Havana Lunar (11 page)

15 August 1992

O
n Saturday afternoon when I close up the policlínico, there's no sign of Julia and the black Toyota with tinted windows is still parked on Calle 23. The strangest thing about the unexpected interview with Perez is that it did not end in my arrest. The number-two man at the PNR has nothing to lose by locking up a Cuban doctor for a few days. And murder is not a common crime in this country. Although sudden bursts of violence, manslaughter by hit and run, and even accidental poisoning with homemade liquor occur with some frequency, the premeditated, plotted art of murder has been effectively suppressed by a government that doesn't permit private ownership of firearms. The PNR investigates with zero tolerance to the most isolated act of homicide. There is no cold case. Unsolved murder in the first degree remains an aberration of the Yanquis to the north. Under the scrutiny of a nationwide neighborhood vigilance network, a militarized police force, and an army of forensics specialists trained by Cold War—era KGB experts, Cuba is an island of already-captive suspects. No matter how quickly a perpetrator might flee, there's only so far to run and nowhere to hide. Anyone who would attempt exile is faced with a perilous passage over turbulent seas. Many criminals have served themselves justice—and saved Fidel the expense of their incarceration—by taking to makeshift rafts in treacherous swells. The sharks of the Florida Straits are famously well fed.

I siphon a Tropicola bottle full of gas from the Lada and leave the house through the alley. The ignition on Yorki's moped broke shortly after he bought it, but he bypassed a few wires and now it starts with just a kick. I pantomime the key routine and give it a running start down the street.

I ride all over the city, crisscrossing the necropolis, cutting across Centro Habana and circling Coppelia, riding behind the Habana Libre and puttering up the hill between the fallout catacombs and the empty playing fields of the university. I descend La Rampa with glances down all the side streets. I turn right on Malecón, past the Oficina de Intereses, the Hotel Nacional, the pedestal where in '59 the mobs tore down the American eagle and Picasso's promised dove never nested. Night is falling when I near the end of the sea wall and turn up Paseo del Prado, climbing the hill past the bronze lions, the iron lampposts, the stone benches across from the Ministry of the Interior where people barter apartment swaps. My heart is beating hard when el Capitolio comes into view. The street across from the Capitol steps is empty but for a few parked turistaxis. At the Parque Central, I park the bike and sit for a minute on a bench. There are many lovely girls looking for a date, but Julia is not among them.

From the crest of the hill I can see Morro Castle half-cloaked in silver and black clouds that promise rain but not before morning. I ride down Carlos III and take a shortcut through Quinta de los Molinos to avoid the military detachment at the Palacio de la Revolución. There are no lights on anywhere in the thicket behind La Madriguera, and the dwarf palms comb my hair as I ride through the urban jungle of the park. I take Paseo over the hill back for another pass on Malecón, following the sea wall west this time. I ride through the tunnel to Miramar and search among the girls along Quinta Avenida. Turistaxis speed past me on their way to Marina Hemingway. Some slow to shine head-lights on small groups of jineteras, girls in shorts and Spandex who blaze briefly in the high beams and are extinguished like candle flames. I ride all the way out to the marina and then turn onto Primera, where I let the sea spray blow me back to Vedado.

I park the moped in the alley behind Yorki's apartment and go upstairs to let him know I've left a little gas in the tank. He claps his hands together and says, “Did you hear the one about Pepito? One day at school, the teacher asks all the students what they eat at home. Pepito says, ‘I eat rice and beans but my mother likes eating palitos.' ‘Sticks? Are you sure, Pepito?' ‘Sí, maestra … Every night I hear her in the bedroom telling my father, ‘¡Ai, qué palo tan rico!'” Yorki takes off his shades for a second to rub his eyes. “Mano, I've got to tell you something: Me caso.”

“Now
that's
a good one!”

“I'm not kidding. I'm getting married.”

“What? Just like that?”

“I've been thinking about it for a while.”

“What are you talking about? You used to tell me that you'd never let yourself get nailed.”

Yorki grins. “That was last week.”

