False Dawn jl-3

by Paul Levine

  “I don’t condone his Stalinist repression of dissent, but I have never disagreed with his philosophy or principles. Have you ever listened to even one of his speeches to the Movement of Nonaligned Nations?”

  “No, I seldom have six hours to kill.”

  “His are the words of a giant who has prevailed against the concerted efforts of eight American presidents to overthrow him. Fidel has been shaped by Cuba’s tragic past, four hundred years of domination by the Spanish, fifty years by the Yankees.”

  “And now thirty years of glorious independence.”

  He looked toward a statue of the Cuban poet Jose Marti at the base of the spire. “You are being sarcastic, are you not?”

  “Yeah, in case you haven’t heard, Marxism is dead, but here you are, the number-one fan of the All-Pro commie dictator.”

  “I told you I can see Fidel’s faults, but-”

  “But he’s the lesser of two evils, right?”

  “ Si, compared to the imperialists-both American and Russian-Fidel is a santo, a saint. He believes in Cuba for Cubans, an independent country free of control by outsiders.”

  “I don’t believe this. All this time, I thought you wanted to overthrow Castro.”

  “My philosophy has been consistent for thirty-five years. Am I not entitled to my beliefs, my freedom of expression you Yankees always speak about?”

  But where does philosophy end and action begin, I wondered.

  Soto motioned for the driver to get moving. “We were the children of the centenary, Fidel Castro Ruz and I. In 1953-the one hundredth birthday of Jose Marti-we attacked the Moncada fortress in Santiago de Cuba. You should have seen Fidel then. Rugged, clear-eyed, full of purpose. Did you know he was a lawyer?”

  Just like Gorby and little old me. I wondered if the clear-eyed bearded one ever defended a condom-in-the-salad case.

  “The attack failed,” Soto said, “and we were both arrested. At the trial, Fidel gave a brilliant speech. He told the world, ‘History will absolve me.’” Soto pulled a Partagas from his guayabera pocket. He rolled the cigar under his nose but made no move to light it. “We were both imprisoned on Isla de Pinos, then exiled to Mexico. But we never gave up. We planned for a Cuba where every child could read and write and have doctors and nurses provided by the state, where we would get fair prices for the sugar and fair wages for the workers. We would burn the casinos and send the whore-mongering Yankees home. Eventually we sailed from Tuxpan on the Granma with eighty-two men. Eighty-two men to fight a war! Do you know what Castro said as the lines were cast off and we headed toward what I believed was certain death?”

  “‘Who brought the Dramamine’?”

  Soto’s eyes were thirty-five years and hundreds of miles away. “‘If I set off, I arrive; if I arrive, I enter; if I enter, I win.’”

  “And he won.”

  “ We won! Not that it was easy. Camping in the Sierra Maestra mountains, recruiting villagers for the rebel army. Fighting and running and fighting again until Batista fled like the coward he was, and eight days later, we rode triumphantly into Havana.”

  “And one dictatorship was replaced with another.”

  He shot me a look. “But the children can read, and there are doctors for all.”

  “And Mussolini made the trains run on time.”

  “Perhaps we should not speak of politics,” Severo Soto said, striking a match to his cigar, then puffing at it until an orange spark glowed at the tip. He exhaled a wisp of smoke toward the monument, and without turning to me said, “It is beautiful to behold, is it not?”

  “What, the statue?”

  “The art. You saw it, all gathered together.”

  I thought of the warehouse, the paintings and sculptures, the coins and jewels, the intricate eggs and ancient artifacts, the treasures of long-dead nobles and czars. I thought of the golden bunny in Crespo’s clenched fist. “Yes, I have seen it all.”

  Soto’s eyes glistened. “It is beautiful, is it not?”

  “It’s the stuff dreams are made of,” I said.

  S urrounded by Canadian yachts and luxury craft from South America, the rusty Polish freighter creaked against its lines and rested low in the water, its paint faded, an unlikely bearer of a priceless treasure. Maybe that was the idea. The Polonez was moored at Hemingway Marina, which sits on the shoreline of the Great Blue River, as Ernest Hemingway called the Gulf of Mexico. According to a sign near an outdoor restaurant, the writer started a marlin fishing tournament here in 1950.

