“What’s up, journalist, have you already started studying Russian?” Eugenio tells me as soon as he sees me appear next to him at the domino table.
It is close to 6:00 p.m. and, like every late afternoon, several of my neighbors spend time on the corner playing, joking and discussing all sorts of issues. A glass of rum goes from hand to hand, despite the sweltering and sticky heat that pervades Havana.
“Russian?” I ask Eugenio, pretending not to understand, although I know exactly where the matter is leading. Today in Cuba, with so many visits between Russia and the island, so many signing of agreements and business rounds, it is impossible not to know.
“Da, tovarishch. Russkiy,” he answers with an accent that surprises more than one on the corner and causes a few smiles.
“Wow, you still remember,” says Lázaro, his partner in the game, while he slowly slides the double seven on the table as if lifting a great weight off his shoulders.
“Konechno, tovarishch,” answers Eugenio with an air of pride: “I didn’t spend so many years studying in the Soviet Union for nothing. It’s still got to be of some use to me!”
“And what are you going to do? Are you going to offer yourself as a translator to one of those Russian delegations that are coming?” Osmany attacks sarcastically and puts the seven-five right at the end where Lázaro had doubled.
“Well, maybe,” replied Eugenio. “Those people are fully entering Cuba and, by the looks of it, soon we are going to be speaking Russian on the street and paying in rubles instead of dollars,” he says and hammers the five three on the table while fixing his eyes on Yunior, who for the moment has not said a word and looks at his dominoes uneasily.
The boy knocks on the table slowly, resigned, and Eugenio bursts into a euphoric laugh. “There’s a two for you!” he tells Yunior and passes him the glass of rum: “Take advantage, Havana Club. Pretty soon they’ll start exporting everything to Moscow and we’re going to have to drink vodka from the Russian markets that they say they are going to open.”
“And Eugenio, aren’t you worried that the Russians start fully entering and end up taking all this over? Because to me, yes,” says Lázaro before putting a three at the other end. “Remember that the Soviets were not easy, no matter the comradeship we had and everything. And these now are not even socialists. They are real capitalists….”
“Well, not so much to me, really,” his partner replies. “The way things are, with the current crisis, if these people start bringing food, oil, buses, and whatever, I’ll even give them the key to my house.”
“And you can even include your wife the house,” Osmany mocks, who places a domino on the three at one of the three extremes with a one and says triumphantly “the one,” while he watches he rival expectantly.
“No, not like that either, my friend. There are things that are not given away under any circumstances,” answers the other. And he turns to me, with the glass of rum in his hands again, as he ponders his next move: “What do you think, journalist?”
“I think you have to look closely,” I reply after giving him a look from behind his row of dominoes. “Better be careful, lest you put what is not and end up blocking the game, and from what I am seeing it seems to me this is not convenient for you….”
***
Lázaro writes down on a piece of paper the points that Eugenio tells him from the other end of the table and watches how his partner begins to move the dominoes with a smile.
“I don’t know how you don’t bat an eyelid with the beating these two have given,” he says somewhat annoyed, while Osmany and Yunior encourage their opponents to “continue moving around the dominoes” while they “fill” the already empty rum glass
“The same as with that of the Russians,” continues Lázaro, with whom I have spoken before on the subject and I am aware of his concerns. “Do you really think they’re going to come and give us things because they like us? Surely they’re going to get a tremendous cut, and we are going to have to shell out good bills to be able to buy what they bring.”
“As it would be with the Americans, or with the Chinese, or with whoever, Lázaro,” Eugenio defends himself. “Giveaways were from the 1980s. What matters is that there is food, gasoline, and more things to buy; although not everyone can do it from the start. Worse is that there is money and the stores are bare like now.”
“Well, they say that they are going to give them land, and factories, and facilities to invest and import,” says Carlos, who, like me, watches the game from one side of the table and until now has remained silent: “That doesn’t give me a good feeling. And, furthermore, it puts us even more at odds with the United States, which has Russia in its sights because of the Ukraine situation.”
“That’s also true. And it’s better not to play with the Americans, let’s see if they loosen the rope at some point,” reflects Osmany as he arranges the dominoes for the new game. “At the end of the day, the United States is right there and Russia is far away. As soon as a ship from Russia arrives, the one from the United States has already made ten or twenty trips.”
“With the Americans, the matter is different, because the row has been going on for a long time and the crisis is pretty bad for us thanks to them,” Eugenio returns to the charge. “But we were partners with the Russians until the other day, as they say. They will no longer be the sovetskiye tovarishchi, but if they want to help us, let the beast come.”
