Barcelona, 1997
Flashes of majestic buildings blinked through the clear patches as the plane began its steady descent towards the airport. Clouds shrouded the less desirable parts of the city, much as my optimism masked my insecurity.
I’d left my modest suburban home close to London Heathrow on a drizzly February morning, dressed carefully in tailored trousers and a contrasting jacket. Professional attire with a relaxed twist that I hoped was appropriate for a first meeting with the man I had spent two long years searching for across two continents.
I had started out with only a name and a nationality for this man who held knowledge I so desperately needed. He had not been easy to find in that pre-digital era, and my quest had tested my tenacity as well as my detection skills.
I handed the detritus of my fortifying gin and tonic to the flight attendant and snapped away my tray table. Anxiety battled with excitement as I played out multiple versions of how this meeting might go. Would I be greeted in an avuncular fashion? Or would it all be stiff and formal? I wasn’t entirely sure which I would find easier to handle.
The bump of the wheels on the tarmac jolted me back from my reverie. Back to the tedium of the slow taxi to the gate, the impatient scrabble for bags stowed overhead, the jostle for the jetway, and the arduous trek to passport control.
My reflection in the glazed wall showed a composure I didn’t recognise. Continuing on towards the baggage hall, I disregarded the juddering carousels, but couldn’t ignore my racing heart. Was it nerves? Or simply that ridiculous and unnecessary sense of guilt I always felt walking through customs? The click of my heels on the hard floor marked my progress until I stopped just short of the exit – the automatic doors marked “Salida” that led into the main concourse. To where the stranger I was due to meet had promised to be waiting for me. Was I ready for this?
After wiping my palms down my sides, I pulled myself up straight and took a moment to consider that this man had no idea of the lengths I had gone to in order to find him.
I had started by contacting the Cuban Embassy in London, and when they twice failed to respond, I’d tried the University of Havana, assuming he might once have been a student there. My instinct had been right. He’d enrolled to study law, only to have his course cut short by the university closure following troublesome uprisings in support of the rebels plotting insurrection in the jungles of the Sierra Maestra. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d had any involvement with those militant student groups. The university archives had unearthed a set of passport photos of their former scholar taken almost forty years earlier, and they had allowed me to have one of the miniature black and white prints. It was the only picture I’d seen of him and showed a serious young man in a dark jacket and narrow tie. My overactive imagination had merged that image with a character portrayed by a Latino actor in the movie “Havana” – a prominent Cuban held by the authorities just before the triumph of the revolution. I had built an expectation based on hopes and wishes rather than facts.
Later, having established that he was not in Cuba nor in the U.S., I turned to the Venezuelan Embassy in London. There, I obtained a phone number and a hint that the man I sought may have been a Venezuelan diplomat at one point. I pinned him down to Caracas only to be told that he had gone to Spain.
He had remained a frustrating step ahead of me as I followed his tracks from one country to another like a bloodhound sniffing out its prey. At each dead end, I had sunk into despair, then, refusing to accept defeat, I would pick myself up again and seek another avenue to explore.
When I finally made contact with him, I was disappointed that he didn’t immediately agree to meet me. Instead, he arranged for me to be checked out by a contact of his in London – the Venezuelan ambassador, who had interviewed me over lunch in an upmarket Knightsbridge eatery.
After all the trouble I had gone to, this first encounter just had to go well. What would he be like? What would he make of me? Would he even be there? How would I recognise him? I forced myself to shake off the jumble of concerns that assaulted me.
Act confident, I told myself. Deep breath. Stay calm. One foot in front of the other. I had to make a good impression. The right impression. But what would that look like to him? I had no idea.
As I edged through the doors, I took in the sight of the barrier rail holding back a throng of relatives and taxi drivers. Some held extravagant bouquets. Others held placards with names penned in bold print. Almost tripping over my own feet, I took a step forward, then abruptly halted as I observed the sea of faces in front of me. Which one was him?
I moved on once more. Tentatively. Forcing myself to hold my head high. My eyes scanned the crowd without quite knowing what, or should I say who, I was looking for.
I was thirty-eight years old, a no-nonsense, self-sufficient single mother of two. Formal meetings with new acquaintances were no big deal to the organised professional in me. Yet here I was, reduced to feeling like a small child entering a schoolroom for the very first time.
As a crescendo of anxiety spiralled within me, a slightly stooped man with thinning hair stepped forward, peering at me quizzically.
‘Rose?’
This must be him.
‘Armando?’ I responded.
He had the weathered look of a well-read paperback. His tweed jacket with leather elbow patches reminded me of my old geography teacher. His welcome hug was brief and smoky as he air-kissed me on each cheek in the traditional Spanish manner. He was not at all as I had expected.
The thick dark hair of his student days had not only thinned, but had receded to the top of his head, completely changing the shape of his face. The dense, dark eyebrows and neat moustache were now both grey and straggly, and the eyes behind his glasses were baggy and careworn. His most surprising feature was the prominence of his teeth, hidden in that early photo he’d posed for so formally. Of course, I needed to allow for the intervening years, but my imagination had been kinder to him.
He stepped back to look me over, waiting a beat as though considering what to say. If his appearance had surprised me, his opening statement took the unexpected to a whole new level.
‘I never wanted any children, and now I have five.’
As I stood frozen in stunned silence, he chuckled.
‘Come on, let’s get you checked into your hotel, and then I’ll take you for dinner.’
To my relief, my father took charge.