Island that Dared

by Dervla Murphy

  Next we trudged through an enormous concourse, past shuttered shops and restaurants. From high roof struts hung the flags of every nation, symbolising Cuba’s non-aligned stance on the world stage. The Stars and Stripes and the Keys of St Peter were inconspicuously placed.

  While the others waited for our rucksacks I gently prodded the sleeping young woman in the queueless Cambio cubicle and received 1.04 convertible peso (CP) to the euro, the standard rate throughout Cuba. At any time I could convert these for use in ordinary Cuban shops at a rate of one CP for twenty-six national pesos (NP). US dollars lost ten per cent in the exchange; other currencies were commission-free.

  We emerged unchecked through Customs though in several Caribbean countries granny-figures are quite often loaded with drugs. In another vast space our packaged fellow-passengers were trailing towards their coaches. ‘They all look too tired!’ commiserated Zea. Soon we were on our own in this dreary pillared hallway, vaguely resembling an unfinished Romanesque cathedral and furnished only with a dozen small metal chairs. Through a glass wall taxis were visible but 3.15 seemed an inhumane hour to set out for our casa particular. Rose sought a loo but quickly returned looking non-stoical; it was too awful to pee in … For this unfortunate introduction to Cuba’s normally hygienic public lavatories Hurricane Wilma was responsible; the local water supply had been wrecked a week previously. When Rachel and Rose hastily took off for the great outdoors Zea went into a sulk because she hadn’t been invited to accompany them and Clodagh complained of (psychosomatic?) dehydration. This prompted me to explore and discover a small bar in a far corner where two Customs officers and four Immigrations officers were grumbling about our delayed flight which had required them to do overtime. Havana airport’s average daily intake of 5,000 passengers normally arrives by daylight.

  Leaving Rachel to counter Zea’s sulk I took my first steps into Cuba with Rose by my side. An airport carpark – even one surrounded by royal palms and aromatic shrubs – does not provide an enthralling first impression but we agreed that the smells were excitingly unfamiliar and the sky magical, its stars lustrous on black velvet. The warm stirring of the air was a mere zephyr and only a rooster duet broke the silence. Rose deduced, ‘Here they must have loads of free-range eggs.’

  Back in the hallway we found the juniors restored to cheerfulness by some maternal alchemy and now several other seats were occupied. Two angry elderly women and a young man (bound for Caracas, said his luggage labels) were arguing loudly, the traveller seeming both cowed and defensive. A young Dutch couple had been self-driving around the island and injudiciously exposing themselves to the sun; tenderly they applied Savlon to each other’s blistered backs. Closer to us, a middle-aged corpulent mulatto was showing an amused interest in the Trio’s acrobatics – the mere sight of all that open space seemed to have recharged their batteries. When we got into conversation I learned that Senor Malagon was awaiting a delegation of Canadian agronomists. In a disarming way he boasted about Cuba’s efficient management of Wilma which for six days, towards the end of October, had flooded eleven of the island’s fourteen provinces. In preparation, 600,000 had been evacuated with their livestock and no lives were lost.

  At 5.30 we approached the taxi rank. All night three vehicles had been waiting (the sort of veteran cars that send some men into inexplicable ecstasies) yet there was no competition, no haggling. The first in line was entitled to us and CP25 was the standard night fare to Central Havana (to be known henceforth as Centro). Rachel sat in front, practising her Spanish, while the Trio and I wriggled uncomfortably on the back seat’s broken springs. During that half-hour ride all was predictable: pot-holed roads, ramshackle factories, Soviet-style blocks of prefab flats hastily erected in the 1960s.

  Shoals of cyclists pedalling to work without lights scandalised the Trio. ‘They’ll be dead!’ said Zea. ‘The police will get them!’ said Clodagh. ‘No,’ said Rose, rapidly adjusting to local realities. ‘It’s just they’ve no money for lamps.’

  Centro’s bumpy narrow streets, running between tall, dilapidated nineteenth-century residences, are off the main tourist track; twice we had to stop at junctions to seek guidance. The dawn greyness was turning faintly pink when we found 403 San Rafael – our driver looking triumphant, as though he had brought off some orienteering coup. We were piling rucksacks on the pavement when Zea exclaimed, ‘Look! Our taxi has a swan, with big wings!’ The driver chuckled and tipped her under the chin. ‘Yes, my taxi very old Chevrolet, that very famous swan.’

