Havana Twist

by Lia Matera

  While the soldier and Don handed Marules into the car, the general said to me, “We have little equipment and medicine, but we are still able to separate a real attack from a convenient excuse.”

  “Willa,” Don called. “Go with him. Make sure he’s—”

  “No!” The general waved the car away. Don barely got clear before the soldier pulled the door shut and the car shot down the street.

  “You don’t need that gun,” Don said. “We’re not doing anything here. If you didn’t have our room bugged, we’d be there right now finding out why he came to see us.”

  The general kept the gun pointed at the ground as if it were a natural extension of his arm. And given the life he’d led, perhaps it was. With his other hand, he pulled a Havana Twist from his shirt pocket and expertly sliced off the end.

  “Tell me more about your friend,” he said, patting his pants pockets.

  “His name is Martin Marules. He called in some favors to get us over here.”

  “Ah, so that was the famous Marules?” The general clamped the cigar between his teeth and lit it. Smoke curled around his face. The glowing tip showed him looking equally cynical and interested. “You know he is a great patron of the arts in Cuba, do you not?”

  “I met him two days ago, so no, I didn’t know that.” Don had apparently decided not to mention having met Marules in San Diego as well.

  “Shall we walk back to your hotel?”

  I was relieved to hear him say this. I was afraid, after Marules’s warning, that we were about to be arrested.

  We started toward the hotel, walking at a slow saunter. The general seemed in no hurry to part company.

  “Martin Marules helps support the writers’ union and also a film festival which brings many tourists to Cuba. He has donated millions—yes, you look surprised—millions for the restoration of our theaters. That is why he has in his pocket such … special friends here in Cuba.”

  We slowed almost to a stop. I was jumping out of my skin with worry, wondering whether Martin’s heart attack was genuine or diversionary. But I couldn’t think of any way to ask Don.

  “You need not be concerned for Señor Marules—or perhaps he prefers compañero Marules, in the old style,” the general said to me. “But these are modern times, and now the rich are well-protected in Cuba. We fought ferociously to liberate and protect the poor. But in the end, as usual, it is the rich to whom we grovel. We reclaimed our land and cast out the thieves who had enslaved us to labor on it. And yet, to whom do we cater now? To the rich Spaniards of Mexico. And to the Americans, because now as then, they have dollars. It used to be the Americans took what they pleased from us. And now? Now we must sell you even that which we cannot spare. Because without your dollars, we cannot trade with other countries for the things which you deny us—food, medicine, plaster, paint, automobiles, fuel. One way or another, the dollar has long ruled Cuba.” He puffed on his cigar. “Except, of course, when it was the ruble.”

  We loitered there, hardly moving. It was difficult not to force the pace. I was getting a major case of the creeps, wandering the streets of Havana with a general indulging in bitter reflections.

  Don said, “If you’re blaming Marules—”

  “Oh no,” said the general, “it is useless to blame the rich. Rich and poor alike, it takes two to make a bargain.” He held out his cigar. “But when I think of my shoeless father, I find the bargain very bitter.”

  I was beginning to think the general had been making a bargain with a bottle of rum.

  Standing in the middle of a blacked-out street in his fatigues and Fidel hat, his machine gun dangling, he might have resembled the posters in the CDR windows—Viva Che!—except that his posture bespoke weariness and defeat.

  With a sigh, he said, “Do you find it difficult to enforce the law in San Francisco, Señor Lieutenant?”

  “All but impossible, most of the time,” Don admitted.

  “In Cuba, it is not so difficult as you would expect. With poverty, there is always some theft and prostitution, even violence. But not as often as you would guess. We are lucky in our people, who have a natural benevolence. Many of our forefathers were slaves, imported from Africa to cut cane for sugar. I believe there is a genetic memory, a gratitude to have survived the great disease of slavery. And we have made it our mission to ensure one hundred percent literacy and one hundred percent integration. So we are a nation of college-educated descendants of slaves. Our very cells remember the yoke and recoil from injustice. We are the perfect socialists. Where there is crime, it is born of true desperation, it is an aberration. Whereas among your people, well … I will wager you cannot make this claim about them, Señor.”

