by Jose Latour
Victoria turned, ambled to the bedroom, slid the envelope into the inner breast pocket of the suit jacket Pardo would be flying with, then stripped off the pair of surgical gloves she had been wearing.
“Shall we begin easing the pain of parting?” she asked her husband, who lay in bed reading a magazine.
“Right away,” was his reply.
Pardo visited five Havanatur agencies in Mexico—in the Federal District, Tijuana, Monterrey, Veracruz, and Mérida. From this last city, he FedExed Victoria’s letter to a small convenience store in Brooklyn owned by Rubem Rabelo, a Brazilian who had lived in New York since 1975. Two days later, around midday, Mr. Rabelo slit open the envelope, pulled out the letter and the money, searched for the number 8. He jotted the number on the inside of a new envelope, put the letter and one ten-peso bill into it, turned the pages of an old notebook that he kept in a shoebox, found address number 8, wrote it down in capital letters on the front of the new envelope, and mailed it personally that afternoon.
Victoria’s letter was next delivered to the office of Agustín Izquierdo, a Mexican accountant who had legally emigrated to Houston, Texas, in 1985. Mr. Izquierdo put his ten-peso bill away before looking up address number 8 in an address book and mailing the letter in a cream-colored envelope to forty-five-year-old Eugenio Bonis, a Cuban boatlifted to the United States in 1980 who made a living as a landscaper in Miami, Florida. Mr. Bonis carefully inspected the strips of Scotch tape before cutting them with a penknife. He read the letter several times, then fed a diskette into the disk drive of his PC and copied something from the letter before burning it.
In November of that same year, Pardo flew to Havanatur’s Chilean agency in Santiago de Chile. One evening, arguing that he had to finish an urgent report to Havana, he stayed late at the office. The somewhat pissed off Cuban office manager, before leaving for dinner at home around seven, closed the miniblinds on the windows and asked Pardo to give him a ring when he was through. What made him angry was that he had the only key to the agency’s glass doors; Pardo’s overtime would force him to drive back to close for the night.
Half an hour after the man left, the retired major opened the filing cabinet drawer in which the passports of Chileans hoping to fly to Cuba the coming week were kept. He chose five issued to men in their forties and fifties and made photocopies of every page. After returning the passports to the filing cabinet, he photocopied the yellow pages listing Santiago notaries. In his trips abroad, he took with him the XEMIC laptop, to check his e-mail from Cuba and to surf Internet sites that, if accessed from Havana, might suggest he was up to something. He spent the next three hours visiting sites on money laundering. After midnight, once he had called the office manager to say he was through, Pardo reclined on the swivel chair, fingers interlaced behind his head, and tried to anticipate his wife’s reaction when told that he was ready to roll.
“Great” was what she said a week later as she stripped her glasses away, kissed him hungrily, struggled to pull his jacket off. They had just entered the apartment. She had begun moving her hand over the fly of his trousers the second the elevator began to ascend. By the time he kicked the front door closed and dropped his suitcase in the living space, he had a full erection. It was only natural that she misunderstood what he said about being ready to roll. But when two hours later they were sipping cups of espresso in the kitchen, he remembered the expression he had used months before and said to his wife that he had dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.
“Goooood,” Victoria whispered. She considered the news for a minute or two, then said: “My hands are tied unless I learn the date of your next trip to Panama or Nassau a week in advance. Is that possible?”
“I can’t say for sure. Maybe they’ll tell me on a Monday that I’ll leave on Friday.”
“Okay. Let’s not push it. We’ll wait for the right moment. But now, honey, let’s go back to bed. It’s been so long.”
They got lucky. Not only did Pardo learn in January that he would be flying to Panama in February 1997, but he was informed that he had to spend a week in Toronto first. Victoria declared the Toronto trip “perfect.” Two days after he arrived, at 10:00 A.M., with a ten-dollar phone card and from a pay phone, Pardo called the Miami number his wife had made him memorize. As she had forewarned him, a machine answered.
“Bonis Landscaping,” a male voice said in slightly accented English. “Leave your message and I’ll call you back.”
