Havana Libre Read online

  Table of Contents

  ___________________

  LUNES, 1 SEPTIEMBRE 1997: The Tourist

  Part I: La Habana

  LUNES, 1 SEPTIEMBRE 1997: Manolo

  MARTES, 2 SEPTIEMBRE: The Tourist

  MARTES, 2 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  MIERCOLES, 3 SEPTIEMBRE: The Tourist

  MIERCOLES, 3 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  PINAR DEL RIO: Mercedes

  JUEVES, 4 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  AGOSTO 1979: Manolo

  VIERNES, 5 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  SÁBADO, 6 SEPTIEMBRE: Mercedes

  SÁBADO, 6 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  SÁBADO, 6 SEPTIEMBRE: The Tourist

  DOMINGO, 7 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  LUNES, 8 SEPTIEMBRE: Mercedes

  LUNES, 8 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  Part II: Manolo en Miami

  MARTES, 9 SEPTIEMBRE

  MIERCOLES, 10 SEPTIEMBRE

  JUEVES, 11 SEPTIEMBRE

  VIERNES, 12 SEPTIEMBRE

  SÁBADO, 13 SEPTIEMBRE

  Part III: Havana Libre

  MIAMI: THE ROOM

  VIERNES, 12 SEPTIEMBRE: Mercedes

  MIAMI: THE ROOM

  SÁBADO, 13 SEPTIEMBRE: The Tourist

  MIAMI: THE ROOM

  SÁBADO, 13 SEPTIEMBRE: Mercedes

  MIAMI: THE ROOM

  DOMINGO, 14 SEPTIEMBRE: The Tourist

  MIAMI: THE ROOM

  DOMINGO, 14 SEPTIEMBRE: Mercedes

  MIAMI: THE ROOM

  LUNES, 15 SEPTIEMBRE: The Tourist

  MIAMI: THE STREET

  LUNES, 15 SEPTIEMBRE: Mercedes

  MIAMI: THE STREET

  HAVANA LIBRE

  LUNES, 15 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  MARTES, 16 SEPTIEMBRE: Manolo

  E-book Extras

  Excerpt from Havana Lunar

  More by Robert Arellano

  About Robert Arellano

  Copyright & Credits

  About Akashic Books

  For Amanda and Robert Casserly

  Tú, que llenas todo de alegría y juventud

  Y ves fantasmas en la noche de trasluz

  Y oyes el canto perfumado del azul,

  Vete de mi.

  You, that fills everything with happiness and youth

  And sees ghosts in the night of backlit moon

  And hears the perfumed song of blue,

  Get away from me.

  —Homero y Virgilio Expósito, “Vete de mí”

  LUNES, 1 SEPTIEMBRE 1997

  The Tourist

  On a Monday morning at eight thirty in Havana, a tourist steps off an air-conditioned flight from San Salvador and into eighty-five degrees at José Martí International Airport. He wears ripped jeans, a Kurt Cobain T-shirt, and a plaid flannel shirt tied at the waist. Brand-new Timberlands bolster his stature as an international traveler, because this new style among black rappers and grunge musicians has not yet caught on across Latin America. The huge boots seem a few sizes too large for him, but that is the point: show you’re ready any minute for a mosh-pit and plod around with steel toes like you own the dance floor. He is a year or two too old for this look, but maybe that is why he has come to Cuba alone. His act does not work on the girls in El Salvador anymore, so he wants to try it out on the teenagers of Commieland. Perhaps he believes that with a few fulas to throw around, some girl will fall for it.

  The traveler approaches customs with only a backpack, and to encourage the possibility that the two unsmiling soldiers might just wave him along, he does not let go of the straps when he places it on the stainless-steel counter before them. “Open the backpack,” the tall one says. The zipper is unlocked, and the tourist unzips the top. “All the way.” The smaller soldier removes each article of clothing and makes a stack on the counter. He also produces a pair of tennis shoes, toiletries bag, two General Electric travel alarm clocks, and a small calculator. “Why two clocks? Planning on leaving behind a gift?”

  “In case the first one fails to wake me. I am a very sound sleeper.”

  “Lucky you.”

