a pen from his briefcase, Charlie began to fill in the form. He checked the dates on his entry visa and saw that it expired before the end of his posting. He would have to remember to fix that, he thought, as he filled in the date and set the form down on the tray. He stared at it for a moment, as he wondered what the consequences of an expired visa were in Cuba. But as he looked back at the passport, he drew strength from its title. Jail was for regular people; he was a diplomat, now. Though it was true that most of his job was administrative in nature, not at all what most people would associate with actual diplomacy or the cucumber sandwich set, there was no denying the fact that he would be carrying out his duties as an accredited diplomat. No Cuban customs agent was going to throw Charlie Hillier, the diplomat, into some stinking, rat-infested Caribbean Gulag, at least not without some pause.
Charlie had been briefed on his Vienna Convention rights, and the dos and don’ts of a posting in Cuba, so he had nothing to worry about, certainly not the fact that he was headed to a job he knew little about, in a place he had never been, and where he knew no one. In fact, considering the events of the past few months, those were all pros. And anyway, Foreign Affairs had sent hundreds of its people to Cuba over the years and, of those, how many had run into a problem? Well, Charlie recalled, there was that one guy who had been thrown off a cliff, but that was years ago, and anyway, he had asked for it by sleeping with some political honcho’s wife. Besides, he was pretty sure the guy had survived, and the government disability benefits were first-rate.
Tucking the immigration form and passport back into his pocket, Charlie reclined his seat and closed his eyes, intent on focusing on the new life waiting for him below the clouds, rather than the one he was leaving behind. Lulled by the steady hum of the engines as the plane continued its progress south, he was soon dozing.
Chapter 2
Charlie stood at the baggage carousel, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and sweating. He stared at the black rubber flaps at the end of the conveyor belt, beyond the same three bags that had been completing their forlorn circuit for the past fifteen minutes, and willed his luggage to appear. Checking his watch, he was alarmed to see that he had been standing there for almost an hour, and it was only the sight of a dozen other passengers seemingly in the same boat — some of whom Charlie recognized from his flight — that kept him from panicking. Besides, he told himself, what were the chances of actually getting any satisfaction at the lost baggage counter in this place, if there was one? The arrivals terminal stank of stale sweat and cigarette smoke and felt like a steam bath. He drummed his fingers on the handle of his empty cart and watched the same three bags disappear through the flaps again, wondering why they hadn’t been claimed. He was imagining their owners being beaten in a nearby interrogation cell, their screams muffled by soundproof walls, when he spotted one of his suitcases. His elation turned to surprise, then horror, as his second bag came into view, its zipper half undone and the contents spewing out of the sides.
He heaved the intact suitcase onto his cart and then went about hurriedly stuffing his clothes back into the second case as he chased it along the conveyor belt. Setting it down on the cart, he caught sight of a pair of his underwear making its way lazily along the conveyor belt and he muttered excuses as he cut in front of a young couple to retrieve the errant boxers. Putting his suitcase back together and loading it on top of the other one, he noticed it felt distinctly lighter than when he had checked it in Ottawa. He soon understood why, as he opened the top of the bag and looked inside. The majority of his clothes seemed to be there, but the two plastic bags he had stuffed with Aspirin, deodorant, toothpaste, and other toiletries were gone. He had heard of the shortage of these goods for the average Cuban, and had resolved to do his part by bringing in what he could. Now, they were in the hands of some unscrupulous baggage handler on the other side of those flaps, along with the twelve-pack of new briefs he had picked up for himself at Costco the day before.
As he waited for his third and final bag, Charlie silently fumed over the injustice and considered whether his diplomatic privileges extended to his toiletries, or his underwear. The lawyer in him started framing the argument: These undergarments are subject to the privileges and immunities of the Vienna Convention, and their seizure represents a clear violation of Article …
But he had never been any good at litigation, and it didn’t take long for his resolve to weaken. Theft was theft, though, and he was still pondering the idea of a formal complaint when his last bag appeared intact and he loaded it onto his cart. He looked around for someone official and saw two policemen, or maybe they were soldiers, standing near the exit. One of them was smoking a cigarette directly under what looked like a NO SMOKING sign, and as he tossed the butt to the floor and crushed it with the heel of his boot, he looked straight at Charlie. It wasn’t a particularly friendly look, and suddenly Ottawa seemed far away, indeed.
Opting to raise the matter later, preferably from the safety of his new office at the Canadian embassy, Charlie set off for the exit under the now disinterested gaze of the two cops. He manoeuvred his laden cart out of the inferno into the slightly cooler air of the main terminal. He scanned the sparse crowd and was relieved to see a bored-looking man holding a sign bearing a Canadian flag. As he approached, he made out the name under the flag: CHARLES HALLER.
Close enough.
“Hi, I’m Charlie,” he said, extending his hand as the man holding the sign perked up.
“Carlos. Welcome to Cuba.” He shook Charlie’s hand and took control of the cart. “You have a good flight?”
“Yes, thanks.” He didn’t feel now was the time to raise the baggage-looting incident, so he followed Carlos out through the main doors instead, ignoring the shouted offers of cigars, taxis, and more cigars. Outside, a warm breeze seemed to welcome him to his new home and put him in a much more positive frame of mind. This was more like it.
“We here,” Carlos said as he stopped the cart behind a well-travelled GMC van.
“This one?” Charlie was eyeing the dented bumper as Carlos began loading the bags into the back.
“I take you to the embassy?” Carlos asked, as they climbed into the front and the engine roared to life.
“The hotel, actually,” Charlie replied, rummaging through his briefcase for the name. He was to stay in a hotel while they finalized the arrangements for his government-supplied house. He would drop by the embassy later, but first he needed to take a shower and do a quick inventory of his things to make sure nothing vital was missing. “The Meliá Habana,” he said, as he retrieved the email with his reservation information.
“So, you been to Habana before?” Carlos asked, as he pulled away from the curb.
“No, this is my first time. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“I go to Ottawa five years ago. Is cold!”
Charlie laughed. “You were there in winter?”
“Si, Febrero.”
“Oh yeah, it can get pretty cold in February in Ottawa. I can’t say I’ll miss it this year,” he added, looking out the window as they turned onto what looked like the main road into Havana. Apart from the odd palm tree, the landscape to either side of the highway was sparse, the grass a dirty brown.
He continued to take in his surroundings as Carlos chatted on, changing lanes to escape the cloud of black smoke pouring from the back of a farm truck. As they passed it, Charlie noticed its wooden box was filled with workers, and he exchanged a brief look with an elderly farmhand, his sun-weathered face wrinkling into a smile as Carlos sped by. Charlie was no mechanic, but the truck had to be forty years old and its wooden sides seemed to be held in place by a web of rope and wire. It looked like it belonged in a museum, not on the road with a dozen people bouncing around in the back. Suddenly, the embassy vehicle made sense to him, as he imagined how he might be perceived passing this relic in a gleaming Volvo or Bimmer. He couldn’t help wondering whether this apparent disparity was what anyone had envisioned back in the days of la Revolución. Then again, Charlie thought, as the rickety old truck and its black, noxious trail disappeared into the side-view mirror, the old man in the back was the