  Soto and I followed Foley down a ladder. The freighter smelled of diesel fuel and stale air. Foley turned the wheel on a watertight hatch. We stepped over a metal rise and into the hold. Ten metal containers the size of trailer-trucks lined the bulkhead, five on each side. We sat at a wooden table bolted to the deck. A crewman brought us a pot of cafe Cubano, then left, sealing the door behind him.

  “Hey, Soto, you’ll be a big hero back at the Farm,” Foley said. “You’ll get a gold watch.”

  Severo Soto’s dark eyes flared. “You are a man without principles. You are a servant to expediency.”

  “Wrong, my friend. In the end, I’m loyal to my country, as you are to yours. I just gauge the way the wind is blowing and try to make a buck out of it.” Turning to me, Foley said, “Or two hundred million bucks, eh, Lassiter?”

  “I’m going to drink my coffee and let you boys play your macho spy games,” I said. “When you’re done wagging your dicks, let me know, and we’ll talk about the logistics for getting this old tug into the Gulf Stream.”

  Soto looked toward the steel containers. “Perhaps it is not too late for the wind to shift. What makes you think Fidel will let you take the art now that it is here?”

  Foley laughed like a man holding four aces. “What’s he going to do with the stuff, sell it at Sotheby’s? Become an international fence? He can’t take the heat. He’d lose the moral high ground. The few friends he has left would scorn him. The Russians would write him off if they haven’t already. The Chinese would stop sending bicycles, then where would he be, buying roller skates from the North Koreans for his great revolution?”

  “And what if we just took the ship away from you?” Soto asked, his voice even and soft.

  We? At first I thought that included me. Then I realized we referred to his old muchacho Fidel.

  “Why would you do that?” Foley asked. “The Company’s making a deal for pocket change. The Russians get their art, and everybody goes home happy.”

  “I will not be happy,” Soto said, his voice still betraying no emotion, “and I will not be home.”

  Foley smiled. The look was familiar. Did it come just before or after he broke Kharchenko’s finger? “Hey, Lassiter, you said we had a deal. Now this old geezer’s changing the terms, holding me up for a piece of the action.”

  “I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. Foley, I think you’ve got a problem here.”

  “Problem? I been dealing with problems since ‘Nam. Look, Soto, you’re screwing around with the wrong guy. I don’t care how many people you bayoneted back in ’58. You give me any shit, you’ll be shark bait in the Florida Straits.’’

  Soto shrugged his shoulders. “It is not so terrible to die for a cause that is just.” He sipped at the sweet, syrupy coffee, calmly showing Foley that he had no fear. “The riches you have stolen can be used for the people. If you do not agree to cooperate, I will use all of my power to obtain the principled result.”

  “What power? Soto, you’re two cans short of a six-pack.”

  “We are at the crossroads in history,” Soto said, barely above a whisper. “Eastern Europe has fallen. The Soviet Union no longer exists. It is now or never for the Cuban people.”

  Foley slapped the table with his hand. The sound echoed off the metal bulkheads. “You senile old bastard! So that’s what you’re talking about. Giving the merchandise to Alpha 66 or whatever you guys call yourselves these days. A bunch of potbellied old farts in fatigues, tromping arou
nd the Everglades, shooting tin cans with 22s, pretending they got Fidel in their sights.” He looked at me, shaking his head with disgust. “Is that it, Lassiter? He’s gonna fund an army of Calle Ocho shopkeepers?”

  Below us, I heard the pumps working, and somewhere on the dock, a whistle shrilled. A crane groaned from the top deck, as provisions were loaded. I looked at Severo Soto, his eyes dispassionate, his face placid. Another war to fight, or was it the same one? I thought of his ceaseless condemnation of the Americans and the Russians, the glorious memories of the revolution, his friendship, even adoration of Castro. He was a man of contradictions and conflicts, but in the end, his loyalty never wavered. Soto was a Cuban patriot, and regardless of their differences about the means to achieving a Cuba Libre, so was Fidel.

