“There is no American embassy in Cuba,” Pedro corrected him, adding in a conciliatory tone, “but you are not detained. Nobody is going to interrogate you, so cool it. You are just a person of interest in this case.”
“Am I free to go home?”
“Not so fast, hey, not so fast. You have to wait for Lieutenant Martínez, who is in charge of the case. I came to ask you a few questions first.”
“Who are you?”
“I work for the Ministry of the Interior,” Pedro spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable as if he were addressing a kid.
El Ministerio del Interior. La Seguridad. The Department of State Security. Cuba’s secret police. By then Matt had read enough Cuban blogs and newspapers to know what Pedro (whose real name was likely a different one) meant.
“I have nothing to do with politics,” he blurted out. “Nothing at all!”
“No one has said you are here for political reasons,” Pedro replied. “This is a formality, really. We aren’t accusing you of anything.”
“Oh. Okay. What do you want from me?”
“Tell me how you met Yarmila Portal,” the Seguridad man said.
Matt exhaled and started to talk fast. “I am a liberal guy. I’m not your enemy. I care about the revolution. I’ve been rooting for Fidel since I was a college student.” That was slightly inflated (fluffed up, as Estrada would say). “I met Yarmila online in February 2002. I was browsing the web and found her blog. I liked it because it wasn’t about counterrevolutionary issues.”
He needed to impress that on Pedro’s mind. He had heard that the secret police considered any American who visited Cuba a potential CIA agent. Anne had cautioned him about talking politics in public places, no matter what his stance was. Anything could be twisted and later used against him, she said. People were paranoid. Even Yarmila had asked him once if he worked “for the intelligence” in his country, a suggestion that made him laugh then. It was no laughing matter now.
“We wrote to each other for months. She invited me to visit her.”
He didn’t add that he had fantasized about Yarmila and printed the photo she had posted on her profile page—a fresh-faced young woman with dimples in her cheeks and short black hair, in a sexy blue dress that showed her legs. If she had been a homely girl, he would have never traveled all the way to Havana to meet her.
“I came last year around July 26,” he went on. “It was the forty-fourth anniversary of the revolutionary triumph.”
He remembered the fact from a billboard and threw it in. Pedro smiled knowingly and Matt feared he had said the wrong thing. That was what a good CIA agent might do: try to convince the Cubans that he was a communist or, at the very least, an ally.
Leave politics alone, damn it!
“I spent a couple of weeks here, getting to know her. We liked each other very much. Last month I decided to return and help her with a restaurant that a friend of hers had opened.”
He stopped, feeling the weight of his loss heavy upon his shoulders, crushing his spirit. But he wasn’t going to cry in front of this cop, or whatever he was. He wasn’t going to show any weakness.
“Today, I found her . . .” He cleared his throat. “She was—oh, God, it feels terrible to even say it, but she was already dead when this woman and I . . .”
Pedro looked sympathetic now. He waited until Matt regained his bearings. When he spoke again, he used a casual, friendlier tone, “Your Spanish is very good. Where did you study it?”
“I have a master’s in Latin American literature.”
“You learned it in college?”
Matt could have said yes, but didn’t see the point of lying.
“Not really. I lived in Bolivia and later in Peru.”
“When was that?”
“In the seventies.”
Pedro frowned.
“Why were you there?”
“My parents were missionaries.”
Pedro offered a few comments about American missionaries being envoys of imperialism in underdeveloped countries. Matt let them pass. He didn’t consider himself religious, or even spiritual. All the Sunday school classes he had been more or less forced to attend had made him lean toward the atheist side. But he wasn’t going to discuss that with a Seguridad guy.
“I understand that you are a journalist,” Pedro said, steering the conversation away again. “Have you ever written about Cuba?”
“No, the paper I work for is very Baja-centric.”
That was Estrada’s favorite word to describe El Grito.
“And that means—?”
