by Nancy Adams
Soon we reached the mouth of the large port and joined the traffic of fishing boats and cargo ferries that slinked their ways toward the big, colorful city of Havana. I watched Sarah as she gazed mesmerized at it, a long stretch of giant city growing out from the coast. It wasn’t a tall city; there are no skyscrapers in Havana, but it stretches on for miles, an ocean of old Spanish colonial buildings, tall arches, long shuttered windows, and terracotta roofs, intersected by narrow, cobbled streets and large squares of cafes, making it truly wondrous to see for the first time. And that was what Sarah was getting: a first-time glimpse. My interest wasn’t really on the spectacular city, but on Sarah’s amazement at it all, her emeralds searching out its splendor.
“It’s a beautiful city,” she pointed out.
“You wait until we’re driving through it. It’s absolute chaos at this time, and we’ll be staying dead in the middle of the city.”
“Really?”
“Yes, we have rooms at the Parque Central. The place is okay, but it’s not the decor that I picked it for. It was its location in downtown.”
When we left the yacht, we were picked up in a black four-by-four and ferried to the hotel only about half an hour into the cluttered city. The roads were consumed by traffic, and the driver had to be aggressive and use his vehicle’s stature to force us through to the grand old square that housed the seven-floor colonial hotel.
Getting out of the car, I took Sarah’s arm and led her into the most impressive part of the old hotel, the lobby. I was always told that it still retained something of old Havana, something of the pre-revolution days, and it mirrored the excess of the twenties, when it was last decorated. Everything that could be was made out of marble, so that the lobby itself had the appearance of being carved out of the stuff, the floors a flowing cream, the walls a smoky chocolate. All over the place stood giant pots of tall, large-leaved plants, lavender among them, adding a touch of gentle purple to all the green, as well as a hint of perfume to the warm air. In the room’s center, between the round marble columns, sat little baroque-style couches, red cushioned and low, with people loitering upon them. Naturally the scene set Sarah off in a trance, and she let go of my arm and wandered hypnotically forward into it all.
“It reminds me of my youth,” she said, glancing at me from over her shoulder.
“It’s not the height of luxury,” I remarked. “But it’s still pretty swank.”
She flashed a smile and turned her attention back to the wide, inviting arms of the elegant lobby as our bags were taken to our rooms. I walked to the large old-fashioned desk and rang the brass bell, even though it was needless as the receptionist was already there.
“Sorry,” I said, leaning my elbow on the desk. “I just couldn’t help ringing the bell.”
“That’s perfectly okay, sir” came the man’s servile reply.
“Four rooms under Kelly. One for myself. One for my lady friend, and two for my entourage.”
He looked at his computer for a second before raising his eyes to me once more and performing the act of a convincing smile.
“Your rooms are ready, sir,” he said through the grin. “If you’d like to follow my colleague.”
He stretched his white-gloved hand out, and I turned to find the bellboy, who exacted his own faux smile when our eyes met.
“This way, señor,” he said in a thick Cuban accent.
I fetched Sarah, who was busy sniffing lavenders by the stairs, and we made our way, along with the bellboy and my two-man security team, to our rooms. As to the rooms themselves, they weren’t anything special except for the balconies that stood out on both. When I walked out on mine, I instinctively looked to my left and saw Sarah doing exactly the same on hers. We burst into giggles when our eyes met from across the gap between our adjacent verandas.
“Great minds think alike,” she commented.
“Yes, they do.”
Our eyes returned forward, and we spied the lively city of crooked streets thronging with the life of humans and vehicles, their tumultuous, honking horns and general noise echoing in our ears.
“I know an amazing little eatery where we can go to a little later,” I informed her without taking my eyes off the twisted vista of urban fragments.
“Whatever you have to suggest, I’m sure will be completely okay with me” came her gleeful reply, her own eyes not moving from the city scene, the flag of a dreamy smile flapping across her lips.