“At least tell me it's un casamiento jinetero: an Americana or something who'll take you across with her.”

“Why should it concern you? Just because we went fishing for pango doesn't mean I'm a maricón.”

“Quit talking so much shit. You think a wife is going to let you go out at night, even if it's not to search for girlfriends?”

“Don't think that I won't, although she might think she's not letting me.”

“Precisely my point. I know you too well, Yorki. We go out walking. We have a good time. But the moment you're married you're going to turn crazy trying to cheat on your wife. You'll spend all your free time womanizing.”

“There's more to life than sex, Mano. A man needs to make a good couple. I want someone to take care of my house and clean my clothes. I want sons. And what's more, this woman and I fuck really well. It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid she might make me faithful.”

“Well, what can I say, Yorki? I wish you a happy marriage. Really.”

Yorki averts his sunglasses to face the Florida Straits. “Mano, it's Carlota.”

I put my hand on the arm of his sofa and sit. All I can think to say is
hijo de puta
, but I don't let the phrase escape my mouth because I know it's meant for me.

16 August 1992

B
y Sunday afternoon there's still no sign of Julia, so I walk the alleys to Paseo and climb the hill to the terminal. “¿Último?” The last in line lifts a hand. I make la cola and catch the last bus to the beach.

I am pressed against an old woman, between us a live chicken she has hypnotized by the way she holds its feet. “Y tu: ¿adónde vas?”

“Para Guanabo.”

“It's too late to take a swim. By the time we get there, the sun will be going down and you'll have to turn back.”

I walk around the beach at sunset watching turistas pair up with jineteras and jineteros. After dark I hang around one of the hotels until the girls and boys begin emerging from the rooms. Some of the kids congregate at the cabanas, curling up together to keep warm against the breeze. Nobody has seen Julia, but one girl remembers her. “Julia la rubia? She hasn't worked this beach for more than a year. The bitch owes me money.”

I pass a sleepless night curled up beneath a palapa and take the first bus of the day back to Havana. I walk straight to the pediátrico and the black Toyota is there, parked outside admitting.

It is a full day of consultations. The nurse preps each patient with vitals and a brief interview. Near the end of my shift she says, “Next one complains of eczema on her chest, but when I asked to see she says she will only show the doctor. She's probably a little old for the pediátrico. Should I send her to Hermanos Almejeiras?”

“No. I'll see what I can do for her. You can go ahead and get ready for the shift change.”

I shut the curtain behind me, but I can hear the next patient sniffling just a few feet away. Privacy is impossible, even at a whisper. “Lift the front of your shirt, please.” I take out my diagnostic pad and write:
Police out front, Toyota.

Julia shakes her head. She has dyed her hair jet-black. She takes the pad and pen:
I came in back, ambulance dock.

I write:
Did you do it?

Julia scribbles furiously:
No! How could I?

I write:
3 Monos, 10 minutos.
Julia nods. “You can put your shirt back on. Apply this cream twice a day after cleaning with mild soap and rinsing with clean water. Come back if it doesn't clear up.”

Julia goes out through the back. I ask the incoming nurse to cover for me and leave the hospital by the ambulance station.

We meet at a nearby hotel that caters to tourists and jineteras. In the lobby she stands to meet me, and we are walking purposefully across the marble floor toward each other when a third person interposes himself. It's the head waiter, having crept out of the hotel restaurant for his requisite intervention, a gambit at protracting the presumed foreigner's fleecing: “¿Quisieran comer?” The entrance opens onto a bright, empty dining room full of gleaming china, sparkling crystal, and glowing linen napkins.

I cast an eye to the opposite wall and spy a sign beside a dark door. “¿Por qué no pasamos al bar?” I say to Julia without acknowledging the meddlesome waiter. “Seguro,” says the camarero, his arm around her shoulder, already ushering her to the door to Los Tres Monos. Entering the cave from the full flare of the glass-walled lobby makes it feel even darker than it is. Holding my hand, Julia leads me to the corner booth. She waves the bartender off and runs her hand through my hair, her fingers trembling.

