Cuba Diaries

by Isadora Tattlin

  As we are walking down the sidewalk to the car, Aurora pats Usnavy, who is ahead of us, on the behind. “Will you look at that culito (little ass),” Aurora says, looking back at us, grinning, framing Usnavy’s behind with her hands as if it were a work of art.

  Usnavy’s behind is the width of a Volkswagen, high, and utterly unself-conscious, clad in pink, green, and yellow floral stretch bike pants, which she has either made or miraculously managed to find big enough. “I had problems today on the guagua (bus) with this culito,” Usnavy says, laughing. “You should have heard the comments! Ooof!”

  Usnavy and Aurora laugh, we laugh, and maybe it’s the night air coming on, but suddenly I don’t feel like a breaded cutlet anymore, but light and fresh, as if I have just taken a shower. And I feel as if we will leave—but leave or not leave (we are laughing harder now), what does it matter? For we are, all of us on this planet, just visiting anyway.

  IV. 78

  Another weekend gotten through. The heat and boredom of the weekend as we approach it is slightly terrifying, but it goes well enough: a Polar Bar; a visit from a friend of a friend of a friend, a lone man whose evasive answers to our simple questions lead us to conclude that he is a sexual tourist; two children’s birthday parties to go to; and a concert by the Camerata Romeu at the convent of San Francisco.

  Nick comes to get me during intermission. He wants me to speak to an American who has approached him. The American is an older man with a cane. He is a member of an association of amateur chamber-music groups. He is against the embargo. He says it fiercely to me, as if I am for the embargo. He gives me his card. He is a retired judge from Los Angeles. I ask him what group he has come with. He shrugs, as if that is something unimportant. He says his association has chapters all over the world, but not in Cuba. He says he would like the Camerata Romeu to come to the United States. I agree they would be a big hit in the United States. I tell him who to get in touch with at the Interests Section to arrange for their visit. He says, “Interests Section, bah . . .” I say that’s who you have to go through to get Cuban artists to the United States, and that they are really quite helpful these days. I introduce him to the manager of the Camerata Romeu. He asks if her group has ever been to the United States. She says they have been many times and have just come back from a trip to Los Angeles.

  The judge steps back as if he has been slapped at the words Los Angeles and looks confounded. “I don’t understand why I didn’t know about it—I just don’t understand why I didn’t know about it,” he says as he walks off with his cane.

  We are introduced by Reny to a black diva in a white dress with a cascade of hair, gold fingernails, and gold shoes. She is a soprano, born and raised in Cuba, who now lives in Europe. She is the first diva I have ever stood close to. She has a tall black girl with her. It is her niece. The niece is a regular Cuban girl, Centro Habana, deer-in-the-headlights style. I ask the diva if she misses Cuba, and the diva says she lives in Munich now, but lived in Paris for fourteen years.

  On the way home, with Fritz in the back seat, Nick says he can’t understand why I didn’t invite the diva for dinner, she was so captivating, and I say that I thought she was so compelling that I wanted to walk right into her, my eyes staring, like someone out of Village of the Damned, but we are leaving soon, I don’t trust my instincts anymore, and every time I spread myself thin, he (Nick) accuses me of being like my mother or like some other ADD-ridden member of my family, spreading myself all over the place.

  Fritz, from the backseat, says, “Invite her and invite me.”

  That night in bed it comes to me: she is the diva, of the French film Diva. She is the black goddess-singer the French boy is obsessed with. Our diva lived in Paris for fourteen years.

  “MY WIFE FELL DOWN and broke her leg again yesterday,” Miguel says. “They will have to operate on her.”

  She has fallen and broken her leg in the place where the screw of the plate had gone through, where there was a little hole that, they find out now, never healed.

  FRITZ HAS LOOKED IT up on the Internet. Our diva is not the diva of Diva, but we don’t care.

  IV. 79

  Juana’s letter of invitation and application for an exit permit were passed to the Ministry of Education, which had no objection to her leaving. The papers were then passed on to the Emigration Department. Now Juana tells me she has just received “the white ticket”—a white postcard sent to those who have passed the Ministry of Education and Emigration Department hurdles—informing her that she can now go to pick up her exit permit. Her visas for the United States and for X—— are already ready.

