Caribbean: a novel Part 46

She asked: 'Where are the donkeys that once lined this road?' and he echoed: 'And where are those s.h.i.+ny new American cars?'

It was a new Cuba, and in certain obvious ways a better one, but Steve was reluctant to voice any general approval: 'We've got to remember, most any city in the world has made improvements over the past quarter of a century. No special credit to communism,' the last observation being made in a whisper close to Kate's ear.

However, when they were actually in the city he was shocked to see two aspects which grieved him as the owner of several extremely trim buildings in Miami: the gruesome deterioration of entire rows of buildings falling into disrepair, and the failure of owners to cut the gra.s.s or clean the pavements before their homes or places of business: 'This city is a dump. It needs a million gallons of paint.'

Kate did not hear his complaints, for she was making her own a.s.sessments: 'Look how everybody has decent clothes to wear. And the relaxed att.i.tude of the faces. Doesn't look like a dictators.h.i.+p,' and Steve cautioned: 'Wait till you see what's going on behind those smiles.'

As the ride ended and they disembarked at the portals of a big hotel, they did not enter immediately but remained on the street as Steve told the porter in Spanish: 'These five bags. We'll register in just a minute,' and they breathed deeply in the soft tropic air. 'Look,' Kate cried. 'No beggars.' And when Steve commented on the lack of clutter in the streets it became obvious that these two homecomers were pleased, perhaps against their deep convictions, to see that their native land was doing moderately well.

Alone in their room, Steve looked approvingly at the festoon of flowers which awaited them, and said: 'In a grudging way, I'm proud of the old place. Dump or not, it feels like home.' Running to him with an embrace, Kate whispered: 'I was wrong in advising you not to come. Seeing Havana again, what little we have so far, is thrilling. Let's surprise Placida with a call right now telling them we're in town,' and in the next three-quarters of an hour they learned something about Cuba, for the registering of a simple phone call became an act of high strategy. One did not merely pick up the phone and dial; one entered into negotiation with the operator, whose lines were perpetually busy, but after interminable delays the call did sometimes go through. After Kate's efforts finally succeeded they waited anxiously in their room, and with surprising speed came the call from within the hotel: 'We're waiting in the lobby.'

It was an emotional moment when the twins met, for in the long years since 1959 they had seen only photographs of each other, and both they and their husbands were amazed at how much alike they still looked. Reddish hair piled high, flas.h.i.+ng white teeth, neither over nor under weight, and with the roguish good humor they had preserved through the vicissitudes of life, Placida appeared an ideal Cuban wife, Kate a typical Miami Hispanic adjusted to American ways. They were a striking pair, and the mutual affection they displayed even in these first moments of reunion was so disarming that the husbands moved away to give them privacy to express their feelings.

Like their wives, each husband epitomized his country: Roberto as an important fifty-two-year-old Cuban officeholder, with clothes and appearance in the Spanish mode; Estefano as any uprooted Cuban, Puerto Rican or Mexican who had attained eminence in some profession in the States. Each was honestly glad to see the other after such a long absence, but since Roberto as a member of the government had to be suspicious of Americans, he wanted specific information as to why his cousin had come south, and Estefano gave three honest reasons: 'To see you. To see the old sugar mill. But most of all, so that Caterina could visit with Placida again,' and these reasons satisfied Roberto, who cried: 'You're to leave this hotel and move in with us,' and his wife, hearing the invitation, reinforced it by saying: 'I'll help Caterina pack and we'll go to our place immediately.'

The old Caldern sugar mill west of the city had long since ceased functioning, and after the revolution of 1959 all the extensive lands had been expropriated and turned into small holdings for peasants. But Roberto, an ardent supporter of the revolution, had been allowed to retain four small stoneworkers' cottages interconnected by lovely arched cloisters such as one might see in a monastery. By adding a few low stone walls to bind the area together, various small patios had resulted, and these were kept filled with flowers, producing an effect which recalled old Spain, and this was not surprising, since families of pure Spanish blood had owned the great plantation for nearly five centuries.

The many small rooms had been decorated by Placida Caldern in the old style, so that when Steve and his wife were led through the simple but charming house, he cried: 'Hey! You've made the old place into a palace,' and Kate ran to one of the smaller buildings, leaned against it, and cried: 'Placida! Remember? This is where Estefano first kissed me, and you were so delighted when I told you.'

