North of Havana

by Randy Wayne White

  Now, walking beneath ficus trees, studying the traffic, he said, “These cars would be worth a mint back in the states. A forty-two Packard, you kidding? That old Buick? What’a you think that’d be worth? But they’re just transportation to the habaneros. The only machines in the whole damn country that still work… use baling wire and Jeep tires to keep them running. Their gas ration is like ten gallons a month so they trade chickens, fish—you name it; their sisters—for a little extra gas so they can cruise the Malecón at night.”

  Dewey, who’d missed her run and wasn’t in the best of moods, said, “I’ve got a new Corvette back home. Candy apple red.” Not particularly interested. She was walking between Geis and me. Geis, with his short legs, was having a tough time keeping up.

  Maybe to slow her, he said, “But your ‘vette’s not worth half what these cars are worth. Believe it. Couple years ago, the Cuban government was so tight for money they offered new Russian Ladas to the owners in trade. You know, polish up the classics and sell them for tens of thousands on the international collectors’ market. But the habaneros didn’t want that Russian garbage, so they started hiding their cars. The one Castro’s people really want is a fifty-five Chrysler convertible.” He looked at Dewey, then at me. Did we know why? I waited it out until he said, “Because it was Ernest Hemingway’s car. White Chrysler two-door, red-leather upholstery. He lived just south of Havana, drove it to Cojímar every day to fish. Remember The Old Man and the Sea? Hemingway would drive around with the top down, figuring out the story in his head. But Castro’s people never found the thing, so it’s probably long gone. What’a you think a car like that’d be worth?” He was serious now, talking to me man to man. I waited until he said, “I figure the bidding would start at a couple hundred thousand, go up pretty quick to a million-five, maybe an even two. Remember what someone paid for Elvis’s car a while back? Get some rich Japanese involved, yeah, I could see it happening.”

  When I said, “That’s a lot to pay for a Chrysler,” Geis’s slow chuckle told Dewey that I didn’t know anything about it. But when Dewey said, “Shit, with Hemingway alive and still in it, that’s too much to pay,” he let it go.

  That showed me Dewey was having an impact on him, too.

  He liked doing that. Liked pointing out bits and pieces of Havana, then calculating what they would be worth in Canada or the U.S. “Back in the world,” he would say. Eating pork with lime and drinking mint mojitos at La Bode-guita—a cramped little restaurant where graffiti covered the walls—he said, “Frame some of the signatures, box up all the little signs and mementos, they’d bring thousands at an auction in New York. It’s history,” he said. “This little restaurant is so famous. Jane Fonda’s name’s on that far wall. She came to visit Fidel after sitting on that ack-ack gun in Hanoi, pretending to shoot down American planes. Hell, she’d of done it if she’d had the chance.”

  This Canadian talking like some pissed-off vet, showing me he empathized. Why else?

  I had already studied the walls, not looking for famous names but searching for a bit of graffito that Rivera’s secretary had told me about. Didn’t find it.

  Geis behaved the same way while he and Dewey drank daiquiris at Floridita. “That painting of Morro Castle behind the bar? That bronze bust of Ernest? Man, the stools. All priceless.”

  Geis toured us around Old Havana. Stone streets just wide enough for an oxcart, stone buildings with verandas hanging over the sidewalks. “Like New Orleans,” he said, “only not that fake, touristy bullshit. People live in these places. Sometimes two families to an apartment.” Every block, pointed out a statue or a museum… Lenin, Marx, Guevara… the Rosenbergs, too—“They’re heroes here, the American traitors who sold A-bomb plans to the Soviets.” He whispered it, as though it were a dangerous thing to say. When Dewey told him, “The whole place’s like one big museum,” he said, “Yeah, the museum of a failed system. I keep telling my fiancée that Havana gets to me. Like living in a city that’s dead but has survivors walking around. But believe me, one day there’ll be a ton of money to be made here.”

