Private House (2 page)

“Do
you
know where he is?”

But the girl had no chance to answer, for now the fat woman had taken notice of Lorraine; reaching around her adversary, she was pointing and shaking her finger. “That is the whore! She is the whore!” And at this the young woman sobbed and ran back into the house. Now the screaming of the other two reached a climax, they shrieked and shrilled, until finally, with a toss of her head—one of the big green rollers went flying off—the fat woman turned and flip-flopped down the walk. Hands on her hips, the black woman watched her go. It seemed she'd won. Turning back to the house, she passed Lorraine with a smile.
“Buenos días.”

“Buenos días—”

But she was already gone, though the door still stood open. Looking up, Lorraine saw that Enrique had disappeared, too. She stepped back toward the gate. The green plastic roller spun one last time and rolled into the gutter, but the fat lady was nowhere to be seen. The street was
empty. The sun beat down, and two small clouds drifted in the hazy Caribbean sky. All at once, Lorraine felt exhausted. She closed her eyes. What was she going to do now?

2

Stepping into the Plaza de San Francisco, Mathilde was furious. She'd wanted to go to the Plaza de Armas but had managed to get completely turned around. She'd come down Armagura, when she should have taken San Ignacio—her hotel, the Raquel, was right on the corner; coming out, she must have turned the wrong way.
Idiote
. She stood a moment, her arms crossed over her chest. Did she want to go back? Actually, she hadn't gone very wrong, she could simply go up Oficios, and it wasn't far. But though it was barely eleven, it was already hot, too hot to be wandering around. Habana Vieja was a warren, like Venice or Plaka in Athens or the old town in Nice. You really needed a compass, and even then—

But she broke off and smiled to herself. It didn't make any difference; there was no rush. And in the fresh light of the morning the plaza was too calm and peaceful for anger. Besides, she loved Plaka—she loved everything about Athens, probably even the smog. And only the tourists could spoil Venice. As for Havana . . . she would end up loving it as well, with its young girls who sang to themselves as they walked along and the old men in their underwear sitting on their doorsteps in the heat of the night. What she didn't like was getting lost, anywhere, she never had, she was—what did the Americans say?—a control freak. At this she made a face and warded off another bout of self-censure, for she hated mixing English into her French, and certainly not in her thoughts. But that was crazy, too.
She'd
been crazy, angling for this job, though she
didn't speak a word of Spanish. She'd be better off admitting it and thinking in English all the time. Idiot!

