Cohiba

The street is a psychotic migratory wave: people walking in groups, nobody going in the same direction. They walk with the same sluggish gait, crushed by the heat and lack of air. Along the banks a string of large, run-down houses and mansions from the colonial period now converted into human dovecotes, one family per room, are all in the same state: peeling paint, broken glass, tall weeds, holes in the ceilings and walls. The residents sit out in the doorways in plastic chairs, watching the parade of foreigners pass by. A blonde woman with sun-creased skin doesn’t bother to hide an expression of scorn at the swooning state of some of the representatives of the First World. The Brasileira is the only one who stares back, unblinking, until the blonde woman smiles at her and moves on to the next foreigner.

The cemetery is located in the centre of Havana; an entire city block full of dead people. The closer the tombstones are to the centre, the older. Some no longer bear any trace of a name or a date; they’re just blocks of stone sticking out from among the vegetation. We cross the threshold at that magic hour: when everything looks a little nicer than it really is. The setting sun does not alleviate the heat. Instead, the humidity grows denser. When the Basque considers the photos he could have shot in this light, his eyes cloud up. His limp marks the rhythm of the walk and he ponders over how dangerous his Cuban adventure could have been: he arrived a day before the workshop began and decided to spend the day walking around on his own at the Malecón fair. He was about to buy Trilogía sucia de La Habana for fifteen dollars when a black man whispered in his ear that he could get it for him for only ten. In one fell swoop the Basque managed to pick up a book, a guide and the hope of a lover. By noon he had already treated the man to three mojitos, lunch, the book, his sunglasses . . . He was ecstatic: Havana exceeded his fantasies. He took photos left and right (he wanted to bring it all back with him) until the guide offered to take a photo of him. Further and further away he walked, pursuing a panoramic shot of the Malecón. When he was about fifty metres away, he called out for the Basque to smile, then took off at a run.

The Hungarian comes to a halt at a grave marked by a huge domino tile instead of a regular headstone. A double six is engraved in the stone, weather-worn from decades in the open air. Right here, she says, this is where I said yes. The woman buried before us had been her friend, her love, a compulsive domino player who had followed her from Budapest to Havana. She died in a macumba session (unable to withstand the passage of the Immaculate Conception over her body). The artisan who contrived the domino marker was the Hungarian’s ex-husband. They had met right here: she points to the García Lorca Theatre in front of the cemetery and asks us to accompany her. I continue to watch them over my shoulder. Everything seems unreal, the logic of dreams: faceless men, friend-strangers, the dramas of other people’s lives... Ever since we left the movie theatre, I have felt him still lingering, watching me, swallowed into the Cuban night every time I turn round.