Island that Dared

by Dervla Murphy

  During the following decades many Cuban migrants landed on Key West’s docks, either off their own usually unseaworthy small boats or having been rescued from rafts by Coast Guard vessels. As most chose to move on to Miami, Key West’s present colony is small and not easily accessible to visitors.

  I was lucky to meet Mario in the famous ‘Five Brothers Grocery’, a Cuban corner shop, pokey but stocking an extraordinary variety of goods. From the Brothers’ mini-kitchen come delicious Cuban sandwiches, made while you wait, and Key West’s best café con leche (why it’s famous). In a long queue Mario stood behind me and at once communication was easy. Then we relaxed with our horrible polystyrene cups on the bench outside and I remarked on the wholesome absence of such throwaway ‘conveniences’ in Cuba.

  Mario had left Havana in 1970, aged twenty-five, and settled in Key West because he detested Miami’s anti-Castroism. ‘I felt like I was living in an unhealthy swamp with no good air to breath. I’d left for the same reason you, as a writer, would have left. You wouldn’t be happy in a country where you couldn’t express all your true thoughts and feelings. Still I admire the good the Revolution was doing for most – my bad karma, being in the repressed minority! So I sailed away not hating el comandante but seeing no space for me in his world. You could meet many like me in Miami but having to keep quiet, not allowed not to hate Castro! More repression! In Key West there’s space for all sorts.’

  That evening I supped with Mario in his bungalow on Atlantic Boulevard and was given the addresses of four Havana families with whom he has kept in touch and occasionally visited – before Bush II tightened the embargo screws.

  Obeying numerous ‘Détour’ signs, my Greyhound bus approached Miami airport circuitously through what seemed to be a war zone. Deep yawning craters and long wide chasms were overlooked by mountains and ridges of jagged rock and raw earth from which protruded palm tree carcasses and shreds of picket fencing. Three lines of towering, thick, concrete pillars marched in parallel through this desolation. Hamlets of prefab metal huts squatted amidst patches of mangled shrubs. Scarlet or canary yellow machines, the size of small cathedrals, moved to and fro between the pillars, ponderously purposeful. ‘A highway extension,’ explained the driver. So in a sense this was a war zone: the internal combustion engine versus The Rest.

  Check-in time for my Kingston flight was 6.30 a.m. next day and Key West friends had advised me to endure the Airport Hotel, in January the cheapest available.

  At 4.00 p.m., on a bus to ‘downtown’, my fellow-passengers were gum-chewing airport workers, sitting separately, four plugged into their i-Pods, two frenetically texting. In Cuba, deprived of such gadgets, they would have been animatedly conversing, whether or not acquainted. Electronic communications, I’ve come to realise, significantly impede my work as a wandering writer primarily interested in people. Where strangers converge – queuing for something, or sharing public transport – it used to be easy to gather ‘raw material’ and sometimes to establish a more than transient relationship. Not any more. Nowadays most strangers are equipped to remain strangers, each individual encapsulated within his/her personal circle. Of course I exaggerate, everywhere there are exceptions – but not many.

  Near the end of Seventh Street I disembarked, city map in hand, and deduced that I was seeing downtown at its worst, on a Sunday afternoon. In this district of wide, almost deserted streets, often in the shadow of elevated motorways, the buildings were drab and featureless, all the shops shut – their windows massively protected – and an odd quietness prevailed. The few pedestrians were ill-clad Latinos, drifting around in small silent groups or slumped on pavement benches sharing bottles of something unlabelled. I paused beside a young seated couple feeding water to their baby from a half-naggin rum bottle with teat attached. Did they know of any nearby source of cerveza? For a moment they stared at me, expressionless. Then the young woman laughed, said something that made her partner smile and pointed to a nearby arcade, under a motorway. Within that long tunnel I saw three pot-bellied rats running across overhead struts. Two premises were open. In a dingy Cuban café, beneath flyblown tourist posters of Havana, threadbare, unshaven elderly men played dominoes. Opposite, in a large general store, Spanish-language newspapers and magazines filled the rack by the door and I was the only customer. My arrival seemed to be ignored by the young mulatto storekeeper but his eyes followed me and this displeased his small son, sitting on the counter; they had been playing some computer game. The little fellow wore his Sunday best, a military uniform with a row of medals across his chest. Beside him were a toy radio-telephone, gas-mask and machinegun. (Was he being groomed for another invasion of Cuba?) As US beer is drinkable only when unavoidable, I bought a European brew. Like many Cuban-Americans, the storekeeper spoke no English and didn’t even try to understand my halting Spanish.

