by Wendy Guerra
When I’m in Cuba, the landscape, the redolence of overripe mangos, the fury of the ocean testing the limits of the seawall, the frantic desire of men in dark corners drinking rum to calm themselves down takes prominence. Reality is too intense here to feel like a protagonist…I disappear…My only mission is to observe reality so I can narrate it, which may be why I live as an official reject. However, today, for the first time, I’ve been invited to “something.” It must be irritating to have to put up with a literary person who recounts everything and who, to top it off, gets paid or rewarded for doing so. No person or country, no body or society can keep its privacy around me. To be read—to read me—to be unmasked in a critical version of the story must be insufferable. I go up the brief marble steps, knock on the door, and a uniformed waiter guides me down the ample hallway.
My former housekeeper, Márgara, is back. Could she wear a uniform? I don’t think so. All these years of revolutionary orthopedics make it impossible. I’m critical but not authoritarian. We’ve been disarmed and we don’t know how to give orders. I’m completely indoctrinated: social class distinctions are a real taboo for me. Bottom line: Márgara is back. She asked to come back and I said yes, because I can pay her now, and her presence takes me back to the years when my mother would stop talking only to give orders to someone who, otherwise, never responded. Márgara has been and is a shadow. We were together today, alone for the first time without my parents mediating. Making decisions hasn’t been a problem because she does everything on her own initiative. She’d left a note on the table with the time, place, and phone number, but I wasn’t able to decipher the name of the person who invited me here.
This house could be in the Havana of the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, or ’80s; like everything else in this country, it has a timeless quality, an electric patina that reveals its neurotic character. It’s been restored, yes, but its veil remains intact.
A grayish-haired, tall European man, accompanied by a beautiful mulatto with yellow eyes, welcomes me. I hold out my hand and thank them for inviting me. They excuse themselves and leave me alone in the middle of this huge hall. It’s curious: I seem to know everyone here yet they don’t seem to know me. I see faces I’ve come across a few times at the Cinemateca, the theater, art openings, restaurants I frequented with my parents. Tonight’s guests greet me meekly, but with a certain affability. They wave or hug me as they pass but, truth be told, I don’t know any of their names. I’m not inspired to sit and chat with any of them; I can’t find anyone close or, at least, trustworthy.
* * *
—
Trustworthy: I’m not a trustworthy person either and though I haven’t missed a single chapter in this drama, to stay, to watch the whole series while having the chance to leave, to escape it, could be seen as suspicious.
As they interrogate you about other matters, they’re thinking, Why didn’t you leave, kid?
Half the officers assigned to us would give what they don’t have to walk the cities I’ve walked. How many of them would resist the temptation of deserting if they had the same opportunity as all the artists who come and go? I close my eyes and imagine them in Madrid. What would they do then? Would they make a public announcement, desert, or would they simply disappear into the crowd and start from scratch, and forget? Will we be able to forget any of this?
I wander around the living room. A soft current of joy hits my body and surrounds it. Three very well-known writers talk among themselves in a corner in very low voices, trying to be discreet, substituting gestures for words: They pull on Fidel’s invisible beard, point to Raúl’s stripes, and use their fingers to slant their eyes like his (as if that old sign language couldn’t be read). They lean in and chew words in pathetic feminine secrecy. Excited, they talk in gossip mode and look as if they were conspiring. They’re the once banned, once prohibited writers, now required reading, winners of national literary awards. They’ll go down in history with their incoherence, perhaps as traitors, but only for betraying themselves. Too many years on the same tightrope to keep their balance without panicking.
I live and have always lived in Cuba, but that adherence to a difference of opinion, always between complaints and irreconcilable differences…that’s suspicious too. How to be here and not give in to the pressures or die trying? Of course, in the eyes of those in exile, I may well be suspicious too. To understand this you have to waste away experiencing it; everything else is an approximation based on past references. The closer you get, the less you understand; the farther away, the more you judge; the more you experience it, the more you suffer; the more you feel it, the less you can let go of the pain. I’m starting to feel a certain attachment to tragedy. I’m adrift.
I look around once more. Who will be the officers assigned to us tonight? Will I know any of them? Then I’d at least have someone to say hello to. Will I be able to say hello to them? Will they pretend they don’t know me? Why can’t I stop thinking about this?
A soft whisper, a slight whiff of Chanel and reserve rum pushes me toward the couch. A uniformed waiter with white gloves kindly asks me what I wish to drink.
Wish? Wish? Wish? What do I wish?
Again, the possibility of making a choice paralyzes me.
“What do you have?”
“Everything, or almost everything, which isn’t the same thing, but almost.”
Is this one of those parties where no one dances, where there’s much eating and even more talking, and where you find out things you don’t want to and shouldn’t know? I’m not sure.
Who of all these people put me on the guest list? The host?
I run into two college classmates. They greet me, slightly terrified. I want to hug them but I don’t, it’s not that big a deal. I say good evening and kiss each one on the cheek; they step away.
Do they know what I do for a living? There’s not a book in this entire house. There’s not a single bookshelf, just a magazine rack with issues of Vogue and Architectural Digest. Whose house was this—whose house is this? Is it a rental? It feels like an embassy. Those paintings with the varnished frames—could they be real Lams? Yikes, something isn’t right here.