In those lovely moments of recollection and reconciliation a change came over the Miami Calderons, and the cause was simple but pervasive, as Steve recognized: 'It's good to be called Estefano again, and to be reminded that my name is really Caldern with a heavy accent, and followed by my mother's name, Arevalo. It's almost as if I'd become a whole man again,' and for the remainder of his stay on the island he would be a Cubano, wary, inquisitive, judgmental and keenly aware of his heritage, and he would p.r.o.nounce the word in the strong old style, Koo-bahn-oh. Caterina, nodding as he spoke, for she had felt the same pleasure in hearing only Spanish, reminded him: 'And it's La Habana.'

They were interested and in a sense gratified to learn that in two of the small houses which comprised the compound seven members of the Cuban Caldern family had found permanent refuge, the husbands working for Roberto in his government office, the women helping Placida in the charity work with which she was involved. It was a warm, loving center of mutual interests and the Miami Calderons were pleased to become a part of it. The next week was one of illumination, confusion and joy. The first came as a result of explorations made through the countryside in Roberto's Russian-made Lada coupe, which to Caterina seemed awkward and boxlike but to Estefano rather st.u.r.dily engineered. They visited places the Miami Calderons had known years ago, and they couldn't help crying out 'Look at it now!' over and over, reflecting surprise at either how much improved it was or how deteriorated. Often there was a pang of lost innocence when the twins visited together some spot which had once been of great importance to them-the home of a friend long dead or an uncle who had simply disappeared-and they stood clasping hands as they recalled those happier days when they were young and striving to solve the riddles of love and marriage and destiny.

In those far-off days they had all been staunchly Catholic, and one afternoon when the four were seated with their rum drinks in the far corner of one of the patios where the sun could not reach them, Caterina said: 'I'm astonished, Placida, to hear that you've strayed from our Catholic beginnings.'

'n.o.body in Cuba bothers much with Catholicism today,' her sister said, 'because on this island, the church never behaved well. Remember that horrible Father Oquende, always sucking up to the rich? Well, he and his kind are gone, and I say, "Good riddance." '

Caterina said: 'Now that's funny. When a Cuban moves to Miami and is overawed by the Anglos, he or she becomes more Catholic than ever. Estefano and I go to Ma.s.s every Sunday, but I think he does it mostly for business reasons. In Miami he'd be badly damaged if it was rumored that he was not a strong Catholic.'

'Down here just the opposite. Roberto would be suspect within the party if he was seen attending Ma.s.s. Were you there when the pope visited Miami?'

'We were. A sensational rededication to the Catholic faith and in a strange way a reinforcement of Hispanic values. Estefano and I were very proud to be chosen as leaders of the Cuban community to meet him.' When Placida sniffed, Estefano asked with just a hint of irritation: 'If Castro's revoked the church and the past, what do you believe in?' and Roberto replied with firmness: 'We don't bother much about the past. We keep our eye on the future.'

'And what's that future likely to be? Continued dependence on Russia?'

'Now wait, you two norteamericanos. You maintain a Caribbean pigsty on Puerto Rico and you encourage poor Haiti to fester in her wounds ...'

'While Russia sends you guns? Who's the better for it?'

'You miss the whole point, Estefano, you really do. Russia does send us some guns, and we appreciate them, but what's much more important, she sends us oil, and what's most important of all, she buys her sugar from us at three cents above world price, which is just enough to keep us prospering.' Before Estefano could respond, his cousin added: 'If you Americans were clever, you'd buy Caribbean sugar at that price, and the entire area would blossom, as it did when our fathers were kids. But your sugarbeet states won't allow that, so you watch as the Caribbean islands, on your own doorstep, edge closer to revolution or ruin.'

And so their discussions went. Estefano raising questions, and in response, Roberto defending Castroism fiercely, then making a stronger accusation against the United States. Their conversation became an antiphonal dialogue between the two nations.

ESTeFANO: What about the Cubans in Angola?

ROBERTO: They're fighting to defend the freedom of Portugal's former slaves. And what are your mercenaries doing in Nicaragua?

ESTeFANO: What about diminished supplies of consumer goods under communism?

