An Innocent in Cuba Page 14

  The same desk clerk from last night picked up the phone. I told her what was happening and held the phone toward the bathroom door so she could hear the powerful volcanic activity originating therein – great sucking sounds followed by great blowing sounds. She did not get flustered in any way, she just became more saddened, more resigned. She said she would take care of it, but she didn’t know what more she could say about it right now. I had the sense that this had happened before, and they had put in a request for a larger holding tank, but there had been no word about when or if there would be one available for them. After all, they’re a bit out of the way, and they would only have a few busy nights a year, so it wouldn’t be considered that crucial.

  So I threw my bag in the car and headed to the office to settle up. The pretty young woman was distressed about the sewage eruption. She had catnapped on the sofa overnight. She had no makeup on, but she did have some gold speckles on her eyelids, and she seemed not overly tired, maybe even fresher and more attractive than she seemed last night, with such sadness in her countenance.

  Among other things, she told me that it was very sad that all the tourists come to Cuba but the Cubans can’t go to other countries. It’s not a matter of human rights as much as it is of dollars and cents. “We cannot afford it, it’s very expensive.”

  I’d been paying in cash and not bothering all that much with receipts. I was sure she had told me last night that I could pay in the morning. But when I got out my wallet she told me in no uncertain terms that I actually had paid last night. I looked at her and said, Are you sure? She looked at me and said, Are you crazy? I thought she had a point there, and I put my wallet away, and thanked her profusely for her honesty by giving her a very large tip. She refused to take it, but I kept insisting. I finally wore her down, and she gave in and thanked me with such sincerity I had to fight back a tear or two. It obviously meant a tremendous amount to her. It would have represented more than her wages, exclusive of tips, for the entire month.

  As I was leaving I gave her a heartfelt smile and tried to inject a bit of humour by saying, in a rueful tone, “So keep on building that socialist paradise now.” It sounded glib and shallow.

  She gave me a very modest smile, a classic rueful smile to be exact.

  “Did you understand what I said?”

  “Sí.”

  We looked sadly at each other for a while. She realized the tip was larger because I didn’t want her to think I was blaming her (or anyone) for the raw sewage or the late-night call. Also I still couldn’t remember paying last night. She was obviously a born stranger in a strange land. She didn’t fit in, she was not one of those with any tolerance for shortages, hardships, or Fidel’s vision of creating a new improved human being. She can’t be blamed if she wants to be like young women in all the other countries. And having to deal with explosions of raw sewage at breakfast time did not make her feel any happier about her existence.

  I wouldn’t forget her in a hurry. She seemed very quiet and retiring, refined, cultivated, maybe a strong Catholic, or Baptist. She was dressed very conservatively in a blouse that was a bit on the sheer side, and it showed off her nice lacy brassiere (trust my demon to notice that!), and a plain dark skirt.

  Later, on the road, thinking about everything, I gradually felt more and more certain I had not paid her the night before. She had just said that because she felt so badly about the midnight phone call and the early-morning sewage storm. She didn’t care what the boss thought, she decided I shouldn’t have to pay for my room after all that.

  —

  The Circuito Sur that runs between Cienfuegos and Trinidad then continues on to Sancti Spíritus beckons me eastward. I’m no longer drawn to Cienfuegos, for now my primary desire is to get farther down into the Oriente section of Cuba, where I can pay my symbolic respects to the poor people imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, if only by getting as close to the base as I am permitted to get, perhaps to get a glimpse of it from a hill, or something like that. And other reasons as well. Santiago de Cuba beckons.

  On a bridge over the mighty Río Cabagán, which broadly and swirlingly flows down from the mountains and into the Caribbean, forming the border between Cienfuegos and Sancti Spíritus Provinces, a fellow holds up a sign in big letters saying, in English, STOP, and then, amusingly, in smaller caps, OFFICIAL. He’s trolling for tourists, but what he’s going to say? He tells me if I turn right over the bridge I’ll come to a very nice restaurant. I tell him thank you very much, and take off, but then I hear him yelling, “No no no, stop stop stop!” So I stop again, thinking he will want to come with me, so that he can make sure I find the place, and so that he will get his commission, and I’m all ready to tell him that I’m not hungry just now owing to an explosion of raw sewage at breakfast time.