  The tickets are the final hurdle. We cannot buy a one-way ticket for Juana to Miami, even though she will not be returning to Cuba through Miami, but through X—— and Madrid. No Cuban can buy a one-way ticket from Havana to Miami without also buying a nonrefundable return ticket from Miami to Havana, no matter how the Cuban plans to get back to Cuba. In addition, there are no direct charter flights available the day we want to leave Havana: we will have to fly through Cancún. We cannot buy the Cancún-Miami portion of our tickets in Havana, nor can we buy Juana’s U.S.-X—— ticket in Havana; they have to be bought in the United States and mailed to us via DHL courier service. Only when we have all the tickets that we have to get in the United States, as well as Juana’s X——Madrid-Havana ticket, bought in Havana, Juana’s nonrefundable return charter flight ticket from Miami to Havana, which she won’t use, and a Mexican transit visa for Juana, required of all Cubans traveling through Mexico, are we allowed to buy Juana’s ticket to Cancún.

  IV. 80

  Dinner with the diva, Fritz, Fritz’s girlfriend, Belkis, and the Danish cultural attaché, Rolf. It seems to be a good combination, but I don’t know how much we can talk about Cuba with the diva there. She is a German citizen, but her family still lives here, and Manuel, who has to make his report, is hovering near us with a tray. It’s also tiresome to always talk about how weird Cuba is, but it’s what happens in living rooms in Havana whenever two or three foreigners are gathered together.

  Rolf says the Cuban Revolution is good material for an opera.

  Pushing myself forward on the sofa, I say that I think of Cuban history, beginning with the war of independence, as a compendium of operatic and dramatic styles.

  Rolf and Fritz say yes, they can see that.

  I say I can see it beginning as an American musical, incorporating great Cuban music: Don Barreto, Lecuona, Bola de Nieve, Beny Moré, Celia Cruz, the Trio Matamoros, and other earlier and later styles. There would be the explosion of the Maine; there would be Cuba’s victory snatched by blithe, oblivious, singing, dancing American soldiers (martial American tunes contrasting with Cuban melodies). There would be a Spanish-pride number, a Cuban-pride number. It would continue in the American-musical mode, through a part showing U.S. economic domination of Cuba. Hershey’s and United Fruit Company would be represented. More blithe, singing, dancing Americans. There would be a gambling number, a prostitution number. There would be a Batista number and a gangster number . . .

  I steal a sideways glance at Nick to see if I am going on too long (he’s heard it before from me, but less developed) or being a boor, but Nick looks OK about it, the others are being mildly polite about it, I’ve been waiting for the right people and time to try my idea out, and now that I am in it, I might as well get to the end. Then there would be the rise of Fidel and the revolution. The work would turn to something akin to classical opera: there would be a small opera buffa number on the Castro family home life in Birán and on Fidel’s never winning a student election; there would be Moncada, Fidel’s exile and return, and the assault on Batista’s palace. Students tortured, dying. There would be Fidel’s sweep across Cuba and his early speeches: “History Will Absolve Me” and “I Am Not a Communist, I Am a Humanist.” It would switch back to American-musical mode for the appearance of Herbert Matthews and Fidel’s visits to Princeton and Harlem and later contain a reference to H
air during a Venceremos Brigades number. The diva laughs. The others chuckle. I feel less embarrassed about going on: it would continue in operatic mode through the disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos, the executions at the paredón the mass exodus of middle-class Cubans, Che’s disquiet in the USSR (Russian opera then), his speech in Algeria, the nationalizations, and Che’s death (with another eruption of an American-musical number during the Bay of Pigs). It would move to insertions of Kabuki, No, or Thai dancing (something like the insertion of the Uncle Tom’s Cabin play in the musical The King and I) within the operatic mode with the sclerotization of the revolution, its dependence on the Soviet Union, and its internationalist campaigns, becoming thoroughly Kabuki, No, or Thai following the death of Celia Sánchez, Fidel’s last true confidante. The end, beginning with the Ochoa trial, is Greek tragedy, with Fidel and Raúl in platform shoes and a cacophony of musical styles as the revolution sells out and the island is overrun by foreign corporations and mass tourism.

