“That’s a nice load of mangoes,” Figgy remarked.
Tomlinson didn’t notice. He was trying to orient himself. It had been several years since his last stay in Havana. Not that much had changed, but cities built by Conquistadors were always a directional challenge. Streets converged like spokes of a wheel, designed to capture the wind in hot, tropical regions, which was ingenious—air-conditioning via architecture—but also confusing as hell if you were in a car, not on a plodding horse.
“Are we near the Hotel Plaza? That’s where Doc would stay if he’s here.”
“Who?”
Tomlinson went through it again, making the connection with Gen. Juan Rivera. A minute later, they were off the Malecón, driving past totems of the Revolution: tanks, debris from a U.S. plane, and Castro’s motor vessel, Granma, mounted within glass like a trophy. The Hotel Plaza was on the left, across from a park, only one security guard at the door. Tomlinson got out, spoke to the guard, then said to Figueroa through the window, “I’ve been a Rastaman for, what, two hours? And the screws are already disrespecting me. I need some paper to leave a note.”
“Your friend’s not there?”
“The guard won’t say, which tells me Doc checked in but he left and hasn’t come back yet. It’s a sort of sensory connection thing we have.”
In the glove box, Figueroa found a receipt book and a stub of a pencil. “What kind of car does he drive?”
“That he rented, you mean?” Tomlinson began scribbling a note. “Knowing him, something beige with seat belts.”
Next stop was the Masonic Grand Lodge of Cuba on Avenida Salvador Allende, west in Vedado. The building was an Art Deco Gothic from the ’50s, eleven stories tall, crowned by a lighted, revolving planet Earth. Two guards stationed here. Tomlinson got out, carrying the card given to him by Raúl Corrales. “These guys meet at weird hours, you never know, but keep an eye open for the Mercedes,” he said to Figgy. “If they let me in and I give you a thumbs-up, that means you can haul ass inside if you need to hide from the Russian.”
For fifteen minutes, Figueroa sat there, long enough to roll a joint and light it. He checked and rechecked the mirror, alert for the Mercedes, but didn’t notice two motorcycle cops parked down the street, which also happened to be downwind. That’s who he was talking with, the cops, when Tomlinson exited the building and did an immediate about-face. But then turned around—he couldn’t just go off and abandon the little guy—despite an ingrained aversion to men in uniform, especially with the scent of good weed in the air.
Figgy, though, had the situation under control. “They feel you should drive,” he whispered. “Do you have twenty dollars American?”
“You bribed them? Thank god.”
“And the chickens, they wanted them all, but I talked them down to two.”
Tomlinson smoked the last of the doobie while he followed the cops to their apartment on Zapata, a street that skirted a cemetery so large that mausoleums and lighted statuettes accompanied them ten blocks before the cops pulled over. They switched off their headlamps, checked the street both ways, and waved for Figueroa to help them with the poultry cages. Gad . . . it reminded Tomlinson of a bizarre drug deal from long ago. Tabs of mescaline, an undercover narc, and a conga line of Hare Krishnas had somehow intersected. Details were sketchy, but he remembered thinking the bald men in robes were skinheads and was terrified of whatever crazy shit came next, yet he’d remained fixated on the dazzling lights of Berkeley . . . or was it San Francisco Bay?
Didn’t matter. The sick feeling in his hara is what mattered. Same with his fixation on the cemetery, a dazzling grotesquerie, well-lit, a forest of cathedrals, crypts, and crosses, a gated community for the dead. His instincts warned him not to look away, but his battle for clarity won—and there, a block behind them, was the black Mercedes.
Figgy reappeared, slapping at bugs . . . no, pinfeathers on his shirt, and saw the car, too. Instead of getting in the Buick, he jogged toward the cops, who didn’t want to be bothered—not while lugging cages up the stairs—but the good cop relented . . . placed his chicken on the ground and listened while Figgy talked and pointed at the Mercedes.
Brilliant, Tomlinson thought, yet futile. It was a finesse that could not work. But, my god . . . it did work. The cop drew his weapon, signaled his partner, and they both trotted toward the black car.