  Now we were in the oldest part of Havana, the Plaza de la Catedral, a cobblestone courtyard fronted by ornate block buildings. The opening to each building was set deep behind stone pillars so the courtyard seemed enclosed by a catacomb of caves. I’d been standing in the background listening to Geis talk about it, working hard at charming Dewey, fiancée or no fiancée. I drifted off by myself when he started talking about the priests, the bishops—“I have a strong interest in the church,” he explained—and the conquistadors who once frequented the place. Then I stopped at the entrance of what appeared to be an open cathedral. I stood peering in as if looking at Gothic windows, the coral rock floors, and the Nativity scene near the gold-and-onyx altar—first sign of Christmas I’d seen in Havana. But what had really caught my attention was a number and a letter that had recently, very recently, been scraped into a stone archway: 8A.

  Juan Rivera’s secretary had told me that 8A was what I should look for. It was the newest of the ever-changing code words that Havana’s anti-Castro people used to communicate. Find that symbol and I might be able to connect with someone named Molinas or Valdes, the contact Armando Azcona had given me.

  I didn’t have to ask why dissidents went by single names and kept changing their codes.

  I gave it a few seconds before turning toward the garden at the center of the courtyard. There were a few people sitting on stone benches in the darkness. I thought about strolling over and making a polite tourist inquiry: “Did my tour guides Mr. Molinas or Mr. Valdes pass by here?” but decided it would be a stupid thing to do unless I really needed help. Besides, Geis was coming toward me now… taking Dewey’s arm as if they were on a Sunday walk.

  “Got to say, you’ve got taste, Doc. Wanna know what you’re looking at?” I thought he meant the graffito but, no, he was talking about the open room of the cathedral. He leaned up against one of the limestone pillars, pointed, and said, “This is one of my favorite places in Havana, the Cathedral of the Conception. It was built more than four hundred years ago”—he looked at Dewey to see if she was impressed—“to be like the Vatican of the New World. See that little niche in the wall? This place was so holy, Columbus himself used to be buried right there. Well, not buried but… interred. Like in a vault?”

  I was trying to read the marble slab beside the niche. Difficult because it was in archaic Spanish… something about remains that were to be preserved for a thousand years in remembrance of a nation. I wondered which nation, Cuba or Spain?

  Geis was still talking to Dewey. “Columbus, his bones I mean—the actual explorer, I’m talking about—he lay right there for more than a hundred years until he disappeared like in nineteen-hundred. Him and his little solid lead box.”

  Dewey said, “You’re telling us somebody came in and stole Christopher Columbus?”

  “Not really, but some of the religious Cubans—there’re more religious people here than you’d think—they’d like to believe Columbus never left. Not because of what he did. Jesus, the Indios hate him for what he did. It’s because of the medals he supposedly wore around his neck. You’ve seen the paintings I’m talking about?”

  Dewey turned to me and said, “In a place that doesn’t get ESPN, I guess you have to get interested in history or go nuts, huh?” Geis chuckled, showing that he really liked her style. “I know what you’re saying, yeah, it seems kind’a dry, right… ? Anyway, what probably happened was, the Spaniards shipped his remains back to Spain. Columbus I’m saying. Him and the medals—one given to him by Queen Isabella and blessed by the pope, the other some kind of sacred medallion the Spaniards took from this rebel Indian before they burned him at the stake. The beer you were drinking, Hatuey?” With his good Spanish, Geis pronounced it correctly: AH-tu-way. He said, “It’s named after him, Yara Hatuey. That’s why it has a picture of an Indian on the label. Hatuey supposedly gave the conquistadors
fits before they finally caught him, and Columbus was given the medallion. Like to show they had control of the island and prove that Hatuey was dead. Before they burned him, know what this Indian asked when they offered to baptize him? He asked if there were any conquistador Christians in heaven. When they told him yes, plenty, he said he’d rather go to hell, so go ahead and light the fire.”

  I was looking at the 8A carved into the arch as Dewey said, “So what would Columbus and his medals be worth back in the states?” joking, but giving it a soft touch. Maybe Geis would get it, maybe he wouldn’t.

