Snow White in Cuba …. (another short story)
March 21, 2008
‘Dear Michael, I thought you might be interested to know what happened to ‘Snow White in Cuba’. After your gentle dismissal, I thought, well, all right, I’ll bury this one for a time. With one exception. I sent a copy down to my friend, Hans, in Cuba. Yes, the one I stayed with at the embassy. Within 5 days I received a private diplomatic courier pouch that had RUSH RUSH embossed all over it. Inside was a letter from Hans. He told me to categorically destroy all copies of the manuscript, he said it was dangerous. He also told me that his appointment at the Dutch embassy had almost expired and that he would be leaving within the month for Belgium to a new position at the U.N. He included a forwarding address. Two weeks later I received a small parcel, in it was a note from Luis, our mutual Cuban friend, the playwright, remember? He wrote that Hans had had an ‘unfortunate accident’ and was dead. He did not elaborate. Wrapped in a sheet of Russian newspaper was the brujo’s shell and my copy to Hans of the original story, it had been edited at one point with a broad black pen. By whom or why I don’t know. I thought you might like to look at it again. See attached. Best wishes, Sonja’.
‘Snow White in Cuba’
I’ve been back almost five weeks, and I am still as confused as I was when I went down. It’s hard to put your finger on Cuba. Exactly. Harder still to put down the disquiet it arouses in your own breast. I am not wrestling with Cuban political policies exactly, no, I am wrestling with the East-West, North-South, Black-White, Rich-Poor, Communist-Capitalist dialogues that ping pong incessantly throughout my pea brain.
What began as a simple visit to a friend who works as a trade commissioner for the Dutch Embassy turned into a complex lesson about the domineering power of all media. This was compounded by the discovery of my own blindness with what I had previously considered to be a relatively sophisticated personal perception of ‘Our World Today’. I stood in the middle of the Point of View mind field while Mine, Yours, His, Hers, Theirs, Ours, Us and Them exploded all around me.
For example, I am Canadian. What I discovered in Cuba is that to declare oneself Canadian is tantamount to declaring a political opinion reflecting our nation’s mythology, our past and current history in the international trade arena as well as our prevailing military ideology. Associations, connections, accusations, assumptions – in short, an ocean of ideas flows around that simple word – Canadian. In much the way they flow around the words Soviet or Jew. I found I was defending, explaining, provoking, protecting, attacking and questioning my own understanding of what it means to be Canadian as well as what it means to claim to be Canadian in this world of today. That’s quite a lot to handle when one is on vacation. But that is the point, it is impossible to go to Cuba and not ask yourself some pretty serious questions by the time you finally leave.
I offer to you, the reader, some of my experiences:
Getting There:
I had to wait 3 months for proper accreditation from the Toronto Cuban Consulate before I was able to go. After filling out the proper papers in December, I waited and waited for something to happen before my flight departure in early February. I phoned the office periodically and was told to wait – a telex would be coming soon. The problem, I was told, was that I needed special clearance because I was traveling alone rather than with a chartered supervised group. So, reassured, I purchased by airline ticket and waited some more.
A week before departure I started getting nervous, I called again. I was told to wait. I was told that nothing could be done. Proper papers had to come from the Cuban Foreign Affairs office in Havana. They needed proof in Toronto from Cuba that I had indeed been invited to visit. In desperation, I pulled out letters from Hans and even underlined the invitation and dates. This was not good enough. They took photocopies of his letters.
Finally, I phoned Hans directly and asked him what I ought to do. He said follow orders. He then sent a personal diplomatic note to the Foreign Affairs Office in Ottawa expressly requesting my arrival. Two days before I was to fly the visa clearance came through. The dour woman who I had been dealing with up until this time suddenly transformed into a bubbling smiling island guide. As I signed off yet more papers, she insisted that I go to the beaches. We looked at a map of the island together and she pencil marked several locations that she thought I might enjoy. She wished me a pleasant trip as she escorted me to the door, and I was off. But already the first question had be raised – what had that been all about? I was a simple tourist paying a simple visit to an old friend. My mind began to buzz with political black flies – who are they trying to protect, them or me? Am I considered a political threat because I am self-employed and therefore first cousin to those “damn imperialist Yankees”? Does it have something to do with the fact that I am a chica traveling alone and staying with a diplomat? Or, are they just so hopelessly bureaucratic that this was considered normal by their efficiency standards? I had no answer. I could only speculate. I was interested in Hans’s opinion and looked forward to meeting up with him again.