ROBERTO: You don't see any starving Cubans, and from what I read, I understand that twenty-five percent of Americans are suffering from inadequate diets because food is so expensive.

ESTeFANO: What about the huge number of political prisoners Castro keeps in his jails?

ROBERTO: The United States and South Africa are the only so-called civilized nations that still execute people for minor offenses.

ESTeFANO: When I left Cuba, there were half a dozen wonderful publications like the weekly Bohemia and the daily Marina, but now I can find only grubby communist propaganda sheets like Granma.

ROBERTO: We know the press in America is the tool of Wall Street, but we don't allow anything like that in Cuba. We revere free speech ... to safeguard the revolution.

After a score of such inconclusive exchanges, the Miami couple returned to their rooms, where Estefano said: 'Boy, he's really swallowed the Castro line,' and Caterina replied: 'Maybe in this country that's the smart thing to do,' but then she added: 'I still like it here. This isn't Lower Slobovia, like our papers sometimes claim.'

Some days later, during a picnic on a hillside overlooking La Habana, the two Caldern men became engaged in a discussion of America's protracted role in Cuban affairs, and Estefano said: 'When the Spanish were driven out of Cuba in the 1898 war, our grandfathers were divided. My grandfather wanted Cuba to become a state in the American union, yours became a fierce Cuban patriot.'

'Like you and me today,' Roberto said, and Estefano agreed: 'More or less, yes. I don't want Cuba to become one of our states, but I do want her to partic.i.p.ate in American leaders.h.i.+p in the Caribbean.'

Suddenly Roberto began to laugh, and when Caterina asked: 'What's so funny about that idea?' he explained: 'I was remembering what your victorious general, Leonard Wood, who became provisional governor of Cuba, told us: "Cuba can be made a vital part of the United States if it makes those changes that will produce a stable society. Old Spanish ways will have to be forsworn and honest American patterns adopted." '

Estefano said: 'Don't laugh. I can remember being told that my grandfather said in 1929: "Look around the Caribbean. Everybody with any sense wants to join the United States. We do. Santo Domingo does. A few people on Barbados have always wanted to and even the Mexicans in Yucatan have begged the Yankees to take over." He said he was perplexed by America's reluctance to take command of the area, and when someone pointed out that the French islands might have something to say about that, he fumed: "They don't matter." '

Roberto, falling back on his fervid patriotism, declared: 'Cuba is free and will always remain aloof from the United States. We're building a new world with new hopes. Estefano! You would complete your life if you came down to help us.'

The two men agreed to differ on such matters, and they applauded the way their beautiful wives reestablished the warm, laughing companions.h.i.+p they had shared as twins in the years prior to Caterina's flight.

One morning Placida suggested: 'You men go about your business. Caterina and I are heading into town.' It was a trip into nostalgia, for the two women walked along the narrow streets they had known as schoolgirls, looking in windows as they had done then, coming suddenly upon this corner shop or that which they had patronized together a quarter of a century earlier, and in some fortunate cases even meeting personnel who had waited on them in the past. But what Caterina appreciated most were the unique smells of La Habana: roasting chicory, pineapples, the odor coming from a corner coffeeshop, the aroma of newly baked bread and the indescribable, friendly scent of the plain little drapery shop that sold cloth and needles. They were, she told her sister, smells to torment memory, and she was delighted to be recovering them.

As they moved rapidly through the familiar corridors of the old city where buildings seemed to meet overhead, pinching in the narrowed streets below, Caterina got the impression that the Cuba she had really known, the one that mattered, had changed in no important respect, except for the failure to repaint, and she was relieved to see this, because it testified to the endurance of human values regardless of the political structure in which they operated. But then she began to notice the changes which Castro had imposed upon his island: one newspaper where there used to be half a dozen, each of a different persuasion; bookstores with none of the American books one would normally have seen-they were replaced by books of Russian authors.h.i.+p and Russian concerns. The old levity of La Habana was gone, but so were the beggars and the hideously deformed cripples preying on public sympathy. The sense of relaxation was absent too, for Cuba was now an intense society. But what she missed most in the center of town were the concentrations of Americans who used to flood it when La Habana was known worldwide as a brothel for tourists, and in one narrow street which Caterina did not remember, Placida said: 'Before Castro, one unbroken chain of red-light houses,' and Caterina asked: 'What became of the girls?' and Placida said: 'Working in factories or driving worn-out tractors.'