JOSH
Two hours later, the early-evening sun beginning the initial stages of its descent through the translucent sky, we were seated in my favorite place in the whole of Havana, the La Paz Club. Situated in the heart of the city, it beat with the blood of Cuba. The building that housed it was—like so many of my favorite haunts in this area of the world—built by the Spanish at least two centuries ago and had seen everything of Cuba’s recent history, from the sudden industry and commerce of European colonialism, to the hedonistic days of Batista, through to the street fighting of the revolution of Guevara and Castro. You could almost hear the clatter of champagne glasses of the forties followed by the crackling of bullets of the fifties. The decor was as untouched as could be safely achieved during the disruptive years that had grown around it, the walls all crumbled plaster and peeling paint, parts of the dusty wooden wall slats revealed at the edges of doors or in the corners of ceilings where whole wedges of plaster had fallen away. In the evening, electric light was dismissed in favor of more traditional illumination. Only the shimmer of candles was allowed, and gave as best it could an impression of how the building would have been lit over a hundred years ago. You felt yourself drift back in time in La Paz, the tall windows that stretched from the floor to the high ceiling opening out onto an ancient part of the city, only the odd motor vehicle ruining the dream when it screeched past along the alleyway below. Our table sat snugly in a far corner, and we had the luxury of two wide windows looking out, the city cradling us in its arms.
“It reminds me of an old cellar,” Sarah remarked as we sat across flickering candlelight.
“Not in a bad way, I hope,” I commented back.
“Not at all. It fills me with a really nostalgic feeling, as though we were transported back to another time, long ago.”
I instantly tapped the table with my hand, her words having struck exactly the same cord as I felt at being here.
“That’s exactly it,” I said to her. “I knew you’d like it.”
“It’s incredible.”
We ordered food and soon the band assembled at one end of the dining room, all the tables facing toward the small stage set up there. It wasn’t long before they started up—light Spanish guitar, drums, and trumpets—and while they did, our food arrived. The music started slowly, as it always did, gentle melodies to aid digestion, and the evening was allowed to ebb and flow, the dancing shadows of the band being moved about the walls of the room by the shimmering light of the candles.
By the time the food was finished, the Cuban band was in full swing, and the tables at the front by the stage were removed, clearing space for a dance floor. A female singer joined the ensemble, a middle-aged Cuban woman in silver-sequined dress that reached down to her feet. Her rasping voice cut through the trumpets and guitar and kept pace with the drummer, giving a new level to the music, the sepulchral light glinting off her dress. One by one, people joined the dance floor, and soon it was awash with locals swinging their hips about to the band, women in tight-bodiced dresses with swishing, skirts that they swung around as they tramped along in their high heels, giving the old wooden floor hell. Men joined them, lifting the women up in their arms and moving around with them in a circular motion that would one moment go one way and then suddenly the next as a swift turn of the hips would change both dancers’ direction, the two instinctively keeping with the other.
“We should dance,” I suggested to Sarah.
She blushed a little and gave an awkward frown.
“I don’t think I’m q
uite up to their standard,” she replied from within her embarrassed expression.
“Neither am I, but do you think that would stop me?”
She smiled and offered up her hand from across the table. I instantly stood up and took it, leading her up from her chair and out into the throng of dancers. When we emerged within them, receiving our fair share of happy faces as acknowledgment for our entry into the dance, I took ahold of Sarah’s hips and moved her slowly to the music. In turn, she placed her hands upon my shoulders, and I felt her rigid chasteness in the way she was almost afraid to lose herself to the experience. Nevertheless, she soon softened her body within my gentle grasp, and we began to at least mimic some of the dancing that was happening around us. As we did, we received more smiles of encouragement from our fellow dancers, and Sarah shone with glee from this acceptance, feeling a part of all the blind fun—no worries, no recriminations, no regrets, just pure fun.