Arrival:
With the tense East-West dialogue already poisoning my perception, my first view of that spectacular Caribbean island from the air was undermined by my own suspicious mind. I found I was fervently looking out for evidence of communist military activity. As we zoomed in low over the palm trees I could have sworn I had seen camouflaged military turrets. Now, this might well have been true, but so what? The military is a fact of life in most countries. It is only Canada that has a rather low-profile ‘defence’ army. Then, while disembarking from the plane at the airport in Veradero, we tourists were met by a phalanx of heavily armed military personnel who glumly filed us through their custom procedures to the smiling faces of an assortment of tour guides and group directors. Again, my suspicious mind unduly reacted to a seemingly routine function of an international airport: security. In any case, I had arrived.
I asked one of the tour guides how much it would cost to get a cab from the airport to Havana. Without batting an eye he told me that it would be 40 dollars U.S. for the hour and a half ride. I asked him how much it would be in the nations currency – pesos. He shook his head, and said, “Dollars only.” If there is anything that puts my back up it is someone taking me for a dumb tourist who doesn’t know the value of money. I refused. And in no time made an arrangement with one of the tour buses to drop me at the bus depot in the small seaside town of Veradero. Fortunately, I knew a smattering of Spanish and after some preliminary fumbling discovered that the cost from Veradero to Havana was a mere 3 pesos and 50 centavos – or the equivalent of 3 dollars and 50 cents CDN. However, there were problems. Not only was there a two to three hour delay (which is common), one had to reserve a seat at least one day in advance of departure. So, just when I was about to give up and call my man in Havana, a checkered shirt, blue-jean Cuban cowboy came over. “Taxi, Missus?” I asked how much. “For you, 10 dollars U.S” As I hopped into the 1956 Bel-Air with reptilian fire engine red tail fins and picture perfect body chrome, I wondered again if I shouldn’t be a little more cautious. How did I know that I wasn’t going to get clonked on the head, pilfered, and raped? As we took off in the direction of what I presumed to be Havana I reassessed my situation. If the laws are as strict as they seem to be about foreigners entering this country then surely he wouldn’t try anything rash. My arrival was documented, my stay was documented and my money had been counted and declared. And yet, as we sped along the freeway, I realized that it didn’t really matter. These decisions are made on gut reactions, they are made on the instincts of human trust. And sure enough, within no time at all we were swapping life stories. He told me that he had been a lawyer before the Revolution but that he now made three times as much being an independent cab driver for tourists. (He flashed a great smile.) He explained that for a small monthly fee, he maintained his car license and worked for the betterment of the state, and at the same time he enjoyed a modicum of personal freedom around the island. He could travel unrestricted.
The drive was supposed to take an hour and a half: it took four hours. The cabby, amused by the inquisitive gal from the North, decided to show me the sights. We stopped at least five times en route to climb up hillsides and embankments to look at breathtaking vistas. Long expanses of undeveloped beachfront extended as far as the eye could see, In the interior, lush green cultivated fields patch-worked up to an impenetrable jungle wall. The earth was ruby red. Storefronts were colourful and primitive, meaning that most of their assembly had been done by hand, not machine. No neon or advertisers hype hid the obvious.
