Sofrito. Phillippe Diederich

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      “I’m not an exile.” He had never longed for Cuba. To him, Cuba was a word spoken in occasional newscasts. It was violence. And it was that eerie quiet that surrounded his childhood home.

      Marisol opened a pair of large wooden shutters. Frank stepped onto the balcony and looked out toward the ocean across the avenue. The sun was low on his left, far in the distance, past the ocean, behind Miramar. To his right he could see the Morro Castle turning pink. A soft breeze carrying the scent of the Cuban childhood he did not have came and went in subtle waves that left him wondering if it was real, if he had truly smelled it. He rested his hands on the wrought iron rail that had been rusted and shaped by a hundred years of salt and wind. The texture of the wall, the exposed cement and stone of the building, bare under a wash of blue like the part of the sky that was closest to the sun, framed the view that had become a simple memory for thousands of brokenhearted exiles. His stomach twisted and his throat itched with a heavy melancholy he didn’t understand.

      “Quizá,” he whispered without turning from the view that had captured his defenseless nostalgia. “In a way, maybe I am an exile.”

      Marisol stepped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She rested the side of her face against the back of his shoulder. “Maybe,” she said softly, “we’re all exiles in our own way.”

      He didn’t know what she meant by it. But in her eyes he recognized his own sadness, a quiet, simmering melancholy he always thought he’d been born with—in all the family photographs he never smiled. He thought perhaps she felt oppressed. Lost. And yet, he didn’t feel she would be better off in Miami or Spain. If she accepted the simplicity of Cuba, she could be happy. But that was naïve of him. Maybe she was happy. He knew nothing of her life. Besides, he was focusing on the wrong thing. He was here for the recipe. He had to find another way to get it.

      They stayed that way for a long while, absorbing the sounds of Havana that swept in gusts: the broken exhausts of cars and the pedaling of Flying Pigeon bicycles buzzing like insects below the window. The sky slowly turned to fire, covering Havana in gold dust. A group of children marched on top of the seawall in a broken line. Couples held hands as they walked past. From somewhere, the sound of a lone trumpet playing the morose notes of a bolero pierced through the tepid evening.

      “Ven acá.” Marisol pulled Frank away from the window and onto her bed. She undressed him slowly—slowly like the setting sun turning a darker shade of amber.