But willful adventures into nostalgia run the risk of backfiring, because sooner or later, at arbitrary and unexpected points, veils are lifted to reveal present reality. This happened with Caterina when her sister led her into Galiano, a street she had loved to visit with her mother. It had been the heart of La Habana, a beautiful, crowded thoroughfare famous for the decoration of its sidewalks: wavy green and yellow lines set permanently into the paving. Her mother used to protest: 'Caterina, stop trying to follow the wavy lines! That way you b.u.mp into people coming the other way. Stay on your own side.'

With sorrow she saw that since the revolution these lines, so poetic and reminiscent of colonial times, had been paved over with cement so dull and colorless that she cried: 'Oh, Placida! The song has vanished!' And then, as she looked about her on this famous street, once so filled with gaiety and alluring windows that showed fine goods from all corners of the world, she began to realize how impoverished the new Habana had become: 'Where are the little stores that used to crowd this street? Those shops filled with lovely things we used to dream about?'

They were gone. Galiano, once the proudest street in Latin America, unequaled even in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, was now so bleak and cheerless that Caterina, close to tears, said: 'Let's get away, Placida. This emptiness tears at my heart,' and they hurried to the famous corner where Galiano intersected with San Rafael, down which they strolled, but it too had been deprived of its once glittering shops, and it became obvious that modern La Habana had cruelly little to offer its citizens in consumer goods. Shop after shop had only the bleakest selection, if any, and when exciting word flashed through the area that 'Sanchez has shoes!' Caterina watched as women ran toward the shop, only to find themselves at the far end of a line which ran sixty yards down San Rafael. Placida said: 'And when we reach the shop, we find that only one kind of shoe has come in, and that one in only four sizes.'

'What do you do?' Caterina asked, and her sister replied: 'We grab whatever's left, and if we can't wear them, too small, too large, we trade them with neighbors who may have something in our size.'

Caterina stopped opposite the middle of the long line and asked: 'You mean, the only way to get shoes is to wait in lines like this?' and her sister replied: 'We're lucky that Sanchez has anything. If I had time, I'd get in line and buy whatever.'

'Is this the same with all goods?'

'Yes. Severe rationing. I'm authorized to buy one pair of shoes a year ... coupons ... must sign the register.' She hesitated, waited till Caterina had moved away from the line, and whispered: 'For the past half-year, no toilet paper at all. No toothpaste. For two years, no women's makeup.'

'But you're wearing some.'

'We arrange for friends to smuggle it in when they visit us from Mexico. We h.o.a.rd it. Cherish it.'

'But you have toilet paper in our bathroom. How?' and the same explanation: 'Mexico. Smuggled.'

Caterina was so distressed by the speed at which these revelations were hitting her that she grasped her sister's arm and cried: 'Let's get out of here!' and she darted across the street, with Placida trying to keep up. Safe on the other side, the twins ducked into the huge store which had always been their favorite, Fin de Siglo-End of the Century-founded in the 1880s. But this, too, was a terrible mistake, for the great store, its several floors once crowded with booths and kiosks and counters stacked with merchandise from New York and London and Rio and Tokyo, now stood almost empty. Of the first twenty booths Caterina pa.s.sed, sixteen were abandoned-absolutely nothing to sell-and each of the other four had only one item, of poor quality and in short supply.

'My G.o.d! What's happened?' Caterina cried, and Placida said: 'It's all like this,' and when they visited two of the other floors, walking up, since neither the elevators nor the escalators worked, they found a repet.i.tion of what they had seen at the shoestore: at the rare counters which had something to sell, long lines of women holding coupons.

As they came to a booth that had hanging in neat display three colorful dresses for girls aged ten or eleven, Caterina proposed to buy one for the daughter of the maid who worked at Placida's, but the saleslady rebuffed her doubly: 'You cannot buy without a coupon, and anyway, these aren't for sale.'

'Then why do you have them on display?' and the woman said: 'To show you what we might have if a s.h.i.+pment ever comes in,' and to the amazement of both the saleslady and Placida, Caterina burst into tears. When they tried to console her, she whimpered: 'A little girl of eleven! She's ent.i.tled to a pretty dress now and then. To remind her that she's a girl ... to help her mature properly,' and she covered her face for the little girls of Cuba who were being deprived of this essential experience.

