Free Naked in Havana by Colin Falconer

town, the war was keeping people away for the first time. Papi spent more and more time in the courtyard with his cigars. Early in the mornings I could hear him muttering under his breath as he read the morning newspaper. Everyone was on edge. No one knew what was going to happen.
    That night at dinner I noticed the dark rings under his eyes were back. He barely touched his chicken, and when Maria clucked her tongue and tried to remonstrate with him, he made a languid flick of his hand to have her take away his plate. He put a pink tablet under his tongue when he thought I wasn’t looking and washed it down with a glass of rum.
    “I saw Angel in town today,” I said to him, as casually as I could.
    He put down his cigar and looked around at me, his eyes like slits. “You just bumped into him by accident. On your way to acting class.”
    I nodded, not trusting my voice.
    “A coincidence.”
    “Ask Luis, he’ll tell you.” Dios mio , I thought, if he asks Luis, I’m dead.
    He puffed on his cigar. “Cariña, Angel is getting married soon. Forget about him.”
    “I went shopping in the Nacional, he was in the lobby with his father,” I said, as casually as I could and hoped it sounded convincing.
    “I guess there’s no law against going into the Nacional.”
    “He told me his father says the rebels are winning, Papi. That’s why they’re getting out of Havana. What if the rebelde do win?”
    “I told you, we have nothing to worry about.”
    “It scares me that they’re leaving and we’re still here. What if they’re right about Castro and the barbudos ? Everyone seems so afraid.”
    “Everyone is afraid of change. But in the end, in Cuba, you find that nothing changes at all. It’s just different people stealing all the money, but it’s the same people losing it all. That’s the way life is.” He put his hand on mine. “Let’s forget all this ugliness. Tonight I want you to put on your best dress and come with me to the club. Let’s listen to some great bolero and forget about Salvatore and Castro and Lansky and the rest of them.” A smile lit up his face. “What do you say, cariña?”
    I couldn’t help it. He utterly disarmed me when he smiled like that. “Sure, Papi. Let’s do it.”
     

     
    Maria had run my bath. I slipped into the warm soapy water, leaned my head back against the towel she had put there and slipped a hand between my legs. I kept thinking about Inocencia and Reyes, couldn’t get them out of my mind. I wonder what someone would have thought if they had walked in on me and Angel in Calle San Lorenzo. Did I look like that?
    That silent scream on her face. I always waited for it to finish, she didn’t look as if she ever wanted it to end. I thought I had this big secret because I wasn’t a virgin anymore, but perhaps I still didn’t know anything at all.
    Sex for me was so much better like this, alone. Angel never knew how to touch me the right way, even when I showed him. A woman wasn’t like a man--there were folds and secret places. He didn’t understand. Or was it that he just didn’t care?
    What was it that Inocencia said to me that day? You love with your head, not your heart. What did that mean? It made no sense. All this talk about the heart, like it was something with a mind of its own.
    Thank God Papi couldn’t see inside my head. This was why a girl needed a mother, I supposed, someone to tell her what to do, what to think about all these crazy things. I loved my papi, but there was so much I couldn’t talk to him about, and I hated keeping so many secrets from him.
    But what could I do? I couldn’t hurt him with the truth and I couldn’t be anything other than what I was. God knows I’d tried.
    I thought about Inocencia and Reyes and came quietly, my toes curling around the lip of the bath, biting my lip to keep silent. Then I lay back in the tepid water and caught my breath.
    Outside, the wind hurled palm fronds through the air and a shutter slammed