Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ordertoseemnotobsessedwithhowthegirlssawthem,alevelofself-consciousnessIfound
I could no longer really reenter, as if it had been a drunken state. Everybody was stealing
looks at one another,envying ordisdaining orgazing, like me. We were all inside a matrix of
lust and erotic sadness, all turning into versions of one another, or seeing our past selves.
My wife's people come from a small town with a strange name, a rare Spanish word that
almost doesn't look Spanish when you see it. When they lived there, the place was not con-
sideredallthatfarfromthings,fromthecities, butthedecayofinfrastructure, thecollapse of
the trains, has left it stranded. There's simply no reason to have heard of it.
ThefirsttimeIwent,beforeweweremarried,theymadeabigthingofme.Yankeesalmost
neverappearinthistown,unlesstheyarelost.Iwalkedintoastuccoed,leafyhouseonaquiet
street, a house full of loud talking, hands grabbing my arms. Everyone kissed and cried over
my wife, whom they hadn't seen since she was a teenager. They nicknamed me “Wao,” be-
causeeverythingtheywouldtellme,Iwouldsay,“Wow.”Itseemedtheappropriateresponse.
Wei-Wei, the
abuelita
, had come with us, or rather we had gone with her—it ended up being
probably the last time she would ever go back—and she sent money ahead of our visit, for
them to buy food with. She's always sending money, but this time she sent more, and they
laidinporkandallthespicestheyneeded.Therewasalongtable.Allofthemenwerenamed
some version of Rafael, Rafaelito, Rafaelín. The matriarch, a shy and tiny woman named
Haydee (
eye-day
), presided with birdlike hands, making little apologies. You didn't even
have to chew the pork; you could just sort of let it melt. They made
chicharrones de viento
,
“wind-crackers,” the Cubans' witty name for a kind of poverty-inspired something, frisked
up out of salt and flour and a little lard. There was a bottle of Havana Club on the table—the
first time I ever saw or tasted it. Knowing only a little classroom Spanish, I struggled to fol-
low their phrases, the swift and expressive but mud-mouthed Spanish spoken on the island.
After dinner, I made the mistake of saying something about a cigar. It wasn't as if I asked
for one. I probably said something like, “I hear that your country is famous for its cigars.”
But they took this as an overpolite way of asking for one, so the hunt began. The shops were
closed, but the Rafaels started working on the car. You've heard, no doubt, how in Cuba they
stilldriveworkingAmericancarsfromthe1950s,butthiswassomethingelse,aFrankenstein
madefromthepartsofaboutfourdifferentcarsfromthe'50sandoneRussiancarapparently
from the '70s. They got this creature going, and we started moving through the streets. No
headlights—oneofthemheldanelectric lanternoutthewindow.Itwaswiredtothecigarette
lighter.Weneededitbadly.Withinamileofleavingthetown,wewereintheface-closedark-
ness of unlighted rural roads. They took me to a kind of kiosk, an open bar in the middle of
a field. I don't know what it was, really. A kind of club. All of the men, about seven of them,
wereworkersinthetobaccofields.Theywouldsmuggleoutacigarortwoeachweek,maybe