  “Foley, you’ve got it wrong,” I said. “Senor Soto’s not talking about the counterrevolution. His war is the ongoing struggle of the socialist people of Cuba. He wants arms and food and consumer goods. He wants to protect communism, not destroy it. Socialismo o muerte.” Foley looked as if he didn’t understand, so I spelled it out for him. “Come smell the cafe Cubano, Foley. The art, the money-it’s all for Fidel.”

  F or long moments, no one spoke. Above us, the crane continued to groan. A metal cable whined. Something thumped against the upper deck. There were the hydraulic whooshes and mechanical clunks, and the soft, padded noises that come from deep inside ships. Foley’s pale eyes studied Severo’s implacable face. Minutes passed. Somewhere above us, I heard water dripping against metal, a ping-ping that seemed to pace itself with my breaths.

  “So the great anticommunist turns out to be a fidelista,” Foley said finally. “A double agent, sucked in by the cult of personality. The last of a dying breed, aren’t you, fella?” He sneered in disgust, stood, paced around the wooden table, then sat down again. He looked like a man who didn’t know how to express his anger and frustration. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Look what Castro did to you.”

  “I still have one arm,” Soto said.

  “Look what he did to your country, aligning it with the Soviets.”

  “Unfortunately, your government gave him no choice.”

  “Look what he did to his buddies in the army, General Ochoa and General de la Guardia.”

  “They betrayed him,” Soto said.

  “And you? What will you do, give him the ability to stay in power a couple more years, postpone the inevitable. He’s a dinosaur, a snake, a bearded grandmother.”

  Soto never raised his voice. “Fidel will survive with or without the Russians. Hard currency now will give him time to pursue what we planned in the mountains in ’56.”

  “Christ, listen to him!” Foley exploded. “Lassiter, help me out here. Earn your fee.”

  “Senor Soto,” I said, “you are a man of high ideals. Becoming an international criminal will not advance your cause.”

  Soto shook his head sadly. “The international criminals are the Western nations. For hundreds of years, they have exploited the peoples of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. They stole the gold and silver, plundered the sugar, coffee, cacao, tea, and cotton. They have endless thirst for the raw materials of the third world. Your own government commits heinous acts of international terrorism in pursuit of oil. But no force on earth can shackle human dignity and freedom forever. Jose Marti said that ‘rights are taken, not asked for; they are wrested, not begged for.’”

  Foley slammed his fist down, sending the coffeepot skittering across the table and crashing to the floor. “Bullshit! I’ve been to a hundred countries, and I’ve had it up to here with that third-world bullshit. In case you been asleep the last few years, let me give you some news: The Iron Curtain has fallen down.”

  “Cuba hasn’t fallen,” Soto said. “Fidel will lead us to our destiny.”

  Robert Foley ran a hand through his short brown hair and seemed to be sizing up his situation. He didn’t ask for his lawyer’s advice. The U.S. government had approved the deal, but Soto was threatening to blow it. From every indication, he wanted to steal the art, leaving Foley high and dry, and depriving a deserving lawyer of a ten-million-dollar fee.

  Unless Soto was bluffing.

  Maybe he didn’t have any authority from Castro. Maybe he was out of his mind. If Fidel wanted the art, why weren’t there troops surrounding this old tug right now? That’s what I was about to advise my client when I heard a noise above us. A shout in Spanish, the thump of boots on steel, three dozen men descending ladders to the hold. The hatch swung open, and they fanned out into a semicircle with military precision. The men wore fatigues and combat boots and carried Kalashnikov rifles.

  Foley sat still as a statue while a Cuban officer approached. The officer said something in Spanish. Soto nodded. Two soldiers came forward and positioned themselves on either side of Foley, who finally stirred. “First bastard who lays a hand on me is gonna lose a vital organ.”

  The officer leaned close and whispered to Soto, allowing him to remain seated, showing him respect.

  Foley’s voice grew louder. “Soto, I got a deal with the Company. You can’t go freelancing, you crazy bastard!” Foley’s eyes darted from the soldiers to me. “Lassiter, what the fuck’s going on?”

  Soto had told me, but I hadn’t been listening. Now it was clear. “Senor Soto detests the Russians,” I said, “and it doesn’t matter who’s in charge: Gorbachev, Yanayev, Yeltsin, or a committee of Siberian polar bears. The Matisse that hangs in his study, Satyr and Nymph, reminds him of Russia and Cuba in just that order. He hates Cuba’s dependence on the Russians. He wants Cuba to be a free, independent socialist state, not under the thumb of the Russians or the Americans, because both are corrupt.” I looked at Soto. “How my doing?”

