20   20 June 91   Postcards from Daniel. From La Havana and from Mexico, Cancun to be precise. He was at Betty’s birthday party, and perhaps there is some truth to what George told me about Amy. They were dancing close, to say the least (though she still hasn’t filled out enough to make it look sexy). But there was no time left for him to pursue anything, since the next day he left for Toronto in order to fly to Cuba. He took Betty with him for the weekend. When she came back from Toronto it was Paul who picked her up at Dorval. He brought her home, but several hours after her plane arrived. And they gave every impression of being young lovers. It’s funny that just as she decided to become francophone again she acquired an anglophone boyfriend. (Paul speaks French passably, and is working hard on improving it.) But then we are a funny race, nous autres les Québécois. Betty has been talking about the Toronto trip with her brother every day since coming back, but only in trickles because she has been busy with finals. She has now graduated from NAA. There was a little graduation ceremony last night, but at NAA the real graduation shindig is for those who finish Grade 12, like in the US and elsewhere in Canada. Ah, l’exception québécoise! The big change in Betty was that she now spoke of Daniel as her equal, not her wise older brother. If anything she was a little condescending toward him, perhaps even dismissive about his DNA scheme. Most of all, she said, he doesn’t understand women. “Il ne comprend pas le femmes,” said my Betty who has just turned 17. I could not suppress a smile, but I hope that she did not take it as condescending toward her. She enjoyed Toronto enormously, and wants to go there again this summer, with me (I think she said it to be polite) or with Paul. She loved the ROM and the Eaton Centre, much bigger than the one here. She had fun dressing up (in the dress that I helped her buy) for the theatre, where they saw Romeo and Juliet, though she thought that they might as well have seen two different plays. Her brother didn’t seem interested in the romance, only in the performance and the production. She suddenly switched to English. “Now I understand why some of the girls at school called him unromantic!” she said. And we continued speaking in English for a while, when she just as suddenly (and unconsciously) switched back to French. Later I commented about it. “C’est ton identité bilingue,” I said (facetiously). “Oui, c’est ça, maman,” she said without a trace of irony, in fact with some pride. But she has a point. I too have complained, even to you, my journal, about the Québec requirement that one be either anglophone or francophone, and while “mixed” children (like Tina’s) have a choice between one schooling and the other, they (or their parents) must still choose. It would be refreshing to have a bilingual identity, like Betty’s, officially recognized, implying bilingual schools. But it is not likely, is it? Anyway, it is nice to see my daughter embracing a cause. Not merely a personal one, like Daniel’s search for his father, but a public one. I am proud of her. Cubana   Back at the house, as they passed his room – her room – she breezily said, “En diez minutos vuelvo,” and went on in the direction of the bathroom. He went inside the room and began to undress. The breeze that came in through the open window felt good on his skin, better than the air-conditioning in the hotel would have felt. He pondered the significance of Marisa’s matter-of-fact promise to return in ten minutes. He had not felt anything sexual between them throughout the evening, and certainly not from her to him; he had assumed that she had a novio. But he did not have much time to ponder, for by the time he slipped under the sheet she came in, wearing a flimsy nylon robe, with no buttons, tied at the waist. As she began to untie it, Daniel saw that her breasts were as full as they had seemed with a bra and tee-shirt over them, but surprisingly limp for someone as young and otherwise firm-bodied as she was. Maybe she’s had a baby, he thought. She then quickly removed the robe, dropped it on the floor along with her flip-flops, and slid under the sheet, all in one smooth motion that made him instantly ready for sex, so that when she asked him, in a way that seemed businesslike, “¿Estás listo?” he could honestly answer “Sí.” “Yo también,” she said as she climbed on top of him. “Uh… ¿preservativo?” he asked. “No es necesario,” she said as she began to engulf him, “tengo diafragma.” And she was well prepared with lubricant. Though he was mechanically engaged in the sex act, he was not feeling excited. Through his mind went the various firsts that doing it represented in his life. It was his first time with a black woman, at least one who in North America would be considered black, for in Cuba, he had noticed in conversation, negro and mulato represented distinct categories, and Marisa and her family, like Pablo Milanés, were of the latter. It was also his first time, as far as he knew, with a woman using a diaphragm. Until then it had been only condoms and the pill. But, most importantly, it was the first time that he was doing it with no foreplay of any kind, not even a flirtation or a kiss, and, educated as he was at the hands – figuratively and literally – of Gen McGrath, he felt ill at ease; his participation in the act was quite passive while Marisa was writhing above him, her eyes closed, seemingly concentrating only on the pleasure her body was getting from one part of his. Her