sign of Britain—a kiosk flooded with reggae music, run by a polite skinhead with a John Lennon pendant around his neck). And as the shadows lengthenin the otherworldly light, shopkeepers sip their thick-bowled maté pipes, and boys play Ping-Pong in a tiny, one-room Adventist Temple. At night, the place is silent again, except in a couple of cafés where boys sit motionless with upturned faces, captive to Bruce Lee.
And then, of a sudden, one blustery autumn morning, I found myself alone in a colony of two million penguins, stretching out in crowds as far as I could see; thousands upon thousands of the engaging little creatures, shuffling backwards into their burrows, bending their heads together under bushes, scurrying along their “penguin highways.” Down below, some of them were waddling into the clear blue water, preparing to travel north for the winter, while others padded off in pairs, like weary old men on their way to the pub. Around me, their plaintive, keening wails sounded like the cries of distant children in a playground. Yet as I walked among them, the quiet, cordial figures neither recoiled from me nor advanced, but simply stood there, heads tilted quizzically to the side, like professors waiting for another question.
That night, driving back across the flat Patagonian nothingness, flat as a map or a photograph, tango music playing on the radio in the dark, the ruddy-faced Welshmen with their sheepdogs behind me, the full moon turning the sea into a silver plate, and the penguins on their way to Rio for the winter, I thought back to the wealthy entrepreneur whom I had met in the capital, railing against Nixon’s institution of the dollar standard. “Paper money’s a fiction,” he had almost shouted. “A fiction! It does not exist except in the mind. Soon there’ll be some big changes in the world. You’ll see! There’ll be many, many surprises! And the leading powers are going to be the countries with the greatest resources—Australia, South Africa, Argentina!”
A little later, when I turned on the TV one Saturday night, it was to see President Menem on a variety show, smiling in a sea of blondes and crooning a song of his own composition. The next day, the government announced that inflation for the month was 95.5 percent.
Cuba: 1987–1992
AN ELEGIAC CARNIVAL
Gorgeous Cuba knows
tornadoes that never swept
tame northern lands.
MELVILLE
Another cheerful day in Cuba. I wake up in the Hotel Pernik in Holguín and get into an elevator to go to breakfast. The elevator groans down a few feet, then stops. I press a button. The button falls off. I ring a bell. There is silence. I kick the door. The elevator groans up to the floor just left. Outside, I can hear excited cries.
“Mira!” “Dime!” “El jefe!”
A little later, the doors open, just a crack, and I see a bright-yellow head, and then a black face with a beard. “Don’t worry,” the face assures me. “You cannot move.” The doors clang shut again, and I hear a crowd gathering outside, more “Psssts” and cries. Every now and then, the doors open up a few inches and a new face peers in to wave at me and smile. Then I hear a voice of authority, and as a chain gang of men strains to push open the doors, a teenager gets up on a stepladder and, methodically, starts to unscrew the whole contraption.
Twenty-five minutes later, I am released upon the Pernik dining room. My British guidebook, not generally bullish on things Cuban, waxes rhapsodic about the hotel’s fare. “Eat and drink extremely well,” it says. The Pernik, it adds, has “a long and appetising menu featuring steak in many forms, good fish and chicken, and fresh fruit and vegetables—even includingavocado.” Not today, it seems. “What would you like?” a smiling waitress asks. “What do you have?” “Nothing.” “No eggs, no tea, no avocado?” “Nothing. Only beer.” At the next table, a waitress is prizing open a bottle top with a spoon. The
And then, of a sudden, one blustery autumn morning, I found myself alone in a colony of two million penguins, stretching out in crowds as far as I could see; thousands upon thousands of the engaging little creatures, shuffling backwards into their burrows, bending their heads together under bushes, scurrying along their “penguin highways.” Down below, some of them were waddling into the clear blue water, preparing to travel north for the winter, while others padded off in pairs, like weary old men on their way to the pub. Around me, their plaintive, keening wails sounded like the cries of distant children in a playground. Yet as I walked among them, the quiet, cordial figures neither recoiled from me nor advanced, but simply stood there, heads tilted quizzically to the side, like professors waiting for another question.
That night, driving back across the flat Patagonian nothingness, flat as a map or a photograph, tango music playing on the radio in the dark, the ruddy-faced Welshmen with their sheepdogs behind me, the full moon turning the sea into a silver plate, and the penguins on their way to Rio for the winter, I thought back to the wealthy entrepreneur whom I had met in the capital, railing against Nixon’s institution of the dollar standard. “Paper money’s a fiction,” he had almost shouted. “A fiction! It does not exist except in the mind. Soon there’ll be some big changes in the world. You’ll see! There’ll be many, many surprises! And the leading powers are going to be the countries with the greatest resources—Australia, South Africa, Argentina!”
A little later, when I turned on the TV one Saturday night, it was to see President Menem on a variety show, smiling in a sea of blondes and crooning a song of his own composition. The next day, the government announced that inflation for the month was 95.5 percent.
Cuba: 1987–1992
AN ELEGIAC CARNIVAL
Gorgeous Cuba knows
tornadoes that never swept
tame northern lands.
MELVILLE
Another cheerful day in Cuba. I wake up in the Hotel Pernik in Holguín and get into an elevator to go to breakfast. The elevator groans down a few feet, then stops. I press a button. The button falls off. I ring a bell. There is silence. I kick the door. The elevator groans up to the floor just left. Outside, I can hear excited cries.
“Mira!” “Dime!” “El jefe!”
A little later, the doors open, just a crack, and I see a bright-yellow head, and then a black face with a beard. “Don’t worry,” the face assures me. “You cannot move.” The doors clang shut again, and I hear a crowd gathering outside, more “Psssts” and cries. Every now and then, the doors open up a few inches and a new face peers in to wave at me and smile. Then I hear a voice of authority, and as a chain gang of men strains to push open the doors, a teenager gets up on a stepladder and, methodically, starts to unscrew the whole contraption.
Twenty-five minutes later, I am released upon the Pernik dining room. My British guidebook, not generally bullish on things Cuban, waxes rhapsodic about the hotel’s fare. “Eat and drink extremely well,” it says. The Pernik, it adds, has “a long and appetising menu featuring steak in many forms, good fish and chicken, and fresh fruit and vegetables—even includingavocado.” Not today, it seems. “What would you like?” a smiling waitress asks. “What do you have?” “Nothing.” “No eggs, no tea, no avocado?” “Nothing. Only beer.” At the next table, a waitress is prizing open a bottle top with a spoon. The
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