The Havana Papers

By Michael Daly

With a 1958 portable typewriter in his suitcase, the writer wanders Havana’s crumbling back alleys, bullet-sprayed museums, and grand hotels where the relics of the Revolution and the ghost of Hemingway still speak loudly.


Whether getting grifted while watching a dubiously billed piano player from the Buena Vista Social Club, dodging grifters and conmen, or wandering amongst over a million marble graves, The Havana Papers offers a rare glimpse into old Havana—a UNESCO World Heritage site—in the 21st Century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483539072

Michael Daly

Michael Daly is a columnist for the New York Daily News. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Book preview

9781483539072

CHAPTER ONE

The Beginning of the End

I sat in my hotel room with the contents of my grandfather's leather suitcase strewn on the unused bed. My head was in my hands as I sat across from the old beast. She hadn't made it. The '58 typewriter was inextricably jammed after its journey and interrogation by the Cuban guards who'd pulled me aside at the airport. Now the goddamn thing didn't work. The cool marble floor was calming in its unnecessary elegance.

I had hoped to type something on hotel stationary before the typewriter jammed. I interrogated it with a pen, hoping to see some obvious piece of contorted metal in an easy-to-reach place that could be accessed by fingers or said pen. Rotating and shaking the metal beast while fuming smoke like Castro himself, I saw nothing. Dejected, I butt out my cigarette and set the typewriter beside the flatscreen television. I had come to Havana to write, but now could only absorb.

The L-shaped hotel cupped the pool below my room. Up the road from the Copacabana, the five-hundred room hotel in Miramar was mostly empty. Its grand entrance was two stories of glass windows that curved, forming the lobby over grey marble steps and columns with green marble accents and brass railings. A plaque commemorating Fidel Castro's official opening of the hotel stood at the entrance and, inside, the lobby was as big as a football field and encased in glass that vaulted to form the ceiling. While the outside of the hotel was sealed from the street with steel and glass as in any other building, the stucco insides of the hotel - hallways, staircases, restaurants, and public areas - were open to the sea air. Curtains blew and the central gardens rustled in every lick of wind.

Upon my arrival, I'd given the porter two pesos to take my bags up to the room and tipped my driver from the airport. My room had been ready and, even though I had stopped for an espresso at a roadside stand on the way, I strolled into the grand lobby for another.

The central gardens in the interior of the hotel spilled their neon green palms out into the grand lobby and a gentle waterfall cascaded through lily pads. Around them was an acre of low tables surrounded by leather chairs. A circular bar was set against a mirrored wall in the corner. There were aproned waiters, cigars, espressos, mojitos, and Spanish news. While I sank deep into a leather chair, a black-vested waiter idled over, and I ordered an espresso.

"Yes sir, one café," I said politely, nodding my head. Espresso was the default coffee here and 'americano' was a bad word. When it arrived, I poured the course grains of Cuban sugar into the small cup and stirred them in. The sugar softened the thick coffee's edge. After eleven hours, I had arrived.

Caffeinated, I'd wandered the wings of the hotel, past the gift shops, the gym, the hairdresser, the humidor, and finally to the street-side café where seafood was the cheapest item on the menu and the salad bar was prohibitively expensive, filled with nothing but tomatoes and olives, and always closed. On the patio television, a triumphant concert from a Latin pop diva played in a never ending loop of cheers and crescendos. I watched it with the cats who frequented the café to beg politely. When people came to beg, the waiter would firmly and efficiently eject them, while the cats were allowed to stay.

I returned to my room while the breeze blew through the central gardens and whispered down the long hallways, stacked row-on-row, up and up to the sky.

CHAPTER TWO

Arrival

I didn't sleep much the night before I left for Havana. Lightning cracked the sky in smoky purple tridents that revealed heaving black clouds in their jagged wakes. Electricity fanned out across the sky and lit the early hours of not-quite morn like a strobe. I stood outside with my suitcase in the doorway and waited for the van which would take me to the airport. I lit the next cigarette off the last and pulled it deep into my lungs. I watched the cigarette slowly beat with my heart in my fingertips like a metronome. This would be one of the last before the airport. I steadied my hand to stop it from shaking: I was nervous. I would have no one to talk to for eight days, save those in the service industry and kind Cuban grifters.

As the van arrived and the driver pulled to a stop, I began my travels alone. The driver loaded my bags into the back and I stretched out in the eight-person van that I shared with no one but the driver.

Where are you headed? she asked and her eyes smiled in the rearview mirror.

I'm going to Havana.

Who are you going with?