The Sweetness in the Lime

by Stephen Kimber

  I had put in the hours before I met Mariela strolling the Malecón, noting how few permanent scars all those hurricanes, one after another, each one worse than the last, which had dominated my every waking hour and sleeping thought for more than a month, had actually left on this city. The water-roiled streets of my television-screen memory had long since been sucked back into the Bay of Havana, leaving no obvious trace, save for a few missing chunks of concrete, which may or may not have been missing before the storm. Though it had been just a few months since the last of the storms swept through, no one I encountered among my admittedly so-far small sampling of the city’s population—Mariela, Esteban, Silvia, Bruno—even brought up the subject unless I raised it first.

  “Hurricanes are just part of life for us,” Mariela had insisted when I asked her what it felt like to live through one. “Like…snow for you in Canada.”

  Not quite. I had tried out my Rosetta Stone “¿Huracán?”—pronouncing my best who-ra-CAN—on Bruno, who seemed to understand. He also appeared unperturbed by the storms, even though, as he admitted to me, he lost a week’s worth of business while he waited for the knee-deep water inside his courtyard bar to dissipate and for his customers to return from their temporary shelters. “Pero es bueno,” he told me with a shrug, adding as he raised his cupped hand to his mouth. “Todos beben más.”

  Mariela did drink more. And it felt like I was about to, too.

  “I told you Alex and I were not together, but not how that happened,” Mariela continued. “You remember that day, after we met outside the Interests Section, I was complaining how unfair it was for them to turn me down for a visa after I had gone through all the proper channels?”

  I did.

  “But that if I had jumped on a raft and sailed to Florida, they would have let me stay, no questions asked?”

  Yes.

  “Well, that is what Alex did. He left on a raft.”

  No! So, while Alex and Mariela were “no longer together,” that was only because Alex was in Florida! Which was why Mariela needed a visa— Stop! Don’t allow yourself to leap ahead of yourself. Let her tell it—and then leap off that bridge.

  “I had no idea he was even planning to do such a thing,” Mariela continued. “I mean, everyone knew about Delfín and Roberto.” Delfín? Roberto? “Delfín was Alex’s cousin, Roberto his best friend. They were our age. We all went to school together. Roberto’s family lived in a little house on the edge of Cárdenas. It had a shed on the property near the seashore where the three of them used to go to talk and drink rum. But Alex never told me he was part of their plan.”

  “Sorry? Part of what plan?”

  “I apologize, Cooper, I’m not explaining myself. Like I told you, I explain myself much better in English when I can take the time to think and then write everything down. Anyway, I knew Delfín and Roberto were building a raft inside that shed. They’d been building it forever. They tied a bunch of old planks and pieces of driftwood together on top of some metal barrels. Roberto claimed they were fixing up an old engine to power it, but he told me it would have a sail too so they could save on gasoline. Nobody said anything to the authorities. Perhaps no one told because no one believed them. I did not. They were no muy brillantes. Alex and I even joked about what a crazy idea it was and how stupid the two of them were to think they could sail it to Florida. Alex never told me he was helping him, or that he planned to go with them.”

  “To Florida.” I had to be sure.

  “Yes. And that was the last I saw of…Alex.”

  “He didn’t call.”

  “None of them did.”

  I tried to process that. So that meant….

  “They died,” Mariela answered the latest question I didn’t have the language to ask. “At least that is what everyone in Cuba believes. It happens very often. People set off for Florida in their homemade rafts and they are never heard from again.”

  “So, is that what happened to Alex? He died?”

  “Yes. I am…certain.” She did not seem certain. Her hiccup had returned.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” I chose to believe her. It was easier for me to feel genuine sympathy for Mariela if Alex wasn’t alive and well and waiting for her in Florida.

  “It is OK,” she said. “As I told you, things were not good between us even before. I think we both understood by then our marriage had been a mistake. Maybe that made it easier for him to leave but, if he hadn’t gone off on that raft, I am sure we would have been divorced by now anyway.”