Figgy jumped in and slammed the door. “Drive fast, brother.”
Tomlinson was already in second gear. “Christ, what kind of crazy bullshit story did you give them?” He shifted to third and checked the rearview mirror: the Russian was out, hands up, a man so big he dwarfed the Mercedes and the cops.
“Story?”
“Dude, if there was ever a time to make up a story, this is it.” Now, in the mirror, the Russian, instead of handing over his wallet, was gesturing impatiently like a VIP without a driver’s license or even an ID.
Figueroa, looking out the side window, said, “Damn . . . I wanted to drive through the cemetery. You think Key West is nice? There’s a cathedral in there full of dead famous people. It’s next to the baseball memorial, and I wanted to show you—”
“The cops,” Tomlinson interrupted, “try to focus, man. What did you say?”
“I told them”—he plucked a feather from his tongue and spit—“I told them the Russian wants to kill me. That he’s a fat bolá who hates Cubans, especially me, ’cause I defected to the Estados Unidos to play in the major leagues. But I came back to help my abuela.”
“To save your ‘grandmother,’” Tomlinson translated.
“Yes, I’m fairly certain. To save her from embarrassment.”
“They bought it? I’ll be go to hell.”
“Perhaps,” Figgy said, “but what I told them is true.” He twisted around in his seat. “Next time we’re in Havana, we’ll buy beer and visit the grave of Dolf Luque, Cuba’s first major leaguer.”
Gad, he was still talking about the cemetery.
“There’s an area where left-handed pitchers are buried, a nice place to lay in the grass. But even before crazy prison, I couldn’t enjoy my trips because the bad Santero followed me. Others sometimes, too.”
“To a . . . geezus, why?”
Figuerito became uneasy. “Could be that people believed I knew where things of value were hidden, but I don’t. I mean, I do, but that’s not where they are.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Does this have something to do with why every narc, cop, and bad guy in Cuba is after us?” He glanced at the briefcase on the floor. “The cemetery—is that where you found the letters?”
“That’s where some people looked for them, brother. I’m fairly sure. Same with the motorcycles and machine guns.”
Tomlinson needed a time-out. “Let’s not talk for a while,” he said.
• • •
FIGUEROA’S GRANDMOTHER, Imelda Casanova, whom locals called the Dowager and feared as a recluse, lived in a gabled house that in a village as small as Plobacho was considered a mansion.
Driving west into the foothills of Sierra del Rosario with the sea to their right, Figgy explained that villagers also feared his grandmother because after the Revolution wealthy Cubans were evicted and their mansions were turned into apartments. Except for one woman. And one house.
“Why?”
“You’ll have to ask my mu-maw. Think she’ll be surprised to see me? I’m kind of worried, brother, ’cause I didn’t leave under what you’d call real good terms.”
They discussed Figueroa’s grandmother awhile before Tomlinson got back to it. “Was your father famous? That might be why Fidel let her stay. You said he danced for the Moscow Ballet.” Another motive came to mind, but it was better to get all the options on the table.
“I never met him. Why else would my mother live in Russia when I was a boy living in Cuba? Before I was kicked out of sch
ool, children teased me, saying it was a lie: Cubans didn’t dance ballet, especially in Moscow, where all men are fat except for soldiers and maricóns. Oh, brother, did that make me mad.”
Uh-oh, Tomlinson thought, and pictured Figgy as a schoolboy tossing bullies off a cliff. “How did you, uhh, deal with the situation?”
“The multiplication table ended the problem,” he answered.
“Excellent, a great way to deal with anger.” Tomlinson nodded. “Doing math problems in your head. Know what? I’m going to suggest that to my friend Doc. A nice guy but a lot of repressed anger, I think, that manifests itself in tight-ass behavior. You know, always on time, has to follow through with every little promise. The guy won’t even smoke a joint.”
“Who?”
Tomlinson had to go through it again, an abbreviated version.
“Smoking pitillo, sure, it might relax your friend, but I don’t know about his ass. What I was talking about was getting kicked out of school because of arithmetic. I couldn’t get past three times three—three being my lucky number, as you know—so I didn’t have to listen to their shit on the playground no more. Your friend the doctor, is he good at arithmetic?”
