The Cat King of Havana Page 10

  I didn’t think Pablo was like that.

  That night I lay on top of my sheets in my boxers and contemplated the impossibility of sleep. A sweltering heat had lain on Havana all evening. Our window was open to the night sky but no breeze stirred the curtains. The AC unit in the window was broken. The steady beat of a salsa bell from some restaurant in the old city rang over the distant rumble of traffic.

  Yosvany tossed and turned in his bed, his movements punctuated by the occasional half-swallowed snore. Around one in the morning the rattle of a truck woke him. I could tell because of how still he went.

  He must have known I was awake too, because he said, “Hey, Rick.”

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Everything all right?”

  Sure, I meant to say, I’m fine, I’m great, that standard American nonresponse. “Havana is . . . very different from New York.”

  Yosvany snorted. “You’ve got a good eye, primo. Maybe you should become a detective.”

  “Do you know many people like Pablo?” I asked. “Working for tourists and hating it?”

  “Most people feel lucky to work with tourists,” Yosvany said. “People who get no tourist money, you can’t imagine the way they live. I have a friend who peels tiles off walls in abandoned buildings, breaks bricks out of mortar to sell them on the black market. Lives in a shack in Marianao. Some days all he eats is rice, or bread with oil and salt.”

  “Your mom doesn’t work with tourists,” I said.

  “Uncle Elio helps out,” Yosvany said. “And besides, she’s . . .”

  “She’s what?”

  I could tell Yosvany was staring at me in the dark.

  “Look, I will explain this stuff to you because you’re my cousin. But don’t talk about it with my mom, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Did you notice the sign on the door downstairs? The one that says CDR?”

  “Sure.” It had been a cute little emblem of a guy with a sword and a shield in the colors of the Cuban flag. I’d thought it just another communist peculiarity, like the many slogans painted on walls and billboards across town. “What’s that about?”

  “It’s the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution,” Yosvany said. “A neighborhood political organization. To keep things safe and clean and stuff, but also to make sure everyone’s a good communist. And my mom runs it.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  That explained a lot.

  “Mom still has friends in the army because of our grandfather,” Yosvany said. “They come visit for New Year’s sometimes.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,” Yosvany said. “She’s not this big communist or anything. I’m just saying, life is not so bad in Cuba if you know people. That’s how it works here. Mom got Benny his job in food distribution, and now Benny helps out Elio’s paladar, and the whole family gets by.”

  I made a guess. “That means you can’t say anything bad about the government in public, not any of you.”

  Yosvany shrugged, a half-glimpsed motion in the dark. “You see why Mom and Yolanda get along so well.”

  How it must frustrate someone like Yolanda, knowing she was getting special treatment, having to stay quiet because of it.

  “Don’t get caught between the two of them,” Yosvany said. “It’s nonsense, useless, all this political crap. It never gets you anywhere. I don’t know about New York, but in Havana it’s better to live and have fun.”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “I gotta get some sleep,” Yosvany said. “In the morning I’m seeing this jebita por allá, need my energy, know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I stared at the ceiling and imagined what my life might have been like had I grown up in this apartment.

  chapter eleven

  SNAG

  We fell into a daily routine: class in the morning, then lunch with Juanita and practice at home, then a walk around the city. After dinner—a night dancing at the Milocho or La Gruta in Vedado or Hotel Florida in the old city.

  Most days Yosvany had the gig at his uncle’s restaurant, so we passed the afternoons on our own. After some initial awkwardness switching back and forth, Ana and I spoke Spanish between us—in part to practice, in part to blend in. Mom’s language still felt a bit unwieldy to me, but I was starting to think in it. I was even acquiring a Cuban sound, I thought. Not that we fooled anyone on the street.

