Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

  Ana smiles, tears swimming in her brown eyes.

  “You look like Elisa.”

  I do. I inherited my grandmother’s nearly black hair and I wear it long like she did when she was younger. Our faces are similar—heart shaped—and I have her mouth. I inherited her petite stature, too.

  A twinkle enters Ana’s eyes. “Perhaps a bit of Beatriz as well.”

  In terms of compliments, there is no higher praise. Aunt Beatriz is the beauty of the family, and the broken hearts that have trailed behind her are legendary.

  “Thank you.”

  “How is she? Beatriz?”

  “She’s good. She sent gifts for you.”

  “Is she still—”

  She doesn’t need to finish the question.

  I grin. “Of course.”

  My great-aunt has caused scandals that span countries and continents.

  “And Maria?”

  “She’s doing well. She stays busy with her grandchildren, my cousins.”

  “I was sorry to hear about Isabel. And your grandmother.”

  I nod, the emotions still too raw for words. It’s being in this place, feeling as though I’m inhabiting a corner of my grandmother’s life while she’s gone that tugs at my heart. That’s the thing with grief—you never know when it will sneak up on you.

  Ana squeezes my hand, gesturing toward her grandson.

  “Come. Let us take you to your room. You must be tired after the trip. Rest and then we’ll talk.”

  I allow her to shepherd me up the immense staircase, leading me toward the guest room she has prepared for me. Ana explains in a matter-of-fact tone that the house has been divided up into apartments where other families live.

  Luis trails behind us, bags in hand.

  We stop in front of a heavy wooden door that looks as though it belongs in a Spanish monastery.

  “I hope this room will be comfortable,” Ana says as she pushes it open.

  The bedroom is small and clean, the windows open, white linen curtains fluttering in the breeze. There’s a bed pushed up against the wall, an aged wood table beside it. A chipped glass vase filled with colorful flowers sits atop it. A matching wardrobe is stuffed in the corner, a gilded mirror on the wall, the edges cracked and tarnished, adorned with fat carnelian stones.

  “It’s perfect.”

  And it is.

  Luis sets my bags down near the wardrobe and excuses himself, leaving me alone with Ana.

  She hugs me again, her scent engulfing me.

  “Rest. We’ll talk later.”

  She leaves me, the door shutting behind her, and I browse around the little room, unpacking my things and changing into a pair of pajama pants and a tank top. I set aside the gifts I brought Ana as a thank-you for hosting me—after hours spent scouring the Internet for travel tips, I hope I’ve found items she will use and enjoy.

  I climb under the covers, a faint breeze coming in from the open windows. I stare up at the ceiling, the plaster cracking, chunks of white paint missing, my eyelids growing heavier with each moment that passes. The events of the day hit me in waves, the adrenaline crash coming on strong.

  I roll over to my side, pulling the worn sheets up to my face, my eyes drifting shut. I smell the gardenias my grandmother described to me, and the jasmine, the scent of roast pork wafting up from the paladar below. The faint sound of a saxophone drifts up to my room, and I recognize the familiar strands of “La Bayamesa.”

  This is family, home, the most fundamental part of me. I could be sitting in my grandparents’ elegant residence in Coral Gables, or off in Europe, and all it takes is the scent of mojo, the sound of my people, to ground me.

  The breeze blows my hair across the pillow, and the smell of jasmine calls to mind a memory of me as a little girl—my grandmother’s perfume and the feel of her hand stroking my hair when she put me to sleep at night.

  Tell me a story.

  When I was a girl in Cuba . . .

  I fall asleep.

  chapter three

  Elisa

  HAVANA, SEPTEMBER 1958

  It’s the perfect dress for a night like tonight—elegant without the obvious sophistication of the gowns our mother orders us from abroad, a neckline a touch more daring than I usually wear, a hem exposing the calves I’ve sunned by the pool at the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club.

