Speaking = Trouble

2001, September (approximate date). Havana, Bim-Bom. Night (approximate time).

There is something he has got wrong in the telling.

He does not know how many times.

When the policeman makes them return from the Malecón to the Bim-Bom, he tries to straighten things out. He said before that he hinted at money and the man did not answer. That was not how it happened. He went up to him, lowered his voice, did that embarrassing thing foreigners do when they still believe every system has a side door for anyone carrying dollars.

—Officer, look, if we could work this out somehow…

The man says nothing.

He raises his hand.

With his index finger and thumb he makes a gesture in front of his mouth, as though closing a zipper.

From one side to the other.

He closes it.

Speaking = trouble.

That is what he understands.

He falls silent.

This is one image he has not forgotten.

For years he will remember those two fingers closing his mouth more clearly than the policeman’s face.

They find Maikel.

He does not know where he was. Perhaps he had not gone very far. They take both of them to what everyone calls the Punto. Later someone tells him that the place, or that same site in another configuration, had been receiving criminals for centuries, since Havana was still another city. He does not know whether the story is entirely true. It does not matter to the memory: he has passed it again many years later, and the hair on the back of his neck still stands up before he can tell himself it is only a building.

They separate them.

They take Maikel down a corridor.

They lead him to a surprisingly elegant office.

That unsettles him.

He expected a police station, metal desks, fluorescent lights. Instead there is furniture, a well-kept table, orderly documents. Then a man comes in who is different from the policemen he has seen in the street. An investigator’s uniform. Neatly worn. Clean shoes. A dignity that seems as much a part of the uniform as the insignia.

He invites him to sit down.

—What do you do for a living?

—I’m a film professor.

He looks at him.

—Where?

—At the EICTV. San Antonio de los Baños.

This improves something.

He does not know what.

The man nods.

—Very good.

He sits down across from him.

—Did you drink tonight?

He could say no.

He does not feel like it.

—Yes.

—How much?

—Beer.

—Several?

—Several.

He writes something.

Or pretends to write.

—Would you like something to drink?

He thinks he means water.

—Water would be good.

—I can also offer you rum.

He looks at him.

—No. I think I’ve had enough to drink.

He barely smiles.

They bring water.

He drinks it and begins imagining a diplomatic crisis. The Mexican embassy. The Cuban one. Columbia. The Film School. His mother learning over the telephone that he is being detained in Havana. His career ended by something stupid he did on his first night out.

Thought runs much faster than events.

—Come —the man says.

They go out.

Maikel is not there.

There are regular policemen who greet the investigator respectfully. He asks him to wait by the wall.

—We’re waiting for the judge.

Now, yes.

Holy shit.

That is exactly what he thinks.

A judge.

At three in the morning.

The situation has crossed a border he had not even known he was near.

They wait.

The building stays awake in that way only hospitals, police stations and airports do: places where night does not mean the day has ended.

At last a woman arrives.

She is in a hurry.

There is something about her that stirs an absurd tenderness in him, because it is clear she was asleep. She has showered, dressed, done her hair and acquired the appearance of a judge in perhaps five minutes, but a portion of the woman who was in bed half an hour ago still remains in her face.

She looks at him.

—Is it him?

The investigator shakes his head.

—No.

She looks at him again.

—Then?

—The young man is in the holding cells.

A pause.

—He is the foreigner.

The word reassures him for half a second.

Then it stops reassuring him.

The judge signs something. She asks the other policemen questions.

—Did you find anything important in the young fellow’s pockets?

The investigator answers:

—Condoms.

The woman looks up.

—Condoms?! My dear!

And he thinks:

That’s it.

Poor Maikel.

Condoms.

Never had so small a word seemed capable of condemning an entire life.

They take him back to the office.

The investigator continues treating him well. That is beginning to be worse than if he shouted at him. He asks again what he does, why he is in Cuba, how long he plans to stay, what he teaches. He asks no direct question about his sexual orientation. Nor about what he did with Maikel.

