So far so good, Chance reflected, and walked on aimlessly, for the exercise, drinking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Havana. She was like a painted old whore, he thought, trying to keep up appearances. The tourist attractions were gay and lively, temples of hedonism set in a gray communist wasteland.
Outside the tourist area the city reeked of destitution and decay. The crumbling, rotting buildings were choked to the rafters with people, often four families to every apartment. The people fought daily battles to get enough food and basics to sustain life. Away from the clubs and hotels, the faces of the people were gloomy, drawn, without hope.
The poison of communism had done its work here, as it had in every nation that had ever embraced it. After the revolution the government expropriated almost all private property, from the vast estates of the rich to the corner grocery. Hopeless, grinding poverty became nearly universal. Forty years after the revolution the average wage was ten dollars a month, girls from all over Cuba flocked to Havana to prostitute themselves on the streets, everything necessary for a decent life was outrageously expensive or unavailable at any price. The social justice that the communists had promised was as far away as ever: the pain and misery that blighted and made wretched millions of lives had not brought that goal one step closer.
The tourist attractions were the supreme irony, of course. These monuments to greed and sins of the flesh were owned and operated by the socialist state to attract hard currency. The dollars were brought in and spent here by decadent capitalists who earned the money exploiting the workers of the world somewhere else.
If Karl Marx only knew. With the banners of social justice flying in the blue tropic sky, the Cubans had joined the Pied Piper of the Sierra Maestra as he marched bravely down the road to hell. The crumbling buildings, decrepit old cars, hookers on every corner, universal hopelessness — it looked as if the whole parade had almost arrived.
Very curious, William Henry Chance thought. Curious as hell.
From this vantage point he could see all of it, his whole life, as if it were a play being performed before him. The memories came back vivid and clear, the scenes scrolling before his eyes. The mistakes and lost opportunities and petty vendettas played endlessly, inevitably, and he lived it all again, powerless to change a word or gesture.
He was in pain these days, a lot of it, and the doctor this morning had given him a strong narcotic. Now he floated, half-asleep, the pain that had doubled him into the fetal position now a tolerable dull ache. Even as his mind raced, his body relaxed.
Mercedes Sedano sat in a chair in the darkened room beside the bed, looking into the gloomy darkness and lost in her own thoughts.
She reached for Fidel when he moaned and put her hand on his forehead. He had always liked the sensual coolness of her fingers. Her touch now seemed to quiet him. He relaxed again, then tossed restlessly as the ghosts of the past paraded through the recesses of his mind.
An hour later, his eyes opened, though they didn’t focus. Finally the head moved and the eyes sought her out.
Fidel Castro said nothing, merely looked.
He could feel the narcotic wearing off. The pain was coming back. He opened his mouth to ask for the doctor, then thought better of it.
He licked his lips. “I want to make a videotape,” he whispered, barely audible.
“Are you strong enough?”
“For a little while, I could be, I think. It must be done.”
“What will you say?”
“I don’t know exactly. I need to think about it.”
“When do you wish to do this tape?”
“Soon, I think, or never.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow. Tell the doctor. I must be alert tomorrow, if only for a little while.”
“Why?”
“I want to dictate my political will.”
She leaned forward and put her face next to his. “Can you visit a moment with me?”
“Te quiero, mujer.”
“Y yo te adoro, me viejo.”
“We will talk for a little bit, then the doctor and the needle.” He was perspiring now, his body becoming tense.
“I am being selfish. I will call the doctor now.”
“In a moment. I want to tell you … I love you. You have been the rock I have held on to the last few years.”
She wiped away her tears and kissed him.
Then he said, “I have made many mistakes in my life, but I have always tried to do what I thought best for Cuba. Always. Without fail.”
“Why do you think I love you so?”
“I want the Cuban people to remember me well. They are my children.”
“They will never forget.”
“I must help them march into the future.”
He drew his knees to his chest. His eyes were bright, perspiration coursed from his forehead and soaked into the pillow.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered. “I will think. Get the doctor now.”
She squeezed his hand, then left the room.
Maximo Sedano spent the evening on his yacht cruising in sight of Morro Castle. The breeze blew the tops off occasional waves under a deep blue sky. Maximo’s two guests looked decidedly pale as they huddled with him around the small table near the galley.
“If Castro dies, will the drug smugglers continue to do business with us?” asked Admiral Delgado, head of the Cuban Navy. For the last fifteen years he had limited his nautical activities to visiting patrol boats tied to piers.
“If we can guarantee the continued safety of their products and their people, of course,” Maximo said.
“We can’t guarantee anything,” General Alba, Chief of Staff of the Cuban Army, said bitterly. “The whole thing is going to fall apart; we are going to lose something very sweet.”
It was typical of Delgado and Alba, Maximo thought, that their very first thought of the future was of their pocketbooks. Money. These small, petty men lived for the bribes. Truly, they were unable to see what lay outside of the tiny circle where they lived their miserable, corrupt lives.
Alas, the best military man in Cuba under the age of eighty, the air force chief, died last month. Castro had yet to name a replacement, and probably would not.
Maximo sighed. “Nothing lasts forever,” he said. “But change always presents opportunity, if one knows where to look for it. Gentlemen, it all boils down to this: Who will rule Cuba when the dust settles after the funeral?”
“It won’t be you,” General Alba said curtly. “Five of my regional commanders are in Hector Sedano’s pocket, and there is little I can do about it unless I relieve them and put someone else in their place.” He gave a tiny shrug. “Castro must endorse the order. If I make a major move like that without his consent, he will sack me.”
“He is sick.”
“His aides will sack me, using his authority. I cannot disobey Fidel while he draws breath. You know that as well as I.”
“Perhaps you should shoot these disloyal subordinates,” the admiral said slowly, eyeing his colleague.
“If you have some loyal men who will wait until the right moment,” Maximo added.
“When Castro dies?”
“No. When I give the word. Not until then.”
“I have some loyal men, certainly,” the general said. “I have spread the money around, made sure it got all the way down the chain. Only a fool plays the pig or hands great wads of money to someone else to distribute. My men get their share. The devil of it is that the disloyal ones think Alejo Vargas puts it in their pockets. They think he is the good fairly.”
“Will they obey you without question?”
“The loyal men will obey me, yes.”
“And will you obey me?” Maximo Sedano demanded.