In one telling, Cohen went to Cuba because he was “fighting on both sides.” In another, he went because of “a deep interest in violence. I was very interested in what it really meant for a man to to carry arms and to kill other men — and how attracted I was exactly to that process.” And in the the third, he went, he got drunk (on rum, Cuba libre, or mojitos, quien sabe; déjame en paz y me deja escribir), spent his time with late night movie operators and hookers, was woken up by an official from the Canadian embassy, taken to said embassy, and politely and firmly informed that his mother was worried about him.