  I was surprised to hear Surgelato laugh. “Maybe not,” he said. “That’s why we try to keep our legal system fair.”

  “And your Mafia, your gangs, your ghettoes, they are fair?”

  Don shrugged. “We wouldn’t codify tolerance if we didn’t have a lot to tolerate.”

  “Ha!” The general clapped him on the back. “You cannot say I have not tolerated much from you tonight. You cannot say you have been discouraged from speaking your mind.”

  “Then go one step farther. Tell us what’s going on. Why let us come here, then watch us every minute and keep us busy doing nothing? Why keep us in the dark? Why not tell us what you know? To you, maybe it’s politics. Maybe it’s paranoia. I don’t know, I’m no historian, I’m no scholar. But to Willa, it’s her mother.”

  “You want the truth, compañero Lieutenant?” The general tucked his machine gun into a loop on his belt. “The truth is that you can search for what is lost, but you cannot find what is not here. There is nothing in Cuba for you to do except to be observed by us, to be our panda.”

  “Panda?” It obviously wasn’t something Don was used to being called.

  “Ah yes.” There was a smile in the general’s voice. “The Chinese have shipped to us a panda. It has been traveling to schools in our small cities as a gift from our new friends. And you, when you come to us from the bamboo forest of San Francisco, are you any less remarkable? Are you less worthy of study and admiration?”

  “And we’re going to get about as much out of this trip as the panda did.”

  The general smiled. “The panda does not appreciate the admiration of our children. It thinks only of bamboo. But you? I will bow to you tonight.” He inclined his head. “And perhaps you will value the gesture.”

  We stood there a minute. If Don knew what to make of this speech, he was way ahead of me.

  With a sigh, the general began walking again. We walked slightly in front of him, an acknowledgment that he was armed, even if the gun was now holstered.

  Before we crossed the street to the hotel, the general said, “One moment.”

  We turned. The hotel lights seemed bright after an hour in the blacked-out neighborhood. Even at this distance, they lit the general’s face.

  After a sleepless night, there were bags under his eyes and wrinkles around them. White hairs gleamed in his beard, outnumbering the gray ones.

  “A piece of advice. For the sake of friendship between us, though it is withheld from your country to mine. Juan Emilio is often absent when he should be present. No one remarks on it—and that in itself is very remarkable. I will tell you what I believe: A favor has been asked of Emilio.” He made a gesture under his chin as if tracing a pointed beard. Referring to Castro? “And Emilio has carried it out, or is carrying it out. And while this is so, he is the favorite son. The old comrades in arms—históricos, as they call us now—we must look on in envy. We have given birth to the revolution, and we have carried it to Nicaragua, to Zaire, to Angola. But the históricos cannot give what we do not have. We cannot give dollars.”

  He made a sweeping bow, turning and walking back into the neighborhood.

  I watched him, his cigar smoke catc
hing the light after the rest of him had disappeared into shadow.

  Unless I’d misinterpreted him, he’d just told us Señor Emilio could do no wrong as long as he brought Castro dollars. And that, to this end, Emilio was traveling secretly.

  Was Emilio visiting the United States in search of Americans willing to donate goods and money? Was my mother setting up his lodging and appointments?

  I remembered Marules. “The heart attack?” I asked Don. “Was it real?”

  “No.” He stared into the darkness as if the general might reemerge from it. “Marules is Emilio’s ally. And it sounded to me from what Marules said that Emilio was out to get the general. So I didn’t know if Marules was safe with him. I figured I’d leave it up to Marules. If he didn’t feel secure, he’d go along with me, he’d pretend it was a heart attack. If I was wrong, he’d say he was fine. It was just insurance.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we go collect him at the hospital, and I guess”—he gave me a quizzical glance—”we get the hell out of here?”

