Naked in Havana by Colin Falconer Read Free Book Online Page A

our courtyard. He closed the French doors behind him.
    He helped himself to a glass of rum, as if he owned the house. Then he settled down into a cane chair. One of the perquisites of house calls to rich patients, I supposed, was that you were allowed to drink their best rum and still charge your highest fees.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked him.
    “He’s a tough old rooster your father,” he said, “but I’ve been telling him for years to take it easy and he won’t listen to me. What are we going to do with him?”
    “Is he going to be all right?”
    “Tomorrow? Yes. Next week? Probably. But it’s what’s going to happen to him a year from now that I worry about.”
    “You mean his ulcer?”
    “Well, it’s not just his ulcer. He has a heart condition, too. You didn’t know about that?”
    I shook my head.
    “He’s had it for years. Swore me to secrecy about it, but now I’m going to break my word because if I don’t, I think he’s going to kill himself.”
    “I’ve been telling him to take it easy,” I said.
    “It’s more than just taking it easy. He needs to retire.”
    “Retire?”
    “Sell the club. Forget about late nights and cigars and this...” He held up his glass of rum. “Take an interest in great literature and gardening if he wants to live to see his grandchildren.”
    “Did you tell him that?”
    “Of course. The first time I told him was a year ago. You see what a difference it has made. A lifetime practising medicine and he screws up his nose at me and tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
    “He’s a stubborn man.”
    “The cemetery is full of stubborn men. But if he won’t listen to me, perhaps he’ll listen to his daughter.”
     

     
    After Doctor Mendes left I crept into Papi’s bedroom. The shutters were drawn and I wasn’t sure if he was asleep. I crept closer to the bed. “Papi?”
    “Has that old fraud gone?”
    He looked so pale in the half-light. I sat down on the edge of the bed. “He said you’ve got some health problems you’ve not been telling me about.”
    “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
    “He told me you said that, too. He also thinks you’ve been working too hard.”
    “Working too hard! I told him - I drink, I smoke and I play cards until four in the morning. What’s so hard about that? He didn’t see the joke.
    “Because it’s not funny anymore. How are you feeling?”
    “Like I need a drink.” He sat up. “Where’s Maria? Tell her to get my pants pressed. And you, go and get dressed. We’re going to the club.”
     
     
     
     

Chapter 11

     
     
    Nine o’clock every night they fired the cannon at Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, the colonial fortress on the other side of the harbour. Once, people set their clocks and wristwatches by the familiar boom of the gun. But now there was a new tradition: the rebelde would time their bombs to go off around the city shortly before or after the ceremonial sounding of the cannon so that it was impossible to set the correct time anymore. It was all part of the general mood of chaos.
    And so every night the shutters in the houses rattled and glasses clinked on tables in the clubs and bars as Havana was rocked by bombs and small arms fire. By then the tourists were too drunk or too excited to pay any attention, it was all just part of the floor show. The revolution didn’t stop the entertainment, it was part of the entertainment.
    The sense of danger, of being on the edge of something, made the music more vibrant, the dancing more heated, the sex more urgent. The price for flights from Miami was down to thirty-six dollars, there were advertisements in the Miami Herald : “55 minutes of sheer pleasure, 5 swift flights daily.”
    Havana was one non-stop party for the rich and famous. You could order a daiquiri in the lobby bar of the Dauphin or the Biltmore - if you could afford it - and rub shoulders with Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, Edith Piaf or Ava