  From the side pockets the soldier pulls out some felt-tip pens and a fountain pen. The tourist makes a joke: “Don’t you want to see if you can find some contraband hidden between my teeth?”

  The soldiers do not find this funny. “Put your things in the backpack and come with us.”

  Together they stomp down a long corridor to a small, windowless room. The tall soldier locks the door behind them and calls the shots; the smaller one pulls on a pair of latex gloves and silently conducts the examination. “Take off your shirt and pull down your pants and underpants.” The tourist undoes his belt and lets his pants drop over the tops of his boots, then pulls his underwear down to his knees. “Lift your testicles . . . Separate your buttocks.” Finding nothing, the soldier peels off the latex gloves and reexamines the tourist’s backpack, switching the calculator on to make sure it functions and trying out the pens on yesterday’s copy of Granma, while the other one flips through his passport. The tourist does not ask whether it is time to pull up his pants. A few minutes later, the tall soldier says, “Get dressed. You’re free to go.”

  He rides the hotel shuttle from Boyeros to Vedado, and taking in the countryside he feels the power of contempt and invulnerability. He is glad his two-week trip has begun this way. It is typical of Cuba to treat a traveler like this. “Welcome to Havana,” the tourist mutters to himself.

  The desk agent at check-in is a gorgeous black woman in a tailored skirt suit, and when she asks to see his passport he hands over the one Chávez Abarca obtained for him. He has had black and half-black girlfriends before, but on his last trip to Havana he learned that la negra Cubana is completely different. And the women who work in the tourist industry here are confident, nothing like those in Salvador, with their crude manners and the way they shrink like you’re always going to hit them. “Disfrute su estancia, señor—” Boldly she looks him in the eye and calls him by the surname on the passport, and for a second he feels a little off-kilter. Has he let a sleepless night, early travel, the flight, and the trip from the airport get to him? By the banks of lights above the elevators, he takes notice that all six are working and rides the third on the left up to the thirteenth floor.

  The window of room 1317 looks onto the block of houses across the way. He closes the curtains, locks the door, and puts the chain on the hook. He also closes the door to the bathroom which is letting in light and noise from the street. He does not want any distractions in his peripheral vision. He carefully removes his boots and unzips his backpack, taking advantage of his insomnia to get organized. First he arranges the clothing in the closet. Then he makes an inventory of materials on the bed.

  Inside his toiletries bag he carries toothpaste and toothbrush; razor, shaving cream, and aftershave; a small stack of Band-Aids; a miniature Phillips-head screwdriver, the kind used for repairing eyeglasses; and a little roll of black plastic insulation tape that might have been thrown in there as a last-minute substitute for medical tape.

  He takes the screwdriver from his toiletries bag and removes the outer casing of the portable alarm clocks. Each one carries fresh batteries, and the red-and-black connectors have been replaced with extra-long segments of insulated copper wire he soldered himself.

  In a side pocket of the backpack, the three felt-tip pens have their ink cartridges removed and they’re replaced with detonators. There is one extra, in case one of the others appears to malfunction. They are the length and shape of carpentry nails. The tip of each pen contains enough fresh ink to pass the customs soldier’s test. The pocket also holds a fourth pen, a fountain pen full of blue ink.

  He unscrews the back of the calculator; this reveals fresh batteries as well as additional wire, and a
cavity holds the small firing pins. Finally, from the toes of the Timberlands he pulls the plastic bags containing two banana-shaped masses off gray putty. The morons at customs did not think to make him remove his boots.

  When he is done with his inventory, the tourist places the items in the middle of the backpack and locks the zipper on top. He goes to the closet and removes a new shirt from its package. Nobody watching would comprehend the logic behind the strange thing he is about to do. He takes the pristine dress shirt out of its cellophane wrapper, removes the fountain pen from the pocket of the backpack, unpins the shirt, unfolds the sleeves, and lays it out on the bed. He takes the cap off the pen and pushes the tip into the cloth above the breast pocket. He holds it against the fabric for several seconds and watches the blue stain spread unevenly into a map of linked lagoons. The tourist caps the pen and puts it on the bedside table. He holds up the shirt to inspect his work.

