Wily Itinerant

The Cubana line was easy to spot, with its mix of returning emigres, civil servants on official travel, and slightly dissolute gringos (I wondered whether among them were any latter-day Graham Greenes or Hemingways, both of who lived in Havana on the eve of the Castro revolution). Cuba's irrepressible spirit of festivity took over as we buckled into the spartan Soviet-era aircraft (one of them had just crashed in central America a few weeks ago). The airhostess held up a lost handbag—six claimants raised their hands, all males.