A Good Fork in Havana
Wander the ancient streets of Havana or Trinidad or Santiago de Cuba - any city will do really - and marvel at the colonial architecture. At the effort that went in to building, say, el Gran Teatro de la Habana, el Catedral de San Cristóbal, or even one of the hotels like Hotel Ambos Mundos [1]. The one thing they all have in common is they are pre-revolution buildings - built in the days when cities and architects were encouraged to build things that would last and that were aesthetically pleasing.
With very few exceptions [2] post-revolution buildings are giant cubes of concrete, uninspiring to look at and an architectural antithesis to the great buildings of Cuba’s pre-revolution past.
Regardless of when the buildings were built, it’s been more than 50 years since the Revolution and almost 60 years since the USA imposed its full embargo on their island neighbours to the south. In the first few decades - especially since Cuba was propped up by the Soviet Union - the embargo didn’t seem to matter. Fast forward to the 2000s, however and everything is breaking and falling apart. The buildings lining the Malecón are crumbling, the classic cars are wheezing along potholed streets, and basic commodities are hard to come by.
Crucially, in Lafonda’s family house in the western suburbs of Havana, we’re forced to eat with plastic knives and forks because all the good silverware has either disappeared, been sold, or repurposed as a screwdriver.
We’re sitting in the high ceilinged living room of their neoclassical-era house which, after 1959, was given to Lafonda’s family. It’s replete with the original azulejos on the floor, wrought iron bars on the windows and wooden shutters, ornate coving, and original bathroom fittings. In similar style houses around Havana the furniture is as old and durable as the house: mahogany arm chairs and wardrobes, wrought iron rocking chairs.
In Lafonda’s home all the well-made items have long since been sold to bring money into the household, leaving a gulf in quality in the replacement furnishings - if indeed they were replaced.
We’re dining on uncomfortable metal chairs from the 1980s around an unstable round metal table from the same era, with a garish pink plastic tablecloth. On one wall is a glass shelf decorated with porcelain figurines - the type which occasionally pop up on The Antiques Roadshow and turn out to be worth a mint but, in this instance, were made in a factory in Guangzhou in 2006 and are worthless. The couch along the other wall would have looked great when it was made in 1950; now, 60 years on, the original upholstery and cushions have been compacted down to an inch thick. No one ever sits there.
Lafonda’s mum, capable of creating culinary gold from just two or three ingredients, has cooked up pollo con mojo, rice, and avocados from the back garden. What she can’t rustle up, however, are knives and forks to eat it with. Not metal ones anyway. Instead, we’re using plastic cubiertos which themselves were taken from a restaurant, washed and reused.
I make it my benevolent mission to buy a set of cutlery for the household - it’s the least I can do in return for eating their food for the last four weeks. So, no sooner have we eaten and left the dirty cups and plates on the table for Lafonda’s mum to clean up, we set off down Calle 70 to the “centro commercial” (shopping centre) 3ra y 70 where I’m certain we’d find a set.
Perhaps I could have foretold it wouldn’t be this simple. For starters, Cuban supermarkets behave like mini department stores: for example, to buy soap one has to queue up at a toiletry stand where soap bars are sparingly displayed under a glass cabinet, like faux diamond rings in a high street H Samuel’s. The fact is, after a good 15 minutes walking up and down the miserably low-stocked aisles and inquiring all over, there are no cutlery sets here.
Never mind. Down the road is Centro Comercial 5ta y 42. They’re bound to sell cutlery. We amble there along the palm-lined walkway that runs through the centre of la Quinta Avenida but are dismayed by what we find. Yes, they do sell cutlery; however, it’s made of such cheap metal that I suspect the plastic knives and forks already gracing the family dining set has a better tensile strength. Amazingly, the set sells for a whopping CUC30 (30 Euros).
PLAZA VIEJA: “Old Square” is a public space created in 1559. One would have thought in the ensuing 500 years since someone would have had the bright idea to plant a few trees in the centre. Anything to offer a bit of shade and make it less dull. In the height of summer it’s like walking over hot coals
Sadly, a hunt around la Habana Vieja also turns up nothing. All I want is a durable set of steel cutlery - strong enough to withstand the occasional double use as a screwdriver or lever. As with the furniture and house decorations, it seems Cuba is bereft of quality in the cutlery department too.
Cheap Chinese goods are all that’s available, if any.
There’s only one thing to do and that’s to dip my feet into the Cuban black market - a world I hadn’t revisited since my famous first visit to Cuba in 2006.
