Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

  Luis stands patiently beside me as I take pictures of the landscape. I’ve blocked out the other tourists, but he seems faintly amused by the conversations around us; his English is quite good given his ability to understand the British family arguing over whether they’re going to return to their hotel or continue sightseeing.

  Once I’ve finished snapping photos, we leave the church and meander through the streets, drifting from one landmark to the next. I stop occasionally to take more pictures, filling the pad with additional observations. Some journalists use electronics, but there’s something about the rhythm of putting pen to paper that I can’t resist. It adds to the spirit of my surroundings—I imagine Hemingway scribbling in old notebooks, the ink staining his fingers as he sips a mojito in the late Havana sun.

  Havana lends itself to the romantic and idyllic even as the evidence to the contrary is everywhere I look. Perhaps that’s the double-edged sword to being Cuban—we are both pragmatic realists and consummate dreamers.

  We walk on, the sun growing brighter, the heat increasing. My dress sticks to my skin, the air pregnant with humidity; it’s like being back in Florida again.

  There are other landmarks to explore; the father of Cuban independence, José Martí, is everywhere—on statues and streets. We all claim him as ours, revolutionaries and exiles alike.

  “Are you getting hungry for lunch?” Luis asks as we walk down the street.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  We walk a bit farther and leave Old Havana behind, the scenery changing to more run-down buildings, less antique charm. Dogs roam the sidewalk, others lounging in the available shade. The pedestrians on the sidewalks shift from European tourists to locals. I stand out here, my clothes setting me apart from those on the street, the unmistakable sense that I belong more with the tourists than I do in this Cuban neighborhood, a visitor in the country that should feel like home.

  We buy tamales from a stand in Vedado. The cornmeal is warm and moist, perfect paired with the sweet soda I buy from the vendor as well.

  I stumble on a crack in the sidewalk, and Luis is there at once, his hold on me steady and reassuring. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the same two men from earlier at the church and the Hotel Nacional, except now that they’re removed from the tourist spaces it’s clear that they, like Luis, belong to this part of the city.

  “Are you okay?” His hand wraps around my arm, his breath along my skin.

  I nod, pulling away, shutting down the urge to lean into him, to relax my body against his. That’s the thing about desire—it creeps up on you at the most inconvenient times, too often with the most inconvenient people.

  We continue walking, and this time I pay more attention to my surroundings. The vendors in this part of the city aren’t selling touristy items, but basic things Cubans can use in their everyday lives—fruits and vegetables, shoes, books. A few doors down, a queue of Cubans line up outside a building that looks similar to a convenience store, dogs hanging around here, too.

  “They’re getting their food rations,” Luis answers when I ask about the line. “On average, your ration book entitles you to rice, sugar, cooking oil, eggs, pasta, and coffee every month. Protein—typically chicken—every ten days. A bread roll every day. Every few months you get salt. Young children and pregnant women receive milk.

  “It’s never enough,” he adds, his voice low once again. “They run out all the time—milk? Forget it. You have to go all over town, standing in lines to get all your rations. It’s a job in and of itself. Literally.”

  I am filled with the deepest amount of shame as I think of all the food I’ve taken for granted throughout my life, the Michelin-starred restaurants where I’ve dined.

  “Some of the wealthier families hire someone to get their rations for them,” Luis explains. “And you used to not be able to buy certain items unless you had the tourists’ currency.”

  “The Cuban convertible peso.”

  He nods. “See why the paladares and businesses like the casas particulares where people transform their homes into hotels are so important? Things are slowly changing, and previously banned items are now available to Cubans who pay in regular pesos, but they’re so expensive hardly anyone can afford them. While our guests in the paladar dine on ropa vieja, many Cubans have never even tasted beef. Supply is an issue considering we import the vast majority of our food.”

  “So where do people go to get the food they need when the government stores aren’t enough?”

  “The black market.”

  “What’s the penalty if you’re caught?”

  “It depends on the scale of involvement in the black market, but it’s not unheard of for people to be sentenced to more than fifteen years in prison. You can serve a greater sentence for killing a cow than a person in Cuba.”

  “Jesus.”

  “—hasn’t been to Cuba in a very long time,” Luis replies.

  Silence falls between us.

  I’m at a loss for words. The life he describes is a far cry from mine, and I feel awkward around him, as though the things I could contribute to the conversation are frivolous and shallow in comparison. I spent so much time listening to my family’s stories about the revolution, and yet, I failed to consider how bad things were for those who remained. My family focused on the revolution and its effect on them, but less attention was paid to the current state of things.

  Food rations and fear make up Luis’s Cuba, and my version of it is something else entirely, one that slips through my grasp more and more with each step I take down the Havana streets. I came here hoping to understand more about where I came from, but now I feel more lost than ever.

  We walk toward a section Luis tells me is called La Rampa. Crowds of people stand around with their phones out, their gazes riveted by the mobile devices.

  “Wi-Fi zone,” Luis explains. “One of a few in the city.”

