by Lia Matera
“Really,” I said. “I just want to make our mutual problems go away.” I stressed the last two words. People often responded favorably to the notion of my mother going away.
I wanted to ask a hundred questions, make a thousand promises, jump through hoops, shower him with American dollars—anything to get this done.
I forced myself to calm down and slow down. No use being tricked into confessing some crime. I didn’t want to find myself sitting at a sewing machine beside Myra Wilson, wondering how my statements had been misconstrued.
With an uncertain glance at me, he said, “Come.”
He took my elbow and guided me into the elevator, just now disgorging a giggling group.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d left a bar with a guy with a bad haircut. I just wished I could remember a time I hadn’t regretted it.
When we got off at the ground floor, he looked around the lobby, his eyes large and, I thought, fearful. He put a hand between my shoulder blades, barely touching me. But the gesture was so proprietary I almost bridled.
We left the hotel. He looked over his shoulder. “Just around the corner, please, we can talk.”
We walked quickly into a well-lighted town square with lots of trees and benches. It was bordered by tourist hotels and dollar stores.
Even at night, the ice-cream stand in the middle of the square had a line blocks long.
My companion scanned the square, apparently reassured we hadn’t been followed. “Let me speak more plainly. We would like to conclude this matter without incident.” He looked like he was choosing his words carefully. “But there is a slight problem requiring discussion.”
I waited.
“Your companions.”
“Which companions?”
“Mr. Jamieson and Mrs. Travolta. From your seeya.”
“Who? My what?” I was starting to feel stoned. My surroundings were strange, and he wasn’t making any sense.
“Your seeya. C.I.A. Cia.” He pronounced it as a word, not as letters in an acronym.
I backed up a step. “No, trust me, I don’t know anybody in the CIA. I really don’t.”
He pulled photographs from his pocket. “Garrett Jamieson and Angela Travolta,” he said.
He handed me small color photos of Dennis and Cindy.
I looked back up at him, mystified. “You have their names wrong. And they’re just …” I didn’t want to say, journalists. “Film reviewers, here for the film festival. And they’re not my companions, I just met them. They’re Americans with a car. I’ve gotten a couple of rides with them, that’s all.”
Oh Jesus, what if he was right? What if Dennis and Cindy were CIA agents?
I handed him back the photos. “They can’t be CIA agents. You’d never have let them into the country if they were. Would you?”
“Oh yes.” He nodded emphatically. “For various reasons. Not every tourist is who he seems. We are aware of this. But we are an open society,” he said, raising my hackles. “Willing to open our doors too wide rather than not wide enough. You have found this to be true, have you not? You have wished to see a prison, and it was no problem, you were not denied access nor were excuses made to keep you away.”
I had toured selected areas of a model facility. I’d hardly call that opening the doors wide. But I said, “Yes, and thank you. But—”
“Even known Cia agents, perhaps they will learn to respect our openness, this is our goal. We wish only to survive as your neighbor without interference and sabotage. But of course we keep track of where the Cia goes and what it does. We cannot take foolish risks.”
Oh Jesus, I’d hooked up with a couple who, CIA or not, had been watched and followed every minute. Unless this disco-haircut stranger was lying to me.
“What do you want?” I knew I sounded hostile—hell, I felt hostile. “I thought you had …” I didn’t want to say “my mother.” I was losing hope very damn fast.
“We wish to help you, as you no doubt wish to help us.” He sounded anything but convinced of this. “But we have certain pressures. You must understand our history, how many attacks we have suffered and how much adversity has been unfairly thrust upon us.” He leaned closer. I could smell rum on his breath. “It is difficult to deal fairly with another when that person will not deal fairly in return.”
I felt like I was trapped in a bad movie, The Endless Preface. “So what are you saying?”
“We propose an arrangement to trade information, in exchange for the information you wish to receive from us.”
“And that would be?” But I was afraid I knew.
“We would like to know what Mr. Jamieson and Mrs. Travolta are doing here. Not their excuse, but their objective.”
“First of all, you’ve misidentified them. But even if you hadn’t, why would they tell me anything? I just met them.” God, if they were CIA agents, I might as well kiss my passport good-bye right now. “Can’t you just bug their rooms or something?” Like they hadn’t thought of it.
But he didn’t seem to be listening. He was looking over my shoulder. Without another word, he walked past me, hurrying across the square.
“What the—?” I started after him.
Then I heard someone calling my name.
It was Cindy. She and Dennis were trotting toward me.
No wonder Andy Gibb had fled.
I wasn’t sure whether to chase after him—did he really know where my mother was? But as Cindy and Dennis drew closer, I realized he wouldn’t say any more now, not with “CIA agents” close at hand.
But it was hard to stand still, hard to watch my best potential source of information get lost in the ice-cream-eating crowd.
“Are you all right?” Dennis looked alarmed. “Do you know who that was?”
I shook my head. No use volunteering anything.
“He acts a liaison between the Interior Ministry crowd, like the Yum King, and MINFAR, the Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces. You know, the old generals who fought with Fidel, the históricos.” Dennis looked surprised I’d been talking to him. “What did he want?”