Pardo waited for the beep. “Uh, I have a message for Mr. Bonis from Ms. Negri,” trying to keep his voice even. “She’ll be in Panama from next Sunday evening, in Hotel Las Vegas. Mr. Do-par will take her messages. That’s D,o,” Pardo paused, “p, a, r.”
The retired major hung up and on his way to the travel agency felt sad for the half wit who had been risking his freedom for who knew how many years in the belief that he was serving a great cause.
A week earlier four dissidents had been sentenced to prison terms between three and six years. Their crime? Writing and distributing a document titled “The Homeland Belongs To All,” which demanded freedom of expression, amnesty for prisoners of conscience, and participation in the island’s political life. What the half wit was serving was a great tyranny, Pardo concluded.
…
Steil got his visa to spend a week in Cuba and booked a seat on the early morning flight on April 14, 2002, a Sunday. He arrived at the warehouse a few minutes before 9:00 A.M. on April 12, informed Sam that he would fly on Sunday, and then dialed Maria Scheindlin’s unlisted number.
“Well, how nice, Elliot,” she said, sounding genuinely pleased. “Is this your first trip to Cuba since you left?”
“Yes.”
“First vacation, too?”
“Second, actually. In 2000, I took my …” Steil hesitated. Woman? Spouse? Lover? “… friend and her son to Spain.” It came to him that “her” clarified the gender of his friend. Feminist jargon could raise suspicions.
“Oh” was Maria’s immediate, discreet interjection, followed by a pause. “Well, give me a few hours to make my shopping list. Let me see. Posters? I’ve heard there’s a great fifty-year-old rum. And this friend of mine? He kills for those Cohibas Castro smokes.”
“Used to smoke.”
“Really? Good. Proves he’s no fool. Perhaps Jenny would like CDs, too. She loves Camerata Romeu. Why don’t you drop around this afternoon, after work?”
What could he say? Nothing except that he would be delighted, but he was not. He pictured the woman serving her guests the rum few in Miami get to taste and saying “With Fidel’s compliments.” Her daughter would boast about the Camerata CDs to her friends. The cigars were surely for David Sadow, her lawyer, who would chew them to pieces without lighting them up. Rich people!
He had errands to run and needed time to sort his feelings out. Anticipation had been growing inside him day-by-day, minute-by-minute; it burgeoned after booking the seat. That afternoon, driving eastbound along the Broad Causeway as the receding sun glittered on the surface of the sea, Steil tried to figure out what was going on in his head. A measure of apprehension, for sure. Those who had left illegally felt the same on their first trip back. What if someone accused him of committing a crime? Being innocent offered little consolation. He could be charged with anything, might not be able to return to Miami. Unlikely, but possible.
Something more elusive crept through the recesses of his mind. Reminiscence? Nostalgia? Homesickness? He felt as though he were slipping back into the womb. It had already happened to him once, many years ago. His life in Havana was so fulfilling, he was so glad of having left behind the cultural backwaters, that he hadn’t been to Santa Cruz del Norte in a long while. His grandmother was on her deathbed, and she had asked to see each of her grandchildren one last time. As the bus got near his hometown, he had observed the sky, the sea, and the clouds. His rational side had pronounced them identical to those forty miles to the west; yet they had seemed so unique, so his.
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br /> Walking the streets that evening, he had registered scores of changes: Scrawny girls had become attractive women, new houses had replaced old wooden shacks, ageless wooden fishing boats had been given fresh coats of bright paint, friends who had had washboard stomachs in their teens now were paunchy. He had sniffed the air, listened intently, drank the water, touched the surfaces. And the smells, sounds, tastes, and tactile experiences had brought bittersweet memories which, when he was reminded of them elsewhere, had not smelled or sounded or tasted or felt like in his hometown. The rum made in Santa Cruz had a different tang in Havana, for God’s sake! He wondered if all expatriates felt the same bond with their birthplace. Probably. You were born in the North Pole, you longed for northern lights, igloos, and zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Miami could do with a cooler temperature today, he thought as he switched the air conditioner to maximum. Low eighties in mid-April. He entered the east island through Kane Concourse, took a left on East Broadview Drive, another left on 101. He suddenly noticed something he didn’t register the first time he was here: There were no multiple dwellings of any kind, just the kind of fabulous estates that make you wish you were worth $50 million. Zoning restriction probably. Steil gained access to Maria’s closed gate and stretched out his arm to press the buzzer in a metal box.
