A Song Of Cuba

In another land and another time, inside the swirl of blue smoke traffic, horse cart vendors, and roadside travelers, there floats a song.  The lyrics are spanish – the melody universal.  It plays in the open 5th intervals of women talking to men, the minor triads of women talking to women and the subdued 4ths of man speak.  It’s also sung by a voice that is, at once, all of these.
I had been wandering through the narrow passages of Havana Viejo, the old part of Havana, Cuba, where history has left deep footprints.  Spanish colonial buildings whisper 400 year old stories to cobblestone streets.  A marble fountain continues to offer relief for a thirst that has been long forgotten.  A road built of wooden block still waits to soften the iron wheels of a horse drawn cart so a queen can tuck down deeply into her afternoon siesta.
I had just walked across these wooden madera tiles and had come out into the Plaza Vieja, a large square reminiscent of the plazas I had seen in Florence, Italy.  Towering limestone enveloped the walkers who were being channeled towards the hub of an ancient wheel of roads. The same stone lay under their feet, above their heads and around their bodies.  This was a study in grey.
I stood apart and watched the steady stream of pedestrians providing the necessary backdrop to street vendor hustle and little children who were running away their recess time.  I listened as the million sounds of a beehive became one.  And then, suddenly, one sound became a million.
“Mani!  Manicero mani!”
A song – The Peanut Vendor Song.  With alarmed confusion, I searched for the source of what I was hearing, a sound and a task that were beginning to seem as big as the rock that surrounded me.  With ears and eyes tuned, my search continued as, at last, the song pulled me out of the square and onto a narrow stone side street.  A red flash brought my ears into focus.  Fearing I would lose sight of the sound, I walked in double time until I managed to circle my target and approach carefully from the front.
She was the color of Africa.   Her proud dark face boldly met the bright day from inside the canary yellow silk scarf that wrapped her head.  Her dress was a deep carmine red base fringed with wrappings of tropical orange.   The large straw basket slung over her left arm was loaded with paper cones that were filled with peanuts.  I approached her with my eyes. Contact.
“Hola amiga.  Cuanto cuesta los mani?”, I managed.
“Tres CUC”, she replied.
A CUC was the Cuban currency used by turistas like me.  I tried to hide underneath the questions that were rolling over in my mind but the look she was giving me made it plain that she’d already read my book.
Falling inside her eyes I saw, for the first time, a song.  It sounded of self reliance, of slavery, of generations working under the hot sun, of long days selling spanish peanuts.
I peeled off a three CUC note and handed it to her with one hand, accepting her offering with the other.
“Como se llama?”.  I was charging in for my story.
“Elise”, she enunciated as I watched her pink tongue slowly unroll itself from within the confines of her large white teeth.  She pronounced the “s” as a “z”, making the word at once captivating and alluring.  I wanted more.
“Your voice.  Canta como………como………”.  I was struggling to name the unnamable in a language that was holding back my words.
“Como es del cielo”, she offered. Like it’s from heaven.  I watched as she lowered her eyelashes and put on a demure smile. She was enjoying this game that we were playing, making every move in her own favor.
We joined smiles in a mutual celebration of a tournament well played.  I then closed with a string of words that I found hiding in my past.
“Si, eso es!  He oído la voz de un ángel”.  Yes, that’s it! I have heard the voice of an angel.
I then impulsively did something that I had never done before.  Bending at the waist as would a chivalrous knight, I gently took her free hand in my own and kissed it.  Her eyes acknowledged my action with aloof dignity, that complete acceptance of praise so common among royalty.
She then turned and resumed her journey, following her song back through the ancient cobblestone streets of a timeless city.  As her voice once again became one with the stone, I realized that I had become one with a song.  It was a song of empty, a song of full, a song of Cuba.