Last Seen in Havana

CHAPTER ONE

January 29th, 1986

Dear Rob,

Yesterday, I had the privilege of meeting Fidel. He visited the army unit where Joaquín works and went around inspecting the headquarters, mingling with everybody and shaking hands. Yes, El Comandante is so close to his people! And he had minimal security. A Barbados delegation had come with him, and I was asked to be their interpreter. A great honor indeed, but I got nervous and fumbled my words so many times that Fidel ended up talking to them directly. (His English is much better than my Spanish.) He was very gracious about it. Today’s paper ran a photo of the visit, which I’m enclosing. You’ll see me close to El Caballo. The Horse is one of many nicknames people use for Fidel, some more respectful than others.

THE LONG-LEGGED BLONDE CROSSED the street toward a house with the name VILLA SANTA MARTA displayed in wrought-iron letters over the gate. Her chin-length bob framed a slightly square pretty face. She wore blue jeans and a tie-dye T-shirt. Two men who lingered outside the grocery store broke off a discussion of the Industriales team batting average to observe her. Three women interrupted their dissection of a friend’s divorce to watch her as well. All eyes followed the blonde as she walked through Villa Santa Marta’s front yard and until the house’s heavy door closed behind her.

Who’s that chick? asked the oldest woman, her nose high in the air like a hound picking up a fresh scent. First time I’ve seen her.

Joaquín’s new girlfriend, another woman answered officiously. She’s been living here for a week.

Eh! What about Berta?

"That’s over, chica. But this one . . . she doesn’t look Cuban, does she?"

She looks Russian.

That would be right down Joaquín’s alley, a guy spoke up.

Everyone nodded.

Inside the house, the blonde stood under a blue pendant lamp in the middle of a huge living room. The faded grandeur of the place still impressed her as it had the first day. She approached an upright piano and played the first chords of London Bridge.

Though the piano needed tuning, it had a rich, warm sound. There was a blue vase on top, next to the portrait of a dark-haired woman with a pearl necklace. The frame, heavy and ornate, looked like tarnished silver. The wall behind the piano was covered in paintings. The landscapes of marinas and countryside scenes didn’t impress the blonde, but she examined the portraits trying to discover a resemblance between their faces and Joaquín’s. If there was any, it eluded her.

Through the picture window, she saw people waiting in line across the street—the same people who had stared at her when she passed them. Her new neighbors. In due time she would join them at the grocery store queue, and they would get to know her.

She smiled and two dimples appeared on her cheeks. How fast things had moved! Less than a month ago she had been a guest at Hotel Colina in El Vedado, thinking of the handsome lieutenant who had swept her off her feet after the Triumph of the Revolution parade on January first, but not believing that their relationship (if you could call it a relationship) had any future. After all, she was an American—a Yankee, as they said here—who had come to Havana for eight days. But the days had turned into weeks. And the weeks would turn, hopefully, into months, and the months into years . . .

She remembered the first time she had locked eyes with Joaquín. He was still wearing his full-dress uniform and approached her as she wandered near Revolution Square, having just watched the parade. He had approached her and said something she didn’t understand—her Spanish wasn’t that good, and there was a lot of noise with so many people around. But she instinctively knew it was something sweet and smiled at him. Later, he had offered her a ride in his jeep. When they said goodbye at the Hotel Colina entrance, he had kissed her hand. He had returned the following day with a big bouquet of roses and invited her to Coppelia, the ice cream parlor that was only a few blocks away.

If you could just stay . . . he had said over a chocolate sundae, taking her hands in his.

At first it sounded absurd, but as days passed, she realized she was falling in love with him. As for staying, why not? She could start a new life here, seeing that she wasn’t too happy with the one she had led at home. When the day she was supposed to leave came, she simply tore up the return ticket. Joaquín had taken her to his house and promised to move heaven and earth so they could be together.