  We pass a cinema and what used to be known as the Havana Hilton, Fidel Castro’s onetime headquarters and home.

  “You get more of a feel for how everyday Cubans live here,” Luis says. “Old Havana is great, but it caters to tourists. There’s a different ambiance here.”

  Across the street he points out Coppelia—the ice cream shop Fidel made famous after the revolution.

  “It’s always busy,” he answers when I comment on the size of the line. “Cubans do lines better than anyone. Lines for bread, lines for beans . . .” There’s good-natured humor in his voice; I guess if you can’t laugh about it then you just might cry.

  “You probably don’t do much waiting,” he adds, and I can’t tell if he’s speaking generally about life or my family specifically.

  Either way, he isn’t wrong. Our fortunes haven’t changed much since we left Cuba. Castro temporarily derailed them, but it wasn’t long before my great-grandfather had rebuilt his empire.

  What would our life have been like if we’d stayed? Would I be here on the sidewalk, standing in line for food? Was staying even an option considering Castro’s regime targeted my family?

  “Do you ever wonder what things would have been like if your family had left?” I ask Luis.

  “When I was younger, I thought about it more than I do now. What’s the point? I wouldn’t be the person I am if I didn’t grow up here, in this time, in this place.”

  Even though we share the same heritage, as hard as I search for commonalities between us, as much as I want to belong here, the differences are glaring.

  I am Cuban, and yet, I am not. I don’t know where I fit here, in the land of my grandparents, attempting to recreate a Cuba that no longer exists in reality.

  Perhaps we’re the dreamers in all of this. The hopeful ones. Dreaming of a Cuba we cannot see with our eyes, that we cannot touch, whose taste lingers on our palates, with the tang of memory.

  The exiles are the historians, the memory keeper
s of a lost Cuba, one that’s nearly forgotten.

  chapter eleven

  The day winds down with too much speed, the air turning cooler, the sun sinking lower and lower in the sky. I’m eager to return to the house and ask Ana the questions that have been running through my mind, but I’m also reluctant for the day to end. Luis is good company, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s enjoying himself, too. With each hour that passes, he seems more relaxed, his tongue loosening as he teaches me about Cuba.

  And then there’s the part we don’t speak of—the manner in which our bodies shift with each second, the physical distance between us lessening with each breath. Awareness sparks within me, an electric, tingling feeling of anticipation and longing—that infinitesimal pause before lips touch for the first time, the beat when fingers link, the instant when you’re unwrapping a present and realize it is exactly what you wanted.

  Married, Marisol. He’s married.

  We drive down a street in Vedado, the old buildings surrounding us capped in the sky’s golden rays.

  “Why don’t we make one more stop?” Luis suggests. “You can’t miss the sunset over the Malecón.”

  That sounds . . . romantic.

  “It’s getting late,” I answer.

  And I’m enjoying myself far more than I should. I’m ashamed of my reaction to him, the ease with which I’ve allowed myself to be distracted from my purpose here—finding my grandmother’s final resting place. I want to talk to Ana, to learn more about my grandmother’s mysterious love. And at the same time—

  I don’t want this day to end.

  I’ve avoided the topic of his wife all afternoon, and he hasn’t brought her up, either, but she exists between us regardless, her body taking up space on the car’s bench seat—the disappearing inches between his hand and my leg, his shoulder and mine, the gap between the whisper of my dress floating in the breeze and the clothes that drape his tanned limbs.

  I slide my palms down the fabric of my dress, attempting to release some of the nervous energy that runs from my wrist to fingertip. The water peeks out between buildings, the sky already in transition, and I want to sit on the mighty seawall and get the full effect.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “We could swing by for a minute. It’s not something you want to miss.”

  I hesitate, torn between the need to play it safe and the desire to indulge. Just for a moment. There’s a boundary between us I absolutely will not cross, no matter what. So what’s the harm?

  “Maybe just a minute.”

  Luis nods as though either answer I could have given him would have been satisfactory, but I don’t miss the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, or the warmth that enters his eyes. My stomach clenches.

  He finds a spot to park the car, coming around the side and opening the door for me.

  The city vibrates with energy now that the temperature has cooled, people hanging out their windows, lounging on balconies and stoops, calling to one another with good-natured teasing. It’s raucous and beautiful, and more than anything, I want to belong here, want this city to become a part of me.

  It takes us a while to cross the street. Luis gestures at drivers, tugging me along as we maneuver through the lanes. He stops when a car comes too close, his body between me and the vehicle, shielding me from the oncoming traffic. The vintage cars drive past, the smell of diesel pungent, the roar of their engines in my ears. In this snapshot of Cuba, I see it through my grandmother’s eyes, as she remembered it.

  At night, the Malecón comes alive.

  But there are cracks in the image, and not just the ones on the path beneath our feet, the gaps freckling the surface. It’s easy to spot the tourists; the locals approach them selling cigars, scantily clad women offering something more. It’s a stark reminder that this isn’t the country my grandmother remembered, that underneath the historic beauty there’s a sense of desperation.

