When touring today's Havana, talking about a little boy can lead to big trouble.

                  By John Wood
                  Special to The Washington Post

                  It is only my second day in Cuba, and I am being whisked down one of the
                  narrow cobblestone alleyways of Old Havana in the back seat of a tiny
                  Peugeot police car, which is designed to hold two people uncomfortably
                  but is now stuffed with two policemen, four giggling teenage boys and a
                  thoroughly perplexed me. We squeal around a corner, startling a horse
                  pulling a carriage full of tourists (I know they're tourists because they're
                  wearing Che Guevara T-shirts; Cubans prefer American ones), and enter
                  an ancient weathered-gray fortress with "Policia Nacional Revolucionaria"
                  etched into the stone. As we cross the wooden drawbridge (rumble,
                  rumble) and zip under the entrance, I wonder what unspeakable suffering
                  awaits those brought here who, like me, have wronged the state.

                  I wouldn't be so worried, but I've just finished touring the Museo de la
                  Revolucion, where dictator Fulgencio Batista's old fingernail-removing
                  clamps and testicle-squeezers are cheerfully on display, and the thought
                  crosses my mind that it wouldn't take much for someone having a really
                  bad day to suddenly have a Batista flashback.

                  I have been seized for conversing with four Cuban boys about Elian
                  Gonzalez, the 6-year-old boy who was rescued at sea and brought to the
                  United States last Thanksgiving after the boat in which his mother sought to
                  flee Cuba sank. Billboards and graffiti everywhere in Havana proclaim,
                  "Devuelvan nuestro hijo!" ("Return our son!") Hey, forget Elian--free me!

                  Visitors to Cuba can't help but get drawn into politics. If you don't bring it
                  up, Cubans surely will. During breakfast one morning, my hotel waiter,
                  Jorge, tells me he used to be a high school geography teacher but had to
                  quit because it paid next to nothing. He has many family members living in
                  Florida, but he can't travel there. "I can't even travel to the eastern part of
                  my own country," he says. "Hotels in Cuba are for foreigners only. Cubans
                  aren't even allowed in most restaurants. I studied world geography, but I'll
                  never be able to see it."

                  The conversation leads to the U.S. embargo and I tell him I believe it will
                  be lifted soon. He gets very excited. "You think so? When? How do you
                  know? You hear this?" I say I'm sorry, it's just my opinion, and he deflates.
                  My reasoning is that President Clinton isn't averse to lifting embargoes--he
                  ended our trade barrier with Vietnam in 1994; Cuba has been in the
                  doghouse long enough; the Cold War is over; U.S. businesses are
                  desperate for the embargo to end; the fervent anti-Cuban lobby in Miami is
                  beginning to wear thin with most Americans; and Clinton could use the
                  gesture as a last grand historical hurrah, tantamount to Richard Nixon's
                  opening relations with China in 1972. I apologize for getting Jorge's hopes
                  up. He says it's okay, "but it would change so many things."

                  He says the police have been very nervous the last year or so, and
                  especially now, during the fervor over young Elian, who is living with a
                  great-uncle in Miami. Terrorists, hired by Cubans in Miami, he says, have
                  planted bombs in hotels in an attempt to disrupt the tourism industry and
                  topple President Fidel Castro's communist government. One bomb went
                  off, killing an Italian tourist. The fact that I didn't have the suitable ID on
                  me--and was talking about Elian--alarmed the policeman.

                  "Any foreigner speaking to a group of Cubans makes them think you may
                  be trying to break the revolution," he says.

                  Later that day I witness a "Million Mother March" for Elian along the
                  Malecon, the massive three-mile-long seawall that is the city's most
                  popular esplanade. The legion of women wave Cuban flags along the jetty
                  and pass scaffolding where speakers vent their outrage over huge
                  loudspeakers. Billboard-size cartoons lampoon Uncle Sam as a mobster. I
                  snatch a newspaper comics section from the ground that consists entirely
                  of Elian cartoons. One shows the 6-year-old boy in a cage with Pinocchio.
                  Pinocchio asks him, "Are you here because of Mr. Stromboli?" Elian
                  replies, "No, I'm here because of the Miami Mafia." Another one depicts
                  Elian as a tree on a tiny island being ripped out by a hook painted with the
                  stars and stripes as he screams, "Papi!"

