The Cat King of Havana Page 9

  “I saw you shiver,” I said.

  Ana pulled off her shirt. Her bra shone white in the gloom. She started to unbutton her jeans, then stopped. “Stare much?”

  I turned away, blushing. Writhed out of my shirt awkwardly. Hesitated, then pulled down my jeans—trusting the dark to hide the boner raging in my boxers.

  I was still struggling with one pant leg when Ana slid into the water—a lithe shape in my periphery, almost invisible except for the moonlight reflected on her underwear. I slunk down after her, clutching at the slick rocks to keep my balance.

  Cold. A shock of cool against my skin.

  Not a clean cold either—there was an oily feel to the water. No way I was putting my head under the surface. I didn’t dive in, but climbed down. The bottom was shallow and painfully rocky under my feet.

  Ana was fifteen feet away already, swimming on her back, arms arcing languidly through the air. She made a graceful turn and another, before heading back to me. She stopped a few feet away, floating on her back. “We should do that Dirty Dancing scene,” she said.

  “We can try,” I said, dubious.

  Ana came close, her face shadowed. I braced my feet on the bottom. She leaned toward me. I hesitated, then shot my hands forward, held her just above the hips.

  Skin. Ana’s skin, slick under my fingers.

  She leaned in more. I sank into my knees, lifted.

  For a second, Ana rose from the water. Then I lost my balance, toppled. We splashed down hard, both of us. Laughing, spluttering, casting about with our arms. Ana pushed off my chest, her fingers firm against me.

  There was a rumbling. We froze, looked around.

  There, a few hundred feet out, a motorboat. It had a spotlight on top, bright, shooting across the water in front of it.

  “Police?” Ana asked, quiet.

  We hunkered down. The spotlight traveled across the waves. Hit us, lit up the wall behind us bright. Ana gripped my hand, hard.

  The light passed over us without slowing. The boat continued on.

  “They didn’t see us,” Ana said.

  I forced a laugh. “They probably weren’t even police.”

  But that was the end of our swim. We clambered out onto the ledge and sat there for a while, drying in the warm night breeze.

  “That was fun,” Ana said.

  “Yeah.” My eyes drifted to her of their own accord. In the gloom, my mind painted sharp pictures out of every half-suggested curve . . . I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking.

  “We should have taken your cousin along,” Ana said. “We kind of abandoned him.”

  Guess not.

  Later, when we’d dried off and dressed and got back to Yosvany, he pulled me aside. “Well? Did you kiss her?”

  “We went swimming,” I said.

  “What? You crazy? In that water?”

  “I thought it might impress her,” I said. “It seemed like a cool thing to do.”

  “You know what would have been a cool thing? Kissing her.”

  I muttered something to the effect that things weren’t so simple.

  “I give him a simple task and he goes swimming in the Malecón.” Yosvany shook his head. “Next time, trust your cousin.”

  chapter ten

  A REAL DANCER

  “So you open the page and it’s full of cats?” Juanita asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And they do funny things.”

  “Sometimes.” I buttered a bun of white bread. “Sometimes they just sit there, staring at you.”

  “Dios santo.” Juanita sipped at her coffee. “And people pay for this?”

  “Advertisers do,” I said. “It’s the new age, tía. All about eyeballs.”

  “Eyeballs?” Juanita worked the English word around her mouth.

  “Come, Mom.” Yolanda stood at the sink, doing dishes. “I’ve seen you on Facebook at Olivia’s place. All you do is click on funny pictures.”

  “That’s what Facebook is for,” Ana stepped in loyally.

  “I should introduce you to my friend Miranda sometime,” Yolanda said to me. “She runs one of the smartest blogs in Cuba.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked. “What’s it about?”

  “The economy,” Yolanda said. “And—”

  “And a lot of tontería,” Juanita cut in. “A waste of time and energy.”

  Yolanda looked ready to object, but Yosvany stuck his head in the door. “You guys almost done? I’m ready to go.”

  Of course he was. He’d been up two hours before me, after snoring so loud I couldn’t sleep half the night.

  “Two minutes.” I scarfed up my food. The bread was stale, but there was a bowl of fruit to help it down—banana, guava, and the smoothest, sweetest papaya I’d ever tasted. Fruta bomba, they called it here, and the explosion of taste in my mouth justified the name.

