The Return
Surprisingly, I always felt great the next morning and couldn't wait for breakfast so I could see who of my friends were on board. Then, after a breakfast of fresh pineapple which was always presented to me by the waiter with assurances that it was the only thing to eat after being seasick, it was up to the deck.
Sailing into Havana harbor we would see craggy Moro Castle, foreboding on the cliffs, on the left and on the right, high on the hill, we could see the glamorous Hotel Nacional. The air was so clear and the sun so bright that it made the houses look like confections - all pink and yellow and blue with terra cotta roofs. For a short while we paralleled the Malecon - the oceanfront drive that encircled the city. When we saw the Aduana, the Customs House, we knew we were close enough to dock. We could hear all the waterfront clamor - the stevedores, porters, beggars, taxi drivers, families, all talking, even screaming, at highest pitch. Then I would see my father. He was not a tall man but well built. His face and hands were tanned a deep brown. His hair was almost as white as his heavily starched linen suit. (I can remember his suits coming back from the Chinaman and my father separating the trouser legs with a table knife.) He would always stand, legs apart, right arm under left, holding a cigarette aloft in his left hand. I would shout "DADDY", and when he heard and smiled and waved, everyone around would smile.
Then we would prepare to disembark. As foreigners, we had to go first to the dining salon to show our identification papers to the immigration inspectors. Formalities over, everyone hurried to the gangplank anxious to join husbands and fathers as soon as possible.
In the early years, as we drove away from the dock, we would pass the Pan American Clipper ship moored at a nearby wharf, bouncing gently on its pontoons. Later, when Pan American replaced the sea planes with land planes, my Mother refused to fly for many years. She couldn't imagine flying over three hundred and fifty miles of water in a plane that couldn't land on the ocean if it had to.
My father would head toward the Malecon, avoiding the narrow streets of the old city as much as possible. There were no traffic lights,
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