  Turning back towards Seventh Street I quickened my pace, suddenly feeling a mite twitchy about being still on foot, downtown, after dark – the sort of feeling one never has, at any hour, in any district of Havana. When an agitated woman joined me on the bus-stop seat as the sun was setting, this twitchiness seemed excusable. With one hand she held together a torn blouse, the other was clutching the waistband of a long flounced skirt.

  ‘They took my belt too!’ she said. ‘Fuck them!’

  Gloria had a developing black eye and a badly grazed cheek. Two Latino youths had observed her buying hash (‘only three puffs’) from a regular contact, followed her a little way, punched her in the face, pinned her to a wall and taken the hash, US$20, her cell phone and Walkman. ‘I only had a Walkman, I can’t afford an i-Pod.’

  I opened one of my tins and as we shared it Gloria talked non-stop. ‘I’m an exception here in this city, a white real American, born here in Miami, always staying here! I’m a graduate, a mortician, fully qualified to embalm – it’s a three-year course. I’m an educated person, it’s because I’ve bad habits I lose jobs. Who wants to be aged forty-eight on food-stamps, only a trailer to live in with two butches and they fight all night … They go for shoot-ups, I go for hash when I can get it. Heroin’s fuckin’ deadly, I hate it. What do you go for?’

  I admitted to being archaic, only going for alcohol and nicotine. Gloria looked sympathetic and pronounced, ‘Alcohol’s the worst, killed my parents in their fifties. Takes big pressure to make me drink – like now, after being hurt.’ Gingerly she touched her eye and cheek-bone. ‘This evening I might be drunk!’

  I wondered how someone on food-stamps could afford to get drunk. But then Gloria, even at forty-eight and despite her ‘bad habits’, remained physically an attractive woman.

  Chapter 8

  From thirty thousand feet up, Cuba looked endearingly small; approaching one coast, the other was already visible and gazing affectionately down I could identify certain lakes. On the drought-brown land pale threads linked towns – long, straight, shadeless roads, crossing the island’s flat centre. Cuba is often spoken of as the answer to a cyclist’s prayer (lack of motor traffic, lack of hills) but this cyclist likes hills and does not like Caribbean temperatures. So I had decided to rely on public transport and my feet.

  Air Jamaica had recently acquired new owners who tended to overinvest: so said the Miami Herald. Our airbus was less than half-full and at 9.30 a.m. ersatz champagne was served in tumblers by tall bony air hostesses wearing supercilious smiles and too much make-up. Those unaccustomed to champagne for breakfast had to pay US$1 for a half-litre of water. At any hour I dislike champagne (even the real thing) and I fumed inwardly, remembering the cost of the ticket. Then I brooded over ‘freedom of movement’, a concept allegedly dear to White House occupants. It’s preposterous that I, an Irish citizen with a valid Cuban visa in my passport, should have to fly over the island before returning from Kingston.

  At Montego Bay most passengers ‘deplaned’ and I talked with Roberto, a plump, slightly foppish young man who had been doing sums on his laptop all the way from Miami. He, too, was Havana-b
ound, the son of émigrés going to visit two granduncles. The embargo allowed that if he spent no more than US$50 per day in Cuba.

  I laughed. ‘Who checks? How can the US authorities know what you spend?’

  Roberto also laughed and made a rude gesture. ‘It’s all plain crazy! This embargo’s bad for American business and good for Castro. He can go on punishing Cuba and blaming the imperialists. Not that it’s much important now, he’ll soon be gone.’

  I asked, ‘Would you want to live in Cuba?’

  ‘Me? Live there? Hell no! Though I guess my parents would. They left in’80 – Mariel people. They’ve not been back so they keep sorta sentimental about Havana. This is my second look, I know how the place is after fifty years of a one-man power-trip! I’ve good contacts for when there’s democracy but I’m no way sentimental about that shitty city. I’ll be a useful link for my bosses, coming and going, making more contacts – never living there!’

  As we were fastening our seat-belts I asked, ‘Are you sure most Cubans want US-style democracy?’