“We only deal with news about San Diego and Baja California: Mexican issues, border incidents, Latino interest stories . . .”
They made exceptions, of course. Estrada, as the editor and owner, published pretty much whatever he wanted. He had asked Matt to write a special feature about his Cuban experience. “You can be our man in Havana, our foreign correspondent,” he told him. “And I’ll throw in three hundred bucks for your travel expenses.” Matt had promised to think it over. Estrada had wanted a story about the local Chinatown, but Matt had another idea: if Yarmila accepted his proposal, he would write a feature about Cuban weddings, something bien chingón. He would have a picture of them together, with Yarmi in her bridal gown, published in El Grito for everyone (including his ex-wife) to see. That would show her.
“I hope you are telling me the truth,” Pedro said. “We wouldn’t like to find out that you are the kind who comes here to write lies about our people and the revolution.”
“I’m not! I don’t know enough to write anything, good or bad, about Cuba.”
“How come? You were engaged to a Cuban.”
“Yes, but we didn’t discuss life here.”
“Isn’t that strange?”
Matt shrugged. “It is what it is.”
He was going to say that they had had more interesting things to talk about, but then it hit him. Yes, it was a bit strange that Yarmila had shared so little with him. She had been eager to learn about his country: what people ate there, what clothes they wore, what they thought of their politicians . . . He had found her curiosity normal. Didn’t everybody in Cuba want to know what life was like in los Estados Unidos?
“Thanks for your cooperation,” Pedro said. “That’s all I needed from you. But you don’t have to wait here. What were these cops thinking? I’ll ask them to move you to a more proper place. These benches are awful, no? Ass-killing.”
He left. A few minutes later, a stocky guy in uniform showed up.
“Please, accompany me,” he said, more courteously than Matt would have expected.
He obeyed. The guard led him through a brightly lit hall. They met two other cops on the way.
“It’s a Yuma,” he heard one say.
“What the hell is he doing here? Drugs or putas?”
“Something worse.”
A chill ran through Matt’s body. The guard took him to a small office.
“Lieutenant Martínez will be with you soon,” he said.
He went away, leaving the door open. Matt sat on a hard chair (an improvement over the bench, though), across from a solid wood desk flanked by two filing cabinets. A framed photo of Fidel Castro presided over the room. There was a Cuban newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, on the desk. Matt looked at the date: “Wednesday, March 5, 2003. Year of the glorious anniversaries of Martí and Moncada.”
I can’t believe I just left home this morning. It feels as if a year has passed.
He hit himself on the forehead. Pedro had forgotten to give him back his passport. Now it was too late to ask for it. But at least he wasn’t in a locked cell, like a criminal, anymore. And he wasn’t a suspect, but “a person of interest.” He just had to meet (briefly, he hoped) with Lieutenant Martínez, whom he imagined disheveled and cigar-smoking, a tropical
Columbo of sorts.
He was hungry—famished, in fact. His last meal had been a cheese sandwich and a sip of watery coffee, courtesy of Aeroméxico, six and a half hours before. He couldn’t help it—Yarmila’s writing came to his mind once more.
Yarmi Cooks Cuban
Kike and Marina’s caldosa
It’s about time I devote a post to this nutritive and delicious dish. In case you don’t remember, La Caldosa is also the name of a dear friend’s restaurant, home of the amazing rice and chicken a la Isabel.
Caldosa is a mix of meats and vegetables, boiled together until all the flavors are brought out. Quite simple, though it takes a few hours to gel. Therefore, the first step is making sure that you have the whole morning, or afternoon, to spend in the kitchen.
Fill a caldero (the biggest pot you have at home) with water. Boil and add four pounds of pork. Any cut will do, but bones and heads provide a nice consistency. After half an hour, add the chicken: wings, breasts, thighs, and giblets. It doesn’t matter. Again, bones are good.
