and the sense of unity among the young people.
Alas, and so disappointingly, the young orator who counted, who could spellbind and inspire, who could make the blood sing and the heart throb as he laid out his vision of a Cuba for Cubans and an end to El Presidente-he did not attend, though he was on the program. And since most of the crowd had come to hear him, there was a palpable air of disillusion. A leader's first obligation was to lead, not to disappoint.
'Man, what a wasted day. My people are not going to be happy.'
'Nobody will be happy till we find this cabrone.'
'What does that mean, 'cabrone'?'
'Homosexual.'
'Is he?'
'No, I call him that because to call him that is to spit on him.'
Latavistada started the car and nudged it rudely into the street, not particularly caring whether or not he hit any members of the dispersing crowd. A few young men raised their fists against their arms to display contempt, one so rudely that the captain nearly got out and beat him senseless with a sap, but instead coolness prevailed, and the two new pals sailed out into the Cuban night.
'I will call the Political Section,' said Latavistada. 'Possibly they have something new on him. If not, we'll go to a fellow named Kubitsky, a newspaper reporter on the Havana Post who is known to keep tabs on things. Then we'll swing by Castro's apartment one more time. We may not get him tonight, but we will get him, and soon, I guarantee.'
But the rat had fled. Nothing produced the necessary information: not phone calls, not sightings, not stakeouts, not interviews with witnesses and colleagues, willing or not. Even the man's wife, Mirta, a sullen abused creature with an unruly baby, had no idea where he was when she was approached obliquely in the laundry by a female SIM agent, and drawn out. There was no need to interrogate her more directly, for surely that information would reach the young man with the speed of light, and then he would learn he was being hunted.
'Maybe he went home.'
'Where is home?'
'This is a good question. I have heard he is from the east. But where exactly is not known. Who is this man? We know what he does and what he believes, we do not yet know who he is.'
'This information, would it be tough to come by? You could get it?'
'You could get it many ways,' said Ramon. 'You could torture for it or bribe for it, or spy for it. Alas, I find these ways uncertain as well as slow. You think Cubans are lazy and shiftless, my friend, no?'
'Pal, I never?'
'Well, I will show you the one organization in Cuba that teems with efficiency. We will have this information in?' he paused, looked at his elegant watch, and continued, '-two hours. This you will find so amusing, Frankie Carbine.'
Frankie watched them go in. They arrived in six black two-ton trucks and poured out, ten men from each vehicle, with clubs and rifles, commanded by sergentos with whistles and pistols, the whole thing working with brutal precision. The soldiers liked to hurt people, that was their secret. As they thundered up the famous hundred marble steps of the University of Havana, atop its green Arcadian hill, so untouched by the tarnish of reality, they flailed at anyone who came within their range, breaking limbs, shattering noses and teeth, sending screaming students bouncing down the way amid a spray of loose papers and flung-aside books. They screamed. They were primitive men, from the country, nurtured in violence, held in monstrous discipline, seething to release themselves in brutality. They never disappointed. Now they reached the top, diverted slightly, and swarmed into the law school building.
By the time Ramon and Frankie reached the administration offices on the third floor of that building, it was pretty much in ruins. Blood splashed everywhere, like some kind of modern art painting, forming anarchistic splotches on tile and wall and window. A few poor students, bruised and bashed, still tried to crawl out, and now and then a policeman would kick them in the ribs.
'Wow,' said Frankie.
'It's a good thing, generally, to teach youth that it must show respect for authority. This place is a fountain of revolution. It produces treason and sedition and liberalism with boring monotony. These young people, they think they are entitled to so much, they think so much should be changed, they have no respect for the lives their parents have built for them. I would be even harsher than El Presidente. I would shoot ten every month, regular as clockwork.'
They went through torn-up office after torn-up office, at last finding the inner sanctum of record-keeping where, industriously, the two men pillaged first the C's and then the many Castros who had, over the years, applied to the university for admission. It didn't take a long time, for there were very helpful photos, and, as it turned out, Latavistada had an attribute ever so valuable to a secret policeman: a photographic memory.
'Ah, here, I think. Frankie, this? Does this seem right?'
'I ain't ever seen the guy.'
'No, this would be him.'
He handed over a photograph, while he studied the file. What Frankie saw made almost no impression on him, as images seldom did. He drifted a little, then made an effort to concentrate and saw an oval face not without its appeal, the eyes dark and sharp, under a crop of dense black hair. The nose was strong; the guy almost looked Italian, or Sicilian even. Yet the face also was so young. It had no lines, no strength, no passion to it, only a voluptuary's indolence.
'He looks rich.'
'What an excellent observation. He is. It says here he comes from Biran, above Santiago, almost in the Sierras. His father has an estate and works, or worked, for many years for United Fruit. You see, it's always the same, this business. It's always about fathers and sons. This little prick wants to show his papa he's a bigger man, that he will amount to something. So where papa controls a thousand acres, sonny will someday control the nation.'
Frankie had no idea what the Cuban was talking about.
But then he said, 'And here is where he will flee. Back to Oriente and the mountains, where he is son of the favored lord, out of reach of the law. Well, Frankie, we shall reach him, no?'
Chapter 30
'And another thing wrong with you,' Papa said, 'you're lazy. You're evilly lazy. You lie around all day dreaming. You are incapable of doing a man's work. Additionally, your bathing habits are the source of much laughter. I labored so hard for so long to produce this? What a sorry specimen you are. Are you a cabrone? You are not a homosexual, are you?'
'Papa,' he said, 'I am not a homosexual. I am a masculine man.'
'You are not masculine at all. A masculine man is dynamic. He makes things happen by will and effort?'
'And by licking the boot of the North Americans of United Fruit.'
'Yes, it's true, I worked for them, but only to acquire money to buy land and build this place and marry and bring all you worthless children into the world. And to borrow tractors from. Without their tractors, where would we be? Senor Jennings, he smiled when the tractors disappeared and he never took them back until the plowing was done.'
'The generosity of the Americans is wonderful. They come to our island and steal and degrade us and you are grateful they let you borrow a tractor now and then!'
'Bah! A man knows gratitude. He feels it. He is not ignorant and petty and selfish and vain. You are all of them. I should have worked you harder. That was my mistake, to my shame. You never had chores. I should have worked you like a dog and made you into a man. Instead, you are womanly.'
'I am not womanly. I am between opportunities, but I swear to you, I am a man of destiny.'
The house was large but crude. It was full of dogs and guns and cats and chickens and dirty boots and crumpled clothes and books and blankets and horse tack. It was really a barn with rooms and beds, and it suited
