Naked in Havana (6 page)

I couldn’t find my papi anywhere. Finally someone told me he was in the back parlour. The door was locked and I had to knock. It opened just an inch and a gorilla in a tuxedo peered out and asked me what I wanted. I told him.

In a moment Papi was there; he closed the door behind him and led me away by the arm. But before the door closed I caught a glimpse of a smoke-filled room and some men sitting around a table. Macheda was there, and Lansky, the man who had come to our house in the shiny new Cadillac.

“Is everything all right, cariña?”

“I was looking everywhere for you,” I said.

“I thought you were enjoying the party,” he said. He looked back at the closed door. “I had some business to attend to.”

“Can we go, Papi?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel well. I think maybe it’s seeing those people bleeding in the street.”

“Of course.” He kissed me on the forehead and hugged me. I felt like such a bitch for lying to him. He went back into the room and came out again moments later, then put an arm around me and led me outside. He made our apologies to Señora Macheda and guided me to the car.

Luis was waiting. He stubbed out his cigarette on the gravel and opened the door for me.

“I’ll be one minute, no more,” Papi said. .

“Where are you going?”

“I left my cigar case behind,” he said.

I got into the Bel Air, closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat. The leather burned my bare shoulders.

How could Angel do this to me? Wasn’t I the most beautiful girl in Havana?

How could he say those other horrible things? It was just an act, wasn’t it? He said them because he had to.

Acting or not, he had betrayed me.

“Magdalena!”

I opened my eyes. Angel was at the window, tapping on the glass. I reached forward and locked the door.

He pressed his face against the window. “Magdalena, please. I have to talk to you!”

I shook my head.

“Please. Where are you going?”

“Home!”

“Talk to me. Just for a minute. Please!”

I hesitated. Luis turned around and gave me a look. He wanted to throw him in the bushes. I shook my head. “It’s okay,” I said. I wound the window down a fraction.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“You told me you loved me!”

“This doesn’t have to be the end,” he whispered. “I have to marry her, Magdalena. You have to understand, my father gave me no choice!”

“I heard what you said to her. “

“What?”

“I was there, in the garden! You told her no one does things to you like she does. I heard you with my own ears!” I started to wind up the window again and he put his hand inside the jamb, like a fool, trying to stop me. The window trapped his fingers. He gasped. I pressed down hard on the handle while he begged me to let his fingers loose. He was in a lot of pain.

If I leaned on the handle with both hands it seemed the pain got worse. He had his mouth open and it looked like he would scream.

Good.

“Please, what do, what do...stop it, stop it, what did you...don’t...expect me to...oh,
Dios mio
, my fingers...expect me to say?”

I saw my father walking across the lawn. I let the handle up an inch and Angel pulled his fingers free. He stood there with his hand between his knees sobbing like a baby. “What do you expect me to say?” he hissed at me. “She’s jealous of you! I don’t have any choice! “

Then he saw my father coming and loped off, his hand still cradled under his arm. What a baby.

Luis got out to open the door for my papi. He climbed into the back seat beside me. “Was that Angel?

“He came to see if I needed a hand.”

“Really? That was nice of him.” Papi stared at me. He couldn’t make sense of this. “You don’t look well.”

“I just need to lie down, Papi.”

“We’ll get you home then,” he said. He nodded to Luis and we drove away.

Chapter 9

“Who was that man at the party?”

Papi was having breakfast on the patio and reading a week-old edition of the
Miami Herald
. He looked up, distracted.

“What’s that, cariña?”

“Yesterday at Angel’s party. There was a man called Reyes something or other. He wore sunglasses even inside the house. American.”

“Reyes Garcia,” he said without expression.

“Do you know him?”

“Did you talk to him?”

Something in his tone alarmed me. “Of course not.”

“Good. Stay away from him.”

“Papi, he’s too old for me.”

“He’s may be a dozen or so years older than you, and that may seem like a lot right now, but believe me that’s not so much to a man like Reyes.”

“What’s he doing in Havana?”