  I realized Geis was looking from me to the arch, then back to me. It had finally dawned on him what had really drawn me to the cathedral; I could tell by his sudden nervousness. I listened to him tell Dewey, “It’s like all this waterfront property. A fortune. Whatever the international money guys will pay for it,” before he touched my shoulder and said, “We better be moving along, ay?”

  Geis waited until Dewey had crossed the lobby, headed for our room before he said, “I notice you’ve got an interest in street art, shit like that. A guy like you—kind of bookish, like a college professor—that’s kind’a unusual, huh?”

  No longer in the presence of a lady, Lenny Geis had an earthier vocabulary.

  We were sitting in the patio bar of the Havana Libre. I could have chosen to watch Dewey walking to the elevator—swing of hips, bounce of soft hair; full of herself, confident in the person she perceived herself to be and secure in her view of the world.

  I could have watched her, but didn’t. Later… later, I would deeply regret that small indifference.…

  Instead, I looked through the palms into the street where young girls in tight dresses stood staring back at us. Their restlessness, standing out there wanting something to happen, put me in mind of behavior that was familiar. Stray dogs?

  I took off my glasses and used a napkin to clean them, as I said, “We’ve got an audience, Lenny.”

  He didn’t have to look. “The jineteras? They’re always out there. The manager won’t let them in unless they’re with a guest. Hey…” Now he did take a peek. “… you see a tall mulatto in a white dress? She’s usually there; always wears the same white dress, but clean. I mean, spotless. No-o-o-pe… must be two dozen or so and… but she’s not around.…” He sat back in his chair. “She’ll show up. Always does. Believe me, once you see her you’ll remember. No older than nineteen with legs that go clear up to her tits. My God, and her face. I’ve never said a word to her. I’ve got no reason, right? But sometimes I think she comes to the Havana Libre just to see me. The way she looks at me, you know? Stares right into my eyes. God damn! A girl like that, back in the states, what’d she be worth? She’d be grabbed by some rich doctor. A rock star maybe? Anything she wanted. The kind of woman you see at the best dinner parties. What a buddy of mine calls a Gold Card woman—kind of like Dewey… no offense.”

  I smiled—none taken.

  Geis said, “The mulatto shows up, you’ll understand. That’s the thing. In Havana? She’s just another ten-buck whore.” He paused for a moment, his mind on the girl, before he added, “Not that I care. Because it’s like I told you: I stick to my routine. Watch my health, never have more than a couple of drinks a night. For me, Havana’s strictly business. That’s what I told my fiancée—an investment of time that’s going to pay off big.”

  I was still smiling at him. Not that I found him funny, but many times I’d seen Westernized men and women struggle against what they perceived to be that dark side of the Third World. I had done my share of struggling as well. I said, “They can really put the hook in you, Lenny.”

  “Hook? You know why God gave women pubic hair? To hide the hook. But don’t get the wrong idea, Doc. I’m not interested. You know what it’s like… bored and alone in a place like this. I’d never do anything about it. But no—” He finished his daiquiri and motioned for the waiter to bring another round. His fourth tonight. “—what I was asking you about was the graffiti.” Changing the subject, putting the ball back in my court.

  When I didn’t answer right away, he said, “I noticed you studying it at the restaurant, then at… other places around town.”

  Geis knew what the symbol over the cathedral door meant. I was certain of it. I said, “You seemed pretty interested yourself. A number and a letter over a church door. Why would somebody put that there?”

  I could see that he wanted to finesse it… then I watched him change his mind. Finally, he said, “You came down to help your friend, right? That’s the only reason?”

  “The one and only reason.”

  “I’ve got to ask for your word of honor on that. Seriously. I’m seen with the wrong person in this town, they’d put me on the next plane out.”

  I was tempted to say “Scout’s honor.” Instead, I said, “Pay off Tomlinson’s bill and get him back on his boat. That’s why I came.”

  He cleared his throat and scooched his chair closer to the table so he didn’t have to speak so loud. “Okay, then let me give you some advice. Things go on in this country you don’t want to know about or even hear about. The way to deal with it is see no evil, hear no evil. Do that—which is exactly what I do—you won’t have any problem.”

  “It’s that bad? Eight A?” I said it in Spanish: Ocho A.

