Next Year in Havana(44)
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.