An Innocent in Cuba

by David McFadden

  —

  Eat eggs when in Cuba. The chicken may taste as if it has been frozen and thawed out too many times before it reaches the table. But the eggs are yummy and maybe even medicinal. They know how to fry an egg in this country. The eggs are small, but no matter how they cook them they’re good. This morning, both eggs were piping hot, though one was slightly overcooked and one was slightly undercooked – what a yummy combination! – and both were from free-range chickens.

  So I shall, along with Fidel, avoid the private restaurants from now on – the paladares – and will concentrate on nothing but those sweet, healthy little huevos fritos, pescado, moros y cristianos – and Havana Club.

  —

  A giant garbage truck with thirty skinny campesinos standing up high in the back is slowly chugging up a hill. I can’t see what’s coming so I’m just about to slow down to the slow speed of the truck, but just before I do an alert campesino, standing straight up in the back of the truck, can see much farther into the distance and can see the road on the other side of the hill is clear. So he waves me on.

  Wasn’t that kind! Because of that poor agricultural worker’s keen eye and good heart, I didn’t even have to take my foot off the gas.

  And as soon as I’m over the hill, so to speak, I have to slow down because we’re heading into Sancti Spíritus, which a billboard proclaims as A Dignified and Respectable City of the Provinces Offering Many Interesting Experiences. But my desire to return to Sancti Spíritus has turned to dust. Havana is calling. It’s time for the bypass to the fastest highway in all of Cuba – A1, the autopista. It’s time to let this albatross of a vehicle fly home. Havana, here we come!

  —

  With that, a tall beanpole of a cop jumps out from the shady grassy median under an overpass and flags me down. This looks like trouble. So I slam on the brakes really hard. He politely asks where I’m going and if I could accommodate two campesinos. He gestured to indicate they were sheltering under the bridge. But there weren’t any campesinos under the bridge. All I could see was one other cop. And as friendly as this cop seemed to be, and the other one probably would be as well, do I really want to have to take two cops all the way to Havana, even if they do call themselves campesinos?

  This sounded a little fishy, so I thought fast and told them I wasn’t actually going to Havana tonight, in fact I’m very weary and am looking for a place to stay for the night. Then tomorrow I will continue on to Havana, and these fake campesinos will probably be there by then. And besides they wouldn’t want to get into the car with a guy as tired as I am. He could see I felt badly, so he patted me on the shoulder and said okay, thank you very much anyway, and he shook my hand so that I would feel better.

  The sun is beginning to set west of the Río Manacas. Soon it will become huge and bright red as it did yesterday at about this time. People at the side of the road have beautiful pink, white, and blue birthday cakes for sale. There’s a hysteria about birthday cakes in Cuba. Everywhere you go there are birthday cakes being transported, sold, bought, taken home, but I’ve never seen anyone actually eating one. They’re always extra large and perfectly square. No circular or rectangular cakes are allowed, that just wouldn’t be Cube-ah. Last night as the sun was setting the moon was rising at 180 degrees. So there could have been an eclipse last night. Haven’t heard a thing, but lunar eclipses don’t get much press these days, and I haven’t been reading the Cuban papers, all two of them, or any other papers since leaving Havana. Which is another reason to get back to Havana. News.

  There have been fires along here, very large ones, out of control, still steaming in places, and now here are the egrets again, discovering anew that grubs taste better when cooked.

  And now there are great dense clouds of smoke hanging low on the highway. Fire for a mile, all along the highway, horrible-tasting smoke, and there are other fires raging off in the distance, with burnt-out sections between them. The fires are devouring what little patches of forest are left in Cuba, then burning up the grass, and then igniting new patches of dry forest, with blackened royal palms, each stripped of its leaves, and topped with a candlelike flame far above the surrounding inferno.

  Now a range of pyramid-shaped mountains appears on the horizon, with the red sun setting, and we’re out of the smoke and flames. Those palm trees on the slopes of pointy hills, outlined like windmills against the sky, might be burned to a crisp by the morning, but right now they’re as alive as anything can be, silhouetted against the setting sun.

