Island that Dared (8 page)

Throughout the 1930s Bacardi expanded fast and their transnationalism bothered some Cubans, including the academic economist Jacinto Torras. He complained in 1944:

During prohibition José Bosch, generally known as ‘Pepin’, had joined the very extended Bacardi family by marrying Enrique Scheug’s daughter. Pepin it was who organised the post-war distribution of Bacardi – from Finland to the Lebanon, from Switzerland to Korea. Meanwhile, back in Santiago, things had turned nasty.

The Rum Museum’s director, Pepin Hernandez, has one very unhappy memory. In the 1950s Pepin Bosch persuaded his Santiago staff workers to invest in a new company, Minera Occidental, at US$10 a share – big money for a Cuban distillery worker. As a new company, about to lessen
unemployment
, Minera had no taxes to pay on imported machinery and materials. When the company was declared bankrupt, not long after, Pepin Bosch
bought up the imported goods for a short song and the investors were left with worthless share certificates. Following Pepin Hernandez’s father’s death, several of those certificates were found and the son resolutely
confronted
Bosch, claiming their value. He was told to come back with a document, signed by his father, nominating him as the rightful heir.

By then the
santiagueros
were no longer grateful for whatever crumbs might fall from the Bacardi table, yet most felt genuinely shocked by the kidnapping of a small boy, Facundo Bacardi Bravo, in February 1954. Immediately Santiago witnessed Bacardi-power in action. When Pepin Bosch contacted the US consul a helicopter arrived from the Guantanamo naval base, soon followed by a plane from Miami carrying an FBI team. Within twelve hours the child had been rescued and the two kidnappers shot dead. Both were youths employed by the Bacardi family as domestic servants. Neither was armed.

Under President Carlos Prio (1948–52), Pepin Bosch (by then the Bacardi company’s president) became minister of finance and Cuba’s budget thrived. Mayer Lansky was now the US Mafia’s
second-in-command
and millions of dollars were being laundered on the island. The historian Enrique Cirules has written: ‘From the 1930s up to 1958 no political event of magnitude or any great business deal took place in Cuba without the presence of Lansky’s hand or attention.’

General Batista’s 1952 coup d’etat left the rum trade undisturbed yet Cuba’s loss of its ‘democratic’ fig-leaf made the Bacardis uneasy; in 1957 they moved their company headquarters from Santiago and re-registered its trademark in the Bahamas. This was not the end of Bacardi in Cuba, however, as will become evident in a later chapter.

Rachel and I share a certain squeamishness (probably ill-advised) about needlessly exposing small children to the worst aspects of human nature. Therefore, in the Emilio Bacardi Moreau museum we steered the Trio past a display of slave-controlling neck-chains, heavy leg-irons, barbed whips and those chopping-boards on which the most unruly were deprived of feet or hands or arms. Such mutilations took place on Calle Carniceria (Carnage Street) in front of large crowds.

The museum’s structure, a very fine neo-classical building, is its best feature. We all preferred the Museo del Carnaval, its three jolly rooms crowded with elaborate costumes, colourful banners, an amazing range of comical papier mâché masks and the musical instruments of several West African kingdoms – most conspicuous the
tumbadoras
, leather and wooden
drums taller than the Trio, each intricately decorated with patterns unique to a particular
cabildo
. (The
cabildos
were societies for the preservation of African music, languages, religious beliefs and medical lore.)

On the eve of our departure for the coast Rachel packed while the rest of us ‘did a Coppelia’ and enjoyed the adjacent fun-fair. Its hand-operated machinery looked more nineteenth than twentieth century but the Trio happily swung up and down, or around and over, on contraptions that would panic the most laid-back EU Health and Safety inspector. However, we were assured that all such equipment is regularly checked, is not as
life-threatening
as it might seem. Cuba’s enforced disregard for appearances goes with an admirable concern for its citizens’ welfare – especially the junior citizens.

On the way back we needed to acquire extra national pesos. The long
Cambio
queue was being supervised by a power-enjoying SECSA guard and only three might enter at once. When my turn came he inexplicably ordered me to give way to the person behind. ‘Why?’ wailed a hot and thirsty Zea. ‘You were here first!’ ‘I don’t think he likes tourists,’ said Clodagh. ‘Or maybe,’ suggested Rose, ‘that person is his friend?’ I tended to agree with Clodagh.

