After Fidel Ch. 04

Chapter 4 – Wind of Change

I looked around frantically. There was debris, small bits of plaster and glass mostly, that had come in through the open door. The light coming from the corridor was a lot brighter now. On the table next to the door was Felicita's St. Christopher medal that she had taken off the night before. Across the room, the television, shielded in its location from the blast, was still on. A worried Leah Coulter was shown speaking into a telephone handset now.

"Chris?" I could hear from the telephone in my hand.

"I'm still here, Leah. Give me a minute." I think I sounded somewhere between panic and crying. I looked to the right and saw Felicita lying on the ground. Her head was moving. My heart thudded as I knelt next to her. I wanted to grab her and pick her up but I forced myself to only touch her gently. "Felicita?" I said.

"Ohhh," was her reply. At least she was alive.

I felt ripped open. I cursed myself for not forcing her to take shelter in the basement. She had no business in a war zone. Then I realized she had more cause to be here than me. This was her country. Still, she wouldn't have been here if it weren't for me. Felicita turned over and looked up at me. She looked scared but unhurt.

"What, what happened?" she asked. Hearing her voice, even though it was a little unsteady, lessened my fear.

"Take it easy. You might be hurt. Don't try to move."

Instead of heeding my warning, she slowly turned over on her knees, then sat up. She looked dazed but there was no blood visible. Seeing her possibly unhurt, I remembered the others. I had heard Brian after the blast but not Stacy.

"Stacy?" I called.

"She's over here," Brian said. His voice was coming from between the wall and the bed. His head popped up. "She's all right, but pretty freaked out."

"I think we all are," I answered.

Felicita was standing up now. She looked all right, just dusty like the rest of us. I looked back at the door, trying to figure out what had happened. Felicita gripped my hand and stood. I gripped her hand fiercely, not wanting to let her go again. Pulling her along, I walked towards the door. Stopping at the table, I scooped up the medal with my other hand that still held the telephone receiver. I pushed the medal into Felicita's face.

"Here. Put this on – and don't take it off again!"

I was rougher than I intended but she understood. She smiled as she took the medal and put it around her neck.

I held the telephone up to my ear.

"Leah, we're all right. It seems there was an explosion in the front of the hotel, on the side away from the waterfront."

Hearing no one was injured made her sound relieved. "Can you tell what caused the explosion? Did the tanks fire on the hotel?"

"No, the tanks are on the other side of the hotel. I'm going to put the phone down and go take a look."

"All right. Be careful."

I put down the phone and looked in Brian's direction. He was holding the hand of an almost hysterical Stacy. I really preferred he would come with me rather than Felicita. "Felicita, would you..." She nodded and went to Stacy's side, sitting on the floor. I motioned to Brian. He let go of Stacy's hand and she turned wide-eyed to Felicita. Stacy was still whimpering softly.

Brian and I stepped into the hall. The door to the room across the hall was open. The wrong way. It had blown through its frame and was in the hall. Inside the room, we could see the windows had been blown in, taking the curtains with them. That is why we could see light. I made a point to step carefully, testing the floor for weakness as I moved to what remained of the window. The glass fragments made a crunching sound as we stepped on them. The floor still felt solid.

The wall was intact. The damage was done by the glass that had blown in. Looking out the jagged hole in the middle of what had been a glass window, I could see a still smoking crater in the ground in front of the hotel.

Brian looked at me. "You've been in this situation before. I haven't. What do you think caused it?"

"It looks like an artillery shell. I just have no idea who fired it."

It was then the thought struck me that this was supposed to be Gustavo's room. If he had come over earlier with us, he might have been in his room when the shell struck.

There was another whoosh and a second explosion. This one was on the waterfront side, and sounded more like a splash. Screams came from my room. As I turned to run back across the hall, Brian grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away but he pulled back hard. He was pointing out the broken window.

"What the hell do you make of that?"