  Through all this fiery landscape there has been no sign of human activity, and an amazing lack of traffic, in either direction, except for some cows at the side of the road. It’s as if I have this vast, beautiful burning landscape with pyramids and fabulous setting sun all to myself. All this is mine, for the moment.

  The sun is sinking fast. It’s slipping behind a thick bank of cloud that has just moved in off the sea. As the day wanes, and we’re out of the fires, and we get farther north, the climate gets cooler. And now the sun has come out from behind that cloud bank and it is fiery orange, with a crescent of blistering red superimposed on the orange. The road is heading directly into the setting sun, with myriad reflections shining in the pavement, but it’s not glaringly bright, it’s not blinding. It looks like a planet, like that big fat gasbag Jupiter, it doesn’t look at all like a ball of flame right now, it doesn’t look like the sun. It looks as if we are on a different planet, in a different solar system, and that orange ball the size of a beach umbrella is a giant neighbouring planet reflecting the sunlight, and it is inhabited by people just like us, but more peaceful. It doesn’t look like the sun, nor does it look like the moon.

  Now the sun has set behind some hills, and it looks as if the forests climbing to the summit of each hill are actually on fire, or perhaps they are merely reflecting the sun’s fire. And there are some very nasty fires on a much larger mountain to the south – definitely not reflections from the fiery sun. From here there are numerous little fires all over the hilly landscape. Perhaps they were ignited by lightning, or maybe the fires have been slowly climbing the slopes from little settlements, where someone has flicked a cigarette. Also this must be a well-known area for sunset viewing, because here’s a very large billboard showing a big round sun on it, and the words “Our Revolution Is Strong Like the SOL,” and the O in SOL is a big orange round sun with sunbeams radiating out from it.

  It’s hard not to snicker when a police cruiser runs out of gas. This one has pulled well off the road, as far as possible, so the fewest number of people will see him and laugh. Another cruiser has come up, and the two cops are now shamefacedly pouring gas into the tank, keeping an eye out for wayward sparks from the distant fires. Now would be a good time to hold up a gas station. You’d be gone before the cops could get their caps screwed back on.

  Yesterday Jannier and I saw some smaller fires with firefighters in attendance, and fire trucks. But all along this stretch I haven’t seen anything like that. No sign of any emergency vehicles except for the cop out of gas. “Bomberos!” exclaimed Jannier. “What’s the English word for bomberos?” I told him – firefighters. He looked disappointed, as if it wasn’t a real word, not in league with bomberos at all. He also wanted to know what the difference was between flip-flops and sandals.

  But you’d think there’d be firefighters everywhere along here, and firebombing planes spraying those nasty flames as if they were so many out of control weeds. But maybe some number-cruncher at the ministry responsible for fire control has figured out that this will be a bad year for fires, and all in all it would be less of a drain on the reserve funds to let them burn themselves out rather than fight them.

  —

  The full moon is rising, it’s the second night of fullness, and it’s very bright around the edge, and a bit dimmer toward the middle. If you drew a straight line from the centre of the setting sun to the centre of the rising moon, that line would go right through your heart, so if there is no lunar eclipse
in a few hours it will be a close call.

  And now the sky is full of stars that almost look as if they are breathing up there, slowly dimming then getting bright again, over and over. And when there are little clouds, the stars shine right through them. I wonder how Van Gogh would paint these stars, which seem like ice continually melting and continually freezing at the same time, or what William Blake would say about a moon like that, innocent of the slightest taint of doubt.

  Poor Blake and Van Gogh, they never got to see Cuba.

  —

  There was a slight curve in the road and just for a split second my lights illuminated a campesino at midnight, in utter darkness, cutting sugar cane, with a machete so new and shiny it flashed for a moment in the headlights. He was getting some harvesting done before the fire did it for him.

