Havana in its 488

They called it the Key to the New World. It was also known as a Meeting Point, the City of Waters, and the City of Columns. It is te eclectic Havana, wonderfully bright, sensual, where anything can happen; where you can truly live like an intellectual, or in an alternative way, or like a Bohemian, according to Graham Greene.

Of course, it doesn’t have the eastern Samarqand jewels, the mystic heights of Jerusalem, the ancient mystery that surrounds Cairo or Istanbul… or the dazzling lights of Paris, Alexandria’s millenary lineage or the post-modern and cosmopolitan New York.

However, it’s not lacking in gems: from the cigars coming out from secular factories, through the music it has produced and the dances it has given the world, up to palaces, squares, and fortresses. It doesn’t have mysteries or a millenary air but it does have a live history of universal transcendence.

It’s not mystic but undoubtedly it does have an almost mystic halo for most people throughout the planet. It’s not ostentatiously illuminated although its graphic interaction with natural light is surprising. You can’t compare it to New York but Havana never lacked certain cosmopolitan airs and, going way back to Alexander Von Humboldt, it once came to be more populated than the currently stormy metropolis.

Awaiting

Where is Havana’s hidden power? Why do we remember Havana? How does Havana make love to us? Those are questions that, if made a million times over, would receive a million different answers.

For Cernuda, it was “the intimacy between air, light and city, the memorable sunsets.” For Agustin Lara, “the many pretty women.” Isadora Duncan had here the hallucinatory and anonymous experience of freeing herself by dancing Chopin’s Preludes in smoky after-hours low-class bars.

It was joy for Blasco Ibáñez. And, for Diego Rivera, among other things, it was a certain thrust of sexual awakening and partly justice for his friend Julio Antonio Mella. For Alberti, Lorca and Jimenez Havana meant poetic findings, memories of Andalusia or Seville, a meeting with African rhythm and folklore.

Stravinsky had a glimpse here of our natural musicality which really touched Gershwin and has made so many famous people research the fresh musical files of our neighbourhoods.

Closer to our times, and leaving famous references behind, I can recall a Brazilian architect who found such expensive architecture surprising; a plain German, living on a popular avenue, who each morning witnessed from his balcony -with a cigar in his hand after something so new as strong black coffee- the “wonderful noise” of our communication; a dear Argentinean friend who fell in love with so much sea, with so much vitality that could be found even in the sad ruins, with delicious homemade black beans and with the special ochre impressionistic hues with which certain evenings paint the city.

Between us what painter, poet or urban novelist has been able to avoid its influence? As more common beings, can we do without Havana? Definitely not. Although there may be some people –like Caribbean Carpentier- who first needed to “see things from a distance in order to see them from a closer range,” while others may ignore the grateful love it needs so much. Havana is always within us.

It is the city we’re always finding and which we never cease to discover, beautiful in spite of wounds, venerable, patient, awaiting us with open eyes and a benevolent spirit, in a willing mood. Awaiting us and waiting for better days.