  I pull the white dress designed by Manet from my closet, my fingers skimming the lace. The bodice is fitted with pale pink flowers, the waist tucked in, the skirt full. I bought it on a shopping trip with Beatriz last month after we saw it in El Encanto, and I’ve been waiting for the perfect occasion to wear it. This seems better than any. I snuck a pair of my mother’s shoes from her closet—the palest pink to match the flowers—after she and our father left for their trip to Varadero.

  I dress quickly, struggling a bit with the tiny buttons in the back. Once the dress is on, I choose a pair of earrings from the wooden vanity in the corner of my bedroom, staring at my reflection in the three-way mirror perched on top of it. I select one of the glass bottles sitting atop the surface, spritzing the perfume on my wrists, rubbing it behind my ears, the scent one I save for special occasions.

  “Are you ready?” my sister Isabel hisses from the doorway, her gaze drifting toward the hallway. None of the servants are likely to tell on us, but Magda’s the unknown; our nanny is more family than anything else, nearly as concerned with the reputation of the Perez family as our mother is. This isn’t the type of party we normally attend, like all the ones where we stand in full-skirted ball gowns and long white gloves wearing heavy diamond necklaces around our necks.

  My brow rises as I take stock of Isabel’s outfit; clearly I’m not the only one who raided our mother’s closet. The dress is one our mother has worn to parties before—black, fitted, and far more daring than anything she’s ever allowed any of us to wear. If this is Isabel’s choice for the evening, I can only imagine what Beatriz has come up with.

  “I’m ready.” I pick up my clutch from the dresser, my fingers stroking the beads.

  “Where’s Beatriz?” I ask, careful to keep my voice low. Magda has the uncanny ability to sneak up on us at the most inopportune moments, a lesson Maria has learned more than anyone else; being the youngest has its drawbacks.

  “Waiting in the car.”

  The car was another battle with our mother, one Beatriz ultimately won.

  Isabel’s gaze darts toward the hallway and back again.

  “And Maria?” I ask.

  “Sleeping.”

  Keeping our outing a secret from our little sister is as crucial as hiding it from Magda. Maria has bribery down to an art form President Batista would envy, and the price for ensuring her silence for not telling our parents we’re attending a party would likely be steeper than we would want to pay. The last time Maria caught Isabel sneaking back into the house after a date, she made out with Isabel’s favorite pearl earrings and a dress from Paris.

  I follow Isabel down the hallway, our heels drumming against the marble floors. Our house was built in the mid-eighteenth century by the first Perez ancestor of note, a French corsair who amassed a fortune through ill-gotten gains and won himself a wife of impeccable lineage. He built her one of the largest and most ostentatious mansions in Havana, one that’s been renovated and updated throughout the years by various Perez heirs. The end result is a cavernous mansion brimming with gold leaf and marble. I’ve always thought the corsair had more money than taste, but considering he won himself a title from a Bourbon king along with his bride, he possessed enough cachet for our mother to proudly claim him as an ancestor.

  In the beginning, our legacy came from smuggling and the corsair’s more nefarious activities. Soon his children and grandchildren began diversifying the family’s fortune, and through an advantageous marriage in the late
nineteenth century, the Perezes became sugar barons.

  For better, worse, and the truly horrific, sugar has molded Cuba’s fortunes.

  The corsair stares us down as we tiptoe through the hall, and while the rest of our ancestors seem to disapprove of this act of rebellion from atop their oil-and-canvas perches, I fancy that our pirate ancestor with his dark hair and even darker eyes twinkling with mischief would have wholeheartedly approved.

  We slip our shoes off at the top of the staircase in an act of choreographed sisterly precision. The marble is cool against my toes despite the warm air tonight, the moon casting a sliver of light across the steps. We freeze as noises coming from the general direction of the kitchen filter throughout the house.

  Is the risk we’re taking really worth the reward of a night of freedom?

  The punishment? Temporary removal to the country. Forced attendance at teas and luncheons, parties where we’re jettisoned from one eligible son of one of our father’s business associates to another. Life as usual.

