The end of dreams

22

The heat overwhelmed them even as they left the airport. Silvia's nausea was coming back: till that moment it had been kept away by the air-conditioning as well as by her solidly realistic attitude. 

The air had a scent the girls had never smelled before and it was so thick that it even seemed hard to breathe in. Milan's climate appeared to be dry in comparison. Yet the sky was intensely blue. People were strolling slowly and they were all smiling like when one has nothing to do. Each and every glance was followed by a greeting, sometimes even by a blessing. 

The girls felt as if they were dreaming. But it was definitely too hot. Michelle pulled two handfuls of licorice candies out of her bag, then she reached one to Silvia while she swallowed the other. Fortunately a lovely car from another era, or  perhaps from another dimension-just as lovely as the inhabitants of that city- was awaiting them a few steps outside the airport.  

"It looks as if we were shooting a movie in the fifties" whispered Silvia, entertained. 

There were very few cars around but they were so well maintained that they looked brand-new, although they were actually very old. Che Guevara's face welcomed them from the numerous billboards spread on every side of the city, as if the revolution had just ended. The time in that country seemed to have stopped. They got to their hotel rapidly; it was an elegant, colonial-style  building hidden among the palms, in the centre of Havana. They  were very tired on account of the hot weather; they were also a little confused when they showed up at the reception but they still were in a slightly merry mood. Michelle began to think that the reason for the widespread good mood resided  in the strange scent of the air, whose origin remained unknown. To the girls' great luck the receptionist spoke a flawless Italian. 

"Welcome, misses, have you had a nice trip?" 
"Oh yes, thanks. It was a bit long but pleasant, all things considered" answered Michelle kindly.
"Will you give me your passports so I'll register your names? I will not steal any more time from you, I imagine you are very tired. You can follow Juan. He's going to lead you to your suite."
The receptionist smiled at the girls,just like all the people they had met  with in Havana. Jaqueline  was a beautiful mulatto girl, about twenty-five years old, whose attitude appeared to be  very sincere. 

The girls followed Juan but after a few steps Michelle stopped and went back to her.

"You see, we are not here on a pleasure trip. We are here for the escozul. Maybe you know the hospital which distributes it, its timetables... you know, any bit of information is very precious to us. The only thing we know is  the name of the drug."  Jaqueline looked at Michelle with a sorry expression on her face.
"I suspected you were here on that account, considering your brief stay. I hoped to be mistaken... Italians have come here only for the escozul lately. I think you have been misinformed, though. The Escozul is a very effective natural anti-inflammatory drug, we cubans normally utilize it to cure headaches or flu, and it is always very efficient in such cases.

My personal opinion is, however, that Escozul is totally ineffective against cancer and actually most people here in Cuba think the same. In your suite, anyway, you'll find a leaflet that gives detailed information about the hospital. You can talk to Juan and arrange everything for your visit to the hospital. He's a very kind man and he will help you with pleasure. Might I make a suggestion? I think you'd better go there in the early morning, at three o'clock. The lab opens at nine but if you should go there at that time you'd certainly find
two hundred people lining up before you,or even more."
"You mean, at night?" replied Michelle, trying to hide her disillusion.
"Yes".
"In this case you can already tell Juan he can take us there this night at two o'clock. We are going to stay here only for three days,so we can't waste a single minute. Escozul is for my cousin, I can't run the risk of returning to Italy empty-handed."  
"I am going to arrange for that, miss. Now just go to your room and have some rest. I hope your cousin will heal from cancer, with or without escozul." 

Michelle swallowed her unhappiness.  

"You know, in Italy they have stopped curing her. They haven't told her yet, but there's no more hope for her. Escozul is our last chance."  

"May God help you".
"Come on, Michelle, let's go!" Silvia called her from the other side of the corridor, as she was eager to enter the suite and relax.
"Dinner will be served at the main restaurant  in two hours' time. I can also have it brought to your room, if you prefer so".
"Yes, please. That seems to be the best solution. You are really very kind".

Finally the girls reached their beautiful suite on the top floor of the building. Sheets, furniture, towels... everything was pure white. There was a lovely French window that opened onto the terrace. That window had shutters ajar which caused the room to be in a comfortable semi-darkness. Silvia hurried to the terrace: it overlooked the underlying palm grove. She was attracted by the sweet sound of leaves being moved by the sea breeze. Maybe that was the origin of that strange scent in the air: a mixture of saltiness and palms being caressed by the wind. Her nausea began  getting gradually accustomed to that fragrance and at last it abated.   "If I had fallen asleep in Milan and they had put me into a box and sent me here I would  have realized right away, on waking up, that I wasn't in Italy, nor in Europe, any more. One just feels this is another continent, another world. The air is different... so are the sounds and the colors... all is different here."

"It' s another world, indeed. People are not in a hurry,they smile. Maybe we have  ended up into a parallel dimension" said Michelle, exhausted, then she went to sleep on the huge bed, which was the most majestic piece of furniture of the whole room- Silvia, on the contrary, was not sleepy at all as she had slept during the flight. It came into her mind that she had not heard her mother for a long time. She must have made her very angry during that last phone call at the emergency room. So she picked up the telephone and keyed her mother's number without thinking twice, even if Italy was already in the dead of night.