[2012] Havana Lost

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “So,” Ramon tossed back his rum. “Which is it? Diamonds or gold?”

  Swenson gazed at Ramon and Luis with bloodshot eyes. He’d probably been drinking for hours, Luis thought. “Actually, neither,” he said.

  “Then, why are you here?” Ramon said. “Surely, not for the climate.” He guffawed and poked Luis with his elbow.

  Swenson took his time answering. “The world is changing.” He glanced at Luis. “In fact, today might be the first day…” He glanced up. “…or night of the new order.”

  Ramon nodded. “That’s what Luis was saying.”

  “Not just a political order,” Swenson went on. “An economic one, as well. Twenty years from now, the world will do business very differently.”

  “How?” Luis asked. For being half-drunk, the man was articulate.

  Swenson took a long swig of his drink. “Electronica.”

  Ramon scoffed. “Computers? They’re nothing but a fast adding machine.”

  It was Swenson’s turn to laugh. “Gentlemen, the world is on the brink of a new industrial age. Everything we use will be different in a few years. Imagine a telephone as small as a pack of cigarettes.”

  “You mean one of those cell phones?” Luis said. “I’ve heard of them. But they’re expensive. A rich man’s toy.”

  “Now, yes. But in ten years? Or twenty? You’ve probably seen the price of computers come down, perhaps in Cuba as well. Well, imagine a day when you will have access to a phone you can take anywhere in the world. Or an electronic device you can read books on. Or watch films. Or play games more complicated than any arcade. It’s all coming.”

  He was starting to slur his words, Luis noted.

  Ramon rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “So what? What does that have to do with mining in Angola?”

  “All these devices will require a new type of battery.”

  Ramon pointed two fingers in the air and hopped his hand across the table. “They have them now.”

  “Not the bunny type.” Swenson laughed. “Actually, they’re called capacitors. Sort of a cousin to a battery. They help stabilize and store an electrical charge more efficiently than a battery. Because of that, they need to be made from materials that will conduct and preserve that charge.”

  Luis connected the dots. “And you discovered that material here.”

  A flush crept up Swenson’s neck, and he flashed a Buddha-like smile. “You don’t expect me to confirm that, do you?”

  He was definitely slurring his words. “You just did,” Luis said.

  Swenson flipped his palm up and down. “Maybe, maybe not. But I doubt I’m the first man who’s not looking for gold or diamonds here.”

  Ramon curled his lip. “I don’t understand.”

  Swenson shot Ramon a patronizing look. “Of course you don’t.”

  Another torrent of lightning and thunder exploded.

  Swenson leaned forward and whispered in a theatrical voice. “All right. I’ll tell you. It’s called coltan.”

  “Coltan?”

  “Coltan. There is only a limited supply of this mineral in the world, and eighty percent of it is in Zaire. I predict that within ten years, people will be mining—and fighting over—coltan more fiercely than diamonds or oil or gold put together.”

  Ramon rolled his empty glass on the table. “If this mineral is so wonderful, why haven’t we heard about it? And why haven’t you found it?”

  “Who says I haven’t?” Swenson emptied his glass.

  The door to the bar opened and an Angolan came in, spotted Swenson, and came over. “A break in the rain is coming, sir,” he said politely. “We should be on our way.”

  “Ah, Tobias.” Swenson nodded and stood unsteadily. “You’ve been excellent company, my friends, but now I must bid you good-bye. My driver is never wrong.”

  Luis watched him settle his tab with Niki, then lurch out the door. Suddenly Ramon got up too and went over to Niki. Luis couldn’t hear their conversation, but he saw Ramon point toward the door.

  Niki called out to his eighteen-year old son, Kambale, who worked the bar with his father. When Kambale came over, Niki whispered in his ear. Kambale nodded and exited the bar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The next morning Ramon and Luis drove out of Lucapa on its only paved road. It smelled like damp asphalt, but that wouldn’t last. Shimmering waves of heat were already rising from the ground. Luis was in the passenger seat, and Kambale, Niki’s son, sat in the back of the Jeep they had borrowed.