  “Where are you going?” Yolanda asked.

  “I’m taking them to Pablo to learn salsa,” Yosvany said. “I’ll be in my room, guys.”

  I was ready to get going. I needed lots of classes if I wanted to dance in that competition at the Milocho.

  “Really, Yosvany could teach us,” Ana said. “He’s very good.”

  “Yosvany won’t be teaching anyone,” Juanita said. “He’s got a job.”

  “What does he do?” Ana asked.

  “He waits tables and plays with the band at his uncle Elio’s paladar,” Juanita said. “He’s saving up for a new guitar.”

  “So there are private restaurants here?” Ana asked.

  “Of course,” Juanita said. “You get a license and you’re set.”

  “Unless they decide to change the law again,” Yolanda said. “Then you lose everything.”

  “Changing circumstances require changing laws,” Juanita said.

  “Very good, Mom. That’s very good.” Yolanda looked at us pointedly. “That’s why people like my friend Miranda are so necessary. Because some Cubans don’t even know the hole that we’re in.”

  Here’s the thing about life as a cat. Go somewhere new and everything’s a threat.

  A rubber duck? Holy terror!

  A lawn sprinkler? Run in fear!

  A plastic bag? OMG! Battle stations! Condition red!

  Sometimes a cat can’t get a break.

  I didn’t feel like this in Cuba. Sure, daily life in Havana was new to me, with plenty of surprises and learning experiences. But I could deal with it okay.

  Talking to my newfound family, though? Land mines everywhere. Mr. Porcelain could have identified.

  Later, out on the street, Ana brought this up with Yosvany. “Your sister seemed in a bad mood this morning.”

  Yosvany waved his hand. “They’re always going at each other.”

  “Different politics?” I asked.

  “Something like that,” Yosvany said. “I swear, you could say good morning to the two of them and they’d turn it into an argument.”

  “It’s probably a sign they really care about Cuba,” Ana said.

  Yosvany snorted. “Bobería a tiempo completo. That’s what it is.”

  It was in fact a sunny morning, windless, and the faint smell of rotting food hung in the air. The asphalt was already getting hot beneath my feet, promising a stifling afternoon.

  “What’s with those signs?” Ana pointed at a painted blue sign on a nearby door, like an anchor. “They’re everywhere.”

  “That’s a casa particular,” Yosvany said. “For tourists who don’t like hotels. Everyone who’s got a decent apartment runs one.”

  “I read about that,” I said. “Raúl Castro freeing up the economy.”

  “Oh, yeah, we’ve totally got the free market. You can even buy foreign cars now.” Yosvany laughed. “Two hundred thousand CUC for a new Peugeot.”

  “That money goes into the budget, right?” Ana asked.

  “Yeah,” Yosvany said. “Somebody’s vacation budget.”

  Ana frowned but said nothing.


  We’d barely reached Habana Vieja, the old city, before some hustler idled up alongside—a jinetero in local slang. “Taxi? Cigar? Taxi?”

  Yosvany told him we weren’t interested. It was only fifteen seconds before another voice cried, “Taxi? Girls? Cigars?”

  And then, “Amigo! Amigo, hi!” And “Hi, my friend! My friend, where are you from?”

  “I don’t understand,” Ana said. “It’s not like we’re not Latinos. How can they tell?”

  Yosvany looked at her as if wondering if she was serious. “Your clothes,” he said. “The way you walk. The way you look around. Everything.”

  Live music wafted from most restaurants, little bands playing son—the music that had preceded salsa, similar, yet more reserved in its cadences. A sound that I thought of as old people music. After a few blocks, I noticed something. “They’re all playing songs from Buena Vista Social Club.”

  “Cuba is for tourists,” Yosvany said. “That’s what tourists want, so that’s what we play, all day long. You’ve got some of the best musicians in the country playing ‘Chan Chan’ day after day to make money. Of course, we also have lots of good doctors and scientists and engineers playing ‘Chan Chan’ to make money.”

  “That’s terrible,” Ana said.

