Next Year in Havana Page 32

I nod. “Losing her has been harder than I imagined. I should have realized it would be, but she was always so vibrant, seemed so much younger than her years, and I suppose I took for granted that she would be around a long time. Would see me get married, hold my child in her arms.” A tear trickles down my cheek and I bat it away. “I hate that she’s not going to be here for all of these moments. That she won’t be here to sing ‘Cielito Lindo’ to my child like she did to me when I was a little girl. There’s this giant hole in my heart. I miss her arms around me, the scent of her perfume, the smell of her cooking.” More tears well in my eyes, another spilling over onto my cheek. Then another.

Luis’s arm tightens around my waist, his lips brushing against my temple

“We had this connection,” I continue, the sound muffled against his bare chest. “I could talk to her in a way I couldn’t talk to anyone else. And now that she’s gone—”

I brush at my cheeks and pull back slightly.

“I have to find him. To try at least. Right now, their relationship is this giant unknown. It sounds like they loved each other, and he was a revolutionary, but beyond that, I have no clue what happened between them. She asked your grandmother to hold the letters for me. She wanted me to come here and spread her ashes. Wanted me to find this. My grandmother knew me better than anyone; she knew I’d have to see this through one way or another.”

“Are you worried that what you find will change the way you remember her relationship with your grandfather?” Luis asks, his voice kind.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I was so young when he died. My perspective of their relationship was a child’s perspective. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?”

“Marriage is hard,” he agrees.

I can’t help it. Curiosity has filled me since he first mentioned he was divorced.

“What happened between the two of you—with Cristina?”

He turns his head to stare out at the water.

“It wasn’t one thing,” he finally answers, and I realize his silence is more a product of his attempt to answer my question as honestly as possible rather than discomfort. “It would be easier to explain if one of us cheated or we had some big fight, but it wasn’t like that at all. Each night we went to bed together, and the next morning we woke up and had drifted a little farther apart than the day before. One morning we woke up strangers.”

“That sounds painful.”

“It was, although, I suppose it could have been worse. Our lives simply diverged. She wanted children. When we married, I thought I did, too. But the more I thought about it, about the world I was bringing them into, the country I was handing off to them, I couldn’t do it. That was my fault. She married me expecting one thing and ended up with another. It wasn’t fair to her, I wasn’t fair to her, and that was my mistake. You learn the deepest truths about yourself when you fail at something. When I failed at marriage, I learned I couldn’t pretend to be someone I wasn’t in order to please another person.”

He rubs his jaw, his eyelashes sweeping downward.

“She thought I was too serious. Wanted me to stop holding on to things.” He gives a dry little laugh. “I’m not the easiest person to live with.”

His words are both confession and warning.

“And yet you both still do—live together. Work in the restaurant together. How do you handle it? How does she?”

“I wouldn’t say we live together, exactly. It’s not like we share a bedroom anymore. It’s different here in Cuba. There’s a massive housing shortage in Havana. Cristina wanted to move out, but there was nowhere for her to go. So she’s stuck. Thank you, Fidel.”

“I can’t even imagine how awkward that must be. The idea of living with one of my exes . . .”

“You’d think so, but it’s not so bad, really. We’ve become friends more than anything. Family, in a way. Her parents are both dead. She doesn’t have anyone else, and I’m fairly certain she’s as disinterested in me as anything other than platonic as I am her. Occasionally she’ll bring men home, but I make a point to be out those nights. It’s not a perfect solution, but you make do. If things don’t look the way you anticipated, you change your expectations. It’s an easy way to avoid being disappointed.”

“And you never—”

“Bring women home?” Luis grins. “I live with my grandmother and mother. What do you think?”

I laugh. “Fair enough.”

“What about you?” He takes the drink from my outstretched hand and raises it to his lips.

“What about me?”

“You never married?”

“No.”

“Did you come close?”

“I’ve never been engaged or anything like that. My longest relationship was in college. We were together for three years.”

“What happened?”

It feels so long ago; in the moment, the breakup had been all-consuming, but now I barely remember why we fell apart.

“Just life, I guess. We got to the point where we either had to be more serious or go our separate ways, and neither one of us cared enough to take it to the next level.”

