Caribbean (125 page)

As recently as July of this year, when handicapped children from Cuba were invited by good-hearted people to participate in the International Special Olympics held at Notre Dame, Quiroz organized a group of super-patriots to descend upon the airport to taunt the adorable lot of wide-eyed youngsters, creating an ugly fuss which alienated many. Sometimes his activities generated a popular response, as when, in late August, on the opening day of the big Pan-American games in Indianapolis, he had a low-flying crop-dusting plane fly overhead trailing behind it a long banner reading: “Cubans! Choose Freedom!” while on the ground his volunteers distributed thousands of handbills which explained in Spanish how any member
of the huge Cuban delegation could defect and claim political asylum in the United States. Again the FBI kept close watch.

More disturbing to the Calderons was the case of the Cuban artist living in exile in Miami who was invited to show examples of his work at an exhibition in Havana displaying art from all the Hispanic countries of the Western Hemisphere. This fellow had the bad luck to win second prize, and at the distribution of medals and checks that went with them, he had been photographed with Castro, who had thrown one arm about his shoulder. After this picture appeared in Miami papers, someone set the artist’s studio ablaze, and when the firemen reached the embers they found tacked on a nearby wall the warning: “Don’t fraternize with tyrants!” Although it could not be proved, it was widely suspected that the arsonist had been Quiroz.

He was definitely not involved with the bombing of a tobacco shop selling Cuban cigars, for when that incident occurred he was agitating in Chicago, but even so, knowing Cubans along Calle Ocho whispered: “Quiroz must have done it by mail.” As a member of the Hispanic community observed: “To Quiroz and his kind, if you’re not in favor of dropping a nuclear bomb on Havana, you’re a communist.”

The Calderons, fully aware of these tensions, had during their stay in America followed one simple rule: “We’re totally opposed to that fiend Castro and wish him monstrous bad luck, but we’re willing to let him fester on his island.” They never said a good word about Castro or the Democratic party, and thus kept their credentials clean, but they also never descended to the pathological hatred that spurred Quiroz to his outrageous acts, and although they were distantly related to him, they kept away from him. “Máximo has made himself judge and jury where Cuban orthodoxy is concerned,” Kate had warned her husband during one outbreak of anti-Castro demonstrations, “so beware of him. Let him ride his horse, but let us go our own more sensible way.”

On the evening before her husband’s departure for Washington, she repeated her warning: “Steve, have nothing to do with anything Cuban. Leave Castro alone. Stick to your work here at home,” and he agreed: “I’m as wary of Máximo as you are,” and on that promise they went to sleep.

Early next day, a very hot morning in September, Kate drove Steve to the always-crowded Miami airport, where he caught an Eastern flight to Washington, and after a hurried lunch reported to
the White House, where guards inspected him and his briefcase with special care. The President did not take part in the meeting, but he did spend several minutes greeting the participants, and to Calderon he said: “Yes! Now I remember. You chaired that big dinner in Miami, and I hope we can count on your cooperation again.” With that he vanished, calling back over his shoulder: “See you when you’re through.”

The discussion involved only six people, two from State, two from the National Security Council, plus a junior member of the President’s staff on political matters and Steve. His intuition had been correct, the subject was Cuba. Said the senior man from State: “We’ve heard persistent rumors from our friends in Latin America that Castro is keen to receive some gesture from us—economic loans, promise to relax policies. You name it, we don’t know.”

“But have
we
received such hints from him?” Steve asked, and one of the NSC men said: “Vague rumors. Nothing substantive.”

The man from State resumed: “Putting it all together, we’ve concluded it might be proper to send him a quiet signal—nothing flashy, nothing to get in the evening news, just a sign to let him know we’re in the same ballpark. He’s a great baseball fan, you know,” he chuckled at the aptness of his phrase.

“What did you have in mind?” Steve asked, and one of the NSC men took over: “Like Tom said, nothing spectacular,” and he opened a folder containing a sheaf of papers. “Says here that you’re a cousin of Roberto Calderón Amadór, one of Castro’s advisers, and curiously, that you’re also his brother-in-law.”

