Havana (25 page)

“Ow, fuck,” spat Frankie Carbine, “you fucking—”

“You piece of shit, you get up now and in one second I will beat the side of your head in and fertilize this shithole with your brains. I am not your kidding type, so you listen now or you die in five seconds.”

The man stayed down. He put his hand to his hairline, now producing copious blood, that before swelling and turning purple-yellow like a rotted grapefruit.

“You got me with a trick.”

“Yeah, a trick called faster and tougher, you fucking human blister. I ought to pop you and drain all that pus out now, you New York grease factory.”

He dared the man to rise; the man, though still deep full of aggression, was not stupid; he stayed down, but the look in his feral eyes and his ugly knitted features suggested that the next time he saw Earl would be over the sights of a pistol.

“Earl, Earl,” Frenchy suddenly crooned, breaking though the small knot of Cubans who'd gathered to watch the amusing spectacle of a big man crushing a smaller one, a sure laugh-getter in most of the world's precincts, “it's all right, ignore him.”

He turned to the man.

“Sport, Lansky would have you shipped back to the States in a straw basket if he knew what you'd just pulled. We are trying to stay on top of a fluid situation and get it done, and we don't need showboat New York thugs going screwball on us. You get back to Havana or I will make a phone call and you will not see Manhattan again in a dream.”

Sullenly the battered man rose, scuffed insolently at the dirt, and launched a gob that wasn't aimed east enough to strike Earl but not west enough to avoid insult. He slumped off.

“Who's that jaybird?”

“He's a mob guy. He hangs out with the secret police and reports to some big people who run the casinos in Havana. He's nobody, really. He's a worm, that's all. He's not worth beating up.”

“Son, if you call that ‘beating up,' you don't know much about beating up.”

“Well, yeah. Anyhow, we have something. Something good. We have to move.”

“What is it?”

“Latavistada broke the witness. It was all in Spanish but I understood. Beautiful Eyes is making sure and dotting all the i's. But the gist of it is that someone saw Castro being led off right at the end by some kind of peasant. But a weird kind of peasant. Some tall, lanky, scrawny guy, with bristly gray hair. The description was, ‘like a poet.' He looked like a poet, by which I take to mean slightly bohemian, or intellectual, what we might call a beatnik. Mean anything to you?”

Earl thought for a second.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “It's somebody who knows what he's doing. These clowns will never find this guy, believe me. He's too good for them.”

“Is he too good for you, Earl? You'll have to hunt him down, too. You have to be better than he is.”

At one point, the Russian moved into the cab with the old man who was driving, and gave directions. He seemed to sense ambush and roadblock and sudden troop appearances as if he had a radar in his brain for such things. He always knew which street to turn down, how the alleys connected, and following these methods, he got them to the outskirts of a town abuzz with police activity.

Next came the river, where he cleansed himself and felt somehow repaired, or at least improved in spirit. By then it was the middle of the day.

“Time to rest, my friend,” said the Russian.

“Where? We need shelter.”

“If we seek shelter, we alert someone who in turn mutters something to someone else and before you know it, you're before the wall, only this time, I'm standing beside you. Oh, and neither of us has any eyes. No thank you. You rest here, by the river. You keep low. Sleep if you can. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

“To where? I should be with my men.”

“Your men are dead. Your task is to survive and consecrate their sacrifice. We won't comment on the stupidity of it all, and if you win in the end, you can order the historians to portray last night as a triumph instead of a folly. If they refuse, shoot them and find new historians. Now rest.”

Speshnev thanked the truck driver, and bid him off, and when he had gone, led the young revolutionary down closer to the river. Here, he was invisible yet had a view across the water to the city, and a view down the dirt road that ran atop the crest. In the distance lay some peasant
bohios,
thatched-roof huts, surrounded by broken fencing, donkeys and chickens.

“You wait. Go nowhere. Shit in your pants. You don't need to tell anyone about your heroism. You wait here. I have arrangements to make.”

“You can get me there,” Castro said, gesturing to the beckoning mountains that seemed to be just yards away but were still miles off.

“To do what, live in a cave? Just wait.”