At one point we settled into a small modern bunker cafeteria for beer, beefsteak and rice. In hushed tones, my friend pointed to a group of white faces behind me. “Those are Soviet engineers.” My curiosity sparked, I turned and stared. They naturally stared right back. I looked at them and found I was thinking – aha! – so this is the Enemy. We smiled at each other. Meanwhile, a group of Cubans at the next table starting chatting with the cabby, and in no time at all they had joined our small table. We bought each other beers and the day continued. When it was finally time to go, I offered to pay the bill. But my new found friend insisted, no, it was his treat. “This is my country, and you are our guest.” The bill was the equivalent of 28 dollars U.S. I argued, this was too generous. He held up his hand to stop me, “Please, it is no concern for you, I invited you and I will pay for you. It has been my pleasure.” My mind wondered again – is this Cuban machismo mentality? But no, he was just being one hell of a nice guy. So we continued on.
As we approached Havana, I finally got the idea of how the cabby makes so much money. He knew that I had American cash dollars, he explained that for a Cuban to exchange money on the black market was as good as a three month prison term or longer. Only state officials, hotels and banks were allowed to trade the foreign currency. He explained that the U.S. dollars in the pockets of the government strengthened the purchasing power of the state in the world economic market. Cuban pesos meant nothing, they were worthless. U.S. dollars in Cuba meant luxury. Dollars could buy products in the tourist oriented retail stores that most Cubans were not allowed in. Again, pesos were useless. Finally, would I change 40 bucks? The going rate was one for one, this I knew, so I did. While speeding down the highway we furtively slipped bills across the vinyl seat of the car. He put his finger to his lips, you must not tell anyone, even the person with whom you are staying. Verboten. I realized that I had just become an accomplice to a state crime. And yet, I could see no real harm in it. I knew it would give him purchasing power. The world works on a principle of privilege, those who have and those who haven’t, supply and demand. Marxism and Free Market Capitalism leapt into the worrisome cavity of my mind – I don’t really know what these words mean, only that I, as a Canadian, am supposed to be on the side of the Big C. This struck me as silly: it made me realize that I too am a prisoner of a political economic system that I don’t understand. To trade money with this cabby was a bold attempt, in a symbolic way, of bridging that gap of ignorance. I think. Anyway, as he deposited me at the Dutch Embassy and shook hands with the doorman that he had known for years, he winked at me and held again his finger to his lips, sshh.
A representative from the embassy drove me up to the home where I was staying. A beautiful split-level home with a pool and a staff of three sat nestled in a protected (or was it guarded?) suburb just outside of the city. The homes in the area were, even by North American standards, luxurious. State owned today, they are rented to the diplomatic corps, fully staffed. Diplomats are given special privileges. They exist completely isolated from the people of the country. This I learned the first evening there.
Once settled, washed and unpacked, Hans, my friend, had arranged a small private dinner party at the house. With the dinner table full of guests and conversation, I decided to leave a portion of the meat that was on my plate – I had had enough. I was full. The cook came into the room to clear the table between courses and deliberately missed picking up my dish. Finally the host indicated to her that I was finished. She mumbled something and still would not take my plate. A Dutch guest who was sitting to my side remarked that by not finishing the meal I was insulting her. I picked up my fork and was about to dutifully gorge when this same guest whisked the remaining piece of meat from my plate and gave it to the drooling dog at his side. The Cuban guests at the table gasped in shock. We had both unwittingly committed a major faux pas. Meat, I later learned, is heavily rationed in Cuba: it is unthinkable to feed the precious foodstuff to dogs. Within hours of my arrival, I had demonstrated my spoilt Western lifestyle where food is not only abundant but expendable. We waste a great deal.
Tourista:
Each morning I dropped my friend off to work at the embassy and then had the unprecedented luxury of a private car in Cuba. One visible sign of the way things once were, and the way things now are different, was made clear to me as I filled up with gas at a petrol station. At the front pump was a 1987 Lada, and at the back pump was a 1955 Buick. One dominant economy had neatly replaced another. Cubans, like everyone else in the world, had to get their cars from somewhere. Also, like everyone else in the world, it is obviously more than a question of price. I was driving a V.W., a European diplomat’s car, though it had been imported and manufactured in Mexico. It said so on the inside of the door.
