In other words, a whole lot of distraction dressed up as accomplishments.
* * *
After all the dreading, all the planning, this day is finally here.
I pray my way to the airport, asking God to give me what I need because I don’t know what that is.
Peace? Wisdom? Strength? Comfort?
All of the above?
But between New York and Miami, I get something I don’t need: a cold.
Hilda plies me with lemon tea and honey, covers me with blankets, insists I stay with her. I nod gratefully and postpone my check-in at the W for a few days.
* * *
Friday the thirteenth was one year ago today, and I’d taken Alberto to Fico’s doctor for a physical on my lunch hour. His knee was giving him trouble, ditto for his right shoulder. Plus, he was forty and we agreed that complete check-ups are something forty-year-olds do.
After examining him, taking blood, and performing an EKG, the doctor had given him a clean bill of health. He’d said what we expected: Lose some weight, get more exercise, stay away from cigarettes.
On our way to lunch afterward, Alberto had texted Barby and Fico: Looks like I’ll live after all!
Forty-eight hours later, they both stood in our kitchen, showing me this message on their phones, the same look of disbelief in their eyes.
* * *
Hilda? Since when have you had a white elephant in your living room?
What white elephant?
The one under your coffee table, I answer.
Oh. That. My mother bought it when she lived in New Jersey, maybe thirty years ago. She brought it on the plane to Miami and gave it to me as a gift.
Why is it facing backward?
It’s good luck to put its ass toward the door.
Good luck, huh.
I stare it down.
Can I take you to see the table, she asks. The one I told you about?
The table is where she plans to place a small trunk of Alberto’s mementos and the ashes I’ve given her this morning.
I’m ready if you are, I answer.
The store is a half-block away and filled with Middle Eastern and retro American furniture. The Cuban storeowner is heavily made-up and dressed for cocktails at eleven in the morning. She greets us in Spanish, takes my hand, kisses my cheeks.
A small furry face suddenly peeks out from her cleavage, blinks at me.
Is that . . . a monkey? I stammer.
Yes, Hilda says. It’s a mini-mono.
The monkey blinks at me again before diving between breasts and disappearing into folds of fabric.
Hilda motions for me to follow and as we walk through the store, she asks if I know this shop used to be the headquarters for El Patria, Alberto’s father’s newspaper?
I stop walking.
You mean, when you met him, the newspaper was here?
Sí, that black-and-white picture of Albert as a baby, the one where he’s reaching for the stars, was taken right where you are standing.
The white elephant, the monkey, and now the table for his ashes found at his father’s old office?
What do you think of the table, Nené?
I laugh.
I don’t have to see the table, Mumu. I already know it’s the right one.
Waking Up in Havana
Here in Cuba—and everywhere else—you left behind pieces of you. I’m paying attention, baby.
And keeping your camera charged.
(March 18, 10:18am via Facebook Wall-to-Wall)
* * *
Driving into Havana this morning, the word REVOLUCIÓN flashes me from walls and billboards. Scrappy kids play stickball outside abandoned stadiums. Preserved teatros stand incongruously beside rotting mansions. Withered, leathery ladies block entry to bathrooms until you fork over a dollar for a triangle of scratchy toilet paper: the price of admission to toilets without seats and doors without locks.
On El Malecón, twenty-foot waves crash over the sea wall, soaking adolescents and spraying the ancient cars. It’s a postcard come to life, and I squeal with delight—Hilda right along with me.
José, the son of Hilda’s friend and our driver for the next few weeks, explains that the giant waves are a result of el Norté, a weather phenomenon that happens in winter and spring.
Hilda points out the Meliá Cohiba Hotel, where we’ll stay for the last leg of our trip, and a once-grand ’50s hotel called the Riviera formerly owned by Lucky Luciano.
When I left Cuba, she says, the Riviera was nearly finished. It was my fourteen-year-old dream to go there and have a piña colada.
Have you ever done it?
Sí, she says. Hace diez años.
Ten years ago, she nods. With Albertico.
* * *
After mass with Hilda at the cathedral, we wander through Old Havana. She takes me to Maternidad Obrera, the building where her mother worked as an attorney, and asks me to shoot it.
We will send this photo to Rafe, she explains.
Rafe is her brother, who hasn’t been back to Cuba since he escaped as an adolescent. He gave Hilda their mother’s ashes to scatter on this trip. Hilda hasn’t said where and I haven’t asked.
Havana’s sunshine and architecture compel us to keep moving, prevent us from locking ourselves in our rooms with our tears. Entonces, the grief escapes in public places like the lobby of Hotel Ambos Mundos, where Alberto stayed until he caught a cold and convalesced at Mercy’s house.
I keep looking toward the hotel door, half-expecting him to appear in his Miami wardrobe and remembering that he can’t: I gave his Miami wardrobe away.
Even if I sit here for the rest of my life, I say, he’s not coming around the corner.
I say this aloud, partly as a reminder to myself and partly to explain my tears.
Hey, Hilda says, reaching for my hand.
I meet her eyes.
I’m the next best thing.
I exhale a surprised laugh.
I just wanted to see you smile, she says, giving my hand a satisfied squeeze.
