View of the World (17 page)

I
N DECEMBER
1959, shortly after the Castro victory in Cuba, I attended several of the trials of war criminals conducted in the Cabaña fortress of Havana, in the course of which I was subjected to an extraordinary encounter with Herman Marks, the American who had become the Cuban executioner. Marks spent some time justifying his activities and expounding his personal philosophy, in the hope that I might help to rectify his image ‘in the world's eyes'. I suspected that his Cuban employers only saw him as a painful necessity. A year or so later a friend visited Cuba with the intention of writing a book, and I included Marks in a list of persons he might find interesting to see. When he returned I asked him how the meeting had gone. His reply was ‘I was too late. They'd already put him up against the wall.'

‘Well all right, all right, we know all about the stretches I may have done. I was waiting for that one. You may say I was a no good son of a bitch when I was a kid, and I might agree with you. But I suppose you've heard of such a thing as moral regeneration? I guess you'd say that any guy has the right to do what he can to put himself in the clear with society. Maybe that's why I'm doing what I'm doing – in other words a necessary job that nobody else wants to take on.

‘I guess I feel this way I'm doing something to clean the slate, and I figure that's the way the people here see it too. They accept me. I'm regarded as a useful citizen. People like to be seen going round with me. If I happen to feel like taking an evening off and going to some place like the Riviera, for example, I get the best table that's going. Some guy I don't
know is always picking up the tab for my drinks. Even Fidel gives me the big hello when he sees me. I do my job conscientiously, and I'm respected for it. That's the way it is.

‘Listen, the way I figure it is, you have a job to do? OK, do it well. Maybe you know the Cadillac and Limousine Service on Nott Street, Zenith? I was with that bunch as a senior servicing operator for five years, and believe me I was always noted for the pride I took in my work. Anyone there will tell you that. And if you think that anyone could do my present job – boy, you just can't imagine how wrong you are! Believe me, it calls for everything you've got. You're up against the human element all the time. The kids they send me to work with: you'd break your heart if you saw them. As a technician – that's how I see myself – I hate a bungled job.

‘Listen, I'm only supposed to put the finishing touch – that and give the word of command. Not to have to check up on every detail with the
deadbeats
they send along for these parties. What I mean is they're supposed to be volunteers, but most of them turn out to be strictly chicken when it comes to the point. If I didn't watch them like a cat, you'd get half these characters only pretending to fire and then quietly unloading as soon as I turned my head. That kind of thing puts extra work on me. Believe me, I drive myself, I really do. Way back last year when we had our busy spell when I've been on special missions half the night, I've worked some nights from midnight until five or six in the morning. You can't rush this kind of thing. It takes time. And I might add, I don't touch a drop of liquor when I'm carrying out a mission. The most I have is a cup of coffee sent down every hour or so. With milk. Sleep well? Oh, sure I do.

‘Another thing might surprise you, and that's the trouble I've put myself to make the whole thing go as smoothly as is possible in the circumstances. For example, whose idea do you think it was to fix up for these jobs to be done in the old moat under that big statue of Jesus Christ they light up at night? Why mine of course. I can't claim to be a religious man, but at least I understand the way other people feel about these things.

‘When I put up that idea to the revolutionary committee at the Cabaña they said it was a masterpiece. You know the statue don't you? It
stands up right over the wall. It must be sixty feet high. You can see it ten miles away at nights. It struck me as a kind of nice idea that that would be just about the last thing these poor guys would see. Now you see what I mean about giving all I've got on the job?

‘The fact is, I suppose I feel somehow like a doctor does with a patient. I go easy with them. Put it this way, I don't go in for rough talk, or
wisecracking
, and I don't let any of the kids either. I'm ready to spend half an hour with a man kidding him along, just to see it goes smooth – you follow me? He wants to make a speech? OK, he makes a speech. He wants to give the orders himself? That's OK too. Anything within reason goes by me.

