Cally Phillips' Another World is Possible
Episode One – QUESTIONS
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: 1999 Cuba – ROISIN
Swearwords: None.
Description: 1999 Cuba – ROISIN
Roisin sits in the departure lounge at Jose Marti International Airport, wondering why she is there. A man comes up to her. She’s used to that. In Cuba at least, men are always coming up to her, wondering who she is and why she is there. She’s the unusual thing, a single woman travelling alone. Cuba is not really a holiday destination. Not yet. It’s 1999 and we’re still stuck in the ‘special period’.
Roisin wishes, not for the first time, she spoke more Spanish. Any Spanish. She thinks back to the moment she went through passport control. She had no idea what the official was saying. She was tired. She smiled, but it didn’t pay off. He looked at her, suspiciously, as is the manner of immigration officials, jabbered something in Spanish and for a moment it was unclear whether she would get her passport back and move on, or if there was something else on the agenda.
However, he waved her on, bemused by her lack of comprehension and almost before she knew it, certainly before she was ready for it, the heat of an April day in Havana hit her full in the face as she looked around for a taxi. The end of a very long journey. More than ten hours from Gatwick. But that’s not the longest part. It’s the thirty four years from Kilburn to Havana to get to this beginning point which are taking their toll and right now Roisin feels it like the lifetime it’s been.
Roisin has got into the habit of ignoring the men. She doesn’t speak the language. She doesn’t like the local custom men have of hissing at a female they find attractive. She’s not blonde but sometimes it’s best to play dumb. Without Spanish you’re vulnerable, even if no one is taking advantage.
This man it seems speaks a kind of English.
‘You American?’
‘English… Irish… uh…’
He’s looking confused. Irish is clearly not a Cuban concept, and Roisin isn’t sure of her own nationality anyway. Even these simplest questions can’t elicit a simple answer from her. Nationality. Identity. These were part of the reason she came here after all. But she’s leaving none the wiser.
He pursues ‘¿Inglese?’
She nods. It’s easiest. He looks a bit disappointed. The limits of his English are clearly exhausted. And after ten days of the relentless heat, Roisin’s patience is equally thin. She looks out of the window, to see rain, the only rain she’s seen in Cuba, beating down a tropical rhythm on the vast glass panes that run along the front of the terminal building.
Roisin thinks about the last ten days. How she’s been too much on her own, in a foreign language. How she’s not made the sense she’d hoped to of the situation. She’s no better off than when she arrived.
‘No worse off either,’ she reflects. That’s Roisin. The glass is usually half full. Except when it’s half empty.
The man has moved on. The airport is far from bustling. The tropical rain seems to have stopped but the swift tropical nightfall has taken its place. The lighting is dim. Voltage is inconsistent in Havana and the airport is no exception. There’s probably only her flight left to depart this evening. The relative comfort of economy class British Airways flying through the night to London Gatwick. And somehow, despite everything, Roisin wants to be at home. Wherever that might be.
There’s nothing left to do now in Havana but think. She’s read the two books she brought. She’s left them behind with Roberto anyway. It’s hard to get English language books in Cuba. It’s hard to get anything in Cuba. So she’s travelling a lot lighter than she arrived. In body if not in spirit. Roisin thinks about her first impressions of Havana.
The big green Chevrolet that drove her down the dusty road to the city centre, some half an hour’s drive from the airport. The taxi driver spoke some English. He was formerly a teacher, who had taken up taxi driving because he could get dollars that way. Like most places in the world in 1999, the dollar is the currency of choice. Tourism has hardly made a dent on Cuba yet but you can still make more as a waiter or a taxi driver than you can as a doctor or a teacher. The professions are being deserted in favour of the hope of a booming service industry. It seems pesos are for peasants and the dollar is what the modern urban Cuban needs to survive at the turn of the century. Havana may not need capitalism, but it will give capitalists a welcome if they bring plenty of dollars with them.
Roisin sits back in the taxi and takes in the view. She doesn’t normally take the time to stop and look around her but this is all so new for a woman who hasn’t travelled in ten years. She’s amazed by the lack of Che Guevara images. It’s a full ten minutes before she spots one. There are loads of revolutionary slogans daubed on walls, but she was sure the guidebooks all said that ‘Che Guevara’s image is everywhere’ in Havana. Whereas in the west he’s confined to T-shirts, in Cuba he is supposed to be omnipresent, but in April 1999, Roisin is struggling to find him. As she has been for most of her life. Because Commandante Ernesto Che Guevara, 1928 to 1967, is the main reason Roisin is in Cuba. Perhaps the only reason.
She’s booked into the Habana Libre Hotel for the first two nights. Even as an independent traveller, you have to spend the first two nights in a hotel. The hotels are state run. Everything is state run in Cuba of course. They need to know where you are. What you are doing. Be able to place you.
The Habana Libre is one of the most expensive hotels in Havana. But also has a revolutionary history. Roisin picks it because it was the Headquarters for the revolution when they hit town New Year 1959. She realises, only when on the plane, it’s forty years ago. She should have come in January. She’ll have missed Fidel’s speeches at the Malecón. But she’s not that interested in Fidel. Or the Malecón. It’s Che she wants to know. And Che stayed at the Habana Libre for a time. If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for her. It’s the first place on her list of places.