* * *
—
The parties the scientists threw were even more boring. Envy and old resentment would pop out after the second shot of rum. The perks the scientists got in this country were few and far between and they slowly ate at them: your soul for a Chinese TV, your soul for a trip to Europe, your soul for a borrowed house in the Scientific Pole, or your soul for a Lada Riva. Jeez! I’d forgotten about the scientists. My father said few paused to consider what was ethical. The important things were the results. Once they tasted liquor, they let it rip and out came their demons. Nobody ever punched anybody. The scientists and their parties: dominoes, dark rum, pork rinds, women in white high-heeled shoes and all the men wearing Rolexes. Oh, the scientists.
“Just trust, trust and you’ll see it’s possible, it’s possible to have a life here. Trust: just look at us. We’re alive and, in all these years, we haven’t lacked anything…nothing essential. Nothing, right?” said the ex-minister, a glass of whiskey in each hand, while shooting the word “nothing” right at me, from the depth of his eyes, as if he were launching a dart. “Nothing, right, Cleo?”
Trust is also a theory about the other person’s future behavior. An arbitrary, irresponsible commitment. We think we know what’s “trustworthy,” from our point of view, when, in fact, everything depends on the other person’s opinions and actions.
I looked down and took a glass of French champagne. What was I doing at a party with an ex-minister of culture where they served pink Moët? He showed up out of nowhere. Does he know me? Who or what brought us both here? I stared at him to try to greet him but he shifted his gaze. Here’s something true of this country’s official leadership: their way of dressing, their insistence on being or seeming humble, on turning their backs to market forces, on need, with the only option being to wear whatev
er’s available, because they’re also lacking the resources to buy the appropriate wardrobe but, also, because this way they underscore their disdain for fashion and the way they love not being a part of it. They walk into embassies and receptions proud of their safari jackets, their guayaberas, their plaid shirts, their classic carpenter pants. None of it looks good on them but it brings them peace of mind, they think they go unnoticed, except at parties like this one. I’ve always thought that this non-style germinates an unquestionable condition: contempt for beauty, for the value of the moment and its inspiring and symbolic aesthetic and historic changes. That disdain, that glorified and perennial collective olive-green posture, registers “macho” and uniformity, it personifies that attitude of sameness that absorbs us into the masses, where our ideas about guerrilla life are fortified, and the slightest pang of individuality, tenderness, personal touch, or wink toward visual independence is crushed.
Power doesn’t need to show off its luxury. What’s truly luxurious is to own a country and strip it of all style, and also of the possibility of choosing its own emotional aesthetic. For more than five decades, scarcity marked our bodies and we learned to dress in practically nothing, only what we could inherit, recycle, or salvage from the wreck.
Fashion here has been precisely that—to live with our backs to fashion. It’s politically correct to be humble. It’s not advisable to wear anything expensive, or well designed, extravagant, out of the ordinary, unique, not mass produced, or that in any way reminds us there are other ways of going through life. It’s not advisable to be original.
I look at my clothes: They’re beautiful but common, thoughtlessly put together, too relaxed, I’d say, and designed by…I don’t know. I never learned how to dress myself, my parents weren’t interested in clothing. All this means I’ve never discovered my own style. I have no personal aesthetic: I’m not a rocker, nor sophisticated, nor a romantic…I realize what I’m wearing is a disguise, something to help me get lost in the crowd. My clothes take care of me, guard me; they’re my second skin. In other words, when it comes to fashion, I’m as handicapped as the next person.
I so want to spend time with someone, especially someone to whom I don’t have to explain what’s happened to me in the last two years.
Being read, honored, translated into several languages doesn’t matter if you’re not recognized in your own country, if you can’t find your original readers, if you can’t share your work with your own people.
I’m a woman who writes and talks to herself and travels the world like that, who’s read in that other world, which, here, we pretend doesn’t exist. I just want to be heard. Not as a writer, not as an intellectual. I just want to have a conversation with someone who won’t be terrified when I draw near. Is there anyone I can trust?
* * *
—
“Let’s go the pool, please,” the waiter said attentively as he handed me another glass of champagne, this one in a fine, elegant and iced Baccarat crystal. A light murmur circled the room and I heard, in perfect French, “Bal masqué!”
They opened the great big mirrored picture windows, and heat and light hit the room. The magic unfurled in Isaac Delgado’s voice as he was accompanied by his group. I couldn’t believe it. The pool offered a nautical reflection that made it seem as if the patio was undulating. The lights colored the trees in violet, blue, and magenta tones. The mangos appeared to be splattered with a kind of bright rosacea and the avocados looked like illuminated eggplants.
A legion of waiters began distributing Venetian masks. I thought a bit of flirtation might be fun and I chose a handheld one, so I could be recognized in case I ran into anyone I knew.
But why should I be recognized? That would make me believe in the construction of this artificial silence. Cat eyes, red and jade tulle, a little black velvet, and a certain pearl on my right cheek like a black tear. I want to be discovered and this mask will not ruin it for me, no, sir.