                  The Elian incident began rather innocently as I was strolling down El
                  Prado, a tree-canopied promenade that leads from Parque Central, one of
                  Havana's great plazas, to the ocean: Four boys race past me playing futbol
                  using a flattened soft drink can as a ball. They come back my way and I
                  snap a couple of pictures. They ask me where I'm from. "Estados Unidos"
                  and I'm instantly inundated with questions in Spanish. One of the boys ask
                  if I know about Elian Gonzalez. I say yes, of course. "What do you think?"
                  I say I hope and believe he will return to Cuba soon--as do most
                  Americans (70 percent, according to a recent poll).

                  A nearby policeman, wearing a smart gray beret and a single stripe on his
                  uniform, motions me over. "Passport and visa," he says without looking at
                  me. "Uh, I don't have them." They're secured in my hotel safe, I tell him,
                  which one of my guidebooks (one I will never use again) had advised me
                  to do. He asks for other identification. I show him my driver's license,
                  which he studies for a long time and gives back. I gather my things. Okay,
                  I'll be sure to carry it with me next time, officer. Nice meeting you. Buenas
                  tardes.

                  Then he asks, "Why you talk to boys?"

                  "Excuse me? I'm staying in Cuba for two weeks and plan to talk to a lot of
                  Cuban people. Do you have a problem with that, officer?"

                  "You talk about Elian Gonzalez?"

                  "Yes, isn't everybody?" As my voice rises, he steps back calmly, tells me
                  and the boys to stay where we are, and radioes in via his walkie-talkie. A
                  few minutes later, another cop arrives and the grilling begins. How long
                  have I been here? When am I leaving? Where else have I been that day?
                  What are my intentions in Cuba? What hotel am I staying at? What is my
                  room number? One Stripe radioes the hotel, spelling out my name. Good.
                  They'll tell him I'm registered there, leave good tips and hang up my towels.
                  Once he learns I've been telling the truth, he'll let me go.

                  After One Stripe speaks to my hotel, I ask if I can go, but he yawns and
                  shakes his head. I decide to take the offensive. "Many tourists walk here,"
                  I say in broken Spanish. "Why did you stop me?"

                  He shrugs. "I can stop anyone."

                  "Why did you ask for my passport?"

                  "I can ask anyone for their passport."

                  "You stopped me because I was talking about Elian, didn't you?" He
                  shakes his head with a look of amusement.

                  "Then why are you questioning the boys?"

                  "Another matter," he says dismissively. A few minutes later, a police car
                  pulls up and out step more policemen. The four boys and I are instructed
                  to cram into the back seat. I am heartbroken to see that One Stripe will
                  not be joining us. I would love to see the dressing down he gets when I
                  walk out a free man. What's lower than one stripe in the Cuban police
                  system?

                  At the police headquarters, we're led into a grand lobby. The boys are
                  ushered into a separate room; I am directed to stand against a marble pillar
                  facing my inquisitors--two women sitting behind a small table. One of the
                  women approaches. She explains in perfect English that the reason I have
                  been questioned so much is that many tourists in Cuba are really illegal
                  aliens, criminals or "others." She says she is mystified at my contention that
                  I was simply talking to the kids and that Elian just innocently popped into
                  the conversation. She walks away, baffled.

                  The second woman calls me up to the desk. She hisses each question at
                  me again in rapid-fire fashion. This must be Cuba's version of the Good
                  Cop, Bad Cop routine. She seems just as confounded by my answers. We
                  have reached a stalemate. Looking down at her papers for a long time, she
                  suddenly mutters "Goodbye" and jabs a finger toward the entrance.

                  As I leave, I wave goodbye to the boys, who are laughing and
                  roughhousing in the next room. I assume they'll get a stern tongue-lashing
                  about the perils of speaking to foreigners. They seem the type who'll say,
                  "Yes, certainly, of course, never again" and then go right back to El Prado,
                  resume their futbol game, and ask the next tourist they see what country,
                  state and city he's from. It would be tragic if they're cowed into never
                  greeting a foreigner again.

                  Jorge, my hotel waiter, invites me to his village the next day to meet his
                  family and see the "real" Cuba. He lives 22 miles south of Havana in San
                  Antonio de los Banos, the birthplace of a Batista-era cartoonist whose
                  character, El Bobo (The Fool), was a biting social critic. He gives me his
                  address and says to come by any time after 12, but I can tell he doesn't
                  really think I'll show up.

