Authors: James Grippando
A
re those lights really necessary?” said Jack, shielding his eyes.
The colonel walked around the table and flipped a wall switch. The spotlights went out, and the sudden contrast from bright light to normal made the room seem much darker than it actually was. The colonel pulled a ten-inch cigar from his shirt pocket, and another man immediately stepped forward to light it. The man was so quick and obsequious that he could only have been the colonel’s personal aide. The colonel puffed hard on one end, rolling the other across a six-inch flame. Jack and Sofia were soon shrouded in a cloud of cigar smoke.
“My name is Colonel Raúl Jiménez,” he said as the thick smoke poured from his nostrils. “The people of Cuba thank you for coming.”
Jack glanced left, then right. “Funny, I don’t see them here.”
The colonel smiled, but it faded quickly. “You’re looking at them.”
With the wave of his hand, the armed soldiers left the room. The colonel’s aide remained at attention, standing off to the side.
“
Gracias
,” said Sofia.
At first Jack wasn’t sure why she was thanking him, but he too felt more comfortable with the automatic weapons out of the room.
“My purpose here is not to frighten you,” said the colonel. “I wish only to do you a favor.”
“Why do I doubt that?” said Jack.
“You are such a skeptic,
Señor
Swyteck.”
“I can’t help it. I’m a lawyer.”
“True, very true. Tell me. How did your interview with Lieutenant Johnson go this morning?”
Jack and Sofia looked at each other, not sure how he knew.
The colonel said, “You don’t think anything happens on that base that we don’t know about, do you?”
“I haven’t given it much thought,” said Jack.
“We’re sitting right on the other side of the razor wire. We watch them; they watch us. It’s the way the game is played in Guantánamo. Has been for forty years. So tell me: How did your little talk with the lieutenant go?”
“You don’t really expect me to discuss that with you, do you?”
He laughed heartily. “Just as I thought. He told you
nada
.”
“Colonel, what is it that you want from us?”
“Just a few minutes of your time.” He rose and started to pace, waving his cigar as he spoke. “Let me make a few educated assumptions here. One, the U.S. government didn’t let you talk to anyone but Lieutenant Johnson, did they?”
Jack didn’t answer.
“Two,” said the colonel, “anyone who might know anything about the murder of Captain Pintado has been reassigned, no? Persian Gulf, maybe? Or perhaps Guam?”
He glanced at Sofia and then at Jack. It was clear he didn’t expect an answer, but he didn’t seem to need one. “Seems to me that you are getting the brick house here.”
“Stonewall,” said his aide.
“Stonewall, yes. Brick house is something else entirely, no?” He was looking at Sofia with that last remark. Women served extensively in the Cuban military, but machismo was still alive and kicking.
Jack said, “Colonel, unless you’re going to put bamboo shoots under our fingernails, we’re not going to tell you what was said at the naval base. Even then, I’d just make it all up.”
“There’s nothing you need to tell me,
Señor
Swyteck. All you have to do is listen.”
“Okay. My ears are open.”
“Like I said, we know you met with Lieutenant Johnson, because
we are watching that base constantly. Twenty-four/seven.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“Then it should come as no surprise that we saw—how shall I put this? We saw things of interest at your client’s home on the night the captain left this world.”
Jack’s interest was suddenly piqued. “I’d like to hear about it.”
The colonel flashed a sly smile, the smoldering cigar clenched between his teeth. “I bet you would.”
“Come on, Colonel. I hope you didn’t invite us in here just to play the ‘I know a secret’ game. What do you have?”
“A vigilant Cuban soldier. Watching from a guard tower through night-vision binoculars.”
“What did he see?”
“Something that can prove that your client did not murder her husband.”
Jack’s pulse quickened.
Could this be true?
“I need specifics,” said Jack.
“Not so fast. Before I offer up one of my own soldiers on a silver platter, I need to know: What are you offering in exchange?”
“Colonel, I’m in no position to deal with the Cuban military for the testimony of one of its soldiers.”
“I’m confident that the son of Florida’s former governor will find something to please us.”
“I’m not looking to please you. And even if I were, the testimony of a Cuban soldier in a Miami courtroom will have huge repercussions. Need I remind you, Colonel, that this community nearly exploded over the return of a seven-year-old boy named Elián to his Cuban father?”
“
Claro
,” he said. “You simply have to ask yourself up front: Is the woman accused of killing the son of a powerful Cuban exile willing to stake her defense on the sworn testimony of Fidel Castro’s loyal soldier?”