‘This business about giving the orders themselves seems to be a sort of craze these days. They nearly all want to do it. I figure it's a kind of last minutes show off. Search me why anybody should want to show off at a time like that when there's only me and a bunch of stupid kids to see it. To tell you the truth, I wish they wouldn't do it. I warn them to space out the orders properly; to count up to six slowly between the take-aim and the fire. But they always make it too fast and what happens is the kids loose off before they get a chance to take proper aim. That way you get a really crummy result and it puts it all on me. Anyway, what I'm trying to get round to is this. I go out of my way to show consideration. These guys are in a highly nervous state.

‘As I said, they can have half an hour to shoot the breeze. More if they want. Well of course, some of them try to drag things out. They're liable to beef on about their innocence. “Sure you're innocent,” I say. “I know you're innocent. All right, fellow, all right. Now how about standing over here where we can get a look at you?” That's the way I kid them along. You have to be ready for anything in the way of propositioning. You get rich guys who want to give you a million dollars to fix it so that they go out of the Cabaña some other way but in that box. Some guys never give up hope. I mean that literally. I've known the time when a fellow's gone on trying to talk his way out right until I put the finishing touch – and that, by the way, throws a light on the quality of the workmanship I have to put up with. You'll get another customer who wants to shake hands.

‘“I forgive you,” he says.

‘“Thank you, thank you,” I tell him. “That sure makes me feel better.” While I'm holding his hand I'm sort of strolling along with him, manoeuvring him into position, in a way like he doesn't realise what's going on. About one in three of them wants to pass you something they like to hang on to until the last moment, maybe it's a rabbit's paw or a locket with a picture of their mother, or something like that. Personally I make a strict rule not to touch anything of value. “Give it to one of the boys,” I say. I don't object to the kids taking a locket or a ring or something like that if it's offered to them, but what I won't stand for is that racket they used to go in for of selling spent shells to those niggers who use them for some sort of voodoo stuff. The regular price used to be five bucks a shell till I stamped on it.

‘I know what you're going to say now. You're going to bring up that story that I have cuff-links made out of them myself, and hand them out to my friends. Sure I do, and why shouldn't I? It's not a racket. I don't take payment for them, and nor do I see anything morbid about it.

‘Listen, if you want to talk about people being morbid, maybe I should tell you about some of the characters who come and ask me about letting them come along to one of the performances, and I don't mean two-bit journalists either. I mean guys whose names you read every time you pick up a newspaper. If I could mention some of those names you'd certainly be surprised. Maybe you'd change your mind about who's morbid, or put it this way – who'd like to have the chance to be morbid.

‘I had a case the other day. Two fellers came up to the Officers' Club and asked for me. I knew one of them quite a bit. He was a big wheel at one of the embassies. I don't want to say which one. He always wants to buy me a drink, whenever he sees me. “Good evening, Captain,” he says, “I want you to meet a very distinguished friend of mine, and a very great creative artist. This is Mr Shiralee Shepherd.”

‘“Not
the
Shiralee Shepherd,” I said. To tell you the truth, although I'd seen this guy on the films he looked somehow different. “I saw your last film,” I said. “It sure was a gas.”

‘“Thank you. Thank you indeed,” Mr Shiralee Shepherd says. “As from one artist to another I take that as a great compliment.”

‘I got a bang out of the artist stuff. “An artist,” I said. “Well, I guess maybe you're right. I wouldn't say I was a creative one, though.”

‘We all had a laugh, and the diplomat fellow says, “Shiralee's been hearing a great deal about you, Captain, and I was wondering if we couldn't get together. I guess you understand that a man engaged in his kind of imaginative work requires a diversity of experience out of which to fashion his material – experiences that others might wish to go out of their way to avoid.”

‘I knew what was coming and I particularly liked that bit about experiences that others might wish to go out of their way to avoid. I could have given him the names of a hundred guys who had their name down on my waiting list. “You mean Mr Shepherd wants to come to a gala evening,” I said.

‘“If it can be arranged,” Shepherd says. “Discreetly, of course.”

‘I looked at the guy, and I can't say I was too crazy about him. He looked kind of fat-lipped off the screen. I didn't go for him in a great way, but his pal from the embassy was a good enough guy, and I wanted to do what I could for him. “It might be arranged,” I said.

