The Discovery of Heaven (24 page)

"It's just like socialism here," said Onno.

Ada had also seen the writer who had been on the panel that evening in Amsterdam, and the chess grandmaster, who was there for the Capablanca tournament.

"Everyone's here, the whole world. All the left-wing intellectuals."

"You can drop that 'left-wing,' " said Onno, "because the alternative is a contradiction in terms."

On the large terrace at the back of the hotel Onno ordered his first authentic Cuba libre; Ada and Max had milk shakes. When Ada heard what had happened to them, she started laughing.

"Everything's possible here. It's like the fairy tale where an ugly frog is transformed into a handsome prince."

"When we come to power in Holland shortly," said Max, "we shall decree exactly the same kind of semitropical climate as they have here."

"Exactly," said Onno. "Now you're talking. Politics may be aesthetically conditioned, but it's definitely meterologically conditioned too."

"It's fantastic you're here. I've missed the pair of you."

"Not Max, I hope?" queried Onno.

"In a different way."

The night stayed warm. The terrace bordered a great, parklike garden, which led down to the sea. The crowds thinned a little, and Onno announced that he had something important to discuss with Ada, but it was strictly confidential and could only be discussed in private. He would see Max the following day at the opening session.

"Oh yes," said Max. "The New Man as an animal."

Once they had gone off to her room, he strolled into the darkened garden. The motionless sky was framed in the vaulting beneath the gigantic, twisted trees, while other trees, on the contrary, seemed ethereal, with their filigree foliage as delicate as Brussels lace—it was so exotic, and at the same time so familiar to him because of his view of the Botanical Garden from his office in Leiden. The whole island was one huge botanical garden, but without nameplates. At the end, at a lower balustrade, he looked out over the sea. He was met by a cooling gust; the lights of fishing boats here and there on the water; the pandemonium of the city was virtually drowned out by the soft rush of the surf.

Here he was. This was where life had brought him, to this paradisal spot. He thought of his life's history, his parents, his journey to Poland—and then of the words of the Cuban ambassador: "What happens ten thousand miles away has never happened." Had Auschwitz never happened here? The irrepressible starry sky. He was exactly on the Topic of Cancer, the pole star was low in the sky; but the trees behind him obscured his view of the Southern sky, which he had never seen.

Suddenly he heard low voices. He glanced to the side and twenty yards farther on in the dark saw a small group of soldiers around a rapid-firing cannon, with its barrel pointing at the horizon. When he raised his hand, they returned his greeting. He sighed deeply, and an intense feeling of happiness flowed through him.

17
Hot Days

The official opening ceremony of the conference the following morning was conducted by the president of the republic—not to be confused with Fidel Castro, who was to address the final plenary meeting—followed by a reception in the Palace of the Revolution. In the coffee break Max and Onno strolled out of the hotel to gain some impression of the city in daylight.

Their eyes, adjusted to the artificial lighting in the conference room, were blinded by the chaos of sun in the street: it was as though it penetrated their skin and created a twilight even deep inside their bodies. There were vultures flying high in the sky: the black birds soared above the scorching city like printer's braces in lazy circles and loops, without once moving their wings. Behind the barriers on the other side there were again groups of curious people, focusing their eyes on them and trying to remember what heroes from what country they were—of course the papers had been full of this conference for weeks, with biographies of the delegates. Although ice cream was for vicars, Max wanted to buy an ice at Coppelia; but if he had joined the line, he would probably have missed his lunch. While they talked about the president's speech, in which he had made clear the results that the Cuban people, the revolutionary government, and the Communist party expected from the meeting, they walked into the shade of the park.

A little later, behind a tree, they saw a scene the illegality of which rose like stench from a suppurating wound. An elderly Cuban gentleman, with a white panama on his head and even wearing a tie, was exchanging money with a young man who was obviously foreign, whom they could see from behind. When the gentleman noticed them, he immediately stuffed the bank notes into his pocket. Max and Onno were about to walk on, as though they had not noticed anything, when the young man turned his head to the side to see what was wrong.

