[2012] Havana Lost

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “You look like something is bothering you.”

  He nodded. “I saw Ramon yesterday, but he said nothing about a three o’clock meeting. I thought you didn’t want to see me. When I told Ramon last night, that’s when he told me about this morning.”

  Frankie felt her eyes narrow. Was Ramon playing her? He didn’t seem that calculating. She pushed the thought away. He wasn’t around, and every moment with Luis was precious.

  “Like I said, what’s important is that we’re together now. And I won’t let you out of my sight.”

  His smile was warm and sweet. A sudden achy feeling tightened her throat. She looked down.

  “What is wrong?” Luis said.

  “If I’m not back in an hour, my mother will probably call out the army.”

  He looked crestfallen. “Oh. I had a surprise for you.”

  Her interest was piqued. “What kind of surprise?”

  He stole a look at her. “If I show it to you, you will not be back in an hour.”

  She ran her tongue around her lips. Why shouldn’t she do what she wanted? She was leaving Cuba in two days. Her parents might keep her a prisoner until she boarded the plane, but being with Luis a few more hours was worth it.

  “Well then,” she said in a husky voice. “I guess we better get started.”

  • • •

  “This is this where you live?”

  They’d walked from La Perla south through Vedado, winding through upscale streets lined with hotels, businesses, and elegant mansions. When they crossed La Rampa, Frankie remembered the bomb blast at the bank. They continued to the University of Havana. Three blocks further on was a beautiful 19th century French-style home.

  “I live on the third floor. The attic.”

  “But—it’s so—?” Frankie said.

  “Luxurious?” He smiled. “It belongs to the cousin of my cousins. A successful doctor and his family. I pay rent.”

  Frankie gazed at the neat yellow stucco with white trim, the front porch supported by columns, the balconies festooned with flower boxes. “Do they know who you are? I mean, what you’re doing?”

  “I am sure they suspect. The university has been closed over a year, and I am still here.” He looked at the house. “But they’ve never said anything. I think they are—how do you say it in English—hedging their bets.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If Fidel does succeed, they’re probably hoping we will go easy on them because I know them.”

  “And will you?”

  “I cannot make any promises.”

  The air was heavy, almost sulfurous in the absence of a breeze.

  “Come, Francesca, let’s go.”

  “But I want to see your room.”

  “We do not have time.” He led her around the corner and stopped at a blue and white Chevrolet. He fished out the keys from his pocket.

  “I didn’t know you had a car.”

  “It belongs to a friend.” He opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

  She hopped in, briefly wondering if she was making a mistake. Maybe this was the moment he planned to kidnap her. She brushed the thought away. She’d made the decision to go with him. Then again, maybe he expected her to. Maybe his absence the day before was intended to fuel her desire. Make her want him more. Maybe it was all a ploy leading up to this. She decided she didn’t care.

  “I need to be back by five,” she said, closing the door.

  “I will bring you back.”

  Before they left the coffee shop she’d called upstairs and told her mother she was going to the movies with Theresa, a friend from the American school. She was seeing a double feature and wouldn’t be home until dinnertime. She hung up before her mother could say no.

  Luis started the engine, pulled out carefully, and drove east past the outskirts of Havana. An hour after they left the city behind, the clouds lifted. A lazy sun broke through, its rays seeming to home in on the Chevy.

  They rolled the windows down, and the breeze whistled through the car, making it difficult to talk. Frankie didn’t mind. Luis drove with his left elbow on the window frame. She stole a glance at his skin, covered with delicate dark hair all going in the same direction. Sensing her gaze, he turned to her and reached for her hand. She grasped it and scooted across the front seat to sit closer. She brought their clasped hands to her lap. A wave of sorrow flooded through her. How could she tell him she was leaving?

  “You are quiet,” he said.

  Her eyes welled.

  “And sad.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek.

  He pulled to the side of the road. “What is it, Francesca?”

  “I—I leave Cuba day after tomorrow.”

