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egal- had been falsely accused by ardent Castristas of being a CIA
operation. But another faction, including Cortazar and the group in–
volved with the Cuban magazine put out by Casa de las Americas,
kept their distance.
Casa de las Americas, a unique cultural center which had ex–
isted in Cuba long before Castro's time, had its own magazine and
gave coveted literary prizes. Important- intellectually and literarily
-within the world of Hispanic letters, we still hoped that "Casa"
could serve as our link to those writers . As Cortazar and Vargas
Llosa had permanent ties to it, they seemed to us , then, to be ideal
intermediaries . During our Avignon meeting, they both promised to
defend the idea of
Libre
at the next editorial meeting of Casa de las
Americas. Later that evening, we innocently drank a toast to the
future success of our shared venture.
"Avignon" took place in 1970. But it had been my own last brief
visit to Cuba in 1967 which had convinced me of the disintegration
of the Revolution. Along with fifty or so other writers and intellectu–
als I had been invited by Carlos Franqui- one of Castro's closest
comrades during the early days of their struggle- to join Cubans to
celebrate the anniversary of the Revolution . Most of the guests, es–
pecially those Europeans who didn't speak Spanish, considered their
Cuban junket a great success . Marguerite Duras, Nadeau, Guyotat,
and the surrealists Leiris and Schuster were delighted with the mar–
velous atmosphere of freedom; alongside of which their own ordi–
nary Parisian freedom suddenly seemed insignificant. The Cuban
honeymoon of European intellectuals had reached its high point. Ac–
cording to Castro, they were "the only real friends of Cuba" and he
still showed himself willing to accept their criticisms.
In spite of our cordial reception, I was quick to sense unpleas–
ant undercurrents. One of the journalists who had interviewed me
warned me against publicly mentioning Cabrera Infante's name . But
the next day, on the radio, I said that the two best modern Cuban
novels were
Three Sad Tigers
and Laezama Lima's
Paradiso.
The fol–
lowing morning Laezama Lima telephoned me at my room at the
Hotel Nacional. He thanked me and asked whether I realized that
this was the first time someone had dared mention his novel on Cu–
ban television.
In my talks with Carlos Franqui, Heberto Padilla, and others ,
I was told about the omnipresent police force and the havoc being cre–
ated by censorship. The writer Virgilio Pinera, anguished and fear–
ful, came to see me. He immediately insisted that we go for a walk in