The band hotted up even further, and many of the women began pressing their bodies to their partners. It appeared that the music was manipulating the sensual heat of the dance floor. Men swung their thighs in between women’s legs, and in turn she would wriggle herself upon him. Some girls began twerking, moving their bodies up and down as they shook their booties. I was worried that Sarah would find this awkward, but she found it funny and interesting. One of the girls offered Sarah to try, and she did her best, her legs still a little weak. Her efforts were funny, but she did manage to shake her bum. It was only the lifting of her body that she struggled with. I couldn’t help watching her butt as it shook and felt a missed beat stick in my heart, before shooting another pang into my groin.
Then something else happened. Something that took us both by surprise. An ornamental gourd covered with a lattice of black beads began being passed around, people pressing its spout to their lips and drinking. God knows where it came from, but it eventually made its way to us in the center of the throng, the band pitching up even further and the feverish dancers swinging and swaying. Sarah was first to be handed the odd bottle, and, as she’d seen many others take long swigs from its neck, she too, fully in the spirit of things, took a long gulp from the bottle. She appeared to recoil from the liquid’s taste, but when the crowd around her cheered, she raised her hands to the ceiling and forgot about the burning taste in her mouth. I took the jug myself and gulped a draft of the spirit down, knowing full well what it was: White Cuban rum. I drank my first alcohol in two months, and I did it with Sarah Dillinger by my side, having handed me the jug herself! The decorative gourd was passed around some more and made its way back. I watched while locals poured it into Sarah’s mouth as she became carried away by it all, and I too drank it all in, the rum, the company, the throbbing music, and Sarah herself as she twisted and turned, the alcohol smoothing out the last of her rigidity and allowing her body to move without restraint.
“I know this really nice little rooftop bar close by,” I cried into her ear as she moved around. “The sun goes down in twenty minutes, and it’s a really nice place to see it from.”
She flung her arms around me and cried into my face, covering me in rum-smelling spittle in the process: “It sounds amazing. We’ll leave after this song.”
“We have to go now. Plus, if you hadn’t noticed, they tend to play right through from one song to the next, leaving no break.”
She chuckled out loud, throwing her head back so hard that she almost tore herself out of my arms.
“I did wonder.” She giggled.
Leaving La Paz, the evening descended into chaos for a minute or so as Sarah took her time to adjust to the booze, the balmy evening air hitting her the moment we walked out of the restaurant. She flew off into the dimly lit street, her arms outstretched from her sides and crying out as she ran along. For a moment, I lost sight of her and began to panic. Walking on a little further, I was relieved to find her in deep conversation with some elderly locals, asking them how their days had been in a drunken slur, the odd hiccup bubbling from her mouth, her eyes glazed. They smiled at the pretty girl and conversed in broken English for a little while, before I managed to take her gently by the arm and lead her on, warning that we didn’t want to miss the sunset. A short while later, we were walking up the winding staircase of Castro’s Sunset, the bar I wanted to show her, Sarah feeling the need to introduce herself to everyone that came down the steps going the other way.
Once I’d guided her out onto the huge rooftop terrace, she gasped and wandered off through the knots of people scattered about as she went on her way to the handrail at the edge, her gaze stuck upon the stratosphere. The sun wasn’t quite down yet, and the sky was a deep purplish blue. This appeared to accentuate the bright fairy lights that were strung around the handrails, making them look like twinkling stars in the low light.
“You take me to such beautiful places,” she said enthusiastically once we’d reached the roof’s edge.
“Beautiful places for beautiful people.”
She smiled mischievously, wobbling as she did and taking ahold of the handrail.
“What would you like to drink?” I asked her.
She shoved her hand over her mouth and gazed at me through misty eyes.
“I don’t think I should drink any more,” she admitted groggily, finishing the sentence off with a hiccup as if to illustrate her point.
“I wasn’t going to get you an alcoholic one. I think soft drinks are what you need. I’ll get you some water.”
“Yes, that would be best. Are you going to have something alcoholic?”
“I’ll get a beer. It’s only mild, not like the rum back in La Paz.”
“Yeah, my dad drinks beer. It makes you pee.”