  “So, you’re not actually divorced?” My spidey sense sensed danger. Why was nothing ever simple?

  She smiled. “Don’t worry, my darling Cooper. I will fix that before we get married. In Cuba, a few things are not so difficult. Like divorce.”

  My spidey sense relaxed. That, I would only discover much later, was a mistake.

  I held up my cup to get Bruno’s attention. I needed another drink.

  4

  The embassy was also a mistake, but I’d known that before it happened, even before I’d invited Mariela to join me.

  “It’ll be fun,” I said. “An introduction to Canada and Canadian culture.”

  “You’re sure it’s OK?” she replied. “I mean, I’m a Cuban and—”

  “Soon to be the wife of a Canadian,” I said, brushing past her reticence, “which must make you at least half Canadian already. It’ll be fun,” I said again. What had I been thinking?

  I’d discovered the existence of the Polar Bar, a biweekly party for expats at the Canadian embassy in Havana, when I met with officials there to go over what I would need to do to bring Mariela to Canada. I knew most of it already, from Vince and from the immigration website, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to introduce myself face to face.

  “You say you’re planning to marry the young woman here, even before you apply to sponsor her to come to Canada,” the man at the embassy said when I explained my plans. He introduced himself as William, and he looked to be in his late twenties. “You do understand there are no guarantees she will be accepted.”

  “I do,” I said. I did, of course, but it seemed only logical to me that applying to sponsor a woman who was already your wife would show commitment, give the application gravitas.

  Vince had tried without success to point out the error of my ways. “You’re talking logic, I’m talking immigration,” he said.

  William had said much the same thing, but in a kinder, gentler, more bureaucratic way. He’d been non-committal about how long it would take to get an official response to an application—“It depends on many factors”—and even less committal about what that response would be. “I really can’t say, Mr. Cooper.”

  That said, he was friendly enough when he stopped talking official-ese after I stopped asking the questions that required him to speak that foreign language. We talked about the state of the newspaper business.

  “I was going to be a journalist once,” he confided, “but my parents talked me out of it. A good thing too, I guess, from everything I hear. What are you doing now?” I tried to explain I was still considering my options.

  “I’m sure you know this already,” he continued, “but they’ll look more favourably on your application if you can say you have a job.”

  I did know that, which was why “Find Job” was at the top of my to-do list for after I returned to Canada.

  “Is there anything you miss about Canada?” I asked. I was curious. What if they turned down my application to sponsor Mariela? Could I really live here?

  “Everything,” William replied. “Winter. You won’t believe it, but I miss the seasons. Luckily, my four years here are coming to an end, so we’ll be heading back to Ottawa before next winter. Ha! Be careful what you wish for, my wife tells me. And the internet, of course. I miss that. We have it here in the office, but it can be painfully slow. And the Canadian
government frowns on it if you illegally download movies. But there’s no internet in our apartment, so…what else? Beef! I do really miss Canadian beef. I was born in Alberta. Real beef is hard to get here…. Speaking of which, the Polar Bar is tomorrow night. A party here at the embassy. By the pool. There’ll be burgers—Alberta beef—and Canadian beer. ‘Where the burgers are grilled and the beer is chilled,’ as we like to advertise. You should come.”

  “That sounds great,” I said. “Is it OK if I bring my fiancée?”

  “Mmmm,” he said. “It’s usually just Canadians, I mean for people with Canadian passports. But, well, let me think….” He thought. “There probably won’t be a lot of people, since it’s not high tourist season…so…why not? I’ll leave a note for the guy at the gate.”

  I took that as unbridled enthusiasm and translated it into a personal request when I told Mariela.

  “William—that’s the guy’s name at the embassy—says he’d really like to meet you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re my fiancée. Because we’re going to be married. Because you might become a Canadian. If you want.”

  “But I won’t know anyone.”

  “You’ll know me.”

