Naked in Havana (8 page)

Nine o’clock every night they fired the cannon at Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, the colonial fortress on the other side of the harbour. Once, people set their clocks and wristwatches by the familiar boom of the gun. But now there was a new tradition: the
rebelde
would time their bombs to go off around the city shortly before or after the ceremonial sounding of the cannon so that it was impossible to set the correct time anymore. It was all part of the general mood of chaos.

And so every night the shutters in the houses rattled and glasses clinked on tables in the clubs and bars as Havana was rocked by bombs and small arms fire. By then the tourists were too drunk or too excited to pay any attention, it was all just part of the floor show. The revolution didn’t stop the entertainment, it was part of the entertainment.

The sense of danger, of being on the edge of something, made the music more vibrant, the dancing more heated, the sex more urgent. The price for flights from Miami was down to thirty-six dollars, there were advertisements in the
Miami Herald
: “55 minutes of sheer pleasure, 5 swift flights daily.”

Havana was one non-stop party for the rich and famous. You could order a daiquiri in the lobby bar of the Dauphin or the Biltmore - if you could afford it - and rub shoulders with Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, Edith Piaf or Ava Gardner. You could watch Ginger Rogers at the Nacional or Nat King Cole at the Sans Souci.

And the music! On the other side of the Florida Strait they might be listening to “At The Hop” and jive and Elvis Presley, but in Havana it was still the forties, still Basie and Ellington and Chico O'Farrill. We danced to the mambo and the rumba.

The headline act at the Tropicana was Beni Moré - whom I had last seen at Angel’s engagement party - perhaps the greatest Cuban entertainer of all time. You could sit under the stars with John Wayne and Rocky Marciano and Ernest Hemingway and watch him dance onto the stage in a straw
guajiro's
hat and cane and mug his way through “Como Fue.”

If you didn’t lose all your money in Salvatore’s casino, afterwards you could grab a cab when the clubs closed and head to La Rampa to watch the sun rise and listen to Bebo Valdés and Negro Vivar along with Errol Flynn and Cesar Romero and Marlon Brando.

The smaller clubs like Papi’s were clustered around the Prado and La Rampa. We were small and intimate so we couldn’t present the ambitious floor shows of the Mob’s places in Marianao and La Playa. Instead, there was dark mood lighting and cosy velour banquettes, clubs designed for lovers. Once we even had Eartha Kitt play.

That night he was drinking Santiago rum; I had Coca Cola. I was only eighteen years old, I was lucky to be there at my father’s table and under his watchful eye.

There was a small
conjunto
band, a smaller version of the huge orchestras that played the Tropicana and Sans Souci, and instead of a troupe of dancers we had two or three girls who performed out front. Papi said that the Left Bank was where real Cuban music lived and breathed.

Most nights you could listen to
boleristas
like Olga Guillot, Ñico Membiela or Inocencia Velasquez, my piano teacher. Inocencia was the crowd favourite. You could sit right up close, so close you could see the beads of sweat glistening between her breasts and the monogrammed initials on the man’s handkerchief she clutched in her fist as she sang. She was sensual and she was beautiful and she was raw. A real handmade woman, as we say in Cuba.

There were no Bach études tonight. Behind her, the pianist played the piano like he had a personal grudge, violent chords backed by a double bass, as raw a sound as I had ever heard. And over the top, Inocencia's voice, husky, harsh and angry.

When I look in your eyes

I see how I used to be

When I look in the mirror

I see what’s become of me

I can’t stay here with you

I know you’ll break my heart

It’s love that brings us together

It’s love that tears me apart

The handkerchief twisted round and round in her fist. Her eyes were screwed tight, and she seemed as if she was in physical pain. I almost wanted to rush up onto the stage and rescue her.

I turned to see if Papi was as moved by the music as I was, but he wasn’t even watching Inocencia. His eyes were turned off to the side. He was tapping his finger on the glass, pretending to listen, but there was something else bothering him. I followed his gaze; a man in a white suit with a gardenia in his buttonhole had just walked in. He was dressed impeccably, he wore a bow tie, even in the heat. I recognized his bodyguard first, the man leaning on the black Cadillac the day I got home from San Lorenzo.

This must be Meyer Lansky. He didn’t look like a gangster with that nose and big ears. He was no George Raft.

“Excuse me, cariña,” Papi said and got up and went over to the bar to greet him. I watched them shake hands, and then Papi led him to his office at the back of the club.

Inocencia finished her set to tumultuous applause. She looked exhausted.

“Hey baby,” a voice said in my ear. I looked around, it was Angel. My heart jumped but I tried to look disinterested.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m with my father and some of his friends.”

