Harlot's Ghost

by Norman Mailer

  “I’m glad you caught the watch on Barbaro, not me,” he even conceded. “Wine him, dine him, pump him for what you can pick up, but promise nothing.”

  I was weary at the beginning of dinner. I had slept on my desk two nights in a row.

  Toto was waiting for me at the restaurant he had chosen. It was Spanish, medieval in décor, dark, and about as expensive as expected. El Rincon de Cervantes was its name, and that was almost squeezed out of my memory by the force of the abrazo Barbaro tendered as I came up to the table. He was a powerful man. I began to perceive how a good deal of communication could be put into one hug, for he stood up often that night to embrace Cubans who came by. I took such interruptions as a respite. After many a golpe of Cuban rum, and singular varieties of eel and squidlike tapas, Barbaro always came back to the budget.

  What a weighty presence! He had a large round head, bald but for a collar of cropped gray hair that ran from ear to ear at the back of his neck. Since his head sat bluntly on his shoulders, he would have appeared wholly porcine if not for the scholarly edge of his steel-rimmed eyeglasses. Due to his bulk, he wore black turtleneck shirts, and if he had added a turned-around white collar, he could have been taken for a heavyset priest—no merry fellow to spend time with. Cuban humor seemed for a time as dark as Cuban rum. Over and over, we went back to the budget. After a while, I realized that he did not argue to convince me, but to pound me down. My meat tenderized, I might be less ready to oppose him on something else tomorrow. “Your Eduardo is not generous,” he would tell me.

  “The decision is made high up,” I would reply. “You are only embarrassing Eduardo.”

  “That is a small discomfort for him, and a large one for me. You offer one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars a month! That is an insult. Our need for money is serious. Can you conceive of how many poor Cubans are among us in Miami? Some are too old to learn a new language, and poorly suited for the excessive speed of life here.”

  “I brought you ten thousand dollars from Washington.”

  “Divided by five, it came to two thousand for each of the Frente leaders. It is not even to be dignified by your word—pittance.”

  “Suppose,” I said, “that we were to give you the seven hundred and forty-five thousand dollars a month that you request. You are a man of goodwill. You would have to choose between good boats or giving more bread to your poor, and I believe you would choose the bread. Then your military actions would fail to produce results. Your soldiers would be underequipped. So, the man who approved your sum would suffer the consequences. A promising career might come to a quick end. Who in Washington is ready to take such a chance on his career?”

  He reached forward to tap two fingers on my chest. “Since you are young, Chico, I will not repeat your lack of discretion to others. But you have just revealed your so-called wealthy Americans to be, in fact, the CIA officers they are.”

  “I was not speaking properly.”

  “Speak in any manner you wish, but do not try to convince me that your money-man isn’t CIA. I can smell you CIAs.”

  “I am not one.”

  “You, Chico? No, not at all. And I am not a Cuban, but a cockroach.” He ran his fingers across the table like a centipede in full gallop and roared with laughter at the vehemence of his own humor.

  “A rose by any other name can smell as sweet,” I offered, and that set him laughing again. When he went back to the budget, it was with less animosity. “Your wealthy American”—El americano opulento de usted, were his actual words—“has much to learn about the Cuban people. Without liberty, we degenerate. We become all the bad things you think we are. Under the heel of a master, we react with the viciousness of a slave. We are corrupt, inefficient, untrustworthy, and stupid. No human being is worse than an unhappy Cuban. Put us, however, in command of our own fate and no nation in a military struggle is more resourceful, brave, loyal, and inspired. Our history is to make successful revolutions with only a few hundred people. That is because we are the spirit of true democracy. As José Martí once said, ‘Liberty . . . the essence of life. Whatever is done without it, is imperfect.’”

  “Hear, hear,” I said. How the rum was turning in me.

  “To your American democracy,” he replied, held up his drink, and swallowed it. I did the same.