  He straightened. “So soon.”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  He stared through the windshield.

  “Oh Luis…” Her voice trailed off, and the tears started to flow. He gathered her in his arms, and stroked her hair until she calmed down. Then he released her, smiled, and kissed her softly on the lips. They parted, then kissed again, not so gently. By the time they broke apart, both of them were breathless. Without another word he put the car in gear and started driving.

  An hour later they turned into Varadero, one of the most beautiful beach resorts in Cuba. They drove from the beachhead onto a skinny peninsula, with white sand and turquoise water on both sides of the road. Luis parked near a secluded area, not far from a nature preserve. He pulled a blanket out of the trunk, and they headed hand in hand to the sand. They found a grove of leafy palm trees that provided both shade and privacy.

  He shook out the blanket, and they sat. Luis cupped her cheeks and kissed her again. Frankie wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down. The weight of his body on hers felt right. When they came up for air, his hair was tousled, but any thought of her smoothing it vanished when she saw his expression. He grabbed her fingers and brought them to his mouth. She let out a whimper.

  He helped her take off her clothes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You lied to me, Francesca.” Her mother was smoking a cigarette in the living room when Frankie returned. Her mother never smoked.

  Frankie thought about lying again, but she was tired of the pretense. She would be leaving soon, anyway.

  “Yes. I did,” she said.

  Her mother took a drag of her cigarette. “Well? Who is he?” Smoke streamed out of her nostrils, like one of those dragons in comic books. “I demand you tell me.”

  Frankie refused. “You don’t know him. And it doesn’t matter. I’ll never see him again.”

  Her mother continued, undeterred. “Ramon? A friend of Ramon’s?”

  Frankie stayed quiet.

  Her mother took another drag. “As you say, it doesn’t matter. Ramon has been let go.”

  “That’s not fair. He didn’t do anything.”

  “If you are not involved with him, why do you care? He is a waiter.”

  “But I wasn’t—he wasn’t—his mother is sick,” she said miserably. “He needs money to get medicine for her.”

  “That’s what he told you.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “Who knows?” Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “If it’s the truth, that should spur him to find another job quickly.” Her mother crushed the cigarette stub in an ashtray. “He is—was—not family, Francesca.” She sniffed. “It does not matter.”

  Frankie crept to her bedroom. Her mother was not a cruel person, and Frankie knew she was worried. Attacks on police stations and other places were a daily event. Her mother was probably afraid she’d been kidnapped. Frankie couldn’t blame her. The thought had crossed Frankie’s mind, hadn’t it?

  But her mother didn’t know Luis. She wanted to tell her about him. How intelligent he was. How principled. How he made her feel like a graceful, sensual woman with a fully functioning brain.

  She couldn’t. She hugged her pillow and stared at her clock radio. Each pas
sing second marked the grim reality. She’d never see Luis again. She’d tried to soak up every moment, every sensation, every inch of his body. But those memories were already slipping away, and she knew they would fade more until only a few fragile wisps remained. And those would eventually disappear into the dead, shriveled realm of the past.

  • • •

  There was always a short dry period at the end of August, but the autumn currents of September brought in a heavy rain, as if all of Cuba were crying at Frankie’s departure. She spent most of her last day in bed, feeling sorry for herself. At six she put on her underwear, her garter belt and stockings, and dressed in a sapphire blue evening gown. She applied her make-up and went down to La Perla’s nightclub for the farewell party her parents were throwing.

  Her friends from the American school were there, at least the ones who hadn’t yet left for college. Her parents’ friends, too, dressed in expensive clothes with expensive jewelry. The decorations were festive, the food abundant, and the band played Frankie’s favorite music—including rock and roll. There was a huge cake frosted with the words “Goodbye and Good Luck,” and she blew out the candles. Afterwards, everyone applauded. Even Meyer Lansky dropped in to say goodbye.

