Chapter 09

For the king of the household.

The Spanish painter Ramon Raluy posed with Louise and Michael’s cousin Frances in the Waterston living room. Linda is featured in the portrait on the far right.

For the Waterston family, Christmastime at the hotel Rosita de Hornedo in 1958 was just as it had always been. The children swam in the hotel’s two pools, played in the sandlot with their Cuban cousins, and trekked the rocky walkway next door to the Casino Deportivo, a country club where even kids could play the slot machines. To them, there was little outward sign Batista would soon be out, Fidel in.

On stationary from the Hotel Capri, famed for “sparkling resort luxury with a Champagne flair,” Michael sent a dispatch to Louise, dated May 4, 1959.

Michael received an alarming letter from Sara, his trusted bookkeeper, dated June 27, 1960, describing the aftermaths of an explosion that was a stone’s throw from the shopping district in Havana, an event also reported in the New York Times: “Arms Dump Blast Shakes Havana-Two Killed, 200 Reported Hurt—Castro Hints at Sabotage Charges”

The mannequin in the window of El Imperio (The Empire) dons a hat with a five-pointed star, symbol of Cuba and the Revolution.

I also found the business card for the store on Calle Muralla, Numero 424 on the corner of Villegas among my father’s papers. The logo features a slender, queenly figure draped in a full circle of fine fabrics, her head topped with a crown. The tagline reads “Telas Majestuosas”—Majestic Fabrics.

One evening in Havana, my father, my brother David and I strolled into the famous restaurant frequented by Hemingway, and known as cuna de daiquiri, the birthplace of the daiquiri. Before long, a violinist named Omar Gonzalez Alvarez came to our table, with two accompanists to play a beautiful, affecting Besame Mucho.

“Kiss me, Kiss me many times/As if this night were for the last time.” My father was lost in the song, and the expression on his face heart breaking.

My grandfather was buried in the well-tended Jewish cemetery in Guanabacao called United Hebrew Congregation, Centro Macabeo de Cuba.