Map Drawn by a Spy, page 18
The one he himself talked to now and again was Felisa, who like his mother believed in spirits and the power of saints and who gave him advice to get through this bad patch. Sometimes, when the trap he had fallen into was really getting to him, his grandmother would come out of her little room and tell him: “Don’t worry, my son, it will all work out.” Then Felisa would make fun of his grandmother, saying nothing works out on its own, and she would tell him to let the spirits guide him. One day she turned up with a leaflet with a horrible prayer to the Holy Spirit, which she insisted he sign and carry with him always for protection and read it every time he was going to encounter the ones his aunt quite correctly called the enemy.
He had promised to spend the July 26th holiday with Lisandro Otero and his wife, Marcia, at the beach house they had at Varadero. But in the end there was a mix-up and Lisandro had to go to Santa Clara, since he was the editor of Cuba magazine. Lisandro hesitated, uncomfortable with the idea of him going alone with Marcia. It seemed like jealousy, though he told himself Lisandro could not possibly think that of him. In any case Marcia stayed in Havana, so they went together to a gallery opening along with Oscar Hurtado, Sarusky, and some others. After the event Sarusky proposed they go have a drink somewhere. Recalling the lunch with the elder Carbonell, he suggested Barlovento, where none of them had ever been before, not even Marcia. Hearing his description, she was excited to go.
First, he took her to see the bull ray swimming in a gigantic fish tank behind the bar, explaining they did not last long in captivity and when it died it would be replaced with another. Then they went back to the table where Oscar Hurtado was recounting a long story about hunting fish underwater. (Besides having diving experience, Hurtado knew a lot about fish because his uncle had a fish store on the old Plaza del Polvorín and Oscar spent his youth working there, even though he looked on that chapter of his life with considerable resentment.)
They were drinking and, though it displeased Oscar, he asked Marcia to step outside to look at the water from the small dock. The bay was calm as could be and reflected the full moon like a mirror. The two of them contemplated the scene in silence and he turned to study her large black eyes as she gazed at the sea. He was very close to her and for a moment he felt tempted to take her by the shoulders and kiss her. All he had to do was lean across and put his lips on her lovely pink mouth, and then he remembered Lisandro’s hesitation and the thought crossed his mind that Marcia might be interested in him. (Later on, he frequently told himself that he should have kissed her, and on those occasions he was certain she would have responded with a kiss of her own.) He watched her there in the semidarkness, silhouetted against the terrace lights, a tune from the record player or radio in the bar floating out to them. She looked more beautiful than ever, her black hair shining glamorously, eyes fixed on the sea, not at all indifferent to what he had said about the tranquil beauty of the place, both of them silent. With her aura of a middle-class girl yearning to be a revolutionary at any cost, she was a woman he admired and with whom he knew he could fall in love. Perhaps that was the reason he suggested they go back into the bar.
They returned to the table, where Oscar Hurtado was still talking about fish and the sea.
July 26th came and went and still he heard nothing from the ministry. Miriam Gómez called again, asking what was up, when would he return, and he had to make up an excuse that was not only plausible, but which would sound good to the ears of those who were certainly listening to their long-distance conversation.
One day, following an urge, he went back to Old Havana. Not downtown, rather the stroll along Neptuno and Galiano to Prado and from there back to Galiano by San Rafael. He was astounded at the poverty of the place, which used to be so lively with stores filled with customers. The Miami restaurant had closed, there had been a fire or something, and now the place was called Caracas. The newspaper and magazine kiosks were shuttered, their dilapidated presence on the sidewalk of Louvre Street another ruin arising. He decided he did not want to see San Rafael Street, one of his favorite places from the days when he lived in poverty at Zulueta 408, a street that in its good times had elegant stores and sidewalks decorated with colored mosaics, and reminded him of the best of Rio.
He returned home and spent the rest of the day reading on the balcony. The only thing memorable about his outing to Old Havana was an encounter with a girl walking ahead of him down Neptune near San Miguel. She was wearing a strapless dress, and her shoulders, back, and of course her upper chest were all bare. Her young flesh was practically edible and for a moment he felt good until he had to pass her since she was heading down Prado. He thought then, as at other times during his stay, that the only thing that redeemed this country of all its historical sins was its natural beauty and its women, another form of natural beauty.
He had begun to write too, composing fragments of a novel in the bedroom where his daughters slept, seated at his old drafting table, using his brother’s typewriter and the few sheets of paper in the house. He asked his father to bring him paper from Bohemia and he learned paper was in short supply: yet another shortage. But he did not stop writing, yet he told no one about it, scribbling in secret while outwardly cultivating the image of a bachelor diplomat on vacation.
Another day Ramoncito Suárez dropped by. Given that Ramoncito worked at the Film Institute, he had not seen much of him since getting back and the visit seemed to come out of nowhere.
“I have to tell you something,” Ramoncito said after the greetings.
“Yes? What?”