  “It is sure he went this way,” Kambale said in broken Spanish. He pointed north.

  Zaire lay to the north and east, but a corner of Angola’s Lunda Norte province, where they were stationed, stretched farther north than the rest. This made the border between Angola and Zaire in that area hazy and imprecise, a fact that both miners and rebels had taken advantage of over the years.

  After driving nearly sixty miles, they reached Dundo, a mining town a few miles from the border. The surrounding area was drained by several rivers with African names. At one time Luis had known their names, but now all he remembered was that the best mineral mines in the world could be found in the river basins.

  If Lucapa was a Wild West town, Dundo was its outpost. Except for one anomaly. Diamonds had been discovered in its riverbeds in 1912, and part of the town had been developed as a planned community. For over sixty years, until 1977, an international consortium held the monopoly on mining, supplying ten percent of the world’s gem-quality diamonds from the region. But the consortium was gone now, and the mining area was in the hands of the government, which effectively meant it was up for grabs.

  Luis had been sent here when he was first posted to Angola. His assignment was to inspect the border crossing and recommend whatever fortifications he thought necessary. He knew it was a test—officially the border was supposed to be protected by Cuban forces. But the reality was that Cuban soldiers spent most of their time drinking, whoring, and acquiring contraband. Luis reported back that everything was in order. His Cuban higher-ups were pleased. No one wanted any trouble at this stage of the conflict.

  Ramon drove past a ramshackle building that in Dundo was called a hotel. It was a place in which it was safer not to sleep, since you never knew how many of your belongings would still be there when—or if—you woke up.

  Poverty, disease, and ignorance were rife in this corner of the world. And yet Angolans were among the most beautiful souls Luis had known. Simple folk, friendly, spiritual, and full of magic. They loved their dancing, and they loved their masks. They reminded him of the Santerías in Cuba.

  They passed a development where roads bisected each other to form precise square lots with homes perched on top. The planned community. East and west lay a sprawl of huts that, by their lack of design, indicated a studied indifference, perhaps even a mutiny against the rigidity of the planned community. The locals lived there.

  Leaving Dundo, they stayed on the main road, which roughly paralleled the rivers. The terrain rose and became rocky, with pockets of valleys in between. It wasn’t mountainous, at least not like the mountains at home, but the unevenness of the plateau created rapids and waterfalls on the rivers, a few of which were used to generate power. When the wind blew in their direction Luis was sure he could hear the distant churn of the water.

  Eventually Kambale gestured for them to turn west. As they jerked and bumped down a dirt road, the forest encroached on both sides, turning from brown to different hues of green. It smelled of rotting leaves, and Luis spotted a few trees that looked like the ceibas of home. Monkeys jabbered, insects buzzed, and a macaw, no doubt alarmed at their arrival, shrieked. Another bird responded, and the macaw screamed again. Luis felt a chill.

  “How much farther?” Ramon asked Kambale.

  Ramon must be uneasy, too.

  “Small.” Kambale pointed forward.

  The road narrowed to a trail hardly wider than the Jeep. The forest seemed anxious to reclaim the ro
ad and swallow it whole. Luis noted they hadn’t seen another human for miles.

  “Where the fuck are we?” Ramon asked.

  “Near the border,” Luis said. “We might have crossed over.” There would be no border guards here. “You need to be careful. There could be land mines.”

  “Or snakes.” Ramon grimaced. Without warning a partial clearing materialized, as sudden as the advance of the forest moments earlier. Fifty yards ahead a mountain stream burbled over pebbles. Unlike the river water, which was muddy and brown, this stream was remarkably clear. A boulder surrounded by smaller rocks in a rough circle sat a few yards away from the stream.

  “We are here,” Kambale said.

  Luis and Ramon hopped down from the Jeep and walked gingerly toward the stream. Kambale stayed in the Jeep. He was the smart one, Luis thought.

  But nothing exploded and he saw no snakes. After a time Ramon stopped and kicked the dirt. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why here?”

  Luis studied the clearing. “If he’s going to sink a mine, he’s going to have to deforest the area and bring in machinery, like the diamond miners. Clearly he hasn’t started yet.”

