Cuba Diaries by Isadora Tattlin Page B

lives in Havana. Carlita stays with Davide on her days off and on the weekends. Carlita would like Nick and me to meet him. Carlita is, in fact, determined for us to meet Davide, though she won’t explain why. She has been trying to get us to come to Davide’s house for several weeks, but Nick has been busy.
    Davide is a retired architect. He designed hotels before
el triunfo de la revolución
, he even designed a hotel for Lucky Luciano, but then he became a revolutionary. He went back to working as an architect after
el triunfo
, but he designed more modest buildings then.
    Davide, who is in his sixties, and his girlfriend, who is in her thirties, live in Miramar in a small house he designed for himself. It is a square brick house with louvers for windows. The bedrooms are in the basement, for coolness, he says.
    Davide is slim and well groomed, with a boyish face, and seems at once pleased and appalled to see us.
    We sit on Danish modern sofas in the living room. Macramé plant holders hang in front of every window, and on the windowsills are blown-glass bottles holding sand in brightly colored layers, urchin figurines with humorous signs on them, and a terra-cotta Mexican donkey with tiny cacti growing out of a small planter on its back. A guitar leans in one corner. Paintings of Cuban landscapes are interspersed with paintings of clowns and paintings on velvet of bare-breasted Polynesian girls.
    Carlita sits on the edge of one Danish modern sofa, looking back and forth, from Davide to us.
    Nick asks Davide if he knows of any good
paladares
.
    â€œ
Paladares?
” Davide says, looking uncomfortable.
    I had the feeling when I first walked into Davide’s house—and now I know it for sure—that Davide is sitting in a room with card-carrying capitalists for the first time since 1962. I have not had this feeling meeting other Cubans, but I do have it with Davide.
    Davide says he doesn’t know of any
paladares
. . .
    I ask Davide quickly if he would like us to bring him back anything from Europe or the United States.
    â€œArchitectural magazines,” Davide says emphatically, looking relieved. “Anything about architecture . . .”
    I tell Nick after we get outside that he shouldn’t ask people like that about
paladares
.
    â€œPeople like what?”
    â€œ
Nick
.”
    I don’t know whether it’s my being a woman or my not being X——ian, or whether it’s just that marriages must have their little surprises every day, for on another day, it would have been Nick sensing the vibes and me saying the wrong thing.
I. 42
    The children and I will be leaving soon for the summer (Nick will join us when he can), but we still have a few weekends left.
    There is a median strip on the Prado, which is in places still paved with smooth terrazzo. It is ideal for in-line skating. We have seen children—Cuban children—on Rollerblades there already. The Prado is a copy of the famous promenade, Las Ramblas, in Barcelona.
    We park the car at the beginning of the Prado near the Malecón. The children seat themselves on a stone bench and put on Rollerblades. They have knee pads on, too, and wrist guards. They start to skate. We walk behind them. Jimmie skates briskly, but Thea skates listlessly. Old people sitting on the stone benches that are still intact, and children climbing on the remains of lampposts and stone lions, stare at us as we pass. We see a few other children with Rollerblades on, but none with wrist guards or knee pads. Our children’s clothes are not exceptional, just shorts and T-shirts, but they look extraordinarily pressed and gleaming, compared with the other children’s clothes; and with the wrist guards and knee pads, our children looked pressed, gleaming, and science fictional. Our clothes are not exceptional either, just jeans and T-shirts, but they look gleaming, too, and together as a family we are huge and gleaming and all but