“Yes?” came from the speaker.
“It’s Elliot Steil.”
“Come on in.”
The gate slid back with a buzz. He parked in the driveway while the gate closed itself. The front door swung open.
“Hey, that white cotton shirt makes you look more Cuban. Cool, as kids say nowadays,” Maria said from the doorframe. Steil noticed the at-home ensemble. Green off-the-shoulder blouse, tennis shorts, leather thongs. A clip pinned her hair back.
“Pretty hot today,” he said with a smile while approaching her. There was not a dash of makeup on her face.
“Yes. Some rain would be good.”
They went down the steps into the living space. Maria approached the sofa in striped satin, eased herself down onto its left end, and signaled Steil to a club chair. Fine, it was a day for air conditioning, Steil thought. For two or three minutes the conversation focused on his departure for Havana. Steil told Maria what he had heard about the ill-famed five-hour wait at the Miami airport for a forty-minute flight, the tight security measures, the people wearing three of everything except shoes to circumvent the airline’s baggage allowance.
“Why is this?” Maria wanted to know.
“So they can take more clothes to their relatives.”
The news of the day was the forced resignation of Venezuelan president Rufo Chaviano, and they skirted the subject for half a minute. Then Maria crossed her legs, slid her fingers into a pocket of her shorts, and extracted a piece of paper that she handed to her guest. On a notepad page Steil read:
1– Camerata Romeu CDs
2– Bottles of fifty-year-old rum (don’t know the brand)
3– As many boxes of Cohiba Espléndidos as you can bring.
Steil lifted his eyes to hers. “I’ve been told that people coming from Cuba are allowed only two boxes of cigars and two bottles of rum,” Steil said.
“Well, something is better than nothing. You want money?”
“No. You’ll reimburse me when I get back. If I get back.”
“What do you mean if you get back?” Maria asked with a frown.
Steil dropped his gaze to the floor, clicked his tongue, and shook his head. “I suppose I’m just a little paranoid.”
Maria cast a suspicious glance at her partner. “Are you wanted in Cuba for some crime?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t go if I were. I’m not crazy, you know?” he said with a grin that tried to prove his sanity. “But you never know. Suddenly a crisis erupts, flights are canceled, scapegoats are needed, you find yourself at the wrong place at the wrong time, and anything can happen.”
For an instant Maria Scheindlin seemed absorbed in her thoughts, staring over Steil’s head, the insinuation of a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “I think you understand what I mean,” Steil ventured.
“How so?” returning to the moment.
“Perhaps you visited Poland under communism.”
“No, I didn’t. Nor after communism. Can I offer you anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” he said, crossing his ankles.
She shook off the leather thongs and tucked her legs underneath herself. “So, if you have this feeling, why are you going?”
“I have to make sure some people down there are all right,” Steil volunteered, feeling his privacy invaded. “Friends, my ex-wife, relatives in my hometown.” Why was he justifying his actions to this woman? He decided to probe a little. “Don’t you have people you care about in Poland?”
Maria took a deep breath and shook her head. “My parents died in the eighties, under Jaruzelsky. And I don’t have many sweet memories of Zielona Góra, my hometown, or Wroclaw, where I got my BA in …” she opened a pause for effect “… English literature.”
“That a fact? I don’t remember if I told you that I …”
“You did.”
“What a coincidence.”
“Yes. But you know what, Elliot? I don’t miss the snowcapped Carpathian Mountains, or the Oder, or walking to the synagogue under the contemptuous glances of everybody. Poland was 90 percent Catholic and 9 percent communist, so we were socially ostracized.”
Steil kept his eyes on hers, feeling his slight animosity abate. There goes my theory of what expatriates feel, he thought.
