“Well, at least you’ll have to admit that we doctors tried to resist,” I insisted.
“We doctors? There were too damn many, including me and you. It was the middle-class Cubans who produced the businessman. It was the qualities and the drive of the Cuban businessmen which led to the gradual transfer of the big United States owned sugar mills to Cuban hands. The businessmen had their own associations in every line, and this hard-working group of ours were big employers. They gave the country a tremendous middle class, ranging from minor clerks to big businessmen. No other Latin American country ever had so little justification for social upheaval.”
He took his ragged mouthpiece from his pocket, chewed it some more, and threw it out of the window. I said, “The doctors? Too damn many of us. Where did we come from?”
“The businessmen, God help us. They never woke up to the fact that they were the most dynamic force in Cuba. The government had meddled so long in their economic affairs that they had learned to knuckle under to the political authorities, like your father and mine. When they finally awoke to the danger, they had missed the bus and it was far too late. They had hatched out a litter of doctors.”
“But you can’t blame Castro and Communism all on the doctors.”
“Only part of it. The businessmen wanted that prestige for their children, a prestige that they already had themselves but somehow couldn’t seem to find. Degrees! Degrees! That was the only thing that would add luster to the family name. The kids went for it hammer and tongs, like you and I did. If papa had really wanted us to carry on his crummy business, instead of letting our budding genius flower, wouldn’t he have put it across like everything else he wanted, with a cane?
“So Cuba was suddenly crawling with college graduates to a point where its entire economic resources were under a strain. They were stumbling all over each others’ feet trying to enter the Civil Service. Together with those who remained outside, they formed a kind of professional proletariat, the lowest class and the highest class: a mob of unskilled laborers, casual laborers, and tramps— by another name. From 1930 onward, their professional organizations did nothing but promote and foster political unrest. Poor papa was a businessman, but sonny boy with his diploma was now a doctor, and the gulf between him and papa cut him off from the commercial world. He couldn’t realize that his freedom to explore new ideas was dependent on the pesos from papa’s sugar cane. He’d been educated in everything except how to use his brain.”
“So one of our doctors finally made it,” I said sententiously. “How are you going to fix the blame?”
“History, blindness to danger, and laissez faire. Those brilliant holders of doctorates from the University of Havana, who had displayed such sagacity in our political upheavals of an earlier day, went down like tenpins before the fanatical organization of the old guard Communist leaders. Unfortunately the doctor we drew happened to be one of those Communist leaders. He was the one of our boys who made it, as you say.”
He opened the car door. “Let’s go in and get a drink and eat some dinner. Then I’ll take you around and show you some of the clip joints. We might as well think we’re having a little fun while we’re being robbed. It may not last long, and don’t forget that the government owns everything that’s running on the island today.”
29
The doctor tucked his guayabera inside of his belt, took a linen jacket from the back of the car and put it on. “The amenities must be observed, Compañero Teniente. In fact we cling to them closer, now that nothing else is left to us.”
Cars had pulled in to the parking place. A few people were already seated at the tables marked reservado in the open patio under the bower of trees and flowers. There were still more inside of the roofed-over bar, open on one side to admit the light evening breeze, heavy with the heady scent of oleander and frangipani. Under the roof there was a miniature dance floor in front of a still unoccupied bandstand.
Three girls at a table together, slightly overdressed for business, eyed me speculatively. Their glance, coupled with the doctor’s “teniente” brought me back sharply to where I was, and what I was supposed to be.
The headwaiter showed us to a table and the doctor slipped him a bill. I looked around at the fast-filling lounge and said, “Where do they all come from?”
“The girls?”
“Not them, necessarily. Everyone.”
“Moscow. Madrid. Marseilles. British possessions and points south. Then there are still a few Cubans left in Havana. Nobody’s exactly cleaned out the town.”
“What are they all doing here?”
“Touring. Foreign corresponding. Working for the embassies. Hatching up revolutions. Sucking off of the government in one of the ministries, or the police, or the militia. Or trying to practice a profession while under G-2 surveillance and keep out of jail, as I am.”
He saw a waiter bearing down on us and said, “I’m sick of rum and have an inclination to get drunk since I have somebody to talk to. Do you think you can put up with me? I drive very carefully.”
“Then you’re the only one in Cuba who does. Count me in. What do you want to start on?”
“I like to lay a concrete foundation of martinis. Incidentially the party this evening is on me.”
“Not at all. Why should it be? I’m on leave and I have plenty of money—six hundred pesos in exchange for two hundred dollars USA.”
“Oh, boy! Did they stick you good!” He laughed. “Any decent black-market money changer should give you eight or ten for one. Of course you weren’t risking shooting or jail. But that’s not as much as I have, chico. Rather than trust themselves to some of the medical mechanics provided by the present regime, some of my patients insist on paying me a fee. You’d be surprised how well I’m loaded, and how long it’s been since we had any items to spend our money on. Let’s just say I’m paying for your company. I have sort of a proprietary interest in you, see?”
“I’ll have to accept since you put it that way. You can order a dry martini for me.”
He ordered two doubles.