  And a moment later I was entering Tailfin City.

  DAY TWENTY-THREE

  HEAVENLY HAVANA

  Sunday, March 7, 2004. Havana isn’t really strange, it’s not as if it’s on a different planet, but driving slowly through Vedado in the moonlight last night, with rows and rows of stately royal palms, and one fabulous Spanish palace after another, it felt a lot like another planet. Somewhere in this vast galaxy there must be a planet with a city in it that resembles Havana, though its roads will probably be more smoothly paved and it won’t be full of old Cadillacs.

  It was well after midnight at an ancient stone ferry terminal on Havana Bay, the Terminal Sierra Maestra, where the car-rental agents have their desks and chairs and telephones, in one large room on the ground floor. At the front entrance, I parked the car in the same spot where it was when I got it. Three guys were standing around and when I asked which one was the boss all three started whistling as loud as they could and shouting, Jorge! Jorge!

  Out of the shadows appeared a short dark-skinned Afro-Cuban with an old rough X-shaped scar an inch above his right eye. First off he told me to pull the car inside the terminal building. So I did. I explained that I was bringing it back early because I was tired of driving, all the more so because the car wasn’t suitable for the sort of roads I was encountering.

  Jorge in a friendly manner wanted to know where I’d been. He’d never visited the cities in the east, but he loves Pinar del Río and Viñales west of Havana. I said my friend A. had been down there ten years ago, but it was a bus tour so she didn’t see anything more interesting than a cigar factory, a cliffside mural showing the entire history of the world from amoeba to Fidel, and some semi-submerged caves through which you were expected to row a boat. Jorge said those bus tours were famous for avoiding the real Cuba.

  And then, back to business, he thought for a minute and said I was going to have to bring the car back out, and park it outside, and I’d have to pay for the parking. That seemed odd, but I didn’t want to argue so I said oh all right, and I pulled it outside and parked it where I had parked it first. And he said that’ll be three dollars for the night.

  This was two o’clock this morning. So I paid him, grabbed my bag, and was ready to leave to find a hotel when he said it would be better if I took the car with me, and bring it back in the morning, and he’d give me back my three dollars. The last thing I wanted to do was drive that car another inch, I was that sick of it, so I looked disappointed. But instead of making a fuss I turned and said to him, By the way, how did you get to speak such excellent English?

  He was very pleased. He said he studied hard, he said at night he’s a security guard for this building, but in the day he teaches the English language to Cuban children. He said he was always a very dedicated student and he studied English hard for five years, spoke English with everybody he could – “and now here I am.” He seemed to expand with pleasure from head to toe.

  And I said, Well, that’s just amazing, you’re obviously a highly intelligent man, combined with such dedication, and I shook his hand and looked deeply into his eyes. This may seem condescending on the page, but I don’t think it sounded that way in person, and he certainly didn’t take it that way, because he suddenly flip-flopped again, and he said it would be all right after all for me to leave the car here. Arf arf!

  Most people react reasonably well to flattery, if it’s done right; others, perhaps people with above-average self-esteem, catch on quick, feel manipulated, and don’t like it. He liked it fine. It didn’t occur to him I was being anything but sincere, and he was right, paradoxically. So I got to kiss that car goodbye. And I think he ended up with the three dollars. More security guards should double as parking-lot attendants. It’s a natural fit. You’d feel secure that your car would be there when you got back, though I didn’t care if mine would be there because I wasn’t coming back.