However, the day was saved by Placida, who said: 'Let's see what they're doing in that store where Mama used to buy our dresses,' and when the twins entered the once-prosperous store an older saleswoman who had been alerted by Placida hurried forward to cry: 'The Cespedes twins! Haven't seen you together for hens' ages,' and she started showing them the few dresses her seamstresses had been able to produce from the limited supply of cloth available.

Caterina had no intention of purchasing a new dress of any kind, but as the four lovely frocks drifted by, edged in lace, they produced a narcotic effect. The saleswoman then showed them the dress about which Placida had inquired on the phone, a flimsy tropical creation in a fawn color replete with Spanish-style decorations. Caterina was enchanted by it, and when the woman unveiled an identical copy for Placida, they both cried: 'Let's do it!' Like schoolgirls they hurried into dressing rooms, changed hastily, and came out looking like real twins. The dresses required only minor alterations, which the saleslady said could be completed in the time it would take them to have lunch, so they paid for the dresses and went off to a restaurant that they had first patronized when they were sixteen and on their own in the big city. Men had smiled at them that day, and also today-and the twins nodded graciously, accepting the compliments.

They had a lunch which reminded Caterina of her youth: a small bit of barbecued meat well roasted on one edge; a small helping of black beans and white rice; thick slices of plantain, the rough, sweet banana that is impossible to eat when raw, delicious when fried; a meager salad utilizing the few fruits available in Cuba and a Spanish flan rich in its topping of caramelized sugar.

'Ah!' Caterina sighed as the fine old flavors seduced her palate. 'I wish I could lunch here every day,' and it was that admission which set her sister's mind churning.

When they returned to the dress shop and tried on their new purchases, they stood before the mirror as almost identical images, and they seemed ten or fifteen years younger, even though each was the mother of three children and the grandmother of four, each an epitome of how delectable a Spanish woman could be when she aged gracefully and was illuminated by an elfin sense of humor. They were beautiful women in their new gowns, and they knew it.

Packing their purchases carefully, they returned to the mill, where it was arranged that at dinner Placida would appear first in her new dress, and after it had been admired, Caterina would casually drift in, and they would stand together in the archway leading to one of the patios for their husbands' approval, and the scheme worked so perfectly that for an instant in the old mill the Cespedes twins were again nineteen and their husbands twenty-four. It was an exquisite moment, fully appreciated by all, and it paved the way for remarkable conversations that occurred in the two bedrooms that night, conversations which proved that one of the most persistent of Spanish traits still exerted its historic power.

In the bedroom of the Miami Calderons, Caterina said as she took off her new dress and hung it carefully on a hanger: 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if Placida and Roberto could join us in Miami?' and she began plotting devices that might be useful in finding them a rent-free house, a position for Roberto, and jobs for their children. 'In a pinch,' she said, 'we could pay their way till Roberto landed something, and he's so smart it wouldn't take him long.'

In a normal American family, a proposal by a wife that her husband a.s.sume financial responsibility for her sister's family could be relied upon to send the husband up the wall with the screaming-meemies, but Estefano, trained in Spanish ways, accepted it as almost inevitable, for he appreciated how important it was to keep a family together or to rea.s.semble it if it had become separated. So without hesitation, he volunteered: 'We could afford to stake them for a couple of years. But it would be easier if he spoke English.'

In the bedroom of the Cuban Calderns, at that moment Placida was saying: 'Roberto, it looks to me as if Estefano, forget all his money, is homesick for Cuba. He'd like to come back, spend his last years with his family. I know Caterina would like it.'

'How do you know that?'

'Something she said at lunch. Money and Miami glitter aren't the biggest things in her life, believe me.'

'But what could we offer Estefano?' and she said: 'He could easily become a doctor in our medical system. He has both his old Cuban licenses and his new American ones, and his experience would be welcome.'

'But would he give up his good life in Miami?'

'Yes, he would. And so would Caterina, that I know for sure. She misses me and the rest of her family.'

In the discussions that night, and in the nights that followed, the Miami family never once considered that they should move to Cuba, nor did the Cuban Calderns consider the possibility that they should move to America; but that the family ought to be united, one way or another, all agreed.