‘“When?” says Shepherd, in a very anxious manner.

‘“Ah, that I can't say,” I told him. “Business has been pretty slow lately. It's only just beginning to look up again. It looks like we'll be getting a few candidates again before long, but even then certain formalities have to be observed. As for example the guys are supposed to be tried.”

‘“Yes, of course,” Shepherd says, “but tell me, these trials, and so forth – are they likely to take long? I mean do you think it would be any use if I arranged to stay on another week?”

‘For Christ's sake, what was I to say to the guy? Did he think I could have someone knocked off specially for his benefit? When I told him it might take a month you should have seen the look on his face. I've never seen a man look so disappointed. I found out later he came all the way from New York on the chance of seeing me slip somebody the pill.

‘Now please do me a favour, will you? After that, don't talk to me about a guy being morbid.'

G
ENERAL ENRIQUE LOYNAZ
took me to see General Garcia Velez, the other surviving hero of Cuba’s War of Independence against Spain. General Velez sat in the cool, vaulted marble of his library, in his pyjamas surrounded by piles of magazines, mostly English. He had been ambassador to Great Britain for twelve years. A softly groaning symphony of distant car horns and loudspeakers came through the open window. There was a big military parade on in the city.

‘I’m commonly stated in the press to be 94,’ General Velez said. ‘It’s not true. I’m only 93.’ General Loynaz was in his late eighties. Before leaving his house he had shown me a slightly bent Toledo sword. ‘It’s out of shape from whacking cowards on the backside,’ he said. ‘To keep their faces to the enemy.’

‘The very opposite in fact, of my own methods,’ Garcia Velez said. ‘
He
used to bully his men. I believed in kidding them along. In my opinion he was guilty of faulty psychology. How none of them ever had the guts to shoot him in the back I shall never understand.’

These two old men had sat quietly in the shadows for sixty years, watching with sardonic eyes the comings and goings of the politicians and the big business men who had gathered like vultures over their victories. They had sat through the revolutions and the
coups d’état
, had seen tyrants rise to power and fall, seen poor, honest men become rich and corrupt, seen young idealists transformed into bloody dictators, seen the vulgar image of Miami stamped over the soft, grey, baroque elegance of the Havana of their youth.

‘Above all, my boy, don’t get old,’ Garcia Velez said. ‘It imposes an
excess of reflection. I do practically nothing these days but read and think. See that pile of
Edinburgh Journals
. I’ve every number since 1764, and I’ve read them all. Mostly I read history with the inner reservation that it’s largely romance and lies. At least nearly everything that I can check on from my own personal experience is. Did you ever see the film
A Message to Garcia
, for example? The Garcia in the film was my father.’

‘Calixto Garcia – the liberator of our country,’ General Loynaz explained.

‘I didn’t see it myself,’ General Velez said. ‘As a matter of principle I’ve never been to the cinema. Nor have I even seen the television. I’ve always believed in living my life, not watching how other people are supposed to live theirs. But from what they tell me about this film, and the book it was based on, it was pure rubbish.’

‘The actress was Barbara Stanwyck,’ General Loynaz said. ‘A very pretty girl. I much regret never having met her.’

‘You cannot awaken the interest of Americans without a big fraud,’ General Velez said. ‘It was supposed to be some secret mission to my father, shown as carried through in the face of all kinds of nonsensical adventures. My father was depicted as a sort of romantic bandit hiding in the mountains. How they managed to bring Barbara Stanwyck into it, don’t ask me. The real truth is there was no adventure. The American agent met my father in a hotel in the town of Bayamo. I don’t think the message was particularly important either, whatever it was. My father certainly never bothered to mention it to me.’

‘Our old friend’s a sceptic,’ Loynaz said. ‘He’s lost the power of passionate conviction.’

‘A circumstance in which I rejoice,’ Garcia Velez said. ‘Our war was terrible enough, but when I say that it was conducted with the utmost brutality, I say this of both sides. Thousands of our people died of starvation and disease in the concentration camps the Spanish set up. Their
guerrilleros
didn’t spare our women and children. But let’s at least admit we weren’t much better.’