He paces.

He goes out.

He comes back.

He sits down.

He goes out again.

When he comes in again he seems sincerely tired of him.

He asks a question he cannot reconstruct word for word, but whose meaning he remembers perfectly:

“What kind of person are you, to have got yourself—and all of us—into such trouble?”

He does not know how to answer.

He too seems no longer to know what to ask him.

Then something happens.

An illumination.

Not religious.

Administrative.

—Officer.

He looks at him.

—The young man is of legal age —I state.

The man stops.

—What?

For the first time he is genuinely interested in something he says.

—Of legal age. I’m sure.

—How are you sure?

—I asked for his identification.

The investigator springs to his feet.

—You asked him for identification?

—Yes.

He opens a drawer.

He searches.

He takes out two ID cards.

One pink.

One blue.

He places them in front of him.

The temperature in the room changes.

Now he is no longer friendly.

—Very good.

He looks straight at him.

—Here are two ID cards.

He points to both.

—If you say you asked that young man for his identification, you’re going to tell me right now what color it was.

He does not need to think.

—That one.

He points to the blue one.

The investigator watches him.

He does not know what he is looking for in his face.

He takes the two cards and goes out.

This time he closes the door.

Half an hour.

Perhaps it was twenty minutes.

Perhaps forty.

For him it is still half an hour.

The longest half hour of his life.

He finishes the water.

He thinks of the rum.

Now he really should have accepted the rum.

He walks.

He sits down.

He gets up again.

He thinks of Maikel.

He thinks perhaps he lied to him.

He thinks perhaps the ID card belonged to someone else.

He thinks perhaps he got the color wrong.

He thinks his entire future has just been reduced to a piece of blue laminated card.

Then the door opens.

The investigator comes in.

He is another man.

Not literally.

The tension has vanished from his face.

—My friend.

My friend.

Half an hour ago he did not know what kind of person he was, and now he is his friend.

—Forgive us.

He does not understand.

—It has all been a mistake.

—What happened?

—The young man is not from Havana.

He waits.

—He’s from Camagüey. That’s why he didn’t want to show us his identification.

—And?

The man sighs.

—You have no reason to be here.

He does not know whether to laugh.

—Is he of legal age?

—Yes.

Then he adds, almost wearily:

—We had to strip him completely. The ID card was there.

He does not ask where.

He does not want to know.

They go out.

Maikel is outside.

So is the judge.

And several policemen.

The woman no longer seems worried about Ivan Walsh. All her attention is directed toward him.

—I don’t want to see you hustling on the Malecón again. Understood?

Maikel nods.

He does not argue.

The investigator hands him the identification.

The judge looks at it first.

Blue.

The same one.

—We’re not going to file a report for your being in Havana illegally.

He is still processing the sentence when she makes a sign.

A policeman appears with a camera.

Polaroid.

This is what he finds impossible to forget.

A Polaroid.

He thought they no longer existed.

Maikel turns his face away.

—Stay still.

Flash.

The white paper comes out of the camera.

The judge holds it by one corner.

The image slowly begins to appear.

First nothing.

Then shadows.

Then a face.

Maikel’s face.

—Look.

She shows it to him.

—Here you are.

The photograph continues developing between her fingers.

—I’ve got you in my sights.

He does not know why that sentence frightens him more than everything before it.

There will be no file.

There will be no proceedings.

But there will be an image.

—We’re not going to do anything to you —she goes on—. But stop bothering this professor.

She points to him.

—This man is a gentleman.

A gentleman.

An hour ago he could have ended his career in a Cuban prison.

Now he is a gentleman.

Maikel lowers his head.

He tries not to look at him because it makes him laugh, and this is no time to laugh.

—And now? —he asks.

The judge looks at him.

—Now nothing.

She opens one hand.

—You’re both free.

Before they leave she raises the Polaroid again.

—Don’t let me see you around here again. Here’s your photo.

They leave.