[2012] Havana Lost

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “If you do what we say, you will not be hurt, Señorita Pacelli,” the man said. Above the bandana, his eyes were chips of ebony.

  Frankie’s mouth fell open, and in that second, she understood. She didn’t know these men, had never seen them before, but she knew who’d sent them. And why. She suddenly felt her new life slipping through her fingers like sand. Her body went slack, and she broke into long wrenching sobs. If the goon hadn’t been clutching her, she would have collapsed on the floor.

  The man holding her nodded to the others, and the man who’d given her his shirt fished a blindfold out of his pants and slipped it over her eyes.

  “You will only wear this for a short time,” he said. “We will not hurt you.”

  The third man went around behind her, squeezed her arms together and tied her hands. Frankie cried hysterically. She tried to go weak again, to sink to the floor so they couldn’t move her, but they pushed and pulled and prodded and shoved until they forced her upright and she had no choice. Reluctantly she planted one foot in front of the other.

  They steered her outside. Amid her sobs, the spit of gunfire, and the smell of cordite, she was lifted into the bed of a truck and propped against the side. A sharp pain throbbed against her temples. Light trickled through a tiny gap in the blindfold, and she could tell that one of the men was staying with her in the back. The others must have gone in front, because the doors opened, then slammed. The engine revved. A moment later the truck bumped down the road and turned the corner.

  • • •

  It had been a long day for Luis, and night would be longer. The rebels had derailed the train earlier, and the army troops had, for the most part, surrendered. So did the troops in their barracks. There was little bloodshed, and Che was already enjoying the fruits of what would be heralded as the defining battle of the revolution. In Oriente province, Fidel and his men had attacked Santiago de Cuba and were winning. The rebels now had control of the entire Central Highway across the island. Everything was coming together.

  Luis met Alejandro and the truck from Havana on a dirt road near a farm outside Santa Clara. They transferred the weapons to the pickup Luis had borrowed. He turned toward the truck, ready to jump into the cab, when a series of shots rang out from behind. Luis dropped to the ground and threw his arms over his head. Alejandro didn’t.

  Luis peeked at the boy and saw a look of complete surprise come over him. A blossom of red appeared on his chest and expanded until it covered the front of his shirt. Luis watched in horror as the boy reached an arm toward him, staggered forward, then sank to the ground.

  Behind him, Luis heard a car door slam. An engine accelerated and he heard a squeal as if the car was making a sharp turn. He waited for more shots to tear him to pieces. Nothing happened.

  When he was sure the car was gone, he leaped up and threw himself into the truck. It had been a trap. He should have known. The bullet that killed Alejandro was undoubtedly meant for him, and when they realized they’d shot the wrong man, they would come back to finish the job. He and Francesca would have to flee Santa Clara. Tonight.

  But first he had to deliver the arms to Che. He raced the truck back to the university where Che was headquartered and hurriedly unloaded the cargo. Although the weapons from the train now gave them more than enough without Luis’s contribution, Che clapped Luis on the shoulder and called him a “brother.” Luis was too worried to feel a scrap of pride.

  He left the truck with Che and hurried home. Wisps of smoke, the remnants of Molotov cocktails, rose in the night air, but that didn’t keep the people of Santa Clara from gathering on the street to celebrate. Technically, the battle was not yet over, but the university was in the hands of the rebels, and the streets were full of revelry. Luis pushed his way through the crowd, cursing them for getting in his way.

  The farther he got from the university, the quieter it grew, although that wouldn’t last. As people in his neighborhood heard the news about Che’s victory, they, too, would rush outdoors to celebrate. Paradoxically, the silence made him more frantic and he started to run.

  Their apartment occupied the rear of a house. Which meant their front door was in the back yard. As he crossed the lawn and went around to the back, he froze. The lights in the apartment were on, and the door was wide open. It was almost four in the morning. Something was wrong. He raced to the door and called out.

  “Francesca?” No answer. His skin was damp beneath his clothes. He burst inside. “Francesca, where are you?”