  I should have known. William had been right. It was a small crowd, perhaps a dozen people, some of them certainly embassy staffers who had to be here, a few scruffy backpackers returning from travelling around the country, one of the guys from my Toronto flight, whom I’d rightly assumed must be here to do business, doing business by the pool with other random business-looking types. There was a Cuban DJ playing music, Canadian songs whose titles he could not pronounce and Cuban songs whose lyrics I could not understand. The music was too loud for real conversation, not loud enough to discourage people from trying.

  “I’m Jack,” declared the tall, tanned, silver-haired man who’d materialized in front of me, sticking out his hand for a shake that could have broken a few bones in mine. He ignored Mariela. He worked for a big multinational accounting firm based in Toronto. The firm had opened its Havana office a year ago to provide services to the increasing numbers of its clients trying to do business in Cuba. “Why they want to try, I have no idea. Fucking Cuban bureaucracy,” he said, taking a swig from his beer. It was clearly not his first. “Anyway, I got the short straw, so I’m stuck in this shithole.” He looked at his watch. “For two more months, three days, and four hours.”

  I glanced at Mariela. She was staring at nothing across the pool.

  “So I come here every two weeks for a little beef and some real Canadian beer.” He raised his can.

  I should have said something, defended Cuba, protected Mariela. I didn’t. I saw William standing alone. “Hey, honey.” I’d never called Mariela honey before. “There’s William over there. He’s the one from the embassy, the one I told you about. I should introduce you to him.” I turned back to Jack. “Look, it was great to meet you,” I said. “Enjoy your burger.” I should have said Fucking asshole. For Mariela, as well as for me. But I didn’t.

  William was diplomatically proper, unfailingly polite. He welcomed Mariela, congratulated her on our engagement, pointed out the ambassador who was standing with a group by the pool. “See the guy to his right,” William said to me. “Gregory. A lawyer. Smart guy. Married to a Cuban. He’s lived here forever, even during the Special Period, I think. You should talk to him.” Talk to him? Was William sending me a subtle, or not-so-subtle message, like forget getting permission to bring Mariela to Canada and start planning the rest of your life in Cuba.

  “Thanks so much for inviting us,” I said to William. “It’s been great. But we should go. We have some stuff we need to do for the wedding.”

  Mariela smiled for the first time all evening.

  I thought, that went well.

  5

  “It’s a tradition,” David explained over the noise of the band and the raucous sounds of drunken celebration. He was pointing uncertainly at a rainbow of coloured ribbons spraying out from the bottom of the wedding cake. “A Bruno tradition,” he explained. “He bakes ribbons into the bottom layer of the cake and then, during the reception, all the unmarried women—men too, maybe, who knows?—get to pull on a ribbon. At the end of one ribbon, there is a ring. If you are the lucky one and get the ring when you pull on the ribbon, then you’ll be the next one to be married.”

  “Like a garter,” I replied. He looked puzzled. Perhaps traditions do not travel well. When Sarah and Saul married, she’d tossed her ceremonial garter over her shoulder for a similar purpose. “Never mind,” I said to David. “It’s a Canadian thing.” Or maybe it was Jewish? I hadn’t been to that many weddings.

  “There is another part of Bruno’s tradition,” David continued, “but I doubt Silvia would have allowed such a terrible thing.” He took another swig from Bruno’s bootleg rum. He was drunk. I was drunk. I could feel my eyes slitting. “Sometimes he will attach a thimble to one of the ribbons,” he said. “And the one who pulls that one is doomed to be an old maid forever.”

  We stood for a moment in silent contemplation of the cake.

  “Silvia wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Not Silvia,” David agreed.

