Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

The Cadillac pulled up at Revolution Square. We watched the cars pass by from the concrete, everyone in Cuba drives at breakneck speed and my hands were wet from gripping the seat. Our driver flew away and we were left alone. It seemed like a good place to start, but now that were here the buildings loomed over us and the sun glared angrily from the road and the gleaming traffic lights.

It was two thirty in the afternoon, apart from a bus load of tourists the Square was deserted. We stood on the edge looking up at the statue, the sun even glaring off the grey stone.

‘Who was he?’ I asked pointing at the statue at the foot of the monument. Lisa as took a big gulp from her water bottle, her hair was pulled up into a messy bun and I couldn’t help looking at her neck and noticing how slender it was.

‘Their national hero,’ she shrugged, ‘Jose Marti.’ She knew as little as I did, that was reassuring for once, the Taxi driver had told us the same. The flag flapped in the hardly existent breeze as I strained to see the top of the pillar. From the other side of the street the face of Che Guvara stared down at me.

So here we were, in the Cuban capital, without a clue and without a plan. Lisa smiled at me, it was a crooked smile and the sun cast a wide shadow across half her face. I wasn’t sure what it meant, it was a little mocking, like she knew how overwhelmed I was.

I looked out over the city, or that part of the city I could see, and my head span with the ridiculousness of our situation. ‘Where now?’ I asked, and I really meant it, I had always relied on Lisa for answers before.

‘Lets go up there,’ she pointed at the monument. ‘Lets do the tourist thing.’

I looked up at the steps and wiped the sweat from my face, a tourist pushed past me brandishing a camera like a weapon and an old man held out cigars for sale which were probably stuffed with banana leaves. He ambled over to us on a crutch and Lisa pushed me out of the way.

She walked across the concrete and I dragged my heels behind her. She had chosen the wrong moment to display her enthusiasm, I was feeling like curling up in a cold room and sleeping for a very long time.

Lisa bounded up the stairs with the other tourists, a woman with glazed eyes charged us two pesos each for entry. Everything in this Cuba had a price. I held onto the stone for support as the sun dared me to keep climbing. I was getting pretty sick of the sun, it was there laughing at me, all the time, all throughout this country. We had gone to the other side of the island and I still couldn’t loose it.

It was impressive though, the solid stone structure reaching high into the sky, and by the time we had climbed all the stairs I could see a lot more of the city. Lisa leaned against the stone and looked out over the huge buildings and cars beeping below. Beyond the square we could see the presidential home from one direction and in the other there was a splash of colour from the centre of Havana.

‘A whole city,’ Lisa said, ‘we have a whole city, where do we begin?’

I felt my heart drop as I glanced at her, she was still smiling only now it was a wide grin. To her this was a challenge, another puzzle to figure out. I imagined that in her mind Havana looked like a police report, she had to sift out the interesting details from the mass of words. In this case the paper was a landscape.

‘I had hoped you knew where to start,’ I said, trying to bite back the weariness in my voice.

She laughed and pulled out her tourist map. I was starting to get angry as I felt my already red skin flare up once more with the heat constantly on it, I knew this meant a lot to Lisa, so why was she acting like it was a game? The adrenaline seemed to have been drained from my body and passed directly into hers.

‘We should go to the old colonial part of the city,’ she said, studying the map. ‘It should be busy at this time of day.’

‘And once we’re there what should we do?’ I sounded bitter, but I couldn’t help it.

‘Ask around,’ she said, ‘find out about recent murders, we need to get a local newspaper, maybe find a police station.’

‘Ask around,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Do you realise how many people there are down there?’

‘We’ll find something eventually,’ She said.

‘Eventually,’ I sighed.

‘You’ve barely said a word all day,’ Lisa shot at me, she turned and removed her sunglasses. I had no idea how she could be so positive when she looked as tired as I felt. ‘Lawrence, I told you back in the resort that you could leave, but you chose to come with me, are you going to help?’

I couldn’t argue with that, I nodded.

‘Are you going to stop acting like a grumpy teenager?’

I nodded again, she seemed satisfied with my answer, but I was seething inside now. My shoes were filling up with sweat as I looked into the tangle of blues and yellows in the distance, homes. Did any of those people know more than we did?