In the Casa de la Trova one of Rachel’s numerous dancing partners had organised an unregistered ‘taxi’ (his friend’s Buick) to take us to the
truck-bus
terminus. Raimundo would pick us up at 4.30 a.m.; a vehicle might leave for Chivirico, some forty-four miles west, at 5.00 or 6.00 or 7.00. We told Irma we didn’t know exactly when we’d return; our plan was to trek along the coast, and a little way into the Sierra Maestra, for ten days or so.

Irma, looking worried, asked, ‘What will you eat?’ In our ignorance we assumed we’d eat whatever the locals ate. We had a lot to learn.

To the kindly Irma, the Trio’s mother and grandmother must have seemed quite callous; despite Rachel’s protestations, she insisted on rising at 4.00 to feed our victims in preparation for their ordeal.

Raimundo arrived punctually, a tall black youth with the physique of a prize-fighter and the smile of a happy angel. Heaving our two rucksacks over the back seat, he explained that the boot couldn’t be opened. (Only two rucksacks: we weren’t callous enough to burden the Trio on their first trek.) Mother and young fitted comfortably into the back and as I sat in front Raimundo warned me not to shut my door; it must be held ajar, no door could be opened from the inside – ‘all handle gone!’ And there was another complication: the engine wouldn’t ever start while the bonnet was down. Raimundo chuckled about this, as one might affectionately mock a dear friend’s idiosyncrasy. Having raised the bonnet he switched on the engine, leaped out to close the bonnet and off we went. The others had collapsed into uncontrollable giggles, a response to all those little hitches which pleased Raimundo, matching his own light-hearted attitude.

Slowly we descended to the sea-front, through bumpy unlit streets, the Buick’s senile springs prolonging those giggles. Now I had two tasks: holding the door ajar while cherishing a bulging bag of bananas irrationally provided by Rachel to sustain us on our way. These had ripened fast overnight, my nose told me, and needed protection from bumps.

In the terminus – a converted warehouse, its three doors lorry-sized – scores of passengers occupied long rows of chairs. They had evidently spent the night in situ and lacked the usual Cuban joie de vivre. Mistakenly we took three front row vacant seats, only vacant because three mulattas were chatting to friends at the end of the row. Vehemently they reclaimed their space and we, muttering apologies, moved to the back row where five chairs were free and people rearranged themselves to allow us to sit together. A black mother was changing an infant’s nappy while a wailing toddler pulled at her slacks. When the blonde Trio’s arrival distracted him Rose tactfully worked on that, earning a grateful smile from his mamma.

We assumed that the vehicle parked outside was bound for Chivirico though no one seemed sure about this. Cuban truck-buses are just that: long trucks, tarpaulin-roofed and open-sided, fitted with four rows of
narrow metal benches. Standing passengers pack the slight spaces between them, hanging on to the roof struts if need be.

Until 5.30 some men continued to doze, most women busied themselves packing up their few possessions, several children had to be taken out to pee, two grey-haired men beside us argued over a shared cigar (who was drawing most from it) and we ate bananas.

When our driver appeared we were left staring as a wave of bodies surged towards the truck, even the fattest women leaping over chairs as though in a hurdle race. This was not a queue situation. Arriving last on the pavement, we saw the vehicle being besieged. Young men and women swarmed up the sides, using the wheels as footholds; old folk were being hoisted through the back, children dragged between the bars – or passed up like parcels. We hesitated; already the truck looked overfull, for us to find space seemed impossible. But when our hesitation was noticed many voices urged us on; in petrol-starved Cuba the faint-hearted get nowhere – literally. Hands reached down to take our rucksacks before we scrambled up the metal steps at the back. A woman sitting beside the steps made room for me by vigorously pushing at the man on her left, then Rachel and the Trio were lost to view. I was lucky, able to see all. They couldn’t see beyond the nearest bodies.

Now the private enterprise food vendors appeared: women laden with kettles of strong, hot, sweet coffee and buckets of water in which to rinse cups, young men selling ham rolls and beef fritters, old men selling roasted peanuts in newspaper cones. When a power failure left the street in darkness business continued to be brisk, by starlight, for half an hour, during which several newcomers somehow inserted themselves into
non-existent
spaces. By dawn-light I noticed a young couple embracing near the steps – he a handsome white policeman, trying to be cheerful, she a beautiful mulatta allowing tears to trickle. Twice she obeyed a female (maternal?) voice summoning her aboard, twice he successfully begged her to descend for another tight lingering embrace. She stayed with him until the departure signal, our ‘conductor’ rattling a thin chain; once it had been hooked across the steps no one was allowed to enter or leave.

