helpless dominoes.
The room hushed as waiters bobbed here and there to repair the damage. Two large men left their posts at a doorway and headed toward Delia. So did Carmen Miranda, who reached her first and stared at her without speaking. The Brazilian Bombshell was a little older, a little heavier than the Carmen of Delia’s memory, but her brilliant eyes flashed – with anger, Delia thought. But then she grinned and said: "Zank you. You are boodifool."
She kissed Delia's forehead, darted back to the stage and resumed singing as though she were trying to divert attention from the embarrassed young woman now being escorted away from the stage.
Even now, forty years later, observed only by Fidel, Delia's cheeks reddened at the recollection of her calamitous faux pas, a Cuban crisis every bit as important to Delia as the Bay of Pigs invasion years later. Jorge had interceded that night and Delia was allowed to return to her table for the rest of the performance. But she was watched carefully and escorted out as soon as Carmen finished.
Summer ended as abruptly as Carmen's performance of "Mama Eu Quero" when her father was summoned back to the United States in late July. And although Delia had known from the beginning that her summer would end too soon, this shortening of it was somehow unjust, and she said so over and over, but to no avail. For she and Jorge, that last day together equaled any sweet sorrow of parting ever committed by a romantic to paper, film or television screen. It was filled with lovemaking, tears and promises – promises to write or phone, to return, to visit, to never forget – all that stuff that tries but can't take the sting out of the word good-by.
In the plane, somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, Delia heard the words to a popular song:
. . .though other nights and other days will find us gone our separate ways, we will have these moments to remember.
And she knew, despite trying all she could to believe otherwise, that Jorge and the past two months would be memories and nothing else.
The last few days of July and the first few in August were endless hours of agony. Her young life had ceased, after sixteen and a half short years, to have meaning. She mostly listened to music – Latin and melancholy – and stared at the television set, not really watching. Not until that night when Jimmy Durante had as his special guest, straight from her triumphant Cuban tour, Carmen Miranda.
Delia, cheered for the first time since leaving Cuba, even doffed a hat of fruit as she sat cross-legged in front of the television, watching the interplay between Jimmy and Carmen. Delia may have been watching with 20 million other Americans, but only she a few short weeks ago had seen Carmen Miranda from underneath a table at the Tropicana, had been smiled at and called boodiful.
After the lights had dimmed at the Club Durant and the star of the show had bade goodnight to Mrs. Calabash, Carmen Miranda returned to her dres
sing room. There, shortly after midnight, at 46 years of age, she died of a heart attack.
Ah, look what you've done, Fidel. I hadn't thought about that summer in a good long time. For a few months, I thought of nothing else; for a few years, often. For several Halloweens, I shamelessly dressed my daughter as Carmen. And for one Halloween, her little brother was you, Fidel. Delia laughed. The face on the television screen was now a stranger, but she continued to talk to it. Several years ago, we all watched that old movie on TV, and they laughed when I cried at the giant bananas. My husband says I should visit Cuba, but I don't think that's allowed. All because of my international incident at the Tropicana, probably. I hear the Tropicana is still there. I thought they would have torn it down at once. Jorge would have.
Jorge.
Good night, Jorge, wherever you are.
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And please visit my website Tis Pity He’s a Writer.
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