Through the Wall AYear in Havana Margot Eve Pepper FREEDOM VOICES San Francisco Some of these writings have appeared in slightly different form in In homage to George Pepper, Cipactli, the San Francisco Examiner, Granma International, Left Curve, my mother Jeanette Eavesdropping on the Muse and Corazón del Barrio. A longer version and all the casualties of the blacklist of this book was submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for a who sacrificed so much Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, available in their library. to safeguard the ideals that give my life its meaning; This is a work of creative non-fiction. Historical facts and public Y para B.C., love of my life, figures are portrayed accurately, however, many characters and and our son, Rafael. their actions have been fictionalized to ensure the artistic integrity of the work. In such instances, fictional names have been used and any resemblance to persons living or dead is unintentional and coincidental. Edited for Freedom Voices by Ben Clarke, Beth Saunders, Kitty Costello, and Eric Robertson. Cover and book design by Ben Clarke. Cover photograph: Focsa View of Lightning Storm ©1993 Margot Pepper. ©2005 Freedom Voices All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-915117-17-7 Freedom Voices & TallMountain Circle P.O. Box 423115 San Francisco, CA 94142 www.freedomvoices.org [email protected] ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work of creative non-fiction could not have been written without my número uno maestro and editor, Ben Clarke, nor the wisdom of the Cuban people. Muchísimas, pero muchísimas gracias a mis mentores Alejandro Murguía and Molly Giles, for their extraordinary guidance, and to my mother for her encouragement, help and knowledge. This book would have said much less were it not for poet Miguel Angel Flores; Mary Liz Thomson, Mat Callahan, Robin Balliger and Peter Plate from the former Komotion International collective; Silvia y Adriana Florez López, Jesus Aristi y todos los poetas e intelectuales de la Missión, a hearty abrazo. Much gratitude also to my editors Beth Saunders, Eric Robertson and Kitty Costello; to Marcy Rein; Suzie Dodd Thomas y Piri Thomas; poets Abena Songbird and Clifton Ross and the rest of the authors at the Freedom Voices col- lective; Peter Najarian, for first teaching me to really write; Ron Kane and Susan Chasson, for teaching me to really live; Karen Wald for making the whole adventure possible; Jacki Fox Ruby, Barry Fike and the Berkeley Federation of Teachers for safeguarding my “ownlife” that I might write; Luis J. Rodríguez for the faith; Maxine Chernoff and my former colleagues at the SFSU Creative Writing Department and my previous agent, Sandy Dijkstra. No book is written single-handedly by the author, therefore, thanks also to my muses for their songs or support: Ocean, Odysseus, Xochipilli, Cleo and Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner Jr. and Frances Chaney, Ellenore Bogigian and Joe Belser, Mercedes “Chachi” Guillot, Pedro Escalona, Ulises Estrada, Gabriel Molina, Assata Shakur, Andrea Buffa, Medea Benjamin and Global Exchange, Juliana Mojica, Jorge Argueta, Alfonso Texidor, Paula Tejeda, Charlotte Dennett and Gerard Colby, Noam Chomsky, Terry Messman, Street Spirit, The Scoop, Elaine Katzenberger and City Lights, Amy Goodman, KPFA and all revolutionaries everywhere, be they Cubans, Zapatistas, reds, anarchists or simply children. v CONTENTS I DESCENSO CHAPTER 1 WATER Welcome 3 Before 5 Working in a Socialist Country 16 Work Questionnaire 23 Nobody Anywhere Likes Cops 24 Bodega 27 Ocean 33 Fit for Tantalus 38 Cynthia 39 Old Havana is for Lovers 48 CHAPTER 2 DANCING ALONE Black and White 55 What is Special Period? 60 Luisa 65 Names 71 Working in a Socialist Country II 72 Fula 78 Dancing Alone 83 CHAPTER 3 FREEDOM OF SPEECH Communications 91 Nobody Anywhere Likes Cops II 92 Power to the People 97 Media 100 Bush Tries to Get in Bed with Me 102 They Serve See Food at Work 103 In Cuba Soap Operas are Politically Correct 107 Spaghetti Sauce Special Period-Style 111 New Year’s Day 116 The Colonialist 118 When the Streets Don’t Lead to the Sea 121 vii II PURGATORIO CHAPTER 6 DEATH FORETOLD CHAPTER 4 WORLDS COLLIDE Is Fidel a Dictator? 209 Camping Special Period Style 216 Assata Shakur 127 In Cuba, Doctors Still Make House Calls 221 Procession of Light 132 You Won’t Find Cuba in Your Communist Handbook 223 The Taxi Driver Poet 134 Option Zero 226 What Is Special Period? II: The Blockade 137 Snapshots 230 Alegría 138 Did People Eat Better Before the Revolution? 