Jose once lived off Plaza Vieja in Old Havana, in a sea foam colored apartment building, next to a peach colored bodega, until the palm tree growing through his floor punched a hole in the wall. This was the city: since El Presidente took over, holes had been punched all over town — chipping paint, crumbling stone facades, cracking art deco tiles — but none had been repaired. The revolution promised the future, looked like the past.
He'd lived there for thirty-six years. He liked the palm tree when it first popped through the floor. It added decor to his drab residence. He was forgetful of its progress and, when finally he realized there was a hole, he felt he could live with it. The rumba music on vinyl coming from a neighbor's tinny stereo was louder; the smells of frying malanga fritters and lime and garlic steaks were stronger; he slept better, the cool sea breeze of night boring through, an invisible lover's breath whispering lullabies.
But it brought nuisances. Cockroaches, lizards, rain. A nakedness, disintegrating colonial stone as it expanded, revealing his world. The long stale routines of age, his unimpressive possessions, his disappeared love life.
So he moved. West to Central Havana, a newer building with white walls, no inside palm trees but many fellow gray revolution survivors. By day, he'd walk the waterfront Malecon walkway, wary of water-filled craters, not looking north toward the Gulf's expanse but instead to the pavement for baby palm trees breaking through the concrete.