Her tactics are spot-on Alberto.
* * *
One year ago, I fell asleep watching Part Two of “Che.” One year later, I am waking in the land of Che.
It’s the morning of March 15th and I’m lying in bed at the Santa Isabel Hotel, wondering why my room smells like gasoline.
When Hilda calls a few seconds later, I ask if her room smells strange?
No, she pauses. It smells like a room.
You okay? I ask.
Yes, she says. You okay?
I’m okay. I’ll see you in a few minutes.
After washing up to go downstairs, I check the time on the phone.
9:03am.
For twelve months, I’ve successfully avoided clocks around 9am so I won’t see the exact moment he was pronounced.
Should I watch the clock change to 9:04?
I wait, staring.
It’s still 9:03.
I shove the phone in my pocket and head downstairs for espresso.
In Hilda’s room with café con lechés, we are quiet. When she finally speaks, it isn’t about Alberto.
We should spread Abuela’s ashes, she says, before José picks us up today.
Do you have a place in mind?
In the parque, across from the plaza. My mother loved Havana Vieja.
Do you want company?
Sí, sí, she says. Come with me. And take a picture for my brother.
In a corner of el parque, Hilda stops next to a plant I recognize from my mom’s garden.
A butterfly bush, I tell her, as I snap its single white blossom. I stop shooting when Hilda unfolds a small plastic bag, crosses herself, and shakes the contents over the bush. Against the deep brown soil, it
looks like cement powder.
Okay, she says, we’re done here. You got the picture?
I got the picture.
As we leave the square, I pick a few sprigs of yellow bougainvillea and red star clusters for Alberto’s ceremony.
C’mon, let’s go, Hilda says in a low, gruff tone.
Her cadence reminds me of Alberto’s voice when he wasn’t happy.
Qué fuí, I ask. What happened?
A uniformed official suddenly blocks our path and scolds us in Spanish for picking flowers from a national park.
National what?
Four trees, six bushes, and a statue?
Hilda apologizes for my Americana ignorance.
I say disculpe—excuse me, sorry—but I’m not disculpe.
I love that his flowers are illegally plucked from a government garden.
* * *
We’ve been driving on El Malecón, where I thought I wanted to spread some of Alberto, but I’ve seen nothing that signifies This Is The Place. When we reach the building known simply as “1860,” Hilda turns around in the front seat.
What we should do? Go down El Malecón again?
No, I say, let’s keep going. We’ll know the right place when we see it.
After a drive down Quinta Avenida—where José drives too fast for me to shoot any mansions—we head toward an ominous, Soviet-esque tower that houses the equivalent of the Cuban C.I.A.
Hey, Hilda says. We’re near Plaza de la Revolución.
I am expecting something awe-inspiring, something worthy of the namesake agency Alberto and Fico founded, but the plaza looks lonelier than a parking lot before the swap meet sets up.
This is definitely not the place, I sigh.
Thank Papa Dió, Hilda laughs. I hoped you’d figure that out on your own. So let’s go. I know a lunch place.
After margarita pizza at Hotel Nacional, we head outside toward the grand patio overlooking the sea. I follow the pathway toward the café tables and stop at a tiled circle with the island of Cuba inlaid at its center.
As I’m focusing my lens on it, I pull back with the memory of a dream I had four days after meeting Alberto, on my first night back in West Hollywood. In it, I wore a red bindi shaped like Cuba in the center of my forehead. I haven’t thought about the dream since the night he proposed, but I start paying attention to Hotel Nacional.
I shoot a dozen photos of the ocean view and neo-classical hotel and when I review the images, my heart starts racing.
In halting Spanish, I tell Hilda that I think this is the spot.
Right here?
Down there, I say, pointing to the sea. He came to this hotel and approved of it, no?
Sí, sí, sí.
Well, when you come back to Cuba, you’ll know exactly where to find him: in the shadow of a historically landmarked—and five-star—hotel.
I like this, Hilda smiles. He would definitely approve.
Then this is it, Mumu, I say. Let’s get some Havana Club, raise a toast to him, and go down to the water.
I lead the procession, sorting out bags of ash and flowers, and a young Cubana passes me wearing a tank top printed with the words BROKEN HEART STORIES.
I turn around to see if Hilda’s noticed. My mother-in-law’s index finger follows the girl and after she passes, Hilda meets my eyes, mouth open.
I fight the urge to tell her to stick with me: these moments happen all the time.
We cross the highway and I climb on to the wall of El Malecón, above the exposed seabed. Below, pools of clear water are rippling with the energy of pounding surf. Above, we are centered directly below the hotel.
Coño, Hilda says, climbing up. Look at this view. There’s El Morro, the American Embassy y el Capitolio. Aye, Albertico, she sighs.
Still staring at the sea, I reach for her hand. After a few moments, I give her the bag of flowers, hoping I stole enough to match the ashes, handful for handful. I never quite know the right words for this ritual, but I take a deep breath and exhale sentences.
Alberto, it’s the one-year anniversary and we’re bringing you home. We hope you approve of the view. We don’t know the words in English or Spanish for how much we miss you, so we’re just gonna tell you that we’re here and . . . we love you.
