Havana, Cuba. August 2011
Room-only at the Nacional, Nick went downtown to get some breakfast. At La Pasteleria, he paced the sidewalk waiting for a table. His sulk slipped into a stroll along Paseo del Prado.
The Atlantic breeze cooled his skin. Passing marble lions and flower mosaics, he reached the promenade they call el Malecón.
Waves slapped the crumbling seawall. Sun roused the reeking drunks. Leather-skinned vendors jockeyed for shade.
Squinting at El Morro castle, Nick imagined the siege of 1762 – the masts of men-of-war, thundering broadsides – before extracting himself, sweaty and English, back to the café at the Inglaterra.
Diesel fumes drifted through the colonnade. A waiter leaned for Nick’s order in sweat-creased linen. A cigar-chomping pensioner hawked Granma, the Party newspaper. A sliver of plaster tumbled from the ceiling, settling on the froth of Nick’s café con leche.
The week before, in Costa Rica, Nick turned forty-two at a resort hotel. Dining alone among families and honeymooners, he clung to his wine glass and stared at his Kindle. The laughter belonged to everyone else.
Life was solitary. Friends and lovers, parents and children – even identical twins – lived individually.
It was fourteen years since he’d left Inès in Lille.
A shout for ice fractured his reverie. On the terrace next door, a man worked the bongos. Across the road at Parque Central, chess players slouched beneath the wilted palms. High on his plinth, José Martí waved at the pigeons.
Nick scraped his chair into the shade. A beggar child tugged at his sleeve. The waiter kicked the kid’s backside, and he skipped off the terrace.
The guidebook warned travellers about piss-soaked thieves. About whores in dark alleys grabbing your wrist. “Ey guapo, ¿qué volá? Ey papi—tsk-tsk.”
Nick wasn’t a freshman on his first spring break. He was here to pay homage at Hemingway’s finca. The very next day, he’d tour the Museo de la Revolución and see the yacht that brought Castro and his guerrillas from Mexico. He’d sit at Batista’s desk, run his finger along the bullet holes on the stairway to the roof.
Every city had its vice. Nick wasn’t interested.
…
Two days before, on his first afternoon, Nick sat at a pavement table on Calle Obispo, sipping a Cristal and batting away vendors, when Yunior emerged from the throng, his arm slung around a tall Amazonian.
His antennae twitched in Nick’s direction.
Flashing a broken-toothed grin, he swung towards Nick’s table in tan cowboy boots, his frazzled mullet whipping behind him.
“Ey, my fren – where you from?”
“I’m English,” Nick said.
“I know you are English!” He poked the woman beside him. “She say Italian!”
He offered Nick a cigarette. The dark-skinned beauty laughed with her head back, a full head taller than the ogling pedestrians.
“This my girlfren. Her name’s Yeniset.”
They sat down at his table. The fat man swooped in with a menu.
“Where you stay?” Yunior asked.
“Hotel Nacional.”
“Are you travel alone?” Yeniset asked.
“I’m here on holiday.”
“Hotel no good,” Yunior said. “No bring girls.”
“I’m not here for girls.”
A twitch worked the corner of Yunior’s eye.
“I’m here to see the Museo de Hemingway.”
Yunior stamped his foot and cackled at the ceiling. He laughed for a good five minutes.
Yeniset sipped a daiquiri. A protruding front tooth perched on her lip. “You see Emingüey’s room?”
“His room at the finca?”
“His room at the hotel.”
Yunior tapped Nick’s arm. “Don’t worry, I take you.”
“You like Ernest Emingüey?” Yeniset asked.
“His bar’s right there—” Yunior pointed towards El Floridita, on the corner of Monserrate. “If you like, we go drink.”
“In Hotel Ambos Mundos, he wrote Muerte en la tarde,” Yeniset said. “I don’t know in English.”
Yunior showed Nick his mobile. “I get you the sim?”
“My phone works fine.”
“No. You have BlackBerry.”
“You need Cubacel,” Yeniset said.
“No roaming,” Yunior said. “I get you the sim.”
“I don’t think I need one.”
“You might meet a girl,” Yeniset said.
“Look, look—” Yunior said.
