Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (15 page)

Erick J. Mota, born in
Havana in 1975, is a physicist and science fiction writer. He has
won several prizes in Cuba and other Latin American countries,
including the 2004 Guaicán, the 2007 Golden Age, and the 2008
TauZero for Short Novel. He has published a short story
collection,
Algunos recuerdos que valen la
pena [Some Worthwhile Memories]
and, in
2010, a novel and collection of related short stories,
Habana Underguater [Underwater
Havana]
, which describes a world in which
the Russians won the Cold War and Cuba is the center of several
international conflicts. The second part of the series,
Los propios rusos [The Russians
Themselves]
, was a finalist for the 2011
Minotauro Prize.

“Greetings from a Zombie
Nation” is a story that reinforces our conviction that science
fiction can be a valid tool for constructively examining our
present —in this case, the reality of Cuba.

The story is a daring and
pertinent political metaphor —ingenious and raw— about a stalled
society that slowly transforms its citizens into the living dead. A
fun and funny story about zombies, bureaucracies, socialism and
revolution. We think it is one of the best Cuban science fiction
stories ever published.

I

The sign on the wall at the end of the
street was as simple as it was clear. It was written in enormous
red letters over the white lime paint. The watchword of the moment,
repeated endlessly on television, on the radio, and at
meetings:

THIS ZOMBIE BELONGS TO FIDEL!

All just like in the old
times. Like in the Special Period. Many catchphrases to hide the
crisis. What’s strange was that now there wasn’t any crisis, things
were going well for us.

Or at least, that’s what
we thought.

The wall, for its part, was neglected, as if
it belonged to a colonial building. But there are no colonial
houses in this part of the city. All the houses date from the
beginnings of the 20th century; therefore, they were built
following North American construction rules: block walls, concrete
columns and concrete roofs. Over a hundred years have passed and
every house holds itself up despite years of abandonment.

But the wall, since it
didn’t belong to any house, is more deteriorated than the rest. The
cement has fallen away in some areas, exposing the clay bricks.
Moss and lichen give its lower area a greenish tint, right where
the sidewalk starts. Until yesterday, the paint and the old sign,
along with the old slogan, had a yellowish tone. Even the old
standby of FATHERLAND OR DEATH seemed gloomy and sad.

The sidewalk, hardly traveled on since it
was at the end of an alley, sports cracks worthy of an earthquake
at the top of the Richter scale. The asphalt of the street,
exhausted by years and the lack of traffic, wears old potholes from
a moderately-glorious past. Some weeds sprout from the curb.

Everything is still in the neighborhood. It
was a dawn like any other.

Every time I leave my
house, the dogs from the adjoining houses start to bark. The uproar
is as unpleasant for me as it must be for their owners, who tell
them to shut up as soon as the barking begins. But they keep on
barking without heeding the orders they’ve heard since they were
pups. It’s always the same routine: I leave the doorway, open the
gate, and they begin to bark like mad. For them it’s very simple:
they hear me and that’s enough. In their little brains there is no
room for anything else. I’m used to it. Since I was little, it’s
been this way. I have no patience for dogs.

“Hey, Ricardo! Ricardo
Miguel, wait!”

The voice comes from the
house next door. The last house of the alley. There, standing in
the doorway of his house was my neighbor, Ramón. Tall, fat, and
with a bushy mustache. Authoritarian, controlling, and constantly
in need of self-affirmation. He talks in that dictatorial way used
by everyone who is accustomed to giving orders and knowing that
they’ll be obeyed. He is neither a military man nor the directory
of a company; he’s the president of the CDR of my block.

For those who are
neophytes about the dynamics of the Cuban Revolution, CDR is the
acronym of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. It was
a political organization created in Cuba in 1960. It’s nominal goal
was to watch out for any sort of “enemy activity” that sought to
undermine the revolutionary process. A sort of paramilitary
organization with anti-terrorist aims. But over the years it turned
into a mechanism for control and political action. Little by little
it became a machine whose only goal was for the community of
neighbors to forget concepts like privacy. Every procedure, from
starting a job to getting a telephone installed in your home, had
to first be authorized by the CDR. In which case its president,
democratically elected every year, was the person with the most
power in the neighborhood. Someone truly feared and who had to be
respected if you didn’t want problems. Over the years, the
institution gradually degenerated into a union of gossips who
intrude upon the privacy of their neighbors. But that doesn’t mean
that there weren’t bastard presidents who were waiting for their
chance to screw over their neighbors.

This was one of those cases.

And I was the neighbor.

“Hey, Ramón, how are you?”
I said in the friendliest tone I could summon.

“Remember that you need to
give Carmita a copy of that letter you gave me about that matter
involving your brother.”

“But I already turned in a
letter from my work with all the seals and signatures.”

“But the Vigilancia needs
a copy.”

“Look, at the Center we
have work to do. We don’t have time for so much
bureaucracy.”

“Those are the rules. One
copy for the CDR president and another for the Vigilancia. I can’t
authorize something like this if it doesn’t go through the proper
channels.”

“I don’t see the sense of
that.”

“You need to go straight
to Carmita’s house, right here ahead of you, and deliver a copy of
the letter from the CIDEZ.” Then he relaxes his tone of
authoritarian military man and places a hand on my shoulder,
condescending. “Look, the bodega already has the meat for your
brother, don’t go complicating the situation.”

The message was clear.

“Fine, fine, I’ll take
care of it.”

“And remember: tonight is
the block meeting. At nine thirty. We’ll discuss the Comandante’s
last pronouncements about the zombies. As you are a specialist in
this subject, I hope you’ll attend.”