Simmer for thirty more minutes and add the vegetables: potato, pumpkin, yuca, taro, plantains, cassava, sweet potato, corn . . . Whatever you have—caldosa is very accepting. Keep boiling. All the tubers are expected to become soft.
Make sure to add water when it gets too low.
In the meantime, take out the pan and fry (in lard, of course, unless you want to be health conscious and use oil) two onions, one chopped garlic, and three bell peppers. Add cumin, oregano, and tomato paste. Let it simmer for a few minutes and pour the mixture into the caldero. Boil for another forty minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste.
A common question: when do you know it is ready?
Answer: when the meat and vegetables are so tender that you don’t need a knife to cut them.
Caldosa is often served at communal parties, like the anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, on September 28. All the neighbors contribute with something. Even a potato or a couple of onions are appreciated.
I have given you the recipe for a family caldosa, but we put as many ingredients as we can in the collective caldero.
At the party, people sit around and catch up with their neighbors’ lives while they share caldosa. There is music, dance, and rum. Don’t forget el Havana Club!
Caldosa is one of the few Cuban dishes that has its very own song, composed by Rogelio Díaz Castillo and made popular by El Jilguero de Cienfuegos. I have danced to the caldosa rhythm many times!
Comments
Cocinera Cubana said. . .
First time I hear of caldosa. When I left Cuba it hadn’t been invented yet. It reminds me of ajíaco. Or is it the same thing?
Mateo said. . .
That’s a new one for me too. Will you make one when I visit next time?
Lucy Adel said. . .
Too much boiling. I’d stick to the ajíaco.
Taos Tonya said. . .
Here in New Mexico we will add chile because we put it into everything.
Yarmi said. . .
Cocinera, I’ll find out if it is a “modern” dish. You may be right; we have had to become creative in recent years! As for the differences, the ajíaco takes less time and each ingredient retains its identity. In the caldosa, flavors get so mixed up that you don’t know where the plantain ends and where the yuca starts.
Yuma dearest, I will make my very best caldosa for you!
Tonya, even in desserts?
Lucy, both are great. Thanks for commenting and buen apetito.
Taos Tonya said. . .
Yes, jita. Wait until you try my green chile pumpkin pie. Delicioso!
Chapter Four
La Caldosa
Smells of chicken fried with onions, garlic, and tomato sauce filled the air, mixed with the scent of Alicia Alonso eau de toilette. It was a promising evening at La Caldosa, an evening of foreigners and well-off nationals. Isabel Quintana, the paladar proprietress, surveyed the room with a satisfied expression. Four of the five tables were already occupied and they were getting close to the maximum number of patrons allowed. Per state regulations, paladares couldn’t serve more than twelve clients at a time.
Two gray-haired men shared a table with a couple of Cuban teenagers. The girls spoke Spanish to each other and their companions did the same in German, the linguistic barrier too wide for them to attempt to cross it on either part. There were three women whose chat was thick with the sibilant sounds of the Castillian lisp, and a middle-aged, foreign-looking man dining alone.
In a corner table, a well-dressed Cuban couple proclaimed their status in both behavior and attire. The woman wore a maxi dress with silver appliqués and stylish makeup; the man sported a crisp guayabera and ironed jeans. They talked quietly and refrained from excessive gesturing. They had started with a big shrimp salad, the most expensive appetizer on the menu. Isabel figured that they were “dollar-area Cubans,” as their less fortunate compatriots called them, and probably worked for a corporación like Gaviota or Cubalse. Corporaciones were government-owned enterprises that paid their employees in convertible pesos or CUCs, a currency pegged to the American dollar.
Isabel smiled at them, refilled their water glasses and asked if everything was okay. She pampered her dollar-area patrons who, unlike foreign tourists, had the potential to become repeat customers.
“The salad is delicious,” the woman said, “but it’s getting warm in here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! I will take care of that.”