It started as a trick devised by Placida to remind the Miami Calderons of their rich Cuban heritage, but it became a day of haunting, even obsessive, memories. 'Let's take a look at what our family really was,' she said one evening, and when the others agreed, with even Roberto saying: 'I'll take a day off from headquarters,' it was planned that the two couples would leave La Habana at dawn the next day and drive well west toward the historic Caldern coffee plantation called Molino de Flores, the Mill of Flowers.

The Miami Calderons had visited the old site once or twice before the revolution, but had forgotten both its majesty and its honored place in Cuban history. They were startled when they saw the vast ruins of the main house, which must have been glorious back in the 1840s when famous travelers from all over the world visited it. 'It's large enough,' Estefano exclaimed, 'to hide a football field.' The series of seven majestic stone arches, each three stories high, were awesome even though some of the walls nearby had begun to crumble. A solemn grandeur clothed the place, and the Miami pair could believe it when Placida said: 'Sometimes four entire Caldern families lived here at the same time, which meant perhaps forty or fifty people inside the walls.'

When they left the mighty ruins, as cla.s.sically balanced in all faades as those of any French chteau, they wandered down to one of the glories of the old place: a series of six cisterns so huge that they could provide water for the entire coffee operation. Roberto said: 'When I was a boy Father told me that one torrential rain during a summer hurricane would fill all the cisterns in an afternoon.' When Caterina started to enter one of the giants he warned: 'Bats nesting in there!' and she said: 'They don't fly in daylight,' but as soon as she entered the cistern she beat a hasty, laughing retreat: 'They sure fly in dark caves!' and out came a whole flock of the creatures.

'There it is,' Placida said, pointing to a construction of some kind on a high hill west of the cisterns. 'That's where it happened,' and when they had climbed to a new level they saw the great, brooding place which on two successive days had played a crucial role in Cuban history.

Now the four later-day Calderns faced remnants of an iron fence that had once enclosed a stupendous area in which, as Placida said: 'They played their game of life and death.' This was the famous barracn of Molino de Flores, the prison enclosure in which slaves were domiciled for more than half a century after their fellows had been given freedom in the British islands, thirty agonizing years after slaves were freed in the United States. Here, within this enclosure, guarded by a ma.s.sive front gate still standing, more than eight hundred Caldern slaves had lived at one time in conditions so terrible that in 1884, while the Spanish governors of Cuba were still arguing that freedom for slaves would mean the death of Cuba, the slaves in this barracn finally decided to rebel.

'All eight hundred of them,' Placida said, 'came surging at this one gate that held them prisoner. But up in that tower'-and everyone looked at the sinister gun tower rising beside the formidable iron gate-'waited six of our men, each with four rifles, and slaves to reload them. As the rebels down here started toward the gate, the men up there fired right into their faces ... gun after gun ... each reloaded many times ... constant gunfire until more than three dozen slaves lay slaughtered right where we stand.'

'I never heard such a story,' Caterina protested, but Roberto defended his wife: 'After Castro brought us freedom, books were written. Old memories were recalled. In 1884, two years before the general end of Cuban slavery, our slaves ended theirs right here.'

'But you said they were driven back ... by gunfire from up there,' and all stared at the malevolent tower, each cut stone still in place.

'Yes, that night they were killed. But in the morning the hero of our family, a young dreamer named Elizondo, who had taken no part in repelling them, startled everyone by coming here from the great house, climbing that tower, and staring down at the bodies still lying there, for the other slaves knew that if they approached the gate, they too would be shot. He kept staring for more than an hour, speaking to no one.'

'What did he do?' Caterina asked, and her sister said very slowly and with obvious pride: 'He climbed down from the tower, called for the chief guard who lived in the room over there, and said: "Hand me your keys," and when he had them he went to the gate, unlocked it, threw it open, and shouted to the slaves who were still afraid to approach the gates: "You are slaves no more. You have earned your freedom. Come bury your dead!" And he strode away, leaving the gate of the barracn ajar. After that morning it was never locked again.'

'Two years later,' Roberto said, 'all Cuba followed his example, but Elizondo paid a terrible price for his leaders.h.i.+p. His bold action branded him a traitor to Spain, so that when trouble followed in the years prior to the big revolution of 1898, the one the norteamericanos became involved in, he was shot by Spanish officers who questioned his loyalty.'