  No one approaches us; perhaps they identify Luis as one of their own. This piece of Havana isn’t for the tourists; rather, we’re allowed to share their part of the city however briefly.

  This is the beating heart of Havana.

  Teenagers congregate, laughing and joking around; young couples stroll hand in hand, their walk punctuated by the occasional kiss. Ice cream vendors pepper the landscape. Farther afield, people fish off the seawall. One day will they tear down the beautiful old buildings and replace them with high-rise condos that sell for hundreds of dollars a square foot, touting this unparalleled view of the Caribbean?

  We walk down the promenade, our shoulders almost touching. Luis adjusts his stride for the difference in our height. I barely reach his chin.

  “Do you think it will change in the future?” I ask him. “If money begins pouring in and the tourists come?”

  “Perhaps? We’ve learned not to look toward the future too much. It’s hard to get excited about building things when someone comes behind you and knocks them down again.”

  “That sounds frustrating,” I say, knowing my words aren’t enough.

  He laughs, the sound devoid of humor. “To say the least.”

  “How long has the Malecón been part of Havana?” I ask, changing tack.

  “They began construction in 1901.”

  I can easily see Luis standing before a classroom of students as he gives me a rundown on the site’s history, can equally imagine his students hanging on his every word. I pull out my notebook and write down a few of the facts he shares with me. Once he’s finished speaking, he gestures toward an open space. “Do you want to sit for a moment?”

  I nod, following him to the edge. He offers me his hand and I take it, my fingers curling around his as I sit down on the seawall, my legs hanging over the ocean.

  He releases me and lowers himself next to me.

  “During the day, it’s hot,” Luis says. “You still see people here, but it changes at night. The temperature cools, the sun recedes. It becomes—”

  “Magic,” I finish for him, embarrassed by the emotion in my voice. This is the Cuba my grandmother described to me.

  “Yes.”

  A man strums a guitar in the background. Luis’s hand is on the stone inches away, his naked fingers long and tapered, his nails neatly trimmed, his skin a few shades darker than mine.

  Those inches feel like a mile—or ninety.

  His head is bent, his gaze not on the sunset, on those beautiful colors, but on our hands and the distance between them.

  My fingers itch to move forward; my palm is rooted to the stone.

  “Is there anyone waiting for you back in the United States?” he asks, his voice low.

  My heart skips and sputters in my chest.

  It takes a moment for me to speak, and when I do, the word is little more than a whisper, drowned out by the crash of sea against rock, a group of musicians playing several yards away, cars whizzing past us.

  But I know he hears me.

  His hand moves.

  An inch. Two.

  His pinkie rests against mine, his finger grazing mine. It stays there, his response to my answer—

  “No.”

  * * *

  • • •

  We don’t speak the rest of the evening, from the time we depart the Malecón to the moment Luis leaves me in the entryway of his family’s house with a nod, taking the stairs two at a time before he disappears entirely.

  I stare after him—is he going to see his wife?—more than a little ashamed by my behavior this afternoon. Nothing happened, but the desire was there, simmering below the surface. There will be no more tours of Havana with Luis.

  I walk up the stairs and into the guest room, setting my bag on the bed and removing the container with my grandmother’s ashes. I place the makeshift urn on the desk before heading off in search of Ana. I find her in a tiny room off the kitchen area, seated on
a couch in what was once probably a small salon in their grand home and now serves as their only living area. The silk furnishing is faded and worn, the fabric sagging and stretched thin in places, but it’s obvious it used to be a beautiful piece.

  Ana smiles as I walk into the room, gesturing to the empty chair across from her.

  “You’ve returned. Did Luis show you Havana? Did you have a good time? I’m sorry I wasn’t able to go with you, but today is my day for the market, and honestly, the girls never get the good vegetables,” she says with a smile.

  I assume “the girls” are Luis’s mother and his wife.

  “Tonight we have ropa vieja,” she adds.

  The mention of the dish reminds me of Luis’s discussion earlier about the rationing system in Cuba and the challenges most Cubans face. The meal, which translates to “old clothes,” is one of my favorites—shredded beef seasoned with peppers and garlic in a stew-like creation that’s served over rice.

  “It was wonderful to see the city,” I say, rattling off the list of places we went, wondering if my face is as flushed as I feel.

  Ana pours me a cafecito from a set on the tray in front of us. She takes a sip of the coffee, and I follow her lead.

  “I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself. Now, you aren’t here to talk about Havana, are you? You opened the box.”

  I nod.

  “You have questions.”

  “Yes. Did you know my grandmother was involved with a man here in Cuba? His letters to her were in the box she buried in her backyard. I think he was a revolutionary. Did you know about him?”

  “I didn’t know him. Elisa and I were best friends. We told each other everything. But with him, it was different; she talked about him a bit—not by name, but the occasional allusion.” She sighs. “Those were dangerous times. Batista’s punishments were merciless. She likely kept her young man a secret to protect both him and the people she loved. I knew she was in trouble, though. And I knew she was in pain.” Ana takes another sip of her coffee. “What do you want to know?”