The question nearly knocked Jack off his chair. The colonel had framed it perfectly. “I need some time to think this through,” said Jack.
“
Bueno.
You have twenty-four hours.”
“I’d like more than that.”
“I’m not offering more than that. Take it or leave it.”
Jack glanced at Sofia, and they quickly came to a silent understanding.
Jack said, “All right, Colonel. Let’s talk again at tomorrow’s end.”
“Good. You’ve already missed your flight, so enjoy your little overnight visit in beautiful Havana. You are the honored guests of the people of Cuba.”
“Meaning you?” said Jack.
He smiled broadly, sucking on his cigar. “
Sí.
Meaning me.”
F
our decades of communism had not robbed Havana of its heart. But it was badly in need of angioplasty.
Everywhere Jack looked, he could find things old, things broken, things that seemed straight out of a world that had existed before he was even born. They rode in a taxi that had the hood of a 1956 Chevrolet, the back end of a 1959 Ford, and the interior of something just a cut above an ox cart. Their driver was a surgeon who earned more in tips than practicing medicine. He gave Jack and Sofia a driving tour of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana), a historic section of a magnificent city that could be either charming or appalling, depending on how closely you looked. Jack tried to envision it as his mother might have seen it as a teenager, an architectural marvel that boasted some of the most impressive cathedrals, plazas, and colonial mansions in the Caribbean. Over eight hundred of its historically significant structures were built
before
the twentieth century, some dating back to the 1500s. But after decades of neglect, many of these irreplaceable structures had suffered irreversible damage, and recent restoration efforts aimed at bolstering tourism were simply too little, too late. Despite some convincing paint jobs and face-lifts, it was impossible to ignore the many sagging roofs and crumbling walls. Some parts of south La Habana Vieja resembled Berlin in late 1944, whole sections of walls missing, buildings on the verge of collapse but for the tenuous support of wood scaffolding, entire neighborhoods seemingly held together by crisscrossing ropes and wires from which residents hung the morning laundry.
An old woman on a third-floor balcony was hauling up a bucket on a rope.
“No plumbing?” Jack asked the the cabdriver.
“Not here,
señor.
If you go for walking, is
muy importante
that you look over you head. Is not so bad if you get spill from buckets going up. But the ones coming down…”
“
Yo comprendo
,” said Jack. I understand.
They continued west along the waterfront on the broad and busy Avenida Maceo, stopping at the Hotel Nacional. The driver would have been more than happy to continue the city tour, but Jack tipped him extra to cut it short.
“
Gracias
,” Jack said as he handed him a couple of twenties. It was about a month’s worth of wages for a physician.
Hotel Nacional was the vintage 1930 grand dame of Havana hotels, perched on a bluff with postcard views of Havana Harbor. Its architect had also designed the famous Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, and it was built in a similar Spanish style, entered via a long driveway that was lined with slender Royal Palms. The lobby screamed of opulence if not ostentatiousness, with mosaic floors, Moorish arches, and lofty, beamed ceilings. Jack looked around, saw the tourists at the bar sipping lime daiquiris and rum
mojitos
. He spotted another group of businessmen feasting on shrimp as big as their fists and lobster with drawn butter. He heard
salsa
music from the nightclub, the laughter of people dancing, the chatter of wealthy Europeans on holiday.
And then he heard the desk clerk’s reminder: “One last thing,
señor.
Locals are not permitted in the hotel. It’s the law, and I’m required to tell you that. So please don’t bring them here.”
“Sure thing,” said Jack. With bitter irony he was reminded of an old Miami tourism slogan: “Miami—See It Like a Native.” Here, the slogan should have been “Cuba—See It Like ANYTHING BUT a Native.”
Jack and Sofia took separate rooms on the recently refurbished sixth floor. Jack pulled back the curtains and opened the window to take in the view. A warm, gentle breeze caressed his face. Looking east he saw Havana Harbor, where the explosion of the
Maine
had sparked the Spanish-American War. Somewhere to the west, he knew, was the town of Mariel, the launching point for the infamous boatlift that had brought a quarter of a million Cubans—“Marielitos”—to Miami in the
early 1980s. Most had assimilated just fine, but twenty-five thousand of them had come from Castro’s prisons, and at least one of them was convicted of murder again and had ended up on Florida’s death row. Jack knew that one well, because the young and only son of Governor Harold Swyteck had been his lawyer—until he was executed in the electric chair.
Jack felt a slight queasiness in his belly.
The phone rang. He stepped back inside and answered it. The woman spoke in Spanish.