  A high, narrow door swung open, an outer gate was unlocked and it seemed we had arrived among old friends. Candida and Pedro, still in their nightwear, warmly embraced us while volubly registering relief at our safe arrival. The street door led directly into the parlour end of a narrow, sparsely furnished room separated from the kitchen-cum-dining-room by a long, low cupboard supporting bushy house-plants. The front bedroom opened off the parlour; two other windowless rooms opened off a corridor beyond the kitchen. To reach the small communal bathroom one crossed a square hallway at the foot of steep stairs; here more greenery surrounded an antique wrought-iron garden table with chairs to match, all painted white. As our rooms lacked writing space, this was to become my study.

  While Rachel was arguing with her daughters about who was to sleep where, Candida poured hot milk from a giant thermos, sliced bread (with apologies for its being yesterday’s loaf) and offered mango jam – the Trio’s favourite. Then the younger generations tottered off to bed but after three cups of potent coffee I had revived enough to take advantage of Havana’s brief morning coolness. An Irish proverb recommends ‘the old dog (or bitch) for the hard road’.

  Outside No. 403 the olfactory tapestry was complex: defective drains, sub-tropical vegetation, dog shit, cigar smoke, inferior petrol, seaweed, ripe garbage in overflowing skips. Each street corner had its skip to which householders on their way to work contributed bulging plastic bags and empty bottles. Cats crouched on the skip rims, cleverly reaching down to extract fish spines and other delicacies. Two dead rats in gutters proved that some cats had been busy overnight. Dogs swarmed, having been set free at dawn to do what we all do once a day, so one had to watch one’s step on the broken pavements. A jolly young woman was selling tiny cups of strong sweet coffee from her living-room window; later, she would do a brisk trade in takeaway homemade pizzas which became popular with the Trio. Further down the street, an older woman was selling ham rolls and over-sweet buns from a plank laid on two chairs in her doorway. She and a neighbour were talking money, the neighbour a grey-haired, ebony-skinned housewife hunkered beside her doorstep, cleaning piles of rice on sheets of Granma (Cuba’s only national daily, also the Communist Party newspaper).

  In the late nineteenth century a sugar-rich bourgeoisie strove to replicate the imposing seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mansions of Old Havana and their residences spread fast beyond the city walls. (These were demolished in 1963 to make way for new housing; only a fragment survives, near the railway station.) San Rafael is one of Centro’s almost carfree grid of long, straight streets, every downward slope leading to the Malecón; from their intersections the Straits of Florida beckon – usually a blue sparkle, occasionally a grey-green turbulence. Most buildings are three- or four-storey (a few rise to five or six) and their external dilapidation is extreme. Post-Revolution, this district was taken over by working-class families and what might tentatively be described as the petite bourgeoisie. Since then no restoration has been done; Havana was allowed to decay when Fidel took over, his mind set on improving living conditions for the rest of Cuba, hitherto neglected. Much social history is revealed by Centro’s wealth of neo-baroque flourishes around wide-arched entrances or cracked stained-glass balcony windows, and by the strong iron bars protecting both doors and street level unglazed windows; Havana didn’t enjoy its recent low crime rate during the centuries when it hogged most of the national wealth. Vivid expanses of Moorish tiles decorate a few façades and, from corners b
eneath high eaves, ambiguous carved figures lean out: they might represent Christian saints, classical heroes, Spanish conquistadors, Congolese deities or deceased grandparents. Along certain streets most balconies display strangely dressed dolls atop high stools, or little flags mysteriously patterned, or huge sooty kettles filled with coloured sticks – all components of Santería rituals. And long laundry lines of fluttering garments relieve the background drabness; Cubans are obsessive about personal cleanliness and partial to strong, bold colours.

