Naked in Havana (22 page)

“How long have you been back in Havana?”

“Not long. A day or two.”

“Business went well?”

“Yes, and thank you for asking. Did you miss me?”

“Not really. I’d almost forgotten who you were.”

He grinned. “You’ve managed to stay out of trouble then?”

I felt my cheeks burning. I didn’t want to be reminded about that night. If I could blot it out of my memory forever I would. I decided to change the subject. “I didn’t see you at the wedding.”

“I didn’t go to the wedding. I just got here ten minutes ago.”

“If you don’t go to the wedding, why go to the reception?”

“I come to these things because I have to. I get a lot of business at weddings and funerals.”

“Like a priest.”

He let that one pass. “I get tired of it sometimes. Batista is the vainest, most stupid man I’ve ever met. His greatest asset is he’s utterly ruthless, but that doesn’t make him a great dinner companion. The rest of them, all they want to talk about is money, and though I have nothing against it--in fact I’m a great admirer of money--there are times when I’d rather talk about music and women, and those men in there use both like wallpaper. So sometimes a little silence and a good cheroot is all a man needs.”

“I’m sorry then. Am I interrupting you?”

“Oh, I don’t mind being interrupted by you, princess. In fact you’re about the only person in Havana I want to talk to right now.”

“Why me, Señor Garcia?”

“I don’t know. There’s something about you. You’re reckless, foolish and stubborn but you’ve got a real fire in you, and that’s something rare.”

“Reckless, foolish and...”

“Stubborn.”

“Stubborn. Is that the way you normally make love to a woman? By insulting her?”

“I admit, it doesn’t seem like a very good way to go about it. But you are an infuriating woman. If I could quit you I would, but every time I come back to Havana I try to make up ways of seeing you again and I can’t explain why that is.”

I remembered how he had kissed me that night in the car. Papi was right, Esmeralda had done me a favour. “I missed you,” I said, I didn’t know what made me say it, I might as well have stripped off my clothes and thrown myself at him.

He grinned. “Good.”

I heard someone say my name. I peered through the potted palms into the lobby. Papi was at the bar, asking the barman if he’d seen me.

“I have to go,” I said to Reyes. As I got up he grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him and kissed me.

“You’re crazy,” I said and hurried away.

“Where have you been?” Papi said when he saw me.

“I just needed some air.”

“We’re in a garden.”

“Angel’s friends and his sister are driving me crazy. I just needed to be on my own for a while.” It sounded plausible because it wasn’t a complete lie.

“Do you want to leave?”

“No,” I said, “lets” see this through,” and I linked my arm through his and let him escort me back to the garden.

He was soon hijacked in conversations with some men in white uniforms, and Consuela and Lourdes corralled me, gossiping about something or someone. I smiled and pretended to listen but none of it meant anything anymore. Didn’t any of them see what was happening? We were all living on borrowed time. All their petty vanities would mean nothing soon.

A couple of young men approached and tried to make conversation with me. I supposed I would never be short of attention. But none of them interested me, they didn’t know how to tango or rescue a girl from the secret police in the middle of the night; they didn’t know the two Magdalenas, or run guns to the rebels - so what did they think they could possibly say that would interest me in the slightest?

As night fell I stood in the shadows and thought about what Reyes had said. With Angel I thought I had everything figured out; I hadn’t planned to go behind Papi’s back for much longer. Even though I had bought Luis’s silence, I knew I couldn’t keep our affair a secret much longer. I thought I could make him love me, and as soon as he asked me to marry him we would announce ourselves to the world, it would all work out and we would live happily ever after. That was the fairy tale I had in my head. But life isn’t like that.

I had no idea what to do about Reyes, or if I was going to do anything at all. He was dangerous, unreliable, and I knew my father would not let me accompany a soldier of fortune from the barrio, no matter how well he dressed or spoke now. And girls like me did not have affairs. I was already notorious from that one night at the Tropicana. Papi’s friends already whispered about me behind my back. It was also why I was so popular with these boys here tonight--they all thought I was easy.

Any man other than my father would have beaten me black and blue and locked me in my bedroom until I was thirty.

So what was I going to do?

“Magdalena Fuentes, right?”

I turned around. A pretty redheaded woman in a meringue held out her hand. “Esmeralda Salvatore.”

I took her hand, it was cool and soft.

So this was the skinny bitch; up close she wasn’t that skinny and she didn’t look like a bitch. She was even quite beautiful in her own way. Her skin was like cream; I could see why a boy like Angel might like her. When all you had was coffee, coffee, coffee, day after day, sooner or later you probably wanted a glass of cold milk.

