In Chino's Room

Sky-blue walls with years of grime streaking foamwise down, concrete showing through. The roof that choppy texture — breezy, petrified sea — of raw cement. Fans, a big TV, a collection of conch shells neatly aligned (tokens of his aquatic trade, snorkelling tours for flabby tourists around a coral reef). Old wooden shelves and drawers, the white-painted metal-frame bed he offered to share with me that night (I have only one bed, but don’t worry, it’s very big). Another room unfinished, concrete barely clothing the rusted steel bones (I wanted to do more construction, but now I only save money. Life is very hard here. I must save money). His mama outside, doing chores, peeking in at the gringo sitting shirtless on her son’s bed. The tall fridge with the unopened bottle of good rum inside (I save this for the girl who visit me tomorrow. For a special occasion. But this is a special occasion too). His angel-faced sister in the third-world yard, cracking nuts with a rock the size of her head, singing at her toil like the happiest convict in a chain gang. Joseph — Chino to his family and the village for his narrow eyes — tells me about Cuba, the problems with the law there, the difficulty of earning a living, of travelling abroad; he tells me about his male English friend of fifty eight who visits often, who has sent him the written invitation to England that permits him to leave, who will even play the plane fare if Chino can only fix the documents (150 convertible pesos for the visa, 60 for taxes, more for other documents, food for the rapacious communist bureaucracy). His friend doesn’t mind sharing Chino’s bed. Chino — handsome, lithe, deep-tanned from life on the reef, articulate in several languages, charming, friendly and polite — shows me pictures of his many girlfriends. Slim, beautiful Cuban girls. I come with you to Matanzas, he says. I have nothing to do. I take a shower and come with you. I show you a good time. That awful ache of need. Then the pain of leaving through the sunset-sweetened poverty of the village, the colour-drenched heaps of junk, rusting metal, those battered, beautiful American cars, chickens pecking through the dirt. The ocean that divides having from not having and the absurdity of shaking hands across it.