Havana Hustle

Cuba's New Socialist Man learns to wheel and deal

Damien Cave from the August/September 2003 issue

(Page 5 of 5)

He shows me a folded picture. A woman with wavy brown hair, about 35, stands in a flowered bikini on a beach. Her arms are held over her head, as if to say, "Ta da! This is your prize." And indeed it is. Pablo informs me that she'll be arriving in August to marry him and take him back to Frankfurt. After dancing together one night, after spending a pair of two-month sojourns in Cuba together, they're planning to tie the eternal knot.

I look down at the beige, brand new Fubu boots on his feet -- a gift? -- and worry about my friend's decision. I want him to stay because, despite his "organized crime," I've become convinced that he could have a positive effect on Cuba's future. I don't have the guts to say this, or to ask how his sister and mother will survive without him, so I simply tell him that it's going to be hard: that Frankfurt is cold and no one speaks Spanish and the music sucks and Germans are legalistic and don't expect it to be perfect.

Through all this, he just smiles. He says he'll come visit me. "It's OK," he says over the din of the salsa music that I know he'll miss. "She really loves me. She's taking care of everything."