Summary

A Cuban expatriate who is described only as "the visitor" meets her cousin, as well as her cousin's husband and teenage daughter (84). The cousin tells her how things have been: there is "trouble getting meat," and "the contentment ... never materialized" (84). They are eating at a tourist restaurant in Cuba, under the assumption that the visitor, who is American, will pay the bill. When the daughter wants to order a cola the husband calls it "the black waters of imperialism," but winks to show he is joking. The cousin tells the story of a woman she worked with named Carmela who was outed as a counterrevolutionary. Everyone at her work had to vote to repudiate her or not, and the cousin, along with everyone else, voted to expel Carmela. The cousin and her husband interject that they had no choice, and...