Truck-bus fare-collecting takes time. As the conductor couldn’t possibly penetrate the interior he walked around the vehicle, gathering pesos through the open sides, those sitting within reach passing on the coins of the inaccessible. Cheating is out, it would involve an intolerable loss of face. This forty-four mile journey cost me NP3 but when I tried to pay NP9 for the Trio my neighbour explained that children travel free. Elsewhere
in Cuba I was to observe that animals do not travel free; the fare for a goat or a pig is half a national peso.

Beyond Santiago’s down-at-heel dockside factories this narrowish coastal road was in good repair, except where Wilma’s floods had torn the tarmac or recent landslides had strewn rocks from verge to verge. The calm sea shone a translucent emerald until the sun rose amidst a scattering of cloudlets – gold-fringed pink, then briefly crimson. Nearby, the dusky blue Sierra Maestra were gaining height. On wide palm-dotted pastures, rising to meet the mountains, grazed small flocks of sheep. Horses, mules and donkeys were tethered or fenced close to the few one-storey dwellings; pigs and dogs roamed free, as did hens, turkeys, guinea-fowl, ducks.

We met an antique bus and three open farm lorries whose many passengers were perched precariously on high loads of sacks or lumber. Fidel must feel bitter about the post-Soviet transport shambles. In 1985 he spoke to the Brazilian economic journalist, Joelmir Beting, and described his reaction to the workers on a major construction site being crammed into seatless trucks when travelling long distances to visit their families: ‘I asked, “How many buses are needed – thirty? We’re going to try to get them. We’ll use the ones we have in reserve.” I suggested building a campsite near the project so their families could visit them and rest with them … Of course, the agencies responsible for the project needed more resources and direct support; they got it … What interests me is taking care of the men. A worker will feel more interested in the project if he has decent conditions and sees that his work is appreciated and that there is constant concern about his human and material problems.’

On visiting this site, near Cienfuegos, Beting commented, ‘I realised that knowing the Commander is keeping an eye on the work is a great incentive.’ And the men got their thirty buses – until that family campsite was built.

During the 1960s Cuba imported no cars. To Beting Fidel explained, ‘Both the economic and trade blockade to which we were subjected, and our own priorities, channelled resources to other sectors, such as health and education. Whatever automobiles we import mustn’t adversely affect social needs.’

Beting then remarked that ‘Brazil produces two thousand five hundred litres of alcohol from every hectare of sugar-cane – enough to meet a car’s need for a year.’

Swiftly Fidel replied, ‘Just imagine how many hectares of sugar-cane are needed for so many cars! It’s sad to think of all that land being used to
feed cars, not people.’ Twenty-two years later, he again made that point in conversation with Hugo Chavez – several months after thousands of Miami Cubans had danced in the streets because they believed he was about to die.

We passed two undeveloped little beaches, ten and twelve miles from Santiago, where at week-ends the city folk enjoy themselves in their
non-consumerist
way. The truck’s first stop was at Chivirico where we and a dozen others disembarked beside an unwalled mini-park which merged into Playa Virginia. The Trio, having been seriously squashed and overheated for two hours, stared longingly at the sea. But my immediate concern was that bag of bananas; I had failed adequately to protect it so three kilos of pale brown mush needed to be eaten without delay. An adult dispute followed. Rachel peered into the bag and said, regretfully, ‘I think we’ll have to give them to a pig.’ (Two sows were scavenging in the near distance.) I protested that the bag had been clean to begin with, therefore the contents could be scooped out and eaten without hazard. Usually the Trio support their mother but on this occasion they sided with me. As we sat on a stone bench, slurping nourishment from amidst black skins, Rachel pointedly departed the scene, balancing on a wobbly duck-board laid across a lake of sticky post-Wilma mud. We saw her enter a bakery, then emerge empty-handed; in this town foreigners couldn’t buy bread.

Wilma had left its muddy marks everywhere and the park’s mutilated palms and dishevelled shrubs would take some time to recover. Even concrete seats had been damaged as the sea raged towards the road. Playa Virginia, a mile-long public beach, was littered with withering fronds, the remains of a fishing-boat, someone’s hall door and a few washed-up tree trunks (climbing frames for the Trio). This strip of coarse brown sand, between a bank of loose stones and the water’s edge, in no way resembles Cuban beaches as depicted on postcards. To the east, a high, steep, wooded promontory concealed three small all-inconclusive tourist hotels; to the west a short chain of mangrove cays extended from the shore. As we undressed beneath a grotesquely gnarled tree bearing strange fruits, two kind young men left their chess game in the park to warn us against swimming near the cays, an area of powerful undercurrents.