orgasm was pornographically dramatic, and he would have suspected that it was faked had there been any reason for her to fake it. As soon as she stopped he went limp. She disengaged, moved off him and only then opened her eyes and looked at him with a smile. “¿No gozaste?” she asked him with apparent concern. He admitted that he had not come. She immediately began stroking him back to an erection, though once more with no other contact. She then pulled him on top of her and inside her. He made himself move forcefully and came quickly. This time he was sure that the orgasm that Marisa seemed to experience along with his was faked. After a few minutes’ rest she got out of bed and put her robe and flip-flops back on. “Buenas noches,” she said unceremoniously and shut the door behind her. He began to think about the meaning of what had been the strangest sexual encounter of his young life, but sleep quickly overcame him. In the morning Eva served him an American-style breakfast of bacon and eggs. Marisa was gone. He decided to go to the beach. The one where the bus driver dropped him off was vast but almost deserted on this Wednesday. It was nothing like the Varadero beach that he had seen in brochures. It was obviously not intended for tourists, and the amenities for bathers – showers, toilets – were minimal and not well cared for. But there was a kind of caretaker (he seemed to old to be a lifeguard) who agreed to keep an eye on his daypack – into which he had placed his belongings – while he went bathing. As he was putting sunscreen (unscented) on himself, a very thin girl of about his age, dark-skinned but blond and with European features, suddenly appeared beside him and asked him if she could have some of it. He squirted a large dollop into each of her cupped hands, and she sniffed it for a long time before applying it to her skin. She didn’t thank him – perhaps because it wasn’t aromatic enough for her – and he went into the water. When he returned to his spot, she was gone. The caretaker beckoned him to come over. “Cuidado con ésa,” he said, pointing at the girl who was now seated on the sand, about a hundred meters away, reading a book. “Tiene SIDA.” Daniel thanked the man for warning him about the girl’s AIDS. “Gracias por advertirme,” he said, “pero ella no me interesa.” The caretaker shrugged his shoulders and said something that Daniel didn’t understand (except for the word gusto, or rather guhto – it was probably the Spanish, or at least the Cuban, equivalent of Chacun à son gout) before walking back to his shack. After two hours of gentle surf, moderate wind and intense if intermittent sun he had enough. When he picked up his daypack from the caretaker he fished out a dollar and gave it to the man, who accepted it gratefully but not without looking around to see if anyone was observing the transaction. He did not feel like going back to the house and took the bus to the city center, this time exploring parts of Vedado other than the ones he had seen before. Among other landmarks he saw the Viazul bus station, from where he could take buses to other parts of the island, but his enthusiasm for experiencing more of Cuba was waning. He got off the bus on Calle 23 and walked down to the Malecón in search of a place for lunch. Just before reaching the waterfront he noticed an office of Cubana de Aviación. On an impulse he entered and asked when the next flight to Cancún would be available. “Mañana, señor,” the woman at the counter told him after he informed her that only one seat was needed. He hesitated only for a moment before saying that yes, he would like a ticket for the next day. The flight was at one; he would need to be at the airport by noon. For an additional ten dollars, the airline could arrange for a taxi to pick him up at his hotel, at half past eleven. He said that he wasn’t staying at a hotel, but he didn’t have much baggage and he could be back at the airline office for the airport shuttle. The woman told him to be there at eleven. He found a coffee shop where he had a sandwich cubano and café con leche, and continued his exploration on foot, for hours, until he found himself by another stop of the bus line that would take him back to Eva’s house. He told Eva that he would be leaving the next day. His announcement did not seem to have much impact on her. She told him that his bill would be fifty dollars for the two nights, and that a present for Marisa would be appreciated. He had expected something of the sort – Gustavo had, after all, presented the girl as a kind of extra service provided by the house – and, feeling generous, gave Eva a hundred-dollar bill. “¿Está bien?” he asked. “Sí, chico,” she said. He went into his room to get some clean clothes and then to the bathroom to shower. Afterwards he was back in his room, on the bed, trying to read the copy of Granma that he had picked up (it seemed filled mostly with a speech given by Fidel Castro), when he heard Marisa come in. She and Eva had a quiet conversation, and then he heard a knock on the door. “¡Sí!” he called out, unsure of how to say Come in, and Marisa entered jauntily. “¡Esta noche vamos a bailar!” she announced breezily and went over to the bed with a dancelike step, leaned down and gave him a lingering kiss before dancing back out of the room. It was their first kiss. He wondered if this was what Cuban sex was like: first intercourse, and then other kinds of intimacy. What would Gen McGrath say? After dinner Marisa took Daniel to a club where a band that was new but already very popular – its members had all played in older, established bands – was to play Cuban salsa for dancing. The band was called NG La Banda (Marisa explained that NG stood for nueva generación) and the music it played was called timba. It was quite different from the salsa he had heard in New York: it was somehow both more primitive – in the way it inspired wilder and more expressive dancing – and more sophisticated, especially in its rhythmic complexity and in the intricacy of the guitar solos that Daniel appreciated. The dancing also seemed both more spontaneous and more elaborate than what Cici had taught him. After the first three songs, which Marisa danced with him, she began to dance with other guys, while he was asked to dance by other girls. Then she would come back to him, go off again, and so on until the break. This time he had no desire to go back to the house. He got a bottle of beer for each of them, and then another. The wait at the bar was such that by the time they finished their second beers, the band was back, and another round of dancing followed. In the backseat of the taxi on the way back she was kissing and fondling him ceaselessly. He wondered if it was gratitude for the present. Fifty US dollars, he had noticed, was a lot of money for a Cuban who did not receive remittances from relatives abroad. Back at the house she told him that he could use the bathroom first. Like the night before, she came into his room, wearing the same robe, ten minutes after him. And, strangely enough, the cuddling and kissing that had come before was not a practice that she carried into bed. Her approach to sex had not changed much from the previous night. She stayed with him somewhat longer – perhaps half an hour – but her casual Buenas noches was no different. As on the previous day, Marisa was gone by the time Daniel had breakfast with Eva. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he was about to leave Cuba that made his hostess talk with him with a frankness that surprised him. One of her revelations was that Marisa was not really her daughter, as she had first told him, but her niece, Gustavo’s sister in fact. Another was that she had – as Daniel had suspected – a child, a three-year-old son who was being raised by yet another brother, Ernesto, and his wife. The thought that Gustavo was, in a sense, pimping for his sister gave Daniel a feeling of disgust. But Eva insisted that Marisa was a good girl (una buena chica) who was driven to do what she did by economic necessity and racism. “¿Racismo en Cuba?” Daniel exclaimed, astounded. Eva laughed. She showed him the front page of the previous day’s Granma, which featured a photo of the Cuban Council of State assembled to listen to Fidel’s speech, and asked him how many negros or mulatos he saw in it. There was barely one or two, depending on how one read the poorly printed black-and-white photograph. A talent for music or sports was the only way for a dark-skinned Cuban (un cubano de piel morena) to get ahead, Eva went on, and while Marisa had been a promising athlete in secondary school, her pregnancy put an end to that prospect. After breakfast Daniel brushed his teeth and packed. It had rained in the early morning, and the streets were still wet when he began his walk to the bus stop after exchanging a simple Adiós with Eva. He would get to the airline office earlier than necessary, but he could think of no reason to linger in Eva’s house. The day was a little cooler than the preceding ones, but the humidity, probably very close to one hundred percent, made up for the difference, and the air felt stifling. He did in fact get to the Cubana office just as the ten-thirty shuttle was about to leave, and he took it. The only language he heard spoken by his fellow passengers on the minibus was Russian, though there were a few others who, like him, kept silent. He wondered how much longer the ties between Cuba and the Soviet Union – or, for that matter, the Soviet Union itself, even with Gorbachev’s best efforts – would last. As the passengers disembarked at the airport, two of them, a man and a woman, had a brief chat in Cuban Spanish with the driver and headed off toward the domestic wing. Everyone else went to the international wing, and everyone except Daniel and a well-tanned middle-aged man headed for the Aeroflot counter. At the Cubana counter Daniel found out that not only was he early for his check-in, but the flight was delayed by half an hour. The delay – due to weather conditions over the Caribbean Sea – stretched into an hour and a half, but he didn’t care. Though the terminal’s air-conditioning was minimal, it was a welcome contrast to the air outside. To his surprise he found the day’s Toronto Star – it must have arrived on that morning’s Air Canada flight – at the kiosk. He bought one of the five available copies and took it to the restaurant with him. Eating his hamburger, though he had not gone through passport control yet, he no longer felt himself in Cuba.   