  But that wasn’t what he wanted to know. And he said, “Sir, my house is…,” and then he stalled, became tongue-tied, and I became impatient. “I’m sorry, but I must go,” I said.

  One feels badly about such rudeness, but what can one do? The word for a tourist chaser in Cuba is mosca, and when you see a tourist exiting stage left pursued by moscas, it’s a bit like seeing someone being chased by a cloud of flies, and the tourist slapping at the bites, and bleeding a bit too.

  —

  On the seashore an oddly cinematic little scene shows in a glance the sadness of poverty and the absurdity of wealth: three men are busy trying to keep out of the blazing sun while they build themselves a ladder out of fresh-cut timber. They seem to be doing a good job of it. In the background there is a van taking up the whole road so you have to squeeze by. This van belongs to eight German tourists dressed up in wetsuits and ready to go snorkelling. For the rent of one snorkel for one hour one could purchase a beautiful aluminum ladder that would last forever and never need repairs. And have change left over for a good meal. And these Germans are spending thousands of euros to see fish underwater.

  It’s amazing how dignified and polite the Cubans are, in the face of all this horrible inequality between native and tourist, and helpful even when they don’t need to be. At the tip of the Ancon Peninsula, some men on bicycles came by, and they regarded me with the kindest looks on their faces and shook their heads and pointed to their mouths. If you want to eat, don’t go there, they seemed to be warning. Either they have no food there, or the restaurant is closed. So they do wish to be helpful.

  The restaurant was closed. And on the way back, when I came to a fork in the road with no directions posted, and looked a bit confused, another guy on a bicycle pointed to the road a tourist fellow like me would be most likely to take. It was the right one.

  —

  Back on the Circuito Sur, a mile or two past Trinidad de Cuba, I stopped for a hitchhiker. He was a scholarly and dignified older man in an ill-fitting threadbare suit carrying a briefcase that looked as if it had been with Che in Bolivia. This was the drama teacher and producer of theatrical events, Adolfo, of Sancti Spíritus, whom I would spend several hours with today. After I picked him up, and even before we had introduced ourselves, we passed a rental car, just like mine, except it was lying upside down totalled in a gully at the side of the road. The tourists, a man and a woman in their thirties, Germans, were standing by the car shaking and pale. They had been travelling west, and seemed to have lost control on a gentle curve. They might have swerved to avoid something and went out of control, but the car was finished. They were dazed, looking around nervously, feeling guilty for being alive, maybe not sure they were alive, as if in a state of near hysteria. It hadn’t registered on them what had happened yet. It soon will though, because the police have arrived and will explain everything.

  —

  Adolfo was a distinguished gentleman of advancing years, in a grey suit and white shirt, his English at the level of my Spanish, so we chatted non-stop all the way to Sancti Spíritus, and he would correct my Spanish and I would correct his English. During periods of silence each knew the other was trying to figure out the simpl
est possible way of saying something so the other would get it, with the fewest number of syllables in each word. And we’d be thinking to ourselves, Will I be the next to say something or will he? So finally I would say something, and he would think about it for a while, then he would say something back to show that he understood, and vice versa.

  He told me he produced and directed plays in Trinidad, that was his job. And he lived in Sancti Spíritus. He hitchhiked back and forth, from home to Trinidad, and back again. He said he almost always gets rides right away, he can be in a huge crowd of people waiting for a ride, and someone will stop and point at him, and leave all the others behind. He has no idea why. He tends to stand out from the crowd, maybe because he looks more intellectual, and somehow more important, with that grey suit and old beat-up briefcase.