“Are you lonely, handsome?”
It took Jack a moment to translate in his head, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. Then he chuckled and said, “Cut it out, Sofia.”
“My name is not Sofia. But I can be Sofia if you want me to be. I can be anyone at all. I can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however many times you want. Have you ever had a girl of sixteen? All you have to do is—”
Jack hung up. Obviously the bellboy or the doorman or someone had passed the word that an American man was alone in room 603. The desk clerk’s admonition—no locals in the hotel—echoed in his mind.
Yeah, right. And drugs are strictly prohibited in Miami Beach nightclubs.
Jack took a seat on the edge of the bed—the very edge. He wondered how many sixteen-year-old Cuban girls had lain across these sheets, and then he recalled those two pigs in the airport talking about how cheap and gorgeous the women were here. He grabbed the phone and dialed Sofia’s room. She answered on the third ring.
“Sofia, hey. It’s Jack.”
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to let you know: I’m checking out of here.”
“You don’t like your room?”
“The room’s fine. I just don’t want to stay here.”
“Where do you want to go?”
He didn’t answer right away. His mind flashed with visions of his grandmother living in some dumpy house for thirty-eight years with hardly anything to eat. He thought of
Abuela
saying good-bye to his mother, spiriting her away to Miami, unaware at the time that she’d never see her teenage daughter again. He thought of the rum-guzzling,
shrimp-gorging, cigar-smoking tourists and the young girls who became whores.
But the one image Jack couldn’t conjure up was that of a little Havana suburb, the town in which the mother he’d never known had lived most of her too-short life.
“I’m going to Bejucal,” he said.
T
wo hours later Jack and Sofia were in a rental car approaching the outskirts of Bejucal.
“You didn’t have to come,” said Jack.
“How were you planning to get around without me?” asked Sofia.
“My Spanish is fairly functional.”
“I’ve heard you speak, Jack. And while it’s very impressive that you were able to learn Spanish while you were a drainpipe, it probably wouldn’t get you very far in a small town.”
“A drainpipe? Is that what I said?”
She smiled. “It’s okay. Your Spanish is really pretty good.”
“How good?”
“Probably just good enough to get you beat up and ripped off. Which is why I came along.”
“Oh, so you’re here to protect me, are you?”
“No. I came to
watch
you get beat up and ripped off. Beats the heck out of Cuban television.”
Touché,
he thought.
The actual driving time from Havana was only thirty minutes, and they reached Bejucal around dinnertime.
Abuela
had often told him that it was the prettiest town in all of Havana Province, and she was probably right. There were colonial facades everywhere, and just enough of them were freshly painted to allow the imagination to color in the rest. In the heart of town was a quaint little square with an ocher-colored colonial church. It was precious enough in its own right,
but for Jack, just the sight of the old church took his breath away. His mother had been baptized there. The Cine Martí was nearby, and Jack wondered if his mother had ever gone there with her friends, or maybe even a boyfriend, dreaming of being an American movie star. Then his gaze drifted toward a billboard at the end of the square that read,
SOCIALISMO O MUERTE
(Socialism or death), and at once he understood
Abuela
’s comment about Bejucal: It was exactly as it was forty years ago; and it was totally different.
“You okay?” asked Sofia.
Jack had been unaware, but they’d spent that last few minutes stopped at an intersection for no apparent reason. He’d been absorbing it all. “Yeah,” he said, shaking it off. “Just spacing out a bit there.”
“You hungry? The Restaurante El Gallo looks pretty good.”
“Sure,” said Jack.
Jack parked the car, and they walked to the restaurant and took a table near the window. The house specialized in
criollo
dishes, so Jack ordered roasted chicken and
plátanos a puñetazos
. The waitress was extremely friendly, and naturally she recognized them as tourists. She insisted that they visit Plaza Martí, which she claimed was the setting for the movie
Paradiso
, based on the novel by José Lezama Lima. Jack didn’t know if that was true or not, but it made him smile to hear it, as if it had been his own small town featured in a motion picture. In a way, it
was
his town.
Dinner was pleasant enough, and their waitress brought them mango slices for dessert. She seemed to take a genuine interest in making sure that they enjoyed their visit to Bejucal, so Jack thought he’d push his luck.
“Have you ever heard of a woman named Celia Méndez?” he asked.
She scrunched her face, thinking. “I know a couple of Méndez families. But not a Celia Méndez. How old is she?”