I turned around and saw Macheda and his cronies, my father always saved them the best seats, not far from ours. I hadn’t seen them come in. I had to look twice; Angel’s father was sitting between Salvatore and Frank Sinatra. “Where is she?” I said.

“She’s gone back to Miami. I need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“You know I love you, baby. This doesn’t have to be the end.”

“Leave me alone, Angel.”

“But baby ...”

“Don’t call me that. You call
her
that.”

He sat down, leaned right in. “What do you want me to do? He’s my father. This is my family. They’re relying on me, I have to do this. But you’re the one I love.”

It wasn’t that he was so persuasive, it was that I wanted so badly to be persuaded. He put his hand over mine. I didn’t pull away straight away. He still loved me, I knew it. I knew it wasn’t over.

“Meet me for coffee tomorrow. Let’s talk about this.”

“No, Angel, I can’t.”

“Please. I can’t sleep thinking about you, about us. I’ll be at La Mina tomorrow, eleven o’clock.” He looked up, saw my father coming out of the office, shaking hands with Meyer Lansky. “Please,” he said and then he went back to his table, to his family, to all the famous singers and mob bosses.

Chapter 12

Papi sent me home with Luis in the car. He normally stayed until the club closed at around three or four in the morning. After all that Doctor Mendes had said to him, he wasn’t going to break his routine.

Almost midnight and it was still over ninety degrees. I wound down the window. The ocean breeze would usually cool off the midnight air, but tonight there wasn’t even a breath of wind. There were still people sitting outside their houses trying to cool themselves with paper fans. A large neon sign hung from the second floor of a factory down one of the side streets, illuminating almost the entire block. Some kids were playing baseball.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Angel. I kept going over everything in my mind, as I’d done ever since he told me about this other girl. He didn’t love her, he was marrying her because he had to, because his finally were making him do it. But what difference did that make in the end?

I still couldn’t sleep when I got home.

It’s love that brings us together

It’s love that tears me apart

I was still awake at four o’clock when I saw the Bel Air’s headlights pull into the drive and heard Papi’s shoes crunch on the gravel. He didn’t go straight to bed as he usually did. I heard him tell Luis to fetch him a rum. The shutters to my bedroom were open, and I could smell the cigar smoke drifting up from the courtyard. I slipped on a robe and went downstairs.

“I’m sorry, cariña. Did I wake you?”

“I was already awake.” There was a bottle of sweet Santiago rum on the table, three fingers in his glass. He smiled at me but I could see he was agitated, his foot tapping a tattoo on the marble tiles. I wondered what Lansky had said to him.

“Your cigar smells great.”

“I got two boxes of León Jimenes from Santo Domingo. They just came in today.” He watched the smoke drift on the sticky, damp air. “Something wrong?”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t worry about Doctor Mendes. He wants everyone to drink milk and go straight to bed after dinner. A man needs a cigar now and then. And this is my first rum today. I only had one glass of Santiago at the club, I swear.”

“That was Meyer Lansky who came to the club, wasn’t it?”

He smiled in a resigned sort of way. “Yes, that was Lansky.”

“Does he still want to buy the club?”

“He just wants the salon, wants to put a casino in there. I get twenty percent of the take.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him no. I’m sick of these guys, they think they own Havana.”

“Don’t they?”

He gave me a look, knowing I never talked about these things, perhaps he was wondering if his daughter was finally growing up. “You know Batista’s sold them everything? It’s not enough they own all the hotels and the casinos, that you can’t go into bar or a bodega without tripping over one of those damned
traganíqueles
, those slot machines. A million dollars a month and the president’s brother-in-law gets half of the take. Nice work if you can get it. They even run drugs through here to America. Every one of the girls you see standing on the street corners, they own a piece of them, too. Batista’s sold them the utilities, the banks, even the pension funds. So sure I told him no. Someone has to say no. Besides, I want my club just for music, some place people can go where they won’t lose every cent they have to these guys.”

“What did he say, Papi?”

“It’s okay, cariña, don’t worry about him.”

“I’m not a little girl any more. Did he threaten you?”

“Why would he do that? I just have a small place, I’m no competition.”

“He did threaten you.”

He shrugged. “It’s like he’s personally offended that someone somewhere is making a dollar without him seeing a part of it. They want to own you, these people. Well, he’s not owning me.” He dashed off his rum and slammed his glass on the table.

I reached out and massaged the back of his neck. He smiled, laughing at himself. “Sorry, look at me, why am I getting mad at you?”

“You’re not mad at me, I know that.”

“You should get to bed.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll go up soon,” he said, but I smelled his cigar for a long time afterwards. He was still sitting there drinking as dawn broke over Havana, thinking what to do about Meyer Lansky. He knew you couldn’t say no to a man like that and expect that to be the end of it.

Chapter 13