Naked in Havana (11 page)

I couldn’t help it. He utterly disarmed me when he smiled like that. “Sure, Papi. Let’s do it.”

Maria had run my bath. I slipped into the warm soapy water, leaned my head back against the towel she had put there and slipped a hand between my legs. I kept thinking about Inocencia and Reyes, couldn’t get them out of my mind. I wonder what someone would have thought if they had walked in on me and Angel in Calle San Lorenzo. Did I look like that?

That silent scream on her face. I always waited for it to finish, she didn’t look as if she ever wanted it to end. I thought I had this big secret because I wasn’t a virgin anymore, but perhaps I still didn’t know anything at all.

Sex for me was so much better like this, alone. Angel never knew how to touch me the right way, even when I showed him. A woman wasn’t like a man--there were folds and secret places. He didn’t understand. Or was it that he just didn’t care?

What was it that Inocencia said to me that day?
You love with your head, not your heart.
What did that mean? It made no sense. All this talk about the heart, like it was something with a mind of its own.

Thank God Papi couldn’t see inside my head. This was why a girl needed a mother, I supposed, someone to tell her what to do, what to think about all these crazy things. I loved my papi, but there was so much I couldn’t talk to him about, and I hated keeping so many secrets from him.

But what could I do? I couldn’t hurt him with the truth and I couldn’t be anything other than what I was. God knows I’d tried.

I thought about Inocencia and Reyes and came quietly, my toes curling around the lip of the bath, biting my lip to keep silent. Then I lay back in the tepid water and caught my breath.

Outside, the wind hurled palm fronds through the air and a shutter slammed somewhere in the house. There was a storm coming. I got dressed quickly.

The lights flickered.

Luis was waiting downstairs with an umbrella and held it over my head as we ran splashing through the puddles to the Bel Air. Papi was already waiting for me. He smiled at me and kissed my forehead. I was still his little girl and that’s what I wanted to be, at least when I was with him.

Rafa watched us hangdog from the portico as we drove away. He gave one long forlorn howl before Maria ushered him back inside. Dogs know things that people don’t, that’s what I’ve always thought.

There was a good crowd in the Left Bank, though not as many as there would be later in the night. Reyes was there, damn him, with some snake-hipped mulatto. As if I should care. They were dancing the mamba. I tried not to look but I couldn’t help myself. The woman slid against him when they danced, like a lizard up a wall.

Afterwards he sat down at a table with some of Batista’s men.

“Look at him,” I said to Papi. “Who does he think he is?”

Papi dismissed him with a shrug. “There will always be men like Señor Reyes. He stands for nothing, so he is never going to be a problem for anyone. Our problem is all those men he is with, in their white uniforms. You see that one there, with the moustache? He’s the chief of police. Every time he tortures and murders someone he gets another strip of gold braid. A national hero.”

“What is Reyes doing with him?”

“Reyes is friends with everyone.”

“I heard he was running guns for the rebels.”

“Men like that, who knows what he does? Don’t entertain any thoughts about him, Magdalena.”

“Why would I do that?”

“He’s a handsome man. They say he’s had every woman in Havana under the age of sixty. Stay away from him.”

“I can’t understand what women see in him.”

He gave her a knowing smile and led her to their usual table near the front of the stage.

As they sat down a waiter immediately appeared with a bottle of sweet Santiago rum. Papi slipped a pill under his tongue and washed it down with the rum. I wondered what Doctor Mendes would say about that.

There was a commotion by the door as a large group arrived. I recognised Salvatore straight away, and I was relieved to see that Angel wasn’t with him, nor was his father. Most of Salvatore’s guests looked like Americans. One of them had a blistering smile and was impossibly handsome.

Papi stood up. “Excuse me a moment, cariña. I have to do my thing.”

“With Salvatore?”

“You see the man with him? He’s an American senator. They say he may be nominated in the next Presidential elections. I should mingle a little. It could be good for business.”

He gave her a tight smile and a squeeze of the hand and went over to welcome them.

Chapter 17

“We keep running into each other.”

I turned around. It was Reyes, elegant as always, his boxer’s face and white tuxedo lending him a certain charm, I supposed. He gave me a mocking smile as if the whole world and all the women in it were there just for his own amusement.