“I was at the Foreign Ministry yesterday with César Leante and he talked about you. I don’t remember what department I was in, but Leante knew the people there and he asked why they had taken you off the airplane when you were headed back to Belgium. One of them, I don’t remember his name, told him it was because of some reports you had sent in about the Congo.”
Ramoncito paused and in response he sat there in silence, thinking. He remembered his reports from 1964 about the rebellion in the Congo and what he had said about Gbenye and his people, and about Kasa-Vubu and Tshombe and later Mobutu. He also remembered the day he had to interview a Congolese man and a Belgian who looked like a military officer in civilian clothes, who had come to the embassy to propose a new rebellion if Cuba would sponsor it and cover the cost. He also recalled, with precision, what his reports said about all that business.
“That’s a lie,” he told Ramoncito.
“It’s a lie? But I was there.”
“I don’t mean what you say, I mean what they said. My reports on the Congo were as orthodox as could be.” But he remembered that his reports were not orthodox from the official point of view, in fact they countered Cuba’s assumptions about what was going on in that region so far away from Cuba and so close to Belgium.
“Well,” Ramoncito replied, “that’s what they said. I thought you’d like to know. None of them, not even Leante, knows about our friendship.”
He gave Ramoncito his heartfelt thanks. Not only had they been friends for many years, but Ramoncito had married a girl with whom he had gone out long ago.
“What do you think?” Ramoncito asked. “When will you go?”
“I don’t know. Truly, I do not know. It might be next week or next month. What I do know is I am going back to Europe.”
Up to that moment he had not put this feeling into words, but now, saying Europe instead of Belgium, he realized that he would go back no matter what. From that day on, perhaps encouraged by Ramoncito’s revelations, he set himself the unwavering goal of returning at any cost.
Ramoncito stayed a while longer, sitting on the balcony, and they talked about movies, other trivialities. Then, once Ramoncito had left, he called Alberto Mora and told him he wanted to speak with him; Alberto said he would drop by the following day.
When Alberto arrived, he took him into the bedroom at the back, not onto the balcony.
“Come, I want to talk.”
He closed the door.
“What’s with all the mystery?” Alberto asked.
“Nothing. I just want to speak with you in private.”
“Shoot.”
“You know what’s happened.”
“No. What’s happened?”
“My situation in the ministry.”
“What’s the news?”
“Nothing. It’s just that every day I feel more certain I won’t go back to Belgium as a diplomat.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know anything, that’s the impression I get. I’m also convinced that it’s State Security that’s blocking my return.”
“Have you spoken with Roa?”
“No. And that’s precisely why I think the decision to keep me here came not from Minrex but from the Interior Ministry.”
“That could be. I don’t know.”
“I called you to tell you one thing: I’m leaving Cuba however I can. If I can’t get out legally, I’ll seek asylum in an embassy or I’ll flee in a boat. But I’m going.”
Alberto smiled.
“Caramba, aren’t you dramatic!” he said. But neither his smile nor his words were in jest.
“No, I’m not dramatic. I’m simply not going to remain here at Barbaroja’s mercy.”
“The Galician Piñeiro? He’s a joke.”
“A joke?”
“Of course. That’s what he is. Do you now what they call him in the Council of Ministers? James Bond! Know why? All day long he’s got his briefcase with him, he even handcuffs it to his wrist, and he takes it everywhere. One day he left it at the Council of Ministers and he came running to look for it. From that day on, no one has taken his mysterious briefcase seriously. They think he’s a joke. You should too.”
“I don’t have that luxury. I called you because I don’t know anyone else in the government I can trust. Franqui is totally out of the loop and he’s more cut off every day, and Gustavo Arcos has or will have problems.”
“Arcos? With whom?”
“With a guy named Aldama, who was an agent from G2 or State Security in Brussels, and things he’s brought on himself too.”
“Gustavo doesn’t have any problems.”
“Well, you’ll see soon enough.”
“So, what do you plan to do?”
“That’s why I called you. I want to leave on good terms. I have plenty of pretexts. My novel is coming out in Spain, I’ve got the money from the prize in a bank in Barcelona, my wife is in Belgium…A lot of reasons, see?”
“One thing. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Fine.”
“Another thing. Don’t tell anyone about this. I’m going to do all I can for you, but I don’t want any surprises like the one at the airport.”
“Agreed.”
Alberto Mora left and he did not see him for many days.
One afternoon when Luis Agüero was over, Raúl Palazuelos called urgently. That phone call seemed strange, since Palazuelos, who had been practically his brother-in-law and had been his secretary when Lunes had a television program four years before, had been avoiding him more or less openly since he got back. Raúl told him they had picked up Oscar Hurtado and something had to be done to get him out. He said he did not know what he could do, and he asked where Hurtado was being held. It seems he was arrested by agents from the DIR, who investigate common crimes. As soon as Raúl hung up, he tried to locate Miriam Acevedo, Oscar’s wife, but could not. Later on, Walterio Carbonell and Jaime Sarusky called. They decided to meet at his apartment and go to DIR headquarters together.
