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Authors: David Poyer

BOOK: The Passage
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The Fleet Bar was almost empty. He hung his helmet and jacket and got a seat. His mind was a foam of self-loathing and anger, so seething that he couldn't tell how the hell he felt. Fuck her! What did she expect from him? He'd never promised her a thing; then suddenly, surprise, time for the prostate examination! “Double martini,” he grunted, and the bartender pulled the bottle of already-mixed off its bed of ice and topped him up till the clear liquid bulged. Dan slapped a dollar on the wood and the guy went away, came back, left two quarters shining beside his glass.
He took his time sipping it, sitting there looking out the window, letting himself cool off.
Below was the river. The Fleet Bar was out on the point where Naval Base, Charleston, poked out into the curve of the Cooper. Beyond it was nothing, just low marsh and spoil that at night was only a black void smelling of dead fish. After a while, he got bored with it and swung around on the stool and looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar.
Looked at his beard.
He'd grown it during the divorce, when he didn't like what was happening, who he was, or anything else and wanted to change everything. He remembered when he'd stopped shaving, the standard Navy razz: You look like a movie star with that beard; do you smoke cigars? No, why? Too bad, you'd look just like Lassie taking a shit.
He contemplated it now from between the stacks of shot glasses, the hangers of Beer Nuts. It looked all right, looked good, in fact. A couple of people had said it made him look older, but most women liked it. Little Mary liked it.
“Another, friend?”
He nodded. A basket of popcorn rocked to a halt beside him and he reached out for a handful, chased it with cold gin.
He could refuse to cut it.
Sure, and then what? Like somebody had said—he forgot who—the Navy didn't care about big fuckups. But a little thing like not shaving … Was it worth losing his career over?
Career, he thought viciously, what career? He'd made it this far, but how much chance did he have of making the cut for lieutenant commander? Or screening for XO? Not much, with the lousy fitness reports from Sundstrom in his jacket and the letter of reprimand he'd gotten—that he'd
demanded
—after
Ryan
went down. Now, looking back, he couldn't believe he'd done that. He'd really shot himself in the foot on that one.
It was time to get serious.
And if he wasn't going any further, maybe he ought to think seriously about what came next.
 
 
FINALLY, he'd soaked up enough that he didn't give a shit about Beverly Strishauser or the Navy or anybody else. He staggered outside and fumbled with the key. It wouldn't go into the ignition. He forced it, then heard a snap. When he held it to the light, the break gleamed. “Fuck,” he said, and kicked the bike. It wobbled, then fell over, and he heard the crash and tinkle as the other turn signal went.
 
 
A long storm-tossed time later, he came to in front of his mirror, in his stateroom. What was this, the world was made of fucking mirrors? His roommate stirred. Dimly, he remembered slamming the door open. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
He stared at himself in the harsh light from the fluorescent a foot above. Black shadows half-erased his face. It seemed to shift from
moment to moment, as if there were another, deeper visage beneath what shimmered in the silver surface. Through the roar of alcohol, he dimly knew and dimly feared what he'd feel like tomorrow.
That bitch. Fuck them. Fuck them all.
He leaned, staggering, over the stainless bowl and hit the tap. Air sucked in an expiring hiss, then water stammered out. It was spring-loaded like all shipboard taps and he had to hold it open till the bowl filled. As he searched through the cabinet, bottles fell out, clanged on the sink. His roommate turned over. “Hell you doing,” he grunted.
“Don't care,” he mumbled. “Go back ta sleep.” He found what he wanted and sprayed his hand full, then rubbed the cold foam over his chin.
He didn't feel anything when he dragged the razor savagely through the beard. It didn't want to come off. He had to go over and over the tender unexposed skin. He didn't feel anything. It wasn't till someone naked and unfamiliar stared back at him that he noticed the blood. All the blood.
Alcorcón, Cuba
T
HE palms clashed restlessly in the gusty wind and small animals scuttled frantically away through the leaves. A full moon blinked through tumbling clouds. Palmetto fronds slashed like living machetes at her hands. It had rained heavily that day; the dry season was over. As she followed the other shadows, Graciela breathed what was less air than a compound of water vapor and marsh stink. And millions of mosquitoes, she thought. They droned and whined as boots and bare feet scuffed over the wet leaves. They brushed her face like the webs the great crab spiders wove between the trees, across the footpaths that threaded the canebrakes and thickets and broken unfarmable salt ground that bordered the edge of the Bahía Jigiiey.
As she stumbled after the vanishing forms ahead, gasping for breath, she remembered burying Armando.
They'd put him in the ground behind the abandoned church, near his grandparents. There were no prayers. It had been a long time since there were priests at Alcorcón. So in the end, they'd just stood at the grave in silence, then placed their flowers and left.
