IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 47

troism’s seismic movements have permanently shaken the city. In traditional
Havana neighborhoods like Jesús María,
Los Sitios, Belén, Pueblo Nuevo, La
Cueva del Humo or Pogolotti, one no
longer hears the sold Rhumba school.
Hardly anyone speaks with pride about
rumberos and rumberas like el Chori,
Alambre, Aspirina Carlos Embale,
Chano Pozo, Blanquita Amaro, Eugenio
Arango, Totico Cristobalina Arrieta,
Papá Montero, Miguelina Baro, Carmen
Curbelo, Los Chinitos de la Corea or
Juan Alberto Dreke (El Cueva), or Alicia
Parla Mariana, who with her sandunga
(sauce) took the rhumba to places like
Montecarlo and Paris, thanks to the giving of Edward, Prince of Wales. Havana
is a city decorated by a gallery of characters who no longer exist. Yet, many remember, like the Caballero de París or
Isabel Veitía y Armenteros, popularly
known as the Marquesa, a black mythomaniac who assumed she was an irresistible woman, was the queen of bars
and taverns, and behaved more regally
than real royalty, despite the fact she had
not a drop of blue blood in her veins.
Other ghosts: Bigote Gato, Don Antonio
Álvarez, Valeriano I, his Majesty Emperor of the World, an old, raggedy,
black man who was always dressed in
military uniform full of medals, who
was our first street statesman, as well as
Amelia Goyri, La Milagrosa, or Armandito el Tintorero, a baseball fanatic,
or Doña Catalina Lasa, among other
notables. Others who live in that gallery
are Yarini, María Antonia, Santa Camila
de La Habana Vieja, Iluminada Pacheco,

Calixta Comité, Lagarto Pisa Bonito and
Emelina Cundiamor. Yet, Havana is also
a lettered and musical city inhabited by
Dulce María Loynaz, the general’s
daughter; Carlos Montenegro, Lidia
Cabrera, Bola de Nieve, Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Alberto
Pedro, Ernesto Lecuona, Eliseo Alberto,
Titón, Celia Cruz, etc. There are also
Abilio Estévez, a distant, Havana dweller; Eugenio Hernández Espinosa, Wendy
Guerra, Fernando Pérez and Carlos
Acosta. Each one of them has known
how to put Havana on the map. Among
the things they have not been able to
take away from her is that she is continuously saturated by conversation. Havana is a city of multiple altars and white
sheets that always bless the waters of
return. She is Santería, a bewitched city
with notable differences, due to her stratification, but brujería is practiced in the
Belén neighborhood, as well as in Nuevo
Vedado or Miramar, without distinction.
There are black brujos and white brujos
on any of the city’s four corners; they
leave offerings under Ceiba trees; they
are all wrapped up or in suspicious
packages that could frighten anyone.
Sunflowers, black princes, cow’s tongue,
rolling a coconut, medicinal herbs, the
scent of basil and the aroma of the Seven
Powers are this city’s fetishes. My Havana is a tomb of purity; it is blackness,
but also whiteness. She is the temple of a
delicious miscegenation difficult to find
anywhere else. She is also the temple of
diverse urban tribes: Emos, Frikis, Leñadores, Vampiros, Tuercas, Repa, Babalawos, Muslims, Rastafarians and

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