A few minutes afterwards a senior black colored lady dressed in a red scarf more light locks emerged about next-floor screen. She featured mislead however accepted Willy. “ Hola. Hola. ” She enjoy united states upstairs.
Their own term is actually Gladis Castaneda, and you may she ended up being a professional ancient pianist during the Havana through the the 1950s. She are a small lady within her eighties or 90s. She nodded as he mentioned La Reina. Sure, she told you, he would stayed in this people, proper next door. Here, on flesh, is actually an individual who know the newest legendary Superman-facts, in fact, that people actually existed.
Superman, Castaneda told you, try extreme, solid, acknowledged. “Men and women understood your as the King,” she told internationaler Chatraum you. “He had been gay, nevertheless did not mess with your.” She requested us to remain. “He had been your top. But good. Muscular.” He had epidermis such hers: dark, however really. “He was a beneficial man. No one got an issue with your.” I inquired if the everybody in the area understood exactly what he performed to have an income. “Son, it actually was many years ago. The guy left years ago.”
Willy asked when the she know exactly what turned off your, and you may she told you she thinks he died in Miami. Their particular opportunity try waning, and you can Willy nodded for me to indicate the time had come i go.
Upon the road, i satisfied an old people bending up against the wall structure. Their name is Elado. He sent an effective cane and you can wore a loose environmentally friendly sweater that have a Masonic icon clinging from a sequence around his neck. Willy informed him we had been shopping for details about the guy they titled La Reina.
“ Si, si, ” the existing people said. “Los angeles Reina-everyone else understood him. Mulatto. Regarding your peak,” the guy nodded inside my guidelines. “Everyone else known him. The guy resided here having twenty years. Needless to say, people realized exactly what the guy did to have a full time income.” He said Superman kept to the You.S. within the 1959. “No-one understood his term. Folks simply named your La Reina.”
We joined her roomy flat, and you will Willy informed me whatever you were starting
Across the street by church, roosters crowed. A girl sporting Rollerblades talked on a cover cellular phone. An old guy in the a fabric golf cover used a cigar toward a backless solid wood couch.
His tresses was light and you can crazy
I walked due to Los Sitios into the Barrio Chino until we showed up at the 507 Marquis Street. I stood in the pub taking a look at the entrances so you can an excellent martial-arts college or university: Escuela Cubana de Wushu. They got a purple and reddish act that have a gold foo canine and a reddish metal gate.
The entranceway is actually open. During the side entrance was good courtyard with a little bistro and several fixed gym equipment. The new theater immediately following endured in which the school’s outside courtyard happens to be. We attempted to consider where stage could have been. The fresh putting on a costume place where Superman prepared for the latest show. The new balcony where drunken people noticed this new show.
A few days later on i returned to Barrio de los Sitios in order to material for other people who may have identified Superman. About flat building alongside Gladis Castaneda’s, i found Superman’s real next-door neighbor: an old pizza cook named Roberto Cabarero, 82 yrs old, which have a heavily tarnished and you may lengthened muscles clothing, drooping brownish trousers for the travel wide-open, and you can black colored clothes having gaps from the toes. His surface sagged instance a sea turtle’s.
Cabarero’s apartment, where he resided together with his wife, are smaller and you will ramshackle, full of junk. Their wife sat in the middle of the little family area, rocking back and forth into the a solid wood sofa, talking loudly in the not one person in particular. A wireless blared tinny old Language tunes, and you can a dog came in and you may out from the place to eat crumbs off of the floor. An alarm time clock sounded for the duration of the conference. Nobody annoyed to make it well.