Rosa Jordan - The Woman She Was

“A jinetera?”

“A hustler. Or a hooker,” Liliana informed him in an exaggeratedly bored voice.

“I know what it means,” José retorted. He glanced at Luis for further explanation. “What’s the problem?”

“They want to keep us off our own beaches,” Liliana pouted.

“Luis? Have they segregated Varadero again?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Luis snapped. “You know the Revolution opened all beaches to all Cubans. Didn’t we spend our share of weekends here? And still do, when Celia and Alma and Liliana,” he added pointedly, “choose to make the drive. The government is cracking down on prostitution, that’s all. Especially young ones. If the police see us with a girl dressed like this we could spend the next hour answering questions. We’ll be lucky if they don’t give us a hard time at the toll booth.”

José made an expansive gesture. “So I’ll buy her a dress.”

“Miami-brand discipline for a child who skips school?” Luis sneered.

José caught Liliana’s eye in the rear-view mirror and winked. “Okay, a T-shirt.”

Was it ever thus? Luis thought despairingly. Five minutes with any woman, any age, and my goddamned brother has her eating out of his hand.

As they slowed for the toll booth, Luis wondered if he would have to flash his credentials to avoid being questioned. He glanced back at Liliana and saw that she had curled up on the seat, covered herself with Joe’s jacket, and was pretending to be asleep. The toll booth attendant either didn’t see her or took her for a relative of the men in the front seat. The effective way she concealed her provocative outfit caused Luis to wonder if she had used a similar guise to slip into Varadero with other men.

Luis stared morosely out the window until they crossed the high bridge at the entrance to Varadero. Pride revived his spirit as the resort came into view. Its modern buildings rivalled any in the Caribbean, and the well-paved streets were filled with late-model cars and shiny hotel shuttle busses. “Take this exit,” Luis indicated. “The autopista along the bay now runs all the way to the end of the peninsula.”

“Where are we going?” Liliana asked, sliding forward to breathe on José’s neck.

“Luis claims things have changed since I was here last,” José said over his shoulder. “Let’s drive out as far as the campismo and cruise back to town from there.”

“There’s no campismo anymore,” Liliana informed him. “But they’re talking about making a tent campground for tourists in Parque Ecológica.”

“Parque Ecológia?” José echoed. “What’s that?”

“The area around Playa Calaveras and on out to the tip of the peninsula,” Luis clarified. “For environmental reasons it was left in native vegetation. It was necessary to eliminate the campismo to make room for another resort.”

“The beach has been developed that far out?” José asked in disbelief. “Why, that’s got to be twenty miles!”

“All developed.” Luis smirked, basking in José’s astonishment at what the government had accomplished in the past decade. “Like Cancun. Only we did it better.”

José slowed the car to a crawl. Luis swelled with pride as his brother, with mumbling amazement, read aloud from signs advertising scuba diving, deep-sea fishing, sailboating, hang-gliding, windsurfing, river rafting, kayaking, catamaran rides, glass-bottomed boats trips, yacht excursions to nearby islands, even swimming with dolphins. Joe’s head swung from side to side as he gawked at manicured grounds rolling off toward hotels lining the beach on their left and whistled at the sleek sailboats, big trimarans, and sporty catamarans berthed at a marina on their right.

Luis’s gaze followed his brother’s across the deep blue waters of the Bahía de Cárdenas. They and their friends had come here often when they were Liliana’s age. Weekending at the now-vanished campismo on the beach side of the peninsula, more than once they had danced until dawn, then hiked over to the bay side to watch the sunrise. Luis glanced at José, wondering if he remembered the camaraderie of those mornings.

As if responding to the thought, José pointed. “See those rocks out there, Liliana? Can’t tell you how many times we”—here he punched Luis lightly on the shoulder—“sat right there and watched the sunrise. Celia too,” he added, with a nostalgic edge that caused Luis to remember images of the two of them together that he had tried to forget.

They passed the caves, and as they entered Parque Ecológica, José sped up. Luis could not recall his brother ever showing an interest in human or natural history. It had taken Celia’s prodding, on one of those campismo weekends, to get them to visit the Cueva de Ambrosia to see its small pre-Columbian drawings. José had pronounced them “boring.” Years later, again at Celia’s request, Luis had taken Liliana to see them. He smiled grimly, remembering that Liliana had used exactly the same word.

When they reached the end of the peninsula, José screeched to a stop at the entrance to Marina Gaviotas. “I see this is still under military control.” He motioned to a yacht being hosed down. “Officer recreation?”

“Not necessarily,” Luis explained. “The military is involved in tourism too. Especially things that require air and water transport. They have the equipment, so why not? No reason for boats and planes to sit idle when they could be bringing in hard currency by providing services for tourists. That boat is used for deep-sea fishing trips.”

“I’m starving,” Liliana piped from the back seat. “Can we stop for lunch somewhere?”

“You bet.” José made a U-turn and headed back to town. In central Varadero he parked at the curb near a sidewalk vendor selling T-shirts. Passing a twenty-dollar bill to Liliana, he said, “Okay, kid, go get something cute. And decent.”

“Gracias, Tío!” Liliana jumped out and, forgetting the care required to balance on five-inch platform shoes, stumbled and fell.

Luis and José simultaneously opened their car doors, but Liliana regained her footing with the agility of a cat and laughed to let them know it was no big deal.

“Hey,” José called and motioned her back to the car. He handed her another twenty and said, “Get yourself a pair of sandals too.”

Liliana rewarded him with a brilliant smile and avoided looking at Luis, whose face registered disgust and other emotions that his gut told him were equally poisonous. Didn’t José know he had just handed the girl as much as Luis’s or Celia’s monthly salary?

While Liliana mingled with sunburned tourists at the T-shirt racks, José sat tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Finally he said, “I’ve always wanted to eat at Al Capone’s beach house—you know, the one they turned into a restaurant. I don’t remember where it is. Is it any good?”

“It’s that way.” Luis pointed farther along the beach. He suspected that José had not forgotten where it was but was merely trying to find out if Luis ever ate there. He had eaten at La Casa de Al once, along with other National Assembly members. No need to explain the circumstances. His personal inability to pay for a meal there was none of José’s business. “It is overpriced but pleasant. People go there mainly for atmosphere.”

José flashed a grin. “Or to pretend for an hour that they’re part of the mobster set.”

“If they can afford to eat there regularly they probably are,” Luis shot back.

Liliana returned wearing a big blue T-shirt that concealed her tartish clothes. Back in the car, she traded the platform shoes for a pair of thongs. The T-shirt probably cost ten dollars, and the thongs at most two, but Liliana did not, Luis noticed, offer José any change from the forty dollars he had given her.