Across the road stood a long line of people. One man sat on a bucket and played it like bongos. Others chatted and smoked, switching feet and trapping their hands in their armpits.
“Are they queuing for sim cards?”
“Detergent,” Yeniset said. “For wash their clothes.”
“Sim line much worse,” Yunior said.
“Yunior will buy for you.”
Six more beers and they switched to mojitos. Reggaetón pounded from behind the counter. Nick felt like they’d been to half a dozen bars. A girl in stiletto heels joined their table. The barman brought drinks; Nick fed him CUCs. He asked the girl’s name, and Yunior slapped his thigh.
“Is Yeniset. My girlfren! She change for a party!”
Yunior grabbed his girlfriend and they danced on the pavement. Yunior spun her around. Shoppers and hawkers, mothers with pushchairs, paid them no heed. Nick danced nearby, then returned to his table.
Already dusk. The detergent line stretched for two blocks. Nick paid at the counter and they marched down Dragones.
At Mimosa Pizza, they drank three bottles of wine. Yunior’s Nokia had been squawking all evening. He glanced at it, stood with a grin, and in walked Dali. A rough-cut gem on six-inch heels. She sat beside Nick, and the waiter lit candles. Nineteen, a brunette. Long flowing curls and milk-white skin. Tables stopped talking when she click-clacked to the washroom.
“Be nice,” Yeniset said. “She break with her boyfren.”
“You’re like my old fren.” Yunior gave Nick a hug. They smoked H. Upmanns and spoke in Spanglish. Dali’s knee pressed against his thigh.
“My fren have apartamen,” Yunior said at the urinal. “On O’Reilly, near the old town.”
“I don’t need an apartment.”
“Dali say you are rico,” Yunior said. “You know what mean rico? Rico like guapo.”
“She’s a bit too young.”
“No way! Too young? She’s already nineteen!”
“I’m forty-two.”
“No, my fren – No too young! You look like thirty! With a chica that hot, you need an apartamen!”
…
The morning after, Nick woke late and swam off his hangover. No way in hell would he give up his room. The Nacional was an institution. Frank Sinatra and Errol Flynn had stayed down the corridor. In room 225, Ava Gardner necked five daiquiris every day before breakfast. Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, leapt into the swimming pool from the second-floor balcony.
Nick drip-dried on the terrace in a canvas chair. Right there, in 1946, Lucky Luciano and his mobster associates carved up the island in the form of a cake. Nick imagined the Tommy guns and cheap cologne. Goons scooping cream dollops of Matanzas and Cienfuegos.
Yunior’s pal rented out a place on O’Reilly. With a power shower, a DVD player – a hundred metres from the Capitol. If Dali agreed to wait, Nick could move her into one. Return every summer. Work ten years in the Persian Gulf, then return and open a language school.
Start a family.
Lift her from poverty.
Cubans had endured conquest, slavery, revolutions, and plague. They sailed the Florida Straits in home-made skiffs and inner tubes from eighteen-wheelers. Of course she would wait.
She was waiting in a taxi outside the Capitol, bare knees angled towards the driver. Nick wore his chino shorts and a new navy polo. He climbed in the back. Fifteen minutes later, they stopped in Miramar. Nick paid the driver and they set off walking. Past high white walls and wrought iron gates. A vendor chanted, maní, maní, scooping roasted peanuts into newspaper cones. Dali looped her arm through Nick’s. Sparrows flitted in the almond trees.
She wore a tight-fitting dress with a zebra-pattern. Earrings brushed her neck. Swearing softly, she stopped to fix her stiletto. Picking Wrigley’s from her mouth, she stuck it under the heel.
The bar she wanted was closed. They took a taxi to a place set back from the road, drank bottled beer and shot some pool.
When it turned dark, they went to a steakhouse. Nick bought champagne, and they dined on the rooftop. Dali asked about his job and he laid out his plans. He was earning tax-free in the Persian Gulf. He was ready to settle, once he met the right woman. She knew all the names of the unlit neighbourhoods.
They kissed on the street. Dali started to cry.
“I want to lie in your arms.”
“I’m in a hotel.”
She knew a place they could go.
Nick waved down a Buick. Dali leaned in the window.
“¿Me das botella?”
Exhaust blew into the back. She rested her head under Nick’s chin.
