Island that Dared Read Free Page A

hastily took off for the great outdoors Zea went into a sulk because she hadn’t been invited to accompany them and Clodagh complained of (psychosomatic?) dehydration. This prompted me to explore and discover a small bar in a far corner where two Customs officers and four Immigrations officers were grumbling about our delayed flight which had required them to do overtime. Havana airport’s average daily intake of 5,000 passengers normally arrives by daylight.
    Leaving Rachel to counter Zea’s sulk I took my first steps into Cuba with Rose by my side. An airport carpark – even one surrounded by royalpalms and aromatic shrubs – does not provide an enthralling first impression but we agreed that the smells were excitingly unfamiliar and the sky magical, its stars lustrous on black velvet. The warm stirring of the air was a mere zephyr and only a rooster duet broke the silence. Rose deduced, ‘Here they must have loads of free-range eggs.’
    Back in the hallway we found the juniors restored to cheerfulness by some maternal alchemy and now several other seats were occupied. Two angry elderly women and a young man (bound for Caracas, said his luggage labels) were arguing loudly, the traveller seeming both cowed and defensive. A young Dutch couple had been self-driving around the island and injudiciously exposing themselves to the sun; tenderly they applied Savlon to each other’s blistered backs. Closer to us, a middle-aged corpulent mulatto was showing an amused interest in the Trio’s acrobatics – the mere sight of all that open space seemed to have recharged their batteries. When we got into conversation I learned that Senor Malagon was awaiting a delegation of Canadian agronomists. In a disarming way he boasted about Cuba’s efficient management of Wilma which for six days, towards the end of October, had flooded eleven of the island’s fourteen provinces. In preparation, 600,000 had been evacuated with their livestock and no lives were lost.
    At 5.30 we approached the taxi rank. All night three vehicles had been waiting (the sort of veteran cars that send some men into inexplicable ecstasies) yet there was no competition, no haggling. The first in line was entitled to us and CP25 was the standard night fare to Central Havana (to be known henceforth as Centro). Rachel sat in front, practising her Spanish, while the Trio and I wriggled uncomfortably on the back seat’s broken springs. During that half-hour ride all was predictable: pot-holed roads, ramshackle factories, Soviet-style blocks of prefab flats hastily erected in the 1960s.
    Shoals of cyclists pedalling to work without lights scandalised the Trio. ‘They’ll be dead!’ said Zea. ‘The police will get them!’ said Clodagh. ‘No,’ said Rose, rapidly adjusting to local realities. ‘It’s just they’ve no money for lamps.’
    Centro’s bumpy narrow streets, running between tall, dilapidated nineteenth-century residences, are off the main tourist track; twice we had to stop at junctions to seek guidance. The dawn greyness was turning faintly pink when we found 403 San Rafael – our driver looking triumphant, as though he had brought off some orienteering coup. We were piling rucksacks on the pavement when Zea exclaimed, ‘Look! Our taxihas a swan, with big wings!’ The driver chuckled and tipped her under the chin. ‘Yes, my taxi very old Chevrolet, that very famous swan.’
    A high, narrow door swung open, an outer gate was unlocked and it seemed we had arrived among old friends. Candida and Pedro, still in their nightwear, warmly embraced us while volubly registering relief at our safe arrival. The street door led directly into the parlour end of a narrow, sparsely furnished room separated from the kitchen-cum-dining-room by a long, low cupboard supporting bushy house-plants. The front bedroom opened off the parlour; two other windowless rooms opened off a corridor beyond the kitchen. To reach the small communal bathroom one crossed a