By the time they arrived at the station on Egido Street, quite a few of Oscar’s friends were there and they chose to go in as a group. Walterio and Sarusky were to find out what was going on. They spoke with the duty officer, and the agent in charge of the investigation was called in. He was a young guy, pale, rather nondescript, whose only notable feature was his olive green uniform. He was the one who had arrested Oscar. From what he said, Oscar was accused of stealing a handbag. His friends all looked puzzled: it was unimaginable that Oscar Hurtado could have stolen anything. The agent explained that Hurtado denied the charges and insisted he had not stolen the handbag, rather he had found it. That was the crux of the investigation, he said. Whom to believe? Oscar Hurtado, of course, the friends all said. (At that moment no one thought about how funny it was that Hurtado was being accused of hurto, robbery.)
Oscar got out late that night, or more accurately very early the next morning. Not until the next day at his house did he offer an explanation.
“It was all a mistake,” he said. “I went to have lunch, like I often do, at the cafeteria in the Hotel Capri. They know me there. But by chance the waiter I know wasn’t working. That’s crucial. Well, I sat down to eat and in a little while I noticed a handbag had been left under the counter at the cash register, which is where they put packages. I thought I would give it to the waiter, but since I didn’t know him, I figured I’d better give it to the one I do know, who might be working tomorrow. In other words, the following day. So when I left, I paid, picked up the handbag, and took it with me. When I got home I threw it in a closet, shut the closet door, and forgot all about that blessed bag. But the woman it belonged to did not forget. She went back to the cafeteria to look for it and they told her no one had found a handbag. Then the woman asked if they remembered who was sitting next to her, and the cashier, who also knows me, said it was a customer who comes nearly every day for lunch. The woman left, but it seems she went to the police, and the next time I went to the cafeteria the woman was there with a policeman. They asked me about the handbag and that’s when I remembered it. Of course I went home with the policeman and the woman and I opened the closet and there was the handbag, which I gave to her. Except the policeman had to charge me with robbery. In other words, I was a thief.”
“But, Oscar,” he said. “How could you possibly have taken the handbag home?”
“Didn’t I already explain?”
“Yes, but why didn’t you give it to the cafeteria staff?”
“I explained that too.”
“I don’t get it. Was the handbag old or new?”
“Come on, it was old, ugly.”
“You’re right, that was a pointless question.”
Oscar Hurtado got out of jail right away thanks to the efforts of his friends, among them Lisandro Otero, and he was never brought to trial because the story was so unbelievable he could not have made it up. The DIR investigator went to see Oscar several times, once when he was visiting. He never could tell if it was police work that brought him or he just wanted to get to know a writer.
The next time Alberto came over he brought a story he had written, which he left for him to read. It was the tale of a married man who spent hours in the bathroom without ever bathing. His wife did not understand what her husband could be up to, so one day she decided to find out. She slipped out a window and, risking her life, crept along a narrow ledge three stories above the street to get to the bathroom window. When she peeked in, she was thunderstruck. Inside, her husband was sitting down, fully dressed, with a pistol in his hand. Every so often, the husband would bring the pistol to his mouth and lick the barrel.
He read the story and understood it was autobiographical. When Alberto returned and asked him what he thought of it, he managed to tell him the story was very interesting. He did not confess that what was interesting was the revelation.
He went with Rine Leal one night to the Tropicana. Walking through the verdant gardens and into the cabaret, he felt a strange sensation, a sort of literary déjà vu: during the years since he was last there he had written a story, part of which occurred in the Tropicana, recreating the cabaret in his mind and on paper; and now he looked around and could tell himself, “I have been here before,” while still stepping in as if for the very first time.
He thought the show was crummy, but the beauty of the chorus girls was still something to behold. He also liked a duo of black sisters who performed without accompaniment and called themselves Las Capelas. The elder sister, practically a girl last time, had become a woman of rare beauty. In the audience he ran into Raulito Roa, who was with a group of foreign visitors. Raulito said hello with affection and he reciprocated. After the show, he saw Diana Tamayo, who danced in the chorus. He had known her before and whenever they met she always gazed at him with enormous curiosity. He also knew from a story a photographer friend had told that she was a woman of boundless sexuality. So he invited her to his table and later they left together and took a taxi to her house, which was behind the old offices of Revolución newspaper.
The building was modest, but her apartment was not bad. She, however, was an indifferent lover and when they finished, she insisted he leave. It was late and he was tired and would have been happy to stay in her bed. Only when she asked him to please not make more trouble for her with the Defense Committee, since she already had enough, did he get up and go. He did not return to her apartment near Ayestarán Street until one afternoon when he was alone and bored. When he arrived he was surprised to find Pipo Carbonell also there visiting. After fifteen minutes of empty talk, he decided to leave and never return.
His brother, Sabá, came in from the Foreign Trade Ministry one day with a big smile on his face.
“I’m going back to Spain,” he said.
“Really? When? How?”
“In two days. They gave me permission to fly over there to collect my things and say goodbye.”
“So your time in Spain is over.”
“So it seems.”
He grew thoughtful.
“Well,” his brother said, “tell me what you think.”