The car pulled over.
“Wait five minutes.”
She spoke to a man over a garden gate, then disappeared into the garden. Ten minutes later, she was back in the car.
They stopped outside a house. Nick lit the way with his phone. A woman answered the door. Dali stepped inside and went to the washroom. Nick waited in the kitchen. A man sat by a chessboard, jazz on the radio.
“Americano?”
“English,” Nick said. “How much is a room?”
“Ten dollar one hour,” the man said. His name was Raúl. “Mira,” Raúl said. “Hotels lit up like spaceships, generators humming all night, air-con full blast, while we the people sit in the dark. Sweating like dogs. You think it’s an accident?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Castro say about dignity, about our revolución. Todo eso es mierda. Power for them and sacrifice for us! The comandante die fat and old, and we the people?” Raúl snorted. “The Americans – coño – don’t play innocent. You put the embargo, the blockade. You choke us, starve us. You say, See? Socialismo doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work—”
The woman came in carrying a child. A girl with a creased, bewildered face. She climbed into a chair and sat with her knees up.
Nick felt Dali’s hand, and they went upstairs. To a yellow mattress with the sheets kicked loose. Crayon pictures on the walls.
They peeled out of their clothes. Dali washed with a bucket and pitcher. She stuck her gum on the wall and lay on her stomach. An enormous dildo was stuck to the headboard.
Nick turned up the fan.
A doll watched from the corner. A pretty black doll perched on a chair.
Dali ground her hips into the mattress. “Give me that thing.” She pointed at the dildo.
Nick pulled on his clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“Get dressed,” Nick said. “I’ll pay for your taxi.”
Dali swung her legs off the bed and smoked a cigarette. She retrieved her chewing gum and flicked through clothes in the wardrobe. Lifting out a little girl’s dress, she blew her nose in the fabric and hung it back up.
…
Nick sat in La Pasteleria. Two broad teak fans, useless and elegant, slapped dead air along the colonnade. Flies dive-bombed and looped-the-loop. Sweat ran down his shins and pearled on his nose. His elbows skidded on the table Formica.
Tourists spilled from airport coaches. Concierges lifted their signs, showing sweat-stained armpits. The hawker selling Granma leaned over the gutter and blew his nose with a farmer’s hanky.
At a nearby table, a grey-haired Cuban talked business with an American. The Cuban’s daughter, strikingly beautiful, topped up their glasses. The American gave the girl sidelong glances. Pawing sweat off his head, he flashed Patek Philippe and gold sovereign rings. The men shook hands. The father pocketed an envelope and stood with his hat.
A boy approached and nudged Nick’s arm.
“What do you want?” Nick said.
“You take the call—” The boy held out a phone. “The call is for you.”
Nick took the mobile.
“Hey my fren. How are you feel? Enjoy the breakfast? You try La Pasteleria, like I say – eh? I tell you is good!”
“Yunior?”
“Sorry I call. This boy my cousin. This boy you can trust. Last night you forget? I say you are drunk. I think you forget – so much wine! Dali’s embarrassed. She ask me to call. I say no problem, Nick my fren.”
“Listen Yunior, Dali’s a really nice girl—”
“But not so fresh! What age you like? I find you another. But… you see, last night. You forget to pay.”
“Pay for what? I paid for everything.”
“No, socio. The room, you pay Raúl. Taxi, you pay taxi. But the girl, you forget. Need pay for the time. Listen, my fren. Dali say you don’t fuck. Maybe not like? Next time, you tell me. Next time, I find you. You pay me one hour. Give the boy sixty. You pay sixty CUC.”
Nick ended the call.
He fished in his wallet. The boy stuffed the bills into his pocket and scampered away.
Almost midday.
Pigeons pecked at scraps beneath the tables.
I love Nick’s adventures. Here, his desire to 'lift her from poverty' and his romanticized visions of Hemingway, and Sinatra clashing with the reality of a 'ten dollar one hour' room, are particularly telling.
This so well written and immersive! Plus I had to look a few words up, which means I learned something. The character of Nick is quite intriguing - in this piece at least, blending worldliness/world-weariness with innocence. I can see this is part of a series, and I'll make sure to check out other installments.