The ride on down the Malecón offered more of the same: a kaleidoscope of beauty and ruin, punctuated here and there by sweeping plazas, most of them well traveled by dark-skinned pedestrians who seemed untroubled by the steady rain, and surrounded by an ever-present bevy of taxicabs, many of them Fords and Chevrolets from the fifties. Most sported mismatched fenders and door panels, taillights that seemed to have been stolen from tractors, windshields cracked and bound with tape…
Emilio and Rodríguez, the two Miami cabinetmakers turned precision auto mechanics who lavished so much attention on the Hog, would love this living automotive museum, Deal mused. If there was endless work in architectural restoration ahead, the prospects for automotive couldn’t be far behind.
“The U.S. Interests Section,” said Fuentes, pointing out the window at an incongruous multistoried building of mirrored glass. “It was once the embassy, but…” He threw his hands up as if the change were a deep mystery. Deal stared out at the nondescript façade of the building, wondering if there was really a roomful of men behind those blank windows, hanging on their every word.
“They worried someone’s going to break in or break out?” Russell said, pointing at the series of armed guards posted along the sidewalk in front of the building.
“A precaution, or perhaps a bit of drama,” Fuentes shrugged. He pointed to a plaza that fronted the building, this one of considerably more modern design. A series of Bauhaus-inspired girders curved over the central area, and on the far side rose an enormous billboard depicting a young boy clutching the strands of a barbed-wire cage.
“The Plaza de la Dignidad,” Fuentes explained. “During the crisis of Elián González, the park that stood here was replaced with a place where demonstrations could take place in view of the section.”
He lifted an eyebrow at Russell, then fixed his gaze on Deal. “Perhaps there is no longer an embassy, but it is still an important place in Havana.”
Deal nodded. Before Elián, whose mother had drowned while accompanying him on their desperate voyage to the United States, had been returned to his father in Cuba, everyday life in Miami had ground nearly to a halt. He’d had calls from friends in other parts of the country, most of them demanding some explanation for the incomprehensible furor they’d seen reported for weeks on the nightly news. “What the hell’s all the fuss about?” they’d wanted to know.
“Just how much time do you have?” had been Deal’s stock reply. As a father, he’d been torn by the urge to see a young boy reunited with his only surviving parent. On the other hand, he understood all too well the passions of an exile group who had made their way to safety wanting to welcome and embrace that living symbol of their cause.
In the end, there’d been no satisfactory solution, and though the boy had been returned, heads had rolled, a presidential election decided by the outcome. In one regard, Vines was right, Deal told himself. So much still depended on this tiny island.
He came away from his thoughts to see that their car had turned off the broad avenue, headed south now into what seemed a business district. The rain had lessened to a drizzle and the streets were steaming as the sun began to break through the clouds.
The sidewalks were crowded, he noted, a few men in suits, more in guayaberas, some in T-shirts and gimmee caps. And everywhere, women toting webbed shopping bags and trailing doe-eyed children.
“This here is a country of brothers,” Russell noted. And Deal found himself nodding agreement. Black skin, caramel, bronze and every shade in between out there, he noted, but few fair-complexioned Castilians such as Fuentes among them.
“Not so long ago there were many Russians,” Fuentes said. “And before that”—he smiled—“many Americans. But now…” His voice trailed off as he repeated his gesture of mystification.
Deal nodded, listening idly while he scanned the crowds outside. He was watching what seemed like a pair of lovers parting at the street corner opposite, a man in a dark silk shirt, his jet-black hair swept back, bending to plant a kiss on the cheek of a slender young woman. She raised a hand to his cheek in response, then turned to duck into a waiting taxi.
The scene had raised an unexpected ache in Deal, a feeling almost inexplicable at first. In the next instant, as a flood of images swept over him, he understood. Angie leaning over on top of him, bending down to kiss him as they moved in time…
He blinked away the memories and glanced again at the street corner, but the man in the dark silk shirt was gone and the taxi disappeared as well. He shook his head at the feelings that had swept over him. Come all the way to Cuba, caught in the crossfire between government agents and international scam artists, and still he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Big trouble there, Deal thought, real trouble.
