Naked in Havana (3 page)

So how could he choose some other girl? How could he?

I had been a virgin before him, I had given him the prize every other man in Havana would have died for. He had thrown it back in my face.

This was not how it was meant to be.

Was it love or was it just pride? All I knew was there was only one man in my life, and I wasn’t going to let some skinny American
puta
get in the way of what was rightfully mine.

Chapter 3

Angel was undressing another girl, and she was beautiful, with blonde American hair and pink American nipples and big American breasts. He was kissing her and telling her how lovely she was and how much he loved her. He had her dress off, his hands were all over her, and she was unbuttoning his pants and I was standing over the bed screaming at her: “Take your hands off that, it’s mine.”

I opened my eyes. I glanced at my papi sitting next to me in the back seat of our Chevy Bel Air and smiled.

I stared out of the window. Whores in short pink skirts lounged in doorways, a mulatto in a straw trilby carried a sheet of lottery tickets, newsboys hawked newspapers, there was a fruit vendor selling melons with a huge cigar stuck in his mouth.

As always, there was too much traffic on the Paseo; trucks piled with pineapples and bananas and sugar cane bumping their way through the potholes, big American Fords and Chryslers honking their horns, goats and pigs wandering across the road. They never got above ten miles an hour.

I hated this crush; I just wanted to get there. I was nervous. I had spent all day getting ready, trying on dresses, putting on makeup. I stole a glance at myself in the rearview mirror. How could he say no to me?

Papi must have read my mind. “You look beautiful,” he said and smiled. “All the boys will be after you.”

“I don’t care for boys.”

Luis looked at me in the mirror. His eyes were hard.

“One day someone will come along and sweep you off your feet,” Papi said.

One already had. But how could I tell him that?

Papi was anxious and bad tempered whenever we went out. Men always stared and he didn’t like it. If they stared too hard he would walk right up to them and put his finger in their faces and warn them off. But today the ones staring would all be friends, or sons of his friends, and I had decided I would give them something to stare at. I would smile back at all of them and make Angel burn with jealousy.

I had dressed in white, bare shoulders but no cleavage, my black hair in a French braid, and my red tango shoes.

A woman could dress like a virgin, but you always knew her soul by her shoes.

I could see now what had happened. Angel’s father was a big pushy man who talked over the top of his wife and sweated too much and smoked fat cigars. I imagined how easily he could have bullied Angel into this. I would talk to him about it today, we would work something out, run away together if we had to.

I made the decision that I would forgive him. I would be his mistress if that’s what it took, all I knew was that I could not let him go.

But another part of me was screaming:
Who are you fooling, Magdalena?
Would you really shame your Papi like that? Could you go keep going behind his back, run off with some boy and leave him alone? Of course you couldn’t.

You are
loca
.

Can you really stand the disappointment on his face when he finds out about this? And he will find out, you know he will.

There were other things that were eating at me. The invitation to Angel’s engagement party had arrived the day after our last afternoon together. Yes, how would he explain that? He had waited until the last possible moment to tell me.

Papi was right: the boy had no
cojones
.

But I would give him the chance to explain. Angel please, please tell me there’s a reason for all this.

Luis slowed down.

“What’s wrong?” Papisaid.

“There’s a police roadblock.”

Papi leaned forward. There were police cars and an army truck up ahead, blocking the road, green-uniformed soldiers everywhere.

“They must have a tip-off,” Papi said.

As we slowed down, skinny kids in rags tapped on the car windows asking for money, holding out grubby hands and rubbing their stomachs with the other. Luis wound down his window and shouted at them. One of them kicked the car. Luis was about to get out and chase him, but Papi put a hand on his shoulder. “Leave it,” he said.

Luis twisted around in his seat, tried to reverse back far enough in the traffic so that he could turn our car around.

I remember saying “Can’t we just get there?” just as the bomb went off.

Flames poured out of one of the buildings, and the shock wave from the blast hit our car just a heartbeat later, rocking our Bel Air on its wheels.

I screamed. Papi put both arms around me and pushed my head into his chest.

“Get us out of here!” he shouted at Luis.