And with that, he vanished so quickly that Castro had a sense that he was magical. Could he be an angel? Castro didn't believe in God, but he believed in God's angels, paradoxical or not. Possibly this man was such an angel. Whoever he was, he was a capable fellow. He certainly knew a lot of things. He had a gift for suddenness, either in the appearance or the disappearance department.

The young man lay and tried to sleep. But he was too agitated. He kept seeing bodies shot and sloppy, arms and legs flung out, blood spattering everywhere. He kept hearing the sound of the bullets ripping into the car. He kept feeling the spray of glass whizzing at him as a bullet shattered a windshield. He kept thinking of what he could have done that he had not or what he had done that he wished he hadn't.

He turned his vision to the city across the muddy river. One could tell that El Presidente was quite upset by the little adventure of the night, as police squad cars, the unmarked black cars of the secret police, and the jeeps of the military were everywhere, stopping cars at roadblocks, yanking occupants out to examine their documents. He watched them from across the water, nestled down deep, close to the bank. Even some airplanes buzzed overhead, old Mustangs the Americans had given their little Cuban brothers. But the planes stayed high and seemed to be merely for show; the police cars never came close, all in all; it was quite comfortable by the river, as the noon elongated into afternoon. He found a comfortable way of wedging himself into the vegetation so that crushed rushes cushioned his backside; it was like a very nice bed. He wished he had a cigar. But he saw that a cigar would be of no help in his current predicament.

A few hours later, near nightfall, an old peasant wandered the road. He seemed in no particular hurry to get anywhere and no one would pay him the slightest attention. But at a certain moment, he disappeared into the bushes. And when Castro next saw him, he was quite close; but he had taken his old hat off, and Castro saw that he was the Russian.

“Say, you are a tricky fellow.”

“I may know a thing or two. Here, I bring you some treats.”

He had food and a bag of clothes, for Castro a short-sleeved shirt to wear over his army pants. The young man took off and squirreled away his army fatigue shirt. He drew the cream-colored shirt around him, buttoned it, and it hung over his belt, partially obscuring the military nature of his pants. It wasn't much of a disguise but it certainly was better than the sergeant's uniform, which all of Cuba was hunting.

He wolfed the food ravenously, for he felt as if he hadn't eaten in days. It was a cold pork sandwich and a bottle of warm beer, but still delicious.

“What is the word? What have they done to the men?”

“I told you. Forget the men. The men are gone. They rounded them up and took them to the barracks and Ojos Bellos cut their eyes out and they were shot. Such is life. Such is war.”

“All of them?”

“Most, it is said.”

“It shouldn't have turned out like this. We didn't even make it into the barracks. We were hung up outside and—”

“I saw. Someday I will teach you how to plan and administer an attack on a fortification. You don't just drive up to it, you idiot. What did you think would happen?”

“I thought the soldiers would be drunk. And I did not think they would fight for Batista.”

“They were drunk but not drunk enough. And they don't give a shit about Batista. These are bored country boys in dull garrison duty. Give them a chance to shoot something and you make them happy. You gave them the best day of their lives. They will tell stories of the heroic defense of the one thousand against the one hundred for a century.”

“They were lucky. I—”

“No, you were stupid. Now stop it. Don't argue with me. You don't know enough to argue. You need your rest. We will move in a while.”

“The mountains?”

“You didn't have a plan for this?”

“No. I thought we'd succeed.”

“You are truly an idiot child. You should have yourself neutered so that you don't pass your simpleness on.”

“I already have a son.”

“Not that you've seen him in months.”

“Where are we going?”

“It's all arranged.”

“Havana! Yes, Havana!”

“Let's survive Santiago first.”

“But the future is—”

“The future is the next three days, or there is no future. I've made arrangements with certain people. We'll get you out. You will go into exile. You will learn, read, study, master tactics and training, absorb organization and administration, broaden your mind and meet people.”

“I could have done that before. Why now such a generous scholarship offer?”

“You don't know, do you?”

“No.”

“You're famous.”

“What?”

“Right now, you're the most famous man in Cuba. Your picture is in all the papers.”

“I am famous?”

