Lisa Wixon - Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban

Jineterastroll for wealthy targets at sybaritic nightclubs like Johnny’s, Macumba, and Casa de la Música. Competition is fierce. The moment a lone male tourist walks in the door, a crush of jineterasdescend upon him. It’s a woman’s chore to stand out from the competition. Dancing, Camila suggests, is the best method to display one’s wares.

In this culture, I’m expected to be overtly sexual in my appearance and demeanor. But I’m also required to be aggressive, to go get my man, to engage my yumain a romantic swindle. One that unfolds at hyperspeed, from the first glance to immediate sex to him buying clothes and proposing marriage and supporting the whole family.

In my own country, in my social circles back home, broadcasting one’s sexuality with provocative dress or demeanor is frowned upon, as is an aggressive chasing of men. These things happen, of course, but where I come from, the art is in the subtleties. In Cuba, I’m adjusting to the extremes. Men are expected to be men,and women are expected to be women,and jineterasare expected to pursue yumaswith the voracity of a firefighter squelching a schoolyard blaze. I’ve never felt completely comfortable with my womanliness. Here I’ve been forced to harness my sexual power, put it on display, and market my goods to those who can provide security. It’s both liberating and terrifying.

“You believe in Santería?” I ask Camila as she tilts my chin upward.

“Of course, mi corazón.We all believe in Santería, more or less.” She winks at me. “You know, you’re not the only daughter of Oshún. But then, I’ve known all along we must be sisters.”

The music begins and, despite Camila’s confidence in me, I jumble every step. The babalocha’s words spring to mind, and I tell Camila what he said about feeling more and thinking less.

Camila stops and pauses the music for the second time. “He said that?” she asks Limón, who nods.

“De acuerdo,”she says. “With the priest.” Camila absently massages her neck, looks out the window, and then around the room. The walls are covered in nude and seminude portraits of her. Talented and love-struck Cuban artists have been painting Camila since she sprouted into her teens. Oils are barely dry on the latest effort, and Camila admires the accurate and flattering portrayal with the discrimination of a sommelier. Then she turns to me and wraps a cloth around my head, obscuring my sight. Limón raises a wan eyebrow. Music returns to a high decibel.

“Listen,” she instructs. “Don’t count the steps. Don’t thinkabout your moves.”

“How can I not think?”

“Shhhhhhh. Listen. There’s a soundtrack for everything in life—for cooking, for walking, for conversation, and especially for sex. There’s a beat to it all, but you have to listen for it. Move to it.”

For days, I listen, blindfolded, to Cuban music, moving my limbs and hips—ungainly at first but more certain as I single out the maracas and bongos, the timbalesand güiros,and then allow them to blend together in the background of my mind. When the blindfold comes off, the feet find their place with little resistance. My hips begin to circulate, and a rough gracefulness appears. Camila claps her hands together in delight.

This jineterahasn’t won the derby, but she’s definitely in the race.

T he country thatclaims half my bloodline launches an attack on Iraq in March, raising the ire of most of the world. Cuban phone lines burn. A few hours later, switchboards alight at Radio Bemba—the word-of-mouth system perfected by gossipy habaneros.The news: nearly eighty journalists, librarians, and dissidents are rounded up and arrested in Havana. They would be given lightning-fast trials and sentenced—some to life in prison.

Limón’s aunt, an antigovernment librarian, would receive ten years.

The next day, angry Cubans hijack a DC-3 Aerojet, place a knife to the captain’s throat, and demand a ride to Florida. U.S. fighter jets escort the plane to a landing field. Many passengers and crew defect.

Eleven days later, a Russian-made Antonov-24 twin-engine is hijacked and lands in Key West. Half of its thirty-two Cuban passengers apply for asylum.

The next morning, locals hijack a ferry that glides across Havana Bay. It runs out of fuel just shy of international waters, and is towed back to shore. A forty-eight-hour standoff ensues. Passengers are eventually rescued.

The scuffle is documented on video and shown across the island on state television. Families crowd around their sets, and people without TVs peer through strangers’ windows to view the odd encounter.

The police on the island snap their batons.

An island-wide crackdown begins.

No one does not feel the wrath of their king.

Four

P ink feathers. Ruby-studdedpasties. Gold thongs and high heels and even higher kicks. Breasts and bottoms shimmy and shake. Chandeliers of fruit and fluff topple above sleek showgirls’ heads.

The Tropicana nightclub debuted in the 1950s and is perfected nearly every night in the outskirts of Havana before a crowd of tourists, as average habaneroscould never afford the tab. With no city lights or pollution to interfere with the night sky, the moon on wax or wane appears close enough to pluck. The outdoor revue is lit in pinks and peaches and crimsons. Falling stars streak overhead.

It’s at the Tropicana that the annual Habanos cigar festival ignites. For an ambitious Cuban girl, it’s an Elysian Field of the world’s most freewheeling playboys and bachelors, all in Havana for a weekend of Cohibas and cognac and sun. The pluckiest jineterasgin up the fun and serve as the festivity’s sensual bacchantes.

Camila introduces me to the business partner of one of her long-term boyfriends, Ignacio, a man who plies her with feathery Christian Louboutin stilettos, Balenciaga handbags, and Stephen Dweck teardrop diamonds for her wrists, neck, and ears. I’m not certain Camila understands these gifts are luxuries in any city, much less one of the world’s most shambled.

The business partner, Reinaldo, is freshly shaven and smart in a turquoise silk shirt, white pants, and an iridescent leisure jacket courtesy of Armani. He’s the kind of man who’d never look at me twice anywhere, much less in a country of mulatagoddesses worthy of a Herb Ritts spread. My stomach is tight and I’m panicking with insecurity. Camila must sense my dread, because she lightly taps my arm, as if to remind me of our earlier pep talk. I force a smile.

The four of us settle in front of the stage. One surreptitious signal from Camila, and the headwaiter rushes to the table, knowing she brings in the big guns and spreads her profit around. A snap of his fingers, and a bottle of Matusalem Gran Reserva—aged fifteen years, a rare specimen—arrives with chipped ice.

Under Cuba’s previous regime, most women in the sex business answered to pimps and boyfriends and gangsters. Under the current regime, it’s the women who are in charge, and capable of bringing in the highest salary. Considering the machismo inherent in this society, I can’t help but feel sorry for men who have no equitable means of power. But if the revolution promised progress for women, it’s been fulfilled in ways few would have predicted.

The Spaniards are in their late forties and exude a serene, immutable confidence along with an air of slight self-deprecation. It’s an attitude embodied only by the self-made of incredible success. Camila’s pillow talk had revealed the two are wildcat oil riggers with European financing who’d made their fortune off the coast of Venezuela.

Camila met Ignacio the year before, when he was in Havana negotiating for the rights to prospect in Cuban seas. In the midst of discussions, Ignacio suffered a mild heart attack. Camila bypassed his weakened artery, replacing it with a vein from his thigh, and he healed well.