Next Year in Havana(17)

“And now she’s gone.”

I’ve become unmoored with my grandmother’s passing; Ana is right—my grandmother was my anchor, and now that she’s gone, I’m adrift.

“She was so proud of you, Marisol. Always.”

She slides a plate of maduros and lechon asado in front of me.

“Will you eat, too?” I ask.

“Perhaps a bit.”

I wait while she serves a smaller plate for herself, taking the seat opposite mine. Behind her the two women reenter the kitchen, dumping plates into the sink with loud clunks before exiting again.

Ana begins eating, and I follow suit. The pork is the perfect mix of succulent meat and fat, the plantains a sweet, sharp bite washed down with the saccharine drink.

“Where will you spread her ashes?” Ana asks.

“I don’t know. I hoped you could help me with that. I asked Aunt Beatriz and Aunt Maria, and they offered a few ideas.”

I asked my father, as well, but he’d had little to propose beyond the Perez home. He loved my grandmother, but he was much closer to my grandfather in childhood and adulthood.

“What did they say?” she asks.

“They suggested the house where she grew up.” The very house that is now inhabited by a Russian diplomat and his family. I can’t help but think that my grandmother, my proud grandmother, would view the Russians as interlopers.

Ana smiles. “She would be close by, then. It’s a good choice. It was in the Perez family for generations. In its day it was one of the finest homes in Havana, a distinction your great-grandparents were proud of.”

“Do you think she would be happy there?”

“Perhaps. Where else have you considered spreading her ashes?”

“I’m not sure. Somewhere in the city, I guess. It seems like she belongs here.”

“Yes, she does. She loved Havana, even after it broke her heart.”

Ana gets up from the table, clearing our empty plates.

“What was your grandfather like?” she asks from her position at the sink, her back to me.

I rise, ignoring her protests as I help her wash the dishes. The need to stand on ceremony with Ana Rodriguez feels superfluous; despite the fact that we just met, there is an ease to her manner, conveying the impression that a part of my grandmother—a chapter of her life—is here in her childhood best friend.

“I didn’t know him as well since he died when I was ten,” I answer. “They were happy, though. In love. She didn’t date or anything after he died. Wasn’t interested in it. She had us—her granddaughters—my father, and her causes. Besides, they were married for almost forty years. I think it was hard for her to move on after spending so much of her life with him.”

I remember my grandmother’s grief even now, standing beside her in the pew of the Church of the Little Flower as we laid my grandfather to rest, my hand clutched in hers as we mourned. Twenty-one years later I stood in the same pew, staring at the gleaming coffin where my grandmother lay, consoling myself in the fact that they were together again.

Given my own parents’ disastrous marriage, my grandparents were the ones I looked up to. Their story was filled with so much love and respect, giving me hope that one day I would find a good man, one I could trust, who would be both friend and partner, who would love me with as much devotion as I loved him.

“Everything Elisa told me about him made it sound like he was a lovely man.” Ana smiles at me. “Your grandmother wrote to me when she could throughout the years. She asked me to hold something for you. Let me get it from my room.”

She shuffles out of the kitchen, leaving me alone. I sit back down at the table, anticipation filling me. This is what I came for—to let a piece of my grandmother go and to perhaps find new pieces of her that I could clutch to my breast once I did.

The two women from earlier reenter the kitchen, neither one glancing in my direction, as though I’ve become part of the table and chairs.

I stand and introduce myself.

They both stare back at me; the elder woman speaks first.

“I’m Caridad. You met my son, Luis, earlier.”

So I was right; this is Ana’s daughter-in-law. She possesses her son’s height and his angular face, his graceful manner of moving.

“Yes. He was kind enough to meet me at the airport.”

“We needed him here at the restaurant. It was busy today.”

She delivers the words with dart-like precision, the remainder unspoken—and we needed Ana’s help today while you were busy chatting with her during the dinner service.

My cheeks heat at the subtle rebuke as she passes by me without another glance.

The younger woman meets my gaze with a flinty stare.

“I’m Cristina. Luis’s wife.”

Disappointment shoots through me with a particularly lethal and effective stab. Silence fills the kitchen as we stare at each other. Here I feel the resentment I feared when I first planned my trip to Cuba, the unspoken censure that I’m not a real Cuban, that I’m a traitor to my people because my family left this country behind.

The exiles in Miami and around the world hate Castro because he took their country from them, because he took everything, really. But I see a different kind of anger here, simmering below the surface, contained in Luis’s mother and his wife. For the most part, Cubans who left prospered whereas those who stayed behind still appear to be struggling despite the promises they received from the government.