Cuba and the Night

by Pico Iyer

  I did feel somewhat uneasy, intruding on his private self like that, but I’d already told myself that it would make me more sensitive to his interests, and more apt to see beneath the tough guy who kept banging on about his adventures. At breakfast, in fact, when he came up to my table by the beach, I found I was looking at him a little differently.

  “Taking pictures of suffering and misery?” I said, and he looked a little taken aback.

  “No way. Not on Cayo Largo.” He looked at me strangely. “This is Bacardi country. Anyway, I’m going for a run, and then I’ll see you in the lobby at, like, eleven o’clock. They said there’s going to be a bus to the airport at eleven-fifteen.”

  There was, as it transpired, but it wasn’t much of an airport, and there was certainly no plane.

  “What’s the story, compañero?” he asked one of the staff, who was sitting under a fern.

  “No problem, señor. Please wait. Be patient. A plane will come.”

  So there we were, in this odd thatched hut, on an island full of turtles, engaged in the two most frequent activities in Cuba: sitting and waiting. I hadn’t brought my backgammon set with me—hadn’t brought anything other than the Kerouac and a Tom Robbins, though Richard had everything, for his work—and there wasn’t much to do, what with the salsa music blasting out of the bar, but talk.

  I don’t recall every one of the details, but he gave me the kind of accounts that would have had the boys simply spellbound: actually, I had half a mind to invite him to the school sometime. He’d been to Afghanistan once, and had traveled sixty days—forty of them with diarrhea—to meet some guerrilla chieftain, whom no one had seen for four years. He’d spent a week with Lord Moynihan—the now famous degenerate peer, from Eton I think, who used to run brothels in the Philippines, and married a new prostitute every year. He’d lived for a spell in Paraguay, with a local woman “to clean his house” and a collection of photographs of the president with his teenage girlfriends. And he was full of wisdom—if you can call it that—about how the best way to learn about a country was to cross-question the “Guest Relations” girls at all the best hotels, who apparently take their relations with guests very seriously indeed.

  All very impressive at one level, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling that there was something sad about it too. Which feeling I articulated.

  “Sure, it isn’t the “Father Knows Best” dream. But someone’s got to do it. Someone’s got to go out there, and give up the easy chair and the two cars in the garage, and actually bring back reports from the world. Otherwise, there’d be no artists, no newspapers, no explorers. Some people are made to stay at home; some are made to wander.”

  “And you’re one of the ones who are made to wander?”

  “Yeah, I think so. And now I’m on this course, it’s harder to get out than to just keep going.”

  “But don’t you think there’s something dangerous in all this? It seems to me that all this moving is partly a way of not asking any questions of yourself. And even the photography is a way of giving answers—concrete images—to questions no one’s asked.”

  “Sure, you could look at it like that. But the way I see it, you’ve got to keep moving. You’ve got to keep your eyes open and fresh. You can’t afford to fall into a routine. It’s like this place. The first time, the second time you’re here, it’s just terrific: adventures every day. Come here for a week or two, and there’s never a dull moment. But just imagine living here. It’d be a nightmare.”

  “But yours is hardly the kind of life on which to base a future. Always moving; always on the surface of things.”

  “I’m not thinking of the future: my job involves catching the moment. Right now, the here and now, the truth of this instant.”

  “And that’s what you tell your girlfriends too?”

  “Look, Hugo. I’m not saying this is the best life. And I’m not against commitment. But how many different commitments can you make if you’re going to give yourself fully to anything? And don’t try coming off all high-and-mighty with me. Girls like it too. Maybe that’s something they don’t teach you in those schools of yours, but they get a kick out of romancing just like we do. It doesn’t always have to be to have and to hold. And if they’re asking for it, I’m not going to deny it to them.”

  I said nothing.

  “And don’t just say it’s me. Go out East sometimes, and you’ll find half your schoolmates screwing their way across the Orient. Swire’s, Jardine’s, W. I. Carr—all those Hong Kong firms are made for British schoolboys who need to prove their virility to the world. The Empire never died; it just got privatized.”

