Then he drew back his arm to gain momentum and flung the bottle out
to sea. The epistolary container, heavy with the nostalgia of those three
shipwrecked men, remained floating near the coast, shining like a priceless
diamond, until a wave engulfed it and took it out to the dark one where it’s
only possible to see things through the eyes of memory and desire…
Thus ends the book
Adios, Hemingway by Leonardo
Padura
Reading Padura in la Habana
It seems so appropriate to read Padura on this visit..
I was sitting indulging in a Crepe made by locals who claim to
have eaten them since antiquity, filled with salmon and crème fraiche, when the
gentleman opposite said to me
Do you know Leonardo Padura, the Cuban writer? We have just
finished one of his books, in French translation.
It was about 830 pm in Brittany and it would be 2 30 pm in La
Habana and I sent an email to my Cuban mother, enquiring about Leonardo Padura. Within five minutes, I
received an email from my mother, informing me that while he is a busy
traveller, if we coincide in La Habana she would try to arrange a reunion!
I was excited about it.
Looking through Amazon.com, I was able to find some of his books
and the title Havana Fever attracted me and I was reading it on my next visit
to Cuba and it was absolutely charming, and from Padura’s books one could learn
about the intricacies of this society at a greater depth, even if you are
living here.
On this visit, I was reading Adios, Hemingway and it seemed so
apt. Cuba while people think that is stuck in the 50s, because of the antique
cars still plying full throttle, is an incredibly dynamic society. Nothing
stands still here, let alone time, which by the way does not have the same significance elsewhere.
We are in a liminal period, one president is gone and another
one is in its place, so this liminality has affected some people, especially
those who cannot deal well with ambiguity. The new president is trying to put
his own stamp on the Cuban mind and life and people feel an exaggerated sense
of change, which is only illusionary. But the stoic ones who have seen it all
is less perturbed but the cunning ones looking for a dollar in the change (so
to speak) send out alarming signals.
Reading Padura makes me realize that in Cuba, there are things
you have and there are things you are given the illusion of having.
THERE ARE THINGS THAT SHOULDN’T BE LOST, PADURA’S CHARACTER
CONDE WRITES, IF THEY DO GET LOST WE ARE IN A F...G MESS.
Friendship has a certain strength here but one has to be aware
of the fact that the surrealist sense of the present and the greed amidst the
ever present lack of goods, has given rise to an opportunistic attachments,
usually embellished with wonderful words and affection. One has to be a little
wary of this.
As my psychologist friends said to me: it is not incongruous
that you find there are changes and then you feel so much peace in La Habana,
mainly because you have put things in the right place.
In this society, reality and magic are ever present. It is the
only society where the European descendants have taken on the religion of
African descendants. My own immersion with the Indians makes sense of some of
the Cuban magical belief systems.
When bad people or in Cuban context people who are your friends
because what they can get out of you, come your way, say the Indians, just walk
around them, don’t confront them.
And of course perhaps the peace comes from that:
The lady who used to cook for me and to whom and the family I
used to supply plenty of food began
demanding money and her friendship turned into a prism of the colourful dollar
notes of the Cuban tourists.
American Indians also say, if you do it with a sense of purity
in the heart, those who try to defraud you would be the ones to suffer.
Another friend in whose success I took great joy with bounding innocence had forgotten to mention some
pertinent facts.
It is good to keep these people away from you for a while. A
visitor from Africa turned out to be no less cunning than the goal oriented
Cuban friendship of some,
As the Indians say, just go around them.
Reading Padura in La Habana
Looking at sunset, chatting with good friends with whom I have
no commercial relationships, trying to understand this complex society with
warmth and affection perhaps gives me this sense of peace in my heart.
Gracias, Leonardo Padura..
