Willy rang an excellent buzzer and hollered doing an old flat having an overhanging balcony
October 19, 2023A few minutes later a senior black colored lady putting on a red-colored scarf over white tresses emerged in the second-floors windows. She seemed puzzled but then approved Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She desired united states upstairs.
Her term are Gladis Castaneda, and she was an expert ancient pianist from inside the Havana through the the 1950s. She was a little woman inside her eighties otherwise 1990’s. She nodded as he mentioned La Reina. Yes, she told you, he’d stayed in this area, correct next door. Here, regarding flesh, is actually an individual who understood the fresh new legendary Superman-evidence, in fact, that people indeed lived.
Superman, Castaneda said, is high, good, acknowledged. “Visitors know your once the Queen,” she said. “He had been gay, however you did not wreak havoc on him.” She expected me to stand. “He had been your own level. But good. Muscular.” He previously skin such hers: dark, yet not most. “He had been a people. Not one person had a problem with him.” I inquired in the event that everyone in the society understood exactly what he performed for an income. “Child, it actually was many years ago. He remaining years ago.”
Willy expected if she realized exactly what turned from him, and she said she thinks the guy passed away in the Miami. Their particular times is actually waning, and you can Willy nodded if you ask me to suggest it was time i wade.
Down on the road, i fulfilled a classic man leaning resistant to the wall structure. Their term are Elado. He carried a good cane and dressed in a loose environmentally friendly sweater that have a great Masonic icon dangling regarding a cycle up to their neck. Willy informed him we were seeking details about the person it called La Reina.
“ Si, si, ” the outdated guy told you. “La Reina-everybody else understood your. Mulatto. Regarding the height,” the guy nodded during my guidance. “Folks respected your. The guy existed here to have two decades. Obviously, anyone know just what he did to own an income.” He said Superman remaining on You.S. into the 1959. “Not one person knew their title. People merely named him Los angeles Reina.”
I entered her large apartment, and you may Willy said what we should have been performing
Outside by church, roosters crowed. A girl using Rollerblades talked towards the a pay mobile. An old man inside a fabric tennis cover used a cigar towards the an excellent backless solid wood settee.
Their hair are light and you may nuts
I moved due to Los Sitios with the Barrio Chino up until i turned up on 507 Marquis Road. I endured in the street looking at the entry to a beneficial martial-arts college: Escuela Cubana de Wushu. They got a yellow and purple facade with a gold foo puppy and you may a purple metal entrance.
The entranceway is open. Into the front door are a good courtyard which have a small cafe and some fixed exercise equipment. New theatre just after stood where the school’s outdoor courtyard has become. We made an effort to imagine in which the phase could have been. The new dressing area where Superman open to the fresh new show. New balcony where drunken tourists watched the brand new efficiency.
A few days afterwards we gone back to Barrio de- los Sitios so you can canvas for others exactly who may have recognized Superman. From the apartment strengthening alongside Gladis Castaneda’s, i fulfilled Superman’s real neighbors: a former pizza pie cook entitled Roberto Cabarero, 82 yrs . old, having a seriously stained and you may extended muscle tissue top, drooping brownish shorts with the fly wide open, and you can black socks having gaps in the feet. His epidermis sagged beste NationalitГ¤t zu heiraten instance a-sea turtle’s.
Cabarero’s apartment, in which the guy existed with his spouse, try smaller and you can ramshackle, plagued by nonsense. Their wife seated in the middle of the small living room, rocking forward and backward inside a solid wood chair, talking loudly in the nobody specifically. A wireless blared tinny dated Foreign-language tunes, and you can a puppy came in and from the room to help you consume crumbs from the flooring. A security clock seemed during the meeting. Nobody troubled to turn it well.