A couple of days later we stop for a bite to eat at a restaurant on the northern end of Plaza Vieja. I’ve spent the morning practicing my spiel, much to the annoyance of Lafonda, and so am ready to initiate a deal. In no way am I nervous about my engaging in el mercado negro [3] so Lafonda’s mocking of me does not perturb me one bit. Instead, I lean back cooly on the chair and lower the peak on my cap, scanning nonchalantly around the plaza from behind my mirrored Aviators as though absolutely nothing untoward were on my mind.
Running along the parameter of the plaza is a group of school kids doing physical education. The teacher is camped up in the shade at the far end, near Casa de la Cerveza, but the kids are made to run lap after lap in the blistering heat, surrounded by crowds of heat-stricken tourists and al fresco diners [4]. Once I’m satisfied there aren’t any spies around, I beckon over the indolent waiter with a casual wave of the hand.
SPORTS DAY: Hearing the rambunctious laughter of the local kids using this pristine plaza as a makeshift running track was a pure joy. Their innocence/disregard for all the dining tourists was refreshing and not in any way annoying.
“Buenos tardes,” I say. So authentically Cuban that the waiter treats me as disdainfully as he would have a real local.
“Algo a comer,” he says, misreading my raised eyebrow for a hungry twitch.
Lafonda had suggested there was no need for us to eat at the restaurant in order to proceed with my plan. She may be Cuban but she certainly has no idea about how these things work. First I had to gain the waiter’s trust - ergo, appear to be a normal diner - and only then could I expect to curry favour with the man.
“Como estas?” I ask, beaming a beguiling smile.
“Bien, bien señor,” replies the man. Surprised, no doubt, at my concern for his health. “Algo a comer?”
I’m about to inquire as to the health of his family as well but Lafonda interjects and orders us two plates of the the pork steak.
“Dos espreso también.” I call after him as he returns inside.
We turn to watch the children sprinting around the plaza again, their cheering becoming more raucous as the minutes tick past [5]. They may easily have distracted me but not so. When the waiter reappears at last with our coffees I pick up the knife from the setting before me and examine it in front of him.
“Que lovely knife,” I observe, running my thumb along the blunted teeth to show I meant business.
The waiter frowns. Oh no, he’s probably thinking, I was trying to go straight! He pretends he hasn’t understood me but I grab his arm and beckon him closer. (The key to a good black market deal is to wait for the Cuban to suggest what he can get you, thereby securing the upper hand in the negotiations).
“I bet it’s impossible to buy knives like this around here?” I say loudly to Lafonda, who is playing the part casually by rolling her eyes as though completely disinterested. “Craftsmanship-“
I feel the waiter pulling away from me so I see it’s time to be direct. “I wonder,” I said, “if it’s possible to buy a set of cutlery like this around here?”
The waiter’s eyes widen all of a sudden and he excuses himself. I can tell the plan has worked and sure enough he returns shortly with a quickening of the step; another waiter is now watching us intently from the doorway.
“How many you need?” He asks.
“Seis knives, seis forks y seis spoons,” I whisper, effortlessly reeling off the numbers in Spanish.
The waiter murmurs in acknowledgement and appears to mentally calculate something. He returns across the forecourt to his compañero to hold talks. Then he returns.
“Bien?”
“Bien señor,” he whispers.
Things have got serious now that the deal is going ahead.
“Cuanto cuesta?”
“CUC30” he answers immediately.
“CUC20”
“Bueno, CUC20,” he acquiesces.
The deal is set. I lean back on the chair again as self-satisfied as George Peppard when one of his plans comes together. If only I had a cigar.
BLACK MARKET PICK-UP: The scene where one of Havana’s biggest cutlery-based swindles went down.
Lafonda rolls her eyes in utter amazement at how I’ve managed to engineer this sweet deal, but I’ve no time to bask in the glory - first I need to conclude the business. The waiter leans in again and issues instructions for how the deal is to go down and after only five or six times of repeating it to me I’ve got it.
I do that nothing-to-see-here trick of glancing about the plaza as though absolutely nothing sinister were on my mind. Then, slowly, I glide the chair back and stand up, stretching my hands to the sky as though I were merely bathing in the glory of the midday sun. I even yawn. I do one last carefree sweep of the plaza then announce to Lafonda that I’m going for a stroll.
I saunter across the plaza looking randomly at various buildings as though absolutely nothing was on my mind; I even pretend to enter the Cámara Oscura, going as far as to inquire with the mini-skirted guard as to the price. After about four minutes of the pretence, however, I back out of the building and - as far as any undercover policeman watching me will have thought - am suddenly interested by the fashion store on the corner of Teniente Rey y Mercaderes.