                  The next afternoon I hail a taxi and pull into the town at about 1 o'clock. It
                  looks just like Old Havana except it's smaller and has fewer tourists and
                  more donkeys. The driver stops in front of a doorway in the middle of an
                  alley and says this is it. I knock on the door. A plump middle-aged woman
                  opens it. She rattles off something in Spanish, and the driver says Jorge
                  went to Havana for a short errand but will be back soon. To Havana? I
                  guess he really didn't believe I would come. But the woman, his mother,
                  demands that I go inside. "Venga! Venga!" ("Come!")

                  The house has cathedral ceilings with crucified Christs looking down at me
                  from the stone walls in every room. In a central courtyard is an outdoor
                  kitchen and a pigpen where an enormous sow scuffs contentedly among
                  several piglets. Jorge's wife, Alina, joins us a few minutes later, and the two
                  ask if I'd like to see the town. Before we've gone a block, they've already
                  gotten several waves and how-do-you-dos. That's why we love this town
                  so much, Alina says.

                  We walk down the main "boulevard," which is just a slightly wider alley
                  than the others. Tables and carts are set out with vendors selling what are
                  perhaps the most worthless garage-sale items I have ever
                  seen--doorknobs, rusty wrenches, pieces of plastic, strings of yarn. We
                  return for a game of dominoes. Mother says she plays every night and
                  rarely loses. I counter by saying I am very competitive. She beams and
                  says, "Juguemos!" ("Let's play!") I've only played twice in my life, but I
                  take the third game. It is the only one I win. I soon learn the Cuban way of
                  banging my wooden tile holder on the tabletop whenever I can't play, and
                  the claps echo off the high ceilings.

                  The sound of a motorcycle approaches, and Alina squeals with delight. We
                  had been hearing motorcycles pass us all afternoon, but she knows the
                  sound of Jorge's. With him are two friends, Emilio and his wife, Marta,
                  who also speak English. We gather in the living room and talk about, what
                  else, politics. They lament about having only two TV channels. "But I get
                  ESPN in my hotel room," I moronically interject. "Your hotel has a special
                  cable for tourists," Emilio explains as if to a child. "If we're found with
                  cable or a satellite dish, we would be arrested." Oh. They ask me how
                  many cable channels I get in my house at home. I don't want to tell them.
                  They insist. I tell them. They look at me in shock. How many without
                  cable? Seven--see, not that much different from you. Yes it is, they cry!
                  Seven is a lot more than two!

                  Okay, okay. "But don't all Cubans have national health care?" I counter.
                  "We'll never have that."

                  "Oh yes, of course," Alina says mockingly. "But we have no supplies, no
                  good doctors, no good facilities. You come out worse." They all relate
                  horror stories of friends or family members who went to the dentist with
                  minor problems and emerged with mangled teeth and infections.

                  "I'd rather pay for something and have it done right than get it free and
                  have my teeth fall out," Alina says.

                  We walk a few blocks away to a restaurant where I'm served some of the
                  best chicken and rice and black beans I will have during my stay.
                  Whenever I say I'm done, someone at the table says no, no, there's still
                  meat on those bones. When I finally gnaw and suck the last piece clean,
                  everyone applauds. "Now you're eating the Cuban way!"

                  Back at the house, we hug and take pictures all around. I jump on the
                  back of Jorge's motorcycle and we zoom back toward Havana. "You are
                  very brave man to come all the way to my small village," he shouts as a
                  cool Cuban breeze blows through our hair. "I will never forget it. If you
                  ever return to Cuba, you have a home."

                  Yes, I want to say, so does Elian.

                  While the U.S. government still prohibits American tourists from spending
                  money on travel to Cuba, restrictions have loosened. One way to travel
                  legally is to go as a "fully hosted" visitor, meaning you are sponsored by a
                  Cuban organization. And there's a sizable contingent of travelers who
                  ignore the legalities and travel to Cuba through other gateways, including
                  Mexico and Canada. Marazul Tours (1-800-223-5334, www
                  .marazultours.com) specializes in arranging travel to Cuba and has
                  developed several programs for traveling legally to Cuba.

                  John Wood last wrote for the Travel section about an African safari.

                           © Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company