The second family spot to which Placida led them was one with happier memories, for she took them back to an area which had served at the turn of the century as a rural retreat for wealthy families who found the sweltering heat of La Habana insufferable. El Cerro it was called, The Hill, because of the eminence on which it stood, and along its one thoroughfare had stretched some two miles of the most splendid summer homes the Caribbean could provide. Sometimes a dozen mansions stood cheek by jowl along one side of the road, facing fifteen, equally grand, on the other side, and each of the twenty-seven would be fronted by seven or eight or nine of the most handsome marble pillars imaginable. Travelers came from all parts of La Habana to see what a poet had called 'the forest of marble trees protecting the hiding places of the great.' One visitor from Spain, after riding past the line of mansions, said: 'I care not who owns the sugar mills if I can have the monopoly of selling the pillars for their little palaces.'

As young people, the present Calderns had known El Cerro in the years when it was about to be abandoned, and they had been aware, even then, that some of the mansions had begun to decay, but only now did they realize how widespread the devastation had become. 'Oh my G.o.d!' Placida cried. 'The Count of Zaragn would be appalled! Look at those two lions he was so proud of.' There stood the lions which had once proclaimed his n.o.bility, heads off, feet chipped and scarred, while the once fabulous house they were supposed to protect lay in ruins behind them.

'Oh! The Perez Espinals! We played there. Look! The walls are collapsing!' And then Caterina pointed to where a mansion, once so stately, so filled with summer voices, had vanished, and the destruction was so great that she asked nervously: 'What will we see when we reach our swans?' And she almost dreaded to approach the place once owned by the Calderns. But Roberto, from his position at the wheel of their auto, reminded them: 'Look at how many pillars are still standing! There's a lot left to this street,' and he was right, for a stranger driving slowly down it would see hundreds upon hundreds of the n.o.ble marble pillars still standing in almost military array, still trying to guard houses, some of which had disappeared behind them.

At one set of ten particularly handsome pillars, Roberto halted the car and explained: 'Even before the revolution of 1959, owners realized they could no longer afford to maintain these mansions, and since no one else had the money to take them over, they were left to go to ruin. Where one distinguished family used to live, now eighteen or twenty entire families crowded in, paid no rent, and allowed everything to go to h.e.l.l. Look at them!' and where the houses still remained intact, Caterina and her husband could see evidence that many families had moved in as squatters and were tearing the few remains apart. But before anyone could comment, Placida cried: 'Our swans!' and there, on the right-hand side of the splendid old road, stood one of its more remarkable mansions, walls still good, pillars intact.

What made this place memorable was that between the pillars and around the entire base of the porch, stood wing-to-wing a collection of forty-eight cast-iron swans, each about three feet high, only a few inches wide but designed and painted in such a manner as to create an explosion in the eye. Each swan stood icily erect, wings folded, head and long beak pointed straight down and kept close to the body; in this posture they looked like handsome pencils. Each was painted in three colors: gold for the legs, stark white for the head and body, a brilliant red for the long beak.

That alone would have made the swans unforgettable, but around the legs of each bird, making three complete circuits, came crawling upward a deadly serpent painted an ominous black and so positioned that its lethal head, also painted red, was poised only a few inches below the beak of the swan. Thus the swans were engaged in forty-eight deadly battles with the serpents, and no one who saw this chain of engagements engulfing him from all sides could ever forget it.

'Ole for our swans!' Placida cried as the Calderns left the car to renew their acquaintances.h.i.+p with their loyal birds. 'Not one serpent has ever made its way into our mansion,' Roberto boasted as he patted the down-c.o.c.ked head of a swan. 'Faithful to the death, but they couldn't protect the place from this,' and he pointed to the area behind the pillars and the porch. There the Calderns saw the door hanging limp from its hinges, the grand stairway in ruins, the interior doors behind which families in untold numbers now lived, the whole tragic affair which must soon collapse like its sister mansions along the way. Placida, patting the swans she had loved so dearly as a child, whispered: 'You served us so much better than we served you,' and she hurried to the car, where she sat head down like her swans, unwilling to look any further at the ruin which had overtaken her childhood.