A political honcho. That explained the new jeans and white jacket with shiny buttons. But did Dennis learn this as a reporter or as a spy?
“He went into a riff about the ice cream here,” I hedged. “I couldn’t figure him out. He looks European. But he drops his s’s like a Cuban.”
Dennis put his arm around me, giving me a quick squeeze as if I’d barely avoided some calamity. “Did he ask you any questions?”
“Where was I from, what had I seen here. What you’d ask a tourist.”
Cindy and Dennis exchanged glances. Cindy said, “This is not good.”
Whatever their true identities, I heartily agreed with that.
“What brought you out here?” Dennis asked me.
“They told me at the hotel to try the ice cream.”
Cindy laughed. “And we’re fleeing ‘Guantanamera.’” She looked at me expectantly.
Had they spotted me at the nightclub? Seen me leave with White Jacket, then followed us here? I had the feeling they were waiting for me to admit something.
I reviewed my conversation with Mr. Radio Havana. As short as it had been, I’d gathered one thing: I’d have to give the Cubans something in exchange for my mother. (Did they really know anything about her? Or were they just guessing I’d lost her, based on my behavior?) But could I offer information about Cindy and Dennis, even innocuous information, without getting them arrested for spying?
God knew I wanted my mother back, but I didn’t want to trade anyone for her.
I changed the subject. “Have you already gotten ice cream?” Dennis raised his brows. “I wish. Tonight, it’s taking hours to get the ice-cream tickets, and then hours more to stand in the ice cream line. We’re told it’s averaging about five hours right no
w.”
“It is wonderful ice cream,” Cindy sighed. “Worth it, if you can get it in less than an hour or two. But almost none of the food lines are that quick, not these days.”
No wonder the people I’d seen lined up in the neighborhoods had looked so bored.
“On the other hand,” Dennis smiled, “they’ve been able to get out of neighborhood meetings because of the food lines. They used to have to go to four or five CDR meetings a week—usually featuring the biggest busybodies in the neighborhood poking mercilessly into everybody else’s business. Now they can say they were stuck in a food line. Even El Comandante had to cut them a little slack and reduce the number of mandatory meetings.”
A society that welcomed food lines as the better alternative to mandatory meetings had my deepest sympathy.
11
The next morning, I was determined not to get sidetracked. I’d check the other places Mother had gone with her WILPF group. And if nothing came of it, I’d begin contacting officials, Cindy’s warning notwithstanding.
By the time I went down for coffee, I’d decided one more thing: I had to tell Cindy and Dennis what Mr. Radio Havana had said about them. If they were CIA agents, which I doubted, maybe they already knew where my mother was. And if they were just reporters, as I believed, they should know what was up. They might be in danger.
After breakfast I wandered around the hotel looking for them. The rest of the film festival group was lingering in the breakfast room or the lobby, idly waiting for their tour bus. But Cindy and Dennis didn’t board it when it came.
Feeling stressed and impatient, I asked the desk to ring their room. The smiling clerk said, “Oh, I’m so sorry you did not know. The lady’s mother sent a message that she is ill, and they have left very early this morning to catch an airplane home.”
I stood there gaping at her. “They checked out of the hotel? They left Cuba?”
“Yes, I am so sorry. Perhaps if it was not an urgent matter, they would think to leave you a note,” she suggested kindly. “I am sure they would.”
I braced both palms against the desk, staring at her. She was wearing a collar necklace that looked like a fabric-covered piece of PVC pipe. I stared at it, thinking it was a very odd adornment. Just big enough to hold a microphone.
I walked away as nonchalantly as I could manage.
I asked the tourist police to call me a cab. I rode around all day, cramming a week-long WILPF itinerary into several hot, wearying hours. I saw an understocked hospital, a pencilless school, a gorgeous beach that stank of pollutants from waterfront hotels, a nightclub full of cranky dancers halfheartedly rehearsing, several museums, the writers’ union office, and the film department of the university. Everyone I talked to was friendly—at times, extravagantly so—and seemed to be expecting me.
I didn’t tell anyone my mother was missing, but I brought her up often enough to rival Norman Bates. No one had a single useful thing to say about her. She was just one of fifteen umprimped older women quick with supportive comments and warm smiles.
By the time evening fell and the film festival group returned for dinner, I knew I was out of options. I could wait indefinitely, hoping my mother would turn up or that someone would approach me with information about her. Or I could contact U.S. officials here and the State Department back home, and let them figure out what had happened to her.
Mother would lose her passport. Criminal charges might be brought against her. If so, her history of activism and symbolic gestures meant she already had more than enough convictions to ensure jail time. But maybe with the best lawyer …
What a day. Finally, I returned to my room.
I opened my door and found an envelope on my bed. I crossed to it at warp speed.
But there was no note inside. It was an empty envelope. A perfect metaphor for this trip, in fact.
I sat on the bed staring at it. It was a hotel envelope with the preprinted address of the hotel I’d visited last night, the one with the penthouse bar.