“Right on both counts. His grandfather and mine were brothers, and we married twin sisters.”

“Let me verify this,” and he checked his papers: “Your wife, Caterina, is the twin sister of his wife, Plácida. Were you by chance married on the same day?”

“Two years apart. I was attracted to Kate because Plácida was so attractive. Great wife, each of them.”

“So if you were just to mosey down to Cuba … to meet your cousin … so your wives could renew childhood associations …”

“It would look quite normal, wouldn’t it?” the State Department man broke in.

“Yes, except that as you probably know, Roberto and I haven’t seen each other since Kate and I left Cuba in ’59. Why would I have this sudden outburst of interest?”

“That’s where your wives come in. Sentiment. Old ties of a pair of twins. What could be more natural?” The men spent some time congratulating themselves on having found a perfect cover, but when one of the NSC people used it in conversation later, the head man from State cautioned: “Do not use that word. This is a cover for nothing. In fact, Dr. Calderon will be doing nothing, nothing at all.”

“He’s right!” the second State man added. “The word
cover
would be totally misleading,” and the NSC man asked rather testily: “What, then?” The man from State elaborated: “Don’t even use
excuse
for visiting. Perhaps it’s best if you just say
reason
for visiting.”

“And your reason for going,” chimed in the second NSC man, “is to quietly, almost accidentally, let your influential cousin know that when you worked for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 campaign, blah-blah-blah, that if the time was ever going to be ripe for a softening of attitudes toward Cuba, blah-blah-blah, well, it could be right now.”

Again the man from the State broke in: “And if, as would seem highly probable, you could get your cousin to introduce you to Castro … Well, it would be advantageous for us if you would be able to meet the man.”

“What would I say to him?” Steve asked, whereupon the blah-blah man from the NSC jumped in with a warning: “Nothing definitive, because you know nothing definitive. Keep the conversation casual and say that from conversations you’ve had with Reagan’s men in Washington, you gleaned the distinct impression that if there ever was a time, blah-blah-blah. Just that, nothing more, and add that would be undoubtedly true: ‘Of course, nothing may come of the mood, and I may be overstressing it, blah-blah-blah.’ But let it be known that you personally think there might be a good deal in it.”

“Could there be?” Steve asked, and now the young man from the President’s office, obviously opposed to this meeting and the proposals coming from it, felt compelled to come in, and he did so with cold force: “Understand, Dr. Calderon, there is no change of policy or attitude in the White House. We still see Fidel Castro as a communist menace and we deplore his involvement in Nicaragua. If you should meet him, you’re obligated to make that clear.”

“They’re largely my views, too,” Steve said, but the man from State said quietly: “Of course, we wouldn’t be meeting with you if things at headquarters hadn’t changed somewhat, isn’t that right, Terrence?” and the President’s man said: “Naturally. But I didn’t want Dr. Calderon to go to Cuba with any Sunday-school impressions.
Castro is still the enemy.” The man from State had the last word: “If your signal gets through, don’t be surprised if a couple of months from now your cousin Roberto comes to Miami so that his wife can visit yours and so that he can slip you a countersignal.”

Steve, aware that these men were playing hardball and that collegial agreement had not been reached among them, felt he had to speak: “You’re aware, of course, that for a Miami Cuban to have anything to do with either Castro or Cuba is dangerous? Tempers run high in Miami.”

Three of the men considered this an overstatement and said so, but the two NSC men had had ample confirmation of Steve’s point, and one conceded: “Dangerous, yes, but not fatal. Besides, there would be no reason for anyone in Miami to know that you were going.”

Steve’s legitimate fears were not dissipated by this easy assurance, since the man giving it did not know Miami, but when, at the close of the meeting, the President reappeared to ask: “Well, is it all set?” Steve felt impelled to say: “On track,” and the last ten minutes were devoted to hard-nose decisions about the logistics of his trip and a reminder that his commission was extremely limited: “You’re to make contact with your cousin. Nothing more. But if
he
can work it for you to see Castro, grab the opportunity … but don’t seem too eager.”

