Island that Dared Read Online Free PDF Page A

half-price cigars (some stolen, some counterfeit) or cheap rooms to rent. (Some householders employ touts because by not registering as casas particulares they avoid tax). Jineterismo evolves wherever tourists congregate in the Majority World but Castroism sees it as a betrayal of the Revolution, and for Cubans – though not for their foreign friends – the penalties tend to be unduly harsh. My enquiries about specific cases met with evasions or contradictory responses.
    The Cambio lurked in one corner of a dusty, twilit emporium to which national-peso-priced clothing and footwear were irregularly delivered. By the door stood a security guard, uniformed but apparently unarmed, who closely observed every currency exchange. (On later occasions, when I was alone, he insisted that before leaving the premises I must tuck my new wad of convertible pesos somewhere inaccessible.) Candida advised me to convert some convertible pesos to national pesos as foreigners were now allowed to use both, though hard currencies could not directly buy national pesos. Confining tourists to the convertible-peso economy had proved too complicated and not really worth the effort, since few tourists are tempted by what national pesos can buy.
    Shopping in Cuba – even in Havana – has to be a hit or miss affair given the erratic supply of all goods. Three meagrely stocked shoe-shops on Centro’s main business streets offered only fragile high-heeled sandals (gold or pink), made in China. ‘You’ll have to go barefoot,’ threatened Clodagh. But it was fourth time lucky: the manager of a small shop was unpacking a consignment of sturdy brown leather sandals made in Brazil, price CP21. ‘Now you can give your trainers to some poor person,’ said Clodagh. But in Cuba there are no people poor enough to make such a malodorous donation acceptable. Moreover, those trainers had both monetary and sentimental value: I had bought them for US$60 in Severobaiskal, my favourite Siberian town. Granted, they were distressingly unsuited to a hot humid climate but I reckoned they might well outlive me and should be left with our winter garments in No. 403 for collection on the way home.
    A quest for fruits and peanuts took us to Vedado. (Rachel is a fruit and nut case and has passed that condition on to her children.) Walking the length of commercial Neptuno, we noted that each dollar-store employed two or three unsmiling security men with ‘SECSA’ emblazoned on their brown uniforms – SECSA being a newish organisation set up to guard banks, Cambios , dollar-stores and other repositories of wealth. In Russia, super- and hyper-markets employ their equivalents, bearing side-arms and looking even less smiley as they peer into the shopping-bags of alldeparting customers. It seems consumerism has become so febrile citizens may no longer be trusted to acquire only what they can pay for.
    In a covered market crowds jostled around trestle tables piled with fruit and vegetables – the produce of Cuba’s celebrated organoponicos , of which more anon. A recent drought had limited the variety available in November; greens were scarce and the Trio lamented mangoes being out of season. Through piped rumbas one could hear the clattering of weights in antique scales and the good-humoured banter of buyers and sellers, the former scornfully identifying defects, the latter denying or justifying them. Two juicy pineapples cost NP30, a large lush papaya NP15 and very many short fat bananas NP1 apiece. Cleft sticks held squares of cardboard on which all prices were clearly chalked and nobody attempted to overcharge us, here or elsewhere. Instead, the girls each received a gift banana.
    By chance we found ourselves in one of Vedado’s most attractive quarters, near the university. Here, at the turn of the twentieth century, many prominent families built new homes in a ferment of architectural eclecticism and planted magnificent trees – some eminently climbable, irresistible