  They’re fighting in Cuba’s eastern provinces, in the Oriente, boys not much older than me, boys who should be at university—who would be at university if Batista hadn’t closed the University of Havana out of fear years ago. The revolutionaries are fighting throughout the country, storming the Presidential Palace, seeking to overthrow the government, to end Batista’s corruption, and yet, behind the high walls of our Miramar home, the ancien régime reigns supreme. My mother has no time for revolutions; they wreak havoc with her balls and teas.

  It is a strange time to be Cuban, to feel the stirrings beneath your feet, hear the rumblings in the sky, and to continue on as though nothing is happening at all. Stranger still to be a woman in Cuba—we vote, but what does a vote mean when election outcomes are a foregone conclusion? The women in our family attended the best schools, grew up with a slew of tutors, each one more harried and harassed by all of us—Beatriz, in particular—but Perez women do not work no matter how much we might wish to do so. We are useless birds in a gilded cage while our countrywomen serve in the government, while some plot revolution. Times have changed in our little island, a tinder lit, spreading like wildfire throughout Cuba, meanwhile our estates are a bulwark against modernization, change, freedom.

  And so occasionally, we do exceedingly foolish things like sneaking out of the house in the dead of night, because it’s impossible to stand near the flame consuming everything around you and not have some of that fire catch the hem of your skirt, too.

  We make it to the front door, pausing once for a maid completing her duties for the night, a song under her breath. Once the maid has finished dusting the entryway table, Isabel exits first, leaving me to close the heavy front door behind me with a wince. I slip my mother’s sandals back onto my feet, freezing at the sight of Beatriz lounging against her convertible.

  Her dress looks as though it was painted onto her voluptuous body, and I don’t know where she bought it or where she’s been hiding it, but you wear a dress like that when you want to create a scandal. She flaunts it beautifully.

  Of all of Emilio Perez’s daughters, Beatriz is the most apt to court scandal, to push at the edges of the cage, occasionally breaking free. She fights with our parents about attending university, wants to study law, quotes philosophers and radicals. And she insisted we sneak out tonight.

  “Are you ready?” Beatriz asks. Her gaze runs over me, and when she doesn’t say anything, I relax slightly. Beatriz’s sartorial elegance is undisputed in Havana.

  “I thought we talked about discretion,” Isabel grouses beside me. “Parking your car in front of the house where anyone can see is not discreet.”

  “No one will say anything,” Beatriz scoffs. “They’re too terrified of our mother to broach the subject.”

  Our father runs his businesses, but our mother rules our home with a jewel-covered fist.

  “You’re too careless,” Isabel retorts.

  I tune them out, their bickering a common refrain in our household. My gaze drifts across the high stone walls to my best friend Ana’s house. I count the windows as I’ve done for years until I reach the second floor, settling on the third one down. The light is on in her bedroom—

  “Elisa!”

  Isabel gets into the car’s back seat, waving me on while Beatriz somehow slides into the driver seat despite her constricting dress.

  I follow my sisters out into the night.

  * * *

  • • •

  The party is at a house in Vedado, a few blocks away from the University of Havana. The host is a friend of a friend of a friend of Isabel’s boyfriend, Alberto. Beatriz navigates a parking spot, and once she’s parked we exit the car, and I trail behind her and Isabel. Guests spill out of the entrance, the house brimming with noise and music, vibrating with laughter.

  It’s a pretty enough structure—two stories tall and painted in a clean white color. A balcony juts off the second floor, more guests filling the space. At first glance, it’s obvious we’re overdressed. Significantly so. We might as well announce to the entire room that we aren’t from here, that we belong to a different part of the city. Our aim tonight is anonymity; our names and faces are relatively well-known, but I doubt this crowd spends much time poring over the society pages of Diario de la Marina.