“While you were at the pediátrico on Thursday,” she whispers in my ear, “one of the girls saw me on your balcony and called up that Alejandro was dead.”

I want to light a cigarette but my hands are shaking. I press my lips to her ear. “Why didn't you go to the police?”

Julia whispers, “Tito and Jochi, the black brothers, are trying to blame it on me.”

“I went to the house of the girl I operated on the night we met, the one you told me was your cousin.”

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth from the start, Mano, but I needed a reason to ask you about the HIV test. I come from out in the provinces. I don't have anyone in Havana. Nobody but you.”

“I'll talk to the PNR. The homicide chief, Perez, might be able to help.”

“Perez—that's the one Alejandro worked for! Ese tipo es muy malo! He takes bribes from all the chulos.”

“Carajo, this country is going to shit. He broke into my clinic the other day.”

“Don't you see, Mano? They're setting me up for this. I make a perfect scapegoat because I was trying to get out of prostitution. I need help. I need to leave Cuba. I'll take a raft if I have to.”

“That would be suicide. The straits are too dangerous. You would need to get on a real boat with an experienced pilot.”

“That costs hundreds—American hundreds.”

“I might know someone who can help out. Where are you hiding?”

“I can't tell you. I don't want you to have trouble later. But I better not go out again in day-light.” She tilts a look toward the bartender, who is polishing wine glasses. “And we can't meet here. Go to the place we visited your mother on your birthday. Come before dawn, between 4 and 5 in the morning. If there's any trouble I'll fold a message in the cracks of the cement. Do you have any cigarettes?”

“Take these.” I hand her a half-pack of Populares. Julia gives me a quick kiss on the mouth, stands up, and walks briskly out of the bar.

I head back to the hospital to call Pinar del Rio, my heart pounding and the phone trembling in my hand. Emilio answers and I say, “Hola, primo, you remember that fresh crab we talked about?”

“Sure, Mano. How about tonight? I'll see you at the dinosaur—the hour Abuelo was born minus one.”

“Good. Paco's going to need a drink.”

“I'll bring some Tropicola. Hasta luego.”

I leave the hospital through admitting and walk back to the house in Vedado, not bothering to look over my shoulder to spot the black Toyota. Up in the attic I shut the curtains on the French doors and grab a blanket. I go down the service stairs to the alley and pop the trunk of the Lada. Then I wrap Hernán in the blanket and carry him back up the service stairs. In the attic I put a sweatshirt on him, pull the hood over his skull, and place him in the rocking chair. Crouching to the floor, I inch the chair closer to the French doors until Hernán's shadow is silhouetted against the closed curtains. I hold a rung and gently rock the chair, keeping this up for five minutes. Then I take a fresh pack of Populares and some matches from the kitchen and head back down to the Lada. When I drive across Calle 12 at 25th, I can see the black Toyota parked across from my house two blocks away, cigarette smoke curling from the cracked passenger window.

On the outskirts of Marianao I barter my father's lighter for four liters of gas. Crosses stand vigil wherever cars skidded fatally off the pavement and into the ditches on the highway to Pinar del Rio. Cool air blows through the window gaps, but my hands keep sweating for the entire ride.

At 11 o'clock there is nobody on the streets of Pinar. The teenage metalheads are all crowded into the courtyard of the Joven Club, and everyone else has gone home to fall asleep in front of the novelas. When I walk behind the Natural History Museum to the small park in back, Emilio's voice comes out of nowhere. “Aquí en el techo.”

I step around the brontosaurus and climb the ladder to the museum roof.