  Still no answer. He sprinted from the front room to the bedroom. She wasn’t there, and the bed was still made. He spun around, frantic, and called her name. Nothing. When he got to the bathroom, he saw the tub filled with now cold water. Her robe hung on a hook behind the door. He hurried back to the front room and took in the scene. The reading lamp was knocked over, and the two chairs they owned were on their sides. Then he saw the spray of bullets embedded in the wall.

  A knot twisted his stomach, and a wave of horror washed over him. He started to shake uncontrollably. He felt disoriented and weightless, as if his body was held together by only the flimsiest of strings.

  He trudged back to the bathroom, grabbed Francesca’s robe, and inhaled. Her smell was woven into the fabric, and he wanted to lose himself in it. Then he dropped the robe and sank to his knees. He covered his eyes and began to weep. His anguished cries were swallowed up by cheers from his neighbors outside.

  “Viva la Revolución!”

  PART TWO

  1989 – 1992

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  1989: Angola

  Nightfall came hard and fast in Angola. This close to the equator twilight was an illusion. Minutes after sunset, night slammed into earth like a giant boulder, obliterating the day with an explosion of dark. A thick, menacing dark, unrelieved by street light. It was a dark Luis had come to know.

  He made his way across the road to a ramshackle bar on the outskirts of Lucapa. Lucapa was the main city—if you could call it that—in Lunda Norte, the province of Angola that bordered Zaire. The city was like a frontier town in the Wild West, full of miners, prostitutes, guns-for-hire, and traders.

  And Cubans.

  For nearly fifteen years, since 1975, Fidel had been sending troops to help the Angolans preserve their Marxist government. A protracted civil war pitted groups backed by Fidel and the Soviets against insurgents supported by South Africa and the U.S.

  Last year a peace accord had finally been signed in New York, and while insurgents were still attacking each other, the Cubans were out of the fight. Luis, a Coronel in the Cuban Army, had been promoted to General de Brigada after the peace accord and was now the commander of the Lucapa base, charged with the orderly withdrawal of Cubans. He’d been there nearly two years, and he often wondered why they’d been there at all. People called it Cuba’s Vietnam; he couldn’t disagree. Over fifty thousand Cuban troops and humanitarian forces, mostly doctors, had come halfway around the world, but for what? A primitive country with nothing to offer except diamonds and gold, caught in a proxy war between the superpowers.

  He rolled his shoulders and stamped his feet. Almost fifty now, and a bit stooped, flecks of gray were threaded through his hair, and he needed glasses to read. The humid climate was hard on him, and November marked the start of Angola’s hot, rainy season. He felt stiff, and his clothes were damp and clammy. The breeze had stiffened, and the air carried a prickly metallic scent, which meant a storm was on the way. Mercifully, Lucapa sat on a high plateau, with an elevation that normally made the heat more tolerable. In Africa a few degrees made the difference between hell and purgatory.

  He pulled the door open and walked into Nkiambi’s, Niki’s for short. It was not much more than a ramshackle hut with a corrugated metal roof. A desultory fan circulated air, but electricity in this part of the world was unreliable, and Luis fully expected it would cut out at some point that evening. A makeshift bar that had once been a tree occupied one side of the room; white pl
astic garden chairs and tables the other. Two light bulbs overhead threw long, dark shadows that made it easy for people to disappear in the corners.

  It was still early, and the bar was half filled. A few soldiers, mostly Cuban; an Angolan here and there. Miners, probably. No women yet, but they usually didn’t come until they’d put their children to bed.

  Luis went to the bar and ordered a beer from an Angolan with shiny black skin and a permanent air of resentment. Luis couldn’t blame him. For fifteen years Niki had contended with Cubans invading his country, drinking his booze, often not paying, and, now that they were withdrawing, stealing whatever they could. Of course, corruption and plunder were never discussed in Fidel’s army—officially they didn’t exist—but ask any Angolan, and they’d tell you the truth. The Angolans probably held Cubans in the same esteem that Cubans held Americans thirty years earlier.

  “You call this shit rum?” a voice called out.