  We strolled down the grand Fifth Avenue in Miramar, with its embassy mansions and posh business centers. We took in the blocky gray tower of the Russian Embassy, like some Imperial headquarters out of Star Wars, a monument to the days the Soviets propped up Cuba’s economy. We went swimming at Playas del Este, on soft white sand that warmed, not burned, your feet. On rainy days, or when storms came in off the ocean, we checked out indoor attractions. Galleries, the aquarium, the Museum of the Revolution—which included the yacht Granma on which Fidel and his rebels had arrived on the island, on their mission to topple Batista’s regime.

  They were nice days. I knew I’d remember them fondly, even if my plan of conquering Ana’s heart wasn’t making visible headway.

  Every day I searched for hints that she might be interested. I found nothing, but I kept looking. Think one of those dog videos where flap-eared Spot is watching you eat dinner. You take bite after bite and give him nothing, and tell him you’ll give him nothing, and still he keeps looking at you with those big, wet, hopeful eyes.

  I remembered too well how it had felt, to stand with Ana’s arms about me in the dark on that school stage, her forehead pressed against mine . . .

  At least the dancing was going well. Pablo worked us so hard, I had to rub menthol gel into my chest to soothe the pain. But all those vicious exercises had an effect. I could actually circle my torso now, and shimmy my shoulders like I meant it.

  All it took was a dance with a Cuban girl to dispel my illusions. Most of the better dancers never so much as smiled at you if you weren’t good. Others nodded encouragingly, as if to say, isn’t that charming, dear. Then there were the jineteras who smelled like a perfume shop and liked to dance real close. Real, real close.

  And everyone had advice for me. Most Cubans seemed constitutionally incapable of seeing a yuma dance without offering some pearl of wisdom.

  “Everyone is a salsa teacher,” Ana observed. “Even if they can’t tell their left foot from their right.”

  Not that all the advice was unhelpful. And it wasn’t limited to dance either.

  “You don’t dance guaguancó to that music,” Yolanda interrupted our practice one afternoon. “That’s columbia.”

  She’d been leaning against the living room wall and watching us dance rumba—a very self-conscious rumba. I felt about as graceful as a headless turkey, and I suspected Ana wasn’t doing much better.

  “I didn’t know you danced rumba,” I said.

  “Benny grew up dancing in the street. You do know rumba comes from the street, right? Might not be as pretty as the stuff your dancing teacher does, but you get sabor on the street, you get style.”

  “We’ve got a great teacher,” I said.

  But Ana said, “You’re right. We should get out more. I want to see more of Cuba. The real Cuba.”

  At this Yolanda snorted. But before she could say more there came a knock at the door. She opened it.

  A dark-skinned woman Yolanda’s age stood on the threshold—skinny, almost gaunt, with watchful eyes set deep in her face. She gave Yolanda a subdued qué tal and they hugged.

  “This is my cousin Rick from New York and his friend Ana. Rick runs that cat video site I told you about.” Yolanda gestured at the woman. “Guys, this is my friend Miranda Galvez.”

  We made our hellos. “You’re the blogger, right?” I asked.

  Miranda raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize I was famous in America.”

  “These two have a social conscience.” Yolanda’s tone was odd, not quite serious,
not quite mocking. “Ana here just told me she wanted to get to know the real Cuba.”

  Miranda’s eyes snapped to Ana, sharp and steady. “The real Cuba? As opposed to what?”

  Ana hesitated as if sensing a trap, then shrugged. “All this tourist stuff. ‘El Cuarto de Tula’ on every corner. People yelling ‘taxi!’ in your face. Shops selling pictures of Fidel and Che and old American cars.”

  Miranda’s face held no amusement. “You think that’s not the real Cuba? What’s not real about spending ten hours in the street to get a few dollars off some tourist so you can buy something to eat? Dinner’s about as real as it gets, girl.”

  “I didn’t mean to say—”

  “No,” Yolanda cut in gently. “But you did.”

  Ana was silent for a moment. She looked at the two women calmly, steadily.

  Miranda sighed. “Look, we’re as sick of Tula’s room catching fire as anyone. All we’re saying is, don’t go around talking about the real Cuba when you don’t have the first idea what it actually means to live here.”