  “Yes,” said Toto, “your American democracy may try to comprehend our Cuban democracy, but it cannot. For yours is based on equal votes. But ours is to be found in the intensity of our feelings. When one man has more desire to change history than another man, his vote should count for more. That is how we vote in Cuba. By our feelings. Give me the money, and you will have Cuban democracy. Your money, our blood.”

  “It’s a wonderful premise,” I said. “In my country we take such ideas and debate them in high school.”

  “You are young enough,” said Toto, “to be my son. Yet because you work for the wealthy American, you jeer at me. I, however, still need your money to buy guns, so I will try to provide you with a better comprehension of my country. Cuba is a land with one crop. Some say two crops and speak of our tobacco but, in fact, we survive by raising sugar. That is all we can raise to our advantage. Since the world market for sugar fluctuates, our fate has always been out of our control. Our sugar has sold in this century for as little as a penny a pound and for as much as twenty cents. Economically speaking, we are a roulette wheel.” He sighed. He laid his heavy hand on my forearm. “We are the tail that is wagged by the economic fluctuations of other people’s history. We have, therefore, an abnormal desire to make our own history. Such is the nature of gamblers. We trust our emotions.”

  The occasion was improving for me. I do not know if it was because of the drinks, but I could follow his Spanish, and he was growing eloquent on the differences in our politics. “The price of failure for an American legislator,” he now assured me, “is personal humiliation. Your people measure their value by their ego. When an American loses in politics, he must suffer, therefore, a hole in the ego. But in Cuba, to lose in politics can be equal to losing your life. Assassination is for us, you see, one of the basic forms of rejection. An interesting difference.”

  “I agree.”

  “Fidel is a good fellow when you meet him, do you understand?” he said.

  “I hear.”

  “He is the leader of Cuba for a simple reason. Cojones. You cannot find a man with more balls.”

  “Why do you hate him, then?”

  “I do not hate him. I disavow him. When I was a student during the early 1930s, I used to support Ramón Grau San Martín. That was of value to Ramón. I was considered the toughest guy in my class, and at the University of Havana we did not measure each other’s worth by intelligence. We measured it by our cojones. We were the toughest students in the world. You could not be a respected student at the University of Havana if you did not carry a gun. I was number one in my class; my ambition was to eliminate our very corrupt and tainted President then, a man named Machado. I would have succeeded, but our political leader, Ramón Grau San Martín, did not have the cojones. When he told me that he would not support us in such a venture, I smashed his desk with my bare hands. Roberto, I lifted it up and hurled it down so hard that it broke apart. I was respected in my day.

  “Now, Fidel, in his time, was equally well regarded,” said Toto. “I recall that he entered an impromptu contest with other student leaders one day in the late 1940s. A dare. You had to ride your bicycle into a stone wall. At top speed. None of the other leaders could do it. At the last moment, they would turn to the side. Fidel pumped at total velocity into the wall. Then his friends transported him to the clinic. He emerged one hour later with a bandage around his head, a broken nose, and a full speech in his mouth.”

  “Why do you disavow him?”

  “He is irresponsible. He should have been a bandit. Like your ruffian of the West, Billy the Kid. He has the will never to turn back. The greater the danger, the happier his smile. Even though Communism is not
temperamentally congenial to him, he responds to it because Communism says: The will of the people is embodied in the will of the leader. That is the only role large enough for Fidel’s will. So he puts up with the Communists. In consequence, he is absolutely the worst kind of ruler for Cuba.”

  “Who would be the best?”

  “Oh, Chico, I would say it must be a wise man, a democrat, with a judicious respect for the eternal Cuban balance. Such equilibrium in my country is to be found between compassion and corruption.”

  “Toto, you do fit the bill.”

  “I do not take offense. An understanding of reasonable forms of corruption is precisely what Fidel lacks. And Guevara is worse. They do not comprehend the fluvial nature of corruption.”

  “Fluvial?”

  “Like a river. Riverine! Hear me! I oppose greedy plundering. Excessive greed should not be rewarded. But sympathetic corruption—that is another matter. Responsible positions must be responsive to gifts. A modest stream helps to flush away the filth even as it elucidates the seductions of light. Fidel is a man who cannot comprehend the value of corruption. He is too dark in his heart. His errors of judgment are immense. I could name members of your American rackets.” He stopped.

