3 Brand New Day
The camel came to a snorting, choking halt under a palm tree in la Plaza de Armas. Almost before the doors opened, impatient, half-suffocated passengers exploded from every possible exit, including the windows. Not expecting so much kinetic energy from such a listless crowd, John pitched backward toward the curb. Jane managed to swing from a handrail to relative safety, but the luggage went tumbling end over end, aided by a few well-placed kicks from exasperated locals. Like salmon swimming upstream, a fresh horde of weary sweating Cubans, frantic to occupy even so much as a sardine’s space in the pink tin can, fought to get onboard, unintentionally blocking the outflow of those equally frantic to disembark.
“Thanks. What? Hey!” John lunged for one of the bags as an enterprising young Cuban in a pair of American sneakers only a year or two out of fashion prepared to expropriate it. A minor tug-of-war ensued. Jane made a beeline for the remaining carryall, trusting John to handle the situation with minimal bloodshed and without sparking an international incident. Turning back, she was surprised to find that John had been preempted, and that his hapless tourist cover remained intact. The driver of the camel, risking the wrath of his unadoring public by deferring departure, had climbed down from his cab and trotted the entire length of the eighteen-wheeler to intervene. He spoke to the youth in terse and ironic disapproval: “Es siempre el cerdo capitalista que mata el ganso de oro.” (“It is always the capitalist pig who kills the golden goose.”)
The youth shrugged, “Los cerdos están ganando, cabron.” (“The pigs are winning, asshole.”)
“No en Cuba, menso. Vaya a casa y no diré a su madre. O la guardia. (“Not in Cuba, smartass. Go home and I won’t tell your mother. Or the neighborhood watch.”) He watched the kid jog away toward an impromptu soccer match and shook his head. “En esas manos la revolución. Dios nos ayuda.” (“In those hands the revolution. God help us.”) He touched two fingers to his Chicago Cubs baseball cap and turned away, playfully shaking his fist at his passengers, who had been beseeching him and cursing him in equal measure the entire time.
“Muchas gracias,” John hastened to call after him. “Can you recommend a good hotel?” The driver turned back willingly.
“El Hotel Sevilla en el Paseo del Prado. Es el hotel mas fina de la Habana. Una vez que fui alli.” (The Sevilla Hotel in Prado Street. It is the finest hotel in Havana. Once upon a time I went there.”) He smiled, remembering the luxurious accommodations awaiting them – the Moorish architecture, the antique furnishings, the marble bathrooms, and on the bed rose petals and thick towels twisted in the shape of a swan…
Jane and John exchanged a glance. It was Jane who spoke, somewhat reluctantly: “Por favor, hay un buen hotel de la economia cerca aqui? Quiza un Motel del Ocho?” (“Is there a good economy hotel nearby? A Motel 8 maybe?”)
The driver looked at them sideways a moment. “Si, si. Alrededor de la esquina. El edificio con los obturadores azules. Está donde aquí las alemanes del este usados para ir.” He pointed and smiled wryly. (“Around the corner. The building with the blue shutters. That is where the East Germans used to go.”)
“Oh great. We’re not only not in Kansas anymore, Toto, we’re not even in the First World,” Jane muttered. “I liked slumming a whole lot better when it wasn’t a lifestyle.”
“Let’s review. First World equals money, yes, AND former colleagues who get bonus points for bumping us off. Third World equals poverty and who the hell are you, gringo?” John offered a folded bill to the driver, who stepped back, bowed, and said in perfect English: “Our poverty comes in large part from your unending embargo, mis amigos. And we are but a tiny example in the world you run. Muchas gracias and welcome to Cuba. Senor. Senora.”
The rebuke came as something of a shock. Like the murder in Camus’s L’Etranger - on sale nearby at one of the many second-hand bookstalls for which the Plaza was famous - it was unexpected and inexplicable. For about five seconds. For about five seconds the world froze. Nothing and nobody moved. Then someone somewhere clicked the cosmic ‘Resume’ button. The sun crashed down with unseasonal ferocity, street musicians overdubbed one another with earsplitting intensity, and a passive-aggressive mule stuck between the shafts of a vegetable cart dropped a fresh and pungent load of manure on cobblestones a street sweeper had just rinsed clean.
