Free Luz: book i: comings and goings (Troubled Times 1) by Luis Gonzalez Page B

driven individual who could make things happen. Unfortunately, they had some bad news. They were sorry to inform him that clearly, some grave miscommunication had occurred.
    “Look,” they said. “We don’t know what you were told in Havana, but all we need is a simple primary school house on our rolling plains. That’s all, with two, maybe three rooms at most.”
    “That’s it?” Rigo asked.
    “Yes. You see, there’s a community of cattle ranchers here, meat eaters, who not only refuse to read and write, they refuse to let their children learn to read and write. This is a crime against the state, as you know, and we’ve beeninstructed by party leaders that these hooligans and their offspring must come into compliance within a year and become fully literate—without fail!”
    “I see,” said Rigo.
    “Yes, and they have finally agreed, but only as long as the school is located at the cattle co-op where the children can tend to their duties and learn.”
    “Oh,” said Rigo.
    “That’s all we need, compañero—a little schoolhouse. Besides, how could you possibly build a school of your proportions here? Where would all the workers come from?”
    “Right here,” he said. “I was told they’d come from right here in the cattle co-op.”
    “Impossible!” local leaders countered. “Again, I don’t know what they told you in Havana, but everyone here is busy helping with the new project in the province, even us.”
    “New project?” Rigo asked. “What new project?”
    Every pair of eyes lit up magically, electrically. “Why, a series of luxury hotels along the coast,” they replied. “And they’re going to be beautiful.”
    Rigo felt himself in the grip of some inner trembling but managed to quell it. “Not in Santa Lucía?” he asked.
    “Why, yes!” they exclaimed. “How did you know?”
    Rigo’s heart pounded savagely. Had he been lied to after all? Had they tricked him? Was the project back in the works with Cuban firms and Cuban workers? It had to be. Local leaders had no reason to lie to him. Had he offended someone after all? Had he stepped on the wrong toes? Rigo immediately wanted to call his favorite professor, but the phone lines in Camagüey did not reach Havana. Unable to take any action, he was beside himself. Rigo had planned on laboring and toiling through his first weekend in Camagüey, but now he issued a statement canceling all scheduled work.
    “Both days?” they asked.
    “Both days,” he replied. “You see, I’ve got a couple aunts who live right here in Camagüey, and they insist I come over for dinner my first weekend or they’ll never forgive me.”
    Residents from the co-op understood. Those from the countryside knew better than anyone about the politics of extended family. But Rigo had no aunts in Camagüey. Not any aunts, direct or through marriage. Not any close family or distant. He didn’t know a soul in the province. Rigo lied because he needed to settle something critical before lifting so much as a finger at their request.
    That Saturday morning he paid a driver to take him from the remote pueblo of Rio Piedras toward the beaches of Santa Lucía, knowing exactly where to go. He had, after all, been privy to the coordinates in the blueprints and knew precisely where groundbreaking for the project was slated. Rigo wasn’t sure what he might discover there, but suspected he had been lied to. Well, he was partially in the right. On the one hand, they had lied to him, but on the other hand they hadn’t.
    Outsourcing was definitely thriving along the pristine coastline of Santa Lucía, and in full force. This was evident as he looked around and noticed the corporate placards of numerous foreign companies staked in the ground there: Canadian companies. Spanish companies. Japanese firms, and even Chinese ones. Yes, Chinese! Those who were supposed to be stauncher communists than the Cubans.
    But that did not come as the big shock. If Rigo remembered that all