Her bare foot stepped on something that jerked and writhed to escape her weight. The snakes of Cuba weren't poisonous, but it startled her. “Quiet,” someone muttered, and she collected herself and shut her lips firmly and went on. How much farther? Her legs were growing heavy. She'd worked all day planting cane, and now the baby kicked and it was hard to breathe.
“Estoy cansada”
, she murmured. And the whisper came back, “Tell those who are tired to keep quiet; we're almost there.”
And in truth, they came out into the open only a few hundred meters farther on. The moonlight silvered a grassy hillside above a darkness that could have been a brush-filled ravine. Then the
clouds slid closed again and the world was only sound: the trickle of water, the throaty baying of frogs. She sank to her knees, gasping shallow breaths around the other body within her own. Maybe she shouldn't have come. But she couldn't have stayed away, either.
She knew what they were going to discuss tonight, far from those who listened and punished.
Around the clearing, the others settled to their haunches or sat, brushing the grass first. The moon emerged, fingering their faces with swaying palm shadows, then waned again.
“Have the
policía
talked with you?” a man said from the far side of the circle. Those were the first words.
“They came to my house.”
“Colón spoke to me at the store. Took me aside there and spoke to me.” Ramón Colón was the head of the committee of vigilance for the
batey.
“Of the guitar?”
“Yes.”
“What is this guitar of which they are speaking?”
“It must be a code. They want to know what it means.”
“Why ask us? We're peasants. There's no place in the world farther from anything than Alcorcón.”
“All we know is to work and stand in line for beans, meat every nine days. A man can't live on that.”
“It's not healthy for the children,” said a female voice. Good, she wasn't the only woman. It was strange, this circle of the shadows, like the old stories of the assembly of spirits, the unhappy dead … but these were living voices—neighbors, relatives, people she'd worked beside for years in field and mill and warehouse.
The first voice, the one that had mentioned the police, said now, “Something's going to happen. What have we done, that they're afraid? Nothing, right?”
“Right, Tomás.”
“Tomás” was Tomás Guzman Arredondo, her husband's younger cousin. He'd been in the army, had fought in Angola under the famous general Arnaldo Ochoa, had left a hand behind in Ethiopia.
“Don't use names. Just say ‘man,' all right?”
“
Perdón.
”
“Like I was saying, we haven't done anything, but here they are trying to frighten us. They don't come around like that unless they're getting something ready.”
The men talked on, the low voices of a card game or a life-and-death discussion. Graciela rocked, wincing as the baby dug its heels into her ribs. It didn't know that hurt her. It didn't know there was anything beyond the warm dark that surrounded it. But one day, it would be driven out, angry, screaming, terrified, into a world
that would kill a child without remorse, that rewarded with survival only those who were willing to fight for it every second of their lives.
“So we talk, and talk. That doesn't change anything. He talks, too, the bearded one. Eight million tons of this, forty thousand hectares of that. Four hours you listen, then when he's done, you wake up and say to yourself, ‘What
mierda
.' If everything's so great, how is it we still have nothing? Can every grain of rice be going to the stinking Russians? But still you have to stand and clap just like you believe such garbage.”
Someone said, “Remember Silvio? I wonder what happened to Silvio.”
“He left,
chico.
”
“Disappeared.”
“He ran.”
“What do you mean, ran? He escaped, that's what he did.”
“I will explain the difference,
amigo.
If a young man leaves, a person without ties, to make himself a better life, that's escaping, no? But if someone like Silvio Padrón leaves his family here for us to feed, five kids, his
pobre
wife too sick to work—that's running. What kind of man would leave his family at the mercy of wild beasts?”
“I disagree. Who is to say what was in his heart? Maybe he just couldn't take it anymore.”
“Elisa's right. Why judge him? He had to leave, and maybe we do, too.”
No one spoke for a while, then someone murmured, “You're right. I say so, too.
¡Irnos para el carajo de aquí!
”
“It's all very well for you to say let's get the hell out of here, but what about those of us with families?”
“We take them, too—unless we are truly worms.”
“I don't know about you, but my kids are little. They shoot people trying to escape. I hate the fucking Colons, too, but I'm a father.”
“So what, you son of a bitch? We're all fathers.”
“What do you think,
abuelo
? You've seen all this before, with the Batistianos.”
An aged voice, whispery as the wind in the palms: “Us old people, our lives have been lived. But Tómas is right. It's never been this bad before. If you young people can find a way, go.”
“You're all crazy. How are we going to leave? Grow gossamer wings and fly away? There's no way out of here.”