Smoothly, I drew away from
him until he had to remove his greasy hand from my body. I can’t
stand people who have to touch you all the time when they talk to
you. It’s true that we’re Cubans, and gesticulating while we talk
is part of our national identity, but all this touchy-feely stuff
is too much.

“Fine, Ramón. I’ve got to
go, I’ll miss the bus to work.”

“Remember, bring Carmita
the paper from your Institute.”

“Of course, of
course.”

And I get out of there as fast as I can in
case he keeps on talking. In fact, I was running late. Since my
house is the second one from the end of the street, I have to walk
an entire block to reach the avenue. On the corner is an improvised
table, four chairs, a game of dominos spread out and nearly six
people shouting.

Dominos originally started
as an evolution of the game of dice. According to international
rules, it should be played in silence and by teams. But, as always
happens, here things unfolded a little differently. Dominos in Cuba
is played with many spectators, shouting at your opponents and your
partner, while everyone else gives their opinion. The result, when
all this is heard from a distance, it is very similar to a
tumultuous fight. In any event, it’s an altercation of the public
order, but since it forms part of our national identity, the laws
are a bit flexible.

“¡Oye! Richard, come
here!” one of the players shouts at me, abandoning the table. The
shouts of protest from the rest prevent me from hearing what he
says. Soon someone else will wind up taking his place in the game
and everything will continue as normal. As he comes toward me, I
recognize Omarito, Clarita’s son. Clarita, who lives three houses
from me. We’ve known each other since we were little, but he is
more a buddy of my brother than me.

“Tell your brother that
he’s letting us down. Every day we’ve got a game of dominos going
here and he doesn’t even show up.”

“Pipe down, man. You know
my brother is a zombie now. And I’ve got the fatso of the CDR
opening fire me.”

“That’s right. Don’t be no
fool. You know that guy’s a nosy pain in the ass. Look at him! He’s
standing there in the door of his house, looking this
way.”

“Come over here, Richard.
What made your brother become a zombie?”

“For the meat
allowances.”

“They give you extra meat
for having a zombie at home?”

“Beef and
hamburger.”

“I need a zombie in my
house, right away!”

“Needs to be a family
member and to be certified by the CIDEZ. You’ve got to fill out
more paperwork than to leave the country.”

“But you work in the
CIDEZ, you fool.”

“And despite that, neither
the fatso nor the big mouth from the Vigilancia have believed the
story completely.”

“Damn! Okay then, tell
your brother that we’ll move the dominos to the afternoon so he can
come. As a zombie, of course.”

“OK, I’ll tell
him.”

I started to walk toward the road. I went as
fast as I could, since there were still two blocks to go and I was
already late and the bus to work would leave without me.

“But not today!” Omarito
shouted from the corner. “There’s a meeting of the CDR.”

I nodded my head and kept
walking. I turned the corner almost at a run. I was at the road
now, and the smoke of the buses and the noise baffled me for a
moment. It’s a bit strange for someone who lives in such a quiet
neighborhood that a mere two hundred meters away is a place with so
much hustle and bustle. The sun hadn’t even risen, but the sidewalk
was already full of passersby who went to the public transport
stops. The lights of countless cars dazzled me. I looked away and
hurried my steps. Normally the bus to work picked me up on the
highway at six thirty, but sometimes it was early. I checked my
watch, but before I could see the time an imperative voice stopped
me.

“Citizen.”

No one in the entire national territory
addresses someone that way unless they belonged to the Policía
Nacional Revolucionaria, the National Revolutionary Police. I
lifted my gaze and there he was, dressed in impeccable blue and
with his baton in his hand, a man from the PNR. Behind him, on the
same sidewalk but at the curb, were two more policemen checking
papers of two other civilians.

“Your identity card,
please.”

The identity card is the
official document, analogous to the North American driver’s license
and the European DNI, that theoretically prevents paperwork at the
moment of identifying a cadaver or an unconscious patient in an
emergency room. The only inconvenience of this document is that
bearing it is considered an obligation of citizenship. And not
carrying it is, of course, a crime. During my time at the
university, when everything was still up and down between my
brother and the people of the neighborhood, I spent more than one
night at the police station for having forgotten it. Years have
gone by, I don’t wear my hair long, I don’t meet with antisocial
elements, and I’m a prestigious researcher in the CIDEZ. And they
still ask me for it with the same disdain as when I was nineteen.
I’ve come to think that asking for the identity card is something
of a hobby for the police, almost as addictive as cigarettes or
drugs. Whatever the reason, they make me feel like a worm every
time they ask me for it.

One of the two men at the
curb argued with the policemen in a loud voice. A patrol car was
parked nearby. The man gesticulated in front of the agent of order.
That’s always a bad sign. Not with two uniformed men on the
sidewalk and two more in the car. That attitude could lead to a
cell.

I concentrated on the way
the second man stood. Head tilted back three quarters, arms at both
sides as if he couldn’t move them any more and a slight oscillating
movement of his hips. His gaze was lost on some point between the
rooftops of the buildings and the sky. I know those characteristics
by heart; after all, I work with them. That man was a
zombie.

I handed my identity card
to the policeman in front of me. He didn’t even bother to read my
name, check my address or verify if I looked like my photo. He
lifted a small flashlight to my eyes. The light dazzled me,
provoking a very unpleasant sensation. But my response was not
hostile. I must pass through these controls every time I enter the
office. I know what they’re looking for; it’s always good to know
what the police are looking for. Since they are not normally
intelligent individuals, and as a general rule they tend to be
violent and have authority on their side, it’s always good to give
them what they want in order to leave quickly. They were looking
for natural pupil reactions to light. They were looking for runaway
zombies, unlicensed living dead.