Touring Mexico, as he did for the next six weeks, filled Daniel with an unexpected feeling of ease after his three days in Cuba, so much so that at times he felt himself floating like a figure in an O’Gorman mural. It felt relaxing to be a normal university-age tourist among many others like him that he met along the way. It felt comforting to go into a store and buy anything he wanted with pesos, or with a credit card without caring whether it was Canadian or American. It felt liberating to hear, in the course of casual conversations with strangers, unbridled criticism of government corruption. It felt invigorating to engage in the traveler’s spontaneous pickup sex that was not fraught with politico-socioeconomic considerations. It felt exciting to discover varieties of music – ranchera, huasteca, jarocha, norteña – that were not in Cici’s repertoire. It was enlightening to see different points of view represented in the newspapers, not to mention facts – such as Yeltsin’s election as President of Russia – that did not show up in Granma. And it was most enjoyable to understand almost every word of the clearly enunciated Mexican Spanish that he heard spoken. Besides the sounds of its music and speech Mexico offered Daniel other sensual pleasures: the tastes of its food – the fresh papaya and mango, the tacos and sopes and enchiladas and tamales and gorditas, the breakfast chilaquiles that no two restaurants prepared alike; the sights of its scenery – beach and jungle, lake and volcano – and monuments – pre-Columbian pyramids, colonial churches, modern buildings with amazing murals. He also discovered that it was fun to speak his mother tongue in bed. Two of the women he met were French-speaking (one Belgian, one French), both told him that his Montreal speech was charmant or mignon, and both stayed with him all night, unlike the skiers at Mont-Tremblant, his only previous francophone bedmates. He was amused to find out that European French sex language was basically the same as Canadian French (baise, chatte, bite). Another source of amusement was the sight of fellow Canadians who draped their backpacks or their torsos with maple leaf flags. It was not, he discovered, a mark of patriotism but of a fear of being taken for Americans. It did no good to tell these travelers that Mexicans had nothing against Americans as people, much as they might dislike their government, but it proved useful to let them know that he had once overheard two Mexicans discussing the meaning of what they had taken to be a marijuana leaf. His route took the shape of a very irregular hook with a long, multiply curved handle. The handle extended from Cancún to Puebla, where the hook began, taking a sharp U-turn bend in Guadalajara, with its point in the Federal District. The first phase consisted of relatively short hops by bus – almost all the buses belonged to a company called ADO – southward along the Caribbean coast to Tulum, and then westward: inland by way of Cobá, Chichen-Itzá, Mérida, Uxmal and Kabah to Campeche; along the coast again – this time the Gulf – to Ciudad del Carmen. From there it was a very comfortable overnight bus to Veracruz, then Jalapa and Puebla. Then it was once again short bus trips – now with different companies – to Tlaxcala, Pachuca, Querétaro, San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato, and Guadalajara; and finally, doubling back on a more southerly arc, Zamora, Uruapan, Pátzcuaro, Morelia and Mexico City at last. As in Germany, he kept a detailed log of his journey, but he also jotted down every noteworthy experience, and afterward he remembered every step along the way, even without referring to the voluminous notebook that he had filled. From the capital, after four days of exploring the city and its surroundings, he flew to Guatemala City. But after three days in Guatemala he felt that, rather than continuing his journey southward, after another two or three he needed to get back to Mexico, since he had missed the country’s south. (The north, he decided, could wait for another trip.) And so after another two days he went overland, by bus again, into Chiapas and then Oaxaca – where there were new foods to be sampled and old archaeological treasures to be explored – before going to Mexico City again. When he arrived in San Cristóbal de las Casas, he went to a travel bureau where he got help in organizing his remaining itinerary. By the time he would get back to Mexico City, after a flight from Oaxaca, it would be near the end of July. He realized that, other than sending postcards, he had not communicated with his family since leaving Montreal, and his departure had left his relations with his mother and sister somewhat frayed. He felt the need to get back there before going to New York in order to patch things up with his family, and, incidentally, perhaps to satisfy his lust for Amy Kenner, which, he now also realized, had been growing subliminally since Betty’s party. Accordingly he booked a flight to Montreal. Having to choose between Air Canada and Mexicana, he chose the former for the only reason that it was an earlier flight.   It was already August when he boarded the plane. He had not called his mother or sister to announce his coming. The surprise, he thought, might make the task of patching up easier. And, suddenly hearing French all around him, it occurred to him that it might be easier still if he spoke to them in French. The surprise tactic was effective. He called from Mirabel Airport. Mireille answered in French, so that he was able to announce his presence in Montreal in the same language. She was happy to hear from him, and seemed to appreciate reverting to the language that she had mainly spoken with him until five years before. When he arrived at the house and greeted Betty in French, her response gave him the impression that the language tactic would not work with her. It was as if he were patronizing her, as if her English weren’t good enough. When she asked him, as they were drinking herbal tea at the dining-room table, to tell her all about his adventures, it was in English.