  There was silence.

  “And they don’t even get pictures out of it.”

  At that point—none too soon, on every count—the plane at last arrived, and we crowded into it and took a couple of seats in the back and ordered two Bucaneros. It wasn’t exactly the Concorde: the toilet was a hole in the floor, with black knobs on the door like in all those old Tintin books set in Central Europe. One tiny hole in the wall said, “For Clothes,” another said, “For Choes.” It must have been the only door in the world where the Open and Closed signs were visible only from inside.

  Richard, however, was in no mood for diversion. As soon as I returned from the loo, he started up again, and I felt again as if I was merely an audience to the conversation he was holding with himself.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know where one thing ends and the other begins. Like with Lourdes. My heart tells me one thing, my conscience another. Look at it one way, and it’s selfish of me to focus on her, when there are ten million others suffering on this island, whose only crime is being less attractive to me. Look at it another way, and it’s selfish of me to concentrate on their stories, when Lourdes is crying on my shoulder. You can’t win.”

  “Or lose, either.” And then I thought I was being too hard. “But yes, I do see what you mean. It’s the same with the teaching, really. It’s not the most exciting job in the world, but one does feel as if one’s having some good influence, perhaps. Or as if one can do a little bit to help them in later life.”

  “Sure. If you want to spend your whole life in a school.”

  “Quite so.” Though, I’ll confess, it seemed to me that he’d been doing the same thing.

  “I’m sorry, Hugo. I’m boring you.”

  “No, not at all. It’s fascinating.”

  “ ‘Fascinating’!” he said, and I felt the sting.

  When we arrived at the airport, he shouted out for a taxi—he was always in a terrible hurry, so it seemed—and we drove back into Havana.

  “Are you in the Nacional again?”

  “No, the St. John’s.”

  “Rather roughing it, isn’t it—by your standards?”

  “Yeah. But it works better this way. More privacy. More mobility. Also, I can engage in a little redistribution of income. Charge the magazine for the per diem, and then give all the extra money to the Cubans. Kind of like Communism in reverse: take from the system, give to the people.” Another quixotic touch, I thought.

  “So anyway, you want to get a beer before we call it a day?”

  “Wouldn’t say no.”

  “Maybe the Capri again?”

  “Certainly.”

  Behind us, I heard a couple of men hissing for our attention.

  “Hey, Canada?”

  “No.”

  “Russos?”

  “No.”

  “Ingtés?”

  He must have decided that it was too late for tricks; he pulled out a card that said “Periodista.”

  “My friend, hello!” The larger of the two boys came up and extended a hand. “How are jou?”

  “Great. Just great.”

  “Jou like music? Jou come with me and John. We go to Malecón. We drink some rum, we find some girls, we go dancing with his sister.”

  “Great. I’d do anything to meet with any member of his extended family. It’s what I came here for
. To meet John’s great-aunt, his great-aunt’s cousin, his son-in-law. To get down with his neighbor.” The boys looked confused, and then started smiling: I suppose from their point of view it was better to be in on the joke than outside it. “O-ka. We go now, buy some ron, find some chicas. Jou come to Cuba, jou got to meet chicas.”

  “Met plenty already, my friend. It’s your grandmother’s cousin I’m interested in.” And then—rather effectively, I thought—he turned his back on them and walked on.

  “You see that?” he said, as we went into the Capri. “Now imagine they were girls. Wouldn’t be easy to say no to them, right? And pretty soon, you’re spinning like a top again. I mean, they’re nice girls, but they want to get something out of you. And they don’t know a thing about you, don’t know you from Adam. So what’s the basis of their love? They give you all these forget-me-nots, but you’re no different from the next Hugo who comes along. The next guy with a credit card. I don’t blame them; it’s a matter of survival. But it makes you think love is just war conducted by other means.”

  “Funny, though, that they took us for Russians.”

