Next Year in Havana(37)

“Maybe he wasn’t one of them,” Luis suggests. “Not everyone involved with Fidel’s 26th of July Movement was the same.”

I’m embarrassed to admit my knowledge of Cuban political history is fairly limited. I know broad brushstrokes and anecdotes passed on by my grandmother and great-aunts, but I’ve rarely examined the nuances beyond the simple proposition that Castro and the communism he wrought were bad. It was a truth so strongly accepted in our family, that questioning it, even in the smallest manner, was blasphemy.

“Who were the good ones, then?”

Luis drains his drink, pouring more rum into the glass. He slides it toward me, his fingers grazing mine as I grasp it.

I lift the glass to my lips, the smell of the rum filling my nostrils. The taste of him lingers somewhere on the glass and in the alcohol, or perhaps it’s just my imagination.

He looks away, out to the sea again.

I swallow, the rum sending a hot lick of fire down my throat, uncoiling in my belly.

“I didn’t necessarily say there were good ones,” Luis clarifies. “Merely men who died before they made the full transition from liberating heroes to tyrants. Men with good intentions, at the very least, which is almost but not quite the same thing. I imagine a number of history’s most notorious offenders started out with the very best intentions.”

I slide the empty glass back to him. He removes the cap from the rum bottle, filling his glass, lifting it to his lips.

“I want to find him,” I say, surprising myself even as the words leave my mouth.

The need to learn what happened between them, the puzzle of it, is all-consuming now.

“Of course you do. Journalists.” Luis sighs, his expression hovering between resignation and amusement. “What do you know about him?”

“Not much. The letters were unsigned.”

“Probably to protect your grandmother if they were ever found. Were there any clues in the letters?”

I think about it for a moment.

“He was an attorney. He met Fidel at the University of Havana while studying law.”

Luis flinches, the move nearly imperceptible, and yet so slight it speaks volumes. Fidel casts a long shadow even in death.

“That’s not much to go on. You don’t even know if he remained in Cuba or if he left. If he’s still alive.”

“I know.”

Without the use of Internet searches and genealogy sites, it will be a difficult endeavor. Without a name, it seems insurmountable. And still, I can’t help but wonder if my grandmother sent me here because she knew I would need something to seize hold of once she was gone. Ana said that my grandmother asked her to keep the box for me; she had to have wanted me to have this part of her. But if she did, why did she never tell me herself?

“Your grandmother might know something,” I add, recalling Ana’s earlier words. “Maybe there were other people around who are still in Cuba. I want to try to find him, at least. If he’s still alive, if he’s in Havana, perhaps I could meet with him.”

“Why?”

Luis refills his drink, the alcohol swaying in the bottle, and then he slides the glass back to me. This time I don’t pick it up.

“Because she feels like a stranger and she was the only person in the world who really knew me.”

Understanding flashes in his eyes as a sense of recognition passes between us. It’s obvious in his interactions with Ana that there’s a special bond between them, that for a boy who lost his father at a young age, his grandmother has become a rock for the entire family, taking them into her home, running the paladar in an effort to give them a better life.

“Tell me you wouldn’t do the same,” I say.

“If things were different, perhaps I would. But this isn’t Miami. You need to be careful. Maybe he was a nice man nearly sixty years ago; that doesn’t mean he’s the same man your grandmother loved. You don’t want to start asking questions, poking into things that will agitate the regime.”

“You think finding him—trying to, at least—would be dangerous?”

It seems such a simple thing, to want to know my family’s history. The idea that the government would discover my efforts or even care is something I can’t quite wrap my head around. It’s a love affair, not political insurrection. Were my great-aunts right to worry about me coming to Cuba as much as they did?

“Yes, it could be dangerous. Marisol—”

An oath falls from his lips, and his chair slides against the chipped tile floor with a scrape. His face is flushed, though from the liquor or the conversation, I’m not sure.

“I should go to bed,” he murmurs.

The image of him lying next to Cristina assails me.

Married. He’s married.

“Thanks for the drink,” I offer haltingly.

He doesn’t answer me.

I look straight ahead, fighting the urge to turn around, to watch him walk away. I’m too old for a crush. Especially on a married man. I came here to settle my grandmother’s ashes, not for this.

“My grandmother asked me to show you around Havana tomorrow,” Luis says behind me. “I’ll be downstairs at ten.”

I open my mouth to protest, but when I turn to tell him I’m fine without a tour guide, he’s already gone.