I decided to be systematic in my tourist approach to Havana. I thought it best to begin at the outskirts for my tourist spying and then move into the core where the distinctions of people would be camouflaged by high-rises and general commercial activity. Sure enough, I came across a gold mine – the agromercado or agricultural market – the equivalent of the St.Lawrence Market in Toronto. Except that there are many differences. The most striking is the behaviour of the shoppers. As in Poland, as in Russia, there are line-ups. Long line-ups. Line-ups for the purchase of one item. It was not a question of a consumer going to the shelves and picking up what they wanted from a multiple of choices and then going to the check-out, no, one had to speak to the solo sales attendant who retrieved the requested item from the poorly stocked shelves. Coupons, rations and long conversations were exchanged while a backlog of 40-50 people patiently waited for their turn. It would drive the efficiency minded North American shopper crazy. In terms of produce, the meat, mostly chicken, was rationed, and the vegetables were anything but fresh. Green peppers, though in abundance, were rotting. However, the prices were hard to beat. Adjacent to the food stalls, Russian 35mm cameras were selling for the equivalent of 30 U.S. dollars. Russian shoes were selling for 2 dollars, and Russian labour garments were selling for 6-8 dollars. Wandering around I tried to figure out why this system was the way it was. One thing was certain, the quality of our lives is taken for granted in Canada. The food procedures of canning, preservation and distribution is something I take as par for the course. As Canadians, we not only have the luxury of quantity but we have the luxury of quality. I began to wonder how it is that we can have so much fresh global produce at our consumer disposal. And at whose expense?
After leaving the market I drove around the Havana port area and was by this time not surprised to see Soviet freighters. Heavy industry bellowed out black smoke. The stench was unbearable. But I wrestled with reason; pollution can not be priority when a nation is still trying to adequately feed its people.
Into the centre of the city, I whizzed around the tourist sites: the Museum of Revolution, the Fine Art Museum, the Hotel district, the Cathedral and the old quarter. Of all the sights the most arresting by far was the Museum of Fine Art. Again, I was shocked to discover how insular and ‘white’ my perspective was. Gallery after gallery within the museum focused on the history of the people of the island. Arawak Indians, African, Mixed Mulatto, Spanish, British and everything in between populated the often gruesome historical paintings, and the contemporary works were vividly mythic and otherworldly. The islands’ bloody history came to life. My limited exposure to the pantheon of dead white male European artists made me naively expect that all I would see would be ‘primitive’ works. Yet their visual arts traditions were easily as creative and distinctive as any European or Asian culture. I vowed then and there to make a more concerted effort to witness, examine and investigate the so-called ‘third world’ art and literature that I had ignored, quite innocently, for so long.
Back on the street, I bought a copy of the local paper with my pesos – The Gramma. The official organ of the Communist Party, all the material therein extolled the virtues of the actual and intended plans of the Party. The sport page wrote about a fencing tournament happening in Bucharest. Printed in black and red ink on coarse newsprint stock, the issue was 8 pages long.
I also bought copies of other available literature on the street – Soviet Woman (with a ridiculous picture of a Soviet dame standing on a snow-covered mountain smiling benignly at the camera) and the Soviet Union (with an equally benign photograph of two Cosmonauts grinning at their Cuban brothers.) Both magazines were in Spanish. Their equivalent in Canada would be watered down versions of Life magazine, circa 1950. It gave new meaning to the idea of Free Press. I had no idea what the Cubans thought of this material, but they, like me, were buying it with pesos.
