Summary

The narrator is staying at her friend Isabel's home in Veradero, Cuba. She feels at home despite the heat and humidity, and refers to Cuba as "the land of my birth" (93). The day before she arrived at Isabel's she had visited a famous Cuban poet at his home. He assured her that he still thought she was a Cuban poet, but that there is "a definitive line between Cuban writers on the island and those living abroad," which mostly has to do with what language they writes in (94). The narrator tried to tell him that she writes in both English and Spanish, but the poet wanted to know which language she thought and dreamed in, which she said "depends" (96). The narrative returns to the present, where the narrator is walking with Isabel's to the beach. They go to an unfinished tourist hotel's beach...