Rachel Kushner - Telex From Cuba

One Christmas I answered the phone, and the operator said, “Josephine Courtland is on the line.” I said we don’t know anyone by that name. We’d always called her Annie. I didn’t know that Mother had made up a new name when I was little because I couldn’t say the real one.

Daddy’s pleasure over Mr. Carrington’s troubles was part of a long tradition of his, hating the people in Nicaro. He said the place was a mess waiting to happen. He partly blamed Lito Gonzalez, who was a Cuban investor in the nickel mine. Having Gonzalez around meant the nickel company had to comply with Cuban labor laws, which to Daddy was sheer idiocy. Daddy said it was a conflict of interest to have a Cuban in management, and that the Americans in Nicaro were green and naive fools. When he heard that Hubert Mackey took too much quinine and went deaf in one ear, Daddy thought that was just hilarious. He said the Nicaro people were no different from the cows we got from Argentina, which didn’t know the difference between alfalfa and Johnson grass, which is poisonous, so they ate the Johnson grass and got sick and died.

East Egg — is that what it’s called? Deke Havelin was a wealthy and successful rayon magnate, and El Country Club, where the Havelins lived, was our version of East Egg. It was over the Almendares River, which divided the city, and mostly rich Americans lived out there. El Country Club was gated and private, with a lake, a golf course, and palaces that were built in the twenties, during the Dance of the Millions, when everybody made a killing in sugar. Imitations of Versailles, with long, mirrored hallways. Promenades lit with frosted globes as big as the globe in Daddy’s den, which lit up on the inside and gave off a ghostly blue when you shut off the other lights. Deke was a friend of Daddy’s, and Christmas at their place in Havana was a real to-do, certainly more exciting than staying in Preston and decorating a breadfruit tree.

Daddy took me to see Sugar Ray Robinson fight at the Havana Sports Palace. The famous Cuban boxer Kid Chocolate, who had been world champion in the thirties, was master of ceremonies, which was a thrill. When Daddy had work to do, Mother and I swam in the saltwater swimming pool at the Yacht Club. They had a tiled bar on one end, and you could sip a virgin banana daiquiri without leaving the water. If it was high tide, waves lapped over the pool’s seaside wall and sent you bobbing like a skiff. It was odd to be there without Del, but I have to admit it was also a relief. By then, Del and I weren’t close. He was moody, and always off with Phillip Mackey, fishing with a group of young Cuban employees from the nickel mine. At dinner he would argue with Daddy, say contrary and ugly things out of nowhere. I think he got a lot of it from Phillip.

“Did you know Batista force-feeds people castor oil?” Del asked once of no one in particular. “Isn’t that nice, Mother? Maybe we can ask him about it next time he comes for dinner.”

“Listen to you,” Daddy said. “Maybe you need a little castor oil yourself. Maybe I’ll talk to Batista about it.”

That quieted Del for the rest of dinner. But as we were eating dessert, he started up again. “Father, how much do we pay that gorilla?”

Daddy ignored the question and asked me about my schoolwork, as if Del wasn’t worth answering.

As Del was getting up from the table he said, “Don’t you think it’s funny that we teach them agriculture, and none of them own any land?”

That’s when Daddy blew up.

“You got a problem with how things are run around here, then get off your ass and do something about it!” He slammed his fist on the table and made all the silverware jump. “Instead of sitting there with a linen napkin in your lap like a goddamn pantywaist, eating grub I pay for, the flan you asked your nanny to make you like you’re five years old. Go do something. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Nothing but a spoiled goddamn brat.”

Mother, Daddy, and I went to see Xavier Cugat at the Cabaret Tokio that Christmas. Their main theater was outside, but air-conditioned. I don’t know how they did that. We sat under royal palms, colored searchlights crisscrossing red and green, parrots flying over us, cutting through the beams of colored light. A flock of them lived in the palm trees at the Tokio. We’d seen Xavier Cugat perform many times. He’d recorded the “Chiquita Banana” jingle for the company’s radio and television spots, and he was friendly with Daddy.

Xavier Cugat kept a little Chihuahua in his coat pocket. The band started, and finally he walked out, everybody clapping, and the dog jumped from his pocket and trotted around the stage. When I was little, I got up from our table and went and sat on the edge of the stage and played with Xavier Cugat’s little dog while he was performing. No one minded or said a word about it. That Christmas, Mother and Daddy ribbed me about getting up onstage, but I’d outgrown that.

Daddy took us to the Floridita for dinner after Xavier Cugat’s show. The dining room was full and we didn’t have a reservation, so they seated us at the bar. You might know that the Floridita was Hemingway’s hangout. Sure enough, just after we ordered, his raw, pink face filled the mirror above the liquor bottles. Daddy said Hemingway was crude and obscene. He talked about him like they were mortal enemies, but Hemingway walked right by us and I don’t think he knew Daddy from Adam.

I ordered lobster. The lobster they brought me was pregnant, and when I cut into it an orange liquid oozed out — the eggs. I didn’t think I could eat it, but Daddy said I should think of a pregnant lobster as a delicacy. That anything unseemly could be made tolerable if you told yourself it was a special thing, an exclusive thing. Like caviar, he said. I told him I hated caviar, and Daddy said it wasn’t about taste, it was about having things that other people couldn’t have, and there was a certain burden in that.

Hemingway parked himself at the bar and began chatting with his neighbor on the next stool, a slick-looking fellow in an expensive suit and tinted glasses. Somebody put coins in the jukebox, and Augustin Lara started singing “Mujer.” That song was on our jukebox at the Pan-American Club. It was a popular song, and apparently Hemingway knew the words. He asked the bartender for change, and then punched in selections himself, still singing along with “Mujer.”

He sat back down, and “La Pachanga” came on. That was another popular song. Hemingway was doing the whistle parts along with the song. He turned to this slick-looking guy, who was sitting at the bar minding his own business.

“You do the pachanga?” Hemingway asked.

The guy nodded like he didn’t really understand, then looked away.

“The pachanga,” Hemingway said, louder. “Like the song. Or maybe cha-cha? If you know cha-cha, you can learn pachanga.”

“I’m afraid I do neither.” He had some kind of European accent.

“A rumba, then?” Hemingway was humming and snapping his fingers.

The fellow shook his head. “I sit at the bar. That’s what I do.”

“Don’t get huffy. I asked if you do a pachanga. Who says men can’t dance?”

I felt bad for the guy. It seemed like he wanted to be left alone. But those are always the ones who get the onslaught. Then again, if you really want to be left alone, you have a drink in your room, by yourself.

“Look, ah, I’m not a friend of the family, shall we say.”

“I’ve got news for you: I go to Paris — I sleep at the Ritz — and everybody over there — you are French, aren’t you? — every one of them is a friend of the family. Even the women. So how about some cha-cha? Because the rumba — have you heard? They’re talking about outlawing it.”