Fear and longing in Havana.

Two color-coordinated elements of Cuban bureaucracy terrify me: blue-trousered police and green-shirted immigration officers. After being evicted nearly a year ago (my residency and work visa were abruptly revoked by the Cuban government), I returned in mid-August for four days. My usual angst was exacerbated by the knowledge that scores of foreign writers, producers, and journalists, attempting to enter Cuba as tourists, had been refused entry since Fidel fell ill. Traveling with a friend—a Cuban-American who had never seen her ancestral homeland—I had no idea if I'd make it through immigration.

By the time I reached the front of the line, I felt like a character straight out of Midnight Express. Sweat rolled down my forehead, and my shirt was stained from armpits to abdomen. As I walked to the booth, I handed the austere immigration official my passport.

"You worked in Cuba?" he asked in Spanish. "And you are American?"

I nodded my head on both counts.

"In what field?" he asked. More sweat dripped down my forehead.

"Production," I said. "Documentaries."

Then I remembered what a colleague had told me two years back. If I ever encountered a problem I should name-drop the partner I worked with—a production company controlled by the military and, by association, by Raúl Castro himself.

"I worked with Trimagen," I added, neglecting to mention it was only for two months. "I'm just here for a friend's birthday party."

He looked at me curiously, closed my passport, and handed it back with a tourist visa. The door buzzed open; I was as free as an extranjero in Cuba could be.

Beyond the airport, life seemed to go on despite the transfer of power from Fidel to Raúl. Workers sucking on hand-rolled cigars crammed into the backs of open-top Jeeps. Women nursed their children, and in the fields, old men, shirtless or in tank tops, cut grass with machetes. And as a backdrop to this tired spectacle stood jingoistic billboards. Their messages are different than they were a year ago, though.