Oh, Rob, the friend who had invited her to Cuba, had been so horrified! He was part of a San Diego–based anti-embargo group called Compañeros de Cuba and had always wanted to visit the island. When he found out that it was possible to fly from Tijuana and skip the State Department’s lengthy permit process to travel to a communist country, he planned to spend the winter break in Havana. They don’t celebrate Christmas, so it’ll be a different kind of holiday, he had said. She had decided to go with him on a whim, and look where it had taken her! But when she announced her intention to stay, Rob had been beside himself: This is crazy! I can’t go back home without you. What are your parents going to say? She shrugged. Some people simply didn’t get it. And Rob wasn’t in love, was he? Of course he wouldn’t understand, but he had sworn eternal silence. She knew that he would never betray her.

She had promised him to write every week. That morning she had started a letter about her amazing meeting with Castro. Well, the meeting hadn’t turned out too amazing after all. Actually, it had been quite embarrassing. But still. Rob would appreciate the story.

She walked through the dining room and stopped to peer inside the china cabinet. It wasn’t locked, but she didn’t feel comfortable opening it. She admired from afar the porcelain dishes with golden rims and the baccarat wine glasses. A fifteen-branch chandelier with a solid bronze ring hung from a detailed, decorated chain. Tarnished as it was, the lamp looked stunning and cast a soft glow over a dovetail oak table long enough to sit twelve people. The matching chairs had curved legs. Despite the beautiful furniture, the room wasn’t inviting. It was too big and had no natural light.

The phone rang. It took her a while to locate it on a marble-top credenza that occupied a corner of the living room. The phone had a rotary dial. On the gray circle in the middle, a number, now illegible, had been scrawled in black ink. She lifted the heavy handset.

Hello.

How are you doing, Sarita?

It was comforting to hear Joaquín’s voice, though she winced at being called Sarita. The ending -ita meant little, which didn’t fit her, at almost six feet tall. She preferred when he used Spanish pet names like mi amor and corazón.

Fine. She thought of saying she had been snooping around but didn’t. Are you coming home soon?

No, I’m sorry. I have a meeting at six but will get there before seven, I promise. I’ll take the jeep. Is everything okay?

Oh, yes. I took a nice walk around the neighborhood.

"That’s great. See you soon, mi amor. I just didn’t want you to get concerned."

They said their goodbyes, and Sarah studied the handset before putting it back in the cradle. Everything in the house was ancient, likely made before she was born, but she found a special kind of beauty in those items from bygone times.

The kitchen, located at the other end of the building, was the most hospitable area. Big, like all the other rooms, but not oppressively so. It was painted white, farmhouse style, with granite countertops. The breakfast nook was furnished with a solid-wood scallop-edged square table, also white with a hint of gray, and four chairs with chunky legs. A green capsule Frigidaire purred in a corner. The countertops were granite, not Formica like in her parents’ house. The place reminded Sarah of her grandmother Pauline’s kitchen and made her feel at ease.

Had her grandma been alive, Sarah would have told her about her Cuban adventure. Instinctively, she touched the locket with Pauline’s picture that hung from a chain around her neck. Her grandma would have approved. Her parents, sadly, wouldn’t. How mad they would be if they found out . . . They had monitored her constantly during the last few months, and she was now worried about them. Or rather, worried about them worrying about her. She had given them so much trouble lately, more so after her involvement with the Sanctuary movement. But it was trouble for a good cause, she reminded herself, even if they didn’t see it that way.

She drank a glass of water and ate the leftovers of the previous night’s supper—rice, beans and fried tilapia. A salad would have been a good addition, but she didn’t know where to find vegetables, which weren’t sold at the bodega across the street. Still hungry, she ate two slices of bread with butter.

An old cuckoo clock read 3:55. Three more hours until Joaquín came back! Sarah looked for something to do, but she had cleaned the house the day before. Supper—rice and beans again—was ready on the stove. She would make two omelets later. She stepped out to the backyard.

Villa Santa Marta (a fancy-schmancy name, she thought) was nothing if not massive. The backyard looked like a neighborhood park, with mango trees, a stone fountain crowned by a statue of the Greek goddess Athena and rustic benches scattered around. It didn’t have any lights, though, which made it a scary place at night. Fortunately, a tall wrought-iron fence surrounded Villa Santa Marta, and Joaquín had assured her that Miramar was a safe neighborhood. Nearby was a smaller square building that was also part of the property. It stood like a lonely sentry between nothing and nowhere.