She pushed this all away and walked into the square. The Lonja del Commercio, which loomed on its northern side, cast a huge block of shadow and she stayed in this shade until she reached its dark, cool edge. Beyond this the cobbles glistened and the freshly restored buildings shone in the sun. Ahead, three carriages were drawn up, waiting for a tourist foolish enough to brave the heat; meanwhile, the horses hung their heads, dozing, and one of the men sprinkled his with a watering can. The few small trees crouched inside their own shade. The plaza was almost deserted. The chairs of the two cafés had all been set out, awaiting the crowds at lunch, but now Mathilde counted only four couples, turned in their seats so they could see the far side of the square; here, three
quinces
girls were having photographs taken. She stepped in their direction, though she'd seen the ritual before; her first two mornings, in fact. Two of the girls waited patiently, smoothing and shaping their dresses against the faint, almost imaginary, breeze: a long red taffeta dress for one, a long blue taffeta dress for her companion, while the third— her dress was just as long, certainly taffeta, but the purest white—posed on the steps of the Fountain of the Lions. The girls were fifteen. This was their rite of passage into womanhood. Looking at them, Mathilde tried to recall herself at that age, but wasn't sure that she could; “that age” probably didn't exist outside of Cuba. She'd wondered about doing a story on the ceremony. The girls' sexuality was openly celebrated, not covered up as a problem—that would be the theme. Their dresses— which all seemed cut from the same pattern, as if to emphasize what the girls now had in common—always left their shoulders bare; everything was symbolic in that way. The girl in white was truly lovely, the white of her dress setting off her golden skin and shining black hair; and her hands, lifting her hem, already possessed a languid, womanly grace.
Mathilde eyed her. Almost from the day of her arrival, she'd begun noticing women in a way she would never have done in Paris. It wasn't that she compared herself to them, but rather that they appeared, here, as more clearly a separate sex, their own sex; and it was almost a question whether she belonged to it, too. It wasn't only a quality of Cuban women, she'd decided, but her own state, something to do with being alone. True, she would be thirty next year, and she'd lived on her own for five years; but to visit her parents was only one change on the Métro, she still saw many of her school friends, and she shared the day with the same colleagues, day after day. Here, she knew no one. She didn't speak a word of the language and the place itself, a strange Atlantis with palm trees and blacks, had surprised her completely. She watched the photographer as he manoeuvred for his angles. A contrast to the girls, he was dressed in blue jeans and a brown checked shirt that was coming untucked. He was good, though, quick. He motioned: the girl turned. Mathilde smiled. She was thinking of Jacques, an old hand at the agency—“Photographers are as bossy as doctors.” The girl obediently stretched her arms behind her, so her breasts were subtly presented; the poses were all like that, emphasizing innocence on the brink of something else. The photographer got what he wanted; and when he took his camera away from his eye, he glanced up; the sun was already very high. He motioned the girl away from the fountain. Mathilde knew what would happen next. In an area behind the back wall of the basilica, near the statue of Father Juniper, the girl sank down on the cobblestones, spreading and smoothing the folds of her dress all around her. When she was settled, the photographer's assistant, an older woman, began scattering bread crumbs. Pigeons, as familiar with this ritual as everyone else, were already hovering; now they descended. The woman motioned and the girl hesitantly stretched out her arms: two of the pigeons perched obligingly. And as a special favour one even dropped down on her head.
Soon, they were all over her . . . and they were
doves
, Mathilde realized. The woman kept tossing crumbs, until, at a signal from the photographer, she clapped her hands sharply and in a flapping, fluttering cloud the pigeons rose . . . heavenward. Or so you had to assume. But it was hard to know if there was any religious significance to the ceremony at all. This was the Plaza de San Francisco de Assis but that was probably just an excuse for the birds. Mathilde smiled to herself and watched the white girl tidy up. Her next stop would be around the corner, where several statues were used as props. Meanwhile, the blue girl was already arranged by the fountain. . . .

“It is interesting, don't you think?”

Only as she spoke did Mathilde realize that a short, slight, dark young woman had been standing at her elbow for a minute or so. Without thinking, Mathilde smiled politely and said, “Yes,” realizing too late what was happening.

“You are from—?”

“I am from France. Paris.”

“You have been in Cuba long?”

All their approaches began in exactly this way, as ritualized as the
quinces
girl's photo session. “A few days.”

“You will be staying for long?”

“A week.”

The woman smiled; like most Cubans she had beautiful teeth, unspoiled by candy and sweets. “I have a friend in Marseilles.”

Of course she did. For the Canadians, she would have a friend in Vancouver; no doubt it would be Frankfurt or Berlin for the Germans, London for the English.

“How nice,” Mathilde said blandly. She almost went on, “I have heard all this before, I know exactly what you're up to.” But she didn't. And the reason was simply the woman's appearance, which, as Mathilde
looked more closely, was startling. She was beautiful; but her beauty couldn't have been more different than the
quinces
girl's at the fountain. She was the opposite of voluptuous. There wasn't even the promise of what the Americans called
tits and ass
. In fact, she had little of either, was almost flat-chested and tiny through the hips. Her beauty was in her face, dark skin stretched across sharp bones to frame her huge dark eyes: a purely Spanish face. Her beauty was so extreme it was like a deformity. The eyes were hypnotic, as black as olives but enclosed in a creamy whiteness like the smooth skin of an egg. No doubt she was conscious of their effect; her hair, tightly pulled back against her skull, and her full lips, precisely outlined but without a hint of gloss, were obviously intended to set off her eyes all the more. Moreover, as she looked up her mouth hinted at a smile, and an expression of superiority, almost mocking, flitted across her face. It was annoying. But she
was
superior, which of course made it worse. Mathilde now realized that previous versions of this particular scam—she'd only been here four days, but she'd already been approached like this three or four times— had involved exactly the same sort of woman: they would find it hard to compete on conventional sexual lines, at least in a city like Havana. But this woman was special, she represented an ideal of a different kind. Her dress even lived up to it: flat leather shoes (brightly polished despite Havana's endlessly dusty streets), fawn, flat-fronted cotton trousers, and a raspberry top with a scoop neck showing a hint of an ivory camisole, discreetly contrasting with the smooth darkness of her skin; and then a small bag, with a woven leather strap, dangling from her shoulder. With a tiny smile herself, Mathilde acknowledged the impression the woman had made; and her approach had worked, after all: it would have been hard now to send her away. Instead Mathilde glanced at the blue girl, posed on the steps of the fountain. “She's beautiful, isn't she? But perhaps not as beautiful as the girl in the white dress.”

