Naked in Havana by Colin Falconer Page B

just for a moment, what he might look like in mine.
    Be careful, Magdalena, hadn’t Papi warned you about this man? But then he didn’t like Angel either. Perhaps it would always be like this--I would always fall in love with unsuitable men.
    “You dance well.”
    “So do you,” he said.
    “No, I just followed you. I’ve never danced tango before.”
    “Tango is all about the difference between a man and a woman. You allow, I suggest. That’s all. If we dance badly, it’s the man’s fault; if we dance well, it’s because you’re a beautiful woman and a wonderful dancer. You see? It’s a connection that allows the woman the freedom to be herself. You feel what I’m going to do but I must feel how you will do it. It is different for everyone. Some of it is practice, some of it is experience, and some of it...” He stopped and their eyes locked. “Some of it is knowing something about the woman that no one else knows. Can I come close to you without stepping on your toes? Do I lean on you, do you lean on me? The secret is to come close without locking together. It is not about steps and clever tricks, but connection. It’s a little mysterious, in fact. If you find just one partner like this in this life, you are lucky and you’ll never want another.”
    He turned those ice blue eyes right on me and smiled. I caught my breath. He wasn’t beautiful like Angel, but there was an animal force about him that utterly disarmed me. I had to look away, give myself time to think.
    Don’t fall for it, Magdalena, this is just another play. You’ll end up like Inocencia, caught in his web and not able to get out.
    He reached across the table and took my hand. He had nice hands, with long tapered fingers, like a priest or a pianist. It surprised me.
    He lifted my chin and leaned forward. He would have kissed me right there, in the middle of the Plaza hotel with all of Cuba watching, but just then the waiter arrived with the coffee and the moment was gone.
    “You never told me what you were doing in the church,” I said.
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “You’d come to pray for Inocencia as well.”
    “I’m not a God fearing man, princess, but it doesn’t hurt to hedge your bets.”
    “Do you love her?”
    “Yes, I love her, but I’m not in love with her. She knows that.”
    “She told me.”
    “She told you?”
    I thought about that night in the club. That man! He loves me halfway, and I swear, that’s the worst of it.
    I wondered what would have happened if the waiter hadn’t appeared a few moments before, what it would have been like to have kissed him.
    It seemed as if he was thinking the same thing. “You know something?” he whispered to me. “You’re going to love me one day. The very first time I saw you I knew it. And so did you. It’s fate.”
    “I don’t believe in fate.”
    “Fate doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.” He finished his coffee and looked at his watch. “I should get you back. You told Luis you would be fifteen minutes, we’ve been gone almost an hour. He’ll think I’ve raped and murdered you.”
    “Why would he think that?”
    “Everybody thinks that about me.”
    As he walked me back to the cathedral square his mood changed again. He became morose. He was thinking about Inocencia again. I suppose we both were.
    We reached the cathedral. Luis was standing under the colonnade, tapping his newspaper against his thigh, looking up and down the street. He looked relieved when he saw me.
    Reyes took her hand. “You have to get out of Cuba,” he said. “This place is going to hell. I mean it.”
    “Papi will never leave. They’ll have to carry him out.”
    “That’s an option.”
    “What does it matter to you what happens to us?
    “You know the answer to that.”
    “And what happens to you when the rebels walk into Havana?”
    “Me? I’ll be on the last plane out. I’ll have turned a profit by then, and it will all be in cash in a suitcase. Your father should do