  Yosvany shrugged. “The teacher I’m taking you to used to dance with the Conjunto Folklórico. Best company in Havana. Later they asked him to teach at a top professional dance school. But you can’t put food on the table teaching Cubans, so he quit to work with tourists.”

  At the next intersection, we took a right. Our destination was halfway down the block, a three-story apartment building with a peeling green paint job. The scuffed outer door was locked. Yosvany stood in the middle of the street and craned his head back, looking at the balconies above. “Pablo!” he yelled, full throat. “Oye, Pablo, consorte!”

  There was a long pause. Yosvany drew his breath to shout again, but a shape moved against the striped red awning of a third-floor balcony. A heavyset man peered down at us.

  “Hey, Pablo.” Yosvany waved.

  “Coge,” the man called, and threw something.

  I jumped aside. A yellow plastic duck smacked down where I’d been standing. It bounced and lay still on its side.

  I picked it up, curious. There was a slit in the duck’s butt. Someone had stuffed a key in there.

  We went in, climbed a dark, dusty staircase. The smell of fried pork sat in the still air. Pablo stood in the door of his apartment, a man in his fifties, his skin the same dark shade of brown as Yosvany’s, powerful arms crossed on a massive chest.

  One glance and I knew him for a guy with style. Black-and-white jazz shoes. Cutoff jeans, an intense dark blue—no knockoff these. A sleeveless white tee constraining a substantial potbelly. A green baseball cap topped the ensemble.

  “Brought you students.” Yosvany clasped hands with the man. “This is my cousin Rick and his friend Ana.”

  “Gracias, hermano,” Pablo said. “I’ll remember this.”

  “I’ll come by tonight.” Yosvany waved at the two of us and started down the stairs. His voice floated up to us. “This is the best teacher in Havana, guys!”

  Pablo looked us up and down. “Americans, yes? So you want to learn salsa.” He sounded more amused than friendly. “Come in.”

  We entered a small, bright living room with a sliding glass door open to the balcony. A large mirror on one wall, a boxy TV with a DVD player by another. Three armchairs had been pushed out onto the balcony, leaving most of the floor bare.

  The kitchen adjoined the living room, and it was the source of the fried pork smell. A slender young woman stood at an old, discolored oven watching meat sizzle. She was dressed all in white. White headscarf, white blouse, embroidered white skirt, and white shoes. The only bit of color to her was a necklace of small beads, blue mixed with white.

  I’d seen people dressed like her all around Havana. Yosvany had explained they were new initiates into the Santería religion. I knew little about it other than that it was a fusion of a Yoruba belief system with Catholicism.

  “This is my daughter,” Pablo said. “Her name is Liliana, but you should address her as Iyabó.”

  We introduced ourselves. Liliana nodded without much interest and said, “qué bolá”—Havana’s equivalent of “what’s up?”

  “And this is Lalo, my grandson.”

  A little kid maybe five years old had come out of a bedroom down the hall. He was barefoot and bare-chested, his arms thin as sticks, and he had a gap-toothed grin ready for us. I got the sense he was the only one here genuinely happy to see us.

  “My classes are ten CUC an hour,” Pablo said.

  Yosvany had told me to haggle. Looking at Lalo, so gaunt his ribs showed, I chickened out. “Okay.”

  As soon as I said that, I realized Pablo himself showed no sign he didn’t get enough to eat. His clothes were new and his apartment looked decent. But it was too late. My budget would have to take the hit.

  I’d told Ana I’d pay for our classes. I had more saved, and I’d be slowing her down, the beginner that I was. She’d agreed to let me pay two-thirds. “Someone gives me free money, I take it,” she’d said. “But I won’t have the destruction of your college savings on my conscience.”

  Pablo popped a flash drive into his DVD player and turned on the TV. Timba blasted forth, some old song about stepping on cockroaches—cucarachas. “Let’s see you dance.”

  It was difficult, dancing under Pablo’s gaze. You know that feeling when a painting’s eyes seem to follow you around the room? Well, a dance teacher’s eyes do. They see everything—every little movement, every mistake.

  Then there was Lalo, watching us from the corner, his little arms crossed on his chest in imitation of Pablo. And Liliana in the kitchen, observing us with cool, indifferent eyes.

