Havana Twist

by Lia Matera

  I almost choked on my coffee.

  Don said, “They didn’t make us feel especially welcome. But then, we didn’t call ahead.”

  Marules’s head was tilted. He was watching carefully now, waiting for more.

  Don set his coffee cup back on the tray. “We asked if they’d found anything missing from the apartment, if they’d had any unusual visitors or calls. Anything suspicious.”

  “And?” Marules prompted.

  “And they pointed right at you.” Don just left it hanging there.

  I could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room.

  “Me?” Marules said, finally. His face suffused with color. “But why would they—? They do not even know me. No more than I know them. Perhaps you have misunderstood?”

  “No. They brought up the fact that you knew Willa and Diaz had gone to San Diego. That you knew where they were staying.”

  Marules shook his head. “No.” His voice was quiet. “That is not the case—I did not know where she and Agosto were staying.” He swallowed, crimping his lips. “Not until the police phoned me. I wish I had never learned. I wish I had never had occasion to learn the name of that hotel!”

  “I don’t know if they’ve made these comments to anyone else,” Don said. “I thought you should know about them.”

  Marules looked at me. “You did not…?” Believe them? He seemed to realize it would be an odd question. “I’m sorry for the pain they must have caused you,” he said. “I had not considered … I suppose that there must be”—he took a few deep breaths—”speculation about the hotel room.”

  I flushed, knowing he meant our taking one room instead of two. “Can you get us back into Cuba, Marules?” Don asked him.

  For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him. As much as I wanted to find my mother, I didn’t see how this would be possible. I’d be thrown out again, or worse, not be allowed to leave. I might be called to account for the things I’d done there—sneaking through a tunnel, tussling with a Chinese soldier. And even if they’d been bogies invented by “Ernesto,” I’d have been terrified of bota la llave and the AIDS colony from which no one ever emerged. I dreaded returning to Cuba, not because America had demonized it for thirty plus years, but because of the scarcity and sadness hanging over it, swallowing up residents and tourists alike.

  Marules, too, looked taken aback. He sat flaccidly in his chair, his mouth open. “Go back? But how can you go back? Willa was escorted from the country—this is no minor matter. They will not have forgotten her so soon.” He looked at me. “And surely your State Department does not wish it? The matter is far more delicate now that your government is involved. They cannot want you there like a, like a …”

  “Loose cannon?” I offered.

  He nodded vigorously.

  Don stated the obvious: “As far as we know, June Jansson never left Cuba.” And, boy, was she a loose cannon. “We’re never going to find her by sitting around Mexico City, are we?”

  “You, Lieutenant, perhaps you alone,” Marules suggested, “you could go there. You have not been barred from doing so. Well, except to the extent that American law bars tourism. But Willa …”

  “My Spanish isn’t good enough,” Don said.

  “I could perhaps arrange for you to hire a translator?” He kept glancing at me as if checking for signs of mesmerization or codependency.

  “Here’s another alternative.” Don sat forward, gripping the edge of Marules’s desk. “You have a friend in the Interior Ministry, a high-ranking official. Clear it with him. Tell him if he lets us in and leaves us alone, we’ll find her. We’ll take her home, and that’ll be it. None of the crap he’d get from the State Department.”

  “But, my friend,” Marules objected, “your State Department would learn of it upon your return, if not before. The problems for Cuba—and indeed, for you—would arise later if not sooner.”

  “Let me be blunt,” Don said. “Just so your friend in the ministry understands. I can get in there and find her, alive or—” He glanced at me. “I can do it quickly. If it’s bad news, your friend finds out first, then we come home and keep our mouths shut. If she’s okay, we’ll hustle her out of there, and we’ll tell the State Department anything he wants us to. He gets first crack on the spin, okay? He can give us a script—we’ll say anything he wants.” Another glance at me. “That’s okay with you, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. If I could get my mother back, I’d even vote Republican if I had to. “Anything,” I said.

