Caribbean (127 page)

Clara added: “Before we could do anything, the killer sped through the red light and was gone.”

“Did you identify the car for the police?”

“We were afraid to. He might come back and kill us, too.”

“Was he Hispanic?”

“He must have been.” Before Steve could point out what a shameful assumption that was, Hazlitt said: “We sold the house this morning … closing out my partnerships as soon as possible.”

“But where will you go?” Calderon asked plaintively, and they said: “Somewhere fresh and clean north of Palm Beach, where we’ll build a wall around our home and hope to keep it protected during our lifetime, while the rest of south Florida becomes wholly Hispanic.”

When Steve reported this development to his Patrias, several expressed regret at losing such estimable citizens, but some of the realists countered: “A classic case of Hispanic Panic. Let ’em go.” Another said: “I’m sick and tired of hearing complaints against our use of Spanish. A man can spend a month along Calle Ocho and never need
a word of English,” to which Steve replied: “Tell your Cubans they’d better learn, or they’ll be left behind as Miami grows.”

There was, however, a problem of greater threat to the nation, as a political scientist, invited down from the university at Gainesville, explained to the Patrias one evening:

As the man spoke, Calderon was thinking of the recent scandals on Wall Street in which Anglos of supposed probity had stolen the investors of the nation blind, and he felt that the young man was overstating his case, but in the heated question period the speaker modified his views somewhat:

Calderon’s plane had now reached a point in Florida north of Palm Beach, and in the final moments of approach he thought exclusively of what lay ahead—a possible meeting with Fidel Castro. He knew that as long as his generation lived in south Florida, hatred for that evil man would never subside. Bay of Pigs veterans like Máximo Quiroz would keep the bitterness alive. But he also knew there was a greater reality—the rest of the United States was willing to let Castro run his course, to keep him isolated, and when he did go, to get on with the job of reconciliation with Cuba.

Then a sardonic thought brought a smile to his face: If Castro vanished tomorrow, I wonder if even Máximo and his henchmen would go back. They know how good they have it here in Miami and they’re not about to give it up. Not more than two in a hundred would go back. Maybe two is a mite few. There is such a thing as homesickness. Then, as the plane swung into its landing pattern: Make it five in a hundred. But of the kids born here and educated in American schools and colleges, make it one in a hundred … at most.

But when he reached home the problem at hand assumed an entirely different coloration, for his wife met him at the door with news that several callers who would not give their names had wanted to speak with him, and even as she said the words the phone jangled, and when he answered, a voice he did not recognize said in a low growl: “Don’t you dare go to Cuba.” Obviously, someone in his Washington meeting that afternoon had warned someone in Miami that contacts were about to be made with Castro and that injurious concessions might result.

“Who was on the phone?” Kate asked, and he lied: “Someone seeking my help on a zoning variance.” Then she shifted the conversation: “At your meeting in Washington? Cuba?” He nodded, and she reminded him of the promise he had made yesterday. But he made
light of the matter, though in the end he had to confide: “Maybe a trip to visit your sister in Havana,” and she kissed him: “Now that I could tolerate … if we keep politics out of it,” and he agreed.

Then the phone rang again, and a much different voice, still unrecognizable, said darkly: “We’re warning you, Calderon. Don’t go to Cuba.”

This time when he replaced the receiver his hands were shaking, and he shifted his body to prevent his wife from seeing. He was frightened, and he had a right to be, for ten years ago, in 1978, one of the finest doctors in his clinic, Fermin Sanchez, had organized a group of seventy-five exiles, who then flew to Havana to see Castro and discuss the possibility of normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States. Word of their meeting exploded through the refugee community, and shortly after the committee’s return to Miami, two members were murdered, another had both legs blown off, six had their businesses dynamited, and all were threatened by savage but anonymous phone calls: “Traitor, you too will die.”

Once Steve took a call intended for Dr. Sanchez: “Oh, Dr. Calderon! Tell Dr. Sanchez I’d like to keep seeing him, but I’m afraid they’ll bomb your office while I’m there.”

“Who told you that?”

“They telephoned.”

In time the wrath diminished, but Steve knew that even he was held in suspicion because he employed Sanchez. Considerable pressure had been applied to make him fire the doctor, but he had refused and eventually the raging fires had subsided.

If ever two cities were destined to be interlocked, each complementing the other, they were Miami, perched at the tip of a great continent, striving to retain its Anglo-Saxon character, and Havana, located on the edge of a glorious island and determined to protect its Spanish heritage. Only two hundred and thirty-five miles apart, a distance which could be covered in less than forty minutes by a moderately fast plane, they should have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship of mutual reward, with the residents of Miami flying south not only for recreation but also for instruction in Caribbean life and Spanish ways, and the Cubans flying north for shopping, medical help and advanced education. But the Castro revolution dislocated arrangements and made intercourse between the two natural neighbors impossible, to the grave detriment of each.