I forced my head up. Luis was grappling with the wheel, trying to turn around. I looked down the street. Black smoke billowed out of one of the office buildings into the street. A man ran out, his clothes on fire. Another was walking in circles, his clothes burned black, an arm gone. Papi threw a hand over my eyes.

“Drive!” Papi shouted at Luis. “Just drive!”

Luis gunned the engine and reversed into a side street. We roared back the way we had come. I clung to my father like a child, but even with my eyes tight shut, all I could see was the man with no arms walking in circles in the billowing smoke.

I had heard the bombs exploding in the city, it was happening almost every day. This was the first time I had seen it for myself.

“Fucking Castro,” Papi said. He never swore, at least never around me. I caught the look on his face. I had never seen him frightened of anything until now, but now it was plain enough, he was scared.

I couldn’t stop shaking. Papi kept his arm around me. We passed a clanging ambulance and fire truck coming the other way. When I looked back I saw a plume of smoke rising over the Rampa.

We drove out to the harbour. I was still trembling when we arrived at the Macheda house. Papi wanted to turn around and go home, but I insisted that I was okay. Even after the bombing and what I had seen, I didn’t want to miss this chance to see Angel, to stop what was happening.

Even though his father had asked half of Havana to witness the engagement of his only son to the daughter of a top Miami mafia don, I thought I could talk everyone out of it, just because I loved him.

That’s how I crazy I was then.

Chapter 4

The Macheda house was on Calle 30 in Miramar, just down the road from the president and the yacht club. The Spanish villa next door used to belong to Lucky Luciano, the gangster, or so Papi said.

Señor Macheda owned a sugar plantation. His family used to own a cattle station in the Pampa, they were old money in Argentina at least. Whether it’s old money or new money, they needed a lot of it to pay for the marble Tuscan columns on the portico, the black and white marble tiled floors, the dark wood marquetry on the doors, the team of gardeners that tended the lawns and flower beds.

But I was eighteen, and I thought it was all so vulgar. When your family has been in Havana almost since Columbus, even owning a sugar plantation can seem like just having a padlock on a few gaming machines at the corner bar.

Luis parked the car in the driveway and we made our way across the lawn. White jacketed servants moved among the guests with trays of champagne and boxes of Montecristo cigars.

I was afraid my knees wouldn’t hold me so I leaned against Papi’s shoulder. He tried to put his arm around me, but as we got close to the house I stepped away, I didn’t want to look like a schoolgirl in front of everyone. It was just one bomb.

It wasn’t even that close.

“Are you sure you’re all right, cariña?”

“I’ll be all right, Papi. What do you think happened?

“The Bacardi offices are down that street. Those communist ba ...” He stopped himself before he said the word. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

I nodded.

My nerves were finally settling. I wondered if anyone had been killed. It wouldn’t be in the newspapers. The government kept it quiet, but the
Miami Herald
would report it.

I looked around at the glitter, at the gowns. There was a Latin jazz band playing cubopop, they’d even hired Beni Moré for the day. How much did that cost?

I thought:
This should have been my day.
It was a mistake to come here. Did I really think I could stop this? If I couldn’t stop it, then what was the point?

I knew almost everyone but I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Papi kept me close, escorted me over to a group of his friends and their wives, all standing in the shade of an ancient ceiba tree on the front lawn. I held tight to his arm.

Then I saw Angel standing on the front steps. He was wearing white cotton slacks and an open-necked white shirt. He looked like a god. I caught my breath.

I couldn’t lose him. I excused myself and went over. He still hadn’t seen me.

“Angel!”

As he turned around, I caught the hunted look on his face. “Hey, I’ve have been looking for you,” he said, the lie coming easily. “When did you get here? I was worried you weren’t coming.”

“I have to talk to you, Angel.”

“Sure, but I can’t right now. She’ll be here soon.”

“You’re not really going to marry her?”

He moved closer, lowered his voice. “I told you, I don’t have any choice.”

“You don’t love her.”

“This isn’t about love, this is about family. My father’s not like yours, he arranged this months ago - weeks ago.”

I felt the blood drain out of my face.
Months ago?

“But I love you.”

Angel smiled.