Tomlinson slipped a baggy from his pocket. “Be judicious when you roll the next one,” he said. “We’re low on papers—and that’s the good news.”
They were on a winding road not much wider than the station wagon, the Rosario Mountains not yet cascading into the sea. Dark out here in the countryside: sugarcane and stars, tiny houses with goats, an occasional ox grazing in the yard. “Do you mind driving for a while?” Tomlinson asked.
For the next half hour, using a flashlight, he skimmed through more love letters, all to the same address in Plobacho, Pinar del Río, although the pet endearments varied: My Adored Gaitica, Beloved Angelica, Dear Little Ducky, My Sweet Galleguita. More often, My Beautiful Elma. Elma seemed a shorter form of Imelda, but was it? Were the letters all to the same woman?
“Did your grandmother have a sister?” Tomlinson asked. “Or a cousin—a niece, maybe—who lived in the same house?”
“She had maids and a housekeeper. Just a housekeeper the year I was sent away.” Figgy looked over from the steering wheel. “I was told never to open those. She didn’t mention you, but I . . . well, as long as I’m here to watch, I guess it’s okay.” A passing cottage caught his eye. “Have you ever owned a goat? They have eyes like snakes, but they’re very good in stew.”
“Your grandmother told you not to read these, huh? Then how did General Rivera get his greedy paws on the briefcase?”
“It was a deal we made before he bribed the warden and got me out of crazy prison. Now I’m worried she might be mad. But I told you the truth. They were never hidden in the Colon Cemetery no matter what I said to others.”
“That’s what you meant back there? Oh yeah, I asked about the letters.”
“You don’t remember that either? All the marble statues and tombs, the most beautiful cemetery in the world. After a doctor checks your brain, maybe we’ll go.”
“Geezus, please, no more with the cemetery. What about your grandmother?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. She never cared about baseball, so I doubt if she’ll understand.” The little man fretted for a moment. “I haven’t seen her in more than three years. She can’t cook either.”
Tomlinson returned to the letters, his eye sharpening as he skimmed through several. Fidel’s penmanship had more flourish than his brother’s, but his notes were shorter, seldom more than a few lines, and often cryptic. A couple of times Tomlinson asked Figgy for help with translation but soon realized that the multiplication table was not the shortstop’s only academic failing.
“I understand most words written in ink,” he explained, “as long as I know the person and can guess what they want to say. And certain books because they’re typed out. You know the thin ones with nice pictures?” He couldn’t talk without taking his hands off the wheel to gesture or indicate size and this time they almost went over a cliff into a river.
After that, Tomlinson stopped asking for help.
The letters were arranged haphazardly, no regard for dates or whether they were from Fidel or Raúl. Envelopes from 1953 to ’55 were all from federal prison on the Isle of Pines. Each first page contained illegible initials in red and sometimes a circular stamp CENSURADO. Aside from Fidel’s fantasy about his Galleguita bathing naked at a washbasin, Tomlinson was struck by the consistent formality. Each missive was respectful, mindful of decorum, but with love hidden between the lines. The same was true of letters posted after the Castros were free men.
He was impressed by the eloquence of the writing, especially Raúl, who wrote of his “embryonic love” and of his “auto-analysis” regarding Fidel’s behavior when, in 1957, they both went into hiding. These letters were not authored by ignorant thugs. They were written by articulate, well-educated men who were mindful of the social niceties due a woman, mistress or not. Two distinctive voices: Raúl rambled and strained for lyricism; Fidel snapped orders or lectured, often as a martyr or victim, and always in a superior tone.
But so far, not one single damning or controversial line, save for the one from Raúl, written from prison, that hinted at Fidel’s inept baseball skills—no, it had been softball. Certainly nothing worth killing for.
Tomlinson skipped ahead, seeking anything written during the political turmoil of the early 1960s, but correspondence had dwindled. He found several from Raúl, but only two from Fidel, who by then was revered, or feared, as the Máximo Gran, the leader of all Cuba.
