The Cuban Affair

  Dinner was good and our four tablemates got smarter with rum, and one of them told us that Cuba was a Communist country.

  Sara glanced at her watch and said in my ear, “Let’s leave.”

  “It’s early for our ten o’clock.”

  “I want to take a last walk through the Old Town.”

  “Okay.”

  We stood, wished everyone a good evening, and collected our backpacks. I went to Tad’s table where he was sitting with Professor Nalebuff, the Nevilles, and Alison. I was actually going to miss them. I congratulated the professor on an informative lecture and told Tad and Alison, “Sara and I are going to take a walk on the Malecón, so we won’t be on the bus.”

  Tad looked at me with concern. “Be careful.”

  I reminded him, “Havana is a safe city.”

  He had no reply, but Alison, who I was sure had been briefed by Tad, said to us, “Don’t stay out too late.”

  “We’ll stay hydrated,” I assured her. I said to the Nevilles, “You should try a place called Rolando’s tonight, in the Vedado district. Very authentic. Forty-cent drinks and no Hemingway.”

  Cindy Neville gave me a nice smile. Richard grunted.

  I asked Tad, “What’s on the agenda tomorrow?”

  “It’s in your itinerary. The Museo de Bellas Artes, then a tobacco farm in the afternoon.”

  We were getting out of here none too soon. “See you in the morning.” I really hoped Alison and Tad hooked up. Life is short.

  We left Mama Inés, and also left behind our new alum chums, who, without their knowing, had provided us with some laughs, good cover, and even some degree of safety in the herd.

  So, I’d had my last lecture in Havana, my last meeting with Antonio, and my last supper. We were now on the road to Camagüey, Cayo, and home. Hopefully richer and definitely wiser.

  Our bus was parked down the street, and we turned in the opposite direction and began walking through the Old Town, toward the Forbidden Zone.

  CHAPTER 40

  We walked down Calle Obispo, past the Last National Bank of Grandpa, then past Sara’s ancestral home for what was most likely the last time in either of our lives. We also passed by Floridita, the scene of one of our many fateful—and probably stupid—decisions that had brought us to this moment.

  I had no sense that we were being followed, but outside of Floridita were two black-bereted policemen who gave us the once-over as we passed by, reminding me that Sara attracted attention and that I was carrying a gun that would put me away for a decade or two.

  Sara, too, realized we were shiny fish among sharks and said, “We need a taxi.”

  “Right.” I spotted a blue Chevy Impala, circa 1958, cruising the street and I waved him down.

  She said to me, “There’s actually something I wanted you to see before we leave Havana.”

  There was really nothing in this city that I wanted to see except 570 Calle 37, but we had time. “Okay.”

  We got into the plush rear seat of the big old Impala and Sara exchanged a few words with the young driver, Paco, then said to me, “I told him we want to sightsee. He gets thirty dollars an hour.”

  “How much does he charge to outrun the police?”

  “With or without a shoot-out?”

  Funny. I liked Sara Ortega.

  Sara spoke to Paco and we drove out of the Old Town, onto Avenida Salvador Allende, then toward the Plaza of the Revolution. I was starting to get to know the city, and when that happens in a screwed-up place, it’s time to leave. Also, there were so many streets named for revolutionary dates—Avenida 20 de Mayo, Calle 19 de Mayo—that you needed a calendar instead of a road map.

  Anyway, we cruised past the Plaza of the Revolution and headed south, toward the airport. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We continued south and within fifteen minutes were in a district of the city called 10 October, another date that will live in obscurity.

  Paco seemed as mystified as I was about why we were in this nondescript suburb, but Sara was directing him through the dark streets, and she said to him, “Calle La Vibora,” then to me, “The Street of the Viper.”

  I’ll bet this isn’t on the Yale tour.

  We came to a long iron fence on our right, and beyond the fence I could see a complex of tan-colored buildings set among palm trees and open lawns, which looked like a college campus.