Perhaps it was because Roberto Caldern had lived for the past twenty-nine years under a dictators.h.i.+p, but he was the first to detect that wherever he and his brother-in-law went they were being followed at a respectable distance by at least one car and sometimes two whose occupants were apparently spying on them, and this became so irritating that one morning as they were being trailed into La Habana he checked his Russian car to see if it had been obviously bugged, then asked: 'Estefano, are you here under secret orders? Or anything like that?'

'No! Why do you ask?' and his cousin replied: 'Because that first car back there is from the office of your American representative, and the one behind him, unless I'm mistaken, is from our police.' When they reached La Habana, the trailing cars followed until the Calderns parked and walked to Roberto's office.

On their drive home they were again followed, but this time only by the police car, and this experience, repeated on subsequent days, encouraged the Calderns to ventilate the questions which seemed to obsess all Miami Cubanos: 'Tell us, Roberto, what's the state of civil liberties on this island?' and Roberto said quickly and with apparent conviction: 'Exactly the same as in the States. We have courts and fine lawyers, newspapers, public debate. This is a free land.'

But Estefano felt that he must, at this point, reveal his true feelings about Cuba and its communist leaders.h.i.+p: 'No matter what you say, Roberto, to me, Castro will always be a monster and his movement a retreat from human decency. But I see the land of Cuba and people like you two as the permanent representatives of the island, so I do think that some kind of rapprochement must be engineered. I want to see the day when I can fly openly to La Habana and you can fly with me back to the States.'

'You mean ... to emigrate?' Roberto spoke with such strong accents of rejection that his cousin, realizing that this was not the proper time to pursue that delicate matter, made a hasty denial: 'Oh no! I meant free travel back and forth,' and when he uttered the magical words for which so many of the world's people yearn-'free travel'-each Caldern visualized what a rich experience it could be to journey easily and without visas between their lovely twin cities, Miami and La Habana.

Finally Estefano said: 'I do believe that if you Cubanos could see the benefits of democracy as they exist for all Cubanos in Miami, you'd change your policies down here.' Roberto and his wife just laughed, and Placida made what was for her an uncharacteristic political observation: 'We think that one of these days the rest of the Caribbean will follow our route to strong socialist government. We feel sure Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo will join us, and then probably most of the rest. Jamaica almost did, some years ago.'

This was too much for Estefano: 'Surely no nation in its right senses would elect to align with Castro, considering the conditions on this island.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I'll tell you exactly what I mean. A dictators.h.i.+p that provides very few amenities for its people. Nothing in the stores. No toilet paper. No toothpaste. No dresses for little girls. No decent automobiles. No paint for the houses. No new buildings to replace the crumbling ones on El Cerro. And no freedom for the young men to do anything but fly to Angola and die in the jungle.'

Placida chose to respond, and she did so vigorously, drawing Estefano's attention to an article in Granma: 'It tells here of the experiences of a Cubano in Miami, minor health problem. Asthma attack. Listen to what doctors like you, Estefano, do to the people of your country.' And she read a horrendous account, fortified with photostats of the actual bills from doctors, consultants, nurses and diagnosticians totaling $7,800 for a two-night stay in a hospital for what was essentially a trivial matter. When hectored by the Cuban Calderns, Estefano as a doctor and Caterina as a nurse had to acknowledge the probable accuracy of the report.

'The man in the house at our corner,' Placida continued, 'had to have major heart surgery. Nineteen days in hospital, emergency care. Total cost? Not one peso. Dental treatment for his wife? Not one peso. World's best health care for his three children. Not one peso.' Sternly she concluded: 'We may not have the white paint you keep lamenting about, but we have the best health care in the world and the best schools for our children, both free. And that means something.'

All four Calderns realized that their discussion had entered upon perilous ground, so Roberto, always the conciliator, diverted to a question which nagged him: 'Take a refugee like our cousin Quiroz. No special skills as I remember him. How does he make a living in Miami?' and Estefano explained: 'You must understand one thing, Roberto. There's an immense amount of Cuban money flowing about our city. Some of it real income, like what my bank handles, some of it cocaine money. But it's there and it's available.'

'But how does a worthless fellow like Quiroz get his share?'

'People who hate Castro, and that's ninety-nine percent of us, they see to it that fellows like Maximo are kept alive. They feel he's doing their work for them, keeping Castro off balance.'