Havana Bay

'In one of the Mercedes. Or his double. No one knows and the where or when of the presidential cavalcade is never announced ahead of time. In fact, it's the only surprise in Cuba.' Erasmo grinned and swung the chair back and forth.» You said you wanted to talk to Mongo when he came to work. Well, he didn't come.'

'Has he got a phone?'

'Very funny. Come down and we'll find him. Besides, it's too beautiful to be inside. I'll give you the Cuban perspective.'

Arkady thought that unless a person had an armored car and entourage it might be beautiful outside, but with Luna outside it was probably safer in.» Look,' Erasmo admitted, 'I need a driver.'

Driving a Jeep with the radio pounding and Erasmo half over the car door, calling to friends on the Malecon was a different view of life. To begin with, the mechanic gave the PNRs a rude salute.

'Professional hijos de puta,' he explained to Arkady.» I'm a capitalino, someone from Havana. We despise police, who are all rubes from the countryside, and they don't like us. It's war.'

'Okay.'

Some houses were Spanish castles carved from pink limestone, office buildings showed ranks of shutters with cockeyed slats and the sun itself disintegrated into light. While Arkady watched for Luna, Erasmo identified oncoming traffic.» '50 Chevy Styleline, '52 Buick Roadmaster, '58 Plymouth Savoy, '57 Cadillac Fleet-wood. You're a lucky man to see one of those.' He also had Arkady slow by every girl thumbing a ride. In their bright Lycra pedal pushers, halters and hair clips each girl resembled Madonna, the singer not the mother of God.

'Isn't it dangerous for girls to hitch rides?' asked Arkady. In Moscow the only females who dared were either prostitutes or women so old they were bulletproof.

'If buses aren't running, women must find rides some other way. Besides, Cuban men may be macho but they have a sense of honor.' All the girls Arkady saw were fullbore pubescent, with bare midriffs or body suits painted on, their thumbs out ostensibly for eunuchs. Erasmo spotted a hitchhiker in hot orange.» When you see a girl like that, you should at least honk.'

'Did Pribluda honk?'

'No. Russians know nothing about women.'

'You think so?'

'Describe a woman to me.'

'Intelligent, humorous, artistic.'

'Is this your grandmother? I mean a woman. Like the kinds here. Criolla: very Spanish, very white. Like the dancer Isabel. Negra: African, black, which can be very forbidding or very sexy. In the middle, mulata: a caramel color, skin soft as cocoa, eyes like a gazelle. Like your friend the police detective.'

'You saw her?'

'I noticed her.'

'Why do men always describe women in edible terms?'

'Why not? And the best to most Cuban men, china: mulata with just a hint of Chinese, of the exotic. Now describe a woman.'

'A knife in the heart.'

They drove for a while.

'That's not bad,' Erasmo said.

'When you called me on the street, you said 'Bolo.' What does that mean?'

'Bowling ball. That's what we call Russians. Bolos.'

'For our...?'

'Physical grace.' Erasmo unveiled a vicious grin. The mechanic had a broad, vigorous face, huge shoulders. Arkady realized that with legs the man would have been a Hercules.

'Speaking of Chinese,' Arkady said, 'are there Chinese events on Thursdays around Havana?'

'Chinese events? Wrong city, my friend.'

Undeniably, Arkady thought.

They went past high rises that had the dinginess of fingered postcards, until the Malecon was swallowed by a tunnel. Emerging in Miramar, Erasmo directed Arkady along the water on a dreary, sun-washed street called First Avenue. They passed the Sierra Maestra, the apartment house, where Arkady had interviewed the photographer Mostovoi. Erasmo pointed out a film theater called the Teatro Karl Marx that had been the Teatro Charlie Chaplin, and if there was a better example of socialist humor Arkady couldn't think of it. Beyond was a line of beach houses in pastels (peeling), family crests (defaced) and patios with (new) cinder-block benches, where Erasmo had Arkady steer the Jeep up on the sidewalk and stop as if that were safer than the street.

'For the tires, at least,' Erasmo said.» This is an island of cannibals. Remember A/ive? The plane crash? Fidel is our pilot, but he would call a crash a Special Period.'

Erasmo's wheelchair was a folding model with bicycle tires and once it was pulled from the back of the car and he was seated, he let Arkady know not to even offer a push. He tacked recklessly around broken bottles to a series of pool-sized basins filled with brackish water and, only a step below them, a shelf of pocked coral and seawater of restless green. Concrete blocks like the stones of a pyramid had been set out as a breakwater and snorkelers floated between them and the coral.

'They're spearfishing for octopus,' Erasmo said when Arkady caught up.» Before the Revolution you could swim here in a freshwater pool, a saltwater pool or the ocean. Parties all the time, American friends learning the mambo.' He lifted his chin toward a house with a wooden pergola on the second floor where sheets billowed like eager sails.» My grandmother's. She wore a sable jacket and used a lorgnette instead of eyeglasses, women of a certain class did. I used to tear up and down here on a Schwinn tricycle with streamers on the handlebars. I suppose in a way I still do.'

'Do you still have family here?'

'They left long ago. Flew out, sailed out, paddled out. And, of course, if you leave, you're officially a traitor, a gusano, a worm. You can't just disagree with Fidel, you are against Fidel, against the Revolution, a criminal, a faggot or a pimp. That way there's no one against Fidel except scum.'

Arkady looked at the house. It was quite grand. Erasmo's hair and beard had gone a little wild in the breeze.

'You didn't want to live here?'

'I used to. I traded for rooms where a garage wouldn't be so obvious. Mongo lives here now.'

'You're old friends?'

'Old friends. You know, he often misses work but up to now he always let me know.'

They backed the chair up the steps and through a progression of dining room, sitting room, courtyard, second parlor all turned into separate apartments, the larger rooms divided by plywood and sheets into two apartments, so that the house was a pueblecito, as Erasmo called it, a little city. He knocked at a door in the rear. When there was no answer, he told Arkady to feel over the doorframe for a key.

'This was my bedroom whenever I slept here. Some things stay the same. I loved it. Here I was Captain Kidd.'

The room afforded such a sweeping view of the water it had to be a theater of fantasy for a boy brought up on pirate tales of the Caribbean, Arkady thought. The accommodations were tight: cot, sea chest, desk and shelf of adventures like Don Quixote, Ivanhoe and Treasure Island, with the overlay of a CD player, a mirror trimmed in red velvet, coconuts and seashells on the windowsill, a plastic saint surrounded by paper flowers. A truck-sized inner tube suspended from the ceiling made a bumper and chandelier in one. Hung in fishnet bags around the walls were flippers, reels, candles, sticks, jars of hooks by size. Under the bed were a toolbox, cans of motor oil, drums and gourds. On a hook over the bed was what looked like a crossbow without the bow, a long wooden muzzle with a pistol grip and trigger and three round bands of heavy rubber hanging from the front end.

'Speargun,' Erasmo said. He had Arkady take it down and showed him how to place the elongated back end against a hip to pull the bands with both hands to a cocked position. The spear itself was a steel bolt with, instead of barbs, two folding wings held down by a sliding collar behind the tip.» The Cuban fisherman meets his prey on