  “We don’t,” I stepped in. “But we’d like to.”

  At this, Yolanda and Miranda turned to me in unison. I realized I hadn’t simply stepped in. I’d stepped in it.

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Miranda said. “You tourists come here and get the best of everything in Cuba, food like many Cubans never taste, hotels we can’t imagine, night clubs, all that stuff. And that’s okay because we need your dollars to survive. But then you want to poke your head into our kitchens, our bathrooms, our private lives? Why? So you can see how tough things are and go—oh, those poor Cubans! So you can go home and write a Facebook post or two and feel better about yourself?”

  “Come, Miranda,” Yolanda said, touching the woman lightly on the shoulder. “They mean well.”

  “Of course you do.” Miranda’s shoulders slumped; she sounded tired. “I’m sorry.”

  “Miranda risks her freedom with every blog post she publishes,” Yolanda said. “It gives you a different perspective on life. Just yesterday she was walking down the street and—”

  “No, Yolanda,” Miranda cut her off. “I don’t want to talk about that stuff.”

  There was an awkward silence. I searched for something to say and decided I didn’t have anything valuable to contribute. My experience of online activism was limited to campaigning for a better class of lolcat. I felt small, listening to Miranda, imagining what her daily life must be like.

  “I know there’s not much we can do to help,” Ana said quietly. “But is there anything?”

  Miranda pursed her lips, glanced at Yolanda, shrugged. “We’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

  “Okay,” Ana said.

  “Okay,” Yolanda said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Now, Miranda, just give me a second here,” Yolanda said. “I need to explain the difference between guaguancó and columbia to these guys. It’s too painful watching them flail about.”

  “You two are serious about rumba, huh,” Miranda commented once Yolanda had finished her impromptu class.

  “Rick here wants to be the Salsa King of Havana,” Ana said.

  I gave her a murderous glance. She seemed not to notice.

  Yolanda just smirked. “Cousin, I don’t meant to crush your dreams, but why not something where you have a little more expertise? The Cat King of Havana, maybe?”

  In retrospect, I should have known that one would stick.

  Yolanda’s uncharitable lack of faith aside, I was starting to believe I might get good enough to compete at the Milocho. Then we hit a snag with Pablo.

  It was Saturday morning. We arrived downstairs at Pablo’s at eleven and waited for him to toss down the key. Except ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and he didn’t.

  Curious neighbors peered down on us. We watched an old man pull past a wooden cart, yelling his marketing pregón—“frutas, vegetales, viandas, tamales, flores y hasta pescado frito!” Eventually some guy approached to offer us cigars.

  “Let’s find a pay phone,” I said. Yolanda had promised to get us a local SIM card, but you had to wait in line for one, and she hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  Ana grabbed my elbow. “Look.”

  Pablo in his green cap, coming down the street. He waved at us and dug about in his pocket for his keys. He had a white plastic water cup in one hand. “You guys ready to dance?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Ana’s grip on my elbow hardened. I glanced at her, surprised.

  After a bit of fumbling, Pablo got the door open. We entered the staircase, him leading the way, and climbed.

  That is, we started to. A few steps up, Pablo lost his balance. He flailed, then sat heavily on the stairs.

  I reached to help him. “Sorry,” he said, and got up.

  A few more steps, and he sat down again. Water sloshed from his cup.

  Except no. I realized it with a sting of dismay. That was rum, not water.

  “Maybe we should come back another day,” Ana said.

  “No, no, come.” Pablo levered himself up, grabbed the railing for all he was worth, and propelled himself upstairs.

  We made it to his apartment without another hitch. He even managed to unlock the door with no trouble.

  Inside, it was dead quiet, empty, bright with the morning light. Pablo put his cup on the table by the door and went into the living room. The armchairs hadn’t been pushed out to clear the floor yet. He made as if to move one, but plopped down in it instead.

  Ana’s face was cold—as cold as I’d ever seen it. “Rick.” She nodded at the door. “There’s nothing for us here.”