  It was after one by the time she got back upstairs. Her flight was at ten the next morning. Frankie undressed and got into bed, but she was still awake an hour later when her parents came up and went into their room. Frankie gazed at the three suitcases by the door. They were all neatly packed, along with a trunk filled with her books, records, and collection of painted snails. She would be taking everything home.

  Home. The word reverberated. Home wasn’t Chicago, not any more. For fifteen years Havana had been her home. And now she had someone to share it with. Someone with whom to wake up each morning, drop off to sleep at night. Cook, eat, spend their days together, reveling in each other’s presence. How could she throw that away?

  She pushed the covers off and turned on the light. She emptied her Pan-Am travel bag, then repacked it with a toothbrush, three pairs of underwear, a pair of slacks, a long-sleeved shirt, bathing suit, and her hairbrush. She dressed in a skirt, blouse, and sandals and draped her trench coat over her shoulders.

  Her father had made sure she had plenty of traveling cash, and she counted over three hundred dollars, a small fortune. She took her purse, her bag, and tiptoed out of her room, across the carpeting, and out of the penthouse. She closed the door quietly.

  She couldn’t risk the elevator. The casino never closed, and the security staff, though fewer at night, would recognize her. She took off her sandals, padded across to the stairway, and took the steps down eighteen flights to the basement. Then she put her sandals back on and walked across a concrete floor to the back door. She tried to be quiet, but halfway to the door, near the janitor’s storeroom, she heard a noise. She froze. Please, God. Not now.

  Another noise. Followed by a low murmur and a female groan. Then it grew quiet, except for a persistent thump. A couple was going at it in the storeroom. Relieved, she felt the flicker of a smile. She sneaked past the storeroom to the door.

  Outside the rain had fallen off to a light mist. The lights were still bright on the Malecón, but she headed away from them into the darkest part of the night. Objects seemed farther apart here, and mysterious shadows prowled the streets. She wrapped her trench coat more tightly around her, ignoring the occasional whistle and catcall, and searched for a taxi. There should be one; there were drivers who worked all night, ferrying gamblers from place to place, sometimes getting a cut of the action depending where they dropped them.

  Within a few minutes, a cab cruised slowly down the street. She held up her hand and waved. The cab slowed; she opened the door and climbed in. The driver wasn’t much older than she, and his eyes widened when he saw her. He clearly wasn’t used to a young woman traveling alone in the middle of the night. A knowing expression came into his eyes when she gave him the address.

  “You are lucky I saw you, Señorita. It is very late, and the streets are dangerous. You are going home?”

  “Drive,” she said quietly. She was in no mood for platitudes about safety.

  Ten minutes later she was there.

  She paid, slid out of the cab, and watched it drive away. Then she turned and gazed up at Luis’s house. Her plan had only taken her as far as his front door. Now that she was here, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t ring the bell at this hour. Everyone would be asleep. She thought about throwing stones at Luis’s window, but there were several windows on the third floor, and she didn’t know which was his. Still, she’d come all this way.

  She looked up and down the block. It was empty. Dark. Peaceful. She climbed the steps to the front porch, sat down, and propped herself against a column. She would close her eyes for a little while. She was just so tired.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Luis Perez had never expected to fall in love. Ideology was his mistress, then the Directorio Revolucionario. Love was frivolous, for poets, perhaps the Santería goddess Oshun, but not for him. The faction he headed carried out both armed operations and logistics. Logistics involved raising money for the rebels, so when Ramon suggested kidnapping the daughter of a mobster, Luis thought it over.

  “She is willful, rebellious, and spoiled,” Ramon said at a meeting a month earlier. Cells of underground rebel sympathizers had proliferated over the past few months, and hotel workers were in a unique position to keep tabs on who was coming in and out of Cuba.

  “She is due to leave in a few weeks to go back to the States, so we’ll have to move quickly,” Ramon went on. “But we can use her to make a statement.”