  On every street stereotypes appeared with almost ridiculous frequency. Grandads were relishing the day’s first cigar, settled in cane rocking-chairs behind wrought-iron balconies high above the pavement. Ebullient schoolchildren in immaculate uniforms – each white shirt or blouse meticulously ironed – converged on their schools before 8.00 a.m. Young men rode bicycles held together with strips of tin, many wearing musical instruments over their shoulders. Older men were already playing dominoes, sitting at card-tables – usually improvised – outside their homes. Neighbours sat on doorsteps or window ledges, arguing, laughing, discussing, complaining, gossiping. Fruit-sellers pushed their homemade handcarts from group to group; when the recycled pram wheels had lost their rubber the rims grated loudly on the cobbles.

  Superficially I was back in the Third World, aka the Majority World. But only superficially: no one looked hungry, ragged, dirty or obviously diseased, no one was homeless or neglected in old age. The contemporary Cubans, urban and rural, immediately impress as a self-confident people. Although Castroism has stumbled from one economic disaster to another, for a tangle of reasons, the Revolutionary ideal of equality bred two generations who never felt inferior because they lacked the Minority World’s goodies. They appreciated their own goodies, including first-class medical care for all and a range of educational, cultural and sporting opportunities not available to the majority in such free-market democracies as India, South Africa – or the US. As for the third generation, now coming to maturity – I was to find that question marks surround them.

  Chapter 2

  Since its completion in 1950 (construction was begun in 1901) the habaneros have endowed their Malecón with a personality of its own; one can’t imagine the city without these four curving miles of promenade, the shimmering sea so close that boys leap over the low wall, diving straight in. Yet the prospect along the shore does not entirely please. A colony of gawky skyscrapers, Havana’s tallest buildings, crowd the western end in contrast to the dignified battlements of Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro (commonly known as El Morro) on the eastern promontory. In 1589, when King Phillip II realised how important Havana was for the expansion of his empire, he ordered these mighty fortifications to be built – a forty-year task, employing thousands of engineers, craftsmen and peons.

  Havana assumed this importance because the treasure fleets, returning from Mexico and Peru, could anchor in this safe, spacious harbour while awaiting naval protection for crossing the Atlantic. By the end of the sixteenth century the fleet usually numbered more than 100 vessels laden with silver, gold and emeralds, cargoes much coveted by pirates. The return voyage normally started in June or July, before the hurricane season, and often the earliest arrivals were moored for months. In 1622 a late start proved disastrous; within a day of sailing from Havana in September, twenty-seven ships were mauled by the season’s first hurricane which claimed three treasure galleons and five of their naval escort. Over five hundred men were lost. The fleet’s assembling was again delayed in 1623 and a sensible decision to ‘winter’ in Havana caused panic back home; the Spanish treasury now had to face a second year with a grievously depleted income.

  The fleets’ crews, recruited from all over the Habsburg territories, put their genetic imprint on Havana’s rapidly growing population, as is evident to this day. A number were highly skilled craftsmen, employed on shiprepairs, and many settled in Cuba when the island’s vast hardwood forests led to ships being built in Havana for the whole Spanish navy, a major industry until the empire shrank in the early nineteenth century.

  The Malecón is a slow ten-minute walk from No.403 and when the younger generations bounced back at noon we set off to swim and picnic. My wailing about the debilitating heat gained no sympathy. ‘It’s perfecto!’ said Rose. ‘It’s why people come to Cuba in November,’ said Rachel. ‘Nyanya’s like an ice-cream!’ Clodagh chuckled sadistically. ‘She won’t last long in the sun!’

  The Trio were fascinated by cigar-smoking men with ample bellies sitting on their thresholds wearing only underpants, and by youths practicing baseball catches with a homemade ball and glove, and by an independent trader bargaining with a woman on a fourth-floor balcony who then let down her roped basket to take delivery of four eggs. The fascination was mutual. This fair-haired, blue-eyed trio brought appreciative, affectionate smiles to every face (even the teenagers’) and prompted the wrong guess – ‘alemana?’ As this situation would regularly recur Rachel and I agreed to identify ourselves, en masse, as ‘irlandesa’ – easier than explaining that the Trio are half-Irish, quarter-Welsh, quarter-English.

