January 06 2009
By Sankha Guha
The principal tourist attraction in Cuba is Fidel Castro. With an
economy reliant on tourism, the country needs world-class attractions,
and say what you will about Fidel's failures (and there are many), he is
a five star colossus of some antiquity.
Due to his frailty, these days the formal role of the head of state has
devolved on his charisma-bypassed brother Raul. But that, as all in
Havana will tell you, is a technicality.
Fidel may be a crumbling monument, but make no mistake – he still shapes
the landscape. The visual grammar of Havana has barely changed since the
1950s.
Click here!
The skyline is the same. So are the fabulous cars – Dodges, Buicks,
Cadillacs and Chevrolets, held together with rope and soap – that still
patrol the Malecon.
The revolutionary slogans on the walls are a stuck record; "Hasta la
victoria siempre" recycled decade after static decade.
The national newspaper Granma (so named after the cabin cruiser that
brought the young Fidel and Raul back to Cuba in 1956) remains a
shameless Castro fanzine.
Old cars, old buildings, old news – for anyone who doesn't have to live
here it's a heady mix.
We are in Year 50 of the Revolution; it has been triumphing (in the
phrase favoured here) ever since 1959.
This year my audit of the glorious revolution can report a huge surplus
of prostitutes, but the balance sheet is in the red on basics like milk
(café sin leche is popular in Havana's coffee shops) or even tap water,
a scarce commodity in some washrooms.
Amid the privations there are islands of plenty such as La Guarida – "La
Paladar des Stars, La Star des Paladares" in central Havana. The
star-spangled guest list at this paladar (private restaurant) seems to
be displaced from Spago in LA, and includes Steven Spielberg, Jack
Nicholson, Oliver Stone, Jodie Foster and Danny Glover.
One of the notable changes in today's Havana is the number of Americans
who have found ways to beat the US travel embargo.
Fittingly, the place looks like a movie set. It was, in fact, the
location of a famous Cuban film called Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and
Chocolate).
Guests make their way from a yard up some steps into what must have been
a small palace. After entering a fading salon open to the elements, they
thread past peeling baroque pillars and marble statuary, and up an
elegant curving staircase before knocking on the door of a second floor
flat. If admitted, they join a secret party in the decaying heart of
colonial Havana.
The atmosphere is delicious, but maybe the chef is having an off night.
The food is disappointing – the pork is dessicated and the chicken
bland. Diners must pay in convertible pesos (CUC), a parallel currency
beyond the reach of ordinary Cubans. The clientele is almost entirely
foreign.
I get a flavour of the resentment this causes at the Castillo de Farnes,
one of the few bars that stays open past midnight in the old town.
The scene is picaresque. Wreathed in cigar fumes, flabby hookers are
working middle-aged foreign men, while male jineteros (hustlers) try to
flog black-market cigars. One of them engages me in chat. What, I ask,
is going on here? Is this a Cuban hangout? "Cubans come here to make a
little business," he says, before launching his patter about working in
the Partagas factory around the corner.
I decline his offer of cigars; the conversation stutters. Then he
blurts: "What do you think of the situation in this country?" I bat the
question back to him. He becomes agitated: "Foreigners work, they earn
money and they can come here on holiday.
"We work hard, we earn little money and we cannot go anywhere. We cannot
even go in our bars. I don't earn convertible pesos, but I must pay in
CUC at this bar to drink my rum in my country. What do you think of that?"
It is gone 2am when I stumble along Calle Obispo past a supermarket with
empty displays. Despite the hour, I find an antiquarian bookshop,
Libreria La Victoria, open and stocked. Sensing a sale, Alberto, the
owner, lets me in.
Revolutionary texts and memorabilia lie around in formless heaps. He
digs out an old poster from the 1970s. It pictures a dashing young Fidel
in fatigues proclaiming "La victoria de las ideas" – the victory of ideas.
The poster is somewhat dog-eared and overpriced at 10 CUC, but buying it
seems an apt coda to the evening.
The past is not allowed to die. You can touch it in the Museum of the
Revolution. The tone is set by the bullet holes on the grand staircase
of the ex-presidential palace – reminders of a doomed attempt by
students to kill the dictator Batista in 1957.
I am lucky enough to be accompanied by my friend Clive Rudd who, despite
his English-sounding name, was born and bred in Havana. Clive's father,
Douglas, was a fighter pilot in the Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria (Cuban
air force).
In the room dedicated to the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 we find a list
of 10 pilots who faced the US-backed force – 10 against Goliath.
Two of the airmen have the letter T against their names, denoting they
are now considered traitors. We find Douglas Rudd among the untarnished
and unlibelled.
Douglas was a celebrated Hero of the Revolution, until he too fell out
with the Castro brothers in the mid-1960s. He spent the rest of his life
driving taxis in Havana.
With a hollow laugh Clive wonders why his dad's name is not also marked
as a traitor.
We go to the outdoor section of the museum, where the big artefacts of
revolution are enshrined. The yacht Granma has pride of place.
And a few yards from Fidel's sanctified boat is the Hawker Sea Fury that
Douglas flew on those three days in April 1961, playing his own insanely
brave part in the survival of the revolution.
Eventually, Douglas was allowed to leave the country and died in Miami
in the early 1990s, among the very people he fought at the Bay of Pigs.
Clive claimed political asylum 16 years ago and now lives in London. In
Havana he is a tourist in his own city. I try to imagine the bittersweet
emotions he must feel as he stands in front of his father's plane.
Later we meet again at the Salon Rojo, nightclub of the Hotel Capri that
was a mafiarun playground in the 1950s.
In a throwback to the days when the Chicago mobster Meyer Lansky was the
boss of this town, all the tables on one side of the club feature overly
made-up girls professionally available.
Given Cuba's extraordinary racial mix, discerning customers have a wide
choice – black, white, mulatta and various shades of mestiza. The men
are mostly foreigners with wallets full of convertible pesos.
We are waiting for NG La Banda, who play a high energy salsa variant
known as timba. Entry is in CUC, meaning locals are excluded, and sadly
the venue is far from full.
When NG take the stage fashionably late at well past 1am, I expect the
evening to fizzle out. But they announce their arrival with a series of
brass stings of such dazzling speed and precision that any resistance to
their musical attack is rendered futile.
Virtuoso flautist Jose Luis Cortes and the famous horn section nicknamed
"Los Metales del Terror" tear the place up, while bass player Dallana
Fages propels the rhythm section with the boom and bite of tropical thunder.
The four front-line singers jiggle and jive; they flirt and seduce. The
jineteras rise to the challenge with an escalation of outrageously sexy
moves.
I am drinking a dark rum and coke – the Cubada. But it's not just
alcohol intoxicating now, the rhythm is in my bloodstream, and I dance
the last dance in Castro's Cuba.
Soon Fidel will be gone; the US embargo will be dropped, and McDonald's
will park its golden arches on La Rampa. And this beguiling, crazy
country will join the 21st century. – The Independent
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