“I don’t know. I heard he runs guns for the CIA, but then other people says he’s a spy for the Fidelistas. But I also heard he has dinner every Sunday night with Batista’s chief of police. No one trusts him and everyone needs him. He’s a dangerous man, so don’t get any ideas.”

“I don’t have any ideas. He’s not even good-looking. I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Well it doesn’t pay to be curious.” Papi didn’t snap at me very often. I wondered what had made him so disagreeable now.

“Is everything all right, Papi?”

“Everything’s fine.” He tapped on the arm of his chair with his ring finger. He had never taken off his wedding ring, and Mama had been gone now these seven years. I wished a man would love me that much one day, though I also hoped God would be a little kinder than He was to my mama and let me live long enough to enjoy it.

“The doctor was here this morning,” I said.

“How did you know that?”

“Maria told me.”

“Servants! They talk too much. In the old days we used to have them horsewhipped for telling tales about us.”

“Why was he here?”

“Nothing. Just indigestion.”

He was such a bad liar, my father. Doctor Mendes didn’t make house calls for indigestion.

“Look, I got a little short of breath, that’s all,” Papi said finally, wilting under my stare. “Okay. Okay? I had Maria call him just to check me over. He said there was nothing wrong and he gave me some tablets to help me sleep.”

“You already have tablets to help you sleep, Papi.”

“Well he gave me some more.”

“What time was this?”

“You were still asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“If there was something going on you would tell me?”

“There’s nothing going on. Why would there be something going on? It’s nothing. He gave me some pills and said it would all settle down in a couple of days.” He took out his cigar case and lit one of his favourite Cohibas.

“You shouldn’t smoke if you’re not feeling well.”

“What are you, my mother?”

I put down my napkin and excused myself. As I went past him he put out his hand and caught my wrist, pulled me back. “I’m sorry. I...I didn’t mean to snap at you. I have things on my mind. Business things.”

“Talk to me then, Papi.”

“It’s nothing. It will all sort itself out.”

I put my arms around his neck. “Please take care of yourself.”

“I’ll be all right.”

He didn’t understand, he was all I had now Mama was gone. What would I do without him? He was hiding something from me, I knew that. But then, didn’t I hide things from him as well?

A few days later Papi and I got home from shopping in the city and found a large gift wrapped box on the table in the hallway. It was addressed to me. Papi asked Maria who had brought it, she said she didn’t know, a man in a black Plymouth had delivered it, he didn’t leave any message.

I opened it. Inside was a mink coat and a diamond bracelet.

At first I thought it might be from Angel, a token to make up for what had happened. If that was what it was, it was too much and not nearly enough. When I couldn’t find a note I wondered if it might be from Reyes Garcia, he seemed like a man fond of extravagant gestures.

But when Papi saw what it was, he was furious.

He grabbed the coat from me and crammed it back into its box. “Papi?”

“You are not to accept this!” he shouted at me.

“I don’t understand.”

He threw the box across the hall. I heard him shouting down the telephone at someone, telling them to come and fetch their damned coat right now. He slammed the handset down on its cradle so hard I thought it would crack.

When he saw me crying he came over and wrapped his arms around me, stroked my hair, said he was sorry for losing his temper, whispered “sorry” over and over while he stroked my hair.

I had never owned a mink coat.

“Who was it from?” I asked him.

“Lansky,” he said.

Chapter 9

Our white Bel Air turned off the Paseo and onto the Malecón, skirting the harbour, heading towards the yacht clubs and palaces out at Miramar. The sea was tranquil, edged in gold by the late afternoon sun. A cruise ship was leaving the harbour, slipping past El Morro, the colonial fortress that guarded the entrance, bound for Kingston perhaps, or Port-au-Prince. I could see couples leaning over the rails and it stirred an ache inside me.

Luis had the radio on: Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool.” I guess that’s me, I thought. We passed Calle San Lorenzo and I looked back for a glimpse of the apartment. Why, I don’t know.

Over there was the
Parque de Los Enamorados
, Lover’s Park, a cobblestone plaza with plane trees and a fountain, vendors selling peanuts, couples walking hand in hand. All I could think about was Angel.

The city--the whole country--was falling apart, but he was all that mattered to me.