I looked down to the street. Down there was the strangest thing I think I had ever seen. Hundreds of people, civilians, were screaming and running towards the hotel. They were armed. Some had rifles, some brandished only clubs fashioned from lumber. They were running down the streets, running to the waterfront. I shook my head, then ran back across the hall. I wanted to check on the women and see what was going to happen when those people met the tanks.

Felicita and Stacy were fine. By the look of things, the second shell had hit the water. Stacy was sobbing now but no longer screaming. She was scared but no one was hurt. I picked up the phone. I could see Leah on the television. In a small window, there was a reporter. He must have been using a satellite phone. A pixellated slow-moving picture accompanied his voice. I said, "Hello?" into the phone.

Ed's voice answered. "Chris! Are you all right?"

"We're fine. I think someone's firing artillery shells at those tanks. One fell short and hit the lawn in front of the hotel. The other one overshot and landed in the harbor."

"We'll cut back to you in a moment. You have a better vantage point in the hotel. We have a news crew down the street from you, next to the former U. S. Embassy. They're doing a report right now. I want to send a runner from the van to bring you a satellite phone in case your phone service gets cut. Where are you in the hotel?"

I told him my room number and he told me someone would be there in a few minutes. I asked Brian to turn up the volume on the TV so I could hear the report.

"Turn the volume back down when we go back to you, all right?" Ed asked.

"I will. I'm just trying to find out what's going on out there."

Ed chuckled. "Everybody is expecting you to know. Right now, you are the source of news coming out of Cuba. We were just filling in with the reporter until you came back to the phone."

"That reminds me! Tell your crew to be careful. There are hundreds of armed civilians heading towards the tanks. I think it's going to get nasty on the street."

"Shit!" Ed exclaimed. He told someone to tell that to the crew. "I'm going to go back to you now. We need them to get inside their van. Turn down your TV. Standby."

I told Brian to turn down the volume, which he did. The reporter was still talking on the television when I heard Leah's voice on the phone say, "Back to you, Chris. What do you see from the hotel?" That delay took some getting used to.

I started by repeating what I had told Ed about the artillery shells. I speculated that the military had split into two factions, but was careful to explain that I didn't know for sure. I then told about the civilians converging on the tanks. By now, we could see them coming around the hotel and heading for the column of tanks.

"This is awful! It's going to be a massacre!" I warned. I continued to report what I witnessed from the window.

The armed locals ran into the road ahead of the tanks. I expected to see them run over or gunned down. Instead, an amazing thing transpired. The column of tanks came to a halt. The men stood there in the road, brandishing rifles, clubs and even pitchforks. They were holding the tanks at bay. Neither side moved. I praised the bravery of the men on the street. I wondered what was going through the minds of the tankers in the first vehicle. It was eerily reminiscent of the Tiananmen Square massacre almost exactly sixteen years before. Then, a hatch opened on the first tank. I gasped. I expected it was to man the machine gun. I was very wrong. Two people poured out the hatch. The driver also left through his hatch, abandoning the tank and running to the south, away from the waterfront. Other soldiers started, a few at a time, then more, then many, all doing the same thing. They were running away. I spoke without fully realizing that my words were being broadcast. The scene was surreal. We were all mesmerized by what was transpiring. I speculated that the soldiers refused to fire on so many of their countrymen. Either that or they realized they would have to face the angry mob on foot when they finally did run out of fuel and ammunition. Whatever it was, something changed the course of Cuban history right in front of our eyes.

As other news crews managed to get on the air, reports came in from all over the city that similar events were taking place. The people had decided they would not allow another Castro to rule their land with an iron fist. They chose the moment of uncertainty to strike back. The military, under Raul, became fractured. Bit by bit, desertions spread. What at first promised to be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre instead came to resemble more of the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia. The mob allowed the disarmed soldiers to flee unharmed. I stayed on the phone with Leah Coulter, my reports combined with those of their reporters. My description of the showdown between the tanks and the mob was illustrated by video from the truck near the embassy.

By the end of the day, what in days to come the media would tout as the Battle of Havana or even The Tobacco War came to an end. With hardly any shots being fired, farmers and workers defeated the military. In a way, it was fitting. The Communist Party always portrayed itself as the Workers' Party. In the end, it was the workers who prevailed over the Communist Party.