Sarah walked under the trees, but soon felt tired and sleepy. She had been up since 6 A.M., when Joaquín had left for work. She returned to the house and crossed the somber dining room toward the marble staircase. Joaquín’s family must have had a lot of money, she had assumed, but it felt intrusive to ask.

She was halfway up the stairs when a current of cold air engulfed her. She tried to remember if she had left a window open on the second floor. Then her right foot slipped, her ankle twisted and she fell down as if someone had pushed her.

CHAPTER TWO

Last time I took one of those silly personality tests, the results said I was a craftsperson. Though I don’t believe in online surveys, I had to agree on that. I like doing things with my hands: repairing furniture, grooming dogs and, above all, cooking. In fact, it was my job as a chef at La Bakería Cubana that helped me through a hard, dark time in my life.

La Bakería Cubana had started as a no-frills bakery in 2010. Nine years later, it had turned into a popular full-fledged restaurant featured in Bon Appetit. Marlene Martínez, a former Cuban cop who now lived in Miami, had opened it, and I partnered with her in 2018.

Getting involved with the restaurant was my way of dealing with loss and heartache. My husband, Nolan, had died in 2017, killed while we were together in Havana. I couldn’t help but blame myself, at least partially, and the tragic episode had almost unhinged me. I moved from Gainesville to Miami, invested most of my money into La Bakería Cubana and began cooking and baking, tasting this recipe and twisting that one, until I had a full tried-and-true Cuban menu, and (some of) my sanity back.

By 2019, La Bakería Cubana kept me constantly busy. I didn’t date or go out much, bent on improving my culinary skills. Frankly, coconut candy and guava cheesecakes sounded more appetizing than any guy I had yet met. I was becoming what my friend Candela—a capable dog groomer and Tarot reader, all wrapped up in one quirky entrepreneur—called una ermitaña. She was right. I had turned into a hermit who lived to cook and eat.

Unless you change, the universe will send something to shake you out of your funk, she said.

It did.

IN SEPTEMBER 2019, A tropical-storm warning had been issued for Miami-Dade County. Hurricane season was in full swing, which always made me nervous. My hands trembled a little as I took a two-layered chocolate cake out of the oven. A couple had ordered it whole to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary with their kids and grandkids. The kitchen was still filled with the fragrance of cocoa and caramelized sugar when Lila, the waitress, rushed back. The family was so pleased with the cake that they insisted on congratulating me personally.

They are Cubans like you, Lila said.

The rain pounded the roof. I wanted to go home before it got worse but couldn’t very well say no to our customers.

It was the yummiest chocolate cake I’ve had in years, the matriarch pronounced when I came to the table. "¡El mejor!"

There were no crumbs left. Everybody was smiling. It felt like a small, sweet victory over the funk.

I’m delighted you all enjoyed it, I said.

In a corner, a woman sat alone. Her blond hair was chin-length. Long bangs covered her forehead, making it difficult to see her face. My heart lurched. I walked away from the Cubans and approached the woman. Her table had been cleared, and she was scrolling through her phone.

May I—help you? I stuttered.

She kept her face down. I’m just waiting for the check, thanks.

I stood there until she looked up with a mix of curiosity and annoyance. She was in her early forties. Too young. I mumbled an excuse, left the room and broke into tears upon reaching the safe harbor of the kitchen.

It wasn’t my mother. Of course it wasn’t. How many times had I been disappointed? Why did I keep looking for her? I wished to let her go but couldn’t. Her absence had been a constant and painful presence in my life. Though I was thirty-one years old, it still hurt.

MY PARENTS HAD MET during a military parade in the mid-eighties. My father, Joaquín Montero, was a lieutenant in the Cuban Army. My mother, whose real name I didn’t know, was a young American who had managed to visit Havana despite the travel restrictions of the time. They fell in love, got married and lived together in a house that Dad had received as a reward for his services to the government. The house was Villa Santa Marta, an Art Deco home located in Miramar, Havana’s poshest district.