  Marules turned his palms upward. “I admire your determination, your bravery in wishing to flout your own authorities. But, please, I am only an acquaintance of compañero Emilio. I have met him on his trips to Mexico City and acted as … oh, how to explain it? A chaperone, a host, one who makes the introductions at important parties. But it is not as if he owes me anything. Simply put, I do not think I can accomplish this for you.”

  “Try.” Don’s tone was cold. “We’re offering to clear this up for him. It’s got to be a pain in the neck having the U.S. government inquiring about it. Tell him I guarantee if he lets us in on his authority, I’ll make this go away, one way or another.”

  “But how?” Marules wondered. “Cuba is not San Francisco. You have no connections, no authority there.”

  “Just give him the message. Can you?”

  He certainly didn’t seem anxious to. “I will do this, yes. Of course.”

  “Can you do it as if you mean it? Put our interests above your reservations?”

  Marules started to say something, but then stopped, looking over at me. “I will try.”

  Don was squinting at me as if hoping for something from me. Against my better judgment, I said, “Please, Martin. Please act like you’re a hundred percent sure we can find her. If you don’t”—I couldn’t speak for a moment—”if you don’t, it’s over. I’ve lost her.”

  Marules sank deeper into his chair. He seemed to be looking through me, nursing his own grief. “I will be as adamant as you are, Lieutenant. I will do all I can to persuade Juan Emilio he would be a fool not to let you solve this problem.”

  Don took a deep breath and sat back. “It’s true. He’s a fool if he doesn’t let me try.”

  “You are a very confident man, Lieutenant.”

  “People don’t usually put it so politely.”

  I felt a chill of fear. No one had ever accused me of being a confident person.

  I tried to get a grip: If I continued as I had been, I’d only go on trudging through the days, clinging to my hammock, watching my father disconnect from reality and crawl deeper into cyberspace to hide from his grief.

  But when I thought of returning to Cuba, I kept seeing Myra Wilson’s dazed, blank face as she handed fabric to an involuntary seamstress in the women’s prison.

  “When can we call you for news?” Don asked him.

  “To telephone Cuba is not an easy matter. Let us say by early afternoon. Let us hope the telephone lines are working with us.” To me, he said, “You have the strength to go there?”

  “Yes.”

  I would stick with Don, whether or not his scheme was crazy. No one else was offering to help. And he’d gotten me out of an impossible situation once before. As much as I could trust anyone, I trusted him.

  He looked relieved. I wondered how he’d look when he saw the inside of a Cubana airplane.

  24

  Sitting in the Zocalo almost ten hours later, I felt numb. We’d spent the rest of the morning at a hotel trying to catch up on sleep. As much as I tossed and turned and worried, I suspected I’d gotten more of a nap than Don. He hadn’t looked at all rested when we met for a late lunch. He’d been on the phone with Conner, he said, going over some things.

  Conner reported that Pirí and the couple had made a stop at another apartment, and then had gone to the airport. Pirí had started
work, and the couple had boarded a plane to Belgium. Mostly, Don and Conner had talked about Price, the no-show detective. Conner recommended a local guy he knew to fill in and another to help track down Price. Recounting this, Don seemed tense, almost grim.

  And I knew I was no picture of cheer. Martin Marules had been successful. We were flying to Cuba tonight. It would require a “special facilitator” at both ends, but strings had been pulled and red tape cut. Our bags were already in the trunk of the rental car. As soon as Marules’s receptionist delivered the computer disk she’d promised us, we were leaving.

  From our sidewalk cafe table, I watched helium balloons jostling above carts of ersatz Aztec whistles. Blankets near the cathedral were spread with Guatemalan weaves and home-sewn kites and corny statuary. Children ran across the square, their sandals flapping and their curls bobbing. Spotlights shone in bas-relief crannies of colonial buildings as the sun set. Porticoes glowed with yellow lamplight. The sound of Peruvian flutes floated over cobblestones.