  “You are a more thoughtful man than I had believed. What are your politics?”

  “Don’t have any. I distrust all politicians, but I’ve always believed in the American dream. I believe anybody with guts and brains who’s willing to work hard can make it.”

  “The sad truth,” Soto said, “is that there is little difference between American capitalism and Russian socialism, even when there was such a thing. The essence of capitalism is profit from the sweat of others, and so too was the essence of Russian communism. The elite in Russia were just as fat as the robber barons in the States, and the poor were just as poor. Gorbachev’s perestroika merely mimicked the West.”

  Foley barked a laugh. “Wake up, Soto. The Russians need the Americans.”

  “To go to a market economy, that is true. But it is shameful for an avowed Marxist to do so. And why did the old guard seek to oust Gorbachev? To reform their socialist society to conform to the founding principles, to say with Lenin that ‘the state is the proletariat, the advance guard of the working class’? No! They believed the system is theirs for the plundering. In Russia, as in the States, it does not matter who is in charge. Each is equally corrupt.”

  Foley eyed the two soldiers who hovered over him. “Soto, you know what you hate. The Russians and the Americans like each other. We have the same desires, the same needs.”

  “ Si, you all need to be rich. But to be rich, some must be poor. Who is to speak for them?”

  “Who appointed you? Why don’t you hold an election here and see how many votes Fidel gets, or did you see what happened in Nicaragua and decide not to risk it?”

  Soto showed a sad, tolerant smile. “Lenin also said that ‘liberty is so precious that it must be rationed.’ There will come a time for free elections, but only after Cuba is already free, not when it is quarantined by your government and indentured to the corrupt Russians. The Americans now say Cuba should follow Russia’s example, but should we prostitute ourselves again to be handmaiden to both the Russians and the Americans? Or should we be strong and independent? Should we-”

  “Make a revolutionary statement the world will never forget,’’ I said.

  Foley threw up his hands. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I don
’t know,” I said. “You’d better ask Senor Soto. It’s his line.”

  “It is not your concern,” Soto said. He snapped orders to the officer in rapid-fire Spanish. The two soldiers grabbed Foley by each arm and lifted him from his chair.

  Soto’s voice was soothing. “You will not be harmed, Senor Foley. There is a hacienda for you in Cienfuegos. Two hundred acres not far from the bay. You can watch the pesetero ferries and the cargo ships unloading at the fertilizer plant.”

  Foley struggled unsuccessfully to free his arms. “Fertilizer plant! What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve got a villa waiting for me in Lausanne.”

  “Not feasible, I’m afraid. Your property here is adjacent to our first nuclear power plant. It is quite scenic, really, right on the water. You will live comfortably there on a pension as if you were a retired colonel in the Cuban army. Life will not be luxurious, but neither will you starve.”

  “Starve! There’s two hundred million dollars being wired today to my account on Grand Cayman.”

  “No,” Soto said, “I countermanded that order. The money will be wired to your account in Aruba.”

  Foley rubbed his chin. His eyes were moist. “I don’t have an account in Aruba.”

  “Ah, how unfortunate. Perhaps the account number I provided Langley was incorrect. I suppose we will have to impound the funds for safekeeping.”

  We again.

  “You thief, you cocksucking communist crook!” The soldiers tugged at Foley, pulling him toward the hatch. I remembered Foley subduing Kharchenko so effortlessly, but now, surrounded by troops with automatic weapons, his body went slack, his feet dragging across the deck. The last words I heard him say were to me. “Lassiter, what are you going to do about these bastards?”

  I didn’t know.

  “Sue them?” I suggested.

  26

  CUATRO DE JULIO

  Severo Soto didn’t say where we were headed. After the soldiers left with Foley, there was only a skeleton crew left on the freighter. All Cubans in camouflage gear. Maybe the Polish crew got a hacienda next to Foley’s. Soto stood on the bridge with the captain, a wiry, leather-skinned man with white hair and grease-stained clothes.