  “Mobsters?”

  “Yes. Men of your rackets. Very large figures. They do not forgive Castro for taking away their casinos. A monumental error. Fidel has inflamed these persons. You do not cut such men off from their rich source of income unless you are willing to kill them.”

  We had been eating and drinking for more than two hours, and his face was red, his breathing noticeable. Each time he puffed on his cigar, I would be given a sense of the great smoke-mutilated bellows of his lungs. Speak of the fluvial, his breath had its own streambed to traverse. His inhalations rattled on my ear.

  Still he spoke. The waiters stood at the back of the room. It was late, but Barbaro called them forth for another golpe. I felt myself growing more uneasy than the situation seemed to warrant.

  “We Cubans like to declare that the evening waters of Havana Harbor reveal at twilight every color of a peacock’s tail. You cannot believe the sight until you see the variegations. Here, in your Biscayne Bay, there are hints of such tropical splendor, but your water looks to the east. So it does not reveal the magic of our Cuban universe. So many colors. Such a disclosure of heavenly and infernal lights. In Havana, we see a reflection on the harbor sea of all our emotional hues. We become aware of what is noble in our existence and what is besmirched; we see the resplendent, the luminous, the sordid, the treacherous. We peer into the very colors of odium. In Havana, at twilight, we see each one of the elemental transitions.” He stood up abruptly and said, “I am in over my head,” and when I looked at him in some surprise, for whatever speech I had next anticipated was hardly this, he reached for his pillbox, opened it, did not find what he was looking for among a dozen pills in half as many colors as the evening waters of Havana, and then made a circle of his hand and arm to indicate that the meal was over, the evening was gone, and I must put money on the plate for the waiter. “Out of here,” he said.

  Close to lurching in his gait, yet more peremptory than ever, he took my arm as though guiding me rather than hanging on to my torso for support. We left the restaurant at a controlled gait and proceeded to my car which, given the hour, was alone in the lot.

  “Take me to my motel.”

  He lived in a motor court not far from mine. I drove with every expectation that he would collapse. When I stopped at a light, he waved me through.

  “You are having a heart attack,” I said.

  “Sí.”

  “Let’s go to a hospital.”

  “Too far.” He coughed. “My medicine is sufficient.”

  Before we reached his room, he was as wet as a hard-worked horse. There was one moment during the ride when he must have thought he was going to die, for, as if I were his brother, he cried out, “Aiiiigh, hermano!” and banged his forehead against my shoulder.

  Inside his room, he collapsed on the bed, held up his thumb and forefinger to show me the size of the bottle—it certainly was small—and said, “Nitroglicerina.”

  The greatest fear I had at that moment was that I would open the cabinet and not be able to find his bottle, but before I could suffer such anxiety, I saw his medicine. The nitroglycerine label was on one of the seven prescription bottles before me in different hues and sizes. Standing side by side on a small glass shelf, they looked not unlike chess pieces on the back row.

  I did not believe what next ensued. He put two small white pills beneath his tongue, excused himself, shut the door to the bathroom, and after a bout of vomiting and other water-closet engagements, came out sufficiently recovered to break open a bottle of añejo and insist on another golpe. He took his first drink with still another nitroglycerine pill.

  “One of these days, I will die of a heart attack,” he told me, “and it will come in payment for my gluttony. Such gluttony, Chico, has been my obvious substitute for the prodigious greed”—actually he said, voracidad prodigiosa—“that I was too honorable to indulge when President of the Senate.”

  “Olé,” I said, and raised my glass.

  “One of these days,” he repeated, “I am going to die of a heart attack. When I do, you will ask for an autopsy.”

  “Why?”

  “To see whether I was poisoned.”

  I tried to smile politely. I was feeling the old Hubbard family-imperative: Never respond quickly to an extravagant declaration. “Well,” I answered, “could you be somewhat more specific?”