“And since then?”

“I date, but I haven’t met anyone who’s made me want more.”

Until now.

“What about your family?” I ask. “Your grandmother mentioned you used to come here with your father. What was he like?”

“Strict,” Luis answers. “He was a good father, a good man, but he was a military man, used to giving orders and others following him. He was my hero, though. When he wore his uniform he was larger-than-life to me. When I was a very young boy, I wanted to serve in the military like him.”

“What changed?”

“I grew up, I suppose. My eyes were opened to the reality of life around me. Things were easier when my father was alive, when the regime took care of us because he was a high-ranking official in the military. We still received some financial benefits after his death, but my world changed. My grandparents took us in, and my friends were no longer the children of the privileged, but Cubans who suffered. When the government protects you because you are one of theirs, it’s not so bad. But ordinary Cubans inhabit a very different reality.

“Still—” He’s silent. “My father gave his life fighting in Angola, defending its people and protecting them against the United States’ proxies and their intervention in the conflict. Spent his adult life serving the regime. Sometimes I wonder if he would be disappointed that I haven’t done the same, that I’m not honoring his memory.”

“You’ve said it yourself—your students are the future of this country. It’s clear that you love your job, that your students admire you. That’s something to be proud of. Your father fought for what he believed in. You do, too, even if it doesn’t involve picking up a gun.”

Luis smiles faintly, his lips meeting mine. “Thank you.”

He leans back, staring up at the sky. I lay my head in the curve created between his elbow and his neck, pressing my lips there, inhaling his scent, committing something else about him to memory—

For when I’m gone.

Chapter sixteen

Elisa

The weeks eke by with agonizing slowness after Pablo leaves Havana, December creeping in, the monotony of life punctuated by the occasional bombing, shooting, random attacks that leave our mother even more convinced we mustn’t traipse around Havana on our own. I’m fine with the new rules—I’m in purgatory, clinging to each radio report, every scrap of news about the fighting in the Sierra Maestra. Pablo’s letters arrive sporadically, delivered by messengers, ferreted to me by the staff members I’ve recruited through bribery and cajoling. I live in terror of my mother or father finding the letters, of Magda’s condemnation, my sisters’ questions.

One afternoon I confide in Ana, telling her I met a man and little else. I want to talk about Pablo, want to share this secret with those closest to me, but each time I begin to speak of him, something inside me rebels. Instead, I content myself with the letters he sends me, the ones I write to him. I hide his letters in my room, reading them over and over again when I am alone, when the connection between us is gossamer thin. I worry my own letters won’t reach him in the mountains, that they’ll be intercepted, fear I am barreling toward disaster.

Despite the way we left things, the uncertainty of us, I cannot stop hoping our relationship isn’t finished.

When the next letter arrives, I rip it open greedily.

There’s a stillness in the mountains. A quiet I never found in the city. It’s so beautiful—you would love it here. We are drawn to the water, but the countryside has its charms, too. It’s so green—we wake up to the sun rising over the mountains, and the view rivals even that over the seawall. The clouds are so low it feels as though you could reach up and touch them.

I think of you often. I miss you.

I adopt an intense piety I never possessed before, kneeling in the pews of the Cathedral and praying God will protect Pablo, keep him safe, bring him back to me. And I worry about Alejandro. Constantly.

I’m not sure where God weighs in on the issue of Cuba’s future—I fear he created this paradise on earth and left us to fend for ourselves—but I hope he’ll protect my brother and Pablo. Hope is all you have to cling to when the world around you evokes every other emotion.

I’ve taken to spending more and more of my days with Ana. We lounge by the pool, drinks in hand while Maria plays in the water, splashing around. It’s hard to reconcile this image of Havana with the one that greets me each time I read my father’s discarded newspapers. The news often tells a gruesome tale—bloody pictures of dead Cubans cover the pages. I can’t help it—I search the images, the faces, fearing the day Pablo or Alejandro will stare back at me. Batista has been especially prolific lately, purging the streets of anyone he deems a threat. It must be exhausting to have so many enemies, to feel the breath of Fidel Castro against the back of his neck.