Cuba (25 page)

saw one below the clouds, but they stayed high,

disappeared into the sea haze.

Under the mast an old woman sat weeping. She was

the one who grieved for the. captain, for some of the people who

were washed overboard that first night She wept

silently, her shoulders shaking, her breath coming in

gasps.

He wanted to hug her, to comfort her, but mere was nothing

he could say. His brother Hector would have

known what to say, but Ocho did not.

He looked longingly at Dora, Dora who was

once beautiful, and he could think of nothing to say

to her. Nothing.

All the promise that life held, and they had thrown

it away on a wild, stupid, doomed chance.

Diego had led

them, prodded them, demanded they go, and still he could think

of nothing to say to Diego.

He was so tired, so lethargic. He had pumped

for hours, just keeping up with the water. If the water

came in any faster… well, he didn’t want

to mink about it. They would all die then. They would have

little chance swimming in the open sea.

Ocho slumped over onto the moving deck. He

was so tired, if he could just sleep, sleep….

The old fisherman shook him awake. The sun was

setting, the boat still rolling her guts out in the

swell.

“A fish…”…He held it up, about eighteen or

twenty inches long. “No way to cook it, have to eat

it raw. Keep up your strength.”

With two quick swipes of his knife, the fisherman

produced two bleeding fillets. He offered one

to Ocho, who closed his eyes and bit into the

raw fish. He chewed.

Someone was clawing at him, tearing at the fish.

He opened his eyes. Diego Coca was stuffing a

piece of the fish in his swollen mouth.

The old man kicked Diego in the stomach,

doubled him over, then pried his jaws apart and

extracted the unchewed fish.

“He’s manning the pump that keeps you afloat,

you son of a bitch. He has to eat or every one of us

will die.”

Diego got a grip on the fisherman’s knife

and lunged for him.

He grabbed for the slippery flesh, swung

wildly with the knife.

This time the old man kicked him hi the arm. The

knife bounced once on the deck, then landed at an

angle with the blade sticking into the wood, quivering.

The fisherman waited for the boat to roll, then

kicked Diego in the head. He went over

backward and bis head made a hollow thunk as it

hit the wooden deck. He went limp and lay

unmoving.

Retrieving his knife, the fisherman ate his chunk

of raw

fish in silence. Ocho chewed ravenously,

letting the moisture bathe his mouth and throat. He

held each piece in his mouth for several seconds,

sucking at the juices, then reluctantly

swallowing it down.

Dora watched him with feverish eyes. He passed

her a chunk of the fish and she rammed it into her mouth,

all of it at once, chewed greedily while eyeing

the old man, almost as if she were afraid he would

take it from her.

After she swallowed it, she tried to grin.

Ocho averted his eyes.

“Your turn on the pumpea”…the old man said.

Diego lay right where he had fallen.

Ocho got up, went into the wheelhouse and down into the

engine room. The water in the bilge was sloshing around

over his shoes as he began working the pump handle, up

and down, up and down, endlessly.

Hours later someone came to relieve him, one of the

men in the captain’s family. Ocho staggered up the

stairs, so exhausted he had trouble making his hands do

what he wanted.

The people on deck had more fish. Ocho sat heavily

by the wheelhouse. In the dim light from the stars and

moon, he could see people ripping fish apart with their bare

hands, stuffing flesh into their mouths, wrestling

to get to fish that jumped over the rail when the boat

rolled.

He collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

One of the butlers unlocked the bedroom door and

took Mercedes to see Colonel Santana, who

was standing behind Fidel’s desk sorting papers. He

didn’t look up when she first came in. She found

a chair and sat.

“The government has not yet decided when or how

to announce the death of

el presidente.

No doubt it will happen hi a few days, but until

it does you are to remain here, in the residence, and

talk to no one. Security Department people are on the

switchboards and will monitor all telephone

calls. The telephone lines that do not go through the

switchboard have been disconnected.”

He eyed her askance, then went back to sorting

papers. “After the official version of Fidel’s

death is written and announced, you will be free to go.

I remind you now that disputing the official version of

events is a crime.”

“Everyone swears to your history before you write

it”…”…she snapped.

Santana looked at her and smiled.

“I was searching for the proper words to explain the nub of

it and they just came to y”…he snapped his fingers”…l that.

It is a gift, I think. When you say it so

precisely, I know you understand. Ignorance will not be

a defense if there is ever a problem.”

Mercedes got up from the chair and left the room.

She wandered the hallways and reception rooms, the

private areas, the offices, all now deserted. Every

square foot was fuUs of memories. She could see

him talking to people, bending down slightly to hear, for he

had been a’talj man. She could not remember when

he had not been the presi-

dent of Cuba. When she was a girl, he was there.

As a young woman, he was there. When she married, was

widowed, when he took her to be his woman …

always, all her life there was Fidel.

Such a man he had been! She was a Latin

woman, and Fidel had been the epitome of the

Latin man, a brilliant, athletic man, a

commanding speaker, a perfect patriot, a man who

defined machismo. The facets of Fidel’s

personality that the non-Latin world found most

irritating were those Cubans accepted as hallmarks

of a man. He was selfrighteous, proud, sure of his

own importance and place in history, never

admitted error, and refused to yield when

humiliated by the outside world. He had struggled,

endured, won much and lost even more, and in a way that

non-Latins would never understand, had become the

personification of Cuba.