Her long slim fingers coiled around a champagne flute. I stared at the rings on her finger and found I didn’t want to rip them off after all.

“We’ve never met,” Esmeralda said. “But I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Really? What have you heard?”

“I know my husband was in love with you before we were engaged. Well, that’s what everyone says. He doesn’t tell me that, of course. He always pretends he hardly knew you but I know he’s lying.”

Where was this leading? I wondered. “I think I chased him more than he chased me.”

“Oh, we both know that’s not quite true.” Esmeralda offered me a smile that wasn’t chill, but it wasn’t comforting either. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, it’s just that I was...curious about you...and I wanted to finally meet you. You’re very beautiful. I can see why he was so enamoured.”

“It’s all over now,” I said.

“Is it?”

“I can assure you, it very definitely is.”

A chill smile and a frown of uncertainty: “Do you think...do you think men know how to be faithful?”

The question took me completely off balance. “I have not known enough men to be sure.”

“Well I suppose I’ll soon find out. But if it’s any consolation, I sometimes think perhaps...” She hesitated. Because she didn’t want to appear disloyal to Angel, or just that she didn’t want to seem condescending? “I don’t know that he’s quite over you, Magdalena.”

She gave me a tight smile and moved away to rejoin her other guests. Not such a bitch after all, I thought. I guessed that honour goes to me.

I went in search of my papi.

Chapter 29

“What’s the matter?” a voice said. “You look like someone just shot your dog.”

I looked around. It was Angel, devastatingly handsome in his white tuxedo. He looked prosperous, relaxed, happy and married.

“It’s so good to see you again, baby.”

I couldn’t believe he had the gall to face me. I wanted to spit in his face. “Angel! I didn’t recognize you from the front. I’m more used to seeing your back as you run away.”

“You’re not still upset about that? It wasn’t my fault. I can’t believe you just sat there. Why didn’t you run? I thought you were right behind me.”

“You didn’t even stop to look where I was, you fucking coward.”

The obscenity and the insult would have shamed and angered another man. Angel just shrugged it off. “I thought they must be after me. My father thinks they were looking for some rebels and they arrested us by mistake. I heard you cursed them so they locked you up for the night to cool you off.”

I wondered who had put that story around. Perhaps it was Angel, or his father. It sounded like a harmless prank the way he told it. “You ran off and left me, Angel.”

He shrugged his shoulders like he could not believe that I would still be upset about something so insignificant.

“Can we talk?”

He took my arm, led me around the side of the hotel into the garden. He pulled me into the shadows under one of the colonnades. The jalousies above our heads creaked in the wind.

“What do you want, Angel?”

“You,” he said.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I hear your father’s thinking of moving to Miami.”

“Maybe,” I said.”

“Then it’s not over. Right?”

“I don’t even think about you anymore, Angel. You never even cross my mind.”

He grabbed me by my shoulders. I tried to shrug him off but he held me tight. “You’re hurting me.”

“Hear me out, baby.”

“There’s nothing more to say!”

“I don’t love her, baby. She doesn’t have your fire or your passion. All I do is lie awake at night and think about you. Today has been a nightmare, I can’t leave without hearing you tell me there’s still a chance.”

“Angel, this is your wedding day!”

“Until we get to America. Then who knows?”

“You want me to be your mistress?”

“You know this won’t last, everyone knows it. I had to do it to help my family. Once we’re in America, I’ll find a way out of it and we can be together again.”

He kissed my neck and lifted up my skirts. It was a moment of triumph for me, I admit it. Finally he wanted me more than I wanted him. “You can’t stop thinking about me either, can you?” he whispered.

“Don’t, Angel.”

“Nothing can ever come between us, you know that. I see the way you look at me, I know you still want me. Nothing has to change. I love you, baby.”

There, he had said it, what I had always wanted to hear him say. But in that same moment I knew that I didn’t feel anything for him anymore.

He took my face in his hands and kissed me so hard that it hurt. He had me pinned, pressed hard against the colonnade. I looked over his shoulder and saw the glow of a cigar, someone watching us in the darkness. Then whoever it was turned and walked away.

Angel was fumbling with his belt. “I love you,” he whispered over and over. “I love you, baby.”

“Stop,” I said.

But he wouldn’t stop, he was pulling at my panties, trying to put his hand inside. I couldn’t believe this was happening. This was his wedding day! Had I really loved this boy so much once?

I brought up my knee, hard, and he gasped and collapsed on the ground. He grabbed at his crotch with both hands and rolled onto his side, nursing himself, his knees coiled up to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Are you all right? I did tell you to stop.”

Angel couldn’t speak. He lay there for a long time, groaning. I bent down and helped him sit up.

“What did you...do that for?”