  I looked around the room, filled with perhaps two dozen people, most of whom I didn’t know. I knew David, of course, and now his Italian lover, Ale, whom David had introduced to me. And Silvia and Esteban. But that was it. Was everyone else here to celebrate my wedding? Or Mariela’s? How many of them did Mariela even know? How many had showed up just to drink the free bootleg rum I’d paid Bruno to serve? I didn’t know but I couldn’t complain. Bruno really did know how to throw a party. The walls behind his bar had been decorated with yellow streamers and a handmade Bristol board sign that read “¡Felicidades, Cooper y Mariela!” in bold red-and-green block lettering. The platters on the plastic-covered tables on either side of the bar groaned with tiny, church-supper-style sandwiches and all manner of sweet treats, which Bruno had to keep refilling as the party proceeded. Bruno had rearranged the rest of the tables and chairs around the edges of the space to create a dance floor. The band, which had set up in another corner of the room, was playing danceable (for Cubans, if not for me) popular music. There was no stage, which made the mood somehow cozier, more intimate.

  I watched Mariela dance past with someone else I didn’t know. She was beautiful, smiling, her green eyes still mesmerizing, her hair—freed now from whatever upswept hairdo she and Silvia had concocted for the ceremony—hung loose the way it should. I was less enamoured of her dress. David had tried to describe the features of the wedding dress to me—the puff sleeves, the scalloped neckline, the basque waist, the tulle skirt…I had no clue what he was talking about. I only knew her neckline didn’t scallop quite far enough to do justice to Mariela’s fine stand-up-and-salute breasts. Her midsection—was that the basque?—seemed sausage-wrapped. To me, the dress looked like what it was. Someone else’s. Nipped and tucked. I didn’t say that, of course. I told Mariela she looked beautiful, which she did. She told me I was hermoso in the white guayabera and matching pants she’d chosen for me.

  Now I smiled across the dance floor at her, blew her a kiss. She air-kissed me back. Even across the room, I could see the sweat beading on her forehead and above her lip. I wanted to kiss it away.

  My bride! My wife! I was finally, officially, a married man. The ceremony itself had been muted, almost anticlimactic. Silvia was Mariela’s bridesmaid, Esteban my best man. We’d arrived early in the afternoon at the Palacio de los Matrimonios, the white “palace on the hill” where Cubans officially marry in civil ceremonies in a converted pre-Revolution mansion. There were couples ahead of us, couples behind, a veritable wedding assembly line of soon-to-be-coupling couples. Good day. Do you? I do. And you? I do. I now pronounce you…goodbye. All in Spanish, of course. Perhaps it was the language barrier, or more likely, my lifelong aversion to cant and
ceremony. Whatever, the actual wedding—the monotonal reading from something called the Código del Matrimonio, the repetitions of all the foreign words and phrases, the finger-ringing, the document-witnessing, the awkward public kissing at the end—left me unshaken, unstirred.

  It was only after the official stuff was all over, seated regally with Mariela on the parade boot of a red 1959 Ford Fairlane convertible Esteban had borrowed and spit-polished for the occasion, laughing, kissing, waving, driving through the streets of Havana on our way to Bruno’s, Esteban hard-honking the horn while drivers from the other cars honked back and people on the street shouted out their good wishes—¡Suerte! ¡Lindísimo! ¡Felicidades!—that I began to understand the enormity of what I’d just done.

  At fifty-five, I had gotten married for the first time in my life—married to a woman who was younger than my daughter. Sometimes, I will confess, that difference in our ages gave me pause. I’d read all the stories, edited a few, all about the creepy older guy who weds a girl-woman. No good can come of that. But that wasn’t me. Or Mariela. There were other times too, I’ll admit since I’m admitting, when I simply marvelled at my good fortune, at the very idea someone as young and beautiful as Mariela could really love someone like me.

  The song finally came to an end. Mariela’s dance partner, a slim young man about her own age, bowed ostentatiously, removing a bill from his shirt pocket, and carefully pinned it among the others on her dress.

  The money dance, I’d already learned from Bruno, was yet another wedding tradition, although I eventually came to realize most of Bruno’s traditions were ones he’d created himself. When guests danced with the bride, they would present her with gifts of cash, which they would pin to her dress. For her new life with her husband. I told Mariela I was uncomfortable with the idea—we clearly didn’t need the money nearly as much as its givers did—but she had brushed past my objections. “If we tell them not to, people will be offended.”