Jose Latour - Havana Best Friends

Then a very curious phenomenon occurred. The teenagers who as children had learned the meaning of the word envy with Elena and Pablo – observing them ride in their father’s cars; staring at the olive-drab, tarpaulin-covered trucks which delivered heavy cartons in late December; ogling the toys, clothes, and shoes they wore; savouring the huge, exquisite birthday cakes and slurping as many bottles of soda as they wanted to on Pablo and Elena’s birthdays – those same teenagers split into two groups. A minority provided unwavering support and encouragement. The greater number turned their back on the Miranda family after gleefully expressing a complacency which reduced itself to a simple statement: At last those who had been born with a silver spoon in their mouths would learn what building socialism was really all about.

That same year Elena gained admittance to the University of Havana to do a BA in Education. She felt like Alice stepping into Wonderland. Nobody seemed to care whose daughter she was or where she came from. There followed the transition from high-school senior who gave the cold shoulder to juniors, to junior who got the same treatment; there was the professor in his early forties, the first mature man she felt attracted to; there were the huge buildings, the enormous library and stadium, the serious political rallies. At last she was able to shed the school uniform, ride a bus daily, have lunch wherever she felt like and her allowance permitted. She also had to study a lot harder.

The Wacko, however, remained in the same school and was demoted from rightful heir to a generalship to son of a murderer. His response was extremely violent: in the course of two months he had fist fights with two teachers and nine schoolmates, something that could not be overlooked. But before expelling the boy, the principal wrote a letter to the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Thirty-five-year-old Major Domingo Rosas, from Army Counter-Intelligence and a psychologist by profession, was ordered to ‘look after’ the son and daughter of former general Manuel Miranda.

Major Rosas visited Gladys first. He explained that in consideration for the outstanding merits of her erstwhile husband, the ‘Direction of the Revolution’ – an expression generally meaning Number One in person, yet vague enough to shift the blame to Numbers Two, Three or Four should something go wrong – had instructed that a liaison officer for Elena, Pablo, and their father must be appointed. He would take them to visit ex-General Miranda in prison when and if they felt like it; he would also try to win their trust and provide counselling. Gladys should feel free to call him when any problem seriously affecting her son and daughter couldn’t be solved through regular channels.

Next, Major Rosas went to the high school and interviewed its principal and Pablo’s teachers. The information he gleaned convinced Rosas he’d be tackling a real deviant. He explained things to his commanding officer and was relieved of all his other assignments for a month, at the end of which he made a report and a prognosis. It was an excellent report and it had an optimistic prognosis; it omitted one very significant fact, though. In thirty days Major Rosas had fallen madly in love with Elena Miranda.

‘Comrade Elena, could you come over?’ Captain Trujillo asked from the door to Pablo’s closet, sounding intrigued.

Elena approached him. The DTI officer had taken a VHS-format video cassette from a huge carton containing many more. It was cryptically labelled thirty-five.

‘There must be forty or fifty videos in this box,’ Trujillo said. ‘Was your brother a big video fan?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Captain.’

‘Didn’t he show these to you?’

Elena sighed, crossed her arms over her chest, took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Captain, I think I ought to level with you from the start,’ she said gloomily. ‘As Pablo’s sister, with both of us living under the same roof, it’s perfectly natural for you to think I’m the ideal person to give you background information on my brother, what he did in his spare time, who he hung out with, if he was doing okay at his job, the sort of thing from which you can find out what happened to him. Unfortunately, my brother and I didn’t get along. He lived his life; I lived mine. We didn’t have mutual friends. We didn’t share our hopes and aspirations and problems. I cooked for myself, he cooked for himself. As you can see, he kept his room locked. My TV set is the old black-and-white in the living room, I don’t own a VCR. Pablo never showed me those videos. For many years we agreed on one issue only: swapping this apartment for two smaller units, so each of us could live alone. But we never found the right swap; either he didn’t like the apartment he’d move to or I disliked mine. So, I’m probably the least informed person about my brother.’

Trujillo lifted his eyes to the witnesses. Kuan remained impassive, but Zoila gave him a slight nod. The captain reinserted the cassette into its box, returned it to the carton, then produced another one. Its label read thirty-four.

‘Sorry to hear that, Comrade Elena. It slows down the investigation. Let’s see what’s here. Probably a movie.’

Elena shrugged her shoulders and returned to the doorway. Trujillo found the remote control under a shirt on top of the writing table. He inserted the cassette and pressed the play button.

Blue. White clouds on a clear sky, the camera gliding slowly down to the horizon, the sea, then panning gradually to a sandy beach. Two young women holding hands approach the camera, laughing and jumping over tame little waves which break and die under their feet. Both wear straw hats, dark glasses, and minimal two-piece bathing suits. Fade out. Same girls under a shower, naked, playfully splashing water on each other. The game loses momentum, with a lecherous stare the brunette gently caresses the blonde, they embrace and kiss hungrily…

Trujillo stopped the VCR and ejected the cassette. ‘I will take all these tapes with me to the Department,’ he said.

The captain resumed the search. Elena tore off another layer of forgetfulness from her mind. At what age had sex become the driving force in her brother’s life? She didn’t know. It had been early on, though. She recalled the disgusted looks of her high-school girlfriends when a drooling Pablo ogled them. One afternoon she caught him masturbating in the hall as an unsuspecting schoolmate, sitting on the living room’s Chesterfield in faded denim short shorts, legs tucked under her, concentrated on a list of questions for an upcoming exam. How old was he? Thirteen? Perhaps only twelve.

Elena shook her head in denial and clicked her tongue. This made Zoila steal a glance at her that went unnoticed.

Had her brother been bisexual? Judging by appearances alone, among the people who visited him at home there were as many gay men and lesbians as heterosexuals. But she suspected that Pablo, despite his promiscuity, had never been in love. Probably he belonged to those who, following a few days, weeks or months at the most, long for the delicious early stage of all relationships and must chase after someone new to fantasize about.

It seemed as though he was one of the increasing number of individuals capable of comprehending the meaning of infatuation, lust, sex, perhaps even romance, but not love. Men and women who try to conceal, under a veneer of sophistication or cynicism, their inability to involve themselves spiritually beyond a certain point, who believe that the absence of commitment is the greatest expression of individual freedom. Unmarried, generally childless people who profess to love their blood relations and friends, those socially stereotypical human bonds which hardly ever demand forgiveness and understanding and self-sacrifice on a daily basis.