Onno stopped and could not believe his eyes. Was this possible? Was providence really giving him this gift? His heart raced.

"Bork!"

The student leader was struck by his name like a stone in the head. He jerked around and stared at Onno in astonishment. Obviously, he was too surprised to walk away, and Onno strode over to him, followed at a distance by Max. He'd got him, he'd got him in his power, the hour of vengeance had come! What joy! Hands on hips, he stood straight in front of him.

"Call off your deal this instant, you creep! This instant, do you hear me?" He told the trembling Cuban in Spanish that he needn't be worried but that the deal was off, and then, turning back to Bork, said, "You contemptible swine! Playing the left-wing leader in Holland and changing money on the black market in Cuba. What's to become of you?"

Bart Bork was as astonished as he was, but when he saw the conference badge on Onno's lapel he was completely dumbstruck. The gentleman, who also looked at their badges in alarm, was given back his pesos, and when he groped for the dollars in his pocket, Onno told him he could keep them and should now beat it as fast as he could. Hereupon he raised his hat politely and disappeared. Reveling in his power, Onno turned back to Bork:

"Of course you know whose signature is on those banknotes, don't you, you wretched shit? Have a good look when you get the chance: Che. He's in the Bolivian jungle right now, with a rifle, but here you are doing dirty capitalist deals behind a tree. What would you think if that became known in Holland? We won't even talk about Cuba, because if we did, things could look bloody nasty for you. I won't say anything about it, but I'm wondering what you're doing here—and shall I tell you right away what I think? I think you came here on a charter on your own initiative and tried to force your way into the conference, but couldn't. You don't belong here. All your international pals are in the Habana Libre, but you're not, you're somewhere in a shabby youth hostel at your own expense—and that's just right for a beachcomber in Cuba."

The score had been settled. Onno looked at his watch and said to Max, "The committee sessions start in ten minutes."

They left Bork standing there without saying goodbye.

"Well," said Max, once they were out of earshot. "I've never seen you like that."

"I will look back on this day for the rest of my life with deep satisfaction."

"Aren't you afraid that he could get us into trouble with the conference organizers?"

"Him? Do you think it'll occur to him that we don't belong in that conference? He's just understood why he wasn't invited. Because we were invited. We've risen immeasurably in his estimation. He thought he was dealing with a couple of gullible scholars whom he could teach a lesson or two, but now he's realized that we're unspeakably important in the left-wing movement. He believes in world revolution, and if he puts the slightest obstacle in our path, he thinks that one day we'll settle accounts with him as he would have done with us. The first chance he gets he'll try and make up to us. Come to that, he may be in the Dutch Communist party, and that's why he's not welcome. Take it from me, they know that kind of thing here. What a day! How sweet revenge tastes! Imagine if I hadn't let you persuade me yesterday ..."

"What a high-minded character you are," said Max as they showed their papers at the entrance. "Your moral indignation really strikes me as terribly sincere. Especially for someone who himself is staying free in a first-class hotel under false pretenses and is eating at the people's expense in a Third World country."

"Shut up, you swine! I shall pay it all back twice over in one way or another. In any case, money changers will be driven out of the temple."

At lunchtime the Dutch delegation was presented to
compañero
Salvador Guerra Guerra: a skinny man of about fifty, with thin gray hair, hollow cheeks, and wrists no thicker than broomsticks. He was entirely at their disposal, as interpreter, guide, and walking encyclopedia; he was also expected to have meals with them. The latter turned out to be especially important for Guerra. During lunch, which consisted of three courses and which was attended by all delegates, he told them that he had recently had a severe stomach operation: only in the Habana Libre could he hope to gain a little weight. Apart from that, he wasn't going to intrude; if they needed him, they could ask for him at the conference office. Not once did he inquire about their political status in Holland—that wonderful country, as he put it, with its wonderful revolutionary history, which four hundred years ago had been the first to rebel against Spanish domination. In Cuba that had happened only a hundred years ago.