On the flight home Steve reflected on his curious relationship with the United States, of which he was now a citizen, and particularly on his ambivalent position in Miami, capital of the Cuban immigration into the country. Within the first few weeks of Castro’s takeover of the island, he had foreseen with considerable accuracy what must happen in Cuba, that the drift toward communism would be inescapable and irreversible. And he had also realized that in such a country, there would be no place for him; his tendencies were too strongly imbedded in freedom and democracy.

He and Kate had been among the first to leave Cuba, far ahead of the mass emigrations of 1961, and they had never regretted their early decision, for as Kate had said at the time: “Everyone in Cuba knows that your branch of the Calderons was always in favor of joining Cuba to the United States—since the 1880s to be accurate—so maybe we better go there, now, while we can still get out!”

From the moment they landed at Key West, both Calderons had
been satisfied with their choice, and even in the dark days when Steve could not become qualified as an American doctor, they had remained steadfast in their loyalty; they had been the first married couple in the initial group of immigrants to win American citizenship and had never once, not even in moments of understandable nostalgia, considered returning to Cuba. They never wasted time or imagination dreaming of the day when Castro died and all the Cubans in Miami would be free to flood back to the island; for them, Cuba was a historical fact, an island on which their ancestors had prospered for nearly five hundred years and on which they themselves had known great happiness, but it was part of the past now. It was a memory, not a magnet.

Two little prepositions, Steve mused. Maybe they summarize everything. Down there I always said: “I live
on
the island of Cuba.” But up here I say: “I live
in
the United States.” I’ve traded a colorful little island for a great continent, and when you make a switch of that dimension, your mind expands to meet the challenges of a bigger arena.

But he had never sought to deny his Cuban ancestry as some émigrés did, and in 1972 he had helped in the movement to make Miami’s Dade County officially bilingual. But in 1980 outraged Anglo citizens, feeling themselves pushed against the wall by the flood of Cubans, launched a counterattack and made English the official language of the county, and “to hell with that Spanish jazz,” as one proponent shouted.

Steve, unable to accept what he viewed as a grievous step backward, led a new fight to establish Miami as a bilingual city, and on the night his resolution passed by a large majority, making Miami conduct its business in both English and Spanish, he appointed a committee to suggest Spanish names for streets in the Little Havana area. The valiant way in which he fought to promote Hispanic interests made him a hero to the Cubans, even though he did lose a later fight to restore Dade County bilingualism.

He had endeared himself to the Anglos by stating in a press conference on the night English was voted back to preeminence: “The public has spoken. Let’s accept the decision in the spirit of good fellowship and learn English as fast as possible.” But then he added, with a wink into the television cameras: “Of course, anyone in this city who does speak Spanish will be at a tremendous advantage, because we all know that Miami is destined to become a Hispanic city.”

He also displayed his knack for civic leadership when the blacks of Miami voiced their dismay at seeing the types of jobs they had traditionally held—janitors, night watchmen, warehousemen, helpers in stores—monopolized by better-educated Cuban immigrants, leaving the city’s blacks unemployed and unemployable. When black leaders met with government officials to plead for fairer treatment, Calderon listened as one older man complained: “We blacks have been here in Florida for more than four hundred years, and in that time we reached certain agreements with the whites. Now, if we want to keep the jobs we’ve always had, we have to learn Spanish, and at our age we can’t do that. Your people have stolen our city from us.” Alert to the dangers this impasse presented, Steve had immediately hired two black aides at his clinic, despite the fact that Hispanics could do the job better; even if the black aides proved superior, they would be almost fifty-percent worthless, since they would not be able to speak with the clinic patients, a majority of whom were Hispanic. He also spoke in public about the necessity of protecting black employment, and he persuaded a group of well-to-do Cuban professionals and businessmen to finance a night school at which blacks could learn Spanish, but this charitable idea was scrapped when black leaders protested: “See, it proves what we said. Miami is becoming a Spanish city, with no place for the black worker unless he learns their language.” And then came the perpetual complaint: “And we’ve been here more than four hundred years.”