  Luis spun around.

  “¡Mierda!” Ramon drained his glass, then slammed it on the table.

  “Ramon!” Luis called.

  Ramon looked up. He had not aged well. Then again, who had? He had lost most of his hair, gained twenty pounds, and his face was both wrinkled and flushed, the mark of a man who drank too much and slept too little. Luis raised his bottle of beer in greeting and joined him at a table. “Relax, amigo. Two more months and we’re out of this hell hole.”

  Ramon glowered. “Easy for you to say. I don’t have my orders.”

  Luis sat. “They are coming. I made sure of it. We leave together.”

  Ramon sniffed.

  “Until then, all you have to do is stay out of the way of the elephants.”

  Ramon had risen to the rank of Teniente Coronel, Lieutenant Colonel, mostly because he’d been at Luis’s side for years, the Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote. The only time they’d been separated was the few months Luis was in Santa Clara during the revolution, and they no longer talked about that. After Francesca disappeared, Ramon confessed that he had been tortured by Francesca’s father to betray the couple. The alternative would have been certain death. Luis admitted he’d probably have done the same thing, but it took years of abject apologies on Ramon’s part—he was young; he didn’t have any choice—before Luis trusted him again. But that was in the past. In the years they’d been in the army together, Ramon had been steadfast, loyal, and obedient.

  “The lions, too, General. Once they pick up your scent, you’re dinner.” Ramon paused. “And the way we stink…” He laughed.

  Luis took a pull on his beer. It was miraculously cool. He had no idea how the Angolans kept beer cold in the middle of the bush. “So, did you hear the news?”

  “There’s a private 747 waiting for us in Luanda?”

  Luis grinned. “You haven’t been on the shortwave today?”

  “I’ve been on maneuvers with our FAPLA friends.”

  FAPLA, the People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola, was the Angolan army, and despite the peace accord, they were still fighting the enemy insurgents of UNITA, the National Union for Total Independence of Angola.

  Luis nodded. “Well, forget all that. Today will go down in history as a watershed event.”

  Ramon sat up. “Did the Israelis set off an atom bomb?”

  “The East German government announced that East Germans can cross into West Germany any time they want. People in Berlin are celebrating in the streets. They tore down the Wall.”

  Ramon’s mouth fell open. “The Berlin Wall?”

  Luis nodded. “It’s over. Communism is finished.”

  Ramon didn’t move. His mouth remained open, as if he was still processing the information. Finally, he spoke. “What about Cuba?”

  “How long do you think Fidel can hang on without Soviet support?” Luis took another swig of his beer. “Why do you think he was so anxious for peace negotiations?”

  Ramon looked confused.

  “Fidel is many things,” Luis went on. “But he is not stupid. He knows we’re in for tough times, and we need to stop bleeding money and manpower here. He wants us home.”

  “Wait. Are you saying the Soviet Union is no longer giving us support?”

  “Not like before. They’ve cut back on their exports. Especially petroleum.”

  Ramon scowled.

  “East Germany was first, but I expect there will be a chain reaction. Poland, Romania, Hungary. Then Armenia, Georgia, the Ukraine. It’s entirely possible that in a few years the USSR will no longer exist.”

  Ramon splayed his hands in the air. “Where does that leave us?”

  “Good question.” Luis finished his beer and ordered another.

  “¡Jesu Christo!” Ramon said after a pause. He stood up, his chair scraping the floor, and strolled to the bar. “Another round.” He tipped his glass to Niki. He brought the drinks back to the table, sat down, and leaned toward Luis. “I’ve been thinking,” he said in a low voice. “And what you said makes it more important. Why should we be the only ones going back to Cuba without—souvenirs?”

  “Souvenirs?”

  “I have a friend. He’s mining for diamonds, and he’s willing to stake us to a partnership. All we have to do is get them out of here.”

  “An Angolan?”

  “What does it matter where he’s from? If we can smuggle them out and get them to a polisher, we would be rich.”