I was to have lunch with a Canadian woman who worked for the short wave radio station – Radio Havana. While waiting for her in the waiting room, I started conversing with the black secretary. I had brought a copy of Chatelaine all the way from Canada for my intended lunch companion. I let the secretary have a look. Her eyes boggled. She oo’d and ah’d the advertisements for kitchenware and ladies clothing. In no time, she had a chorus of four other women looking over her shoulder. It did at one point occur to me that this was not the place to be circulating what would be cited as subversive literature. Yet, I could tell they were so obviously enjoying it. Here was a chance for them to see the outside world. But I also saw how this grossly material world could be seen as repugnant by the authorities. At one point, one of the girls pointed at the stove in an advertisement that was selling kitchen floor tile and exclaimed in Spanish how beautiful and modern it was. Startled, I realized that I hadn’t even seen the stove. To me, the stove was visually taken for granted: it was the written copy that made, no, forced me to look at the floor. The Cubans, on the other hand, got the full impact of the contrived picture. No kitchen that I went into in Cuba looked even remotely like the one represented in that Canadian magazine.
The woman from the radio station and I had lunch in the park. We had never met before, but had mutual acquaintances. While I pleasantly complained about the heat, she began to give me verbal bulletins about the continual media misrepresentation of Cubans abroad. She said all U.S. press reports were reactionary and written by imperialist supporters. The CIA, she charged, had developed a mosquito capable of destroying children with its bites. The CIA had placed this venomous creature first in Haiti and now, in Cuba. She claimed, too, that the CIA had invented herpes, aids, and other social diseases to ward off, kill off, unwanted social mores not only in Cuba, but also in America. And finally, she explained, the reason that no one knows where Castro lives is that he is in constant threat of his life by CIA endorsed assassination attempts. As I unwrapped my sandwich, I tried to decide if I was pleased or not at my own political naiveté. She did seem to be over-reacting to my mind. But I did not live there. I was not “informed”. I was a young tourist, and I only have a vague media induced recollection of the Bay of Pigs incident. Her understanding of the political climate was based on her appraisal of the situation today. She was an intelligent journalist, albeit a socialist one. Whatever that meant.
After lunch, I decided to walk on the seaside boulevard, the Malecon. On several occasions I had to stop to ask directions to get there. I pulled out the weathered Esso map that I had been given at the house and politely asked how I should get from A to B. What amazed me was that no-one looked at the map and when they did it was with great intent and obvious difficulty. Most of the people I asked were middle-aged shopkeepers: and it occurred to me that perhaps they couldn’t read or write – again, a media recollection of Castro’s education schema surfaced from the depths of my memory. I could not understand how anyone could be illiterate and run a business. But they did. They could add and subtract.
Likewise, people were always fascinated by my felt-tipped pen. I was asked several times if I had another one, or if I would be interested in selling the one I had. Pencils, I was told, are the norm in Cuba. One for Each Man, Woman and Child.
Once on the Malecon, I wandered along the boulevard looking at the architecture. Faded hand-painted Spanish colonial buildings with crumbling porticos bordered onto the four-lane roadway. Renovations were in progress. Workers perched precariously on rickety wood scaffolding with no work boots or helmets. I sat down on the wall by the sea to watch them work. Within minutes two young men approached me. They could not have been more than fifteen. “Do you speak English?” Yes, I answered in Spanish. And away we went. We spoke of schooling systems, what someone my age earns, if women work as much as men, when someone is allowed to leave home, and what kind of car I owned. At no time did they provoke or molest me. And yet it seems that they had done something wrong by speaking with me. A police officer came over to us, excused himself to me, asked to see the boy’s papers, and he then promptly spirited them away. I watched in wonderment as he escorted the fellows across the street to his parked car.
Another officer got out, again they looked at the boy’s papers, they looked back at me, and the boys were placed against the cruiser, they were body searched and then put into the automobile. They drove off. My judgment tells me that they were only curious kids who were cocky enough to speak to a gringa. But perhaps I don’t have the facts right. They may well have been skipping school, they may well have been petty thieves, and maybe they were going to eventually ask to trade money. But somehow I felt they were only kids being kids. By this time my mind was in a permanent state of suspended suspicion. I did not trust what I was seeing, and I did not trust what I was not seeing. I did not trust what I was hearing, nor did I trust what I was not hearing. In a funk of confusion I was only able to experience. I did not seem capable of analysis and conclusion. It was only conflicting guesswork and at best speculation.