He knocked the ash from the end of his cigar into a tin which had held herrings.

‘Mind you, it wasn’t particularly comfortable to be a general in those days. If you got into a mix-up in a battle they always went for the uniform. I can’t remember how many times I was wounded. General Maceo collected twenty-seven wounds. We seemed to be indestructible. When they took my father prisoner, he shot himself in the head. The bullet came out of his mouth. He still lived for seventeen years. Tell us about that famous wound of yours, Enrique.’

General Loynaz said: ‘Those were the days when generals died with their boots on. I was in 107 combats. The 107th was at Babinay in ’98 – the last stages of the war, when our American deliverers had belatedly decided to come in. I was in command of an infantry brigade.’

‘He was a real general, I might say,’ Garcia Velez said. ‘He was always at the head of his troops on a white horse. An admirable spectacle, but not for me. Not for my father, either.’

‘On this occasion there was no white horse,’ Loynaz said. ‘I’d been on one earlier in the battle, but it had been shot under me. I can’t remember the colour of the second horse, but it certainly wasn’t white. Anyway, there I was on the horse, as usual, with a cavalry escort, and the Spanish
guerrilleros
were waiting for us behind a stockade. We were undergoing heavy rifle fire and a moderate artillery barrage. I gave the order to charge.’

‘In true Cuban style,’ Garcia Velez said. ‘Light Brigade stuff. Into the Valley of Death. The kind of thing they love. I shudder at the thought of it.’

‘When you run up against cannon fire at point blank range, it’s the only way,’ Loynaz said. ‘Above all things, you want to get it over with. I was the first over the stockade. Unfortunately I was never much good at jumping, and this time I landed on the horse’s neck. A Spanish
guerrillero
brought his machete down on top of my head.’

‘You should have led your charges from the rear,’ Garcia Velez said.

General Loynaz took my hand and placed it on his scalp. I felt a shallow trough in the skull, about six inches long.

‘Three American Presidents have asked to touch that wound,’ Loynaz said; ‘Teddy Roosevelt, Hoover, and I can’t remember the name of the third. I managed to scramble back into the saddle holding in the few
brains I possess with one hand, and I sat there not able to contribute much to the course of the battle, until it was over.

‘They took me to a hut where a honeymoon couple had installed themselves, and I commandeered their bed. The effects of this wound by the way, after the initial pain quietened down, were wholly beneficial. Up till that time I was a martyr to headaches, but I’ve never had one since. It probably made more space for my brains. That was pretty well the end of the war so far as I was concerned. The Americans decided to come in after that. They were just about a year too late. We should have welcomed them in ’97.’

‘Friends are always welcome,’ Garcia Velez said.

‘We had won the war,’ Loynaz said. ‘The whole country was in our hands.’

‘But not the towns,’ Garcia Velez said. ‘The Spanish still held the towns. You speak as a patriot, not a historian.’

‘For six years the foreigners ran our country,’ Loynaz said. ‘They bought up the best land in the island. Do you know how much they paid? Ten cents a
caballeriá
of 33 acres. The price of two bottles of Coca-Cola.’

Garcia Velez shook his head at him. When Loynaz had gone, he said: ‘My old friend has always remained a Cuban, whereas the twelve years I spent in London has wrought a profound change in my character. I see things calmly now; almost I believe, through Anglo-Saxon eyes. Moreover, living abroad, I became wholly a pacifist. Had my twelve years in England come before the war, I don’t believe I’d have fought in it. The things I was forced as a patriot to do, now seem to me to be hateful – against nature.’

It was within weeks of Fidel Castro’s capture of the capital, and from where I sat I could see through the window a squad of feminine militia come marching down the road. Half of them were in uniform, the rest in pretty dresses. A sergeant marching beside them called out the time. With them came a blare of martial music from the speakers of an escorting van.

‘Please close the window,’ General Velez said. ‘The noise oppresses me. What do their banners say?’

I read: ‘Fatherland or Death. We will fight to the last drop of our blood against foreign aggressors.’

‘And they will,’ the general said. ‘And they will if necessary. Alas, haven’t I seen it all before.’