“I found happiness in this country. I met and married a great guy, had a daughter, lived a good life. I worship the sun, I love the sand and the sea; this Atlantic is so different from the Baltic. When I feel like a colder temperature, I go to Aspen or Yellowstone. Ruben asked me fifteen or sixteen years ago if I wanted to spend a couple of weeks in Poland. I said, ‘No, thanks.’ Why should I? To visit my parents’ graves? That won’t bring them back. To hear the hypocrites complimenting me on my foresight? The same bastards who reviled me when I … came here?”
An undercurrent of rancor could be sensed in her tone.
“But Cuba is probably different,” she went on. “I’m under the impression that Castro has become a bit liberal over the past few years. Besides, he needs the money you guys spend there or send to relatives. He starts throwing Cubans living here in jail, his main source will run dry. And you are not getting mixed up in politics, are you?”
“Oh, no. Politics stinks. Here, there, everywhere.”
“Way to go,” Maria said, pulling her feet back to the floor in one swift motion.
“Will you stay at a relative’s?” as she fumbled around for the leather thongs with her toes.
“I booked a room at the Habana Libre in Havana. In Santa Cruz del Norte—that’s my hometown—I’ll probably stay with relatives.”
“Good. Now, listen Elliot. You are important to the company. Don’t go looking for trouble in Cuba. No, that’s not what I meant to say. I meant: Avoid trouble in Cuba. But should you encounter any problem, try to smooth it over, negotiate, and don’t antagonize the authorities. Call me if you need a lawyer. I’m willing to charter a plane and get you back here as fast as possible if it’s necessary. Okay?”
“Okay, Maria. And thank you. I really appreciate your concern, but I hope I won’t have to call you.”
“I hope so, too,” she said, bending over to reach for the elusive left thong. Steil was only half pleased. He valued the distinction, but the notion that he could confront so serious a problem that he would have to appeal to Maria Scheindlin gave him the shivers. Knock on wood.
“The real reason I asked you here today was to tell you this; not give you the damn shopping list.”
“Oh.”
“I want to make that clear so you don’t think I’m a show-off.”
“It never crossed my mind.” Hypocrite.
“Just in case. Off you go, Elliot. I�
��m sure you have better things to do. Take your friend to dinner, pack your bags, make love. C’mon,” as she got to her feet.
That evening around half past seven, Maria Scheindlin left home at the wheel of her Audi. She drove down the Broad Causeway, took a left on U.S. 1, turned left on Sixth Street, and pulled to the curb between First Avenue and First Court. From there she walked to a post office, where she bought a ten-dollar phone card. Returning to the Audi, Maria scratched off the strip covering the card’s code, drove west along Flagler, and on Thirty-seventh Avenue entered a supermarket parking lot.
A light gray van entered the parking lot next. It had PALM SPRINGS DELIVERY SERVICE and a phone number painted on its sides. The driver got out and headed for a cafeteria adjoining the supermarket. Inside the van, through a periscope concealed in a roof ventilator, a man observed as Maria got out, approached a pay phone, and tapped the card’s code first, then a number. She got an answering machine.
A woman’s voice said in Spanish: “Leave your message and I’ll call you back.”
“Next Sunday. Early morning. Habana Libre,” she said after the beep, then hung up. She returned to the Audi and followed more or less the same route back home, where she cut to pieces the phone card before dropping it in the trash can. Then, heaving a deep sigh, she went to the shower.
…
Full of anticipation, Manuel Pardo awoke early on February 10, 1997, a Monday. He took a shower, shaved, brushed his teeth, and donned underwear, a white dress shirt, a charcoal gray, fine-striped, two-button business suit, a light green tie, black socks, and black lace-up shoes. It was 7:55 when, carrying a nearly full flapover tote bag, he reached the reception desk and asked the clerk on duty if the mail he was expecting had arrived. The man reached for pigeonhole 205 and handed Pardo a sealed envelope addressed to Mr. Pardo. Its back flap had been Scotch-taped. Pardo turned, swallowed hard, and walked away. He slid the envelope in a side pocket of his jacket. To conceal and control his anxiety, he had breakfast, then went to his room and carefully checked that nobody had tampered with the envelope before he ripped it open.