  At the Malecón’s El Morro end, broken concrete steps lead down to sea-level, to what is euphemistically known as ‘the people’s beach’, a long strip of rough pitted rock, painful to walk on in bare feet and uncomfortable to sit on. This shoreline has one odd feature; at intervals of thirty or forty yards oblong chunks have been carved out of the rock, providing safe bathing pools for children. These are explained in Richard Henry Dana’s To Cuba and Back, a guide-book (I think the first in English) published in Boston in 1859:

  The Banos de Mar are boxes, each about twelve feet square and six or … eight feet deep, cut directly into the rock which here forms the sea-line which the waves of this tideless shore wash in and out … The flow and reflow make these boxes very agreeable, and the water, which is that of the Gulf Stream, is at a temperature of seventy-two degrees. The baths are roofed over, but open for a view towards the sea; and as you bathe you see the big ships floating up the Gulf Stream, that great highway of the equinoctial world … These baths are made at the public expense, and are free. Some are marked for women, some for men, and some ‘por la gente de color’.

  Soon the happily splashing Trio had bonded with a group of contemporaries. We were the only foreigners around; Havana-based tourists swim off the smooth sands of ‘developed’ playas many miles away. The Trio couldn’t understand my not joining them in the warm Atlantic; during summer visits to Ireland they are coaxed into the less warm Blackwater River at least once a day. I tried to explain that to me warm water is what you wash in: a swim should be invigorating. Point not taken …

  We watched two freighters appearing as smudges on the horizon, coming from opposite directions and traversing the bay until they were so close we could discern their rustiness. Havana’s port is still important though no longer as crowded as in Dana’s day; then vessels had to manoeuvre for space, before unloading hundreds of passengers and valuable cargoes from Europe and the Americas. Now only a few freighters arrive daily, those from Panama carrying (mainly) Asian-made luxury goods for sale in government dollar-stores to Cuba’s nouveau riche. Cheap food for everyone comes from Argentina and Brazil; supplies for tourist hotels, including soap and loo paper, come from the EU.

  At sunset the Trio’s quintet of friends accompanied us part of the way home, all eight girls trotting in single file along the Malecón’s wide wall. Children can vault language barriers with enviable ease. Observing this octet, I was reminded of Rachel, aged five, communicating for hours on end with her Coorgi playmates in a South Indian jungle village.

  We were led to Parque Antonio Maceo, a dusty expanse presided over by a famous mulatto general, among the most revered heroes of the nineteenth-century wars of independence. Rachel and I made polite admiring noises. Zea bluntly declared, ‘It’s boring here, why don’t they plant grass?’ Rose glared at her little sister and said, ‘But that man looks interesting.’ The octet agreed t
o meet again next afternoon.

  Returning to No. 403 by a different route we passed a few puestos (state-run groceries) which the Trio didn’t recognise as shops despite their counters and scales. These dismal places – most shelves bare – come to life only when supplies arrive. Then orderly queues stretch away down the pavement, each citizen equipped with much-used plastic bags and a blue libreta (ration book, about the size of an EU passport). The basic rations of rice, beans and eggs may be augmented by pasta, cooking-oil and margarine. But always there is a daily litre of milk for children – now up to the age of seven, pre-Special Period, up to fourteen. Those with spare national pesos may buy meat, fowl, vegetables and fruits at farmers’ markets regulated by municipalities.

  To Fidel’s critics, permanent food-rationing proves how hopelessly Castroism has failed. In fact, feeding all Cubans adequately (except during the worst years of the Special Period) has been one of its most remarkable achievements. In 1950 a World Bank medical team estimated that sixty per cent of Cuba’s rural dwellers and forty per cent of urban folk were malnourished. No dependent territory is encouraged to be self-sufficient and Cuba was then importing, mainly from the US, sixty per cent of its grain needs, thirty-seven per cent of vegetables, eighty-four per cent of fats, eighty per cent of tinned fruit, sixty-nine per cent of tinned meat, eighty-three per cent of biscuits and sweets. Hunger greatly strengthened popular support for the Revolution. The US embargo, established in response to the revolution, caused dire food shortages until the rationing system, established on 12 March 1962, ensured that no family would go hungry. In Julio Garcia Luis’s words, ‘Fidel was determined not to allow the law of money and of supply and demand to be imposed, but to ensure justice’.