When I was two years old, my mother vanished. Back to her country, people presumed, but no one knew for sure. She didn’t say goodbye and never wrote or contacted me. A few months later, my dad was deployed to Angola. Since there were no other relatives who could take care of me, his mother, Mamina, moved from La Coloma, a small Pinar del Río town, to Havana and settled in our house.

It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, but when Dad died in combat, Mamina was stuck with me. She never put it in such words, bless her heart, but that’s the reality of the matter. In her late fifties and having lost both her children—her daughter, my namesake Mercedes, to cancer and her son to a war six thousand miles away—she wasn’t likely thrilled with the idea of raising another kid. But to her credit, she did it anyway. She gave me all the love and care I needed, and more. She answered all my questions, from the birds and the bees, which she called cochinerías, to the best way to make black beans—always add cumin, garlic and a bit of sugar—and how to walk properly through life: head up, shoulders down and looking people in the eye. But there was a topic we avoided: my runaway mother.

Yet, as a child, I thought of her often, dreaming up sudden, unexpected encounters. One day I’d be outside playing with my rag doll Saralí and a beautiful lady would open the gate, walk under the Villa Santa Marta wrought-iron sign and hug me with tears in her eyes. She had been sick for years. Or imprisoned, like the heroines in the telenovelas Mamina liked to watch, and had just miraculously escaped.

Though we didn’t go to any church, I devised secret ceremonies: rudimentary attempts to make deals with whoever wielded power over people and events. Would my mother come back if I counted to one thousand without stopping? Did all my homework a week in advance? Helped Mamina clean the house? My offers weren’t taken up. Then I turned to our neighbors. But by the time I was able to start snooping on my own, there were few left who had met my parents. Only Dolores, a schoolteacher, remembered them and was happy to share her memories with me. The little I knew about my mother (she was tall, with her blond hair cut to a square bob, and she spoke with an accent) I owed to Dolores, who talked fondly of her. "Your mom loved you, mijita, she used to say. She didn’t go anywhere without you."

Until she dropped me like a hot potato, I countered.

Ah, Merceditas, don’t say that! She could have gone home to bring back dollars, or a car, or food.

Why didn’t she return?

It’s hard for Americans to come here. But someday she may show up out of the blue. Have faith and behave well!

Dolores was outspoken, funny and somewhat mischievous, like the kids she taught. I loved visiting her and listening to her stories, but Mamina didn’t like for me to go around pestering people. Though she never forbade me to drop by Dolores’s house, she also made it clear that she didn’t approve of it. It was nothing personal—she had the same attitude toward other neighbors. As I got older, my visits grew less and less frequent, though we always greeted each other and chatted when we met in the street.

In the late nineties, tourism was revived in Cuba. New hotels were built and old ones restored. Canadians, Europeans and even Americans were welcomed with open arms. But my mother didn’t come back. She never walked under the wrought-iron Villa Santa Marta sign that had already started to lose letters.

I once ventured to visit the local police station. They didn’t take me seriously at first—I was in high school—but I persisted long enough to find out that there had been an official investigation of my mother’s disappearance. The case had been closed in 1991.

State Security handled it, said the police officer who reluctantly agreed to talk to me. They wouldn’t give us all the details, but the conclusion seems to be that she left Cuba.

I gave up, accepting what Mamina’s silence had implied all those years: my mother didn’t care for me. Dolores had been wrong. There was no happy ending, just a lonely girl sobbing and holding a rag doll.

MAMINA AND I LIVED together in the Art Deco house until I met Nolan Spivey, an American professor who used to take his students for summer courses at the University of Havana. We got married and settled in Gainesville, Florida, in 2008. Once there, hopes of finding my mom were revived. After all, we were now in the same country. At Starbucks and Publix, I would stare at middle-aged women, often to the point of making them uncomfortable. Was one of them my mother? Did she ever look for me? But if she did (a big fat if) how could she possibly know that Mercedes Montero, the daughter she had left in Cuba, was the same person whose driver’s license read Mercy Spivey?