She giggled at this.
I told her to wait there and went off to get her water and me a bottle of Cacique with a slice of lime in the top. When I rejoined Sarah, I took her to a corner of the roof that looked out over the rolling waves of terracotta roofs. We stood at the railing, looking out, a soft, warm breeze running its fingers through our hair. I had my arm around her waist, a beer in the other, and she typically rested her head upon my shoulder. It was then that we saw something truly beautiful. It wasn't the city—for certainly nothing man-made could reach this height of divinity—and it wasn’t even the sunset or anything that happened on the rooftop.
Up in the sky, as the last lights of the sun reflected in purple twilight, the air filled with innumerable chirping bullfinches all appearing to meet up together at this exact time, like the very people of the city, an avian social meeting in the sky. We watched the total form of scurrying birds pulsate in the air as they swam over the city, creating constantly changing, amorphous patterns. I saw split-second faces in their congregation, of whom I couldn’t tell, but faces all the same, momentary portraits among the incredible moving motifs of the birds’ total mass.
“Only God truly knows the meaning of the word beautiful,” Sarah remarked softly from my shoulder.
“He sure does,” I agreed, my eyes unable to tear themselves away from the dancing birds.
“It’s like they’re just there for us,” she continued. “That they decided to get together and give us a special performance.”
“I wouldn’t kid yourself,” I replied, taking a swig of my beer in between. “They come out this time every night. It was one of the reasons I wanted to take you here.”
“Well, once again you chose right.”
“I aim to please,” I stated, kissing her on the crown of her head as I did.
JOSH
We remained on the rooftop of Castro’s Sunset for some time, not saying a word, her head upon my shoulder, my arm around her waist, the flock of birds masquerading before us, until the light disappeared completely and the birds went away with it, back to their nests, their evening’s socializing now done. When we left the bar, Sarah was still pretty drunk, although her hiccups had ceased, probably as a result of the several glasses of water I’d gotten inside of her. It had been an early day, and
by the time we left, it was after ten, so I assumed she was very tired. I hailed a cab, and we jumped in. However, if I thought she was tired before, she suddenly burst into life the instant we were on the backseat of the traditional Cuban taxi. No sooner had I informed the cabbie of our hotel address than she’d grabbed ahold of my neck and pulled me into her. I had to untangle myself from her for a moment so that I could close the door. But the moment it slammed shut, she pulled me to her again with the ferocity of someone twice her size.
Wriggling around on the backseat, our mouths became locked in a furious fight, her tongue overpowering my own and forcing it almost all the way to the back of my throat. As her own hands gripped my face, I moved one hand to her knee while the other took her waist. Her legs immediately swung open and invited me further up, and I could feel the sultry heat flowing out of her. She was sweating and she made me sweat too, the two of us melting into one another, the salty drips of perspiration hitting my lips and filling my mouth with her taste.
However—and some will call me a coward—I felt that I couldn’t pass my hand any further along her thigh. Something didn’t feel right about it, something odd. I’d never felt this before. On any other drunken escapade, I would be diving all the way in, my hand already at its goal. But with Sarah, something failed in me in that moment and made me gently recoil from her. Not in any disgusted way—she was still everything to my tastes. It was just that it all felt wrong. Yes, wrong. That’s the only word for it. She took my hand roughly at one point and attempted to move it up, but I stayed firm, and before she had time to protest, we arrived back at the hotel.
She took my hand. Yes, she took mine. She led me through the lobby, up the wide marble stairs, down the long red-carpeted corridor, and to her room. She rapidly opened the door, and not one second after it had swung open, she had me by the hand again and was dragging me into the room. In the center of the floor she stopped, turned around, and grabbed ahold of me, kissing me viciously once again. As she did, she hitched her skirt up, and I realized that she was sliding her panties down her legs. I should have felt wondrous, in the element of my lustful glory, but instead I was horrified. Yes, horrified. I had her at my mercy and I felt fucking horrified!