The runner from CNN delivered the satellite phone but we never needed it. Those two shells were the only ones fired in our direction. Fortunately, the aim was way off and the only damage was superficial. The runner carried a digital camera and took a few pictures of the four of us in our hotel room. Those were transmitted to CNN and appeared on the broadcast, replacing my coat and tie publicity photo. We didn't look very neat, but it was a more realistic depiction of what was going on.

When the hotel staff, who had been huddled in the basement, got word of our broadcast, they brought food up to us throughout the day. They also promised to move us to an undamaged section of the hotel. We were well taken care of from that point on.

It was late in the day when I finally signed off. Leah had also managed to stay on all day, far beyond her normal three-hour shift on the air. When I was not live, I learned a lot about how the broadcast worked by talking to Ed and his crew. I also got word that the airport had been closed when the military started to move in. Gustavo's flight never left Mexico.

My last conversation on the air was speaking with Leah about what was next in store for Cuba.

"Now that we can see a bright future for Cuba, some prophetic words come to mind," I told her.

"I'd like to hear them," Leah replied.

I recited the quote I had once told Felicita. "If there must be happiness, if there

must be love, if there must be smiles, it can only be with freedom and dignity."

"That's beautiful," Leah commented.

"It seems like we can expect freedom and dignity now, so happiness, love and smiles can flourish."

"Whom are you quoting?" she asked.

"Those words were spoken by Fidel Castro," I said

Leah laughed. "I'm sorry. I never expected him to say something like that."

"It is unexpected. He always saw a better life for his country. Now that things are changing, that vision may come to pass, just in a different way than he ever imagined."

"We're going to wrap up our special coverage of the Crisis in Cuba for now and return to our regular programming. Any parting words, Chris?"

"Viva Cuba Libre."

"Yes, long live Free Cuba. Thank you for joining us today and being the voice of the Battle of Havana for our viewers. This is Leah Coulter for CNN Headline News. We will resume our regular programming after this break."

After that, Ed came back on the phone and thanked me. He told me to hold on to the satellite phone for a few days in case CNN needed to contact me again. He also said "someone else" might be calling, but didn't elaborate. We chatted for a few minutes more about what was happening before we hung up.

I took a deep breath after the handset was finally back on the cradle. Felicita, who had been at my side most of the day, was holding onto my right arm. She rubbed it lovingly. I put my left hand in my pocket, as I often do when I'm thinking, and felt some coins. The weight of the coins was different from what I was used to. I pulled them out. They were Cuban. I held one up, examining the crest. "Palm trees," I muttered.

"Palm trees?" Brian asked.

"Palm trees. The ones in the front of the hotel. After all this is said and done, they may be the only casualties of the fall of communism in Cuba. Who would have ever thought?"

My words hung in the air for a time.

I looked over to where Brian and Stacy were sitting on the end of the bed. "How are you doing, Stacy?"

"Better. I'm sorry I –"

I held up my hand to stop her. I walked over to where she was sitting and leaned over. With a conspiratorial glance, I told her (just loud enough for the others to hear), "I wanted to scream and run for cover too. I didn't only because a lot of the free world was listening in on that phone." She laughed and we all joined in.

We were just about to head down to the lobby to see about dinner and moving to another room when the satellite phone rang. I looked at Brian.

"It's your phone," he said.

"It's CNN's phone."

"Maybe they're calling for you," Felicita offered.

I answered the phone. It was a woman's voice. She asked for me by name.

"This is he," I told her.

"Please hold for the President," she said. Then there was a click.

"Christopher!" a voice began. It was a voice I had heard on the news many times. "I want to personally thank you for what you did today for Cuba. You did it for the Cubans, for America and for freedom loving people all over the world."

"Mr. President, I didn't do anything. I just –"

When I spoke those words, Brian and Stacy got wide-eyed. Felicita didn't understand the implications of "Mr. President".

