Jose Latour - Havana Best Friends

‘What about her? Would she agree to split it?’

‘I don’t know. That woman is…’ he paused, searching for the right word.

‘Unpredictable?’ she prompted.

‘No. Not at all. But I can’t predict how she would react to our proposition. We don’t know her views on a million things. She’s…weird, difficult to pigeonhole. Special needs teacher. What kind of a fucking profession is that? Makes me suspect she’s one of those principled, nose-in-the-air spinsters. Know what I mean? Living with her brother, no husband, no kids.’

‘Maybe she married and divorced.’

‘Why didn’t you ask her?’

‘Didn’t want to give the impression I was prying.’

‘Maybe you did right.’

Marina lowered her eyes to the grass and studied the straps of her sandals. ‘He said they’ve lived there all their lives. How old would you say she is?’

‘Late thirties?’ Sean surmised.

‘Yeah, something like that, certainly not older than forty. And the freak?’

‘I’d say thirty-five, thirty-six. He was fascinated by your thighs this morning.’

‘I noticed. Horny little rat can’t keep his hands off women. You saw how he eyed the black waitress? She probably pukes after having sex with him.’

‘You never know. Maybe he’s seven feet tall in bed.’

The only indication of her surprise was a raised eyebrow. The kind of comment you don’t expect from a man. So true, though: You never know. She remembered a shy, unassuming, scrawny and slightly cross-eyed guy who had led her to the heights of pleasure. Only one of the few hunks she had bedded had taken her there, and he was blind. She wondered whether behind the amazing remark lurked a phenomenal lover or a bit of a philosopher.

‘Doesn’t look it to me,’ she said. ‘What will we do with him?’

‘Do with him?’

‘You said we should expect trouble from him.’

‘Sure. But is there something we can do?’

Marina considered it. ‘Forget it.’

‘Fine.’

Sean seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. Then he raised his eyes to the hotel’s top floors. ‘I’ll rest my arm on your shoulders now, you circle my waist. Let’s go and have a nightcap.’

They sauntered back to the portals and plopped down on a sofa. A waiter learned that Sean felt like Black Label on the rocks; Marina remained faithful to the local taste by ordering a mojito. Forty or fifty people relaxed on couches and armchairs, laughed at jokes, seemed to be enjoying themselves. Once their drinks arrived and they had taken a sip, a tall overweight man sitting alone to their left pulled himself up and marched to the restroom.

‘Excuse me, honey, I’ve got to take a leak,’ Sean said and rose.

Marina wanted to say ‘Me too’ but decided to wait until her escort returned.

Sean unzipped his fly facing the urinal next to the one in which the tall overweight man was relieving himself. He was sure the attendant standing by the door was out of earshot. ‘The short, bald guy lives there. He speaks a little English and is a money-grabbing bastard on coke,’ he said.

Without so much as a nod, the tall overweight man shook his penis, buttoned up, and washed his hands in a sink. The attendant handed him paper towels. Before leaving the restroom the man dropped a quarter into the inescapable dish for tips by the doorway. In a slightly expansive mood, Sean left a dollar.

The following morning, at a quarter to nine, just as Marina and Sean hopped on a DC-10 bound for Toronto from Havana Airport’s Terminal 3, the tall overweight man left the church of Santa Rita de Casia through the side entrance that faces 26th. He crossed the street and, holding his hands behind his back, head tilted backwards, stared at the ficus trees in the Parque de la Quinta. He appeared to be in his forties and had the powerful forearms and wrists of a dock worker. His brown eyes were lively, his thick moustache coffee-coloured, his lips full. After a few minutes circling the trees in awestruck contemplation, the hulking man slid behind the wheel of a black Hyundai and sped away.

The gardener and the sweeper who tended the park became intrigued when the fat man repeated the same routine two days in a row. Their curiosity, however, was not stirred by his arriving before eight and going into the church the minute it opened its doors. Several Cuban Catholics did the same and, occasionally, curious visitors explored the interior of the small modern church. Some diplomats and executives of foreign companies – accompanied by their wives and children – also attended Mass on Sundays. What was strange about the tall overweight man was his fixation with the ficus. The park attendants were accustomed to seeing tourists stop by, but few returned, and those that did usually came back to show the mammoth trees to some other traveller. They wondered whether this guy was a botanist or an ecology freak.

The labourers would have been even more puzzled had they seen the tall overweight man in the church. He invariably sat in the same pew, one from where he could keep an eye on 26th, paid no attention to the act of worship, didn’t kneel or pretend to pray. His behaviour had drawn the attention of an overly anti-communist layman who reported to the parish priest that a State Security official was using his church to stake someone out.

On the morning of Tuesday, 30 May, as he rounded the trunk of the ficus nearest to the bust of General Prado, the tall overweight man spotted a bald short guy in a white guayabera leaving the light-grey apartment building that faced on to the park and darting down Third A toward 26th. Strolling leisurely, his eyes on the tree, the stalker returned to the sidewalk, and waited until his prey was within a couple of yards.

‘You speak English?’ he asked with a pleasant smile.

‘Sure,’ Pablo responded, trying to look intelligent and knowledgeable. He had always envied huge men and this bull-necked guy was at least six foot five, weighing over 250 pounds.

‘Thank heaven. You know the name of these trees?’ the man asked, with a sweep of the hand that included all the ficus in the park.

‘Ficus.’

‘What?’

‘Ficus.’

‘Can you spell it out for me?’

Pablo said ‘F’ and paused. One of his frequent, inexplicable confusions in English was to pronounce the ‘i’ as an ‘e’ and vice versa. He produced a small notebook and a ballpoint from a pocket of his guayabera, wrote down the name, then tore out the page.

‘Well, thanks,’ the tall overweight man said as he took it. Then, staring at the five letters, he added: ‘Most amazing trees I’ve seen in this country.’

‘Is that so?’ Pablo was taking in the stranger, his mental wheels turning fast. The big bastard wore a navy-blue polo shirt, khaki shorts, white cotton socks, and sneakers.

‘I hadn’t been able to learn their name. Not many people here speak English.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And what’s the name of this park?’

‘Parque de la Quinta.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘Well…’ Pablo scratched his bald head, looked around, then shrugged his shoulders as if picking his brain for the right translation. ‘Quinta in Spanish is…like a country house, know what I’m saying? Like a villa.’

‘So, it’s the Park of the Country House.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, thanks for the information,’ the big man said. ‘Wait a minute,’ he added, fishing for his wallet and producing a twenty-dollar bill. ‘Here you are. Thanks.’

Pablo pounced on the bill thinking it was a fiver. When he saw the Jackson portrait he was dumbfounded. Twenty bucks for the name of a tree and a park? What would this huge asshole fork out for being taken around town?