Alejandro Hernández Díaz
The Cuban Mile
Trans. Dick Cluster
Pittsburgh, PA: Latin American Review Press, 1998. Pp. 113. $13.95
Reviewed by Gail R. Pool

The journey of exile holds a special place in history as one of dread and jeopardy on the one hand and dreams of liberty on the other. Exile is a quality that symbolizes the human condition where the constraints and security of place are replaced by the hazards and uncertainties of freedom. Exile provides a respite in which to reflect on the past and future. Cuban writers as prestigious as José Martí, Alejo Carpentier, and Nicolás Guillén and artists such as Cristina García and Elías Miguel Muñoz flourished in exile.

Alejandro Hernández Díaz captures the dyadic reflections in a life-and-death struggle to pass from Cuba to America on an inflatable raft christened The Social Contract. As the ninty mile journey proceeds, the days and nights create a number of moods ranging from hope to fear and episodes ranging from pleasant to dangerous for the two travelers. The partners in this expedition could not be more different: a career military man ironically named Angel (nicknamed the Commodore) and an intellectual artist (the narrator). They are brought together as brothers-in-law, one pursuing capitalist/sexual freedom and the promise of rejoining the artist’s sister, while the other is hoping for international recognition for his art. As they journey together they pass from being somebodies to being nobodies as long as they remain “outside of the usual circles that dictate custom” (15). Such hybridity gives the narrator special authority to stand outside and, perhaps, teaches him “not to criticize the civilized land-dwelling ones too much” (16).

Both the Commodore and the narrator have personal quirks that make their characters compelling as the drama unfolds. Elements of nostalgia are intertwined with remembered events of history (such as the death in a plane crash of Camilo Cienfuegos, a Cuban revolutionary) and current entertainers (such as the Venezuelan rock group Pasteles Verdes). As the narrator comments, happiness for the Commodore is “a pretty girl … and living close to the sea with a television set to entertain him twice a week with movies full of shoot-outs and karate kicks. He’s heading for Florida idealizing Anglo-Saxon asses and free sex like on American Ecstasy, the porn channel. So Rousseau doesn’t count for much” (25). The narrator, on the other hand, will “announce [him]self with a style that has escaped the West for thirty years, all the while having warded off the blows of its state sponsors as well” (25). He envisions himself as “the new patriarch of the settees ...with a saucer full of olives in [his] right hand and a glass of Chivas Regal at [his] lips to soak my pompous speech of opposition to Socialist Realism in the flavor of barrel-aged scotch whiskey” (25-26). The narrative gets more and more intense as the antithetical pair pass skin-scorching days and sleepless nights drugged by ineffective sleeping pills. Ever-present sharks increase their fear, and on the fifth day they see in the distance what might be a Cuban navy patrol boat. The Commodore, who has stolen the military raft, orders the narrator to throw overboard the weighty knapsack containing his most precious cargo of books. While the Commodore rows furiously to avoid detection, the narrator contemplates interrogation and prison. They avoid being caught, but their trip continues in a nightmare of almost certain death by dehydration.

Hernández Díaz has crafted an intense tale of self-discovery. Unfortunately the book is marred by some bad editing. The author is also inclined to use overly pretentious words, such as “a neurasthenic policeman” (33), “catalepsy of the eyelids” (39), or “epithelial red” (44). These are jarring at times despite the translator’s warning that the writing is “showy at times to native Cubans and foreigners alike.” Despite these drawbacks, the novel creates a tension that captures the reader with its charming and poetic voices of Cuban destiny. The Cuban Mile is an entertaining if not a weighty read.