In the summer of 1988, when normal travel between the two cities
was forbidden, there were three ways by which an American could get to Cuba: he could fly to Mexico, quietly arrange a visa there, and hop a speedy flight to Havana; or he could fly to Montreal for the same kind of transaction; or in difficult and somewhat secret circumstances, he could report quietly to the Miami airport at midnight, with a U.S. Treasury Department clearance, for a charter flight that left each night of the week to transfer those passengers and goods which each nation recognized had to be exchanged. Scant public notice was taken of these flights, for each nation knew they were necessary.

For the flight of Dr. Calderon and his wife to Havana, the State Department had decided that secrecy could best be preserved by using the Canadian route. Fortunately, in late August a large medical meeting involving Canadian and American doctors was scheduled in Toronto, and it was arranged that a formal invitation would be issued to Calderon, and news of this was circulated among other Miamiarea doctors who had also been invited. The Calderons would appear at the convention early, meet the maximum numbers of Floridians, attend sessions during the first two days, then quietly disappear, ostensibly for a motor trip through Nova Scotia.

But before the Calderons could put this plan into operation, Steve was visited at his banking headquarters by a man he really did not care to see but who was not entirely unexpected. He was a Cuban in his late forties, of medium size and very rugged, with dark black hair combed forward over his forehead and a pinched countenance fixed into a permanent scowl. He was Máximo Quiroz.

He was a principal adversary to the conciliatory Dos Patrias group that Calderon had organized to provide sober guidance to Miami’s Cuban community, for Quiroz wanted to go the confrontational route in all affairs pertaining to Hispanics. He dreamed not only of invading Cuba but also of ousting all the Anglos from Miami: “I’ll be glad when the last of them head north and leave the running of this city to those of us who know what’s needed.” Men like Calderon were fed up with Quiroz, seeing him as an irresponsible agitator indifferent to the turbulent consequences his acts might have.

Dr. Calderon tried to be understanding and patient: “Well, Máximo, old friend, what’s new these days?”

“All bad. Russia moving in tons of weapons to the island, not even unpacking them, then straight off to Nicaragua.” He complained that mixed signals from the American Congress meant that the contras, whom he supported passionately, were left bewildered.

“What did you find when you went to Honduras last month?” Calderon asked, and his question was not mere courteous conversation, for he too was an ardent supporter of the contras.

“Noble determination to regain their country. Confusion as to where the supplies were going to come from.” He added that if Calderon was really interested, he, Máximo, could arrange meetings with the contra leadership, all of whom were living in Miami, but although Steve supported the contras emotionally and with cash contributions, he did not care to become too deeply involved.

“What brings you here this morning?” he asked, and Quiroz began a long review of the relationships between the Calderons and the Quiroz branch of the family: “Don’t forget,” he said in Spanish, for he had refused to become proficient in English, having expected all along that he would be returning to Cuba, “that your great-grandfather’s name was Calderón y Quiroz and his mother was my great-grandfather’s sister. We’re related, you must remember, and it isn’t proper for you to oppose the things I’m trying to do.”

“What are you trying to do?” Steve interrupted, drawing an even deeper scowl.

“Regain Cuba, and if that’s impossible because the Russians won’t allow it, even when Castro’s gone, to make a safe place for us here in Miami.”

“Do you have to insult the Anglos to accomplish that?”

“Yes!” he said defiantly. “I can never forget how they insulted us when we came here in 1959. Their days are numbered.”

Distressed by such talk, Calderon rose and began pacing about his office, then turned to face Quiroz: “Máximo, you’re free to fight for a Cuba freed from Russian domination, but you mustn’t ruin south Florida for those of us who’re going to remain here for the rest of our lives.” He stopped suddenly, stared at his cousin, and asked: “By the way, have you ever applied for American citizenship?”

“My home is down there.”

“Then for heaven’s sake, spend your efforts there. Don’t wreck Miami for the rest of us.”

“What am I doing to wreck …?”

“Reopening that bilingual problem.”

“Ah! Your wealthy Anglo friends better accept the fact, Miami is going to be a Spanish city. Not only Cubans coming in. All the extra people in Central America—
todas la gente en América Central
—
they’ll be coming here to live, and they must be free to conduct their lives in Spanish.”

“But, Máximo,” Steve asked almost pleadingly, “don’t you realize that such a campaign, all over again, will make the Anglos …”

“I want to make them eat dirt the way you and I had to when we came to their city.”

“I never ate dirt,” Steve insisted, but Quiroz raged: “Yes you did. Year after year, working as a janitor, but you refused to admit it!” and Steve saw that it was hopeless to use either truth or logic with this difficult man: “I don’t know why I bother with you, Máximo,” he said, and his visitor leered at him provocatively: “Yes you do. You listen to me because you know I’m a true Cuban patriot … a hero … a man who will lead us back to Cuba.” Quiroz could afford to be arrogant because he knew that he was a reproach to those Americanized Cubans who were uneasy about adopting a new homeland and turning their backs on the old.

Some months ago the Patrias, aware that friction was increasing between Quiroz and Calderon, sent one of their most stable members to reason with Steve, and the man said: