Havana Twist

by Lia Matera

  “No, no, they will take you to a model jail, not a real jail, not a serious jail.”

  No doubt in my mind which I’d rather see. “Did you learn anything about my mother?”

  “There is a part of La Habana where the tourists do not go—it is not on the maps, only the tourist areas and the beaches are on the maps. There is a neighborhood where my friend lives. He has most definitely and absolutely seen an American lady there, on the very edge of the city, an old lady like your mother.”

  “When was this?”

  “Monday.”

  The day Mother should have returned with her tour group. I tried not to get my hopes up. There must be a lot of “old lady” tourists in Havana.

  “Can I speak to your friend? Can we go to where he saw this woman?”

  “Yes, yes, I will take you to him.” I could hear the happiness in his voice. “But we must meet someplace else. And can you perhaps cover your hair and wear something … not so fine?”

  I was wearing jeans, a blue cotton shirt, and moccasins. I wasn’t sure how much less fine I could look.

  “Do you perhaps have plastic sandals? And a shirt without buttons?” he suggested.

  “Okay. Where do you want to meet?”

  “From your hotel go two blocks from the ocean and left for another three. There is a house with a broken pillar. I will wait for you there.” A glance toward him showed me he was smiling. It lifted the part of his cheek that I could see, though he was still turned away. “But I must have ten American dollars to rent bicycles from my compañero. Can you give me ten dollars?”

  The real question was, would I see him again if I did? And was it worth risking ten years in jail and a $100,000 fine?

  “The person who saw the woman … did he say anything else?”

  “That she is very wrinkled. And she is wearing a shirt that says Computers for Cuban Children.”

  Mother’s pet project. I tried not to get my hopes up. Any of the WILPF women might have worn that T-shirt.

  “What else did your friend say?” I tried to sound calm. “Was the woman all right? Would she be safe in that neighborhood?”

  “No, no, never worry. Perhaps she is robbed, but Cubans are not assassins. We have the greatest hearts in all of Latin America! Your country, it should welcome us. We get along with everybody. Well, perhaps not with the Bolos, the Russians. They will not learn Spanish, even the ones who are here thirty years. And they are very ugly when they drink. They build Soviet-Cuban Friendship Clubs but they do not permit Cubans inside. Good riddance to them.” He turned to face me. “Is it really so hard in America for a mulatto like me?”

  I was distracted, worrying about Mother, worrying about “trading with the enemy.” “Sometimes, some places.”

  “They tell us ninety-five percent of the million Cubans in America are white. Here, sixty percent are black. They say the white Cubans want to come from Miami and turn back the clock, take away our rights.”

  I was out of my depth. “I don’t know any Cuban immigrants. I’ve never been to Miami. Won’t your friend take Mexican pesos?”

  “His mother is diabetic. Only dollars will buy her medicine. I swear to you, you would be glad to help him. It is only for medicine for his mama that he would rent his prize bicycles.”

  A half hour later, after buying thongs, a T-shirt, and a scarf in the hotel gift shop, I stood in front of a decaying colonial house with a broken pillar. Though my clothes were arguably less “fine,” passersby still looked startled by their newness. They averted their eyes, worrying, apparently, that an American could be trouble.

  I stood there wondering what made the boy at the sea wall different. Why was he willing to talk, to meet, to help, when everywhere else his compatriots played it safe by crossing the street?

  I grew increasingly nervous, sweating in the humid air, shading my eyes against the sunlight glaring on cracked and crumbling palaces, their porticoes sagging, their yards overgrown, their windows long since broken.

  “Ha, you look much better!” The boy’s voice startled me. “But still, your clothes are very new and your skin is very white. Only the Canadians and Germans are as white as you. You are like a nice fresh fish!”

  A nice fresh fish or a lifelong San Franciscan.

  I turned to look at him. I’d spoken to him only at night or from a distance of several feet. This was my first good look at him.

  He was skinny and dark-skinned, his curls tight and glinting with reddish highlights in the sun. His eyes were huge and almond-shaped, a moss green. His nose was small and upturned and his lips were thick and sweetly grinning. He looked just out of his teens, with hands and feet so big he reminded me of a puppy destined to grow into an enormous dog.

  In each hand he gripped the steering column of a black Flying Pigeon, walking between them. “You can ride, yes?”

  “It’s been a long time, but I suppose so.”

  “Then come, let us hurry. Somebody will go to the vigilancia if they see us together.” As he swung onto his bicycle seat, he said, “Do not follow too close. And if I get too far, call for me. Shout, ‘Ernesto,’ and I will wait for you.”

  There were more than a few times I had my doubts about the endeavor. The bicycle was heavy and clumsy, with only two working gears.

  In the part of town not shown on maps, where tourists didn’t know to venture, the streets hadn’t been resurfaced in a long time. And the Flying Pigeon didn’t steer well to begin with.

  There were no cars on the road, though, so my wobbling progress didn’t put me in danger of getting hit. We passed a few old models along the curb, highly waxed classics that looked as if they hadn’t been driven for years. There were other bicyclists on the road as well, but not many of them. Mostly, people sat on crumbling porches, their yards overgrown with vines and exotic flowers. Though I covered miles of ground, I saw only two small stores with very long lines outside. Those emerging from them carried only tiny bundles.

  But even here, billboards with revolutionary slogans loomed over street corners. Political posters covered walls and windows as ubiquitously as advertisements in America. Socialismo o Muerte! Securidad Social! It got to be as numbing as Read People Magazine! or Breakfast of Champions!

  I noticed a few hasty scrawls of graffiti: 8A. I made a mental note to ask Ernesto about it.

  By the time we’d been bicycling for three quarters of an hour, I was no longer sure we weren’t traveling in circles. Ernesto seemed, toward the end, to take my presence behind him for granted. I had to bicycle increasingly faster—no easy chore in toe-torturing thongs on a heavy bike prone to wobbling—just to keep him in sight.

  And then he rounded a corner too soon. By the time I turned, he was nowhere in sight. I began shouting his name, as instructed. I pedaled to the next intersection, looking all four ways. All I saw were quiet streets with plants poking through broken concrete in front of the usual dilapidated houses.

  All four showed empty patches overrun with bountiful, colorful weeds. They were strewn with cement blocks, empty barrels, and rusted machine parts. Were we approaching the city’s edge? I bicycled to the end of each of the streets comprising the corner, straining for a glimpse of Ernesto happily bicycling along, one arm dangling, like a big happy kid.

  I circled each of the blocks, searching for him. I returned to the spot where I’d last seen him, and I waited there, trying to attract less attention than a purple elephant. I examined the blisters the thongs had put between my toes. People passed me, but didn’t speak to me. A couple of kids ran up and looked at my bicycle. Their mother, down the block, called them back.

  It got to the point that I wouldn’t have minded seeing the tourist police.

  Finally, I climbed back on the bike and started exploring the neighborhood, going in the direction Ernesto had been leading me. Houses were clustered between empty lots piled with detritus an
d overrun with vines, as if houses had collapsed there years before and every usable portion had been hauled away.

  That’s when I saw it. I veered off the road as quickly as I could, struggling to steer the recalcitrant bike behind a jumble of flowering shrubs. I peered through the leaves. A few hundred feet ahead, machinery lay idle around some kind of construction site. There were no workers to be seen, but judging from the number of back-hoes and trucks, something major was in progress.

  A huge mountain of dirt had begun to sprout grasses and tiny wildflowers. A few broken beams, maybe eight inches square, littered the ground near a mound of rocks. Tin sheets were wedged tight beneath a backhoe.

  Moved earth and makeshift walls … a tunnel? Cindy and Dennis had mentioned coming here to look for a system of them. Maybe this was an entrance.

  I waited until I calmed down. I watched for signs of activity—the movement of vehicles, the flash of colored clothing or sweaty skin, the sound of voices. But all remained quiet and still.

  I left the bicycle in the bushes and approached cautiously. But for a couple of encrusted coffee cups buzzing with bumblebees, some dirt-streaked hardhats, and an olive People’s Republic jacket, there was no sign of life. There was just a gigantic, beam-reinforced hole.

  I peered inside. The afternoon sun reflected off a tin wall. Through swirls of airborne dirt that stuck to my damp face, I could see that the hole descended perhaps ten feet, its sides reinforced with stacked rocks, tin sheets, and wooden beams. Then it doubled back under the road toward the more populated areas of the city.

  A tunnel under Havana. Maybe a maze of them. I stood there marveling, trying to see things from Castro’s point of view—the assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs attack, the periodic small-plane assaults, the relentless embargo, renewed media attacks and sanctions, the constant spying and threats. To build a network of tunnels, Castro must fear an irrational foe, an America crazy enough to invade outright after all these years.

  Mother’s WILPF friends might be taking a rose-colored view of Cuba, but seeing this tunnel made me want to sit down and cry. While its people starved, Cuba prepared to hide from us in case we attacked. It squandered scant resources trying to second-guess us.

  If my mother had found this tunnel, it must have torn her heart out. And chances were, if she’d come to this neighborhood, it had been to get a look at the tunnel. I certainly hadn’t noticed any other roadside attractions.

  I wondered whether to go down. Mother would have, I knew that. But she had the fearlessness of a true ideologue. She’d have descended like some proselytizing Persephone, ready to sympathize and offer donations. Ready to discuss teach-ins and petition drives at home, to plan picket lines and letter-writing campaigns.

  But who’d led her here? And why hadn’t she made it back to the hotel in time to catch her plane?

  Had something happened to her down there? Had she gotten hurt? Gotten lost in the warren?

  Beams staked into compacted dirt created a toehold ladder for climbing into and out of the tunnel entrance. I didn’t want to go down, I really didn’t. Part of me was shrieking in dread: a secret tunnel in Cuba, no! Don’t do it!

  Perversely, I could also hear the lullaby my mother used to sing me as a child when I got frightened. No other memory would have been inducement enough. My mother had a real knack, even in absentia.

  8

  Being underground made me so phobic that I shut my mind to it. I would have nightmares for months afterward, but now I followed the tunnel as if it were just another tourist experience. And indeed, it was so quiet and uneventful it might as well have been. It was gloomy down there, but pipe shafts to the surface kept the air breathable and offered dim light throughout. Comparing the size of the pipes with the pinpoints of daylight overhead, I supposed I was about ten or fifteen feet underground. It smelled like moldy roots, the air was thick with dirt particles, and I kept imagining crawly creatures running over my toes. But I could stand with arms outstretched and not touch the ceiling or either wall, so it wasn’t cramped. It might even have been large enough to drive a vehicle through.

  I was especially reassured to see that the tunnel walls were reinforced with boards, corrugated tin, and heavy cross beams. I tried not to look closely enough to notice insects, rats, or other critters.

  Frequently, wooden crates were piled beneath the air and light holes. I assumed they were rations, perhaps weapons. But without a crowbar, I had little hope of opening them. Probably just as well: if I got caught here, I didn’t want to be accused of theft as well as spying.

  On the other hand, I was growing so parched I might have tried to claw my way into any box labeled Agua. It was cooler underground than above, but it was more humid and close. I was walking in the dim light, fantasizing about San Francisco’s bracing summer fog when I saw, up ahead at some distance, a wide shaft of light. It was too big to be coming through a pipe.

  The good news was that I was at last approaching an exit. The bad news was that I hadn’t stumbled across my mother.

  As I walked closer, I could see the tunnel was less rustic here. Tin sheets covered most of the wall, there were twice as many supports, and it had widened into a chamber.

  It looked like a place for people to enter and wait for … what? American bombs to fall? Expatriates from Miami to swarm the streets firing American weapons at uppity mulattoes?

  I continued cautiously forward. The tunnel chamber widened to a kind of hub. Two more tunnels opened into it. Going to other such hubs? Leading eventually out of the city?

  There were stacks of crates along every inch of the wall now. I could see the People’s Republic stars on some of them. Directly above me, a shaft rose upward. Metal rungs formed a ladder leading, I presumed, out of the tunnel.

  I considered looking into the other tunnels. But I was weary and frightened and my feet were bleeding from blisters between the toes. All I wanted (besides finding my mother and getting her home) was to be safely back in the open air.

  I started cautiously up the metal rungs. The shaft wasn’t leading outdoors—I was becoming increasingly certain of it. The quality of light was wrong. It was too dim, as if filtered through curtained windows in a room above.

  I stopped, hearing voices. A man was laughing as another tried, it seemed, to imitate a doorbell. He kept saying, “Dong, dong” at different pitches, starting over several times. The other man repeated the dongs. But with the tone and accent perfect, it no longer sounded like a doorbell. It sounded like a Chinese language lesson.

  I leaned my forehead against a metal rung, wondering what to do. Dozens of magazine and news stories raced through my head: Chinese prison camps, political prisoners, public beatings, Tiananmen Square, slave labor—I didn’t want to deliver myself into the hands of Chinese soldiers.

  What could I say to them? That I’d once had People’s Republic posters on my wall—healthy-looking girls with thick braids happily picking corn for Chairman Mao? That I’d purchased the little red book from the Black Panthers just like everybody else? That I’d had as many naive misconceptions about the Cultural Revolution as others around me? The problem was, I knew better now.

  I knew enough to be scared as hell.

  “Dong, dong. Dong, dong.” The Chinese man laughed as the Cuban practiced the tones.

  Then I heard the Cuban say, “Qué es?” What’s that?

  I was sure, despite the fact that I hadn’t made a move in minutes, that they’d heard me.

  Footsteps sounded like drumbeats overhead. Suddenly there was a great deal more light in the shaft. More footsteps. I still couldn’t see the opening. I had no idea what was above me.

  “Time to get to work,” the Cuban man said.

  I thought he was referring to me. I thought he was about to yank me out of the shaft. Instead, I heard an engine engage. The Chinese man called out, “Dong dong, dong dong,” as the Cuban
told him to do something vulgar to himself.

  The engine revved for a few moments, then there was a scraping sound as of a door opening. It became lighter in the shaft. The vehicle rumbled directly over me—it felt like an earthquake—then drove away.

  I waited a while longer, but I heard no footsteps, no words, nothing. I began to hope I might be safe, that the Cuban had driven out of a garage, and that the Chinese man had followed on foot. I climbed closer to the top. I could now see a thick mesh covering the opening, letting in air and light but leaving no hole gaping.

  I was close enough to touch the metal mesh, close enough to taste a fantasy of climbing free. Then, suddenly, the covering was yanked off. I gasped, finding myself face to face with an astonished-looking Chinese man in a People’s Republic uniform. He was square-faced and middle-aged. He barked out something in Spanish so tortured I had no idea what he was saying. Then he got a terrifying look on his face—his nostrils flared, his lips drew back into a snarl, his scowl was as exaggerated as a cartoon’s. Worse, he was reaching for me with one hand and reaching into his jacket—for a weapon, I was sure—with the other.

  I didn’t have a chance to think. Nor was I in any position to bargain or to make excuses. I was an American woman in a secret Cuban tunnel. The Cubans weren’t likely to be pleased. And I certainly didn’t want to see the inside of a Cuban jail except, perhaps, on a guided tour. And if I appealed to my government to help me, they would probably revoke my passport and fine me, possibly even jail or disbar me.

  All of that was in the back of my mind. More urgently, I was afraid of a frighteningly angry man in a uniform I’d come to associate with repression, imprisonment, and forced labor. My gut took over.

  The man was reaching for me, and I couldn’t let him get me: It was that simple. I grabbed a handful of his uniform. I don’t know if I was trying to pull myself out or yank him off balance. I was just doing what I could.

  Because he was after his gun (I think), he wasn’t braced against the tunnel entrance. He had one hand down the hole reaching for me and the other in his jacket. When I clutched his coat, he lost his balance. He fell headfirst toward me. He knocked me off the rungs and we both went painfully through the shaft, clunking the rungs and sides all the way down.