As we left the scorching concrete and climbed into the grey Mustang I had a painful cramp seize my leg, I remembered my promise and bit my lip instead of complaining. Revolution Square faded a little, but that great grey column still hung over everything as I looked out of the rear window.

The driver took one look at us and figured us for tourists. It was an easy assumption to make, with me being so pale and sunburnt. ‘You are staying tonight somewhere?’ He asked in English. ‘Is not safe at night.’

‘We have a hotel,’ Lisa lied. I was starting to get worried about that myself, the last time we hadn’t listened to someone telling us the same thing, we had been attacked by teenagers.

I looked imploringly at Lisa and she shrugged. My anger with her was increasing at every gesture she made and every word she spoke with bouncy lightness. Still, I couldn’t stop watching her neck or the curve of her shoulder, I was thinking about our kiss.

Once again I got out of the taxi praising the fact that I was on solid ground again, shaking slightly and my cramp still a dull twinge. The streets here were packed, all around us the smells of hot food mingled with the warm still air, the people were greedily buying things from huge steaming pots while dark shop windows advertised gleaming white trainers.

Parents were pulling their children along the narrow pedestrian streets, talking loudly, a tour group stopped so the guide could tell them about these markets. People stood wearily next to stalls of wooden jewellery and cheap souvenirs all baring the black outline of Che Guvara.

We had to push through the crowd, not certain of where we were going or what it was leading to, just following the curves of the road. Buildings painted garish colours seemed to dip and lean into the cobbled streets. Wherever we walked the sellers called out to us to with their gaudy trinkets, Lisa was good at silently dismissing them, I always felt embarrassed.

The cramped colonial streets opened out into a plaza with a fountain in the middle, bars and restaurants circled the fountain, all painted bright yellows and purples, the air was thick with cigar smoke and the sound of glasses clinking. Wherever you went you couldn’t escape the beggars though, many of them were just holding out their hands, the elderly toothless and expectant. There were children with tears in their eyes as they hobbled on crooked legs.

‘We should really talk to some of these locals,’ Lisa said thoughtfully as she dismissed an ancient man made a slow progress towards us. ‘They’d tell you anything for a few pesos,’ she sniffed.

‘Except they don’t know anything,’ I said, ‘and we don’t have enough money to ask everyone.’ Even this plaza was crawling with pan-handlers, I didn’t want to think about the staggering amount this city held.

‘I’m trying to find a starting point,’ Lisa said. I wish I hadn’t worn sandals, even the exposed skin of my feet was burning.

‘It’s a dead end,’ I said rubbing my eyes.

‘Then where do we start?’ Lisa asked, the irritation creeping into her voice.

I looked towards the bar, ‘I’ll start with a drink.’

She laughed hollowly, ‘okay, I suppose you think the bar man might have some answers?’

‘I’m just hot and thirsty,’ I said, ‘and I’m sick of wandering aimlessly.’

Two elderly women walked past right through the space separating me and Lisa. Though she was supported by a crutch, one held the other woman’s arm also, and there were tear tracks down her face.

Lisa ignored them, ‘you think that’s what we’re doing?’ She asked, she almost sounded hurt, and for the first time that day she sounded tired.

I had to melt at that, ‘no,’ I said, ‘it’s just that neither of us has a clue where to start.’

She was silent at that, and I stared back at her as blank as her own gaze. I thought I had finally cut to something deep, but she turned away from me and started walking in the opposite direction. She was heading for a side road winding off the plaza, I struggled to keep up as she broke into a power walk.

I muttered apologies as I pushed through the same tourist group discussing the significance of the sparkling fountain. I grabbed Lisa by the arm as she continued to storm down a twisting alley. It was darker here than the other bright streets, and it was practically deserted. I saw just ahead of Lisa the two older women making a slow progress.

‘Lisa, what?’ I asked angrily and she made a shushing sound and waved her arm warningly.

‘Those women,’ she whispered, ‘you didn’t hear?’

‘I can’t speak Spanish,’ I reminded her and once again she shushed me. She pulled my arm roughly into a doorway as one of the women looked behind her, she adjusted her shawl and carried on her rapid conversation.

‘I know,’ Lisa hissed, ‘but one word stuck out, Alex.’

I rolled my eyes, ‘it doesn’t mean anything,’ I said, ‘it’s a name that a million people have.’

‘She said something else,’ Lisa smiled manically, ‘ she said, forty five.’