I strolled over to the Bodeguita del Medio where I was to have dinner with companions from the Dutch and Canadian embassies. The Bodeguita is the restaurant in Cuba. For tourists and Cubans alike. Its acclaim to fame is that it used to be the frequent hangout of that other great Cuban national hero – Hemingway. Ernesto. Like Castro. A man’s man. A woman’s man. Everywhere I went and to almost everyone I spoke both names would pop up in conversation. It seemed to be a connecting status symbol to have either shook Castro’s hand or to have a first edition of one of Hemingway’s works. At dinner in the restaurant after we had raised our glasses to these two Great Fathers, the conversation once again turned political. Yet this time, the problem was between the French Canadians and myself, the Anglo Canadian. “You domineering English never think of us oppressed French.” Wide eyed I said, “I have nothing to do with it – I have only just met you. I am no more guilty of oppression by my birth than you are victims of yours. We both have clean slates. I do not oppress you, in fact,” I said, “I do not really think of you.” “That,” they said in impeccable English, “is precisely the point.” We moved on to dessert.
We ended the evening by going to the nightclub – Tropicana. A remaining vestige of another era, the floorshow was without a doubt one of the finest I have ever seen. Surrounded by massive palm trees and lush bundles of bougainvillea, one watched and listened to the Cuban dancers and musicians put out their best. Lots of tits and ass for the men; lots of feathers, costumes and colourful plumage for the women. At one point I did wonder what the entertainers got paid. But this thought was soon forgotten as I slipped down another Cuba Libre – Cuban rum and Russian ‘coke’.
The Roving Tourist Goes to the Beach:
Driving out to the Playa St. Maria on the eastern side of Havana I stopped off at the old Spanish fortress – Fort Moro. Images of the Spanish Main, British Navel supremacy, pirates and early slave traders exploded in my brain. The fort was a monstrous imposing structure that guarded the harbour. Today, it serves only the tourist trade. The gift shop sold Cuban cigars, grass dolls and earthenware bowls. War is no longer a simple question of location.
Driving east further along the coastal highway I passed the recent urban development called New Havana. It is an eye sore. Rows and rows of concrete apartment blocks cluster together on a grid pattern. Little has been made of landscaping or architectural design. I was later told that this is considered good housing for many labourers. I never managed to get inside one of these edifices. Money, it seemed, was again the problem. But, I thought, no, this is reflective of the poverty of human imagination and ingenuity. It occurred to me that this horrible barren village had more to do with government building ‘codes and regulations’ as well as available constructions capabilities, skill and materials. It did also strike me as Soviet. But I knew I had to be careful with this kind of observation.
I continued on to the beach. It was fantastic. The water was superb and clear. Fir and fern came close to the pure white sand beach. An unspoilt natural scene lulled the bathers into slothful reverie. Wind surfers and small sailboats abounded. Children built sandcastles.
After a swim and some sun I wandered into one of the seaside hotels looking for a sandwich and a soft drink. I discovered that what I had ordered on the menu was not available that day. A plate of spaghetti was unceremoniously placed before me. I had encountered this sort of thing before, so I gobbled it up. There was only beer, which I did not want. I rummaged around in my swim bag for a can of lukewarm Cola that I had brought from the house. I remembered the injunction by the cook to leave the can on the beach when I had finished. When my anti-litter sensibilities had kicked in, she explained that it had nothing to do with litter. After the tourists leave for the day, the local Cubans go down to the beach to comb for abandoned debris. Soft drink cans are a real find. They are collected and coveted. Cut out at one end, they are used as tumblers. She told me of a friend of hers who had collected over 200 cans and had subsequently used them for her daughters’ coming-of-age party. One person’s garbage is another person’s pleasure. Again, I was forced to consider the land of plenty – Canada. We have so much.
