Sometimes he missed these things, as the Spanish he'd learned was pure Castillian, and the Cubans spoke more briskly than anyone in that motherland. They also pronounced their Z's and C's without the Castillian lisp, hard and brisk, like Andalusians. Worse still, their diction was frequently lazy and unclear, as if they had picked up the jangled rhythms of the Americans, particularly in the way they dropped their S's and sometimes even the entire last syllables of words.
But he heard it clearly: 'They say it will be big.'
'What?'
'I don't know.'
'They always say that.'
'No, this time it is real. It is said that young man is associated with it.'
He whispered the name to his companion, and Speshnev could not make it out, but he could tell it was a two-syllable name with the emphasis on the first syllable.
It could be. Possibly, yes, it might be.
But then the conversation stopped, and when the towels came away, the shop was empty. The two had left already.
'Sir,' he asked the barber, as that man lathered him up, then stropped the razor, 'I am provoked. Those two men? Their conversation? Did it have some meaning?'
The barber eyed him suspiciously, even though he came in so often.
'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't listen to what idle gossipers say.'
'Ah, I understand,' Speshnev said, and then endured torture as the man shaved him over the next ten or twelve hours.
Well, of course, it was but ten or twelve minutes, but it dragged so for the Russian he began to shudder with anticipation toward the end.
'Sir, if you don't relax, I will cut you badly.'
'Sorry, sorry,' he muttered.
At last finished, he rose, paid, and exited quickly. Where to now? Possibly the open-air market at Plaza de la Catedral, a gathering spot for other idlers, as well as self-styled radicals and reformers. As he rushed down the crowded narrow crinkle that was the Emperado, he had the ridiculous impression that everywhere people were muttering the same thing.
Finally, he could stand it no longer, and headed into a large cafe, well short of the Catedral. It was crowded and as he bumped along, trying to reach the espresso behind the bar, he heard snippets.
Finding a man who also appeared to be alone and listening, he said to him, 'Have you heard?'
'Heard what?'
'You know…about it. They say tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow. I heard this afternoon late, if not early in the evening.'
'Possibly such things cannot be planned with precision.'
'I wouldn't know anything about that. But if it doesn't happen today, then the rumors, you know, about the speaker tonight, they will be ridiculous, no?'
'I suppose. I just heard that fellow talks but does nothing.'
'But if he is involved, then maybe it has moved beyond nothing.'
'He is a good speaker.'
'His radio speech when Chiba died'- Castro!?'it was good, but nothing ever came of it. Possibly this time it will be different.'
But Speshnev was already gone.
Where was the young bastard? Of course, not in any of his usual haunts. He wasn't in the park of San Francisco, where the chess players gathered, indulging in his pastime. He wasn't in any of the coffeehouses around the hill that was crowned by the university, or on its glorious splurge of steps, or among the yakkers in the law school cafeteria. He wasn't anywhere except…it was hard to believe, hard to understand, but could he actually be… working?
So Speshnev rose in the rotten old apartment building, entering through a dark corridor, wending up a dark stairway, following his way around the balcony engulfing the narrow courtyard, reading the numbers on the battered pastel doors, until at last he came to his destination.
He knocked.
After a time, there came rustling noises, the sounds of a baby stirring, and finally, the door cracked but a bit. An exceptionally pretty face glared at him suspiciously. What a beautiful young girl!
'Ah, is he here?'
'Who are you?' she demanded.
'A friend. He knows me. We talk in the park.'
'He is writing his speech.'
'For tomorrow?'
'For tonight, he says. Can you come back?'
'It's important that I see him.'
'And why?'
'Young lady-Maria, isn't that it?'
'Mirta. But how could you know? He never takes me anywhere.'
'He talks of you often.'
'Ha! He never talks of me. I do not exist for him, except when he is in a certain mood. He?'
Before she sailed off on the seas of inconsolable bitterness, Speshnev reseized the momentum.
'Mirta, you do not want policemen visiting, do you? That would be even worse. Arrests, beatings, the scandal. Think of the parents, the family honor. Therefore it is important that I see him.'
Mirta continued to eye him.
'Where are you from? You speak like a Spaniard.'
'I am of Spanish experience, yes, extensive. That is where I learned the language. I am not one of these excitable Cubans.'
'All right. But if he yells at me, I'll be so mad.'
'He will kiss you.'
'That I doubt.'
He walked through the apartment, not that it was far to go, and heard the baby stirring restively, saw the fight between the woman's tidiness and the man's contempt for tidiness-that is, books in piles and gewgaws in rows, in continual battle.
He arrived at a back bedroom where, in his flaccid, shirtless condition, his eyes shielded by thick glasses, Castro scribbled away furiously by the bald light of a lamp whose shade was somewhere else.
He looked up, saw Speshnev, and did not pause even a second to remark on the incongruity of that man's presence in his home, a phenomenon which had not occurred before and was not remotely conceivable to him.
'Listen to this, and tell me what you think,' he said. He cleared his throat. ''History will absolve us. Our cause is that just. We seek not profit but freedom, not mastery but equality. Freedom, however, cannot be won without sacrifice.''
'Idiotic,' said Speshnev. 'You are a young fool who will get yourself killed.'
'No, no,' Castro said. 'I think not. This is a very fine opportunity and I must seize it. It will win me followers on a grand scale. In grand scale is power. And so it is that?'
'What are you talking about?'
But the weirdness of the situation suddenly made itself known to the young man.
'What are you doing here? How did you find me? I never told you where I lived. It's supposed to be a secret. I don't even know who you are. I don't know your name.'
'You know perfectly well who I am. You know why I am here, so names are not important. What is important is to get you to the next stage. Now, everywhere I go, I hear big things are coming and that they involve you. I insist that you tell me what all this is about.'
'Opportunity. An alliance-your idea, incidentally-has produced a wondrous chance. Listen to this, and tell me I