  Halfway through the song, Pablo stopped the music and looked at me. “You have some good moves and some complicated turns, and you dance on time. That is important. But you’re as graceful as Frankenstein’s monster. Except he’s more flexible.”

  “Thanks.” I grinned.

  Pablo didn’t. He turned to Ana instead.

  “You dance mechanical, too elegant and classical, too perfect, understand? And you need more body movement.”

  I wondered what “too perfect” meant, but Ana nodded as if this were no more than she’d expected.

  “We’ll work on your salsa,” Pablo said. “But I’ll start you off with rumba.”

  I gaped at him. “Rumba?” My mind flashed to a vision of yesterday—Yosvany dancing with Ana, his body doing things I hadn’t imagined possible. “You think I can learn rumba?”

  Pablo’s eyes weighed me. “Rumba exercises will free up your chest and shoulders.”

  Which wasn’t exactly a yes.

  “Can I film the classes?” Ana asked Pablo.

  “Sure, if you pay me thirty CUC an hour.”

  She didn’t film the classes, thankfully. The last thing I wanted was to star in Unspeakable Horrors 2: Rick Gutiérrez Tries to Learn Rumba.

  To start off, Pablo ran us through body isolation exercises—circling our torsos, moving our shoulders in rhythm to intricate drum music. None of it should have been hard, except for Pablo’s favorite command.

  “Otra vez,” he said, and, “otra vez,” and “otra vez.” Again and again, and again, about a bazillion times.

  Sweat stung my eyes. A soreness built in my shoulders. Then came a stabbing pain beneath my rib cage.

  “Okay,” Pablo said. “Now watch me.”

  The instant Pablo started to dance, he was no longer an older guy with a potbelly. An energy possessed his limbs. Even his substantial stomach moved in beat to the music. If Yosvany’s rumba had been energetic and cool, Pablo’s was funny and light. One moment he seemed a rotund clown, prancing on giant feet. Then he hunched over and wiggled his shoulders, arms pinned behind his back, like an overgrown chicken pecking at the ground. He made it look easy,
effortless.

  Then he said, “It’s your turn.”

  In rumba, your knees were always in flex, so that you bobbed up and down like a jack-in-the-box. Okay, you weren’t supposed to look like a jack-in-the-box—that was just me. But the principle was similar. With every step, your knees went flex, flex, flex.

  There were other parts to the basic step. Arm movements. Chest movements. Shoulder movements. We never got to them.

  We bobbed up and down. Up and down.

  Both Lalo and Liliana had left to their own rooms early on. Sometime during the second hour, Lalo reappeared. He crept up behind Pablo’s back and watched Ana and me bounce.

  A grin spread on his face. He pointed at me. He sank deeper into his knees and started jerking his body, up, down, up, down, like a drunken monkey. He laughed.

  Ana snorted.

  I froze in place, midstep, flushing.

  Pablo turned on the kid. “What are you doing?”

  Lalo gave a little shrug.

  “Go to your room.” Pablo tried to sound stern, but I saw the smile curving his lips.

  Lalo scampered off.

  “As if you could do better,” I muttered at the kid’s back.

  Pablo had been about to say something. Now he stopped. Looked at me, dead serious. “Come back here, kid,” he called over his shoulder.

  Lalo reappeared. Worry had wiped the grin off his face.

  Pablo turned up the volume on the TV. Claves and congas and maracas thundered over us. “Tira unos pasillos,” he said.

  Lalo brightened. He strolled into the middle of the room and flicked his hand into the air stylishly, as if chasing away a fly.

  Then, on the beat, he whipped his chest forward. Shimmied his shoulders like a pro. Kicked out his foot, curled that same foot behind him, spun in place, perfectly balanced. Raced across the floor in syncopated rumba steps, knees flexing, stick-thin arms bending in and out, graceful as butterfly wings.

  Then he tripped and fell on his backside, arms flailing. But none of us laughed.

  Pablo turned down the music. “If you learn to do that by the time you leave,” he said to me, “I’ll call you a real dancer.”

  You know how in martial arts movies there’s this hard-ass old sensei who makes your life miserable? Except in the end he’s like, well done, young Padawan, and you realize he was really rooting for you all along?