My friend, Hans, from the embassy had told me to make myself available for several hours in the late afternoon. We were going to see a brujo or witchdoctor of the Afro-Cuban people. Our guide was a dissident playwright who had been imprisoned for two years because he followed the ancient wisdom of this old man. We met in a designated place and then proceeded to meander through the old quarter until we came to a tumbled down colonial home. We were told to wait. Our guide went ahead, returning several minutes later, to say it was not a good time, we were being followed. He took us back into the streets and we gingerly followed him through the never-ending maze of side-alleys for about a half hour until we returned again to the run down house. We continued quickly up a flight of back stairs then circled around and came down the front stairs and entered a small room at the back of what used to be a kitchen area. We were told to have 2 dollars ready as an offering. I was called in first.
I entered a small badly lit room that had a balcony that opened out to the noise of the street below. On the floor to one side of the window sat an elderly clean-shaven man who smelt of a strong sweet aroma. I was instructed to take off my shoes, sit on the floor opposite him, and place my bare feet onto the edge of the grass mat on which he sat. The man stared at me for several moments then began chanting. While doing so, he shook and rattled a necklace made of sculpted coconut shell and leather. The language, and his voice, were rhythmic and soothing. By his legs were several small natural objects: a shell, a large seed (like a walnut), a piece of coral and a small pebble. From these items he chose the seed and the shell. He gave them to me in exchange for the money, which he quickly dropped into a bowl of water. All the while he continued to chant in a musical language that seemed a cross between Spanish, Creole and some obscure dialect. (African?) I could barely understand him. Periodically he would make the sign of the cross on his forehead, and he would slap his leg and sort of bark. All these fluid and rhythmic motions were performed as a form of ‘calling’. He asked the intermediate god – the communicating spirit Arolla – if he was entitled to take my money as an offering. The answer apparently was no. He withdrew the money from the water and placed it quietly in my lap.
And so we continued. We began a question and answer period. It had nothing to do with body ailments. It had everything to do with time, and the state of my mind. His accuracy, observations and his perceptive powers were astounding. His ability to recount my memories was incredible and shockingly accurate, and his forecast of my future seemed to make much sense. He introduced me to the female god Jamaya – the goddess of fresh water. He told me that she was my protector and guide, and that I must call on her when I needed her. We conversed for over an hour as the sun slowly set on the buzzing T.V. antennas of Havana. I cannot and do not scoff the power this man seems to have. It is power. I can understand why he, his religion, and his faith are considered a threat to the security of the secular government. Within a very short time I was overwhelmed by his honest simplicity and his personal strength of understanding. His influence again raises many questions.
Hans also sat for the brujo. I was allowed to sit at the back of the room and listen. As Hans sat down, the brujo sadly shook his head, picked up the shell and started chanting softly calling on Arolla’s protection. He was visibly upset and agitated. Before he took Hans’ money he said, “You are in great danger. Very bad danger. ” He looked carefully at Hans. “The Diablo is watching. The Evil One is here.” Hans smiled and waited for more exciting news.
(Pencil notation on right margin – Michael, as you can see, over 6 paragraphs have been ‘deleted’ here by a thick black pen…)
Hans and I ended that unusual day by going to a cocktail party at the Guyanese ambassadors home. The Guyanese were celebrating their National Birthday and the entire foreign diplomatic community had been invited. We were ushered around from one well-heeled world rep to another. Snippets of conversation detonated with each arrival and departure. A soft-spoken Algerian spoke earnestly of his commitment to geo-politics. A blonde blue-eyed German envoy cornered me and told me with a straight face that he was black. The acting ambassador from Britain explained how her government refused to pick up the tab for repairs to their rented embassy quarters. “If the Cubans want to be imperialist landlords,” she reasoned with a wry smile, “then they should learn to look after their tenants.” While I mused on this satirical irony, I was introduced to the Austrian ambassador who had had the unfortunate luck of being arrested by overzealous Cuban officials while he had been sailing on his yacht off the southern coast of Cuba. It seemed he had unwittingly manoeuvred his craft into off-limit territories. The Cubans had thought he was invading. A Cuban Central Party Committee Member was not standing in earshot of this condescending tale, but as it was, he looked painfully uncomfortable on the global cocktail circuit. Two Jamaican doctors were busy tallying up their scorecards of ‘important people I have met’. A Canadian artist and his Cuban bride offered perky observations and cracked self-deprecating jokes. An ABC news correspondent laughed with disbelief when he learned that I had not, nor could remember, having heard his weekly news broadcast. Most people with whom I spoke had children studying in either London or Paris or the United States at an Ivy League college. Then the music began. Drums, rumbas, tangos and disco pounded through the livingroom and onto the back lawn. Black and white bobbed together. I noticed that people drank, but no one, no one got drunk. After all, this was business as usual.