  Our waiter kept refilling our glasses and bringing more bread. The restaurant buzzed with talk and laughter. It smelled of sauces and grilled meats. Knowing we were flying into a city with little light and rationed food took some of the pleasure out of this bright plenty.

  My musings were interrupted by the sight of a short, plump woman in a business suit. She was walking a slow circle as if looking for someone. “There she is,” I said.

  Don stood, dropping his napkin onto the tabletop. He swung over the metal patio rail, and walked across the Zocalo toward her. When he reached her, he put his arm around her and walked her into a crowd. I could sometimes see them and sometimes not.

  Several minutes later, Don returned through the restaurant’s patio door. He sat back down, nodding.

  “Do we have time to find a computer and read the disk?”

  “No. If the database is in code, it probably wouldn’t mean anything to us anyway.” He ran his hand over his hair. “I arranged an airport drop-off—Conner will pick it up and deal with it.” He shrugged. “If nothing else, maybe it’ll tell us something about the receptionist. She might be a more accomplished liar than she seems.”

  I nodded. It wouldn’t be difficult to take a file—any old file—and encrypt it. She could be trying to divert us with a diskette full of junk.

  He smiled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just …” He shrugged. “I never would have imagined us going to Cuba together.”

  “I always hoped to radicalize you.” I immediately regretted the joke. Why bring up the past? Too many bad memories, including the difficult favor he’d done me, including my showing up at his house when his wife was there.

  He stared down at the tablecloth. He looked as if he was going to get serious.

  For better or worse, the waiter came with the check. It was time to leave for the airport.

  By the time I sat in a Cubana de Aviación seat with no armrest, watching the overhead light panel spark, I was sick with dread, almost enough so to brave the stench of the airplane restroom. Only shame at my own cowardice kept me outwardly stoic. Valium would have been a handy backup.

  Don scowled out the window. We’d been sitting on the tarmac for hours, so he’d had lots of time to examine the still-uncleared wreckage of a charred Cubana plane. When the stewardess came down the aisle with a plate of hard candies, Don recoiled. My mouth was so dry I’d have taken one if I hadn’t noticed ants in the bowl.

  With the delay and the time difference, we landed in the early morning. We were greeted at the gate by a trim woman in high-heeled mules, a tight blue skirt, and a shirt in a matching shade. She wore a thick necklace that looked like a cloth-covered PVC pipe. I had seen a hotel desk clerk wearing a similar ornament. If it didn’t contain a microphone, Cuban women had weird taste in jewelry.

  “I am Teresa, your facilitator. You speak Spanish, yes? Please follow me. We have arranged a special customs passage.”

  I think that’s what she said. It would take me a while to hear the n’s and s’s the Cubans routinely dropped.

  We followed her through a big room with few amenities and lots of tired-looking travelers dragging bags through long lines. She ushered us into a small room with an unwashed linoleum floor, a wooden table and chairs, a one-way mirror, and nothing else.

  “Please give me your tickets and your passports. We will bring your luggage to you shortly.”

  We handed her the tickets and passports. She left, closing the door behind us. Sitting alone in a tiny room with Don brought back memories of being interrogated by him. How romantic.

  We sat for over an hour, making occasional desultory comments. When the facilitator opened the door, I caught a flash of People’s Republic uniforms behind her. She said, “Everything is in order. Your baggage is now aboard the bus.”

  She led us out to a tour bus that had seen better decades. It was full of squirming people, steaming in the muggy heat of what would certainly become a scorching morning. Judging from their exclamations of “Finally!” and “At last,” the bus had been waiting for us.

  We rattled slowly toward Havana, the facilitator standing next to the bus driver, chatting to him about a college class they had apparently taken together.

