Two Days in the Life of Stephen Boka
Sometimes with the best will in the world things don’t go according to plan!! For reasons totally beyond anyone’s control I am having to postpone my tea and scones with the delightful Patricia Lynne to later in the week. However rising to the occasion today is the delicious STEPHEN BOKA who has taken a hacky big liberty with this and has put his own slant on the day or week in a life of theme…Sending two days instead!!…This feature is open to ALL of my followers – You don’t have to be an author!! Please send your submissions directly to ingrid@grannyirene.com
Two Days in the Life of Stephen Boka
-4:30 a.m. I’m dimly aware of a staccato buzz somewhere outside the blackness that envelops me. I reach through the darkness and grope blindly for the snooze button. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I’m still exhausted. This undercurrent of deep fatigue is manifesting itself more frequently. Rousing with a start, I fix on the clock beside my head and curse softly at no one and nothing in particular.. Even just out of insensibility, there’s that familiar sense, a vague feeling, that time is accelerating . I harbour a sense that I must…what? Do…..something. And fast. The clock is winding down; my life should be a sequence of deep and wonderful experiences…
I fall back on my pillow and drift back to the time I walked into the Ambos Mundi Hotel in Old Havana, where Hemmingway lived for a year and wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”.
The economic constraints of the failed socialist experiment left the furnishings and decor essentially the same as when Castro and Che entered the city in triumph in 1959. Bartenders in white linen jackets polish glasses behind a massive mahogany bar as guests step out of the lobby’s elevator, the iron grill work of the door worthy of a scene from a “film noir”. An elderly Cuban man in a white linen jacket and Panama hat plays a jazzy, Latin tune on a piano up against verdant potted palms. The old iron elevator rattles and groans on the way up to the rooftop terrace that overlooks the harbour and “El Morro”- the Spanish citadel that until recently was incarnated as a prison and execution ground for “enemies of the revolution”. It was here at the rooftop bar that Hemmingway would gaze across the vista of tiled rooftops pressing to the edge of the cobalt ocean. He’d likely be drinking a mojito, the cocktail he developed with the bartenders of that time. The mojito I drank on the terrace was a catalyst in my blood, bringing forth a sense of vibrancy and satisfaction at being in such a wonderful place. All too soon, it seemed, I walked by the colourful fired tiles along the walls of the hotel lobby and stepped out into the blinding light of the midday sun. I walked the streets of a monument to fallen grandeur that to this day would be recognised by Che or Hemmingway. In the courtyards of ornate but decaying Spanish Colonial buildings, visible from the cobblestone streets, were stairs leading to the floors above. Often there would be sat a skinny mongrel dog, or the slow waving of laundry on a line strung across the way in the practical, unpretentious way of people struggling to make do. I imagined gripping the wrought iron bannister and ascending along a wall of chipping mosaic tiles to a sultry night of sensual pleasures. The object of my imaginary tryst was a vague, composite image of the handsome, dark skinned Latin men I saw everywhere. I smiled at my foolishness and wearily conceded that, at 50 years old and somewhat overweight, those days are likely behind me. One of the ironies of life is that time often erodes our features and health – yet leaves us with the same intensity of desire we revelled in when young. Suspending reality and indulging my fantasy, I found myself in a cold water flat, at a kitchen table covered with a scrap of oilcloth and circled by mismatched chairs. Perhaps there’d be a cheap plastic radio of 1950′s vintage blaring out a song by Ibrahim Ferrer or Eliades Ochoa. A portrait of Jose Marti might look on from his vantage point in the adjoining hallway. I’d be fluent in Spanish and we’d discuss the events transpiring in Cuba while the smells of black beans and rice, pork in a lime marinade, and fried plantains filled the spartan kitchen. We’d finish the meal with what I believe is a sacred trinity; no three elements compliment each other like anjeo rum, Cuban coffee, and Cohiba cigars. That combination of tastes and smells evokes the Carribean like nothing else…
The shouts and laughter of the ubiquitous street kids roused me from my reverie and prompted me to continue on my way, a stranger enamoured with the possibilities the city suggested, but resigned to always being an onlooker, an outsider in this mysterious world that tolerated me for the money I brought, but would keep me ever an outsider. Still, I felt worldly, breathing the humid tropic air redolent with the smells of exotic food and salt air. Is it possible for every day to be like that? Now, laying on my bed, I feel rooted to one spot. Inert. I’m booked to work an early shift.. I rise with a sense of deep weariness and make my way down the hall. I wonder what the weather’s like in Havana?
Mojito Recipe
10 fresh mint leaves 1/2 lime, cut into 4 wedges 2 tablespoons white sugar, or to taste 1 cup ice cubes 1 1/2 fluid ounceswhite rum 1/2 cup club soda
Directions
Place mint leaves and 1 lime wedge into a sturdy glass. Use a muddler to crush the mint and lime to release the mint oils and lime juice. Add 2 more lime wedges and the sugar, and muddle again to release the lime juice. Do not strain the mixture. Fill the glass almost to the top with ice. Pour the rum over the ice, and fill the glass with carbonated water. Stir, taste, and add more sugar if desired. Garnish with the remaining lime wedge.