At that point Roisin believes that somehow, if she just goes to enough of the places Che was, she’ll be able to feel something, make some sense of something, somehow resolve something. She’s not normally a romantic, but you can’t follow in the footsteps of a thirty year dead hero and not fall under the spell to some degree. So she plans to go to La Cabana, where Che had his office after the Revolution. Then she’ll go to Santa Clara, where he’s buried.
Roisin has plans. And a contact. Well, a name and address in Vedado anyway. A musician called Roberto Sanchez. Roisin has oboe reeds for him. They are, like everything else, impossible to get in Cuba. Roberto comes recommended by the friend of a friend who came to Cuba in 1998 on a music project. It’s perhaps a tenuous link, but Cuba seems to thrive on them, and any friend of Emily’s will be a welcome friend of Roberto’s; especially bearing oboe reeds and paracetamol. And dollars. To pay for her keep.
Roberto and his wife don’t run a licensed guest house, such places are rare in 1999 Havana but they can put Roisin up, after the first two nights which must be spent in a hotel, and arrange an itinerary for her trip. They were most insistent on that. Emily emailed them and sorted it all out, but Roisin’s wishing she’d had some input. Everything here in Havana seems out of her control.
As she checks into the Habana Libre, Roisin’s beginning to wonder how she’ll manage to ‘telephone on arrival.’ For a start, there’s no pay phone anywhere to be seen. And everyone, everywhere, is speaking Spanish. But right now, Roisin just needs to sleep. With the time difference it’s now well into the night for her, and the culture shock is beginning to overwhelm any sense of excitement, leaving only a tension spreading right up her neck and making her hope that the air conditioning will be as advertised. So far, she’s getting the feeling that nothing in Havana will be as it is in the guidebooks. Or in her imagination. Not for the first time, Roisin questions the nature of reality. In general, and her own.
The mind plays tricks on you when you’re tired and Roisin is nearly asleep at the airport when she senses something. Somewhat wearily, she looks up again in response to the presence of yet another man. She’s surprised this time, for two reasons; firstly because she recognises him and secondly, because he’s English, well, actually he’s a Scot. As tall, dark and handsome as she remembers from Santa Clara, with a soft accent and an unconscious charisma which had already become part of a pleasant memory for Roisin.
‘You flying out tonight?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Not at all. Be good to have someone to talk to, to pass the time.’
Roisin wishes, not for the first time, she spoke more Spanish. Any Spanish. She thinks back to the moment she went through passport control. She had no idea what the official was saying. She was tired. She smiled, but it didn’t pay off. He looked at her, suspiciously, as is the manner of immigration officials, jabbered something in Spanish and for a moment it was unclear whether she would get her passport back and move on, or if there was something else on the agenda.
However, he waved her on, bemused by her lack of comprehension and almost before she knew it, certainly before she was ready for it, the heat of an April day in Havana hit her full in the face as she looked around for a taxi. The end of a very long journey. More than ten hours from Gatwick. But that’s not the longest part. It’s the thirty four years from Kilburn to Havana to get to this beginning point which are taking their toll and right now Roisin feels it like the lifetime it’s been.
Roisin has got into the habit of ignoring the men. She doesn’t speak the language. She doesn’t like the local custom men have of hissing at a female they find attractive. She’s not blonde but sometimes it’s best to play dumb. Without Spanish you’re vulnerable, even if no one is taking advantage.
This man it seems speaks a kind of English.
‘You American?’
‘English… Irish… uh…’
He’s looking confused. Irish is clearly not a Cuban concept, and Roisin isn’t sure of her own nationality anyway. Even these simplest questions can’t elicit a simple answer from her. Nationality. Identity. These were part of the reason she came here after all. But she’s leaving none the wiser.
He pursues ‘¿Inglese?’
She nods. It’s easiest. He looks a bit disappointed. The limits of his English are clearly exhausted. And after ten days of the relentless heat, Roisin’s patience is equally thin. She looks out of the window, to see rain, the only rain she’s seen in Cuba, beating down a tropical rhythm on the vast glass panes that run along the front of the terminal building.
Roisin thinks about the last ten days. How she’s been too much on her own, in a foreign language. How she’s not made the sense she’d hoped to of the situation. She’s no better off than when she arrived.
‘No worse off either,’ she reflects. That’s Roisin. The glass is usually half full. Except when it’s half empty.
The man has moved on. The airport is far from bustling. The tropical rain seems to have stopped but the swift tropical nightfall has taken its place. The lighting is dim. Voltage is inconsistent in Havana and the airport is no exception. There’s probably only her flight left to depart this evening. The relative comfort of economy class British Airways flying through the night to London Gatwick. And somehow, despite everything, Roisin wants to be at home. Wherever that might be.