  It got me a long look of appraisal before Geis said, “Let’s drop the bullshit, Doc. You mind? The way you were looking at it, I could tell it meant something. You’re from Florida. A smart guy and educated. Maybe you’ve got friends in the Cuban community. Maybe they told you one or two things.” He held up his palm to silence me. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’m just saying the smart thing to do is ignore shit like that. A place like this, you’re being watched even if you don’t think you’re being watched.” He swirled the ice in his glass, began talking in a normal tone of voice. “It’s good advice and I hope you take it. No offense, but you don’t know how things work down here.”

  I waited until the waiter had placed his drink on the table and left us before I said, “Just looking at something carved over a church entrance could get me in trouble?”

  He nodded. “In this country, people have had their dicks bobbed for less than that.” I watched him wait for me to reply—a guy who liked to talk, but not sure he should. Finally, he asked, “You really don’t know what it means?”

  “No, but I’m getting curious. And what you said about the way Cuba works. Politics? I’d like to hear about it.” I gave it an articulate touch: the professorial type eager to learn.

  Geis took a look over both shoulders; lowered his head to look through the palms at the prostitutes. He said, “You want to take a walk?”

  “Ocho A is street language,” Geis said, “for a guy who was executed, a Cuban general named Ochoa.”

  Arnaldo Ochoa—he’d played second base in the exhibition game with Castro; a man I had met briefly and liked immediately. I’d guessed what the symbol meant, but wanted to hear Geis tell it.

  “People are so afraid to speak, everything down here is in code or sign language. Someone’s pissed at Fidel? Even talking to a family member, they scratch their chin—you know, meaning a beard?—to signal who they’re talking about. It’s because they’re afraid to say his name. For his brother Raul, they touch their mouth because he’s gay. Hangs out with the beanie-weanie packers a few blocks from here, down Twenty-third at the Casa de las Infusiones. No one comes right out and says anything that can get them into trouble, so they invent these signs and signals. Ocho A. That stands for Ochoa, the dead general.”

  I said, “Because they’re afraid to write it out.”

  Geis said, “Yeah, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

  We had walked south on Twenty-third past the University of Havana campus, then beneath seventeenth-century stone warehouses with wash hanging from the windows, old men and women sitting in doorways.

  Lots of
restless, wakeful people in Havana. It was a few minutes after ten p.m.

  Several of the prostitutes had tagged along after us but finally gave up. Looking back at them had given me an opportunity to see if we were being followed. It seemed as if we were on our own. Streets were nearly empty. Even so, Geis kept his voice low.

  “Ochoa was Cuba’s most popular military leader. He fought with Fidel against Batista, then led troops in Venezuela, Angola, Ethiopia, you name it. Even the Russians considered him a military genius. Placed their own troops under him, and he was probably Fidel’s best friend. But Ochoa really screwed up.”

  “Something he did, you mean.”

  “Arnaldo Ochoa? No way. He was an absolute straight shooter. Didn’t take bribes, followed orders, lived like the rest of these people live; crummy little house in a neighborhood. No, what he did was became too popular with his troops and with the Cuban people. The whole country knew his name. Which is why a few years ago—eighty-nine, maybe?—Raul marched him out in front of a firing squad and had him shot. No more Ochoa, no more threat to Fidel. You know what his last words were? ‘I’m no traitor.’ That’s the kind of man he was.”

  I said, “So that’s how Cuba works.”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely right and don’t you forget it. When it comes to Fidel, don’t believe a thing you read about him in America. Canadian press? Same bullshit. The American media, man, they’ve always loved the guy. You see that thing with Barbara Walters? Dan Rather? Closest thing to blow jobs Fidel ever got with his pants zipped.” Geis leaned forward, getting into it. “Back in the Batista days, nobody in Cuba even knew who the fucking guy was until the New York Times runs a series about him being a national hero. Some left-wing reporter interviews this pathological liar—Fidel, I’m talking about—and comes out with stories that make Fidel seem like Sir Lancelot. Reports everything Fidel says as the gospel truth.