  “Yes!” The general had as much as told us my mother wasn’t here. What was the point in staying?

  Don stepped closer, putting his arm around me. “You’re okay with leaving the panda behind?”

  31

  For once, we were glad to find the tourism cop waiting in his car outside the hotel. He seemed startled to see us. He must have expected his radio communication to result in our being picked up, as indeed one of us had.

  “We need a ride,” Don told him. “Our friend was taken to the hospital by your military police. We need to get over there.”

  The cop, light-skinned and strong-chinned, seemed nearly paralyzed with indecision. He slid back into his car to use a radio attached to the dashboard by a curly wire. A couple of minutes later, he motioned us into the car. I wasn’t sure whether he’d gotten a superior’s okay, or whether he’d checked the nearest hospital to see if a tourist had been admitted.

  Either way, we had a lift.

  The car was old, with brittle leather seats and no gadgetry except the radio. In America, it might have belonged to a working-class high school kid. Here, it was the nicest thing on the road, though the streets were lined with fine antiques for which there was no gasoline.

  The hospital was close by. We got there easily enough—the trick would be leaving. Had Marules been able to reach Señor Emilio at this hour? Would a car be coming for us?

  The tourism cop accompanied us into a waiting room. It was empty except for a young woman sleeping on a chair.

  The receptionist bent her head over something that looked like a twenty-year-old textbook. Even in the hospital, the lights were low. She looked up. “Yes?” Her gaze wandered to the cop and lingered there.

  “Did you admit a man having a heart attack about half an hour ago? His name is Marules.” I hoped she wouldn’t say he wasn’t here. I hoped we hadn’t lost Martin, too.

  “Ah yes,” she said. “I believe he is being prepared for surgery.”

  I translated for Don. His face reflected my startled horror.

  He stepped forward. “Tell her we have to see him. That it’s urgent.”

  Apparently she understood English. She replied, though still in Spanish, “I will get the doctor. But it may not be possible to see him now, Señor.”

  “Get the doctor,” I agreed.

  The sleeping woman roused, sitting up and exclaiming, “Raúl? There is news?”

  As the receptionist left her station, she called back, “Not yet, María. Go back to sleep.”

  I looked around the waiting room. It contained nothing but scarred wooden chairs arranged in rows along the walls. The linoleum had yellowed to an unpleasant ochre.

  A young man in frayed scrubs returned with the receptionist. The stethoscope around his neck looked vintage. He shook our hands.

  “Your friend is fine,” he told us. “But we are readying surgery for another man, and I will not have the opportunity to speak long with you. We have given your friend a bed so that we may observe him overnight. It is best if you return in the morning.”

  “No,” I said, “we have to see him now. Can you take us to him?”

  “We wish a minimum of disturbance, please.” He tried again. “It is better if you come in the morning.”

  “Please take us to him.”

  He sighed, nodding. The receptionist returned to her desk. The cop stayed with us.

  As the doctor led us down a dimly lighted hallway, the cop asked him about the upcoming operation. To my surprise, the doctor described a technique pioneered at this hospital. It involved grafting abdominal muscle tissue around a damaged heart and using a pacemaker to cue the transplanted muscle to contract at proper intervals.

  From what I could see inside the hospital rooms, there were no amenities there—no trays of bandages and tubes, no IVs, no computerized monitors. Just patients in beds. And, apparently, surgeons able to innovate brilliantly with very few materials.

  The doctor pointed us into a room, then excused himself. As Don went in to talk to Marules, I turned to the tourist cop.

  “Thank you for the ride. But we’d like some privacy now.”

  He squinted as if not approving of the concept. But he said, “I will be in the waiting room.”

  I entered to find Marules looking quite hale in his hospital gown. He sat on the edge of a bed.

  “Thank God you have not been detained! I have been in such fear.” He pulled Don into an embrace, clapping him on the back. “I have telephoned the assistant of Juan Emilio. A car is coming. And an inquiry into your whereabouts has commenced.” He scowled. “We will ask the driver to communicate that the search for you should stop, that you are here now. It is very difficult to use the telephone. The service has been limited to hospitals and police at this hour.”