An envelope leaped out. Tomlinson held his breath while he opened it to find a telegram:
MY FRIEND. DESTROY WHAT YOU HAVE SAVED AND FIND A SAFE PLACE. SAY NOTHING. THE SWAN LIES. MONTHS MUST PASS. F
It was dated 9:18 p.m. 22 November 1963. A Friday, Tomlinson remembered. The day John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas.
The Buick’s roaring muffler vanished as he reread the lines several times. Fidel was ordering his mistress to destroy all letters. Or destroy all of something. That seemed evident. A respectful period of time had to elapse before they could resume their relationship. Made sense, as did instructing her to find a safe place, which anticipated a nuclear attack by the U.S. But what the hell did THE SWAN LIES mean?
“Brother, why are you so quiet?” Twice, Figueroa had to ask.
SWAN . . . ? The chances of Figgy knowing a Cuban acronym from 1963 were slim. Tomlinson switched off the flashlight. “These were written to your grandmother, weren’t they?”
It had been obvious for a while and it was time to put it out there.
“Maybe.” Figueroa shrugged. “Others are to women named Little Ducky and My Sweet Gingersnap and strange names like that.”
“But it was your grandmother who told you to guard the letters, wasn’t it? That’s cool, man. I’m just trying to understand. Did the general read these? He knew what was in the briefcase, that’s obvious, but did he actually read them?”
Figgy, concentrating on the road, said, “If he had, I would have had to kill him.”
Tomlinson sat back. “Say what?”
“That worries me, brother, now that we’re shipmates. My mu-maw doesn’t understand baseball and cares less about ships than she does cooking.” He glanced over. “But a promise is a promise. You know?”
• • •
IMELDA CASANOVA inhabited an upstairs room in a house that smelled of cobwebs and lavender, a wooden time capsule where the table was set with silver and china for two, napkins folded, as if awaiting a guest from 1959 who might yet appear.
That’s where Tomlinson waited, in the formal dining room, while Figgy stood at the stairs and called, “Guess who’s home, mi abuela? I brought a friend, but don’t worry, he’s not really a Rastafarian and doesn’t eat much.”
No answer. Figgy started up the stairs bu
t lost his courage. “Maybe yayah is asleep,” he whispered.
“Your grandmother?”
“Yayah or mu-maw. It’s the same, but she doesn’t like those names—even from me.”
“It’s almost eleven,” Tomlinson reassured him, but was thinking, The poor guy’s scared shitless of the old woman.
Only now did he understand why.
The housekeeper, if there was one, hadn’t come to the door, so they’d entered through the root cellar into the basement. Oddly, Figgy’s room was down there, next to an old washing machine, the kind with a crank and wringers. He had lived in a cubicle with a steel door and only one window that looked out onto weeds at ground level. Except for some shelves and a homemade bong, it resembled a prison cell.
“How did you and your grandmother get along personally?” Tomlinson had inquired. The room reminded him of a Colorado drunk tank where he’d once spent a night.
“She treated me pretty good as long as I worked and brought home money” was the reply. “And, of course, did what I was told to do. But don’t make that woman mad.” The man’s expression read Wow. “Many times she locked me in here for all day. Once, almost a week.”
“Geezus, that’s terrible.”
“Not as bad as cutting off my rooster.” He motioned vaguely at his crotch. “She always gave me a choice, though, so you can understand why I’m still thankful. It’s better to be locked up, I think, or beaten with a cane stalk.”
Tomlinson had been looking forward to meeting Castro’s mistress. Not now. “This was after you moved from the village near Cojimar?”
“Hell yes. I’d have run away, but I still had bad memories of drowning. And lots of bad hops, as you know. Plobacho has a much better baseball field. Look—you can see it from here.” He moved a stool, stood on it, and opened the window. “This is how I got out at night. If there was a full moon, we’d play until morning.” For a moment, he was happy. Then, from a higher vantage point, he surveyed his old room and realized something was amiss. “Those maricóns,” he said after a moment. “Someone stole my best shit.”
Cuba Straits Page 20