The Rum Chronicles

A dozen or so of us sat around a small back patio where the boom box played. Cándido Fabré was singing about los apagones, the systematic electrical outages throughout the island, and how he had lost some good pork chops in the fridge. We were joking about the difficulties of life in Cuba, but the mood turned darker when we learned that Sonia, who is married to a policeman, had lost her two-year-old daughter eighteen months earlier. The girl had been playing with some other children on a roadside not far from the house when a drunk driver struck her. Those types of alcohol-influenced car accidents were becoming all too common, the neighbors agreed.

The air was cooling off fast, and Héctor made a quick rum run. I think he is the only one of Julián's legions of friends and family in the oriente who owns a car. By Cuban standards he has it good: a decent job, a beautiful wife and daughter, and an apartment far nicer than the residences of any of Julián's family. But Héctor is still sick with longing for his ex-wife and sixteen-year-old daughter in Miami, even after almost ten years.

"We were so happy," he confided softly that night on Silvia's patio. "She's the love of my life. Please don't tell her that." Héctor has pale skin and eyes, a gingery mustache, and fine features that contrast with his barrel-chested frame. He had never said much to me before and would never admit such heartache without help from Havana Club. "If she had to go, why did she have to take my little girl?" he asked. But of course he knows; Héctor is just one of millions of Cubans who have seen their families dissolve.

The pig was carved up and tiny portions served with congrí and yuca. By then there were probably 40 people wandering in and out of the house, and close to 20 transfixed around the television set in the front room. A telenovela was on, one of two wildly popular soap operas airing alternate nights on Cuba's two TV channels. Tonight was the penultimate episode. As it came to an end, Julián made moves to leave, but Sergio went out and killed one of his chickens and a goat. Of course we couldn't refuse his hospitality. Héctor went on another rum run.

The night air carried a slight chill and the smell of dry vegetation. After the food and rum had been finished off and the neighbors all sent home, Héctor, Julián, and I settled into Héctor's Lada and rumbled down to the road from El Caney to Santiago. The old highway is irregularly paved, widening and narrowing and turning capriciously. Massive root-bound trees border the road on both sides. Along some stretches, the branches make solid arches overhead.

We arrived at Bernabé's house sometime around 3:00 a.m., waking him up. He left for work at 6:00, and by the time he returned in the afternoon, family and friends were in the house watching TV, playing dominoes, and nursing glasses of rum. Benjamin and his children (minus Elena), along with assorted nephews and nieces, had brought the party down from Luisa's house. Now cousins and uncles from Bernabé's branch of the family showed up as well. In the back yard, an already besotted Vicente was busy dressing a pig. It appeared we were down to our last bottle of rum, and I hoped Julián, who was in town with Héctor, would return with a supply.

A more pressing dilemma, though: no water. The barrel out back was about half full, but no water was coming through the faucets in the kitchen or bathroom. No water for bathing. Or flushing the toilet. I grew anxious, but no one else was fazed. Bernabé's girlfriend, I soon learned, was rigging some pipe she'd obtained from a neighbor that would bring water to a makeshift pump on the roof.

"We're about out of rum," I complained to Bernabé. He smiled and replied, "Well, let's go get some. First we gotta find an empty bottle." That was easy.

"Don't worry, niña. Anything you need, just ask." Bernabé is very dark-skinned, like his father, but his face is rounder and his eyes have a gold, forbidding glint that belies his sweetness. He took my hand, adding, "I'll take care of you."

Bernabé and Julián have had their brotherly standoffs, mainly over family and community responsibilities. Bernabé, like Vicente, is a militante who came of age during the early years of the revolution. Julián, born after 1959, is less inclined to respect societal rules and more likely to act impulsively.