A snapshot moment in Old Havana

The Parque Mátires ’71 is pleasant, nothing special, hardly distinguishable from dozens of other little parks in Old Havana. Fairly safe, reasonably clean, shabby, some tatty greenery and a few trees, a bird-limed bronze statue to a forgotten hero, and rickety park benches around a stone-paved terrace. I was perched on the more stable slats of one of these in the late afternoon sunshine, and reading Romola. This was not as incongruous as it sounds, for the massive novel is George Eliot’s attempt to recreate a world far from her native English Midlands: the smells and colours, the jostle and noise of the street in 16th-century Florence. Old Havana is closer to Renaissance Florence than to Nuneaton, Warks.

The heat, humidity and fraying attempt at municipal stature reminded me of my adolescence in post-colonial Africa. The sun was bright enough to read without my glasses. It was like being young again.

Engrossed in the chapter where it dawns on us that the youthful hero is actually contemptible, I did not at first notice that someone had noticed me. Around a bench about 20 yards across the paving a young Cuban family had gathered, father and pregnant mother seated, their son of about five and their little girl of two playing at their feet. Like most Cubans, the family were of mixed race, and seemed to be on an afternoon promenade and pausing here. The parents were affectionate and attentive towards their children, but fairly indulgent: there was none of the parental shouting and frustration you so often get when English families sally into public places. I guessed this family’s outing was a treat for the children, who were mildly excited.