  Ramon called back to Kambale. “You sure this is the place?”

  Niki’s son nodded. “White man stop here. He have big light. He walk around. Take measures with feet. Sit on big rock.” He pointed to the boulder and the circle of stones around it.

  Ramon shaded his eyes with his hands. “Do you remember how we got here?”

  Luis nodded.

  “Can you make a map? You’re good at those things.”

  “Why?”

  “In case we need to find this place again.”

  “Ramon, it doesn’t belong to us. I—”

  “I’m not saying it does,” Ramon said. He ran his tongue around his lips. “Consider it a personal favor, okay? It won’t take long.”

  Luis slapped at the mosquitoes, considering. Sometimes Ramon did have good ideas. He was certainly more opportunistic than Luis, but he didn’t always see the long-term implications of his actions. Which was why he got in trouble and relied on Luis to bail him out. But sketching wasn’t a difficult or dangerous task. Luis enjoyed drawing, especially in Africa. So many exotic scenes.

  He went to the Jeep and retrieved his backpack. He walked back toward the clearing, pulled out paper, and started sketching. He didn’t know the coordinates, but he sketched the long road they’d driven up on, the Congolese border, as best he could, and the nearby rivers. He drew the boulder and circle of rocks in an inset on the lower left of the page, although it was not to scale.

  “Would you say we went west or northwest after we turned off the main road?”

  “I’d say—” Ramon’s words were cut off by the whine of an engine. For an instant, all the other sounds in the forest ceased, as if the animals, birds, the insects too, were listening. Then, like a film that was paused and then advanced, everything spun into motion. A bird cawed. An animal yowled. The stream splashed against its banks. The drone of the vehicle grew louder.

  “¡Mierda!” Ramon ran to the Jeep, jumped in, and started the engine. He shifted into reverse. With a jerk he backed up.

  “Ramon, where are you going?” Luis called out. “Wait!”

  “I need to hide the Jeep!” He motioned with the back of his hand. “Go hide in the bush. I’ll be back.”

  Before Luis could answer, the Jeep screeched backwards out of the clearing and disappeared. Luis looked for a place to hide. He spotted a thicket not far from the stream, jogged over, and squeezed inside. He dropped to a crouch. The brush cast dark shadows over the thicket, but he had a view of the clearing.

  A horn blasted, but Luis couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Brakes squealed. A door slammed. Luis heard shouts about a hundred yards away. He could only hear snippets of the conversation, but it was obvious a heated argument had developed. He heard Ramon’s voice, and a voice that sounded like Ned Swenson, the geologist from the bar. They were yelling at each other in Spanish.

  “What are you doing here? Get out! Ahora mismo. Immediatemente! You have no right!”

  Ramon shouted back. Luis frowned. It wasn’t smart to scream at the top of one’s lungs in the bush. Unwelcome ears could be listening. He drew his service revolver. Ramon was a hothead. Luis usually had to talk their way out of trouble.

  Luis emerged from the thicket and was heading toward the quarrelling men when a shot rang out. Then another. He froze. New voices he hadn’t heard started to yell. Luis ducked back into the thicket. Two minutes later Ramon, Swenson, Swenson’s driver, and Kambale backed into the clearing, hands clasped behind their heads. Swenson’s expression was pure panic. Ramon scowled and glanced around as if searching for Luis. Luis retreated farther into the bush. Something was very wrong.

  A group of six soldiers appeared in the clearing. The soldiers were in khaki uniforms, and two of them wore bush hats, but all of them were pointing automatic weapons at Ramon and Swenson. UNITA rebels. And Ramon was driving a FAPLA Jeep. FAPLA was UNITA’s sworn enemy. As the rebels forced the men back toward the stream, Luis gulped air. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

  The rebels screamed, argued, and jabbed the men with their rifles. Luis brought up his automatic. Now they were only twenty yards away from him. He could probably take down three, maybe four, but the others would mow him down before he could sprint to safety. Luis hesitated.

  Ramon called out to Swenson. “Tell them you’re an American!”