“Oh yes, there is. By boat.”
“That is evident, my friend. It is also evident that we have no boats,” said someone else sarcastically.
“They have them at the
playa
. I saw pictures—”
“We are not permitted to visit the
playa.
That is for foreigners
only, and those in the Party. My son worked at the power plant there one summer, at Nuevitas, and they took him to the beach at Santa Lucía. They scrutinize your documents and take you off the bus at once if you do not have the proper pass. During the day, airplanes fly up and down the coast. At night, the guards patrol with dogs. If they catch anyone on the beach, they shoot to kill.”
“Forget the beaches. If people could leave from there, Fidel and his fucking brother would be the only ones left in Cuba.”
“Anyway, how can we do anything? The Colons probably have a
chivato
here right now. When he gets back, he'll slip them a note and we'll have to explain all this to the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.”
“We're all family here, Tomás. No one here's an informer.”
“Then where do they come from?”
“Perhaps they would inform on others, but not on their own family.”
“I don't know—I think Tomás is right.”
“On the contrary, my cousin.”
“This is desperate talk. No one escapes. You hear what happens to those who try. They shoot them, there in the water. Or the sharks eat them. That's why we never heard from Silvio.”
“Not according to the American radio.”
“We don't know if those are lies or truth, Cousin. They mention people who make it, but those could be just names they make up. Do any of us know anyone who fled who ever wrote back? The only one we know of who tried was Silvio Padrón, and like you say, we never heard from him. He could be in prison, or shot, or eaten by the fish.”
“Or perhaps he owns a gas station in Miami.”
“This is all foolish talk.”
“They flee from the cities. How can we flee from here?”
“
¡Mierda!
Fool, we're closer to the sea here than they are in the cities.”
“Let us not curse each other, my children. We are all God's fools.”
“Thank you for wise words, grandfather,” said the sarcastic voice.
“Anyway, it's not true Silvio was the only one. Do you remember Juan Davalos? He and another man from Cayo Sabinal were working here with the tractors. Then one day they were gone.”
“We don't know if they made it.”
“
Carajo
, how can we know
anything?
The government radio says those who reach Florida are put to work in the fields without pay. The Americans call them
negritos
and treat them with contempt. There is much crime and great poverty. Do we want to live that way, without pride, without safety?”
“The government radio lies.”
“Undoubtedly, but who knows if the Americans are lying, too, with their stories about how wonderful things are in Miami? Such a voyage would be dangerous. They may catch us and kill us. And we are not familiar with the sea. We could all die, you know. That must be considered, in my opinion.”
Graciela had sat silent, as was fitting for a woman, listening to the arguments as rain began to fall, rustling in the leaves before patting cold drops on her back. Now she felt them all tasting the harsh truth in what the last man had said. Yes, they all could die.
“We're all dying here,” she said then.
“Oh, Graciela.”
“No names, Cousin.”
She felt the baby's heels thud against her heart, uncomfortable and at the same time thrilling. She'd forgotten what it was like. So long ago, Coralía, then the two lost ones. She said, louder, “We are all dying now; the only difference is, here they do it slow. My husband, they killed him. If my baby Victoria had had food and medicine, she'd still be alive. The food goes to the Bolos; we have nothing. If I die on the way to Miami, that's better than living here. That is what I have to say. I'm leaving. Are there any men to go with me?”
“Be silent, woman. Don't speak of what you don't know.”
“She's crazy, that one.”
Only Tomás's voice, slow and serious, didn't ridicule her. He said, “If we decided to go, we'd have to have a boat. Find one, or build one.”
“This is true.”
“Can we build one?”
“Out of what?”
“We could decide to go if we found one, and if we did not, why, then we'd know it wasn't possible.”
“It's also a crime to plan to leave. If they catch us examining boats—”
“Nothing can be done without risk. It'll take some
cojones, chico.
”
“And we know nothing about boats. We're farmers.”
“Gustavo used to be a fisherman,” someone said.
“That was long ago,
compadres.
”
“I know how to build a boat,” said a high, young voice suddenly. Graciela wasn't sure, but she thought it might be Manuelito's.
“What's that, boy?”
“I have a book that shows how. It shows how the hull is put together and everything.”
“A book?” said someone doubtfully.
“What's your boat made of,
muchacho
?”
“Wood.”
“Where would we get wood?”
“It doesn't have to be wood,” said Tomás. “It can be anything we can scrounge up—plywood, metal, anything. Palm boards. Sheets of tin.”
“Where would we get tin?”
“If we're leaving, what will we need our roofs for,
chico?
Look, we are not stupid people here in Batey Number Three. If we all put our minds to it, I'm sure we can build a boat.”

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