Fuentes was studying him, he realized, as their car slowed for another turn. “I know you must be exhausted,” the man said, “but there is one last stop I’d like to make before we reach your hotel.”
Deal glanced at Russell, who gave him a “Who, me?” look in return. “We’re with you,” Deal said.
It brought a smile from Fuentes, who leaned forward to tap their driver on the shoulder. The man nodded as if it had all been prearranged.
In seconds the Cadillac made another tight turn, carrying them down what looked like an alleyway, barely wide enough for the car to move. The passage was jammed with pedestrians who seemed unconcerned by the appearance of this massive car. As the prow of the Cadillac inched forward, they spread apart in waves, mounting the narrow sidewalks that flanked the roadway, then re-forming in the car’s wake.
“You think that car of yours could make it?” Russell turned to Deal with a smile.
Deal shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to try it.”
“We are in the old city, now,” Fuentes said, gesturing at the looming walls ahead. “There are buildings here that date from the 1500s. Once, a great wall surrounded everything,” he said, “but that was taken down.”
Deal noticed a rumbling beneath their tires then and realized they were traveling on cobblestones. On his left, an undifferentiated expanse of stucco fell away, replaced suddenly by a shaded courtyard with an elaborate fountain. On its far side he had a glimpse of an intricately carved church façade, the sight forming and vanishing as rapidly as an image in a dream. Medieval Europe in the tropics, he thought. How could such a thing be possible?
“Just here,” Fuentes was calling to their driver then, and the Cadillac finally ground to a halt.
Fuentes leaned to speak to Raúl in rapid Spanish, then turned to usher Deal and Russell out into the street. Hardly had they alighted than the car was off again, leaving the three of them standing in the cool, dimly lit passageway. “I asked Raúl to deliver your bags,” Fuentes said. He gestured after the departing car. “Your hotel is just down there a block or two, and as you can see there’s no place to park in these quarters.”
Deal nodded. It seemed twenty degrees cooler in the drafty passageway. Across the narrow street was what looked like an apothecary’s shop out of Dickens, racks of oddly shaped bottles and ceramic containers crammed onto wooden shelves that reached toward vast ceilings, brass-trimmed urns glowing red and blue and green spaced about the marble counters. He felt light-headed for a moment, as if he’d been transported in time as well as space.
“Are you feeling all right?” Fuentes asked. “I can have the car brought back…”
Deal shook his head. Even Russell was staring at him in concern, he noted. “I’m fine. A walk sounds great, to tell the truth.”
Fuentes nodded. “We won’t stay long here,” he said. “But I thought you’d want to see this right away.”
He stepped between the two of them then and pressed a button set in a plate near a doorway in the wall. Deal heard a faint buzzing sound, and in moments there came a grinding noise as the heavy door swung open.
“Señor Fuentes.” Deal heard an enthusiastic voice from the darkness inside. “
¡Con mucho gusto!
”
In moments a young man with a bushy head of hair had stepped out to embrace Fuentes energetically, his dark curls bobbing.
“Carlo,” Fuentes said, stepping back to gesture at Deal and Russell. “These are my friends from Miami. Mr. Deal, Mr. Straight, this is Carlo Vedetti, architectural director for the United Nations project in Havana.
Vedetti’s eyes lit up as if they were emissaries bearing gifts from China. “Mr. Fuentes exaggerates,” he said, shaking hands. “I direct myself only, but please, come in, come in.”
He led them inside, down a dim corridor that might have been a cave passage, then swept aside a curtain, ushering them into a brightly lit room that had been set up like an artist’s gallery. Deal went inside, blinking, realizing that they’d entered a converted storefront through the rear entrance.
On the far side of the room, a spacious bank of windows opened onto another narrow street, much like the one they’d stepped in from, pedestrians hurrying to and fro without so much as a glance inside. The walls beside him were hung with photographs of churches and Renaissance buildings as well as a series of colorful architectural renderings.
“This is Habana Vieja,” Fuentes said, gesturing at the welter of images about them. “The object of Señor Vedetti’s crusade.”
Vedetti nodded good-naturedly. “I am from Italy,” he said, as if that explained everything. “What we are trying to do means much to me.”