Along this west coast only Chivirico caters for tourists yet despite those hotels we saw no other foreigners in the town, nor any shops selling beach equipment and souvenirs. Here we have serious ‘tourist apartheid’. The hotels run their own shops, control the best local beaches and charge
nonresidents
(ordinary Cubans) a daily CP10 admission fee – a humiliating
exclusion device. On hearing this I winced, remembering the pride with which, in January 1959, the Revolutionary leaders opened Cuba’s beaches, clubs, parks, race courses, golf links and other public spaces to all citizens free of charge – the easiest and one of the most popular reforms, soon to be followed by fifty per cent reductions in rent, electricity and telephone charges.

With Buccanero in mind, I had already investigated the
bungalow-style
tienda
, newly painted white and standing alone on a grassy rise opposite the park: opening hours, 11.00–1.00 and 4.00–6.00. At 11.05 we were on the doorstep, planning to buy emergency rations for our trek. But alas! This
tienda
’s edibles were limited to maize crisps (dyed orange and red), packets of six sweet biscuits from Argentina, chewing-gum from Brazil (does that count as an edible?) and toffees sold singly at half a convertible peso apiece. Glass-topped cabinets displayed imported plastic toys, children’s garments, two boxed sets of tin cutlery and a few enamel dinner plates. Behind the counter a high shelf held five dusty bottles of Scotch and two of London Dry Gin.

‘There’s
nothing
for us to eat!’ lamented Rose. ‘But Nyanya’s OK,’ said Clodagh, indicating a tall fridge amply stocked with Buccanero. I stuffed ten tins into my rucksack and we followed Rachel to the
agromercado
, not far up a side road. Too late, alas, too late! Beside a few palm-roofed
trestle-stalls
a notice nailed to a fence listed prices and hours of business: 8.00-10.00 a.m.

Back on the main road we paused beside a very old woman squatting under a ceiba tree, her posture oddly grasshopper-like, her black skin hanging loose as a garment, her bright eyes lively, a basket between her feet. She was selling another unfamiliar fruit – four inches long,
oval-shaped
, with a kiwi’s skin, sweet red flesh, a huge shiny brown stone and an acrid smell. ‘Like a dirty stable,’ commented Clodagh, declining to sample one. The others promptly spat out their first bites, to the old lady’s amusement. I nevertheless bought ten, not an extravagance at a fifth of a national peso each.

Even in Cuba swimming sharpens the appetite and a hunger mutiny threatened. Rose looked gloomy, Clodagh peevish, Zea rebellious. ‘There must be a restaurant,’ said I. ‘You speak without conviction,’ said Rachel. But there was one, separated from the road by another mud-lake and opening at noon. Rose looked at her watch and proposed twenty minutes of rummy to take minds off grumbling stomachs. I excused myself, by then reduced to a sweat-producing zombie.

Soon after I noticed a girl leaving the bakery with an armful of
saucer-sized
‘ship’s biscuits’ – flat, hard, golden-brown. In Havana I had been able to buy their like and, because the instinct of child-protection overcomes even heat-lassitude, I now hastened hopefully across the duck-boards. An anxious Rose accompanied me; being at a rapid growth stage food was pivotal to her thinking. Happily no
libreta
was required and, exercising restraint on behalf of the locals, I bought fifteen for NP30. ‘Five each!’ exclaimed Rose though I had been mentally calculating ‘Three each’.

In the lean-to restaurant – built against a co-op store missing half its roof – local electricity rationing had stilled the ceiling fan and the dumpy, grumpy waitress wore a sweat-band. Wide spaces separated the eight
four-person
tables, their oil-cloths frayed but clean. (In Fidel’s Cuba cleanliness comes a long way before godliness, and is almost obsessionally emphasised as part of the national health-care programme.) We were the first arrivals, soon followed by two urban-looking men carrying briefcases and three svelte young women clutching thick files: touring government officials, we surmised. The waitress served them first, perhaps by way of reminding us that, strictly speaking, foreigners should be ejected from a subsidised national-peso food outlet. But for the Trio, we might well have been ejected; our proper place was in one of the tourist hotels.