Steak, soft drinks, even dental work ? was there anything our writer's landlady couldn't obtain on Havana's black market?
One of Elena's many late-night laments was that she didn't like her teeth. They were short and grey across the top, and one incisor was perpendicular to its neighbours. But a legal visit to a dentist was out of the question, she explained, because they weren't really threatening her health. Havana had dentists, but the medical centres had no supplies, no drugs or drills. So Elena had hatched a plan: a friend ran an under-the-table dental practice in his living room, with equipment smuggled in piece by piece. She was pulling together the funds to meet his price.
Elena was my landlady in Havana's Miramar neighbourhood in the winter of 2002. By the time she told me about her dental scheme, I'd already marvelled at her ingenuity in meeting not only her needs but her wants without a formal income. Still, her plan struck me as audacious. I'd never bought anything under the table that required an anaesthetic. But there's no capitalist like a desperate one, and Cubans were among the most creative capitalists I'd ever met. A vigorous under-the-table market seemed to thrive in every home.
My friend Sam and I were among Elena's customers, renting one of her two bedrooms while he studied Spanish and I finished a book. When I arrived, the scheming and secrecy required to maintain her lifestyle were not immediately apparent. Her third-floor flat was spare but airily comfortable, painted in faded shades of yellow, blue, and green. It had a wide, sunny patio with wicker chairs ? if you peered into the lush foliage, you could see the neighbours' carefully cloaked satellite dish.
Sea breezes wafted through slatted windows that never had to be closed. Elena slept in a little space off the kitchen that might have been a maid's quarters before the revolution. Her mother Maria, who hennaed her hair and favoured muumuus (loose Hawaiian-style dresses) slept in the other bedroom. That was the extent of her household. Elena's ex-husband, sons, and current husband had all made it to Miami.
Sam and I took turns staying up late talking to Elena at the dining room table. She had three subjects: her family, her schemes, and the man she referred to simply as "him" or "the beard", nearly spitting every time. Elena loathed Fidel Castro with all her heart. When she was truly ticked off, she just made a soundless gesture with her thumb and forefinger, drawing them down to a point below her chin to indicate the beard.
She instructed us never to mention our status as rent-payers. We were her foreign "friends", which I thought an implausible cover story since she had never left Cuba, and foreigners, who were few and often tightly corralled, weren't easily accessible for befriending. But a lie here and there was part of the price of under-the-table accommodation. The only alternatives were big, government-approved hotels and small, government-approved boarding houses. The latter, run by families in their own homes, were part of a halting experiment with free enterprise, but the regulations and taxes involved were so onerous that they remained more expensive than illicit homestays such as Elena's.
The secrecy mandate applied even to Elena's closest friends and neighbours ? in fact it applied especially to her closest neighbour. Elena blithely informed us that Alonzo, who lived across the outdoor landing, was the block's communist party enforcer. Sam and I tried to avoid him.
Until, that is, I wanted to plug in the printer I had brought from Canada, but discovered that while my plug had a third prong, the old socket had no hole to fit it. Simple, Elena said. I just had to cut off the grounding prong ? and Alonzo had metal cutters that could handle the job. "Don't say anything," she reminded me as I followed her to the door. I wondered if Alonzo might seize my contraband printer, or seize me for undermining the revolution. But he got his cutters and snipped my plug before withdrawing with a sing-song hasta luego.
We never went hungry at Elena's, but we learned some tricks for keeping the pantry stocked. She had an extra ration card left by her ex-husband, so could get double supplies of basics like cooking oil and beans. She rarely had meat. Despite its lush lands and rich seas, Cubans were forbidden from owning prawns, lobster or beef without the correct documentation; these goods were for export or sale to foreigners. Elena bought buns, butter and coffee at one of the government-run small grocery stores. Sometimes she sent us to a larger shop reserved for foreigners and Cubans with special permission, where oddities such as cartons of juice and cereal sometimes turned up.
A friend sold her tomatoes from his garden. And a week before Sam's birthday, I was touched when Elena told me she had a plan to get a surprise steak: her tomato man knew a man whose wife managed an abattoir. Sure enough, we had beef and spaghetti that night.
The household sold as well as bought. Maria made sturdy bras on her sewing machine, which she sold at the evangelical church she attended twice a week. And Elena periodically sold off pieces of furniture, which she wouldn't, in any case, be able to take with her to Miami. The wicker patio furniture would be the next to go.
Other than our accommodation, as non-Cubans we didn't have to buy much on the black market. We could dine at a foreigners' restaurant that served prawns; we could drink mojitos in the tiled art deco arcade of the Hotel Nacional, built in 1930 and now run by the government for foreign guests.
Still, under-the-table dealing was so ubiquitous that I'd come to think of it as no big deal. One day Elena asked us if we wanted some soft drinks. She knew a guy, she said. He worked the late shift at a bottling plant and could get us anything ? cola, orange soda, bitter lemon. She must have decided we could handle it on our own, because she told us to set our alarms for 2am and went to bed. At 2:05am, we were sitting by the slatted window. We hadn't turned on the light for fear of drawing attention, not least from Alonzo across the way.
"Maybe he's not coming," I whispered, but then we heard a discreet cough from the stairs. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as surely as if I'd been waiting for stolen jewels or state secrets. I was hit suddenly by the challenge Elena took on daily, by how overwhelmed I would be if I had to live the way she did.
Miguel stood in the shadows and lowered a large backpack to the ground. Moving quickly, he unloaded eight litre bottles onto the floor. I handed over our US dollars, and our enterprising merchant was gone.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/oct/14/my-travels-havana-cuba
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