  “I will die of a heart attack,” he stated once more. “An autopsy can determine whether or not it was chemically initiated.”

  I sighed. Under the circumstances, it may have been a strange sound to make, but I was not about to take on myself a vow I might not wish to keep. “Only the police,” I told him, “or your relatives, Toto, can ask for such an autopsy. I do not fit either category.”

  “At this moment, you are physically nearer to me than my own son. And you are certainly more elevated than the police. You are able, in fact, to instruct them what to do.”

  “I cannot even fix a traffic ticket.”

  “Chico, you need never admit to me that you are CIA, but please do not feel the obligation to keep protesting. I will embarrass you no more than I must. One matter, however, is crucial. A word needs to be sent upstairs.” He uncurled one finger in an upward direction. “To our father,” he said, and for one moment I thought he was referring to the Father of us all, but then he added with a droll twist to his lips, “Our father who is your father.”

  “You do not even know him,” I said.

  “I know of his position. It is crucial that your father and I speak to each other.”

  I could at last perceive Faustino Barbaro’s excellent reasons for seeking my company. While I could not say that I liked Toto all that much, I felt, all the same, betrayed.

  “I won’t attempt to get in touch with my father until I know more.”

  “This concerns his welfare.”

  “You are able to protect my father’s welfare?”

  “Two men have approached me. Bad guys. They claim they are working for him.”

  “Who are they?”

  An emanation came off him about as agreeable as lard congealing in a pan. I could feel his fear. “They are dispossessed,” he said at last.

  “Poor people? Cubans?”

  “No. Americans. Rich Americans.” He looked unhappy. “Think! It is not abstruse.”

  “Castro expropriated their casinos?” I asked.

  By one-quarter of an inch did he nod.

  “Let me put this conversation in perspective,” I said. “The group I represent has contacts with many kinds of people. I do not see elements of the unusual in what you are telling me.”

  “That,” he said, “is because you are not looking at a conclusion that will anticipate the ultimate. El último, Chico.”

  At this momen
t, my sense of alarm grew as large as if an emergency vehicle with an outrageous siren had just come around the corner. It occurred to me that Faustino Barbaro’s room could certainly be bugged. This conversation might be a provocation.

  “I will certify to you,” I said, “that in no manner could my father ever be associated with such a project, and so it is folly to speak about it further.”

  I do not know what was betraying my statement, for it came out in a clear voice, surprisingly authentic to my ears, but Barbaro sat back in his chair, pointed a languid finger at one of the lamps as if to say, “Who knows where they have installed their little things?” and gave me the benefit of a slow and impudent wink. “In that case, Chico,” he said, “perhaps you will not call Papa after all,” looking all the while content as if he knew that no matter what, I must.

  I slept that night. Five minutes after I reached the Royal Palms, drink in combination with the events of the evening took me out like a blow from a jackhammer.

  14

  I WOKE UP WITH A FULL SENSE OF WOE AND WAS STILL HANGING IN THE weight of my hangover when Harlot’s reply to yesterday’s communication came into Zenith on low-privilege circuit at 10:32 A.M. It was just as well, I decided, that I was there, hangover or not, to receive it.

  SERIAL: J/38,761,709

  ROUTING: LINE/ZENITH—OPEN

  TO: ROBERT CHARLES

  FROM: GALILEO

  10:29 A.M. JULY 12, 1960

  SUBJECT: BABYLON BAZAAR

  May I say that your Babylonians are as strange to me as Kwakiutl Islanders. Addiction to a plethora of oral gifts? I have always subsumed the oral under the verbal. In my experience, responsible people allow but one deviation from the progenitorial compass, to wit, the age-old practice of bugger-up. There, commemorative power can be gained at the expense of temporary pollution. (Old agricultural equation.) Obviously, your Babylonians inhabit other tierra. I always thought an oral gift was a strawberry sundae. Keep up this otherwise splendid collaboration. Let all hang high on the hayride. When crinkly-eyes enters big white mansion, will they deck the halls with bales of hay for Miss Hayride?