"Yes," said Onno to Max, "there's no answer to that. They've got a higher opinion of Holland here than they have in Holland itself."

"Nevertheless," Guerra went on, "Cuba did surpass Holland to some extent ten years ago."

In the evening, after dinner, which consisted of four courses with French wine, they went with Ada to the chamber-music festival, where that evening groups from a number of Eastern-bloc countries were performing. Guerra had said that there was a car with a driver available for their use at all times; but because they still had to get used to the idea that they could live like millionaires here, they had taken a taxi to the old town.

In the concert hall they now also met Bruno, who already knew everyone and behaved as though he had been living in Havana for years. After the concert Onno took Ada to his room in the Habana Libre. As in the Hotel Nacional, there was a fat middle-aged lady at a table next to the lift, who looked at him reproachfully as though she were his mother, but he took no notice; when he gave her a wink, she began beaming with complicity.

Max had stayed on a bit longer. His knowledge of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge in B major, Opus 133, performed by a Bulgarian quartet, had made a great impression on a Cuban girl studying medicine—a tall girl with long, slim fingers, which she placed high up on his thigh when he told her that the piece had originated from the conclusion of Opus 130.

In order to analyze this further, they went to a bar, where it was as dark as in the farthest recesses of the universe. The only light was given off by glowing cigars and cigarettes; the waiter, who took them to their seats through the heat, the guitar music, and the invisible petting and giggling, politely pointed his flashlight straight at the ground. On the sofa against a tall wooden partition they drank their Son, the Cuban counterpart of Coca-Cola, and, accompanied by the incessant moaning and creaking in the neighboring booths, they went further into the
Grande Fugue, tantôt libre, tantôt recherchée.
In order to unveil the fugue's ultimate secrets, they then adjourned to a
posada
a few streets away. At the counter they were each given a towel and a bar of soap, with which they had to wait in the corridor for ten minutes: on one bench sat the men, from white to black, opposite them the women. When they had finished and Max was finally strolling back to his hotel through the nocturnal city, where everywhere people were still sitting in the street in front of their houses, with all their doors and windows open, it dawned on him fully for the first time that he was no longer in Europe. At the entrance he was again checked, and in the lobby he said hello to Angel, the waiter who served them and who had to be summoned with a "Pst!" He was now in a blue militia uniform, and polishing his revolver.

However, after only two days Max began to wonder what he was doing here. He became increasingly fed up with sitting for hours in an artificially lit room in this marvelous weather, listening to the translation of endless papers, behind him the incessant hubbub of the interpreters in their cubicles, while he wanted to walk through the city outside. Was it going to go on like this for five days? In the mornings, in his bathrobe, he took the elevator down to the large open-air swimming pool on the first floor, where the tape, which had not been changed since the 1950s, was already playing: "Sentimental Journey," "Don't Fence Me In." He played truant, lying in the sun till lunchtime, and during the afternoon sessions he passed the time by reading Novalis's
Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
which he had put into his suitcase at the last moment—but he hadn't come to Cuba for that! The ideological and tactical wrangling didn't interest him, either. Apart from that the really interesting things, of course, did not come up in the committee meetings; they were discussed in hotel rooms, behind locked doors—or in the Central Committee building.

However, he was particularly shocked by the Palestinian delegation, which wanted to wipe the state of Israel off the map and was applauded by everyone because of it. That was new to him. Israel! The child and pendant of Auschwitz! Of course Israel wasn't a branch of heaven, either, but did that mean that it had to be changed into a second branch of hell? Could it be that the far left and the far right were of one mind when it came to fighting the Jews? He remembered from the war how the Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem had visited Hitler with a white blob on his head to discuss the extermination of the Jews in Palestine: General Rommel was already on his way with his Afrikakorps. Was "anti-Zionism" the latest euphemism for anti-Semitism, as "final solution" was for extermination? Had hell extended its tentacles as far as Cuba? If Israel was his mother, then surely it could not be that this fantastic island belonged to the world of his father.