And she had loved him.

In the room where he died the television cameras and

lights were still in place, the wires still strung.

Only Fidel’s body was missing.

She stood looking at the scene, remembering it,

seeing him again as he was when she had known him best.

Still magnificent.

Now the tears came, a clouding of the eyes that she was

powerless to stop. She found a chair and wept

silently.

Her mind wandered off on a journey of its own,

recalling scenes of her life, moments with her mother,

her first husband, Fidel….

The tears had been dry for quite a while when she

realized with a start that she was still sitting in this room.

The cameras were there in front of her, mounted on

heavy, wheeled tripods.

These cameras must have some kind of film in them,

videotape. She went to the nearest camera and

examined it. Tentatively she pushed and

tugged at buttons, levers, knobs. Finally a

plate popped open and mere was the videocassette.

She removed it from the camera and closed the plate.

There was also a cassette in the second camera.

With both cassettes concealed in the folds of her

dress, Mercedes strode from the room.

A wave breaking over the deck doused Ocho

Sedano with lukewarm water and woke him from a

troubled, exhausted steep.

Angel del Mar

was riding very low in the water. Even as he realized that

the bilges must be full, another wave washed over

the deck.

Ocho dashed below. The old fisherman slumped

over the pump, water sloshed nearly waist-deep in

die bilge. Ocho eased bun aside, began

pumping. He could feel the resistance, feel the

water moving through the pump. He laid into it with a will.

“Sorryea”…the old man said weakly. “Worn out.

Just worn out”

“Go up on deck. Dry out some, disdrink some

water.”

The old man nodded, crawled slowly up the

steep ladder. He slipped once, almost smashed his

face on one of the steps. Finally his feet

disappeared into the wheelhouse.

Three rain showers during the night had allowed

everyone on board to drink their fill, to replenish

dehydrated tissue, and when Ocho last looked,

mere were several gallons of water hi the bucket

under the tarp that no one could drink.

Ocho was no longer thirsty, but he was hungry as

hell. There had been no more fish. Without line,

hooks, bait, or nets they were unable to catch fish

from the sea. Unless the creatures leaped onto the

deck of the boat they were out of reach. So far, there had

been no more of those.

The tarp they caught the diswater in gave the

liquid a brackish taste, which everyone ignored.

Still, water on an empty stomach made one aware

of just how hungry he was.

Ocho pumped, felt his muscles loosen up,

enjoyed the resistance mat meant the pump was moving

water. After fifteen minutes of maximum effort

he could see that the

water level was down about six inches. He settled

in to work at a steady, sustainable pace.

The horizon remained empty. Empty! Not a

boat or sail. Endless swells and sky hi every

direction.

It was almost as if the Lord had abandoned them, left

them to die on this leaky little boat in the midst of this

great vast ocean, while planes went overhead and

boats and ships passed by on every side, just over the

horizon.

We won’t have to wait long,

Ocho thought.

Our fate is very near. If the chain on this pump

breaks, if we run out of energy to pump, if the

swells get larger and waves start coming aboard, the

boat will break up and the people will go into the sea. That would be

our fate, to drown like all those people who went overboard

that first night.

They are dead now, surely. Past all caring.

Amazing how that works. Everyone has to die, but you

only have to do it once. You fight like hell to get

there, though, and when you arrive the world continues as if you

had never been.

As he pumped he wondered about his mother, how she was

doing, wondered if he should have told her he was going

to America.

An hour later Ocho was still pumping, the water was

down several feet and the boat was riding better in the

sea. And he was wearing out. He heard someone coming

down the ladder, then saw feet. It was

Dora.

She clung to the ladder, watched him standing in water

to his knees working die pump handle up and down,

up and down, up and down.

“It’s Papaea”…she said.

He said nothing, waited for her to go on.

“I think he has given up.”

Ocho kept pumping.

“Speak to me, Ocho. Don’t insult me with your

silence.”

Ocho switched arms without missing a stroke. “What

is there to say? If he has given up, he has

given up.”. “Will we be rescued?”‘

,

“Am I God? How would I know?”

“1 am

sick

of this boat, this oceanff”…she snarled. “Sick of it,

you understand?”‘

“I understand.”

She sobbed, sniffed loudly.

Ocho kept pumping.

“I don’t think you love meea”…she said, finally.

“I don’t know that I do.”

She watched him pump, up and down,

rhythmically, endlessly.

“Doesn’t that make you tired?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

He wiped the sweat from his face with

backslash as

free hand. “All of us, sooner or later, yes.”

“I mean now. This boat is going to sink.

We’re going to drown.”

He looked at her for the first time. Her skin was

stretched tightly over her face, her teeth were

bared, her eyes were narrowed with an intensity he had

never seen before.

“I don’t knowea”…he said gently.

“I don’t want to die now.”

He lowered his face so that he wouldn’t have to look

at her, kept the handle going up and down.

She went back up the ladder, disappeared from

view.

Ocho paused, straightened as best he could under the

low overhead and looked critically at the water

remaining in the boat. He was gaining. He stretched,

crossed himself on the off chance God might be

watching, then went back to pumping.

The dA’s man in Cuba was an

American, Dr. Henri Bouchard, a former

college professor who lived and worked inside the

American Interest Section of the Swiss

embassy, a complex of buildings that in former days

housed the American embassy and presumably