I wondered how long the envelope had been here. With my luck, whatever I might have seen or whomever I might have met was long gone.
I hustled through the hotel district. Even the dollar stores were empty. A fabric store had barely enough bolts for a card-table display. A shoe store showed a few boxes stacked against a wall. A clothing store had bare mannequins in the window.
I slowed down as I neared the hotel, looking to see if I recognized anyone milling in front.
I stopped, noticing a flash of white through a lobby window. In a country bereft of new clothes and without the electricity to run loads of hot wash, bright whites were rare. Even the hotel bed-sheets were dingy. The only startling white I’d seen so far was Mr. Radio Havana’s jacket.
The envelope had come from him. I wasn’t surprised.
I took a deep breath, starting across the street to the hotel entrance, keeping my eye on the white jacket through the hotel window. That’s when I saw the drab green fabric beside the white. Another step closer and I saw an unmistakable blob of red—the Chinese star on a People’s Republic cap.
I stopped, backing up. A Ministry honcho (if Cindy and Dennis could be believed) had arranged for me to come to this hotel. He was waiting for me with Chinese soldiers beside him.
I backed up and turned around, walking swiftly away. The scenario suggested I was about to be detained, and that the Cubans wanted it to happen quietly, in a hotel where no one knew me.
Were they planning to take me somewhere to question me? Did they have my mother? Did they have Cindy and Dennis?
I hurried back to my hotel, entering through a side door near the swimming pool. I was scared to death skulking to the elevator and going upstairs. I stayed in my room just long enough to grab my passport and my money. I left my clothes and suitcase—I didn’t want it to look like I’d decamped.
But I was afraid I had no choice. I wouldn’t deliver myself to Mr. Havana Radio—I’d seen nothing on this trip, absolutely nothing to engender trust in Cuba’s commitment to personal freedom.
When I left the hotel, again through the pool door, I caught a glimpse of Chinese soldiers in the lobby, walking slowly as if looking for someone.
I crossed the street into the neighborhoods. With my “fine” jeans and T-shirt, I stood out like a peacock on a chicken farm. I was scared. I was hot. And I’d never felt so alone in my life.
I wandered in an aimless and paranoid heat until nightfall. Then I ventured to the sea wall, hoping to encounter Ernesto. I wanted to believe I’d misjudged him, that his losing me near the city’s edge had been an accident, just as he claimed.
Perhaps he could help me get to the airport, so I could try to get on a flight out of here. As much as I wanted to find my mother, I was getting nowhere. And I was too scared and bewildered to keep looking.
I mostly kept my back to the sea wall and my eyes on the road. I tried to stay in shadows, especially when the tourist police cruised by.
I finally heard Ernesto’s voice. “Señora! I have been searching for you! My friend is not able to come tonight but tomorrow— Señora? You are still angry?”
Angry? I could have hugged him, I was so glad to see him.
“How can I convince you I did not leave you on purpose? I am sorry! Truly!” he continued. “And my compañero thanks you for the dollars.”
“Let’s go somewhere,” I said hastily. “Can we go somewhere where we don’t have to stand ten feet apart? I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, follow me.” He sounded happy again, like a puppy who’d been forgiven for chewing on the furniture.
I kept a distance of twenty feet or so as I followed him past huge houses that had once been mansions. The neighborhood’s hours of electricity hadn’t started yet, so there were no television or radio sounds. Few candles or lanterns burned. A trash can fire lit a street corner. Young people
stood around it laughing and teasing and embracing.
Ernesto waited so we could walk together. “Not so long ago we still had electricity much of the night. Now everybody is inside making babies. We have so many in each room already that it is ridiculous, and now all the new babies—many girls are secret Catholics. You can be a Catholic here, but you will get no work if it is known. The revolutionaries get abortions—even twenty is not uncommon. There are no pills! You want to take girls walking and be romantic, but it is hard when every one has a baby on her breast.” He sighed.
“AIDS isn’t a problem?”
“Those who are infected are taken away when they are diagnosed positive, many years before they will have symptoms. They are taken to a colony on the eastern shore and imprisoned there until they die. But they say it does not look like a jail. And they are given plenty of food. Some people, desperate because there is nothing left, inject themselves with tainted blood. To live less long but with more to eat.”
I fought a major case of the creeps. A good time to change the subject: “The two people I’ve been spending time with, the Americans, you know them, right?”
“They ask me questions, and they give me dollars. I have found out for them the address of a certain poet.” There was something odd about his tone. I wished I could see his face, but the trash can fire was too distant.
“Do you know who they work for?”
“American newspapers.”
“You’re sure they don’t work for the American government?”
“No.” His voice grew paranoid. “No, that would be very bad trouble. Contact with someone who works for the American government, that would be too wrong in the eyes of my government, too hard to explain. It is for crimes like this that people are sent to the men’s prison combinado del este. Bota la llave …” Throw away the key.
“The reporters, what names did they give you?”
“Dennis and Cindy.” He pronounced the latter Seendy.
“Have you seen them today?”
