“Dave, you grab his arms. I’ve got more weight. I’m going to try to lever that thing off. If we’re lucky, you can pull him out. If not, I guess the three of us can spend eternity talking to the train crew and passengers below.”
The drip of seeping water and something scurrying from God knows what played counterpoint with their heart beats.
“Listen, Jeremiah, Bob is going to try to lift the beam and I’m going to pull you out. And then we’ll all get the hell outta here. Understand?”
The tearstained brown face nodded and Galen began the counterpressure, hoping the lever wouldn’t break. He felt some bending in the old wood and then the give as the fallen beam lifted several inches. Immediately, Dave pulled and the boy slid out from under it just as the tension in Galen’s muscles gave way and the beam settled again.
Ominous creaking noises started and Dave let out a “Let’s move it!” He picked up the little boy and the two young men inched their way back up and out. Galen had barely cleared the tunnel entrance when the four of them, two urchins and two foolhardy adults, heard the grinding collapse of ancient wood and a cloud of dust rise at the entrance they had just left.
...
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the type of man my friend was. I do not know why bad things happen to good people, but if I know Dave, he would come back from the afterlife if he could to help a friend.”
After most of the crowd had left, Connie stood with Bill and Peggy and the boys as the minister handed her the cloth-wrapped box containing Dave’s ashes. Galen saw the two military men had remained, so he approached them and shook hands. Their name tags read CMDR. JEREMIAH BAILEY and COL. MARCUS BAILEY.
They were sinking!
The captain and mate had tried to save themselves in the single small lifeboat aboard the fishing vessel, making no attempt to rescue the couple and their three small children with them. Felicita and Sandoval Hidalgo watched them perish as the lifeboat capsized under the force of the furious wind-roiled water.
The small boat had departed from Mafanzas earlier that night. The family had hidden under fish-stench-laden tarpaulin in the back of the captain’s truck as it traversed the back roads from Havana to the side quay in the fishing port village. Felicita had given the children honey cakes, and they remained quiet as a succession of security post guards waved the truck through. The whole country was one big military camp, Sandoval thought.
There was no moon, only the low growling of the diesel engine pushing the little boat out into the Straits of Florida. They were free!
If things went according to plan, they would reach the Florida coast in seven hours, assuming the Cuban Navy patrols did not stop them in the open sea. And the American Coast Guard would be watching at the other end to block the land arrival of any more refugees.
Sandoval had it planned, even to the small raft that would carry them within swimming distance of the crowded Florida beach. They would drop the small raft over the side of the fishing boat, reach the swimmers in the water, and conceal themselves among the beach crowd dressed in swimming outfits like the rich
Americanos
wore at the Miami resorts as they tanned and drank their
piña
coladas
.
It would be easy, if his information source was correct, to reach help in the Cuban expatriate community once they got to dry land.
He had planned carefully, and for good reason. Others raised questions about his loyalty to Fidelisimmo. He had risked becoming one of the “lost” and his family with him. He knew he shouldn’t have disallowed the expense voucher submitted by the nephew of a high-ranking official, but he was loyal to his country and did not tolerate waste or inefficiency.
So, he was stunned when his superior at the finance office began criticizing his work output, even his dedication to his job. It did not take long to see the handwriting on the wall.
“Felicita, we have to leave. It is going to get worse. And if I am taken, what will become of you and the children?”
They both knew the answer to that. She would be offered a job as “hostess” to foreign visitors bringing desperately needed hard cash into the country. Hostess meant many things in Cuba, but for her it would mean the ultimate degradation: prostitution. And their children, no matter what they did, would always be considered outsiders.
Cuba had survived thirty years as a closed, tightly controlled society because it was considered strategic by the Soviet Union. With all their troubles, the Russians had poured massive amounts of money into the island’s economy, both directly through tourism and by outright grants for “educational development.” The missiles of Soviet manufacture publicized by President Kennedy, and then by President Johnson, were part of that development.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it its deep pockets, the hard-line Communist country had nowhere else to go for support. But “El Jefe” would never loosen the grip he had established on the people. The paranoia of the bearded dictator over the possibility of invasion by the United States drove him to ever-more Draconian measures to prevent “his people” from deserting their island “paradise.” He placed Cuba on permanent red alert, meaning political witch hunts and increased surveillance of the civilian population rose exponentially.