  Swenson looked at him as if Ramon was crazy.

  “Quick. They think you want their diamonds!”

  Swenson started babbling in English, making sweeping gestures with his arms. But his voice was between a sob and a wail, and Luis realized no one could understand him. Kambale tried to explain in one of the Bantu dialects, Luis guessed, but the rebels’ frequent interruptions indicated he wasn’t having success. Swenson’s driver and Ramon kept their mouths shut.

  Luis thought about creating a diversion so that Ramon could run to the Jeep and grab his rifle, but logistics were against them. There was no way Ramon would make it out of the clearing alive. At the same time he couldn’t allow his best friend to be shot. He didn’t know what to do.

  The rebels kept barking at the men, jabbing and harassing them with their guns. Tears were now streaming down Swenson’s cheeks. Kambale had stopped talking, but a look of terror stretched across his face. Ramon’s back was to Luis, but he thought he saw Ramon shake his head. A signal. But for what? Was Ramon telling him to stay where he was or to take a stand? Luis shifted. As he did, he heard the snap of a breaking branch.

  Suddenly there was a rush of movement. Swenson’s driver made a break and tried to flee. Two of the rebels spun around and fired. The driver went down. Kambale dropped to the dirt and started crawling toward the thicket. Luis felt a whoosh of air as one of the rebels pumped several rounds into the boy. Kambale flopped on the ground like a fish that doesn’t yet know it’s dead. Blood pooled under his body.

  Swenson raised his hands in supplication, but the Africans must have misunderstood. Maybe they thought he was preparing to attack because one of the rebels shot him through the head. Swenson sank to his knees, still crying, his palms clasped together. Then he slowly drooped sideways and fell.

  Ramon hunched his shoulders, bent his head, contracted into a hard ball, and plowed straight into the men. He’d been a wrestler as a teenager, and he knew how to use his body as a weapon. But his odds against six armed rebels were nil. One of the rebels fired. Ramon clutched his side and sank into the dirt. The other rebels grabbed his arms and pinned him to the ground.

  Luis saw him writhing in pain. He wanted to rescue his friend, but he was outnumbered and outgunned. He watched as two of the men dragged Ramon out of the clearing. A trail of blood followed their path. The others marched behind Ramon, disappearing from view.

  Luis heard more jabbering among the rebels, this time from a distance. Then two engines roared to lif
e. Apparently the rebels were stealing their Jeep, along with the vehicle they’d come in. Luis was ashamed at the relief that washed over him. He’d taken his backpack out so he could sketch the map. Nothing of his tied him to the Jeep. No one knew he was there. Except Ramon.

  He waited until the drone of the Jeeps faded and the chirr of insects took its place. A macaw screeched. The stream splashed. The light bleached the forest’s colors to a dull waxy green. Luis emerged from the thicket. He wasn’t sure if minutes or hours had passed. It was still hot and humid, just another day in Africa, but Luis felt unaccountably cold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  1991 — Chicago and Miami

  A shrill sound pulled Michael out of his dream. It was a sweet, bucolic dream. He was fishing in a stream that was supposed to be in Wisconsin but was really in Europe. His former Dutch girlfriend was helping him bait the hook. He was about to cast his rod when the high-pitched jangle intruded. A bell? A siren? Why would a siren wail in the European countryside?

  As he swam up to consciousness, he realized his phone was ringing. He threw a pillow over his head, but he heard the muffled click of the answering machine.

  “Michael….” There was a pause. “Michael DeLuca. Get out of bed right now. It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

  How did his mother know? He heard her sigh—partly irritated, partly resigned. A sigh that could only come from a mother. “Call me when you’re up. We’re expecting you for dinner. Of course, it will probably be your breakfast, but don’t assume it will be pancakes and bacon.”

  He tossed the pillow aside, rolled over, and opened one eye. The clock said almost two. He threw the covers aside and sat up. A wave of nausea climbed up his throat, and his head started to pound. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and propped his elbows on his knees. Holding his head in his hands, he let the queasiness wash over him. Eventually it passed.