235 Democracy 145 Crazy Foreigners 238 Why Become a Cop? 146 Change 244 Media Blackout on Cuban Election Reform 148 What’s Left for the Left? 248 Working in a Socialist Country III 150 A Party of Assassins, Liberals, Opportunists & Rebels 253 Cocaine 154 The Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism 257 Agua Azul 158 Assata Shakur II 258 Until the Struggle Separates Us 162 Chronicle of a Death Foretold 262 Exploitation 163 Two Worlds Collide 166 III EL PARAISO REEXAMINADO CHAPTER 5 NORMAL PERIOD CHAPTER 7 DEMOCRACY DOESN’T EXIST Monthly Rations 173 Big Brother on Every Block 267 Azucar 174 Chameleons 271 Come the Revolution We’ll All Have Swimming Pools 176 One Party, Many Parties or Not to Party at All? 274 Storm of the Century 179 Inside the Castle 278 Normal Period 182 Self-Exile 282 No, Come the Revolution We Won’t All Have Pools 186 Greek Tragedy 283 The Turkeys 188 El Colmo 286 Are Some Cops Worth Liking? 190 Origin 291 Not Even the Blockade Can Stop Rejection Slips 192 Is Special Period the Product of Dysfunctional Socialism? 194 CHAPTER 8 THROUGH THE WALL Oops 197 You Don’t Need a Uniform to Be a Guerrilla Fighter 201 Fine Line 293 Two Different Cubas 203 Can’t Step in the Same River Twice 295 P.C. Tyrants 205 Paradise 299 Things I Hate Admitting I Miss 303 Letting Go 307 Tropical 309 Adios 312 The Seed 314 viii ix I DESCENSO Through the Wall 1 1. WATER WELCOME ’m convinced I’m sweating more than all the Mexicans and Cubans in the customs line at José Martí International Airport in IHavana. A renegade bead fights its way through the woolly mane of hair I wish I’d pinned up and lands on my eyelash. Maybe it’s a last ditch effort to shut out the unsmiling Cuban official, now stand- ing directly before me. I wonder if he notices my fingers tremble slightly as I hand him my visa. “Passport?” My breath evaporates. “Could you do me a favor and not stamp it?” Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the stamp could mean ten years imprisonment and a quarter of a million dollar fine for breaking the U.S. travel ban to Cuba. The official doesn’t respond as he cracks open the navy cover. Although this request was heeded during my first trip to Cuba two years ago as a tourist, this time stakes are too high to assume com- pliance. As a journalist I could probably slip through one of the U.S. loopholes. But the notion that I’ll be working for the “enemy” this time is a little more disconcerting. You may lose your U.S. nationality by ...accepting employment under the government of a foreign state, reads the fine print in my U.S. passport. I can’t spill mud-thick Cuban coffee on the pages, rip them out Through the Wall 3 or lose the document. I’d be forced to appeal for a replacement di- BEFORE rectly to the U.S. Interests Section—the equivalent of the United States embassy—and they’d bust me on the spot. If worse comes to he three of us are drenched from loading the elevator and worst, I’ve resigned myself to remaining in Cuba. Or fleeing to my hauling luggage down the Focsa’s catacumbal hallways when birthplace, Mexico City, where my parents fled to safeguard their TFernández clicks open the front door to my apartment. At ideals. once we’re deluged with wind and vibrant splashes of sunlight. From I offer up the innocent smile unwitting strangers might expect the far side of the room a pair of parted curtains flap toward us. The to accompany my petite stature. “You won’t stamp it, right?” rest of the room comes into focus: a clean granite floor; generous My question is answered by the irrevocable pounding of a stamp dining area and blue-checked plastic tablecloth; spacious living on paper. I’m handed my documents. I open my passport slowly. room with red vinyl couch and arm chairs, a coffee table, book stand Inside is a paper with the date and place of entry. It’s not attached to and best of all, beyond open glass doors, a large balcony with an my passport. eighteen-story view. “Don’t worry, compañera. We usually don’t stamp passports from My escorts are Fernández, who’s in charge of foreign profession- the Americas. In case people are planning to visit or work in the als at Granma International newspaper—I am to go to him whenever U.S.” I have a problem—and Mimi, the head of the English department My breath returns. I didn’t expect common sense coming from where I’ll be working. Besides the opportunity to hone my translat- a customs official. ing skills, now my articles, largely confined to alternative media I tuck my passport away in my money belt, wondering how I’ll back home, will be translated into four languages and distributed ever grow accustomed to living in Cuba with the fear of losing it.