Waiting for Snow in Havana Read Online Free PDF

looked about as happy as trapped beasts.
    The most amazing discovery I made by visiting the courthouse was that my father was not just a goofy fat man who made kites and drove us through giant waves. He had power. Real power, the kind that makes other men grovel. Inside the courthouse, Dad was treated as if he really were the King of France, and my brother and I as if we were Bourbon princes. The court clerks would literally trip over one another fawning over him, and over us. Since I was always at the very bottom of the pecking order at school and at home, the attention and respect focused on me came as a shock.
    The questions came at me fast and furiously from every man who worked for my father. Grown men with moustaches and slicked-back hair. “Can I get you a Coca-Cola? Or would you prefer Royal Crown? How about Pepsi-Cola? Orange Crush? Materva? Cawy? Maybe you’d like a milk shake? Should I turn up the speed on that fan over there? Is it too hot for you in here? Maybe you’d like some comic books?”
    Once I had answered any of these questions in the affirmative, the man graced by my request would then snap his fingers and order some other man around. “Ñico, go across the street and get the judge’s son a Coca-Cola.” “Hey, Argimiro, run down to the newsstand and get the judge’s son the latest Superman comic book.” “Chucho, Chucho, Chucho! Snap to it! Go get this fine boy some Juicy Fruit gum!” A few minutes later, the request would be fulfilled. Being a child, I never thought about who paid for these items.
    These very same men hovered around Dad’s desk like worker ants, bringing papers and taking them away after he signed them. They asked if this or that had been done properly. And they always responded with a nod and a “Sí, señor” to each and every one of Louis XVI’s orders. What a revelation that was each time I saw it. In the courtroom, the veil would lift momentarily to reveal a world of hierarchies, in which all five senses could detect power and discern its effect upon men. Lucky me, I was on top of the heap. And I thought it would be like that forever.
    I knew this for sure when I got to sit next to Dad on his judge’s bench. Yes, I could sit up there, next to His Honor. Those obsequious men would pull up a chair for me. There I would sit, elevated way above everyone else in the room, looking down on the guilty and innocent and on the victims. I told you Havana was not in the United States of America. My kite-making, wave-crashing father would hear testimony, question witnesses, uncover the truth, pound his gavel, and decide what was just, with his son sitting right next to him. In a world full of wrongs, it was his job to put things right: to absolve and to punish, to vindicate and to turn loss into gain.
    It was amazing to watch him work. He dispatched his cases with great speed; even the most tangled arguments and disputes gave him no pause. I had heard of Solomon in school, and about the two women and the baby, and how Solomon had dispatched that case in the wink of an eye. Split the baby in two! Good God, my father was just like Solomon. He could spot the guilty ones in an instant by asking just one or two questions and render judgment in a flash. A fine for you: twenty pesos. Jail time for you: twenty days.
    I sat up there transfixed. Everyone in the courtroom stared at me quizzically, as if asking “What the hell are you doing up there, boy?” One woman found guilty of something and fined fifty pesos looked at me pleadingly after my father pronounced her sentence. What did she think I could do?
    I don’t think the court sessions ever lasted more than two hours. After stepping down from the bench, Dad would sign some more papers and we would head back home. Back on the water taxi, back on the bus. Now that I think about it, my father’s work day was about three or four hours long. No wonder he had time to