It did not deter those seeking to flee.
Now, Sandoval Hidalgo, dedicated accountant in the Ministry of Finance, loyal supporter of all that his country stood for, had decided to leave his beloved homeland. He had come to realize the greater power that love of family held over him.
The childhood memories of his own father and mother overwhelmed him.
...
He was born in the eleventh year of the
Revolucion
. His father would proudly announce to his barbershop clientele that his son was a true son of the revolution, born on the anniversary date of the great Fidel’s defeat of the wicked Battista.
His father was a quiet man. By chance his shop was located in a section of Havana that brought the rich
turistas
and the high-ranking officials of the new government past his door, so he had never wanted for paying customers. It also led to his downfall. Success breeds envy, and this time the envious were relatives of the decision-makers. The young Sandoval never understood why his father had to close the shop and move his family into a less-desirable section of Havana.
Even then, the powers that be were not satisfied. Soon the Committee for Defense of the Revolution, the block-by-block network of spies and guardians of political correctness for the Castro regime, declared his father an enemy of the state for listening to the music broadcast by Radio Marti.
Sandoval had arrived home from school one day to find his mother crying. She told him his father had taken sick and had to go away. He was only six so the news did not carry any of the true ominous nature his mother had tried to hide from him. He missed his father but assumed he would get better someday, and his mother agreed through the veil of her tears.
School work was easy for Sandoval. He could readily memorize the history of the great ones of the
Liberación
, recite the evils of the United States puppet Batista, and the glories that Uncle Fidel had brought to Cuba. His teachers rewarded him and held him up as an example of a true believer.
He trained with the rest of the children in the military drills required of all the young, carrying wooden toy rifles and marching in step to become the next generation of defenders.
As he grew, his skills as a planner and mathematician became more evident. Everyone knew that he would be a shoe-in for classes at the University of Havana. Naturally, because education was free for all, he would not have to worry about money. Of course he would have to take oaths of allegiance, avoid risky behavior such as listening to U.S. radio stations, and be ready to report what was considered suspicious behavior on the part of any of his classmates.
When he was fourteen, he began the required agricultural service demanded of all students. By law, he had to spend at least one month out of each year in the outlying farming areas to help with crop sowing and harvesting. His skin had toned to the golden brown gift of the sun his people were known for. And by sixteen, he was an impressive-looking young man—impressive enough to catch the eye of the young women working alongside the men in the fields.
He had seen her, skin glistening in the early morning heat, working nearby. There was something about her that made his sixteen-year-old heart beat more rapidly.
“What is the matter, Sandoval?” his friends had asked, as they saw him staring at her. They laughed.
“Aha,” they sang out, “the beast has seen the beauty!”
How sly he was, shifting over, row by row, till suddenly they were side by side. He knew she saw him. The flush on her neck had overpowered even her sunlit tan.
“Hello,” he said boldly. “I’m with the Revolution Brigade. My name is Sandoval, Sandoval Hidalgo.”
She smiled then looked from side to side making sure her mates weren’t within hearing.
“Felicita Jimenez. I’m with the Gueverra Brigade.” And in that planted field was sown the future for Felicita and Sandoval.
They both entered the university, he to study accounting and business management, she to become a nurse—and there they decided to share their lives forever.
...
Now those lives, all of the acts of life that fill every marriage, were over. They would start again for the sake of their children.
How proud they were. Carmelita, so round-faced, even as a baby seeming to listen to every word they said. A good baby, the nanas would say, as Felicita received her first state award for the act of motherhood. Federico, not the quiet little one his sister had been, entered the world with loud proclamations and never stopped doing so. He was bright, but like a magpie. And finally, Antonio, named for his grandpapa who never returned from being “sick,” became the watching one, always watching, as if absorbing the world with his eyes.
Sandoval had met the boatman at a small side-street cantina. Not a place for family meals or
turistas
, he noted. He wasn’t sure how to approach the subject, but his trusted friend had told him of the fisherman and his “special catch of the day.”
The captain was the first to speak.