  The thesis of the musical would be that Fidel is one of the greatest actors the world has ever known, only Fidel doesn’t walk into a play: Fidel transforms history into a play, directed by and starring him. The public would enter with Fidel talking and go out with Fidel talking, and there would be a ten-cassette pack of Fidel talking that you wouldn’t have to pay for—it would just be given to you, for you to take home. There would be many, many scene changes, or maybe there could be an Orlando furioso type of staging, with the public loose in a big tent and islands of characters on rolling platforms pulled through the crowd. There would be José Martí, de Céspedes, Maceo, Hearst, Spey, Cervera, Teddy Roosevelt, McKinley, Ángel Castro, Lina Ruz, Raúl’s alleged father (the Chinese cook), Meyer Lansky, Lana Turner, George Raft, Fidel, Raúl, Herbert Matthews, Che, Camilo Cienfuegos, Huber Matos, Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy, Piñeiro, Celia Sánchez, the Venceremos Brigades, Black Panther fugitives, a bodega, Lincoln Díaz-Balart, Jorge Mas Canosa, Ochoa, a neurologist in a white coat with a pointer and a chart of the brain, explaining the physiological origins of manic-depressive and obsessive-compulsive disorders, malignant narcissism and logorrhea, or maybe a different neurologist for each disorder, on platforms with slick swiveling casters, singly or in groups, entering, inveighing, exiting, being pulled by vigorous young people on a vast, smooth floor through dodging crowds. It would last seven or eight hours. You could go out and get something to eat—Cuban food served on stands outside—you could go home, even, if you liked, and come back the next day for what you missed. The ticket would be valid for three days.

  IV. 81

  Juana’s transit visa is ready at the Mexican Embassy. All we need now are our tickets to arrive via DHL to get Juana’s ticket out of here.

  IT’S NOT THAT IT’S so terrifying to be without a baby-sitter anymore. I can leave the children alone in a hotel room for a few minutes now, if I have to go to a pharmacy or buy a snack for them, with a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. I can make it from Florida to New York on my own with them (we’re supposed to drive, visiting friends along the way). It’s that I’m nervous about it working out with Juana’s visas and tickets because I really want Juana to see the United States with us. I’m nervous because of all the days and weeks I’ve spent thinking and fantasizing about seeing Juana see the United States: about seeing her see the stuff-a-thon shopping centers and fat people and eight-lane highways and jumbo-sized Styrofoam cups in cup holders coming out from dashboards and her saying “Mira eso!” or “Qué curioso!” about everything. I am fantasizing about explaining the fat people to her. I am fantasizing about watching Juana bite into a Cape Cod potato chip for the first time, and a tender ear of corn in season, and a pecan, and a blueberry, and hear obscure blues on the radio, and about going off the main highways with her and seeing her see mile after mile of just fields or forests, and seeing her see ranch houses and trailers, but wooden houses, too, with sagging gingerbread porches, dozing at the bottoms of hollows, the picture of nonaggression, or maybe not. I’m nervous that the time I have spent and the time I am still spending fantasizing about her seeing the United States might be for nothing.

  It’s not just European men striving to get negras de pelo out of Cuba, I realize; it’s all kinds of foreigners wanting to show all kinds of Cubans how the rest of the world is. It’s also so that they can know how Cuba is for us.

  I’m beginning to have fantasies about seeing Lorena see the United States, too.

  WE HAVE DINNER WITH an X——ian who is restructuring a hotel in Habana Vieja. Nick talks about how tired we are. The X——ian talks about how tired he is. He says the Cubans who are working with him are insisting on putting the hotel bathroom’s sinks, tubs, and toilets on the same waste pipe. He asks us to imagine what it will be like when the pipes back up.

  Nick says that for every business that gives up, another one will come in and try, because it’s Cuba.

  STILL NO DHL ENVELOPE, but Nick’s secretary tells me that she called DHL, and the envelope is in Havana and will be arriving later today. It has taken nine days to get the envelope via DHL from the States, but that is about average because it has to come through Mexico.

