Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

"Why do those knights of the revolution still wear their beards from the guerrilla period?"

"Because they've sworn not to shave off their beards or take off their uniforms until the revolution has come to the whole of Latin America."

She got up and took a large photograph out of a drawer of the sideboard, which she handed to him.

"This is my husband."

Onno's face contorted with disgust. It was the same man, but now his naked body was lying on a bier, filthy and covered in blood, with black bullet holes in his chest, tangled, sticky hair and a beard, and one eye half open.

"Christ!" he said and looked at her in dismay. "Where did this happen?"

"In Bolivia."

He didn't know what to say. He got up, put the photograph back in the drawer, slid the drawer shut, and sat down again. It was all clear now. As the widow of a dead hero she had been given privileges by his friends — a nice house, a car, gasoline coupons, and whiskey from early morning onward. Perhaps she had children, too. He wanted to ask if she had children, but he did not. He looked at her in silence. She met his gaze and then twice gently patted the place next to her.

Max was trying the get rid of his headache at the bar with black coffee and mineral water. He had had a strange dream about Cuba: white, completely covered in snow, it had been situated in a frozen polar sea— that was all he could remember. It was almost ten o'clock. Just when he was about to call Onno's room to ask where he'd gotten to, the telephone rang.

The barman picked up the phone, looked at him and asked: "Compañero Delius?"

It was Ada. Onno had gone to church and wasn't coming with them.

"Your weird fiance prefers incense to sunshine," said Max. "What shall we do?"

"It's up to you. How do you feel after last night?"

"I've got a headache, and either it will get worse in the sun or it will disappear in the sea. Let's go. I was all geared up for it, and I can always sit in the shade. I'll be with you in ten minutes."

He grabbed his bag of swimming gear and went to the lobby, where Guerra was sitting reading the Granma, the party newspaper. He was wearing a white embroidered shirt, which was also a jacket.

"Tovarich Quits has a religious appointment," said Max. "He's sorry but he's gone to pray for the revolution. As far as I'm concerned, you can stay in Havana too. We'll find the way."

But Salvador Guerra would not hear of it. It was Sunday, it would be crowded in Varadero, and without him they wouldn't find the right place; and anyway, they would need a meal too.

"Apart from that, I'm responsible for your safety. We'll have to go through an area where terrorist commandos from Florida regularly land. May I introduce you. . compañera Marilyn."

He gestured toward a young blond woman approaching them, in a green uniform, heavy high-heeled shoes, holding a small but formidable submachine gun across her breasts, and with a refined, razor-sharp smile on her face. She was Ada's age and was distinguished from her film-star namesake by an intelligent, alert look in her green eyes, which, however, were slightly clouded.

Max's headache immediately lightened. He shook her hand and knew that he must not say "Monroe," because everyone did that, of course. But he could not resist making an indirect allusion:

"You look amazing. It seems there's even a doctrine named after you."

She understood at once. The North American Monroe Doctrine, which prohibited external intervention in the Western Hemisphere, had again played a role five years earlier, during the Cuban missile crisis. She spoke fluent American English, and when he complimented her on it, she said that she was American, from New York, where she had studied art history, but that they need not go into that any further. She preferred not to lose her nationality; if her parents found out where she was and what she was up to, they wouldn't dare show their faces in the street anymore. So her surname was best left undisclosed.

"Where do your parents think you are, then?"

"Wandering around Europe visiting museums. Studying perspective in Italy, in Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca."

"Which is important too, of course."

"But in a different way."

Glancing approvingly at her rear, he followed her outside, where Jesús was waiting for them in the car. With the Kalashnikov on her lap, Marilyn sat next to the driver and they drove to the Hotel Nacional along the quiet Rampa. Ada was already waiting on the terrace. With the warmth that only women can immediately show each other, she and Marilyn said hello through the driver's window. Guerra got out politely and allowed her to sit between Max and himself in the backseat. Soon they were driving into the country along the rocky coast.

"What do you make of him," said Max to Ada, "the ex-Calvinist going to a Catholic mass in a Communist country. You just couldn't make up something like that."

"It's only possible in Cuba."

"Look. Even the earth here is red."

On their right, sugarcane stood above head height in the red clay, an ideal hiding place for the scum that landed here. Because it was Sunday, he had expected that it would be busy on the road, but of course because of gasoline rationing people took the train; there was almost no traffic. Sugarcane leaves that had blown down were strewn across the pavement, and there was a strange silence over the land and the sea.

Ada saw it too. "There's some doubt whether we'll be able to leave tomorrow. Bruno has heard that there's a hurricane off Haiti, which may come toward Cuba. Fancy."

"That makes it the sixth this year."

"How do you know?"

"Because f is the sixth letter of the alphabet. It's not just people who learn the alphabet in these parts; disasters know it too. I must talk to Onno about that, but for the moment he's listening to the 'Kyrie eleison.' "

For the first time he smelled her scent again and felt her warmth with his thigh, but it only gave him a sense of familiarity. He was sitting behind Jesús, so he could see part of Marilyn's face. Below her ears, along the curve of her jaw, downy hairs glowed like a tiny blanket of light. Paolo Uccello. Piero della Francesca. Kalashnikov. How was he going to tell them about this in Holland when he got back? People there would be just as unable to understand what was happening here as what was going on in the GDR or in Poland.

The unreliable condition of the car meant that the journey would take almost two hours. In the cooling breeze blowing through the windows Guerra told them about his role in the revolution, in which he'd taken part not in the mountains but in Havana. The urban resistance against the corrupt Batista regime, mainly by students and intellectuals, which had cost many lives, had always been in the shadow of the guerrilleros, but that was partly because many people said afterward that they had been in the urban resistance when they had not. It was almost impossible to check.

"No one has ever dared claim," he said, bending forward and looking at Max, "that they fought in the Sierra Maestra when they did not, but in complicated situations there are always people who take advantage and pretend to be what they're not." He nodded and leaned back again.

Max stiffened. Did Guerra know the truth about the Dutch delegation? Was he letting him know that? Or was he imagining it? Of course they knew! They'd known for a long time! If they didn't know something like that, their state could not exist at all! But they left things as they were, because it was a mistake on their part. They had known for a long while that they were not dealing with two promising resistance fighters but with an innocent astronomer and a clueless cryptographer who dabbled in bourgeois politics. "Leave it," someone had said, between putting a cigar in his mouth and lighting it, "they're children"; and the matter was settled by disciplining the black girl at the airport. He glanced at Ada, but she did not give the impression of having registered a hidden message. He would have liked to confess to Guerra now, admit that they were attending the conference under false pretences and of course would repay all the expenses, but suppose he was wrong: what would he be letting himself in for?