  Beatriz charges through the crowd, her hips swaying, a woman on a mission. She was so intent on coming here tonight that I can’t help but wonder if Isabel isn’t the only one dating a man our parents don’t wholly approve of. At the same time, if Beatriz were dating someone inappropriate, she would be the last to hide it. No, she’d proudly parade him in front of all, seating him at the grand dining room table our mother had shipped from Paris to compete with her rival and best friend whose own dining room table sailed from England.

  Benny Moré is on the record player, couples dancing anywhere and everywhere, their bodies a little closer than you typically see at my mother’s formal parties, hands drifting a little lower, fingers clutching fabric, their cheeks pressed against each other. The women dance with a freedom I covet, their hips sinuous, their movements leaving no doubt that they embrace every ounce of femininity God gave them. There’s passion of varying degrees and inspirations throbbing in the air, occupying the cracks and crevices of the party, tucked away behind clasped hands, soaring above bent heads. A sort of frenzy that seeps into your bones.

  The crowd swallows Isabel and Beatriz up until I’m left alone, standing on the fringes of the party in my too-formal dress, searching for a familiar face, someone else who’s somewhere they shouldn’t be, torn between discomfort at the raw emotions lingering under the surface and a faint prick of envy.

  I accept one of the drinks they’re generously passing around, the rum sweeter than any I’m used to—stronger, too—finding a comfortable place against the wall where I can observe everyone. In a family like mine, you grow accustomed to watching from the shadows. I’ve never been like Beatriz, happiest taking risks. Nor am I Isabel—truculently in love, or Maria, prone to outbursts. This—watching couples dance, listening to music, taking the occasional sip of rum—is more than enough for me. At least, it was.

  And then I see him.

  Strangely, I notice the suit before I notice the man. Cuban society is not quiet society; we flaunt our wealth and status like peacocks. He is no peacock. His suit isn’t impeccably tailored to fit his frame, and it isn’t designed to impress. It’s functional—a no-nonsense black that drapes a tall, lean body. I like him better for the simplicity; I’m more than a little tired of peacocks.

  He’s speaking with two other men, his hands shoved in his pockets, his gaze cast downward. He has a strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and a surprisingly full, lush mouth on a hard face. His skin is a shade or two darker than mine, his dark hair an unruly mess curling at the ends.

  He doesn’t smile.

  I sip the rum, watching h
im, attempting to guess his age. Most of the party appears to be a little older than me—in their early twenties, perhaps—and while there’s a severity about him, he doesn’t look that much older.

  His lips move rapidly when he talks, his hands in constant motion.

  My foot taps in time with the music, mimicking the beat of my heart as I watch him, willing him to look at me, to notice me.

  And miraculously, he does. Maybe the dress is a little magic.

  He turns, mid-conversation, his hands lingering in the air like a conductor instructing a symphony, surveying the crowd, the same hardness in his eyes that’s stamped all over his face. There’s a hunger there, though, beneath that hardness—a hunger I’ve seen before—the kind that looks at the world and isn’t afraid to say it isn’t good enough, that there must be more, to demand change. He looks like a man who believes in things, which is truly terrifying these days.

  My breath hitches.

  His eyes widen slightly, as though he can hear my breath over the sound of Benny Moré, the laughter and sin spilling all over the party.

  He doesn’t appear callous, merely as though life has tested him and roughed his edges. His gaze rests on me, and those lips pause for a moment. He doesn’t do the polite thing and glance away, or pretend he was looking at something else and just happened to catch me in his path. No, he settles in and looks me over, and slowly, so slowly, a smile spreads across his face, and suddenly, surprisingly, he’s handsome.

  I freeze, my mother’s voice in my ear—don’t fidget, smile—not too much—put your shoulders back—until her voice disappears, floating above this party she would never approve of, and in the space of a heartbeat he’s standing in front of me, a little taller, a little more broad shouldered than he appeared to be across the room.

  I swallow, tilting my head up, staring into solemn brown eyes.

  “Hello,” he says, offering a perfectly ordinary greeting in a voice that is anything but.