Jack pulled the old photograph of his mother and Celia Méndez from his pocket. It made him nervous to play this hand. All these years, he’d figured that Celia Méndez, his mother’s best friend in Cuba, would be his best source of information about his mother. But what if it didn’t pan out?
He showed the snapshot to the waitress and said, “This was taken over forty years ago. So I’d guess she’s probably close to sixty.”
The waitress shook her head, no recognition. “Sorry. Can’t help you. But there is a Méndez who runs a
casa particular
over on Calle Martí. That family has lived in Bejucal for years. Why don’t you stop by there? Maybe they can help you.”
“Thanks. We’ll do that.”
She wrote down the address for them. Jack paid the bill in U.S. dollars, the only currency that seemed to matter in “communist” Cuba, and they left.
The literal translation of
casa particular
was “private home,” and for many travelers there was no better accommodation in Cuba than to rent a room from a Cuban family. It had been illegal to rent housing in Cuba after the revolution, but all that changed with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Cuban government’s need to find a new “super-power” (read: tourism) to prop up its failing economy. A new law in 1996 allowed Cubans to rent out one or two rooms in their homes, and soon afterward thousands of
casas particulares
popped up across the country, providing a hefty sum in tax revenues to a dictator who was clearly more interested in self-perpetuation than communist principle.
La Casa Méndez was a simple but tidy house facing a cobblestone street. A plump woman with dark skin and a bright yellow headband in her hair greeted them at the door. She was at most fifty, Jack surmised, too young to be his mother’s friend Celia. She introduced herself as Felicia Méndez Ortiz. Rather than diving into his detective role with a slew of questions about Celia Méndez, Jack decided to break the ice with a simple business inquiry.
“Do you have a room available?”
“Yes,” she said in a pleasant voice. “Just one.”
“May we see it, please?”
“Of course. Come in.”
The room was in the back of the house near the kitchen. There were two twin beds, a dresser, and an old rug on the floor. The annoying glow from a lamp with no shade was the only light in the room. They had walked past the living room and two other bedrooms to get there. Jack counted eleven people in the house, seven adults and four children. The Cuban woman explained that the big advantage of staying at a
casa particular
was that you get to live with a Cuban family, but the big disadvantage was that you get to live with a Cuban family.
“We’ll take it,” said Sofia.
“What?” said Jack.
She switched to English, for Jack’s ears only. “If you’re really good, I’ll let you push the beds together. But don’t count on it.”
He knew she was kidding. “I was only being polite when I asked to see the room. I wasn’t actually planning on staying here.”
“You want to give this nice family your money, or you want to go back to Hotel Nacional?”
“You sure you’re okay with this?”
“I had a male roommate all through law school. Nothing ever happened, and he was even cuter than you.”
Jack wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but it didn’t matter. “Okay. If you’re up for it, we’ll stay.” He looked at the woman and said in Spanish, “We’ll take it.”
She smiled and led them to the kitchen. They sat around the table, and she recorded their names and passport numbers. And, of course, she offered them something to eat. It was a genetic thing, Jack decided, this Cuban compulsion to offer food to a guest even when there was none in the house. Jack and Sofia declined, but they did take the
café.
It was hot and strong, and the smell of roasted beans reminded Jack of
Abuela
’s kitchen. Jack had just about finished his cup when he decided it was time to share the photograph.
He laid it on the table and asked, “Do you happen to know a woman named Celia Méndez?”
The woman set her cup on the table. A smile crept to her lips as she examined the photograph. “You know Celia?”
“No. My mother did.”
“Don’t tell me your mother was Ana,” she said.
Jack’s heart thumped.
She knew!
“Yes. Ana Maria Fuentes.”
She studied Jack’s face, then glanced back at the photograph. She brought a hand to her mouth, as if astonished that so much time had passed. “Now I see it. You look very much like your beautiful mother. Celia and she were the best, best of friends. It broke her heart when she heard that she passed away. Such a shame.” She shuddered, seemingly embarrassed by her own insensitivity. “Forgive me. I am sorry for your loss, as well, of course.”
“Thank you. Did you know my mother?”
“A little. I was only seven—no, eight—years old when Ana left for America. Celia was my oldest sister.”
Again, his pulse quickened. “Where can I find Celia?”
She blinked twice, then lowered her eyes. “Celia is dead.”
Jack’s heart sank, and his “Oh, no” was involuntary.
“She passed away last March. It was very sudden. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry. I know it may be difficult for you to talk about her, but if there’s anything you remember about Celia and my mother, I would love to hear about them.”
“I have some things, yes. But it’s hard for me to know what I remember and what I remember Celia telling me, if you see the difference.”