  Don stared out the window at overgrown fields dotted with banana plants and palms. Now and then, a mule-drawn cart bounced by, the drivers waving and smiling. Boys on dented bicycles sometimes rode beside us like dolphins accompanying a ferry. Don looked troubled. Unless he really had a plan, he should be.

  The bus pulled up to a hotel not far from the one I’d stayed in last time. The facilitator motioned us to get off first, then led us inside.

  “The driver will bring your baggage,” she explained. “I will take you to your room now. Soon, a car will arrive to collect you for your appointment.”

  The hotel lobby was papered in a yellowed fleur-de-lis pattern, with high ceilings and potted palms in curtained alcoves. The furniture must have been fabulous once, with carved claw feet and rosette backs. With fresh paper and a few hundred yards of reupholstery fabric, it would be a vision of prewar splendor.

  Teresa walked us up two flights of cement stairs (bad news when locals won’t ride the elevators) and down a corridor that reeked of mildew. She unlocked a door, holding it open for us.

  “Your luggage will be brought to you shortly. If you will please meet me in the lobby in one half hour?” She simultaneously frowned and smiled.

  It hadn’t occurred to us to tell anyone we’d need two rooms. We’d assumed we’d take care of it when we registered.

  I stepped inside. A breeze stirred sheer curtains in open windows, bringing in the smell of flowering vines. The room was small and drab, with one barely double-sized bed.

  When I turned around, I found Don inside, too. He was looking at the door, his lips parted as if he’d been about to say something when she closed it. I watched him do a quick survey. There was no couch here, and probably not enough room to sleep on the floor.

  There were any number of nonchalant ways to deal with the situation, I’m sure. But when he looked at me, I blushed deeply. Suddenly on the spot, I said, “What are you thinking?”

  “Honestly?” He smiled, glancing at the bed. “Thank you, Fidel.”

  A knock at the door startled a gasp out of me.

  A grinning man with few teeth handed in our bags. While he did, I fled into the bathroom. It looked as if it had been built before the first world war. I took my time washing up. When I was through, I took some deep breaths, and decided to wash up again.

  When I emerged, Don was standing at one of the windows, looking outside. He turned. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “It would be,” I agreed, “if they had paint.”

  He walked over to me. “I don’t think I’ve ever spent an ordinary minute with you, you know that? You’re a pretty e
xotic date.”

  He kissed me without the least pretense of having to do so to fool passersby. For the first time, there was no sense I’d led him into something impulsive and foolish and wrong.

  So of course there was a knock at the door.

  Our minder (as Cindy and Dennis had called these people) was standing there. “The car is early. Please come.”

  I guess one didn’t keep Señor Emilio waiting.

  Teresa led us to a Russian car. The passenger side had been scraped, maybe keyed, leaving thin troughs that were invisible until you got close. Plastic did have its advantages.

  The Moskvich driver was a dark-skinned Cuban with clothes you might see on an American golf course. Here, they were probably the equivalent of an Armani suit.

  He glanced at us in the rearview mirror fairly often. And he certainly had the time. We took a ridiculously long route to the building where Cindy, Dennis, and I had previously spoken to the Yum King. I supposed the driver had instructions to avoid the neighborhoods. Instead we drove along the Malecon, the long sea wall bordering Havana.

  We passed a huge billboard with a cartoon of a foot-stomping Cuban shouting across the water to a cartoonish Uncle Sam, “Mr. Imperialist, we are not at all afraid of you!” Fake graffiti on apartment building walls read, “Socialism or Death!” Perched above the sea wall, the black stones of an eighteenth century fortress pointed antique canons seaward.

  In twenty minutes of driving, I don’t think we passed half a dozen moving cars, only perfectly waxed specimens from the forties and fifties, lined up like museum pieces beside the road. When we finally reached the building, parking was not a problem.

  Our minder clicked along ahead of us, hurrying through a courtyard of gargantuan plants I’d only seen in gallon pots before coming here. They were clearly enjoying the sticky heat a lot more than I was.