Next Year in Havana(43)
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 keepers 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.