Leaving the party and gliding back to Hans’ split-level home we listened to the sounds of America waft in over the Miami radio station. Michael Jackson carried us over the boundaries of space back to the U.S.A. I wondered what Gordon Lightfoot or Bruce Cockburn would make of this strange place.
My Departure:
I stood in the kitchen on the morning of my departure and, like Hans, had breakfast. We popped a small handful of vitamins into our mouths and washed them down with freshly squeezed orange juice. Amada, the Cuban cook, laughed at this nonsense. To her, good health lay in the restorative powers of select herbs. As she explained, in the beginning the African slaves to Cuba could not and did not develop the science of medicine like their white owners. The slaves had brought their own understanding of the causes of sickness and health from their homelands. Slowly they learnt the new plants, shrubs and vegetation of this unique island and, over time, developed their own medicinal knowledge. When I asked how this tradition could have possible survived the restrictions of slavery, she laughed again. “When the white owners locked us away at night in our shacks, we did not sleep. We had our own community, our own stories, our own language and skills. They are here still. They live in our music, in our poetry and in our children.” She beckoned us into the garden, and for half an hour, she led us through the lush vegetation while she explained the healing properties of leaves, roots and bark. I came away from her wondering about the North American method of medicine with its insistence of distilling the natural components of nature. North American medicine by contrast is sterile, dead medicine. Amada’s connection to the planet was vital. There was no hesitancy or unfamiliarity in her knowledge of plant form. She would slide her hand in to touch, to pull, to pry open some rich greenery while I could only stand back overcome by the sheer density of this growing green life.
Later, Hans took me for my last dinner to one of the finest restaurants in Veradero – the reconverted Du Pont estate. Massive, the palace sat on a point of land and faced out towards the crashing sea. Abandoned after the Revolution, the space had been taken over by the government. Much had been left as it had once been. In the cupboard behind our table were mystery books and travelogues written in English. I opened up one cloth bound cover and could smell the ever-present moist sea air. Inside on the end page I read ‘Ex Libris Xanadu’. In the corner of the room was an old-fashioned player piano. On top of it were boxes of playful American and British ditties. We wandered out to the terrace after supper and watched the full moon shimmer on the waves as the ocean crashed onto the imposing breakwater. Xanadu was no more, and yet, it continued to both delight and intrigue. The house was a bold memory of another time.
As I boarded the plane to leave Cuba I was saddened by my departure. Cuba was and is an education. In my assimilation of new ideas, I had discarded old ones. The earlier mythology of my own mind was permanently altered: new patterns of thought forced me to abandon previously cherished and contented habits of thinking. Cuba had taught me that in the endless sea of facts and opinions only one thought prevents me from drowning completely. It can be found in the character of Amada, in the character of the brujo, and in the boys on the Malecon. All – each and every one – are simply – yet divinely – human.
The End.
P.S. Michael, Let me know what you think of this version. (I don’t like that ending much either…. ) Anyway, the part omitted about Hans and the Diablo at the witchdoctors is strange, no? Who would cut it? More importantly, why?
As for the title, I borrowed it from Mae West, who once said in her gorgeous glib way, “I used to be Snow White, but then I drifted…” It seems apt.
Hope to catch up with you at the Docks soon. S.
Author’s Note: ‘Snow White in Cuba’ was written about two decades ago – circa 1980’s.Much has changed, yet, as many will attest, much remains the same …