“So you would like to take a fishing trip, eh?”
Enriquez was a survivor. Whoever or whatever was in power, he knew how to stay alive and clear of trouble, but he also knew how to make the extra
peso
on the side, because he knew how to work both sides at once. He could instantly read in the face of the young man the hidden story behind the quest for escape. The system that had raised this whelp to obey had turned around and showed its fangs. Now the truth had been seen, and it hurt too much for him to remain in Cuba.
Enriquez laughed to himself. He would get the pup’s money, all of it, and he would make the extra amount, the bounty he knew would be his once he gave the details to “Espina.”
What a joke, he thought, an American government official paying to prevent new “beach people” from arriving in his territory. No matter, money was money. Who cared where it came from? He did not know Espina’s real name, but the money was good and soon he could buy a new fishing trawler.
As Sandoval talked quietly with the fishing boat captain, he realized that the man scared him even more than the act he was planning. He blanched when the unshaven, heavily jowled man, eyes moving like a wild boar, stated his fee for the “fishing trip,” but there was no choice—he had to agree. He told Enriquez how he would release the raft offshore to carry his family from the boat to the beach, and the other man agreed. The plan was a go.
“Quick, Felicita! Get the raft! We can strap the children onto it before the ship sinks!”
They looked in vain but found no raft. The terrible realization hit them both: The captain had no intention for any of them to survive. The raft was gone, probably pitched overboard before they left the harbor.
Desperately, Sandoval looked for something else that would float. The cabin door! The couple pulled and kicked at the rusted hinges until the heavy wood door fell forward onto the deck.
“Come children, we are going for a very special ride. Carmelita, hold your brothers still while I help secure you to the raft.”
Felicita knew in her heart what the outcome would be.
Dear God in heaven, not for me, not for Sandoval—for our children!
The two adults struggled on the pitching deck to lift the heavy door laden with the three children. They moved to the opposite side of the boat as the small fishing vessel began its fatal listing. Miraculously, the raft landed flat into the pounding waves and the two adults leaped into the water and briefly held on to the sides, hoping for miracles.
As inevitable fatigue overcame them, one of the two things Felicita Jimenez Hidalgo had prayed for was granted. She and her beloved Sandoval saw the raft slide away safely as they held each other one last time.
Soon large fins circled and circled the makeshift raft.
They were cold, wet, and hungry. They wanted Mama and Papa.
Carmelita had seen her parents slip away from the raft and go under the gray-black waters, never to come up. Even her five-year-old mind grasped what had happened: The three of them would never see Mama and Papa again.
The currents from the Straits of Florida up to the Carolinas are some of the most erratic and reversible ever studied. The great Gulf Stream, with its triune movements can reverse itself at the slightest change in water temperature, first traveling south and west toward the Gulf, then northeast toward the Carolina coastal areas.
There are also the mysterious Gyres of the Florida Keys, which can spiral back and forth, clockwise and counterclockwise.
The third and least understood are the strange coastal shelf tidal flows, seemingly emerging from the ocean floor, forming and reshaping daily the coastal outlines and sand barriers so treacherous to sea travel as long as vessels have plied those waters.
Maybe it simply was the whim of the gods—those gods of capriciousness and fate who play with humanity like pieces on a chessboard, whose moves can be dictated by a cosmic flip of the dice.
She had pulled her brothers closer to the center of the makeshift raft, still drenched by the overflowing waves of water. Against all odds, the raft held its upright position, and soon the large fins relented and disappeared to seek other food for the day.
The weather had changed, too. The grayness of the storm clouds gave way to the starlit brightness of a clear night sky. Then three children heard a grinding noise and felt a bump. The raft had come to a standstill. They did not realize it, but they had been grounded on a sandbar, just feet away from the darkened island that loomed over them.
“Come, Federico, Antonio.”
Carmelita untied the wet, salt-spray-coated ropes Mama and Papa had used to secure the three of them to the old door. They stepped into the water, knee deep even for their height, and she led them to the beach.
There they fell to the ground and slept. Moonbeams highlighted their exhausted bodies, and during the night the tide carried the raft those final few feet to the beach. There, like its riders, it seemed to lie exhausted beside them.