  Roberts stared at me, suddenly suspicious. Was I on the wrong side? His face tightened as he replied, ‘Wouldn’t you want freedom if you’d grown up shit scared of Communism?’

  I nodded. ‘For sure I would. It’s just that the Cubans I’ve met don’t seem shit scared of anything. Discontented, maybe, wanting more consumer goods and reasonable public transport. But that’s another issue.’

  En route for Kingston, we flew low over green, densely populated Jamaica, its steep red-earth tracks winding up and down between ridgetop hamlets. Norman Manley Airport, guarded by the blue bulk of nearby mountains, felt like an extension of the US and was being elaborately extended, with scaffolding and cranes and ladders and orange nylon fencing and ‘NO ADMISSION!’ notices all over the place. My English travel agent had assured me that passengers in transit can avoid the immigration queue – are dealt with at a separate desk – and that my name would be on the ‘In Transit’ list. But it wasn’t. Patiently I queued at that desk, only to be told, brusquely, to join the immigrants’ queue. Then another set-back: I hadn’t filled in my immigration form on the plane – why not? It should have been handed to the officer at the immigration hall entrance for processing before I presented my passport. Why hadn’t I filled it in? Meekly I explained that I’d been told I didn’t need to … Who told me I didn’t need to? Who was trying to dodge Jamaica’s immigration laws? The vibes were bad. ‘You have disrespected Jamaica’s rules!’ A scowling official thrust a form into my hand – so roughly that it crumpled – and sent me to the back of a long queue. By then two more flights had come in.

  All this surprised me. Most countries dependent on tourism at least feign a welcome where the foreign currency flows in. It also disappointed me; I’d been looking forward to encountering Jamaicans on their home island, in charge of their own affairs. Then I reminded myself that no airport brings out the best in either passengers or staff; I would surely get a more favourable second impression in Kingston – ten miles away. I swore aloud on discovering the next complication. Because I’d got my boarding card for Havana I must now accept the ‘in transit’ status previously denied me and spend six hours hanging around an airport where the outside temperature was 85°F, the natives were morose, the kiosk bookshop stocked unreadables and ‘extensions’ had closed the bar.

  Fast forward to 5.00 p.m. when I made my way to an overcrowded departure lounge and spotted six English businessmen en route to Havana. Eavesdropping, I gathered they had been conferring with Cuban-American colleagues and were hopeful of clinching a few tourism-related deals. British (official) loyalty to Bush II has limited UK investment in Fidel’s ‘repressive’ state, leaving Spaniards, Italians and Canadians to take the biggest slices of the Cuban cake – such as it is. But individual entrepreneurs refuse to miss an opportunity because of that silly old embargo.

  Our boarding cards showed that flight JM 0061Y, originally scheduled to depart at 6.30, had been re-scheduled to 8.30, boarding time 8.10. But at 6.40 an Englishman on his way back from the loo chanced to notice a screen announcement confirming Flight JM 0061Y’s 6.30 departure ‘On Time’. Consternation! We dispersed, rushing hither and thither, demanding reliable information. Two Air Jamaica officials, tracked down with difficulty, confirmed the confirmation. The Englishmen then let their upper lips hang loose and had a collective tantrum. My reaction was different; as someone secretly afraid of flying (never mind the statistics) I went tense and wondered – if Air Jamaica can’t get its scheduling sorted out, what about remembering which screws need tightening? Moments later a third official came striding towards us, his uniform several ranks more important than the others’. He was grey-haired and very tall and he spoke softly and looked infuriatingly amused. There was no need to fuss, it was a minor error, some screen operator hadn’t got a message, we should have relied on our boarding cards. ‘Enjoy your flight!’ said he, before disappearing through a nearby doorway marked ‘NO ADMISSION’.

  An hour later we were aloft in a three-quarters empty airbus being offered more ersatz champagne. (Who, where, had over-produced?) Roberto recalled a more realistic thirty-seater having previously done the eighty-five mile Kingston-Havana hop.

  At José Martí Airport a sour young immigration officer, reeking of cheap scent and sporting black nail polish, needed to align her mind-set with the Tourist Board’s. My visa seemed to trouble her – I’d spent November in Cuba, why was I back so soon? Truthfully I replied, ‘Because I love your country!’ Then a small reluctant smile replaced the frown and her computer received my details.