  Paco seemed to recognize the complex and he glanced quizzically at Sara, who said, “Dobla a la derecha.” He turned right, and she said, “Detente,” but Paco kept going, and Sara said, “Detente!” and he stopped.

  She told him to wait, then took her shoulder bag and backpack and got out of the car. I did the same and we stood near the front gates, where four uniformed men stood with submachine guns. The sign out front said: MINISTERIO DEL INTERIOR, and DPTO. SEGURIDAD DEL ESTADO, which I translated as Department of State Security.

  I asked, “What is this place?”

  “Villa Marista prison.”

  She crossed the Street of the Viper and I followed her to the other side, putting some distance between ourselves and the guards.

  Paco was still stopped near the main gate, close to the guards, but he suddenly took off like he was wanted for something. He drove down the street, but then did a U-turn and stopped a few hundred feet from us and shut off his lights.

  Sara was staring at the prison, and I inquired, “Why are we here?”

  “I wanted you to see this.”

  “Okay. I see it. Let’s go.”

  But she stood where she was and said, “This is where we could wind up—if we ever made it out of the Ministry of the Interior in Revolution Plaza.”

  “Actually, we could wind up here now if those guards come across the street and ask what we’re doing here and what’s in our backpacks.”

  “Fuck them.”

  Sara was going into her Fuck Them I Hate Them mode. Not good.

  She said, “Villa Marista was originally a Catholic boys’ school, run by the Marist Brothers.”

  Now it’s run by the Castro Brothers.

  “The regime expropriated the school and kicked out the Marists and the students, and turned this campus into a hell on earth.”

  Which it may have already been when it was a Catholic boys’ school.

  “It’s a pleasant-looking place, so you wouldn’t know what goes on in there.” So she told me, “Physical and psychological torture . . . things that destroy the soul before the bullet is fired into the back of your head.”

  I glanced at the four armed guards, who were looking at us, then glanced at the Chevy to make sure it was still there.

  “The State Security Police are headquartered here, and the prison holds no criminals—only political prisoners. Enemies of the state. There are no visitors allowed, and the few prisoners who are released from here are the walking dead. Examples to others who might dare to oppose the regime.”

  I put my hand on Sara’s shoulder and said, “Paco is waiting.”

  But she continued, “In the early 1960s, Castro invited the Soviet KGB to Villa Marista to teach the State Security Police the finer points of psychological torture and interrogation using psychoactive drugs. Then the Cuban torturers were sent to Vietnam to continue their practice on American prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton and other North Vietnamese prisons. The torturers then came back to Cuba.”

  I recalled what Carlos said on my boat about Villa Marista and I knew what Sara was going to say.

  “They brought with them seventeen American POWs who were secretly imprisoned in Villa Marista for advanced experiments with drugs.”

  It was hard to imagine being taken prisoner in Vietnam, tortured there, then being shipped to Cuba for more of the same. And these men must have known they were less than a hundred miles from America. And that they would never go home.

  Sara continued, “Most of these seventeen men died, or were as good as dead, and those who survived were shot here in 19
73 when the Vietnam War ended. The American POWs in Vietnam were returned home, but these seventeen soldiers and airmen in Villa Marista were listed by the Pentagon as missing in action, though there is solid evidence that they had once been prisoners in North Vietnam—one of them was even identified in a photograph that showed Fidel Castro visiting a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam. And now we know, from Cuban prison guards who have defected to the U.S., that these missing American POWs were here, died here, or were murdered here, and were buried in an unmarked common grave on the grounds of Villa Marista.”

  If I actually had post-traumatic stress disorder, something like this could spark an episode. In fact, I had a brief flashback to a moment when . . . if one or two things had gone differently, I’d have been in the hands of the Taliban . . . or . . . I’d have put a bullet in my head.

  Sara glanced at me. “I thought that you, as a veteran, would want to say a prayer for the souls of these seventeen American prisoners of war who died here, alone and with no one knowing their fate.”