  Part I

  La Habana

  LUNES, 1 SEPTIEMBRE 1997

  Manolo

  At sunset on the corner of 12 y 23 in Vedado, four men hunker around an upended shipping crate to study their tiles by the meager light of an oil lamp chuffing black smoke. They slam their fiches down to the staccato accompaniment of Radio Reloj, and el viejo Ramírez, victorious, crows, “¡Dominó!” There is no reason to buy a few drops of gas for the Lada because I have nobody to take for a ride. Besides, the driver’s-side back tire has a flat I have not fixed for months. But this soon after sunset it will be much too hot in my attic apartment, so I close up the clinic and take myself on a walk along Paseo and Avenida de los Presidentes to try to catch a breeze somewhere along el Malecón.

  Another oppressive September has settled over Havana. Heat peels the bark off trees, leaving the streets of Vedado redolent with sweat and regret. It is not yet time for tonight’s apagón and all the TVs are tuned to replays of yesterday’s big news about the princess, killed in a tunnel.

  The entire length of the sea wall is in a dead calm, so I turn up Carlos Tercero. Maybe I’ll find a pocket of cool air somewhere along el bosque. I walk past the dark capitolio at the top of the hill and cross broad Paseo del Prado, empty but for a few fareless turistaxis. Taking a seat on one of the wrought-iron benches at the edge of the Parque Central, I smoke a cigarette. The moment anyone who looks like he could be a foreign tourist enters the park, jineteras bustle out of the shadows like pigeons to bread crumbs.

  I walk down Zapata all the way to La Madriguera. Cutting between two trails through the woods, I accidentally trample a writhing limb—a human arm or leg. “¡Coño!” a man curses at me for interrupting the couple’s lovemaking. “¿Tú estás ciego?”

  Not blind, not yet, although la Opción Zero has made everyone in Havana adept at the strategies of the sightless. “Lo siento,” I say, and resume my march on Zapata, crossing Paseo back into the heart of Vedado. It is nerve-racking walking alone at night and a nuisance surprising lovers of all combinations tangled in their trysts, but it is better than waiting in my stifling attic for the night’s oppressive blanket to never lift.

  It has been nearly seven years since Fidel Castro ominously declared the Revolution in an indefinite state of “el Período Especial en Tiempos de Paz” to cope with the end of Soviet subsidies. For a select few, those with family off the island, or access to tourists and their dollars, or connections to crime, the austerity is finally letting up. For the other 95 percent of us, the recovery never arrived. I am still squeaking by on two hundred pesos a month and whatever scraps I can grow at home en el solar or haul back from my infrequent visits to Pinar. I recently turned twenty-eight, and the entire island is rushing headlong into the mouth of the Zero Option. This government slogan for diminishing provisions also fits my sex life. In 1989 I could go out on el Malecón any night of the week and engage one of a thousand young, liberated mujeres revolucionarias to go for a ride in the Lada. Now, even on a Monday night, the best I can get is just a condescending tsk! from the jineteras.

  “Cómprate unos pantalones que te sirvan,” one tells me, throwing a quarter at my feet. I am not too proud to stoop to pick it up. Why not buy yourself some pants that fit, doctor? At one time she might have been my patient at the pediátrico or a visitor to my family clinic. Meanwhile, Central American businessmen and Canadian auto mechanics get a graduate degree in beatific mulata ass for the price of entry to a discoteca and a few Tropicolas.

  I zigzag back to Avenida 23 along Calle 6 to avoid the cemetery and its sepulchral memories. Now the apagón has come. It is the new moon and all the streetlights are out along Paseo. There are few cars to get run over by tonight, bitter consolation for gas being impossible to come by. The biggest risk is being hit by a Chinese bicycle with bad brakes; since the beginning of the Período Especial, Cuba has bought two million Flying Pigeons from that factory in Tianjin. The blackout has not stopped the nightly domino match. Listening for the men boasting and bluffing at the corner of 12 y 23, I navigate home through echolocation.