Conscious of the neon sign flashing over her head – ‘UGLY AMERICAN! UGLY AMERICAN! - Jane looked from John to the mule and back again. “Even he knows I’m an ass.”
John gave her a friendly nudge. “Everybody’s a critic. But we should definitely be punished. You must give us all a good spanking,” he teased. They were trundling along the Calle Obispo now, where everything - from the baroque buildings left over from colonial days to the highly polished vintage automobiles to the tilting towers of the two hundred year old cathedral - was beautiful and falling apart. They turned the corner to find a flock of paper birds fluttering from a network of strings stretching from rooftop to rooftop all the way down the block and beyond. Jane eyed the only house with blue shutters. “Oh, no worries on the punishment front. I’d say we’re already in line for a lot of what we have coming.”
It was a squat two-story structure that looked to be suffering from some disease, a skin disorder that had left the exterior blotchy and caused stucco to peel away in sizable patches. Someone had applied a coat of whitewash in a half-hearted attempt to smooth things over, but the effort was negated by the tall blue shutters, which were only partially painted, as though either the paint or the painter’s good intentions had run out about halfway through. Delicate ironwork fenced the second floor balcony, where the day’s laundry twisted and floated like so many angels restrained by wooden clothespins. A child’s crib stood at one end, drafted into service as a container garden and densely overgrown with baby banana trees, mint, and tomato plants in bloom. Flowering jasmine vines curled up over the roof and down to the street. In the middle of the building on the first floor, a pair of narrow wooden doors opened into the hotel lobby. In a spirit of resigned foreboding, they entered.
So strongly did the desk clerk resemble the driver of the camel (minus the Cub’s cap), that John and Jane stared at him very hard for a long moment before speaking.
“May I help you?” the desk clerk inquired, but in a tone that suggested he would prefer not to do anything of the sort.
“We’d like to check in,” John said.
“Do you have a reservation?” The desk clerk gave the impression that he sincerely doubted it.
“No, ‘fraid not. We’re just betting the farm that there’s room at the inn.” The old-fashioned cubby behind the front desk had a key dangling from every square, making this a pretty safe gamble. But the desk clerk was not amused.
“That hasn’t always worked out so well. However today is your lucky day. Passports?” John handed them over. “Americans. Huh.”
John did not look up from the old-fashioned hotel register that he was signing. “You were saying?”
“Usted era érase una vez rico y estúpido,” the desk clerk stated bluntly, in Spanish. (“Once upon a time you were rich and stupid.”)
“Y ahora?” Jane asked, leaning one elbow on the massive front desk. The desk clerk bowed slightly, as if knowing his language earned them a grudging sort of entry-level respect. He reverted to English.
“Not rich or you wouldn’t be here. The good news? Being socialistas we only put bedbugs in our very best hotels.” He handed John a key and pointed to the stairs. “The elevator has been out of order since 1992.”
“Hear that, honey?” John said in his best southern drawl, “No bedbugs.”
“JP Morgan has bedbugs – I read that somewhere,” Jane commented, eying and scrupulously not touching the banister.
“What I want to know is – when did we stop being the good guys?” John surveyed a short dim hallway, trying to make out the room numbers. “You kn
ow he gave us 13?”
“What you mean we, Paleface. Or was that a trick question?”
John bent to unlock the door, which, despite being as flimsy as a piece of cardboard, refused to open, resisting repeated attempts to insert and turn the key. He rattled the knob and the door threatened to come off its rusty hinges. “Is this a trick door?” He stepped back in frustration. The door swung open of its own accord. John and Jane stared mutely and with frozen faces at the cracked turquoise walls, the sharp-edged wrought-iron bed, the hole near the window where the air conditioner should have been.
“Pretty basic,” John allowed.
“I have to take issue with your use of the word ‘pretty,’ Jane replied tartly.
John took her bag from her and stepped over the threshold. “Somos todos los cubanos ahora, carina.” (“We’re all Cubans now, darlin’.”)
4 Nobody Told Me
After not taking a shower in the turquoise-tiled bathroom - Jane having found an economy-sized cockroach doing the backstroke in the rust-stained tub - they decided to go in search of mojitos, the Cuban drink of legend.
“Let me guess,” the desk clerk said as they came downstairs. He sat slouched behind the fortress of the front desk, book in hand. “You want to know where to