  She took my hand and we bowed our heads. We didn’t have many missing men in the Afghan war, but I thought of the nearly two thousand men who were still missing in Vietnam, and I thought of Jack, and my father, and the other men I knew who’d served in that war. And I prayed for all of them. Which I had never done before.

  One of the prison guards began shouting at us and making menacing motions with his rifle.

  Sara said softly, “Amen,” then, “Fuck him.” She retrieved her cell phone from her shoulder bag and took a photo of me with Villa Marista prison in the background. “So you’ll remember.”

  The guard was not happy.

  We turned and walked down the street toward our waiting car.

  She asked, “Do you understand why we came here?”

  “To honor the dead.”

  She didn’t reply, and as we walked, I recalled what she had said outside the Catedral de San Cristóbal: The bones need to come home . . ., which, now that I was here, made more sense if it was these bones, not Christopher Columbus’ bones, that she was referring to. I recalled again Carlos’ words on my boat about Villa Marista, which I’d thought was just an offhand remark. And Sara’s words in bed. You’ll be very pleased with the other reason we’re here. And what I concluded from all this was that the Cuban exile groups who were opposed to the Thaw had plans to rekindle these unconfirmed stories about American POWs being tortured and murdered in Cuba, and to demand the return of the bodies—and to fire up the American public and the politicians and upset the ongoing diplomatic negotiations.

  “Do you understand?”

  “I think I do. But . . .”

  “More later.”

  There always is.

  CHAPTER 41

  Sara told Paco to take us to Bollywood, an Indian restaurant on Calle 35, which she’d chosen for the location, not the cuisine.

  Paco dropped us off and I gave him a hundred CUCs, which he had earned for not abandoning us at Villa Marista. And if he was a rat and called the police, they’d be looking for us at Bollywood. Staying ahead of the police in a police state was an intellectual challenge. And a bit of twisted fun.

  Paco pulled away and I looked at my watch. We had ten minutes to walk to Calle 37, Number 570. If this was a Cuban Monopoly game, we’d just gotten out of jail free, and I hoped the next card we drew at Calle 37 said Go to Camagüey and Collect Sixty Million Dollars.

  Sara and I walked in silence through the dark streets, then she said, “I went to Villa Marista the last time I was here . . . It is the evil heart of an evil monster.” She added, “The world needs to know.”

  “Right.” But does the world—or the American public or the politicians—care enough to cause a major rift in the ongoing diplomatic negotiations? If we actually had the names of those seventeen men, then, yes, it would be big news. Well, more later, as Sara said.

  We reached Calle 37 and began walking toward 570 at the end of the dimly lit block. I took the Glock out of my fanny pack and stuck it under my shirt.

  As we approached the garage I noticed a movement in the shadows under the flickering streetlight, and as we got closer I saw a man sitting in a chair near the steel door. Sara and I continued at the same pace and now I could hear music—“Dos Gardenias”—coming from somewhere.

  We stopped a few feet from the man in the chair, who was smoking a cigar, drinking a Bucanero, and listening to an old tape player that sat on the sidewalk. He seemed lost in the music, and Sara said, “Buenas noches.”

  He turned his head toward us. “Buenas noches.”

  The guy was old, with white hair and white stubble on his face, and he wore a tank top that was wet with sweat or beer. A walking cane leaned against the wall.

  He drew on his cigar and asked in English, “What are you looking for?”

  Sara replied, “Pottery.”

  He nodded. “You have come to the right place.”

  That’s always good to hear when you’re in a foreign city, walking at night to an address that a strange man handed to you in a cemetery.

  The old man—obviously the lookout—grabbed the walking cane and smacked it hard three times against the steel door, then said, “Go in. They are waiting for you.”

  High-tech security. I led the way, and as I passed the old man he tapped my stomach with his cane and said, “You don’t need that,” referring to my gun, not my gut. Well, I liked the Glock where it was and I opened the rusty door, which creaked on cue. Sara was right behind me and I heard the old man say, “Bolt the door.”