  JUANA’S CANCÚN-MIAMI and U.S.-X—— tickets are delivered by DHL.

  Juana comes over to drop off her passport, which we need to buy the rest of the tickets.

  I tell Juana that I am worried about what it says on her exit permit, that she can only be out of the country for thirty days.

  Juana says that she can be out of the country for eleven months (if she is out for more than eleven months, her house will be requisitioned), but that for every month beyond the first month that she is out of the country, she has to pay a certain sum of money to the Cuban Consulate in whatever country she is in. If she does not pay, she cannot return to Cuba. She has to pay $150 per month to the Cuban Consulate in the United States for every month she is in the United States, but it’s less in X—— and Spain.

  I tell Juana I knew that a Cuban had to pay to get out of Cuba, but I didn’t know, until now, that a Cuban had to pay to stay out of Cuba as well. I tell Juana that we will pay the monthly payments for her to stay out of Cuba, because it is for us that she is traveling. Juana tells me that she forbids me to pay it—she absolutely forbids me. She says she will not come with us if I pay it.

  NICK’S SECRETARY GOES TO buy Juana’s X——-Madrid-Havana return ticket and, once that is done, to get Juana’s and our Mexicana ticket from Havana to Cancún and Juana’s charter return ticket from Miami to Havana, which she will not use but is still required to have in order to be able to purchase her ticket from Havana to Cancún.

  I wait by the phone all morning.

  Nick’s secretary returns, mission accomplished.

  When you expect the worst, sometimes things work out all right.

  Nick says he is beginning to believe we are leaving.

  I will tell Juana this afternoon what I have not been wanting to tell her before we had the tickets: that in order for her to get a visa for the United States I had to promise to the consul at the U.S. Interests Section—I really did—that once we are in the United States I will not pay her the $350 per month I am paying her now, but a regular salary for someone doing a job like hers in the United States, which is $900.

  IV. 82

  I go to Miguel’s house to see his wife, who is in bed with her leg up, following the second breaking of her femur and third surgery.

  I follow Miguel’s car to a neighborhood that is a ten-minute drive from our house. It is a tree-lined street, with rows of two-story houses with barred, gated carports. On the gate is a sign indicating that their home is the site of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.

  “You are the head of the local CDR?” I ask Miguel.

  “It helps us get along,” Miguel says.

  Miguel, his wife, and their two children live on the top floor. Miguel’s brother Ysidro and his wife and two children live on the ground floor. Miguel and Ysidro’s mother and father liv
e in an apartment in back. Miguel’s car is locked in the carport alongside his brother’s motorcycle.

  “We have to lock them in now because of all the robberies,” Miguel explains.

  Ysidro’s apartment is light and spacious. Salsa pours out of Ysidro’s Sony stereo system. I tour Ysidro’s apartment, making appreciative comments: it really is a nice apartment. Ysidro, his wife, their children, Miguel, his children, and Estrella follow me as I go.

  “You have a very nice setup here. Congratulations.”

  “We help one another,” Ysidro says.

  “That is very important. Not all families can do that.”

  I am near the door to Estrella’s apartment. “You don’t mind my looking, do you?”

  “Señora, por favor,” Estrella says, holding the door open for me.

  “I am curious. I have known you all these years.”

  Estrella and her husband’s apartment is smaller but also pleasant, with furniture that looks new.

  I walk upstairs to Miguel’s apartment. “These are the stairs she fell on last time,” Miguel explains. Miguel’s apartment is smaller than Ysidro’s apartment, but it is full of light and pleasant. Miguel shows me the electric range they were able to repair with the burners I brought them from the United States.

  Miguel’s wife lies on a white sheet in a room containing a bed and an armoire. She is wearing cutoffs and an embroidered blouse I brought her from Mexico. A straw purse, which I gave her on another occasion, is pinned on the wall. The blouse and the straw purse are the only decorations in the room. There is a stainless-steel brace on her thigh, through which the scar is visible. It is a neat scar and there are no bruises. From the brace, anchors go through the flesh of her thigh to the bone to keep it in place. “They are trying this new method now, with this brace on the outside of the leg,” Miguel explains. “They don’t know how long she will have to stay like this.”