Havana

Chapter 34

"Well?" said Pashin.

"Well, what?" said Speshnev.

"Well, where is he?"

"Where it is safe."

"Where it is safe. But do you know where it is safe?"

"Actually, I do not."

They sat in Jose Marti square in the old town, two men, one elegant in his western banker's clothes, the other rather bohemian, in floppy linens, with a red bandanna about his head and well-worn espadrilles on his crusty feet. This one also wore sunglasses, circular and aesthetic, protecting the poet's delicate eyes from the sun. One might consider it a meeting between T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, if one were so given.

Speshnev took a banana out of his pocket, peeled it, and began to eat it.

"He has run away. He has broken contact," Pashin explained to him. "You were sent here to manage him and control him, and then to kill a man sent to kill him. Instead, you save that killer-twice, twice! — and now the subject has fled your ministrations and I am left to explain all this to Moscow. Possibly he has given up politics altogether, bought a farm and is busy raising babies in the countryside."

"The banana: fountain of potassium. Have one, Pashin."

"I am not a monkey. Bananas are for monkeys."

"Two propositions, both debatable. Anyhow, this one will never give up politics. He's too idiotic. He actually believes in the mumbo-jumbo of destiny. Besides, he loves to practice speeches in the mirror and admire his fabulous heroism and beauty. No, I sent him because after the murder of El Colorado, I feared a general purge. It's how these fascisto-imperialists always work. Relax. Have a banana. Fuck your secretary."

"Ah! You are so disrespectful. We have a mission and you take better care of an American gangster who was sent here to kill the man you were sent here to protect than you do of the man you are to protect."

"Actually, I believe I have protected him very well."

"You are so arrogant, Speshnev. You think you know so much more than we younger men." Pashin looked away, pinching the bridge of his nose in pain. It was clear he was getting pretty much roasted on a daily basis by blistering memos from Moscow.

Speshnev enjoyed the young bastard's pain. "Have you thought of antacids for that stomach queasiness, Pashin?"

Pashin sighed mightily, with the air of a man resigned to the Roman legionnaires driving in the spikes. It was an unpleasant necessity to be gotten over. But then he turned and stared directly at the older man.

"It may interest you to learn yours is not the only operation in Cuba, and that I believe mine will yield far more bountiful benefits than yours. Mine is professional, disciplined, carefully managed. This shit of yours was dreamed up by some old romantic on the upper floors of Dzerzhinsky Square and it's all very melodramatic, very old Comintern, but utterly useless in a world of jet planes and atom bombs. Mine will be the far greater contribution."

"And if not, your uncles and brothers and cousins will say so anyway, so what difference does it make?"

"You must find the young man, you must bring him under control, you must reestablish your influence. That is not a romantic quest, that is a hard order, direct from the top. And, you must do it soon, do you understand? Let us say toward the end of the month, by, say, the last week of July. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"I want progress."

Speshnev swallowed the last third of the banana, mashing its sweetness between his teeth, enjoying the rush of pleasure as both flavor and aroma toasted his palate, then tossed the banana peel into the garbage can.

Of course he knew where Castro was. He knew where he would go exactly but what bothered him he would not say to Pashin. In fact, as he was summoned to the meeting, he had already purchased bus fare to Santiago.

The reason was that he knew Castro would head home to Oriente, where he was a prince. He would not go somewhere he was not known and loved. He wasn't strong enough for anonymity. His vanity was too overwhelming. It would never be a part of his way to disappear quietly. He was too weak for it.

But Speshnev had read an account in that morning's Havana Post that upset him profoundly. Police "thwarted a bandit attack in the town of Cueto," the press reported, and a woman was killed in the gun battle. That was what the newspaper report said, and Speshnev had no doubt it was all lies. Nevertheless, whatever it was, such action was uncomfortably near Castro's home, and it signified that possibly others undreamed of had noted the boy's presence and sought to eliminate him.

Now he reasoned that even if he weren't involved, the shooting so close would spook the boy. But the trip back to Havana would seem too far; he would instead hide in the closest city, that city being Santiago.

But the fear of Castro somehow being caught-he had as yet committed no crimes-wasn't Speshnev's main fear. His main fear could be summed up in one sentence: What will this crazy young asshole do next?