There’s nothing left to do now in Havana but think. She’s read the two books she brought. She’s left them behind with Roberto anyway. It’s hard to get English language books in Cuba. It’s hard to get anything in Cuba. So she’s travelling a lot lighter than she arrived. In body if not in spirit. Roisin thinks about her first impressions of Havana.
The big green Chevrolet that drove her down the dusty road to the city centre, some half an hour’s drive from the airport. The taxi driver spoke some English. He was formerly a teacher, who had taken up taxi driving because he could get dollars that way. Like most places in the world in 1999, the dollar is the currency of choice. Tourism has hardly made a dent on Cuba yet but you can still make more as a waiter or a taxi driver than you can as a doctor or a teacher. The professions are being deserted in favour of the hope of a booming service industry. It seems pesos are for peasants and the dollar is what the modern urban Cuban needs to survive at the turn of the century. Havana may not need capitalism, but it will give capitalists a welcome if they bring plenty of dollars with them.
Roisin sits back in the taxi and takes in the view. She doesn’t normally take the time to stop and look around her but this is all so new for a woman who hasn’t travelled in ten years. She’s amazed by the lack of Che Guevara images. It’s a full ten minutes before she spots one. There are loads of revolutionary slogans daubed on walls, but she was sure the guidebooks all said that ‘Che Guevara’s image is everywhere’ in Havana. Whereas in the west he’s confined to T-shirts, in Cuba he is supposed to be omnipresent, but in April 1999, Roisin is struggling to find him. As she has been for most of her life. Because Commandante Ernesto Che Guevara, 1928 to 1967, is the main reason Roisin is in Cuba. Perhaps the only reason.
She’s booked into the Habana Libre Hotel for the first two nights. Even as an independent traveller, you have to spend the first two nights in a hotel. The hotels are state run. Everything is state run in Cuba of course. They need to know where you are. What you are doing. Be able to place you.
The Habana Libre is one of the most expensive hotels in Havana. But also has a revolutionary history. Roisin picks it because it was the Headquarters for the revolution when they hit town New Year 1959. She realises, only when on the plane, it’s forty years ago. She should have come in January. She’ll have missed Fidel’s speeches at the Malecón. But she’s not that interested in Fidel. Or the Malecón. It’s Che she wants to know. And Che stayed at the Habana Libre for a time. If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for her. It’s the first place on her list of places.
At that point Roisin believes that somehow, if she just goes to enough of the places Che was, she’ll be able to feel something, make some sense of something, somehow resolve something. She’s not normally a romantic, but you can’t follow in the footsteps of a thirty year dead hero and not fall under the spell to some degree. So she plans to go to La Cabana, where Che had his office after the Revolution. Then she’ll go to Santa Clara, where he’s buried.
Roisin has plans. And a contact. Well, a name and address in Vedado anyway. A musician called Roberto Sanchez. Roisin has oboe reeds for him. They are, like everything else, impossible to get in Cuba. Roberto comes recommended by the friend of a friend who came to Cuba in 1998 on a music project. It’s perhaps a tenuous link, but Cuba seems to thrive on them, and any friend of Emily’s will be a welcome friend of Roberto’s; especially bearing oboe reeds and paracetamol. And dollars. To pay for her keep.
Roberto and his wife don’t run a licensed guest house, such places are rare in 1999 Havana but they can put Roisin up, after the first two nights which must be spent in a hotel, and arrange an itinerary for her trip. They were most insistent on that. Emily emailed them and sorted it all out, but Roisin’s wishing she’d had some input. Everything here in Havana seems out of her control.
As she checks into the Habana Libre, Roisin’s beginning to wonder how she’ll manage to ‘telephone on arrival.’ For a start, there’s no pay phone anywhere to be seen. And everyone, everywhere, is speaking Spanish. But right now, Roisin just needs to sleep. With the time difference it’s now well into the night for her, and the culture shock is beginning to overwhelm any sense of excitement, leaving only a tension spreading right up her neck and making her hope that the air conditioning will be as advertised. So far, she’s getting the feeling that nothing in Havana will be as it is in the guidebooks. Or in her imagination. Not for the first time, Roisin questions the nature of reality. In general, and her own.
The mind plays tricks on you when you’re tired and Roisin is nearly asleep at the airport when she senses something. Somewhat wearily, she looks up again in response to the presence of yet another man. She’s surprised this time, for two reasons; firstly because she recognises him and secondly, because he’s English, well, actually he’s a Scot. As tall, dark and handsome as she remembers from Santa Clara, with a soft accent and an unconscious charisma which had already become part of a pleasant memory for Roisin.
‘You flying out tonight?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Not at all. Be good to have someone to talk to, to pass the time.’
About the Author
Cally Phillips has written fiction and drama in English and Scots, much of which is published through HoAmPresst. She also currently works as editor for Ayton Publishing Limited and runs a number of online projects, including The Galloway Raiders, which is the online hub for Scots writer S. R. Crockett. Her latest project to hit the virtual shelves is the #tobelikeche serial, which started in October 2016.
For the archive of Cally’s fiction and drama, follow this link.
For the archive of Cally’s fiction and drama, follow this link.