  Trinidad is a prime tourist magnet, so I asked if his plays were for the tourists. Oh no, just little plays, he said mysteriously. But as the story unwound, somewhat reluctantly, it turned out that he taught a drama course in Sancti Spíritus a couple of days a week, and he put on plays in Trinidad on alternate days. He said he was the director, but when I asked if he hired his own cast and crew, he said oh no, he just uses his students. So it made me wonder how the students got back and forth, and why he didn’t put on the plays in Sancti Spíritus. So it was as if he was keeping something from me.

  He had a wife who was in the hospital, and he was worried sick about her. He would touch his stomach with a woeful look on his face. He said she had an estómago enfermo, which sounded truly dreadful, as if she was definitely in agony and on the way out. And he confessed that he was praying for her as we spoke.

  It turns out there are three hundred Baptists in Sancti Spíritus (est. pop. 127,000), and Adolfo is one of them. They have a minister, and they study the Bible. They read contemporary books about things like the true meaning of the Cross, and mystical books about El Diablo, who tries to trap us, to get us to turn away from the light, the light being Jesus, the light of the world, which Adolfo somehow identifies with the entire universe, that is somehow connected to every single individual in it, every bird, cow, insect, microbe, chimpanzee, parrot, even trees, they all have extensions that encompass the whole universe somehow, all connected in this vast field of light that exists even in the darkness. There were two large trees, one on each side of the road, and they had formed a bit of a canopy, with their fine upper branches commingling, and he said, “Look, lovers! They are falling in love.”

  I told him I was a believer and a non-believer at the same time, it was a paradox, and he understood perfectly. So we talked on and on like that. I asked if he knew about Shakespeare. He said oh sure, he’s read all of Shakespeare’s plays, and several Dickens novels as well, but in translation of course. Shakespeare and Dickens didn’t wear their religion on their sleeve, but they certainly dealt in a big way with the issues of good and evil, light and darkness, and that seemed to be the main interest of Adolfo’s Baptist fraternity in Sancti Spíritus.

  When we passed Embalse Zaza, a large shining lake surrounded by trees, there was one single solitary melancholy meditative Cuban out there all alone in a little kayak, getting away from everything and everybody, almost motionless in such a placid lake. It was surprising to see, without any warning, a Cuban in such a solitary pursuit. This was Cuba’s largest lake, artificially created by the damming of two rivers. It’s surrounded by a pristine patch of protected “wetlands” (if you’re a conservationist) or “swamplands” (if you’re a developer).

  We also passed some fellows building a structure out of concrete blocks deep into the earth just off the road. They’re building a bomb shelter, said Adolfo. Really? Yes, we never know when the United States will launch another attack.

  I asked if he wanted to stop for coffee, but he said no, he was anxious to see his wife in the hospital. He expected me to drop him off on the highway outside of town, but I said no, I’m taking you right to the hospital. So he directed me all through the city till we got to the hospital, then he asked me to wait for him, he’d be right back. He went in and was out again five minutes later, and said his wife has been discharged, and she is now at their daughter’s house in another part of town, and if I still wanted some coffee he would take me there and I could meet his wife and his daughter and have some coffee. But, he said, first come into the hospital, I want to show you the hospital. And I want you to meet someone, a man who is recovering from a very serious head injury. So we went in, and we walked along many corridors, with a lot of activity going on, medical staff in white uniforms running from room to room, every bed occupied, and with extended families in jeans and T-shirts clustered around many of the beds, and other beds with patients looking lonely, wishing someone would visit them. Unlike more modern hospitals, there was neither fluorescent lighting nor air conditioning, just lots of bright windows and well-designed cross breezes, and a beautiful inner courtyard with an impressive grove of royal palms and many flowering trees and bushes.

  We found his friend’s room and we went in. Adolfo introduced me to a fellow lying flat out with a heavily bandaged head. He had been walking down the street, Adolfo said, and a brick fell off the top of a building and bonked him right on his bald spot. It had happened a few months back, he had to wait for his surgery owing to a backlog, though that was hard to believe. He was lying completely still, and it looked as if he had just come out of the anaesthetic, though he seemed fully conscious.