“Well, as long as we continue to depend on someone from the outside, we’ll never get out of the hole,” Lázaro counterattacks. “Things have to be fixed in here, lest what happened to the Soviet Union happen to us too and everything goes downhill again. Look at the mutiny staged by the mercenaries the other day. They must have lit candles here for all the saints…”
“Uh huh,” Carlos agrees. “Can you imagine what would have happened if Putin had been overthrown? To whom were we going to turn? China? They are the same. The Americans say they have an espionage base here...”
“Well, comrades, leave the Russians and the Chinese alone and get ready for dominoes because it’s getting dark,” Osmany urges as he puts the double six on the table. “Let’s see, did you happen to get a six? I think neither Putin or the Chinese, what’s his name, Lázaro? are going to beat me in this game.”
***
Eugenio again passes with the six and looks provocatively at Osmany, who is all smiles. “You try to play well. Don’t go screwing up, you’ll hear from me if you do,” he also tells him smiling before taking another drink.
“You wish,” the other replied, while Yunior, his partner, kills one of the six with a four, and dries the sweat with a towel that he holds in his hands.
“We’re on fire with this heat. And it’s already after 7:00 at night,” he confirms. “I don’t know what the Russians are going to do here in Cuba. They’re going to melt.”
“We’re the ones who are going to melt. The Russians who come to Cuba are not going to get out of the air conditioning,” replies Lázaro, who puts a two on the four and looks at Osmany out of the corner of his eye, to see if his move had any effect.
“But they’ll have to get off the tourist car at some point, I say,” replies Yunior, who folds the towel and asks Eugenio for the glass of rum.
“Yeah, man, sure. But maybe for a little while,” answers Osmany, who kills Lázaro’s two with another six and gives Lázaro a challenging look. “Besides, for these people there will certainly not be blackouts nor will they have to fight with a bus at midday. Much less will they have to get on a line for the chicken,” he adds.
“And come on, it’s your turn,” he tells Yunior, taking the rum from him. “That this month Eugenio was not given a six on the ration book. Let’s see if the comrades bring him some from Moscow.”
“Well, bring me one too, and incidentally a split, because it’s impossible in this heat. This year is terrible and we haven’t reached August,” says Yunior and puts a seven on one of the six before drying the sweat again.
Osmany pulls a quick face and tries to compose himself with a drink; but Eugenio and Lázaro, old domino foxes, sense the blow and exchange glances and smiles.
“I read that the heat is due to humidity, or because of something called a heat dome, I don’t remember well. But it’s not just the heat from the sun. Also from the street,” comments Lázaro, metaphorically, while he calmly reviews his dominoes and analyzes the next moves.
“You have to keep your eyes open because there are loads of assaults, and worse things too,” he adds. “You, Osmany, with the moped, don’t go around much at night, in case you’re attacked to take it away from you.”
“And what about the prices?” Eugenio adds. “That’s really putting the heat up. A package of chicken for 3,000 pesos; a carton of eggs for 2,000; the pound of pork from 500 and still going up; fish, if it appears, also at skyrocketing prices. And God forbid if something breaks: any repair costs thousands of pesos.”
“And the prices will continue to rise because while the dollar rises, everything becomes more expensive. The greens are at more than 200 pesos, right, Osmany?” insists Lázaro, who looks slyly at his rival.
“Well, not everything. The beer, luckily, is going down. You can already find it around 120. Let’s see if we change the rum for a cold lager, which is what’s good in this heat,” he adds, while he spins a domino face down on the table.
“Lázaro, stop talking about the heat and finish playing; this is not chess,” Osmany retorts uneasily, as if anticipating what may happen next.
“If that’s what you want…,” the other one answers, turning the domino over with calculated slowness and sliding it towards the other end of the table, in the direction of his partner.
“The plague has arrived: more sevens,” Eugenio finishes by picking up the double and delights himself putting it in a perpendicular position to the seven played minutes before by Yunior. “Start crying, the pacifier was lost,” he says amused, while he points to Osmany the six at the other end.
“Let’s see, baby, come through the channel,” he adds, and forcefully drops a domino on the table when Osmany, still incredulous, is forced to kill his last six. “To two seven,” he exclaims euphorically, “and yours doesn’t have it either. So even Putin couldn’t beat you, right?
Yunior, in effect, passes, sweaty, and Eugenio takes a long triumphant drink before Lázaro hits the seven-nine: “Let’s count, dorogiye tovarishchi, and get ready for the Russian, if the Russians arrive with the dominoes you’re not going to make a living.”
Author
Eric Caraballoso
The United Snakes of America has imposed crippling sanctions, overthrown governments, waged wars that have killed millions, and engaged in secret torture programs. The others have not. Choose your partners carefully.