LUNES, 1 SEPTIEMBRE 1997

The Tourist

On a Monday morning at eight thirty in Havana, a tourist steps off an air-conditioned flight from San Salvador and into eighty-five degrees at José Martí International Airport. He wears ripped jeans, a Kurt Cobain T-shirt, and a plaid flannel shirt tied at the waist. Brand-new Timberlands bolster his stature as an international traveler, because this new style among black rappers and grunge musicians has not yet caught on across Latin America. The huge boots seem a few sizes too large for him, but that is the point: show you're ready any minute for a mosh-pit and plod around with steel toes like you own the dance floor. He is a year or two too old for this look, but maybe that is why he has come to Cuba alone.

His act does not work on the girls in El Salvador anymore, so he wants to try it out on the teenagers of Commieland. Perhaps he believes that with a few fulas to throw around, some girl will fall for it.

The traveler approaches customs with only a backpack, and to encourage the possibility that the two unsmiling soldiers might just wave him along, he does not let go of the straps when he places it on the stainless-steel counter before them. "Open the backpack," the tall one says. The zipper is unlocked, and the tourist unzips the top. "All the way." The smaller soldier removes each article of clothing and makes a stack on the counter. He also produces a pair of tennis shoes, toiletries bag, two General Electric travel alarm clocks, and a small calculator. "Why two clocks? Planning on leaving behind a gift?"

"In case the first one fails to wake me. I am a very sound sleeper."

"Lucky you."

From the side pockets the soldier pulls out some felt-tip pens and a fountain pen. The tourist makes a joke: "Don't you want to see if you can find some contraband hidden between my teeth?"

The soldiers do not find this funny. "Put your things in the backpack and come with us."

Together they stomp down a long corridor to a small, windowless room. The tall soldier locks the door behind them and calls the shots; the smaller one pulls on a pair of latex gloves and silently conducts the examination. "Take off your shirt and pull down your pants and underpants." The tourist undoes his belt and lets his pants drop over the tops of his boots, then pulls his underwear down to his knees. "Lift your testicles ... Separate your buttocks." Finding nothing, the soldier peels off the latex gloves and reexamines the tourist's backpack, switching the calculator on to make sure it functions and trying out the pens on yesterday's copy of Granma, while the other one flips through his passport. The tourist does not ask whether it is time to pull up his pants. A few minutes later, the tall soldier says, "Get dressed. You're free to go."

He rides the hotel shuttle from Boyeros to Vedado, and taking in the countryside he feels the power of contempt and invulnerability. He is glad his two-week trip has begun this way. It is typical of Cuba to treat a traveler like this. "Welcome to Havana," the tourist mutters to himself.

The desk agent at check-in is a gorgeous black woman in a tailored skirt suit, and when she asks to see his passport he hands over the one Chávez Abarca obtained for him. He has had black and half-black girlfriends before, but on his last trip to Havana he learned that la negra Cubana is completely different. And the women who work in the tourist industry here are confident, nothing like those in Salvador, with their crude manners and the way they shrink like you're always going to hit them. "Disfrute su estancia, señor —" Boldly she looks him in the eye and calls him by the surname on the passport, and for a second he feels a little off-kilter. Has he let a sleepless night, early travel, the flight, and the trip from the airport get to him? By the banks of lights above the elevators, he takes notice that all six are working and rides the third on the left up to the thirteenth floor.

The window of room 1317 looks onto the block of houses across the way. He closes the curtains, locks the door, and puts the chain on the hook. He also closes the door to the bathroom which is letting in light and noise from the street. He does not want any distractions in his peripheral vision. He carefully removes his boots and unzips his backpack, taking advantage of his insomnia to get organized. First he arranges the clothing in the closet. Then he makes an inventory of materials on the bed.

Inside his toiletries bag he carries toothpaste and toothbrush; razor, shaving cream, and aftershave; a small stack of Band-Aids; a miniature Phillips-head screwdriver, the kind used for repairing eyeglasses; and a little roll of black plastic insulation tape that might have been thrown in there as a last-minute substitute for medical tape.

He takes the screwdriver from his toiletries bag and removes the outer casing of the portable alarm clocks. Each one carries fresh batteries, and the red-and-black connectors have been replaced with extra-long segments of insulated copper wire he soldered himself.

In a side pocket of the backpack, the three felt-tip pens have their ink cartridges removed and they're replaced with detonators. There is one extra, in case one of the others appears to malfunction. They are the length and shape of carpentry nails. The tip of each pen contains enough fresh ink to pass the customs soldier's test. The pocket also holds a fourth pen, a fountain pen full of blue ink.

He unscrews the back of the calculator; this reveals fresh batteries as well as additional wire, and a cavity holds the small firing pins. Finally, from the toes of the Timberlands he pulls the plastic bags containing two banana-shaped masses off gray putty. The morons at customs did not think to make him remove his boots.

When he is done with his inventory, the tourist places the items in the middle of the backpack and locks the zipper on top. He goes to the closet and removes a new shirt from its package. Nobody watching would comprehend the logic behind the strange thing he is about to do. He takes the pristine dress shirt out of its cellophane wrapper, removes the fountain pen from the pocket of the backpack, unpins the shirt, unfolds the sleeves, and lays it out on the bed. He takes the cap off the pen and pushes the tip into the cloth above the breast pocket. He holds it against the fabric for several seconds and watches the blue stain spread unevenly into a map of linked lagoons. The tourist caps the pen and puts it on the bedside table. He holds up the shirt to inspect his work.