  “Every foreigner’s a Russian here. Unless he’s an American.”

  “Though, actually, I was rather thinking that you don’t seem very American at all.”

  “Maybe because I’ve spent most of my life abroad. And half the time, in any case, I’m trying to pass myself off as a Canadian or a Brit.”

  “But even the way you talk isn’t entirely American.”

  “Comes from being on the move, I guess. Having an English wife. Spending time in Hong Kong and Singapore. Working for the Sunday Times, perhaps. And with Diane—when we were together—I was locked into that whole English expat scene. The memsahib looking after the house and the amah looking after the blond kids, while Daddy looks after the business interests, most of them concerned with his mistress in Manila and the Chinese secretary he needs to take along to interpret for him.”

  “It sounds to me sometimes as if you’ve almost seen too much of the world.”

  “And it sounds to me, Hugo, like you’ve seen too little.”

  And then I was back in the city of whispers, of rumors and muffled kisses, of hints and solicitations. “Eh, Richard, qué tal?” said Lázara, coming up to me suddenly on the street and kissing me on both cheeks, her fourteen-year-old sorcerer’s eyes flashing. “Where have you been?” “Oh, everywhere.” “Dime. I knew you were here. My mother says she saw you in the street last week. With a girl in blue, she said, a young girl, like a novia.” “Must have been José,” I said, and thought of her mother in the empty room, with its refrigerator and blinking TV, overlooked by Carlo Marx. At the window all day, watching and waiting. “No, she says it was you. She remembers your bag. From America, right?”

  Later, outside the Hotel Sevilla, a bus passed, and I was sure I saw her, sitting talking to a boy with frizzy dark hair. “Lourdes,” I shouted, and then she turned, and for an instant I was sure I saw her smile, but it was too difficult to catch, and the bus was turning, and it was like a glimpse into another life, a secret self, all the sides of her I hadn’t seen. She didn’t work, she had no place to go, why was she riding the buses? And looking so different, with her hair up, and her makeup different, like an actress taking the part of Lourdes? Who was that guy I saw you with? That was no guy; that was my life.

  I was back in the spell again: I had to see her. I headed toward Concordia, and as I got closer to her house, I saw her in the street, arm in arm with the bearded guy we’d met, laughing as they walked, and she whispering something to him.

  “Lourdes,” I said, going up to her and grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the sea. “We’ve got to talk. I’m going crazy.”

  “You’re hurting me, Richard.”

  “And you me. Who is this guy? What’s going on here?”

  “No one. I want to be with you.”

  “As long as I take you to dollar stores and nightclubs.”

  “No, Richard. That’s not it.”

  “As long as I tell you stories of America and send you postcards of the world.”

  “No, Richard. It’s you.”

  “So what do you want?”

  “I want to see your pictures.”

  Of all the things in the world, that was the one I hadn’t expected.

  “You’re saying that. You want to get on the right side of me.”

  “Okay! It’s better I don’t want?”

  “Why do you want to see them?”

  “I showed you the picture of my papá: I told you my life. You said you understand. Why can I not understand your life, your hopes?”

  “You really mean it?”

  “Of course I mean it.”

  “Okay. I have some pictures in my room. Not many: only the ones I always carry round with me. Like your crucifix, you know? To keep me from all evil, and remind me what I believe in.”

  “Any, Richard. I know nothing about your life. Your house, your mother and father, your job, your dreams. All I see is your camera.”

  “So we go back to my room?”

  “No. That is no good. We cannot do it in the street. You come to my house tonight, we go to my sister’s room.”

  “In the dark, right?”

  “Why not? Always in the dark.”

  It must have been nine o’clock when we met, and her mother was already at the table, and Cari had been sent out to a nightclub, and it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. But as soon as she saw me, she put a finger to her lips. “Don’t talk, Richard,” she said. “Everyone here is a spy of love.”

  “Entonces Español?”

  “No. They will know you are no cubano. Please, Richard, for me: my sister’s room is next to the neighbor’s home. They will hear everything.”

