The Paths of Life
Sometimes I wonder, whose footsteps are we following? This comes to mind because on a gray winter afternoon in Cologne, Germany, as the scant daylight was fading around four in the afternoon, I received an unexpected visit that –I would never have thought– would change my life.
My favorite uncle, Claus, came to visit me from distant California, USA, accompanied by a great-aunt I had never met before, as the family is spread across several countries and my grandmother had 12 siblings. It turned out to be Aunt Gigi, who noticed a collection of old suitcases in my home. She then told me about a suitcase she had inherited from her grandmother: “Do you want to have it?” she asked, “It’s cluttering up my attic.” Of course I wanted it!
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When the suitcase arrived in my hands –which initially could not be opened– it revealed a bunch of old letters, yellowed photos, a small doll, and other relics from a bygone era that led me to the story, among others, of Anna Mehringer, a young cigar roller from Bremen who, in 1868, escaped from her hometown and arrived in Cuba.
I won’t tell more, as that story is already written in my novel The Secret of the Cigar Queen, published under the pseudonym Ana Galana. But that suitcase marked the first of many steps I took towards tobacco, still unaware of what it would come to mean for me.
Since I was seven years old, I was fascinated by three different fields: music, writing, and management. I told my father, “I want to play the violin!” and he got me both the instrument and a teacher. I also noted in a tiny gray pocket calendar, “I want to be a poet,” and started writing fairy tales, which I illustrated with drawings of princesses, unicorns, and elves. Finally, I started a horse club and insisted that the entire family join… I was already a little businesswoman.
As an adult, life led me to pursue all three fields, as a musician, author, and entrepreneur, spending time in France, Spain, Turkey, and Latin America.
But back to the suitcase. I found a hand-drawn map in it showing a place called Hidden Valley, with drawings of plants I later recognized as tobacco. There was also a charm with dried, forgotten seeds, including those classified by a gardener as from the same plant, and as I began translating the old letters, the trace of tobacco became clearer and clearer.
Through my work as an artist agent, I collaborated with Vieja Trova Santiaguera, a Cuban Son quintet whose members had a combined age of 400 years. These old-timers, who in their youth had driven the locomotives of trains crossing the sugar island from East to West, were now triumphing all over Europe.
Grateful, they invited me to Cuba, where I spent the last afternoon of the millennium on the terrace of Gregorio Fuentes, a man then 103 years old, who in his time was the captain of the yacht of the famous writer Ernest Hemingway. What an impression! Being there, sitting next to this wise man with bright, curious eyes standing out on a wrinkled face.
He offered me the first cigar of my life: a handmade Habano from the fields of Pinar del Río by a farmer friend of his. What an exquisite taste!, accompanied by a seven-year-aged rum and the distant strumming of a guitar. The smoke mingled with the scent of roses from the neighboring garden, and step by step, tobacco ensnared me like a gentle lover you cannot resist. That’s why, when I returned to Germany, I opened a tobacco lounge with cigar manufacturing.
La Galana
The suitcase remained there, tempting me day after day. I carefully extracted its stories: translating, interpreting, investigating… Until one day Manuel Torres, a Cuban Revolution veteran, appeared in my Cologne lounge, bringing surprising books that contained the missing pieces to understand and piece together the mosaic of the mysterious suitcase. And I began to write…
Everything I had learned over the years about tobacco began to fit together and take shape. Before me emerged the picture of a beautiful, brave young German woman who, in the mid-19th century, escaped from her home and arrived in Cuba disguised as a sailor.
In August 2023, my first historical-romantic novel was published, which I presented at the grand Volksbühne am Rudolfplatz theater, as part of a successful show of music, reading, and tobacco, where I performed songs composed especially for the occasion.
But next year, a second part of this story will be released. The adventures of Ana Galana will continue.