“Yes, I do. Whatever you can tell me, that’s all I want to know.”
The sadness seemed to drain away. Thinking of a much younger Celia was lifting the woman’s spirits. “Celia and Ana were inseparable,” she said with a nostalgic grin. “They did everything together. It was Celia who introduced your mother to her first boyfriend.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No, I don’t. But Ana’s mother—your grandmother—didn’t like him one bit. She didn’t like Celia, either. Mostly because it was Celia who introduced this boy to her daughter.”
“What was wrong with him?”
“Nothing, as far as I know.”
“Why was my grandmother so against him?”
She winced a little. “Your grandmother has never talked to you about Ana’s boyfriend, has she?”
“No. Tell me.”
“Are you sure you want to know everything?”
“Yes. Believe me, I wouldn’t have come here if I weren’t sure.”
She took a deep breath, then said, “Your mother got pregnant.”
Jack went cold.
She nodded toward the photograph and said, “She’s probably with child in that photograph. She was just seventeen when it happened.”
“Are you sure?” asked Jack.
“Oh, yes. I’m not mistaken about this. We’re talking over forty years ago. A teenage girl, pregnant? This was quite the scandal in Bejucal. I don’t remember everything that happened when I was eight years old. But I remember that.”
“Did she—” Jack hesitated, afraid to ask. “Did my mother have the child?”
“I’m not sure I ever knew exactly what happened. I remember hearing that she was pregnant. I heard people talk about it. And it wasn’t the next day, but it was pretty soon afterward that Ana Maria was on her way to Miami.”
“Was she pregnant when she left?”
“I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Jack staring into his empty cup. The woman rose, as if sensing Jack’s sudden need for some time to himself. “Excuse me, but I must check on the grandchild,” she said, and she left the room.
Sofia stayed with him for a minute, and finally he looked at her. She seemed on the verge of saying something, then simply gave him a thin but sad smile of support, patted the back of his hand, and left him alone at the table.
The streetlight outside their bedroom window shined through slatted Venetian blinds, casting zebralike stripes across the twin beds. Jack was nearest the door. Sofia lay in the bed by the window. The room had no clock, but Jack knew it was late. He hadn’t been able to close his eyes, let alone fall asleep.
“Jack?” Sofia said in the darkness. “You up?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Are you okay? I mean, about what Felicia told you?”
He chuckled without heart. “Not exactly what I expected to hear.”
“I know.”
Silence returned. A car passed outside their window, and the headlights swept across the wall.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Does this feel weird to you?”
“Does what feel weird?”
“Sleeping in the same room with me.”
“Uhm. A little.”
“When’s the last time you slept in twin beds?”
He thought about it, then realized that it was with his ex-wife, one of the last trips they had taken together. Separate beds. The beginning of the end. “I don’t really remember.”
“I’m not trying to get weird on you, but for some strange reason
this reminds me of when I was a teenager. My sister and I shared a room with twin beds. We would stay up at night and talk about all kinds of things. Boys. Soccer. Clothes. Mostly boys.”
“Are you saying I remind you of your sister?”
“Hardly. I’m not sure why that popped into my head. I guess I was just reminded of how much I miss those days. Something made me think of it.”
“Maybe it was the fact that no one bothered to tell me that I might have a brother or sister.”
She propped herself up on one elbow, and even in the dim light Jack could see the horrified expression on her face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mention my sister in order to…I wasn’t comparing your situation to—”
“It’s okay,” he said.
She lowered her head back onto the pillow. She was lying on her side, the thin, white bedsheet clinging to the gentle curve of her hip, the narrow band of light coming through the Venetian blinds reflecting on her hair. Jack rolled on his side, facing her, the gap between the twin beds separating them. But in the darkness, it was almost as if the gap weren’t there.
“Funny,” said Jack.
“What?”
“This thing with my mother. In my mind, I’d built this lofty image of a young woman in search of freedom. She leaves her family behind, leaves her friends behind, leaves everything behind, and somehow finds the courage to face a completely new world.”
“No one has taken that image away. It just has a new twist to it.”
“At least now I understand why my grandmother never wanted to talk about it.”
“She’s an old woman. It’s natural for someone of her generation to sweep it under the rug. It must have hurt her terribly to hear people say her daughter was a troubled teen running away from her problems.”
“But at some point I have a right to know, don’t I?”
“A right to know what?”
Jack looked off to the middle distance, to the darkness beyond Sofia. “About my half sibling—the child she left behind.”