“Well at least this time you have clothes on.”

“Are you disappointed?”

The vanity of the man! “Just relieved. Where’s your girlfriend? “

“She went to flirt with an American senator.”

I looked over at Salvatore’s table. The snake-hipped
puta
was pawing the handsome yankee shamelessly.

“Who are those people?”

“With Salvatore? The one everyone is looking at is a senator from Massachusetts. His name’s Kennedy. The guy next to him is an actor called Lawford, and then there’s Salvatore and the one who looks like a car salesman, his name’s Ruby. He’s a gun runner. The rest are big shots from Miami. I can’t imagine what they’re discussing at that table. If I did I’d spend the next year in front of a congressional hearing.”

“So it’s true. Salvatore’s a mobster?”

He held up his hands in mock horror. “Hear no evil, see no evil. Now what’s a beautiful girl like you doing sitting here all on your own. Don’t you want to dance?”

“I don’t like dancing.”

“But you’re Cuban. You have to like dancing.”

“My father owns this club, I don’t have to do anything.”

“I guess you’ve just never danced with someone who knows how.”

“You perhaps?”

“I didn’t say “perhaps.””

He took a cheroot out of his silver case and tapped it twice on the lid. He lit it. The orchestra started to play the “Taxi Libre.”

“May I ask you something?” he said.

“I can’t stop you.”

“Have you ever danced the tango?”

“I don’t know how.”

“If you dance with the right man you don’t have to know. But maybe you’re right, you probably couldn’t do it.”

“I can do anything!”

“I knew you’d say that. But then, talk is cheap.” He leaned close. “It’s like the piano. You can know every step, every note, but that still won’t make you a great dancer.”

“Papi would kill me.”

“Afraid?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. He just stood there smiling at me, challenging me with his eyes.

He held out his hand. He had trapped me. What could I do, if I didn’t want to look a complete fool?

He led me onto the dance floor. I felt everyone’s eyes on us; Papi would be watching, too.

“Ready?” Reyes asked.

“Of course.”

“All you have to do is let me lead. I’ll tell you what to do.”

“How?”

“You’ll feel it.”

He took my hand, the other slid around my waist. I felt the pressure, but barely, a mere brush of his wrist. He was close but our bodies did not touch in any way, except through the palms of our hands, yet I felt the heat of him everywhere. It felt more intimate than I had ever been with any man, even Angel.

“Now listen to the music,” he whispered, and somehow I knew when he would take his first
paso
and I slid back.

Somehow he guided me the first few steps. “It’s not about knowing the steps,” he murmured, “it’s about knowing the soul.”

He stopped, and there was a moment of stillness, and I arched back, as I had seen the real tango dancers do, for two beats of the heart.

“You see? I am not pushing, you are not leaning. No matter what you do or how long you take to do it, I will wait for you. I know your secrets now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know how you move, that’s all I need to know.”

Just a line, I thought. But I looked in his eyes and it seemed to me that he meant it.

“Since the first time I saw you, I knew you’d make love with me like this, one day.”

“We’re just dancing.”

“No, we’re not.”

I could feel everyone in the club watching us. I supposed we did not look like the most expert couple on the dance floor, he just took me through slow, simple steps, but though the dancers around us were more practised, we seemed to draw the most attention.

One face in particular: Inocencia stood at the bar, and I knew she had not taken her eyes off us from the moment we stepped onto the dance floor. I saw my father whisper something in her ear. It was too much. I sensed the danger, and stopped. “That’s enough of a lesson for now,” I said.

Reyes glanced around. “
Dios mio
. If looks could kill, I’d be ashes on the floor.”

“You’re used to scandal, I’m not.”

He took my hand and led me back across the floor. I thanked him for the dance and he bowed like a gentleman.

“Papi, this is Señor Reyes Garcia,” I said.

He turned to Papi. “You have a wonderful club here,” Reyes said. “This is my favourite place in Havana.”

“You’re welcome anytime,” Papi said, but he didn’t smile.

Reyes turned back to me, took my hand and kissed it. “Thank you again for the dance.”

He walked away. My heart was pounding. I realised that some time in the last five minutes I had fallen in love with him.

Papi’s eyes were black. “I thought I told you not to go near him!”