Muchisimo, Hilda says.
So much, I repeat.
She squeezes my hand and releases the first flower.
Thank you, Hilda, I say, for bringing me here. For showing me what he always wanted to.
We’re exactly where we should be, she says. But if you’d told me a year ago that we’d be standing in Havana today, I never would have believed it.
* * *
Not unlike our routine when she comes to New York, Hilda is my alarm clock and I’m her morning espresso and cup of ice.
We begin each day with coffee in her suite, but instead of reading the Times, we observe the plaza through her balcony’s open doors. No rushing around or unnecessary conversation. Just sips and comfortable silence.
Today, our morning zen is replaced by the version of Cuba I’ve heard about: the hotel phones and Internet stopped working; my Cuban bankcard is unreadable; and thirty minutes after taking our lunch orders, the restaurant runs out of fish and brings us menus again.
We have a round of mojitos and a hushed conversation about how Hilda’s generation escaped the Revolución. Their parents sent them to America because they assumed it would all be over in a month or at most, a year. As a teenager, Hilda and her brother came to the States through Operation Peter Pan and were rotated through various foster homes until their mother immigrated to Florida and reclaimed them a few years later.
Alberto’s father’s coming-to-America story, however, is the stuff legends are made of. As an anti-Castro journalist in Cuba, he was among the many reporters who were rounded up and jailed as dissidents after Castro took power. While imprisoned, a group of lawyers came to meet with the reporters about their cases. These men were not actually lawyers: they were anti-Castro and sympathetic to the plight of the reporters.
In what must have been a highly choreographed operation, the prisoners and the lawyers switched clothes—were the guards paid off? deliberately distracted? who knows?—and the journalists exited the prison wearing suits and briefcases. They boarded a plane bound for Miami and never came back.
When seventeen-year-old Hilda met Alberto’s father a few years later, he was forty-two and the publisher of the most powerful anti-Castro newspaper in America. They were married within months and Alberto Jr. arrived three years later.
* * *
Today’s complications and conversations have left me in the mood for nothing but CNN en Español. But tonight, the gay son of Hilda’s friend is escorting me to a jazz club in Vedado. The evening was arranged by Hilda a few days ago, so I rally myself toward the closet, where I curse the chill in the air and the lack of warm, going-out clothes I’ve brought.
Alberto would roll his eyes if I wore loose-fitting, boyfriend jeans to a club in America, let alone Cuba, so I pull on a denim skirt with my Prada platforms. The rest comes together with a charcoal tank, a pile of gypsy necklaces, and a gray cashmere shrug.
When Hilda sees me, she says well, exc-uuuse me.
Which is her equivalent of Alberto’s you look cute. And don’t change a thing.
Antonio is in his late forties, with steep cheekbones and a fierce fashion sense. He nods approvingly at my shoes and introduces his two much-younger boy friends. The jazz bar has the atmosphere of a tacky European discothèque, but a ten-dollar bill in Cuba’s national currency (about $12.50 in USD) covers all you can eat and drink for the evening. When the music finally starts, I understand why Antonio brought me here. Musicians are literally coming out of the crowd to join the band for a song or three. In a single set, a young black trumpet player performs a haunting so
lo, a famous Cubana named Sorí sings Jobim, and an eighteen-year-old kid dominates the piano.
My Spanish skills are less of a stranger when the lights are low and the beer is flowing so by midnight, I’m no longer speaking English. And if the high-fives between us are any indicator, the boys appear to get my bad jokes. The only uncomfortable moment happens when I’m on my way back from the bathroom and a guy with dreadlocks stops to make conversation. He’s a musician who works here, but since he speaks five languages he makes side money as a translator.
Antonio interrupts to gesture me back to the table.
It’s okay, I say. I’ll be there in a minute.
Moments later, Antonio’s friend appears. He takes my arm and physically removes me from the dance floor.
Back at our table, I’m fuming. I want to ask: if that guy was fair-skinned and dressed like us, would you have been so quick to cut in?
But according to Alberto, Hilda, and Americans who’ve lived in Cuba, race is tricky on this island. Unlike American racists, Cubans won’t admit to judging anyone on skin tone. They affectionately throw around words that describe old people, dark people, blond people. They call these words terms of endearment: colloquials that all Cubanos understand. Call it what you will, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a fucking duck.
* * *
It’s sweater weather in Havana, making it a good day to skip the beach and sort out my non-working Cuban bankcard. Because this is Cuba, sorting it out requires eleven phone calls and a half-hour drive across the city, just to be told that the one person who can help is off today.
Hilda pressures the office for the phone number of the one person and when we call, the woman agrees to meet us this afternoon.
In her kitchen.
Since we have a few hours until the meeting, we pick up Hilda’s cousin, Maria, and head to a restaurant.
Café con leché, por favor, I order from the waiter.
No tenemos, the waiter replies.
No tiene café? I ask. O leché?
No leché.
Hilda and I giggle at the ongoing café-con-leché joke.
Her sixty-something cousin—who has never left Cuba—blinks at us, but the joke gains momentum when Hilda orders and receives a vanilla milkshake.
Splitting the Difference Page 24