Tropical Depression in Cuba

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August in Havana is a mounting wave of heat—so consuming, the sun so piercing, it can warp your sense of reason. Tempt you to surrender. Make you flirt with insanity. The pained faces around you are covered in grimy sweat, a haze of resignation in the eyes. Here or there a woman fans herself, perhaps with some ladylike, store-bought thing, but more often with a stray scrap of cardboard. Inside, heat radiates from every surface, the temperature rising as the torridity soaks deeper into the concrete walls. Outside is worse. Few dare venture into the scorching light.

And there is nowhere else to go. Havana, for most inhabitants, is an enclosed island within an island. To the north is the water, of course, but it is accessible only by climbing down the Malecón seawall and a ring of perilous cliffs. A trip to the beaches east of the city involves hours of waiting in line, then standing for the long ride on an overstuffed bus with no air-conditioning.

Havana’s neighborhoods explode with the products of sun, water, and the island’s intense fertility: the delicate orange flowers of the outstretched framboyán shade trees, bougainvillea in twists of magenta and purple, squash blossoms peeking from the weeds encircling decrepit mansions, and the red mar pacíficos, or hibiscus, which curl in their blossoms every afternoon.

On a lucky day, this occurs just as the rains come in. The horizon goes from partly cloudy to gray and foreboding, the sky exuding a brilliant, otherworldly yellow. Lightning jags, in white and orange, hover on the horizon, above the imploding buildings. Then the aguacero comes down: angry, gigantic drops beating into the ground in long flashes of light. Few Cubans can afford umbrellas, and they resign themselves to the deluges, like so many daily realities.

As August goes on, the rains become scarce and the temperature rises. As they walk down the street, visit with friends, or ride the bus, people everywhere lament the unrelenting heat. Will September bring relief? Or will the hurricanes start? Even when the sun sets, temperatures never fall more than a few degrees. Across the city, people pray for nights free of blackouts, so their electric fans will not rattle to a stop, so the suffocating heat will be staved off one more night. Then, in the morning, the cycle begins again.

It is in August’s crescendo of waiting and suffering that Cubans often give up on life. But few people in Cuba talk openly about losing one’s mind, much less about suicide. So when, one viscous August afternoon, a woman named Mirta* tells me that her nephew killed himself, she does so without speaking.

Mirta is nearing her 60th birthday and has battled depression and anxiety for years. She is small and stout and wears her gray hair short with a shock of white bangs. “He . . . ,” Mirta begins, her voice dropping off. She stretches her thumb and forefinger across her neck, just below her chin—like a noose. Mirta knows little about what provoked her nephew. He had longed to get off the island for years and was also a heavy drinker, but his parents have told Mirta few other details—only that he suffered from los nervios, the generic Latin American term for mental illness.

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