Cuba and the Night Read Online Free Page B

night with Hugo and Alfredo, I thought: better that than another night with a Célia.
    Just then there came a knock on the door. The dog barked, therooster cried, and José went off to look out through the keyhole. The knock came again, more insistent.
    “Quién e’?”
    There was no answer.
    “Manolo? Eusebio?”
    Nothing.
    José pulled back the lock and opened up. It was a Minint man—from the Ministry of the Interior—and a guy in a white shirt and gray slacks. I figured there was safety in numbers: just sit in the kitchen and blend in with the crowd.
    “José Santos Cruz?” the man said, while his friend cast his eye around the apartment.
    “Yes.”
    “It is time to help the Fatherland.”
    “I am helping the Fatherland already.”
    “You can help it more. You do not want to go to Angola?”
    “Compañero
, I want to go. But what can I do? My mother is sick. She is in Camaguëy, she is a widow. I think she will die soon. Have some feeling,
compañero.”
    “So what do I tell my boss?”
    “Tell him I will join you as soon as my mother dies.”
    The man wrote something down. “Okay,
compañero,”
he said, and patted José on the shoulder. “I hope your mother has a good long life.”
    H is usual bravado back in place, José came back into the kitchen, all smiles.
    “Okay, Richard. Let’s go. I take you to Centro.”
    “Those guys were cool.”
    “Cool? Sure. They know it is not good to make problems for other Cubans. Come on, I introduce you to my mother.”
    I wondered what kind of mother this would be: A teenager? An Eskimo? A man, perhaps?
    We went back out into the blinding sun, and José hailed a gasping old
colectivo
that was on its way downtown, and there was some heartfelt pleading and shouting and numbers flung back and forth,both parties trying to keep the smiles out of their voices, and then we were bumping down La Rampa, toward the sea, and turning toward Centro, and then José was leading me through a rectangle of dirty streets to a house with an old wooden door on Virtudes. He knocked and pulled at the door—no bells here, and no telephones, so every visit was a surprise—and there was no sound for a long time, and finally a frightened-looking woman, in a soiled white nightdress, came out on the balcony above us.
    “Ay, mi vida!
José, why do you come now?”
    “To see Lázara.”
    “Okay, come in. She is with Lourdes and Caridad.
Ven, ven!”
The door swung open before us, pulled by a thin blue string that ran along the whole length of the stairs, and we scrambled up to the room. It was empty, except for some framed Spanish banknotes on the wall, and a set of lottery tickets posted up, and an old black-and-white picture of Fidel. Beyond, there was another room, even darker, with no lights and no windows.
    “Ven, ven,”
said the woman as we walked into the farther room, where three girls were sitting on a bed, sorting through old postcards.
    “Lázara,” said José, and the youngest of them, dark-eyed, with long curls—she could have been Miss Havana five years from now—got up and kissed him on both cheeks. “This is Richard. He lives in New York.”
    Her eyes brightened, and she gave me her prettiest smile. “You know this street?” she asked, and then went over to a dresser, and got out a letter, and handed it to me. It was addressed to someone on 179th Street in the Bronx.
    “Sure,” I said.
    “You can send it for her?” asked José.
    “No problem.”
    “Mira, un momentico,”
said another of the girls, a big, buxom blonde, with blue eyes that looked like they were going to tear. “I have a letter for my father. In New York. Wait here, I will go and get it.”
    “Me too,” said the third.
    “Sure,” I said, “but in return I have a favor too. Let me get some pictures of you.”
    The girls giggled and all but clapped their hands, and José led me back out to the kitchen. Ten minutes later, the three of them came out, ready for prime time: red lips, and loosened