Island that Dared Read Free Page B

square hallway at the foot of steep stairs; here more greenery surrounded an antique wrought-iron garden table with chairs to match, all painted white. As our rooms lacked writing space, this was to become my study.
    While Rachel was arguing with her daughters about who was to sleep where, Candida poured hot milk from a giant thermos, sliced bread (with apologies for its being yesterday’s loaf) and offered mango jam – the Trio’s favourite. Then the younger generations tottered off to bed but after three cups of potent coffee I had revived enough to take advantage of Havana’s brief morning coolness. An Irish proverb recommends ‘the old dog (or bitch) for the hard road’.
    Outside No. 403 the olfactory tapestry was complex: defective drains, sub-tropical vegetation, dog shit, cigar smoke, inferior petrol, seaweed, ripe garbage in overflowing skips. Each street corner had its skip to which householders on their way to work contributed bulging plastic bags and empty bottles. Cats crouched on the skip rims, cleverly reaching down to extract fish spines and other delicacies. Two dead rats in gutters proved that some cats had been busy overnight. Dogs swarmed, having been set free at dawn to do what we all do once a day, so one had to watch one’s step on the broken pavements. A jolly young woman was selling tiny cups of strong sweet coffee from her living-room window; later, she would do a brisk trade in takeaway homemade pizzas which became popular with the Trio. Further down the street, an older woman was selling ham rolls and over-sweet buns from a plank laid on two chairs in her doorway. She and a neighbour were talking money, the neighbour a grey-haired, ebony-skinned housewife hunkered beside her doorstep, cleaning piles of rice on sheets of Granma (Cuba’s only national daily, also the Communist Party newspaper).
    In the late nineteenth century a sugar-rich bourgeoisie strove to replicate the imposing seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mansions of OldHavana and their residences spread fast beyond the city walls. (These were demolished in 1963 to make way for new housing; only a fragment survives , near the railway station.) San Rafael is one of Centro’s almost carfree grid of long, straight streets, every downward slope leading to the Malecón; from their intersections the Straits of Florida beckon – usually a blue sparkle, occasionally a grey-green turbulence. Most buildings are three- or four-storey (a few rise to five or six) and their external dilapidation is extreme. Post-Revolution, this district was taken over by working-class families and what might tentatively be described as the petite bourgeoisie. Since then no restoration has been done; Havana was allowed to decay when Fidel took over, his mind set on improving living conditions for the rest of Cuba, hitherto neglected. Much social history is revealed by Centro’s wealth of neo-baroque flourishes around wide-arched entrances or cracked stained-glass balcony windows, and by the strong iron bars protecting both doors and street level unglazed windows; Havana didn’t enjoy its recent low crime rate during the centuries when it hogged most of the national wealth. Vivid expanses of Moorish tiles decorate a few façades and, from corners beneath high eaves, ambiguous carved figures lean out: they might represent Christian saints, classical heroes, Spanish conquistadors, Congolese deities or deceased grandparents. Along certain streets most balconies display strangely dressed dolls atop high stools, or little flags mysteriously patterned, or huge sooty kettles filled with coloured sticks – all components of Santería rituals. And long laundry lines of fluttering garments relieve the background drabness; Cubans are obsessive about personal cleanliness and partial to strong, bold colours.
    On every street stereotypes appeared with almost ridiculous frequency. Grandads were relishing the day’s first cigar, settled in cane rocking-chairs behind