Deal nodded. “I told Mr. Fuentes it looked like Florence by the sea.”
“Only larger,” Vedetti said, his expression turning sober for a moment. “There is so much to be done. And our race is with time…” He trailed off, then fixed Deal with a look. “I have heard of your own work in architectural restoration, Mr. Deal.”
Deal opened his mouth to protest. “I’ve done a little such work,” he told Vedetti. “Nothing on this scale…”
“No, no, no,” Vedetti protested. “Everyone knows of the legendary DealCo Development in Miami, and your own work on the MacLemore Estate on Biscayne Bay adjacent to Vizcaya”—he threw his arms open wide exuberantly—“everyone knows of that project. It is quite important work…”
Deal glanced at Fuentes, who nodded as if at a prize pupil. The old fox had probably had Vedetti prepped, but what the hell, the MacLemore restoration was one of the most satisfying pieces of work he’d done since he’d taken over DealCo. Specifically, Vedetti was referring to the fifteen-acre, thirty-five-room neo-Renaissance estate built in the 1920s just south of downtown Miami by a pioneering department-store owner.
The MacLemore family had eventually died off and the enormous place had sat vacant for several years before software mogul Terrence Terrell had purchased it in the 1990s, then set Deal to work. It was an Addison Mizener designed coral-rock-and-marble masterpiece that rivaled Vizcaya, the nearby former Vanderbilt home and now museum, but because the MacLemore estate had always been in private hands, relatively few knew of it.
Deal had been at work at the estate for several years now, and could probably spend the rest of his life on the job, assuming Terrell’s interest and cash flow held out. Keeping old buildings shored up was tough enough in any climate, but in the tropics, the battle was fierce. Still, in a city like Miami, where “historic” might well refer to anything prior to
Miami Vice
, he took particular pride in helping to restore a building that another buyer might have razed in a heartbeat to make room for a forty-story condominium tower.
He moved close to some of the drawings mounted on the walls, Vedetti following closely behind. “It is a monumental undertaking that lies before us,” Vedetti said, gesturing, “but at least we have begun to identify the scope of the problem.” He managed a wan smile for Deal.
“Were Señor Vedetti being candid,” Fuentes chimed in, “he would tell you that he has performed miracles with the little money he has to work with, virtually all of it channeled to him from outside Cuba.”
Vedetti gave Deal an apologetic look. “Cuba is a poor country, Mr. Deal. When it is a choice between food and medicine…well, how can I complain…” he raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“Nonetheless, things might have turned out differently over these past forty years had not Fidel Castro been a man of the provinces,” Fuentes said, tilting a photograph of a ruined church façade toward them. “In truth, the city has never truly captured the imagination of El Presidente. Say what you will about his practices and policies, he had no intentions of setting up court in Havana. He was never comfortable here. Certainly, he has not been interested.”
Deal took it all in as he browsed the magnificent series of images—palazzos, churches, public buildings—moving finally to a part of the wall where a pushpin-studded aerial photograph of the city had been mounted, with a series of boundary lines overlaid, marking off different districts. After a moment, he was able to identify the first landmarks he’d spotted off the rail of the
Bellísima:
the harbor and the headlands where Morro Castle loomed; then he traced the inward curve of the bay all the way westward to the point where the River Almendares flowed, and, just beyond, the breakwater and canals that marked the Marina Hemingway complex where they had come ashore.
“The Old City is here, some three hundred and fifty acres in size,” Vedetti said, coming to join him. He pointed to a vaguely thumb-shaped section that sat across the mouth of the harbor from the castle and ran inland along the western shore. “There are roughly three thousand buildings within its borders, about one-third of them of extreme historic importance, some three hundred fifty of those built prior to 1800.”
He paused, then gestured again at the map. “Most of our work is within Habana Vieja, though we have also begun to identify structures of interest in other areas, such as Centro Habana and Vedado as well.” He pointed at the districts next to the old city, moving westward in order.
“A white pin indicates a project completed, or nearing completion,” Vedetti explained. “The green pins designate those where work is in the planning stages or about to begin. Yellow are buildings that have been designated as worthy of restoration.”