  Hospitals, police, and, it seemed, interior ministers.

  “Emilio doesn’t mind going public about helping us?” Don asked him. “If we drive off in his car, there won’t be any question who got us out of the country.”

  Marules stood, crossing to a scarred metal closet to retrieve his clothes. He didn’t say anything.

  Don looked at me and shook his head. Clearly, this worried him.

  But by now, I’d have risked anything, trusted anyone, to get away from here. Lack of sleep was simultaneously magnifying my paranoia and forcing me to have a little faith. When Marules retrieved his clothes, Don and I went into the hall so he could dress.

  “No one here will recognize the car,” I said hopefully.

  He pointed behind me. The tourist cop was leaning against the wall, still waiting for us.

  The cop wouldn’t let us climb into a car until he learned who’d sent it. So much for secrecy.

  “He’ll be told to keep quiet about it,” I ventured. “Or he won’t be believed.” Or something, anything that meant we could hightail it to the airport.

  The smell of cigar smoke wafted in from the waiting room. I could hear the clomping of boots, the rumble of men’s voices. The cop went out to take a look.

  Don opened the door to Marules’s room. “Trouble,” he said. “We’ve got to go now. Right now. No, leave that.”

  Marules, as a consequence, walked out in his bare feet, carrying his shoes and jacket. We ducked around the corner, running down a corridor toward what I hoped was a back exit.

  We could hear boots in the hallway now, probably heading toward the room we’d just fled.

  The back door opened into a small courtyard separated from the street by a row of overgrown trellises. We ran through a gap between them.

  Headlights caught us hesitating, wondering which direction to take. As the car approached, its driver called out, “Señor, aquí!”

  The car was in front of us before we could take a step toward it. The driver pulled away from the curb be
fore our doors were even closed.

  Two men in fatigues chased us partway down the street. The tourism police car screeched out of the front lot, following close on our heels. I turned in my seat, watching the cop pull the radio off his dashboard. In the United States, he’d have had a gun mounted there.

  He spoke into the radio for a while. Then his head jerked back as if in surprise. He talked some more.

  Our driver was barreling as fast as a person in a plastic Russian car can go. There was no traffic on the street to slow him.

  But we didn’t outrun the tourism cop—we didn’t have to. I watched him slip the radio onto its hook and slow down, dropping back. His headlights stopped filling Emilio’s car with light. He pulled over and made a wide U-turn, either heading back to the hospital or getting on with his shift.

  Dispatch had apparently told him not to pursue. Either Señor Emilio had taken precautions or the dispatcher had a license-plate list of cars that weren’t to be disturbed.

  I could have wept with relief. I didn’t want to look at Don. I was afraid he’d appear troubled or fearful or stubborn, that he’d bonded with the General Miguel, his fellow law enforcement official, and wouldn’t want to cooperate with the general’s upstart rival, Emilio. That he had found some reason—perhaps an obvious and urgent one, I didn’t really care—to stop this car. I was afraid he’d persuade us to return to the hotel, with its bugging devices and spies down the hall.

  But whatever was on Don’s mind, he didn’t say anything. He just looked out the window. On my other side, Marules lay back against the seat, his eyes closed as if he were praying.

  For once, we cut through neighborhoods instead of tracing the Malecon. It was a quick trip out of Havana and onto the highway.

  When the airport came into sight, we left the main road, cutting across the tarmac to a cyclone-fenced area. The driver hopped out of the car, unlocking the padlock on a chain wrapped several times around the poles of a sturdy gate. He scraped it over the cement, opening it just wide enough for our sedan to pass through. He drove us inside, then got out again, reclosing the gate. Up ahead, I could see lights glowing through airport windows. Two planes stood on the runway. One was dark, showing no activity. The other had workers swarming around it, a few on foot, some on small vehicles.