I said, “You told me they hadn’t exactly cleaned out the town.
How about cleaning it up?”
“Morally?”
“And generally.”
He dug out another cigar, and this time managed to light it. “In spite of all the government talk about prohibiting ancient vices, the oldest profession still goes on as you can see. Still, there have been some definite gestures made to propriety. The girls no longer roam the streets, except for those in uniform, but conduct their business more discreetly. Then, it’s hard to run a first-class casa de puta when the customers are greeted by a girl with a tommy gun. Greatest anaphrodisiac known to the medical profession from what I can hear.”
“What about those three over there?”
“Strays, still young and attractive enough to chance the only business that the government doesn’t own and that isn’t a complete monopoly. A lot of them have gotten discouraged though, and have been persuaded to reform and enter a home in Camagüey. They’re taught to master another trade, such as repairing locomotives, tractors, or cane-cutting machinery. The food’s good, and they get to bed early. The home is called a Center for Artisans, which is probably as good a name as any.”
The drinks came. Instead of the usual “Salud!” I said, “Here’s to crime!”
We touched glasses. He said, “I like that. It includes everything you do, and lots of things you don’t do.”
I said, “Actually, in spite of the stern Marxist morality, do you have a high rate of crime?”
He took another sip of his drink and pulled on his cigar. “That depends on what you’re referring to, Compañero Teniente. Is it a crime for teen-agers to be armed with pistols, put in uniforms, taught to report the actions of their parents, and allowed to enter their neighbors’ houses at any hour of the day or night to spy? As Pioneers, the young Communist group, they are taught that is the patriotic thing to do.
�
�Only the members of the Militia are actually free of crime, like the CDR girl stationed there by the bar, who is covertly watching us. She may not like the casual way we’re talking together, or the arrogant angle at which I hold my cigar. She may have had a description of a teniente in the F.A.R. who looks like Raúl Castro, with a scar, or of a certain Dr. Arturo Maciá, whom she is supposed to keep an eye on. She may just think that we look like a pair who should be taken in for questioning on general principles, which she has full powers to do.”
He laid his cigar in a tray and finished his drink. “Of course, she may be just a girl who is bored with her post, and is contemplating the possibility of working up a roll in the hay with an officer in uniform, who shouldn’t be afraid of girls who carry guns. Let’s hope it’s the last. That’s the only thing that she hasn’t any legal power to do. Anyhow, don’t look now.”
I didn’t. I finished my drink with a jolt and said, “Let’s get another. Can we buy any cigarettes, since they seem to have everything else?”
“Cubans. They’re worse than ever. One will give you tracheobronchitis, and two are guaranteed for carcinoma. Here, smoke this.” He gave me a cigar. He signaled the waiter and ordered more drinks.
The radio was jacked up full by some unseen hand. We began to get a dose of the Master of Ceremonies from the Hero Medal dinner at the Habana Libre. I could feel two blisters slowly rising on the back of my neck from the eyes of that militia female. I lit the cigar. It was excellent, but I’d have given a dollar for a pack of American cigarettes, even without the filters. My nautral nonchalance just didn’t fit when I smoked a cigar.
I said, “Can’t you get any decent cigarettes in Havana, and don’t they ever turn those blasted radios down?”
Maciá leaned closer to me. “If you’re here long enough, you’ll learn to thank your stars for the radio, chico. There are probably microphones under every table being monitored by some militiaman in a dugout in the basement. If it wasn’t for the radios you couldn’t talk at all. We have the most fantastic black market in the world in Havana, but it’s talked about in whispers and talked about in the dark. I can get you all the cigarettes you want at about four dollars a pack, American, and a fifth of Scotch whisky at fifty. Food smuggled in from the countryside, and there’s plenty of it, brings five times what it’s worth—twenty cents for a four-cent banana, eighty cents for a mango, two dollars for a pineapple, and beef and pork from three to four dollars a pound. Everybody who works has a ration book with tickets—you don’t need one in uniform—for meat, butter and eggs and things like garlic and peppers, but they’re a joke. Nobody can buy any in the so-called store or shops because they don’t have any. So you come to places like this to eat, or patronize the black market. Don’t think the peasants who smuggle food in don’t earn their money. Being caught means a one-way trip to the wall.”
I said, “¡Dios mío! Isn’t there any law at all?”
“Plenty of law, but just militia with no judges or lawyers. Just last week three men were sentenced to death here in Havana. The president of the court was a doctor, who is also a Communist Party member. The other four members of the court were illiterate militiamen, who had to sign the death sentence with their fingerprints. The prosecutor himself was so uneducated that he didn’t even know how to draw up the final conclusion. The three men waited six weeks in prison for that farce that sent them to the firing wall.”
Our second martinis came and we tossed them down. He said, “Let’s go out and dine in the sylvan glade of the monopolistic government. Don’t let the prices on the menu throw you. The dinner won’t cost over thirty dollars, American, and the pesos aren’t worth anything, anyhow.”
“But this is all legal?”