Isabel opened the window and the sounds from the street seeped in—cars honking and slamming on their brakes, motorcycles revving, laughter and shouts from a bus stop. She turned on the stereo and played an Enrique Iglesias CD that a patron had given her in exchange for two free meals. The patron was a Cubalse employee who worked at Quinta y 42 St. Store in Miramar, a convertible-peso supermarket.
Luis, Isabel’s husband and the paladar’s only waiter, showed up with entrées for the Germans and their friends. Only then did Isabel return to the kitchen—she didn’t like to leave the room unattended, afraid of petty theft and eat-and-runs. That night the special was rice and chicken prepared according to her very own and secret recipe. Arroz con pollo a la Isabel was moist, colorful, creamy, and a tad spicy. She tasted the chicken, added a teaspoon of saffron to the rice and stirred the simmering sofrito, the seasoning base used in most of her dishes.
Taty, the kitchen helper and occasional busboy, was busy cutting onions—the main entrée was served with an avocado and onion salad. But it wasn’t the onion’s fault that his eyes swelled with tears as he sliced.
“Ay, Isa! I can’t believe it still,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
“I was thinking that this nightmare may still turn out like a soap opera,” he went on. “You know how it goes: the pretty girl is found dead at home but in the end, it was her twin sister or someone else who died. And she is alive and having fun in a faraway place!”
Isabel gave him a cold glance. Taty was a young Chinese mulatto whose toned body had the exact combination of muscles and curves to make him attractive to both sexes in a disturbing, feral way.
“Yarmila didn’t have any twin sisters,” she replied, curtly. “Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Well, but—”
“Pay attention to what you’re doing or you are going to cut a finger off, comemierda.”
Isabel had found out about Yarmila’s death through the grapevine, a few minutes after a police car had stopped in Espada Street and whisked Matt and Fefita away. She had considered not opening the paladar that evening, out of respect for her friend’s memory, but she had ordered too much food and risked losing it all if a blackout were to happen at night.
“Despite everything, it’s going to be a great evening, eh, Isa?” Taty ventured to say after a while. “Have you seen how many
people we have?”
“Let’s just hope the cops don’t show up tonight,” Isabel sighed.
He batted his long eyelashes, where too much mascara had been applied.
“Why would they?”
“Because Yarmila was our business partner. As soon as they find out, they will start asking this and that. And I don’t have receipts for all the stuff I’ve bought.”
“But she wasn’t a partner, legally. Her name isn’t on the papers.”
“So what? Yours isn’t either and everybody knows you work for me. She cooked for us. She was here almost every night. And then, she and Pato—but they’d better not mess with me!” Isabel lifted her breasts in a defiant gesture, the way men grab their crotches to make a point. “I don’t take shit from anybody, cop or no cop!”
They continued cooking in silence. After the Enrique Iglesias CD ended, Luis chose an old favorite: Buena Vista Social Club.
“Who could have killed her?” Taty asked, with Compay Segundo singing “Chan Chan” in the background.
Isabel put a saffron-stained index finger to her lips. “Shush! Don’t say that word.”
“Which one?
“Killed.”
“Do you think she offed herself?”
“No, Taty! Why would she? But you never know who is listening to you or how they are going to interpret what you say. And there is always someone listening to you. You have to be more careful.”
“Okay, okay.”
Isabel started slicing a tomato. She longed to have a blender. Yarmila had assured her that her Yuma was bringing one, plus other fancy items like a rice cooker and a new set of kitchen knives.
“We can forget that now,” she muttered to herself.
Isabel was pear-shaped, in her late forties, with long gray hair tied in a bun. Her legs were wrapped in compression stockings. A starchy white apron covered her polka-dotted dress. Though she moved gingerly, dragging her sandal-clad feet over the tiled floor, Isabel was anything but bashful. A demanding manager, wife and mother, she had been nicknamed La Jefota (Big Boss) by her own husband. She didn’t care. She was proud of having kept the paladar afloat after many similar ventures that were started at the same time had already failed.
Death Comes in Through the Kitchen Page 3