squishing his hand Buenos días buenos días My father was stuck on repeat Finally he turned around to me Uh Charlie I was learning Spanish in school and I had a few classmates from Mexico The first thing you find out when you try to learn a foreign language is that you can’t be afraid to make mistakes I made one mistake for every word I said but that didn’t matter I found out what I needed to know This man named Ledesma with the walrus mustache was going to drive us to Señora Gloria’s house where we would be staying Yes Señora Gloria that’s it that’s where we’re going my mother said very excited as if we had all just been saved from drowning Ledesma took the suitcase out of my father’s hand He might have been older than my father but he had hands of steel He held the heavy bag with just two fingers Okay muchachos he said to us Then he bowed to my mother And the señora too My father patted the car delicately so it would not collapse into a heap of rusty metal flakes It’s a Lada he said A Russian car
I had never been in a Russian car before I wondered how this one had ended up on an island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea We all piled in Ledesma insisted that my mother sit in front That must have been the most comfortable spot In the back the seat was so low I felt like I was sitting on the street My mother patted the orange fur that covered the dashboard just the way she does with our cat Miro Lion said Ledesma stroking it He gave a great big laugh Then he looked at Max in the rearview mirror and shouted Hey Batman in Cuba Before we drove away Ledesma reached out grabbed hold of the small black statue that was hanging from the mirror and kissed it Maybe that was what you did when you drove a Russian car or a Russian car with holes in the side Then he pulled into the traffic behind a dump truck that was shooting out so much black smoke it looked like it was on fire Maybe Max had the right idea with his mask My mother was staring at the spider web of cracks in the windshield She was probably wondering if it was going to end up in her lap Meanwhile Ledesma was talking to her at a hundred miles an hour I could not hear what he was saying since we were sitting in back with the windows open My mother smiled and nodded which is what you do when you don’t understand what someone is saying After a while Ledesma must have gotten tired of the one-way conversation He turned on the radio and loud music poured out It was dance music but the only thing dancing was the car jumping up and down over the bumps and rolling from side to side like a ship in a storm
He talked very fast but Ledesma was the most relaxed driver I had ever seen In Montreal where I live everyone is always in a rush Our drivers will go through red lights if they think they can get away with it and they cut off other cars for sport Not Ledesma He sang along with the radio one hand on the steering wheel the other hanging out the window tapping the side of the door to the beat It looked like Cuba was frozen in the past The other cars on the road were pretty much like Ledesma’s rusty Russian Ladas or old-time models like the ones you see in black-and-white movies You know with big grills in front like shark’s teeth and pointy fins in the back They were painted bright colors pink and turquoise and lime green The city of Havana was like an old-car museum There was another thing missing I didn’t see any billboards with ads for clothes or the latest album by some rock star And no fast-food restaurants the way there are back home But I did see an enormous poster on the side of a building with the picture of a man looking very heroic He had long hair a beard and a beret not the way a soldier or a president would usually be dressed He was speaking to a giant crowd of people who were all cheering Who’s that guy on the poster I asked my father Che Guevara Sí sí Ledesmas said very enthusiastically from the front El Che Un grande Hero of the Revolution Viva la Revolución Who’s Che Guevara I asked He helped with the Cuban revolution that threw out a dictator named Batista my father said Everyone loves Che Guevara here even if he wasn’t Cuban He came from Argentina Get used to seeing him He’s everywhere
Ledesma turned up the radio La Bamba poured out of the speaker and he sang along with it Para bailar la bamba se necesita una poca de gracia It must have been his favorite song Even with the music and the bouncing backseat my eyes were closing Che Guevara would have to wait