Emilio pulls a paper package and a plastic sack out of an air duct. We crouch out of sight of the street. “It's vacuum-wrapped beneath the paper, so there's virtually no odor. When you get to Miramar, park near the mouth of the Almendares tunnel and walk straight to the northern loop of Quinta Avenida. Don't try to drive up to the drop, or you'll have a hard time getting around the cement barriers. You'll see a silver pickup truck with tinted windows and two inflated inner tubes in back, the kind fishermen float in. One tube will have a decoy package that looks just like this one resting in the center. Move purposefully as if you are about to walk past the pickup, then stop abruptly to tie your shoelace, wedging this package snugly in the center of the empty inner tube. When you rise be sure to pick up the decoy package. It will be much lighter than this one. Keep walking. Walk all the way to the beach without looking back. Don't talk to anyone. Don't look at anybody. Throw the empty package into the sea. Here, this is for Paco.” Emilio gives me the plastic sack: four two-liter cola bottles filled with gasoline. “And this is for you.” He hands me the money, a fat roll of American twenties I put down the front of my pants.

“Oye, primo, what's the possibility you could help me and a friend leave?”

“Leave? Leave where?”

“Leave the island. Leave Cuba,” I tell him.

“What are you talking about? You've never even left that depressing attic in Vedado. Now you want to go to el otro lado?”

“A doctor can always find work.”

“Not without an American license. Do you know what your father does up there? Old gusanos pay him fifteen dollars for a half-hour visit. He has to listen to their egotistic bullshit and dole out prescriptions to a black-market pharmacy run by some Marielito.”

“It's complicated, Emilio. There's a girl who got set up.”

“Coño, Mano, whenever you take on a woman it's like you're marching to your doom.”

“Is it possible or not?”

“Where is she now?”

“In Havana.”

“We'd never make it out of there. It's a whole different fleet, not friendlies.”

“What if I brought her here, to the coast?”

“Carajo, hombre, call me tomorrow and I'll see what I can do. Just don't fuck this one up, all right?” He puts the paper package in my hands. “You won't have any trouble in Havana. They know you're my cousin. But don't get stopped on the drive. Stay under the speed limit.”

I climb down from the roof of the museum, put the package in the trunk, and empty the cola bottles full of gasoline into my tank. It's almost midnight by the time I get back on the Carretera Central to Havana.

The Lada is running on fumes when I park it near the end of Quinta Avenida and begin walking up the middle of the boulevard with my package. There, near the mouth of the tunnel, is the pickup truck, inner tubes and the decoy package in back. I put the package Emilio gave me in the center of the empty tube, heart pounding and hands trembling while I pretend to tie my shoe. Then I stand up and walk away with the other package—it is lighter, probably empty. Home free! But when I am half a block away on C Street, someone behind me calls, “¡Señor!” A man's voice. I walk faster without turning to look. “¡Oye, señor!” The slapping of shoes on pavement: He is running after me. Anticipating that awful sound, someone calling a militant command:
¡Carné!
A random questioning and personal search. Don't look back. Walk straight to the sea.

He catches up with me, grabbing my elbow. “Amigo … ¿No buscas una chica?”

“¡Pendejo!” I tear my arm away from the chulo, a skinny mulatto, and fumble with the decoy package. “¡Quítate!”

“¡Coño! Sorry, compañero. I thought you were a tourist.”

I move briskly to the sea, drop the decoy package, and turn back toward Quinta Avenida. From the walkway above the tunnel mouth, I see that the silver pickup is gone. I am tired, thirsty, and as hungry as always, but I have to make it across Vedado before dawn, so I walk through the tunnel and along the east bank of the pestilent river. I climb the chain-link fence, cross the small boatyard, and climb out the other side a few blocks from Calle Zapata, crossing far down the hill from the front gates of the necropolis. When I reach the low part in the concrete wall, I choose a shadowy place and boost myself over the wrought-iron fence of Cemeterio Colón.

I walk to the corner of H y 8. “Julia?” No answer. I run my fingers over the cement and feel a wadded slip of paper wedged tightly in a crack. I unfold it and hold it up to the light of a full moon. Julia's handwriting:
Medianoche, puerto.
The meeting place is at the Port of Havana. Midnight means we'll lose an entire day. I hope she's okay. No way I can go home now. I'll have to lay low all night, get to a cabina before sunrise, and call in sick at the pediátrico. I slip the note in my pocket with the money and lie down beside my mother's tomb to rest.