It took us a week aboard the Valbanera to arrive in La Habana, my first taste of the American continent with its colonial buildings, narrow streets, and tantalizing beaches. But we didn’t have time for sightseeing as almost immediately we had to board our next ship, the Andes, a British vessel that was three times the size of the Valbanera. Not that Cristóbal would’ve agreed to any sightseeing with me anyway. He’d spent the entire week aboard locked in our cabin, typing.

The clerk at the reception desk had a perfectly bald head filled with moles, like a spotty mango.

“Your name, sir?” he asked.

“Cristóbal de Balboa, and this is my wife, María Purificación de Lafont y Toledo.”

Cristóbal tapped his fingers on the desk—repeatedly—while the clerk wrote our names as if there weren’t dozens of passengers standing behind us. Cristóbal had little patience for incompetence, a trait I never quite understood since he had a temperate disposition and always avoided conflict. His way of expressing his frustration was to burst into a variety of tics: tapping his foot, scratching the back of his head, loosening his tie, chewing his nails to the quick. It was as if his body expressed what his voice couldn’t.

“Purificación,” the clerk said slowly. “With a c or an s?”

“C,” Cristóbal said, curtly.

My husband had little to no awareness of his many habits or the effect he had on others, especially women. He never noticed when our female customers stared at him or groomed their hair while he took their order or handed them a warm cup of chocolate. I could see why they were enthralled by him. Cristóbal was already thirty-four years old, but he took care of his appearance and of his hygiene. His beard was always trimmed and his necktie always straight. Most of all, he was attentive and kind and had an aloof quality that made women feel at ease in his presence. I couldn’t deny that I’d been fortunate that my mother hadn’t found me an old, fat man to marry. Ours was certainly not a problem of attraction.

Cristóbal turned to me, sighing.

Ours was a problem of affinity.

While my husband spelled out my last name for the clerk, I had a feeling that someone was watching me. I turned my head as discreetly as possible.

A man leaning against a thick column was staring at me. He averted his gaze as soon as I looked at him. There was something wrong with his face, but I couldn’t see clearly for fear of appearing rude.

“Here’s the itinerary.” The clerk presented Cristóbal with a handwritten paper. “Your cabin is number 130 D.”