  I live in the attic that was once the maid’s quarters when this tenement was a Vedado mansion. Could it be that my cramped apartment keeps me here? Not long after my mother died, the Reforma Urbana allocated the main part of the house to Beatrice, the block-watch captain of the neighborhood vigilance committee, but I did not complain. I have access to the private stairs, both front and back, and also the keys to the family clinic, which I open for drop-ins on Mondays and Wednesdays until eight p.m. and for appointments or emergencies when I’m not at the pediátrico. If a case were made to shift me full time to the hospital, the government would close the clinic. My neighbors would grumble at first—in the Período Especial, who doesn’t?—but soon they would start going to the clinic on la Calle G instead and not bother the neighborhood doctor anymore—the strange doctor.

  Tonight I take the front stairs. When I unlock the door I am prepared for the closed apartment to feel like an oven, but instead a cool breeze informs me that the Florida doors have been left open. In the dim light that reaches Vedado from the skies of central Havana, something out of place on the murky landing catches my eye. Among my collection of empty wine bottles, one is missing. This in itself is not so strange. Many neighbors know of my cache of a couple dozen empties, some sticky with sediment, all drained of the last drop, with the corks back in the top. Some of them will come up and borrow an empty bottle or two upon hearing about a batch of chispe tren selling from a barrel, or in order to split a liter of Tropicola for a child’s birthday. Sometimes they even return the empties or their equivalent, but tonight I notice the missing one so quickly because in its place stands a full bottle, never opened. I squint at the ornate label and see it is a good Spanish vintage. Although this attic landing has been the scene of any number of surprises over the years, I do not expect that Beatrice has delivered a belated birthday present.

  Suddenly, a thought makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle to attention, and I peer inside the dark apartment. Silhouetted in front of the balcony in Aurora’s old rocking chair sits a man. The line of the hat and overcoat mark him as a familiar Fidelista who might have been handsome, once. When he lights a cigarette, I see he still has his meticulous manicure.

  “How long have you been sitting there?” There is a tremor in my voice.

  Colonel Emilio Pérez, chief homicide investigator for the Policia Nacional de la Revolución, replies, “Desde que se fue la luz.”

  My hands are shaking as much from hunger as surprise when I close the door behind me and pat my pockets for my own cigarettes. Pérez is quick to extend his lighter. I inhale and hold it in a long time to make the most of the available nicotine.

  He says, “¿Cómo tú andas?”

  I exhale. Pérez wants to know how I have been. How have I been since I last saw him five years ago? How have I been lately, the better part of a decade into the Período Especial, now that doctors are malnourished malcontents while dropouts driving tourist taxis are relative millionaires? How have I been this wee
k, when the decision has been whether to take my spare twenty pesos and seek out the neighborhood fermenter who makes “vinos” from guayaba, bananas, pineapple, chícharos, and anything else he can find, or to put it away to spend on something useful someday (a day that might never come), when they open a store for regular Cubans to buy a bar of soap or a razor? The real question should be posed to both Havana and me: how is it that we have held together so long? “I won’t pretend; I’ve been better.”

  “The clinic is still functioning well enough?”

  “The extra supplies made a difference, for a while.” A cry comes up from the street in front—the domino match has ended breathtakingly close. “And you? I should think you would be too busy to pay a social call to a humble pediatrician in the national medical service . . . what with the recent bombings.”

  If I did manage to touch a nerve, Pérez nevertheless holds his game face. “It has been so long; you don’t think I could have just called on the teléfono de la vecina, do you?”

  He has a point. I feel my way to the kitchen in the dark and find a corkscrew in the top drawer. Two empty fruit-preserve jars serve for glasses. “Shall we open that bottle?”

  Pérez does the honors. He pours me a jar and says, “Salud.”

  Halfheartedly I reply, “Viva Fidel.”

  Sitting on the sofa across from Detective Pérez, I feel around on the coffee table for an ashtray. The first sip of wine is delicious on my tongue, but before I can swallow he says, “There is an investigation of urgency to State Security with which I wish to request your assistance.”

  My mouthful turns sour. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Your expertise would be valuable only insofar as it is voluntary, although you should take into account that lives are at stake.”

  I stare into my jar of wine. “In my job, lives are always at stake.”

  “Yes,” Pérez says, pausing to take a long swallow, “and you have requested a weeklong salida to travel to a conference in Tampa later this month.”