  “No!” Pablo half rose, then fell back into his chair. “Stay. We’ll work.” It seemed like he was trying to summon the confident, no-nonsense tone he used in class.

  “You can’t work like this,” Ana said. “We won’t waste time on a drunk.”

  There was no missing the bitterness in her voice.

  Pablo put one hand across his face. “My daughter, she left. She took my grandson, you understand. So I had a drink. This is Cuba. It happens sometimes.”

  I spoke to Ana in English. “Maybe we can come back tomorrow. I mean, shit happens, right?”

  “No,” Ana said. “No, esto no se llama ‘shit happens.’ I know guys like him. Coming back tomorrow won’t help.”

  But I barely heard her. Because Pablo, he . . .

  He’d plopped down on his knees, there on the stone floor. He swayed as he sat there, and put his hands in a wobbly prayer steeple.

  “Get up.” The words came out of my mouth before I knew I was speaking. “Get up, come on.”

  “Please,” he said. “I need this. I have problems. When Yosvany told me you wanted two months of classes, I thought maybe things would get better. Maybe I could fix some things, with the money. Please.”

  “Get up,” I kept saying. “Get up.”

  My face had flushed. My fingers dug into my palms. I had never felt as uncomfortable as in that moment.

  This man who begged us on his knees, he’d once danced with the Conjunto Folklórico. He’d been among the best dancers in Havana.

  It was Ana who ended it. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” she said. “If you’re not sober, we’ll leave for good.”

  Pablo got to his feet. He took a step toward Ana. He might have taken her hand if she hadn’t backed away.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Yes. Come tomorrow.”

  We went downstairs in silence. Walked down the street in silence. Even the noise of Havana—the cars, the street vendors, the people—seemed muted. As if I’d just left a battlefield, my hearing dulled by exploding mortars.

  I didn’t want to talk about what had happened. I didn’t want to think about it. I doubted Ana wanted to either. Clearly this brought back memories for her. And so we returned home without a word exchanged.

  But the day wasn’t over. In the hallway outside Juanita’s door, an elderly woman stopped us. She was
a regal lady who stood with poise, her back straight, her head up—gripping a cane in one white-knuckled hand.

  “You’re Rick?” she asked. “From New York? María’s son?”

  “Yes, hi,” I said. “You knew my mother?”

  “My name is Rafaela Pilar González,” she said. “I’ve lived next door for forty years. Your grandfather helped us get our apartment.”

  My grandfather.

  All I knew of Leonardo Gutiérrez Rivera—Mom’s father—was that he’d worked for the government and that he’d raised Mom and Juanita by himself. I’d only ever seen one picture, a faded color photo of a smiling, thin, gray-haired white man.

  I must have stayed quiet too long, because Ana elbowed me in the ribs (she was considerate that way).

  “I’d love to hear your memories,” I said. “Can I treat you to a coffee?”

  Rafaela’s eyes lit up. “Have you been to the Museo del Chocolate, by Plaza Vieja? They make a wonderful hot chocolate.”

  “Let’s go there,” I said. “Maybe in an hour?”

  “I’ve got tourists coming today,” the woman said. “But I’m free tomorrow afternoon. And call me Rafaela, niño, que no soy una vieja.” I’m no old-timer.

  “Tomorrow then,” I agreed, excited.

  If Juanita didn’t want to discuss our family history, maybe this lady could help.

  “You look like Leo,” Rafaela said. “My husband always said meeting your grandfather was the only good thing that happened to him in Angola.”

  Angola . . . Cuba had been involved in some civil war over there. I hadn’t known my grandfather had been part of it, though.

  I might have asked about that, but there came a scraping at Juanita’s door. Rafaela started as if at a gunshot. She waved at us and legged it down the hall with impressive speed.

  Yosvany emerged, the visor of his Yankees cap pulled down over his face. “Hey, guys,” he said. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have class?”

  We told him what had happened.

  A minute later, he said, “Wait, you’ve been paying Pablo every day? You crazy? Once he gets money, it’s off to party.”