  My heavy canvas bag got progressively heavier as I took off across the cobblestone Plaza de San Francisco, and along Calle Oficios, looking for a place to stay. I knew it was absurdly late to be doing so, but I felt absolutely confident. When I turned onto Calle Obispo, there were three fellows and three girls, who seemed to be coming home from a wedding, or a high-school graduation party, and they were making fun of me because I must have looked funny walking with such a heavy bag, so fast, and in such a straight line, as if I knew where I was going, and couldn’t wait to get there. They apparently took me to be a Russian left over from the 1980s, so they kept saying things like, “Russky, Russky, why don’t you go home? Russky, come here, Russky.” The guys were showing off to the girls. And the girls would giggle. It was embarrassing, and my bag was increasingly heavy, and I would look over my shoulder now and then and smile good-naturedly at them, and finally they shut up. Cabbies were pleading with me to let them drive me somewhere, anywhere, they felt sorry for me. But it was as if I knew where I was going even though I wasn’t conscious of knowing, and I didn’t want anyone to stop me. I went past the Floridita, where the bronze Hemingway would be the only one standing at this hour, and I didn’t even look in. I kept walking walking walking with my eyes straight ahead. I crossed the Prado, and went by the somnolent Hotel Inglaterra where D.H. Lawrence and Frieda spent a night or two, on their way from England to Mexico just a few years before Fidel was born. And all of a sudden I came to the Hotel Lido slightly south and west of the point where the Malecón and the Prado entwine.

  Honest, I had no idea this was where I was going. It was like a miracle. I looked through the glass front into the lobby and the doorman leapt to his feet and unlocked the front door. He let me in and directed me to the night clerk. I booked in, and asked if the bar was still open. She pointed me in the direction. There was a bartender and two guys watching late-night TV at the back of the lobby, and the bartender gave me the most wonderful Cuba Libre, with just a perfect little splash of Cuban cola. And then I asked if I could take a couple of Cristals to my room. He said certainly and asked if I would like the caps off. I said sure, and he took the caps off, slightly, actually he just loosened them, expertly, so I could flip them off with my thumb when I needed to. A Canadian man and wife, very stiff and nervous, came in, sat at a table, and said, “Could we have an ashtray, please?” The bartender didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, so I took one from the bar and put it on their table, and then they lit up, forgetting that all they had to do was light up and the bartender would automatically have brought an ashtray to their table. I went up to my room, with my two beers, and nobody trying to wrest my bag away from me like that oaf in Ciego de Ávila.

  The room and the price were comparable with everywhere I’d been farther east. And I have a whole channel devoted to wild black-and-white Popeye cartoons from the 1940s, many featuring Betty Boop and her rivalry with Olive Oyl, and that nasty, vicious bully Pluto. The shower was clean, the towels were expertly folded in the form of a pair of swans with their necks around each other, one pair for each bed, and there was even a toilet seat on the toilet.

  —

  In the morning I headed back to where I had come from last night, the Terminal Sierra Maestra. But I shouldn’t have dawdled because by the
time I got there, Manolo, the guy I was supposed to settle up with, had vanished. Someone said he’d gone for the day, and when I looked disappointed, another person said Manolo hadn’t gone for the day, he’d be back in an hour. So I sat there, at the Panautos desk, in a vast old stone room empty except for a cannon, some cannonballs, and another car-rental desk, where the Cubacar agent was sitting.

  Manolo could make himself understood in English, but the Cubacar guy was Eloy, an Afro-Cuban as dark-skinned as Jorge, and like Jorge he spoke fluent English. The way things are going in Cuba, English will eventually be thought of as the black people’s language. Eloy kept saying, Lookit, he’s still got his stuff there (a bag sitting on top of a locked safe), so there’s no way he won’t be back by five o’clock.

  —

  Outside the much-photographed eighteenth-century Church of San Francisco de Paula (now an ecclesiastical museum) stands a bronze life-sized statue of a crazy old tinker man, who looked a lot like Jesus, except he was dressed in relatively modern style, and had a string of things he was trying to sell. It was impressive to see a statue of a poor man outside a church, standing alone in the Plazuela de Paula. This statue commemorates the man who was called Havana’s most picturesque character, Lopez Lledin (1890–1985). He was a bellboy in his youth, but he went permanently out of his mind when thrown in jail on fake charges of jewel theft. Upon being released he became a homeless vagabond, who inspired many legends, and who became known as the Cabellero de Paris.