  Sara bolted the door as I peered into the dimly lit space, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see that this was indeed a garage, or an auto repair shop. Car parts—mufflers, exhaust pipes, hoods, and doors—lay strewn on the floor, and acetylene torches sat on a work bench. An engine hung from the ceiling on chains, reminding me for some reason of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If it wasn’t for my Glock, this could be a scary place.

  I spotted a movement at the far end of the shop and saw two men coming toward us. One of them said in English, “Welcome to Chico’s Chop Shop.” The other man said nothing.

  Sara strode toward them—getting in the way of my line of fire—and they all shook hands and chatted in Spanish as I covered the rear and checked out the dark corners in the cavernous space. I noticed a few motorcycles, which might be our transportation to Camagüey.

  Sara and her new friends came toward me and she introduced me to Chico, a scruffily dressed man of about fifty with recently degreased hands, and a younger guy named Flavio, who was neatly dressed, handsome, and clearly nervous about something. Nervous people make me nervous.

  Chico said to me, in nearly perfect English, “I have a car for you. Do you have a hundred and fifty thousand pesos for me?”

  Recalling that Cubans liked clever conversation, I replied, “Is this an authorized dealership?”

  He laughed. “He told me you had a sense of humor.”

  “Who told you?”

  He didn’t reply and led me and Sara across the shop to an old Buick station wagon. Flavio stayed behind.

  “This is a beauty,” said Chico, sounding like he’d once worked in a used car lot in Miami. “A real cream puff. A piece of history.”

  Actually, it looked like a piece of shit.

  “It’s a fifty-three Roadmaster Estate Wagon. I got it from a little old lady in Miramar who only drove it on weekends since her husband was arrested in 1959.” He laughed.

  Did I just enter the Twilight Zone?

  I asked, “Does this thing run?”

  “Like a rabbit. Take a look.”

  Sara and I slipped off our backpacks and moved closer to the Buick wagon, which had recently been spray-painted in black, except for the original wood paneling that looked like it might have termites. The iconic Buick chromework was pitted, but none of the windows were broken and the headlights and taillights were intact. I asked, “Who are these plates registered to?”

  ??
?The little old lady.” He added, “They’re not hot.”

  I didn’t reply.

  He assured me, “This is not the U.S., señor. The police don’t have computers in their cars to check plates.” He also assured me, “You won’t get stopped.”

  Famous last words.

  I glanced around the shop. “You got anything newer? Like a red Porsche convertible?”

  “For another hundred thousand pesos, I got a ten-year-old Honda Civic. But they told me you needed a wagon, or a van or an SUV.”

  “Who told you—?”

  “Because you got some stuff to haul.”

  Obviously this station wagon couldn’t haul a dozen steamer trunks. “What stuff?”

  “How do I know?” He opened the Buick’s hood and said, “Take a look at this motor. You know what this is?”

  I peered under the hood. “No. Do you?”

  “It’s a Perkins ninety-horsepower boat motor. Completely rebuilt.” Chico smiled. “I got the suspension from a Russian military jeep, and I rebuilt the steering with some Kia parts. The transmission is from a Hyundai, five years old, the shocks are from a Renault truck, and the disc brakes are from a Mercedes.” He informed me, “This is what we call a Frankenstein car.”

  “Because it kills people?”

  He laughed and said to Sara, “He’s funny.”

  She had no response.

  I looked at the tires. “How’s the rubber?”

  “Tires are something you can buy new in Cuba. You got four Goodyears imported from Mexico. Cost me a fortune. Don’t kick them.”

  “Spare?”

  “Don’t get a flat.”

  Chico opened the driver’s door. “The interior is original.”

  “I see that.”

  “Sorry, the interior lights don’t work.” He slid behind the wheel and hit the brakes. “See the brake lights?”

  “I do.”

  He demonstrated that the turn signals and headlights also worked, then started the engine, which sounded good, though I wasn’t sure the 90-horsepower could move this monster.