“Legal? It’s practically forced on you. The cooking is excellent, and you may even be able to get some meat dishes. There is one thing certain, you can get eggs in any form—millions and millions of eggs. Thanks to all those day-old chicks they flew in from Canada a couple of years ago, everybody on the island has started to cackle.”
We walked out into the fairyland of the star-studded night, and the soft glow of electric lights strung through the trees. The militia girl came to attention. The drinkers at the tables ignored me just a trace too obviously. Helped by the potency of two double martinis, I thought of the gentlemanly Xiqués, and began to wonder if it was his appearance that had caused the lull in the Turquino Bar, any more than the sudden appearance of an officer in the FAR.
Maybe my uniform carried more weight than I thought. Or had I forgotten Leo’s admonition: “Never forget that you are what you are!” I had a chance to try it out just as we stepped from the bar. A militiaman detached himself from the shadows and started toward Dr. Macia, who was walking right behind me, glancing at him keenly.
In a trice, Dr. Antonio Carrillo died, and the potency of Leo’s words completely overwhelmed me. It was a snotty arrogant primer teniente, ready to pull his rank on anyone, who gently put his arm out and barred the doctor’s progress.
The militiaman halted uncertainly at the sight of my uniform. “You arc in my road, Soldado raso—buck private. Perhaps there is something you desire from me.” My own voice was so low and menacing it was unrecognizable even to me.
“It is your companion, Compañero Teniente, I assure you—”
“Rather let me assure you, Compañero Soldado raso,” I practically purred at him. “I find the sloppy training of you peasants most offensive. Perhaps you will learn to salute your superior officers properly after a few months retraining in El Principe.”
The militiaman took a quick backward step, clicked his heels, and saluted. Under the colored electric lights I could see that his face was ashen gray. I understood a lot right then about how Leo had lasted so long, and the rapid rise of Ernesto García to the rank of comandante. Everyone living in a Communist state was filled with fear to the breaking point. They just couldn’t hold an atom more. Feed them another tiny dose and they had no chance to think or reason. They automatically broke into blind compliance with what authority had to say.
But as Leo said, you had to believe it. I still had the pains in my wrists and ankles, the sting from Guido’s slap on my jaw, and the memory of that nightmare journey to keep me in line. Now I’d enjoyed the first intoxicating taste of feeding their own panic back to them. I hoped that I could make it pay.
I returned the salute. The militiamen opened his mouth to speak but his lips moved soundlessly as I went on, with every word dripping vitriol, “My companion, here, as you so insolently referred to him, is Compañero Alfredo of the Political Police from Placetas. He is here in search of a dangerous subversive. Now perhaps if you will give him your name and where you are stationed, he’ll be glad to get in touch with you later, when you will have sufficient time to tell him what you wanted to say.”
“Oh, let the oaf go,” Maciá said quickly. “We’ve too many troubles on our hands already to fool with left-footed militiamen.”
I said, “You’re very lucky, Soldado. Now please be good enough to get out of our way.”
He was not only good enough he was glad. He saluted again and vanished quickly among the trees as we walked on to our table.
“An extraordinary performance,” the doctor said softly when we had sat down. “I could have wished that you had skipped that Alfredo bit, although I doubt if it will add to my troubles. That militiaman knows me or thinks he does, which is just as bad. Maybe thinking I’m a G-2 man will keep him out of my hair.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I realized when that militiaman folded, I’m wasting my time. Why wait until two for you to be let in the back to visit Teresa? Why not go down when we’ve finished dinner and let me check in boldly to the hotel? You can wait in the bar, then come up to my room and we can go to Teresa’s from there.”
“It may work,” he said thoughtfully, “if you can handle the guard on duty like you did this one. I’m willing to chance it. I take risks anyhow, every time I go there.”
> We had finished a good and leisurely dinner, and even consumed a bottle of wine, when the distant nine o’clock cannon boomed out from La Cabana, and everyone checked their watches as they had done for eons of time. I wouldn’t have felt half so chipper, if I’d known I was headed straight for there.
30
For more than an hour while I sat and suffered, he worked his way in a zigzag course toward the Plaza Hotel. We drove through slums where people sat and slept in the doorways, and girls stood pressed to the grilles of narrow windows talking to caballeros on the pavement outside. On divided boulevards he pointed out militia, men and girls, on guard in front of every building. In one of the narrow streets in the business district, a militia girl not even in uniform sat on a chair with a rifle across her knees in front of a lighted window with a meager display of tawdry jewelry.
In the residential section of Vedado, I saw a sight which chilled me through. On an otherwise deserted street, a teen-age girl in a uniform, with a holstered pistol at her belt, was standing on tiptoe to peer through a six-inch slit beneath the pulled-down shade of an open window. The house might well have been my former home.
Maciá said succinctly, “Just a newly weaned spy for the CDR.”
“What the devil is she doing?”
“Looking and listening. Making sure that some old lady hasn’t sold her TV, or that she isn’t listening to some foreign shortwave on the radio. Or checking to see if there is a contraband dish of fruit or a cake on the table, or if some kid has a new pair of shoes on. She’s one of those Pioneers I told you about, working to get a Hero Medal.”
Flight from a Firing Wall Page 21