  His eyes were wide open, and I’ll never forget them. He didn’t seem to be in pain, but he was very deeply worried. Terrified in fact. He was looking anxiously into my eyes, and he could see my concern, even though we didn’t know each other. He seemed to think that I was on the medical staff, and perhaps had come to give him some bad news, that the brain damage was much worse than previously thought. So I put my hand lightly on his shoulder and told him that the operation had gone well, everything was going to be fine, you’ll be out of here in no time. But his terribly worried look didn’t relax. It was as if he was worried that the painkillers would wear off and he was about to have one helluva headache, or that he would never be able to provide for his family, or he would be watching the cartoon channel for the rest of his life.

  —

  Adolfo took me to another part of town, on the right bank of a large river, the Río Yayabo, which flows through town and into Embalse Zaza. Adolfo’s house sat on a high bank overlooking this beautiful steep-banked river, a very pretty site for a house, bucolic but close to all the amenities.

  Unfortunately the house was all wrecked. It was just a shell of a house. He had told me his house was in a terrible state, but I had no idea it would be this bad. The roof had been blown away, and several walls had collapsed. Had it been bombed? No, because there were no indications of the kind of charring that would be involved with an incendiary bomb. It looked almost as if it had been struck by a tornado, but there was no damage to any other houses on the street. I tried to get him to explain what had happened, but he didn’t want to get into it. He did say he had a friend who was restoring it for him. And outside the front door there was a large stack of terra-cotta tiles for the new roof, and within the ruined walls was a small mountain of old recycled bricks from some building that had been torn down, or maybe the bricks were from this house, and they were going to be used to rebuild the walls.

  The place was an incredible mess, it was hard to see how anyone could live in it. There must have been some living space at the back. I could see into a bedroom, there was a bed there, and a lopsided clock on the wall. It all seemed very odd. Adolfo wanted me to see, but he didn’t want to talk about it.

  —

  Adolfo was a very nice man, I couldn’t imagine him having enemies. But maybe he had said or done something that had annoyed somebody. He didn’t want to burden me with that. He seemed as if he wouldn’t have an enemy in the world, but still I wondered. Baptists can be puritanical and judgmental, and therefore have enemies. Also if you are deemed too outspok
en on the subject of human rights, or particularly on the subject of abortion, then you could be jailed. Or if not jailed, according to Amnesty International, in a 2004 report, “[Cuban] authorities continued to try to discourage dissent by harassing suspected critics of the government. Suspected dissidents were subjected to short-term detention, frequent summonses, threats, eviction, loss of employment and restrictions on movement.” Could wrecking someone’s house be considered a form of eviction? Or would hitting someone on the head with a brick be considered a threat? Adolfo seemed like a very mild-mannered fellow, but being a Baptist perhaps he was a bit too outspoken on the subject of abortion, for instance, or maybe certain Sentería practices, and so his house was wrecked as a warning. Whatever, he didn’t wish to talk about it. He just wanted me to witness it. He wanted me to figure it out on my own. He wanted me to witness the work of El Diablo perhaps.

  He had already told me that he didn’t care for atheists, agnostics, Catholics, and he had only one word for the Sentería people – evil! A man like that would have enemies. And when I asked if the plays he put on were religious, he said not overtly, but there were some religious elements in them.

  —

  Then we went to Adolfo’s daughter’s place, to meet his wife, and his daughter, Ana, who is a dentist, and her little boy. It was a very spacious apartment taking up the entire top floor of a two-storey building, like a big fat box sitting atop a slightly larger flat box, so that the apartment, with numerous open windows and doors, was surrounded by a kind of patio. But there was no railing on the patio, and it would be so easy to take a false step and suffer a very nasty fall. It’s only a one-storey drop, but it would be a hard drop.