When I enter the waiter’s “man” - the shop assistant - is behind the counter expecting me. Beads of sweat line his grimy forehead, his hands tremble [6]. We nod imperceptibly to one another and I feign interest in the lycra-clad mannequin displayed in the shop window while tapping my foot to the warm baritone of Cuní (and his band el septimo Arte) who is midway through his afternoon set in Café Taberna across the way. A gruff clearing of the throat tells me at last it’s time.
I realise as I approach the counter that the waiter neglected to provide me the password or secret handshake - you know, something to identify myself to this third party. Much to my disappointment, however, there is no need. As Cuní launches into the bolero classic Dos Gardenias the assistant retrieves a bulging white cotton napkin - identical to the napkins used at the restaurant - and places it on the glass counter. The metallic contents clangs on the glass and the man shoots a glance to the entrance. You never know.
CUNÍ: I first befriended Cuní and his band El Septimo Arte in 2007 when I promised them I’d make them as big as Buena Vista Social Club. All they wanted was a few photos to put on a poster but I reasoned we should aim higher. I took a series of shots, non of which came out particularly great. That, and the fact he slipped my mind when I left Cuba a few weeks later, meant Cuba’s best kept secret stayed in relative obscurity.
Slowly he peels back the corners of the napkin and allows the bunched cutlery to spill out. Six knives, six forks and six spoons. Dutifully, I inspect the goods, choosing a fork and holding it up to the window to catch the light.
“Esta bien,” I say, nodding authoritatively. An expert in the field of blackmarket cutlery.
The assistant - clearly too nervous - scrunching his face.
To clarify I smack my lips: “This is quality shit.”
Still nothing from the assistant. Instead he taps his wedding ring impatiently on the glass counter. “Entonces?”
I dig into my pocket and retrieve a crumpled CUC20 note and slide it across the counter under my palm. The man grabs it and runs his fingers over the surface. Satisfied by the note’s feel he disappears out the back leaving me clutching the napkin of cutlery.
I slip it under my sweat-soaked t-shirt and fold my arms across my midriff to hold it in place. Not ideal bit I neglected to bring a bag with me and it would look too obvious if I walk across Plaza Vieja holding a bulging napkin.
After checking the goods were secure I step out of the corner shop into the blazing sunshine of afternoon Havana. I’m probably the number one most wanted person in Havana right now, or there about and, as such, don’t want to loiter around. I walk back past the Camara Oscura entrance again down the east side of the plaza, where the poor kids are still running circuits and, some may still say, causing a nuisance. Midway down that side, however, I see two policemen in their slim-fitting grey uniforms standing outside Cafe Escorial. They appear to be looking directly at me and I realise it’s only a mater of time before they wonder why I’ve got my arms folded across my stomach.
With no other option I turn 90 degrees and step out into the middle of the plaza, walking slowly at first but then faster, convinced the two bent coppers are following. It takes an age to reach Lafonda, who is still sitting comfortably at the table in a world of her own.
“Vamonos!” I demand as soon as she sees me.
I practically turn her out of her chair and she stands up irritably.
“Quick,” I hiss, “we’ve got to go.”
I gesture over my shoulder at the approaching policemen but when I note Lafonda’s wry expression I glance over my shoulder and note, astonishingly, that the policemen are back in the shade next to Cafe Escorial, affecting disinterest by watching the running kids instead.
I grab her arm and direct her down calle San Ignacio not daring to look back.
The police never do catch up with me or prevent me from departing the country a few weeks later. Perhaps they noted on their files that I was merely helping out
Famously known for the writer Ernest Hemingway having stayed there and, more recently, for serving alongside Hotel Inglaterra as my Havana hangout - where I could sit and be sure the waiters were so inept I’d never be pestered into ordering anything.
Escuela Nacional de Arte being one.
I think I’ve already shown how steely I can be when dealing in the Cuban underworld.
The plaza would have been a perfect setting for a Roger Moore-era Bond movie whereby he cruises through on a hovercraft-converted gondola and waves salaciously at the women. With any luck the pigeons in Cuba would be as amazed as their Venitian cousins.
No doubt some of the snootier tourists objected on the grounds the plaza probably wasn’t an appropriate location for the school sports hour given its proximity to paying customers who only want to have a meal and, perhaps, engage in a business negotiation.
Probably.