"Now, don't sell yourself short. It took a lot of guts to stand there and be the eyes and ears, especially with bombs going off. You are an extraordinary person. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, sir, only I'm nothing but ordinary. Sometimes, ordinary people just fall into extraordinary circumstances."

"Perhaps," he said. "I personally approved your visa last week. You came highly recommended by the State Department. Today, I'm very glad I did it. You helped the democratic rebels gain a major foothold. It also didn't hurt that an American citizen was the voice the world listened to today on CNN as the battle came to its surprising conclusion. You've done a tremendous service to your country and your world. It also won't hurt your company's chances of success in the local market there. Good luck to you from a very grateful nation."

"Thank you, sir. I'm honored to be of service."

"You've gained a measure of fame today. If you were Cuban, boy, you could run for President of Cuba right now."

"Politics don't interest me, sir. I'm a businessman."

"That's too bad. You showed a lot of courage today, and you spoke like a statesman. Now, I have to go be a politician, so good luck to you. I hope we get to meet someday."

"Thank you, sir. That would be quite an honor."

With that, the call ended.

"Was that really –" Brian started.

I nodded. "Yes," I said, laughing a little. "It really was. He was watching."

Felicita looked confused. I explained what had just happened. She smiled when she understood. "You are famous now, yes?"

"I don't know if that's true, but receiving that phone call was quite an honor."

Realizing that the power could fail at any time, we all decided to get cleaned up while it was still daylight. The bathrooms were undamaged. When Felicita and I were clean and dressed, our friends returned from doing the same.

"Now, let's go see about a clean place to sleep tonight," I said, clapping my hands. Plaster and glass still littered the floor. We headed downstairs for the lobby.

Things were calming down some outside. The staff had come out of the basement, but the doors in the lobby were locked. A doorman was standing watch by each door. When we were spotted, there was a commotion among the staff. It seems they had seen the coverage on CNN and were very impressed that I had been on television. Frankly, I was rather surprised myself. I had never expected to be the center of attention or even the "Voice of the Battle of Havana", as Leah Coulter had proclaimed me. We were told our things would be moved to an undamaged section of the hotel while we were having dinner. We were escorted into the dining room and fed. There weren't many guests in the hotel but almost all of them were in the dining room. We were all being strongly encouraged to stay inside until at least morning.

Considering what had happened that day, the service and the food were both excellent. Perhaps my table received a little more attention than the others. Even the other guests kept looking our way. A few even ventured over to meet me. I quickly introduced the rest of the table and explained that we were all part of the broadcast. Many of the people remembered seeing the picture of all of us on TV, but it was me they wanted to meet. I was uncomfortable with the sudden celebrity. I just wanted to fade into the background and spend a quiet night with Felicita.

We were just finishing dinner when the power failed. I'm surprised it managed to stay on all day for us. Candles appeared, the flickering light adding a romantic atmosphere. Dinner was on the house given the circumstances. Since the power was out and we couldn't go outside, we decided to head back to our rooms. I picked up a bottle of Havana Club in the lobby. The cigar and liquor shop had stayed open late to encourage us to stay inside the hotel. The nightclub was closed because the performers hadn't shown up, and the inside bar was closed because its exterior walls were all glass.

We were given new keys at the front desk and a bellman, carrying flashlights, escorted us up the stairs to our new rooms. We still had adjoining rooms and a third room was being held for Gustavo.

The rooms were identical in layout to the rooms we had before. They were at the other end of the hotel, away from where the windows had been blown out. Everything had been placed where it had been in the other room. We had a few drinks with Stacy and Brian, rum and Coke, to celebrate the day's victory. Stacy went into their room and came back with a change of clothes for Felicita. I thanked her and said that we were going to Felicita's home the next day to get her things. Stacy and Brian went to their room, the doors were closed between our rooms, and we were finally all alone.

I had a sudden thought. I jumped up and opened the nightstand drawer. Yep, they were thorough. Inside were the boxes of condoms I had put away in the same location in the other room. Felicita saw what I was looking at and smiled.

"I hadn't thought of that yet. I think we're going to need them tonight."

I turned to my lovely lady and took her in my arms.