Your feet follow the rhythm to the music along the slippery moss by the pool and the soft Japanese grass. “Tengo un equilibrio, con dos, con dos mujeres,” Isaac sings during a medley of his greatest hits. He’s come back to live on the island and it feels like he’s never left…what a feeling! What giddiness! People have lost the habit of dancing in couples but this rueda de casino dancing circle in the patio allows me to try out each of the dancers, and I love that. I haven’t spoken with anyone but now I’m dancing with everyone. That’s Cuba. When it comes to moving your body, to touching and being touched, then all suspicion is set aside. It’s because in the last few years the body has been the only truly free space we Cubans have had. I can’t see their faces, I don’t know who they are, but I can guess their ages by their stepping style, by the way they hold me, throw me out, and then bring me back right as I hit the point of breaking free. I float from hand to hand, loose and light, independent and sovereign, until I’m firmly trapped by a dancer from the old guard who holds on to my waist, marking time, turning, making me his to the two/four beat.
A group of fifteen or twenty people, their masks very well fitted, crosses the garden. The ex-minister greets them warmly, while the waiters make way for them at the VIP area next to the orchestra, now on a break to allow the main masked man to speak. There’s no doubt now—he’s the owner of this beautiful 1940s house in the very heart of Vedado.
“Hello everyone,” he says in an odd accent. Feedback screeches uncomfortably, interrupting the foreigner’s speech. His accent is hard to decipher. French? Belgium? After a few technical adjustments, he continues, “Yes, hello again. We’re inaugurating our house in Havana tonight and we want to thank the authorities, because they’ve helped us rescue this palace from the last century. Abel, my Cuban husband, and I are sure this will be a gathering place for culture and delight for all our friends who love art and a good meal. Tonight we’ve invited all our collaborators from when I was ambassador, as well as all the people we feel are great international figures of Cuban culture. We don’t know many of you, but we’ll stop by and get to know you as the evening progresses. There’ll be introductions, reunions, then dinner, and, of course, more and more music until midnight. It’s a real pleasure to have you here. Welcome home. ¡Salud!” says the ex-ambassador from…? Then he makes room for his husband, Abel, who speaks by putting his mouth right on the microphone.
“Let’s rip it up, people, cuz the world is gonna end! And thanks for coming!” The beautiful mulatto glances somewhat anxiously at the ex-ambassador and hesitates before continuing, “Oh, please, don’t do this to me, baby, you know I don’t like speeches—that’s your thing. People…never mind, thank you and…get to it, Isaac!” he says, snapping his fingers and letting the musicians know their break is over.
The orchestra starts playing just in time to accompany my third glass of champagne.
* * *
—
“Lluvia Martines, pleased to meet you,” says a woman with a Mexican accent as she tries to fix the mask on her glasses while balancing herself on the soft grass and holding her little black silk purse and an unsteady glass of champagne. I hold out my hand and she leans on me to kiss my cheek.
“May I help you with your mask?”
“Yes, please.”
After I fix her mask and attempt to introduce myself, Lluvia interrupts me to say she is an editor and knows who I am.
“You’re the poet.”
“Yes, Cleo. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“I thought they didn’t publish you here, that they ignored you.”
“That’s right,” I say as I look around.
“So then what are you doing at this party with ex-ministers and official writers?”
“Well, actually, I don’t know. I think it’s been a great misunderstanding on my part, and a mistake on theirs as well to invite me.”
“Well, then, let’s toast to that misunderstanding. Thanks to that, we’ve met. I saw your face in Paris, on the huge banners at the Rodin Museum for that ex
hibition on contemporary art and poetry. Lovely photo, and lovely verse. Let’s see if I remember…They can’t expel me from the island that is me myself.”
“Well, yes, what a memory. The text reads: They can’t expel me from the island that is me.”
“Wonderful. You know, I was thinking about you today because I want…my cousin, Gerónimo Martines, is arriving in a few days…”
“The actor?”
Just then the ex-minister conveniently interrupts our chat.
“Lluvia, I want to introduce you to two great poets…”
“Oh, I’ll be with you in a minute. It’s just that I was trying to tell Cleo about my project…because I think, ex-minister, that Cleo is the…”
“Excuse me, Cleo. This way, Lluvia, this way. I’m going to introduce you to two stupendous natural poets, who work without a thought to the market, like before, like the real thing. They’re going to leave you speechless.”
“Speechless,” I say.
The ex-minister talks about me as if I’m not right there in front of him. Lluvia is literally dragged to the other side of the patio. As they walk hand in hand, a conga line cuts them off. Abruptly, the music ends and Isaac Delgado himself announces it’s time for dinner.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the moment of truth is here. Let’s go feast and meet back here in an hour.” Applause.
The hordes of guests rush across the garden to reach the tables. The host is about to say something but they abandon him onstage, and though he clinks his Baccarat crystal, few notice he has a few more words.
Oh, eating in Cuba. I think Cubans today enjoy eating more than dancing. I try to join my college friends but it’s impossible because they aren’t very happy with my presence. In fact, I recognize a few writers from my generation who were friendly in their greetings but, when I try to sit at their tables, the circle closes and there’s an awkward, irritated silence.