  Luis took a long pull on his beer. Through a window a fork of lightning singed the sky. A crack of thunder followed. The storm. “And how do we get them to a polisher?”

  Ramon smiled. “He says there are three centers for refining diamonds. Antwerp and Israel are two.”

  “We can’t go to either place. We don’t have the money. Or visas.”

  Ramon held up a finger. “Ah, but the third center is in the USSR. Yerevan, capital of Armenia. You could get yourself a trip there. To inspect the troop situation or something. You’re a General now. You can go anywhere.”

  Luis thought about it. Then he leaned toward Ramon. “Just because everyone else is plundering the people and resources of this godforsaken place doesn’t mean we should.”

  Ramon leaned back, slapping the surface of the table. “You are a fool.”

  Luis didn’t answer.

  “Look, amigo. This is a sure thing. But I can’t do it alone. I need help.” His eyes swept the room. “But if you’re not interested, I’ll find another officer.” He paused. “You won’t say anything?”

  Luis hesitated. “Of course not.”

  Another crack of lightning split the air, followed by a clap of thunder. Then the rain started. Without warning a torrent of what sounded like machine gun bullets pummeled the metal roof of the bar.

  Suddenly a shout erupted from the corner behind them. “Goddammit!” someone yelled in English. “On top of everything else, this shithole of a bar leaks!”

  Luis and Ramon whipped around. A man in the corner had stood up. He held a glass of what looked like whiskey in one hand, but the other was rubbing the back of his neck as if he’d been punched.

  “You get what you pay for, amigo,” Luis replied in Spanish.

  “Claro,” the man said, switching to Spanish.

  “Join us.” Luis tilted his bottle in the man’s direction. “During the rainy season it’s smarter to sit in the middle of the room.”

  The man nodded and came over. He was a tall, lean man with pale skin, frizzy red hair and a bushy beard threaded with gray. He didn’t appear to be military, and he was dressed in the type of khakis people wore on safari. A scuffed leather backpack was slung over his shoulder. The man’s face was flushed, as if he’d been out in the sun too long. That, or he was drunk. Maybe both.

  Still mumbling in English, he sat down. “Sorry.” He switched to Spanish again. “Everything is soggy here. Empapado. The air, the clothes, the food, even the booze.”

  “Where are you from?” Luis asked. “Your Spanish is good.”

  “I was born in Sweden but I
’ve lived in the U.S. most of my life.”

  Ramon and Luis exchanged a look.

  The man caught it. “Don’t worry. I’m not CIA or army or any military, as it happens. I’m a geologist.”

  “Geologist?” Ramon cocked his head.

  “A scientist who studies rocks and other materials deep in the Earth,” Luis explained.

  Ramon’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, a miner.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Diamonds or gold?” Ramon waved a hand. “Or do you plan to make your fortune in both?”

  The man smiled and extended his hand. “I’m Ned Swenson. And with whom do I have the pleasure of drinking?”

  Ramon and Luis introduced themselves.

  “How long have you been in Africa?” Ramon asked.

  “About a month,” Swenson said.

  “You have to be careful,” Ramon said importantly. “You must make sure your guide is trustworthy. Despite the peace treaty, there is still fighting. And UNITA is the largest diamond miner in the area. If they think you’re invading their territory, they’ll kill you.” He snapped his finger. “Like that.”

  “If the land mines don’t,” Luis added.

  “So I understand.” For having heard such a dire prediction, Swenson looked remarkably serene.

  “You’re not the first to find your way here, you know,” Luis said. “Now that the war is winding down, everyone is trying to exploit the area. Except the poor Angolans.”

  “Spoken like a true Marxist.” Swenson clapped Luis on the back. “Of which there will be fewer after today.”

  “You heard about Berlin?”

  “Of course.” Swenson got up. “In fact, let me buy the next round. To celebrate.”

  The rain still pounded the roof, and wet air drifted inside, curling Luis’s hair and ringing his neck with sweat. When Swenson came back with their drinks, Luis saw bubbles of condensation on his bottle. Niki’s electricity was stretched to its limit. This should be his last beer.