  So we made all the preparations in silence, brought in a lamp from her room, and collected all the lights we could, and still it was like looking at prints in a darkroom almost: no way you could see the light and shade, and the colors lost their brightness. But it was either that or nothing, I figured, and even a little light was better than none at all. I was glad to give her this; it felt like I was handing her a candle and she was stepping across another threshold inside me, like the first time someone comes to your apartment, and starts rearranging your furniture. Or the first time she says your name aloud, while naked.

  I began with Managua: pathos was there for the taking in those days, a civil war in a country full of poets that had been wiped out by an earthquake, and all the bright hopefulness and sadness of the rosy-cheeked brigadistas from Amsterdam and Boulder, and the weeping mothers, and the little girls in their Sunday dresses, and the fresh-faced junior-high-school boys saying goodbye to their sweethearts as they went off to die. Managua was a sermon waiting to be delivered. This is what Washington’s money does. This is what Moscow’s ideas achieve. Fools on the left and rogues on the right; and the people, unsuspecting, always in the middle.

  And this is what happens to people without defenses: in front of a church, the streets run red with blood. Kids practice curveballs next to ditches piled high with corpses.

  I showed her the other pictures I’d brought for her, most of them of kids: the eleven-year-olds on the streets of Angeles, the smiling boys, with young monks’ faces, who join the Karen fighters in the Shan States, the orphan centers along the Cambodian border. I showed her some pretty stuff too—laughing dancers in Ubud, and lantern festivals in Hiroshima, and the strange stone faces you find if you ride horses through the valleys of Colombia. And I finished with the picture of her and the girls on the balcony.

  I couldn’t tell what she made of it, but when she was through, she looked at me, again without words, and motioned me to go through the pages again, and then, when we were done, she said, simply, “Thank you, Richard.”

  Then we undressed quickly, in silence, and when I wanted to say, “Mi amor” or “I want you,” she put a finger to my mouth, or kissed me into silence.


  And so, in the half-light, I took her in silence. I ran my hand along her body, and her eyelids fluttered, but she never murmured. And I pulled her to the bed, and lay on her back, kissing her up and down, on the pulse of her neck, on the underside of her ear, under her damp, tousled hair. And we went through the whole strange ceremony without words, like a married couple—no involuntary gasps, no statements of love, no shivers or gasps or moans. No promises, too, and no lies.

  “If we were in Varadero,” she whispered, afterward, and I said, “If we were in Varadero, what? You could be yourself? You could make up a part to please me? You could say all the things you think I want to hear?”

  “Why so difficult, Richard? You know my situation.”

  “I know you’re scared. But what’s more important, your fear or your love?”

  “This is Havana: how can I tell them apart?”

  I stroked her hair, then, in silence, and she rested her head on my shoulder, and we both thought back, I knew, to the pictures we had seen. And every time, I thought, it was the same choice between talking and love: either we could talk freely in English, along the Malecón, or in Maxim’s, or in the Central Hospital, or we could make love, and leave our speaking selves outside. Either we shared our minds, or we shared our bodies.

  Afterward, there was the silent promise, and the sudden departure, and the walk through the darkened streets, and the long night, in our beds, alone.

  Those were the days of midsummer heat: scorching afternoons and sultry nights. Clothes were getting looser, straps were falling off shoulders, shorts were getting shorter. Sometimes there were kisses when we met, but when I kissed her sometimes, I sensed her looking over her shoulder, or speaking under her breath. “Come,” she said one day, “it is safer in the hospital.” When we got there, they checked my camera bag at the entrance, and the woman got out my Olympus and looked at Lourdes through the lens. “Qué bonito,” she said, and handed it back to me with a smile. “Here it is always safe,” Lourdes said to me quietly, “no problem,” and sometimes I wondered whether she was turned on by all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, and sometimes I wondered whether she wanted to turn me on with it. Or maybe it was just that whispering was a habit here, the way bowing might be in Japan.