Maximo wasn’t paying much attention.
“I keep hoping that someday we shall go to Europe and never return,” she whispered. “I do love Madrid so.”
Maximo didn’t hear that comment. He was wondering about Hector and Alejo Vargas. He couldn’t imagine the two of them talking, but what if they had been? What if those two combined to plot against him? What could he do to guard against that possibility, to protect himself?
Later that evening Hector and his sister-in-law, Mercedes, rode a bus into Havana. “It was good of you to stay for Mima’s party,” Hector said.
“I wanted to see her. She makes me think of Jorge.”
“Do you still miss him?”
“I will miss him every day of my life.”
“Me too,” Hector murmured.
“Vargas knows about you,” she said, after glancing around to make sure no one else could hear her words.
“What does he know?”
“That you organize and attend political meetings, that you write to friends, that you speak to students, that most of the priests in Cuba are loyal to you, that many people all over this island look to you for leadership …. He knows that much and probably more.”
“It would be a miracle if none of that had reached the ears of the secret police.”
“He may arrest you.”
“He will do nothing without Fidel’s approval. He is Fidel’s dog.”
“And you think Fidel approves of your activities?”
“I think he tolerates them. The man isn’t immortal. Even he must wonder what will come after him.”
“You are playing with fire. Castro’s hold on Vargas is weakening. Castro’s death will give him a free hand. Do not underestimate him.”
“I do not. Believe me. But Cuba is more important than me, than Vargas, than Castro. If this country is ever going to be anything other than the barnyard of a tyrant, someone must plant seeds that have a chance of growing. Every person I talk to is a seed, an investment in the future.”
“‘Barnyard of a tyrant.’ What a pretty phrase!” Mercedes said acidly. The last few years, living with Fidel, she had developed a thick skin: people said the most vicious things about him and she had learned to ignore most of it. Still, she deeply admired Hector, so his words wounded her.
“I’m sorry if I—”
She made sure her voice was under control, then said, “Dear Hector, Cuba is also the graveyard of a great many martyrs. There is room here for Vargas to bury us both.”
He was remembering the good days, the days when he had been young, under a bright sun, surrounded by happy, laughing comrades.
All things had been possible back then. Bullets couldn’t touch them, no one would betray them to Batista’s men, they would save Cuba, save her people, make them prosperous and healthy and strong and happy. Oh, yes, when we were young …
As he tossed and turned, fighting the pain, snatches of scenes ran through his mind; student politics at the University of Havana, the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, guns banging and bullets spanging off steel, off masonry, singing as they whirled away …. He remembered the firefights on the roads, riding the trucks through the countryside, evenings making plans with Che and the others, how they would set things right, kick out the capitalists who had enslaved Cuba for centuries.
Che, he had been a true believer.
And there were plenty more. True believers all. Ignorant as virgins, penniless and hungry, they thought they could fix the world.
In his semiconscious state he could hear his own voice making speeches, explaining, promising to fix things, to heal the people, put them to work, give them jobs and houses and medical care and a future for their children.
Words. All words.
Wind.
He coughed, and the coughing brought him fully awake. The nurse was there in the chair watching him.
“Leave me, woman.”
She left the room.
He pulled himself higher in the bed, used a corner of the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face.
The sheets were thin, worn out. Even el presidente’s sheets were worn out!
A sick joke, that.
Everything in the whole damned country was broken or worn out, including Castro’s sheets. You didn’t have to be a high government official to be aware of that hard fact.
On the dresser just out of reach was a box of cigars. He hitched himself around in bed, reached for one, then leaned far over and got his hand on the lighter.
The pain made him gasp.
Madre mia!
When the pain subsided somewhat he lay back in the bed, wiped his face again on the sheet.
He fumbled with the cigar, bit off the end and spat it on the floor. Got the lighter going, sucked on the cigar … the raw smoke was like a knife in his throat. He hacked and hacked.
The doctors made him give up cigars ten years ago. He demanded this box two days ago, when they told him he was dying. “If I am dying, I can smoke. The cancer will kill me before the cigars, so why not?”
When the coughing subsided, he took a tiny puff on the cigar, careful not to inhale.
God, the smoke was delicious.
Another puff.
He lay back on the pillow, sniffed the aroma of the smoke wafting through the air, inhaled the tobacco essence and let it out slowly as the cigar smoldered in his hand.
The truth was that he had made a hash of it. Cuba’s problems had defeated him. Oh, he had done the best he could, but by any measure, his best hadn’t been good enough. The average Cuban was worse off today than he had been those last few years under Batista. Food was in short supply, the economy was in tatters, the bureaucrats were openly corrupt, the social welfare system was falling apart, and the nation reeled under massive short-term foreign debt, for it had defaulted on its long-term international debt in the late 1980s. The short-term debt could not be repudiated, not if the nation ever expected to borrow another peso abroad.
He puffed on the cigar, savoring the smoke. Then he shifted, trying to make the ache in his bowels ease up.
Of course he knew what had gone wrong. When he took over the nation he had played the cards he had … evicted the hated Yanqui imperialistas and seized their property, and accepted the cheers and adulation of the people for delivering them from the oppressor. Unfortunately Cuba was a tiny, poor country, so he had had to replace the evicted patron with another, and the only one in sight had been the Soviet Union. He embraced communism, got down on his knees and swore fealty to the Soviet state. With that act he earned the undying hatred of the politicians who ruled the United States — after several assassination attempts and the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion debacle, they declared economic warfare on Cuba. Then the cruelest twist of the knife — the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990-91 and Cuba was cut adrift.
Ah, he should have been wiser, should have realized that the United States would be the winning horse. The Spanish grandees had bled Cuba for centuries, worked the people as slaves, then as peons. After the Americans ran the Spanish off, American corporations put their men in the manor houses and life continued as before. The people were still slaves to the cane crop, living in abject poverty, unable to escape the company towns and the company stores.
A few things did change under the Americans. The island became America’s red light district, the home of the vice that was illegal on the American mainland: gambling, prostitution, drugs, and, during Prohibition, alcohol. Poor Catholic families sent their daughters to the cities to whore for the Yanquis.
The capitalists bled Cuba until there was no blood left — they would keep exploiting people the world over until there were no more people. Or no more capitalists. Until then, the capitalists would have all the money. He should have realized that fundamental truth.