Speaking of names, hers was Tania Rojas. At least, that’s what Mamina and Dolores claimed. There were no legal documents that could attest to it, not even my parents’ marriage certificate, though Dolores assured me it existed—she had signed it as a witness. But even she admitted that Tania Rojas was probably a fake identity created by the Cuban government. To track my mother down in the United States, I needed a real name and a place of birth, and I had neither. I only knew for sure that she had last been seen in Havana, with me in a stroller, walking around the neighborhood.

Nothing could be done to find a person who, apparently, didn’t want to be found. I tried to forget her for good and more or less succeeded . . . until my husband’s death. Once I realized I was alone, truly on my own for the first time, the urge to locate my mother returned with a vengeance.

I stared at strangers’ faces at restaurants, parks and grocery stores. I made embarrassing attempts at conversation with women who I imagined resembled my mother—not that I had a clear idea what she actually looked like, except for the blond hair and the blue eyes I had inherited from her. I even hired a detective that specialized in finding missing people. He posted ads like Tania Rojas, your daughter Mercedes is looking for you in several newspapers and websites, but nothing came out of them. Still, hope springs eternal. La esperanza es lo último que se pierde, Mamina used to say.

I kept hoping and waiting, even if my esperanza was crushed every single time.

CHAPTER THREE

February 15th, 1986

I’m so thankful to be here, learning from these proud, warm, cheerful people how to be a better human being! I’m honing my Spanish too. Oh, man, Cuban Spanish is like music. Think of drums and guitars and even castanets. But people talk so fast that I miss half of what they say. Particularly the jokes. Joaquín sometimes looks sad when I don’t laugh at his, but I don’t get them! People also drop the final consonants, slur words together and sound totally different from Mexicans and Salvadorians. I thought that comotauté was a weird Cuban greeting until Joaquín said it just meant ¿Cómo está usted?—the polite form for How are you?

BEFORE SEALING THE ENVELOPE, Sarah added a note addressed to her parents for Rob to mail from Tijuana. In his last letter, he had mentioned that they were out of their minds about her absence and had reported her as a missing person to the police. Luckily, they didn’t know she had traveled to Cuba, as she wasn’t on speaking terms with them when she left San Diego. They kept trying to control her, forgetting she was an adult! Now, she was making her own decisions, building a brand-new life. That would show them. Still, she wrote a few lines about being in a place where she felt like she belonged and they shouldn’t worry about her. Even if she knew that they would.

Sarah had made dinner early: rice and chicken and a tomato, avocado and cucumber salad. Joaquín didn’t care for vegetables, but she didn’t understand how one could live on a tropical island and not eat veggies and fruits. She had walked all the way to a farmer’s market where prices were higher than in the puesto (the neighborhood store where they sold potatoes and sometimes withered lettuce heads) but was also much better supplied.

She had bought tomatoes, cucumbers, malangas, green peppers, a huge avocado and a whole chicken. There was also pork, which she didn’t particularly like. She had spent three hundred pesos, all the money Joaquín had left in his armoire. She thought, though a little too late, that she should have asked if it was supposed to last for a week, fifteen days or, God forbid, the entire month.

She still had dollars—around seven hundred she had brought from San Diego—but there was no place to spend them. Joaquín had made it clear that she didn’t need to worry about money. He would take care of her financially and in any other way. Later on, she would look for a job or go to college. What would Rob say if she started attending the University of Havana? Oh, he would be so jealous! But she would have to request her high school transcripts, or maybe that requirement could be waived for her . . .

In any case, she needed to get settled first. She had to improve her Spanish and find out some basic facts, like how much Joaquín made and how she was expected to spend it. There were so many things they hadn’t discussed yet! The fact that he was so much older (eighteen years her senior, though she had led him to believe that they were just thirteen years apart) had something to do with it. At times she was . . . not exactly intimidated by him, but a bit hesitant in his presence. He seemed to know so much more than she did and was always so confident while she still felt lost and out of place. Well, poco a poco. They would continue getting to know each other, a little at a time. In any case,