The woman, raising her eyebrows, considered this; and it struck Mathilde that she was making a note. But she merely said, “She is about to turn fifteen, you see. For a Cuban girl, this is the most important birthday of all. She becomes a woman. She joins her mother in the house.”

Mathilde nodded. “She eats with the grown-ups.”

Perhaps the Cuban woman's English didn't extend as far as her own; or she simply refused to be deflected. “For most girls, you understand, such a celebration must be very modest. But these girls are from fathers who are better off. Even so, they have probably saved for years or . . .” Now her voice dropped. “Or perhaps they have a rich uncle in Miami.”

So it begins, Mathilde thought; on the other occasions when she'd been approached in this way, the “difficult subject” had been introduced in exactly this tone of voice—only, with this woman, it was perfectly done, the effect all the more dramatic because it was so entirely matter-of-fact. She decided to ignore it. “It must be an old tradition.”

“Yes. It has never been forbidden. But just because it is so old it becomes a way of protesting the regime.”

“That is obvious.” Despite her admiration for the woman, Mathilde realized that she annoyed her.

And perhaps her tone caught the woman off guard; she changed course slightly. “The Plaza de San Francisco de Assis is the traditional place. The Fountain de los Leones is based upon the famous fountain in Alhambra . . .”

She kept on, about the plaza, the fountain, the old customs house on the far side of the plaza, the basilica; and although, in fact, Mathilde hadn't known about the connection to Alhambra, or most of the rest of it, she cut the woman off: “You are a guide?”

The woman's lips, very full—they would have been the focus of her face if it hadn't been for the extraordinary eyes—pursed slightly: as if
to express the consideration, and rejection, of a lie, thereby validating the truth of what she now said. “Not exactly . . . I work normally for Cuban International Radio, but I have made a private study of Habana Vieja, the buildings, history . . . but I have no official licence to be a guide.” Again, her voice dropped. “I do not have friends in the Ministry of Tourism.”

Mathilde tried not to let her expression reveal her satisfaction; she'd been right. And it was amazing, they always represented themselves as journalists, though usually for television—even in this detail, the woman was not so banal. “But you do guide?” she asked.

“Yes. Sometimes, in Cuba, we do things . . . with the left hand.”

“Yes?” Now Mathilde made a decision. “I am also a journalist. I work for a magazine.” She'd not done this on the previous occasions, and she was curious to see the effect her challenge provoked. And for a moment, the woman lost her aplomb. Mathilde pressed the advantage. “If you like, I could show you my credentials.” The woman shook her head.

“Are you sure?”

“It is not necessary.”

Mathilde smiled. Of course. Otherwise, she would have had to offer her own, and since they didn't exist . . . “But perhaps you don't have time right now . . . with your job.”

The woman regained her footing. “In Cuba, having a job and not working are often the same.”

“I see.”

“You would be interested, then? I could show you this. . . .” She nodded, a gesture taking in the square, the old city. “But there is also the Havana that is not so easily seen. Perhaps that would interest you, too. Of course, that is a difficulty—you understand? For me. It is a risk. I would like to say, I would do it from interest. But that is not going to be possible.”