“Absolutely, though for differing reasons. To the police and the military and El Presidente, you are a monster. To the Americans you are a threat. To the people you are a hero.”

This genuinely pleased the young man. A broad smile crossed his face, unbidden; he seemed to glow in the knowledge of this new thing. He was no longer a street-corner orator, a voice occasionally on the radio, an essayist for little radical papers like
Alerta.
No, he was famous. He forgot to ask about his wife and child, his parents, his men. All no longer existed.

“What do they say of me?”

“Vain boy! What, do you think this is going to get you a movie contract?”

“No, I care only for my country and my people. I have no need of this fame except as a tool to save my country. But…”

“But is it a good picture?”

“Well, yes.”

“Yes, it's a good picture. It happens to be your wedding picture. You and Mirta. They've cut her out of it, of course, so all the girls will like it. But it means that if you are seen, you are a phone call away from losing your eyes and getting a bullet in the skull. So we must move quickly.”

“Off, then. But…where? How? They are everywhere.”

“You leave it to me, sonny. This is what I do.”

 

“ ‘
The Blue Mountain / And River Cauto! / Sinews of the eternity which begat us. / The mountain warms us with its great heart, / Splendid son of excellence and infinity.
' There, what do you think of that?”

“It's quite awful.”

“You are truly not a Cuban. That is the poem of Manuel Navarro Luna, ‘Poemas Mambises.' It is a great work and it expresses that which is before us.”

“You may not be terribly fond of romantic mountain poetry after you've spent time being hunted by men in mountains. Believe me, they don't write poems about that kind of an experience.”

But Castro could not be denied, for before them lay the Sierra Maestra, the blue crest of mountains that dominated the coast around Santiago. They had trooped for hours in darkness, through brush, around farms, through chicken coops, avoiding the main roads, moving ever onward, going to rest in daylight—and now, in light, had at last emerged from the city so that there was nothing ahead of them except…mountains.

They could see the mountains, green and lush in the high summer of late July. It was like no other part of Cuba, looking more like the American West than anywhere, with woods clinging to the elevation. Beyond the crests, the mountains plunged precipitously to the sea.

“Will we make it?”

“We have a good lead. I do not know if they have changed their tactics yet, and turned to the countryside. I see no indication. But we will make it or not depending not on ourselves, but upon their skill. Do they track well? How well trained are the dogs? Are the trackers smart in the way they follow us, or do they lumber about with a battalion and stop to smoke twice an hour? Do they know the roads? Can they follow spoor? What is their instinct for land-form? How badly do they want it?”

“These are soldiers and policemen. I do not think they will enjoy the deep forest a bit.”

“That is true. But another question: Are the Americans involved? If the Americans put good men on the job—or even one good man—then we could be in trouble. A shame, but that's the way it goes.”

“Would they have such a man?”

“Actually, yes. He's here. I've met him. I know him slightly.”

“You should have killed him.”

“Actually, I killed somebody who was about to kill him. Twice even! They seemed such good decisions at the time. Now, I must admit, I have doubts about my own judgment.”

And it seemed to work so well for such a long time. Almost gaily, they took a road through the sugarcane fields of the coastal plain, and workers nodded at them and the young man waved back enthusiastically. He was not recognized, and they stopped for lunch in a little group of huts in the lee of the mountains, where nobody paid them much attention.

There was a last field to negotiate before the forestation of the slopes took over, then they were gone, happily, invisibly. But it was a raw patch where the cane had already been cut, and nothing but brown stubble remained. A smarter way might have been to travel the dirt road another few miles, and cut into the hills where the fields were thicker. But Speshnev decided the speed was worth the risk, and it was of course the wrong decision.

Speshnev heard a faint buzz and looked upward and saw the plane. He had a hope that it had either missed them or thought of them as just two more peasants wandering this way and that across the landscape, but the plane did not miss them and it did not think they were peasants, for it banked around, vectoring lower to get a better look at them, and if there was a moment when they might still have gotten away with it on bluff, that disappeared, for the young man panicked and took off running madly for the treeline.

Fool, Speshnev thought, but then he worried that the plane had snipers aboard, and so he too took off at a run.