  “A statement is not as important as weapons and supplies,” Luis countered. “Can’t we get into the casino?” Ramon had been stealing food and supplies from La Perla when he could, but his take was paltry, usually not worth transporting to the mountains. They needed money, and plenty of it.

  Ramon agreed there was a lot of cash at La Perla, but since he’d been working so many extra shifts, he’d learned that getting to it was impossible. “There are armed guards in the casino every hour of the day and night,” he said. “Every few hours, the cash goes into a safe. Then every morning Pacelli takes it in an armored Cadillac to the bank.”

  That’s when he’d suggested the alternative. The daughter would be worth at least ten or twenty thousand dollars, he reasoned. Enough to buy new stocks of machine guns, ammunition, bazookas.

  They spent hours planning the operation. They would grab her during one of her shopping excursions. One of the bellboys, a sympathizer, had told them she regularly came back to the hotel weighed down with shopping bags from El Encanto. They would nab her as she exited the store at Galiano and San Rafael. Shove her into a waiting car, blindfold her, and drive her to a safe house. Once they had the ransom, they would let her go.

  “That’s a mistake,” said a tall young man who worked in the parking garage. “What if she screams or makes a commotion when we grab her? There are too many informers and secret police on the streets. It would be our luck for one to stop us.”

  Ramon nodded. “He’s right. Plus her father won’t let her go out without a bodyguard.” He glanced at Luis. “But I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “What if we could get her to come with us willingly?”

  Luis considered it. As their leader, he had the authority to make the final decision, although he put everything to a vote. “How do you propose to do that?”

  “She is a vain, silly creature,” Ramon said. “You can pretend to fall for her. Make her think you care. She will be intrigued. Curious. You flatter her for a few days. Tell her you love her. Then arrange to meet her somewhere…” He snapped his fingers. “And presto.”

  “No,” Luis said. “I will not do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Kidnapping is one thing. But deceiving her like that? It is—degrading.”

  “Aren’t you the one who says the revo
lution requires deception, sometimes towards our loved ones?” Ramon said.

  Luis tightened his lips. He had said that. More than once.

  “I tell you, she’s ripe,” Ramon gestured. “She has this American boyfriend, but que mariquita!” He scoffed. “She needs a real man. Someone macho, like you.”

  The others laughed.

  Luis didn’t like the idea, but the others were eager to go ahead, and he was outvoted.

  It started out according to plan. He intercepted her at the café in Havana Vieja. He pretended to be infatuated. She was young, naïve, and passionate enough to believe him. The next day he took her to the Hotel Nacional for a drink. She was curious, asking so many questions and soaking up his answers that she reminded him of one of Cuba’s tiny hummingbirds that consumed half its weight in nectar each day. To his surprise, he found her company invigorating. He looked forward to their next meeting.

  Two days later they walked along the Malecón, gulls cawing, the salty spray erupting over the seawall. She was telling him about the Santería dancer she’d seen a few nights earlier. The way she described the woman, with graceful gestures, a sensual smile, and wide eyes, amused him. Her perfume, a sultry, cinnamon aroma, enveloped him. Luis wanted to touch her. That was when he realized he might fail in his mission.

  He tried to regain the advantage when he took her to La Cabaña the next day. He was deliberately cool, aloof. Then she asked him about the revolution. He reminded himself of the stakes, what his fellow guerrillas were expecting. He answered truthfully, but she didn’t seem shocked. In fact, she seemed to take it in and consider his point of view. Until she spoke up.

  “If you succeed you will destroy my family.”

  She was subdued when she said it. Just a statement of fact. But it sliced through to his core. He was purposely, intentionally planning to ruin her life. And tricking her in order to make it happen.

  Luis couldn’t face himself. He’d lied to her earlier when he pretended to blame Ramon for not telling him about their three o’clock meeting yesterday. Ramon had told him. In fact, Ramon and the others said the timing was perfect. He should walk her out of the coffee shop, and they would be waiting to kidnap her. But he couldn’t do it. So he’d stood her up and told his men he couldn’t find a car.