  As we left the airport it was raining, heavily and persistently, to the horror of the Irish couple with whom I was sharing a taxi. They came from Co. Galway, where it rains most of the time, and had been holidaying in Jamaica. ‘Our daughter has a very big job near Kingston with the past two years. Every month she’s off to Cuba for a week-end – loves this place! She’s booked us into a lovely old hotel that used to be some famous person’s house – some Spaniard built it. But we didn’t expect rain!’

  Our driver, Orestes, spoke fluent English; his day job was teaching the language. ‘Nobody expects January rain,’ he said. ‘And it’s bad for the cane harvest, though now that doesn’t much matter. It’s symbolic: cane out, tourists in! Cuba’s changing fast.’

  ‘For the better?’ I suggested.

  Orestes glanced at me over his shoulder and laconically replied – ‘Too soon to judge.’

  When he had helped to carry the couple’s ludicrously bulky luggage into El Comendador and we were on the way to San Rafael I asked, ‘Is there any fear of US meddling, after Fidel?’ (I was being deliberately tactless.)

  ‘None,’ Orestes stated flatly – a monosyllable indicating that Cuba’s future leadership was not up for detailed discussion with tourists.

  Centro felt like my Cuban home territory – its decrepitude of no concern to UNESCO, its streets almost traffic-free, many of its residents recognising me, welcoming me back, enquiring about the missing niños. The dogs, too, wagged their recognition, especially Pluto, the white Scottie (a Scottie with minor modifications) who quietly dominated San Rafael’s canine population, sitting on his door step looking lordly.

  On my way to visit Anna and Fabian Ramose (Mario’s friends) I saw fewer tourists than in November though January and February are Cuba’s most comfortable months. A coolish wind tempers day-long sunshine and occasional rain storms lay the dust. (Admittedly, that dust becomes a lot of mud.)

  Many of Old Havana’s ancient mansions are so obviously falling apart that one ascends a nobly sweeping staircase with trepidation, wondering when that semi-detached roof-beam on the left will at last obey the law of gravity, or when a certain crumbling, bulging, rain-stained gallery wall, retaining vivid patches of floral friezes, will finally let itself go. These slum-like vistas reinforce the strolling tourists’ conviction that Cubans live close to destitution on their average monthly wage of two hundred and NP49 (US$
9.58), a figure repeatedly quoted to ‘prove’ Castroism’s failure. Using the peso/dollar exchange rate, without explaining Cuba’s economic realities, is a perniciously effective propaganda device.

  Assume a family of four, the parents between them earning NP498. (Whatever the job, men and women earn equal pay.) At the time of writing their average monthly expenses were:

  Rent NP26.60 ($1.02) – if they belong to the fifteen per cent of Cubans who do not own their home.

  Electricity NP13.60 ($0.52)

  Cooking gas NP 7.63 ($0.29)

  Telephone NP 6.25 ($0.24)

  Water NP 1.30 ($0.05)

  Food rations NP45.56 ($1.75)

  Total NP100.98

  Since the Special Period the food ration has lasted no more than a fortnight and must be supplemented in state-run markets or by private trading, in national pesos, with individual food producers.

  The Ramoses lived in a notable mansion, its richly carved doorway wide enough to admit a carriage and pair. Their three-roomed, third-floor flat was approached via a cracked marble staircase overlooking a vast shadowy courtyard with disintegrating Seville-tiled wainscoting. In Old Havana’s ‘apartment blocks’ it jolts one suddenly to exchange the external imperial decay for the socialist ambience of the individual flats, always neat and clean and simply furnished.

  The Ramoses received me with incredulous delight; Mario was a much-loved friend but their links were few. When I had delivered his gifts we drank coffee on the balcony, its wrought iron railing intact, its plank flooring rotting. ‘You watch where to put the foot,’ warned Fabian. I remarked that since November the pace of demolition had quickened; nearby we could see a new open area, strewn with rubble and garbage and overlooked by high Baroque ruins (too ruinous for restoration) awaiting ‘the ball’. Recent changes troubled this mulatto couple, both born in Old Havana – Fabian three weeks early, in January 1959, his mother having been over-excited by the Revolution’s success. Rumour had it that their mansion might be deemed worthy of conversion to a tourist hotel. Neither could tolerate the prospect of living elsewhere, though Mario had offered to arrange for their migration.