Cuba Libre (2008) (15 page)

"And you were here," Amelia said.

"Yes, I was here. And you see two men shot in the head. You see how easy it is for the Guardia to do it. I watched you. You don't close your eyes or turn your head to look away. You don't say oh, how can they do that. You accept what you see with your own eyes and you think about it. A crime is committed, the execution without giving it a thought of two innocent men. You don't say oh, no, is none of your business. You see they don't care, they can kill anybody they want, and you begin to wonder is there something you can do about it."

For several minutes they rode in silence, until Fuentes said, "How do you think about that?"

"Last year," Amelia said, "or was it the year before, it doesn't matter, I took work to help the sisters in a home for lepers."

As she spoke, Fuentes turned in his saddle, stirred. He said, "There is a leper home in Las Villas, San Lfizaro," and gestured, "That way, in Santa Clara, the next province east of here. I was there once to visit a woman I know and I see the devotion of the people working there, the most dedicated people in the world to do that. And you are one of those people?"

"I didn't do much," Amelia said. "I wrote letters for them, I played checkers, I gave them their medicine, two hundred drops of chaulmoogra oil a day. For fever we gave them Fowler's solution. Powdered mangrove bark was given for something, I don't remember what."

"For nausea," Fuentes said, "sure, mangrove. Look at it down there, in the swamp. So, you know how to prepare it as medicine."

"I lasted five days," Amelia said, "less than a week among the lepers and I ran out of dedication. What it means is, I can believe in something, I can want to throw myself into a cause and see myself tireless in my devotion--look at her, a saint-but it turns out I don't have enough of a sense of... I don't know." Fuentes sid, "Duty?"

"Yes, I suppose, duty or a sense of purpose. Five days and I gave up."

"No, I think the reason you left there," Fuentes said, "is because if you stay at the leper home then you don't come here. You understand? Then this would not become what you want to do most. But it must be what you want to do because you came here, didn't you?"

"Is it that simple?"

"What, to know what you want to do? Go by what you feel and don't think so much."

"It takes energy," Amelia said, "and a strong will." "Yes, of course." "And hatred."

"Hating can help, but it isn't necessary."

"You asked me, 'What is the point of you?'" Amelia said, and smiled a little hearing herself. "Tell me what's the point of you, Victor. Are you an anarchist, a communist of some kind, a collectivist?"

His face brightened as he said, "More of you comes out. You prepare yourself for this."

"At the knees of my maid," Amelia said. "Are you one of those, an anarchist?"

"It's enough at this time," Fuentes said, "to be Cuban."

Chapter
Eleven.

ONE OF THE OLD MEN IN THE cell had been an ordained priest before he unfrocked himself and joined the revolution; he had promised the others that tomorrow, Easter Sunday, he would say Mass for them.

Today was April the ninth, Tyler's fiftieth day in the Morro, and he believed they were getting ready to hang him.

They brought him out of the cell from darkness into the dull lamplight of the corridor, where soldiers were waiting with a man in clean white clothes, a burlap sack over his head and his hands manacled. Now they were bringing out Virgil Webster and that was all Tyler saw before the sack came over his head. They tied it closed with a rope around his neck-giving him the reason to think he was going to be hangedm and clamped his wrists in iron. He said, "Virgil?" with theoldiers close around him talking to each other. Virgil answered "Aye," and Tyler asked if he had a sack over his head and Virgil said he did. So it looked like they were getting ready to hang both of them, along with the man in white who was protesting in Spanish in a voice that was somehow familiar. The guards were laughing. The three were being marched along the corridor now, Tyler pushed from behind to keep up without seeing. He raised his voice to say, "Lieutenant Molina, is that you?" A guard swatted him across the back of the head, using his knuckles, as a voice said in English, "Yes, it's I," with the barest hint of an accent.

"What happened to you?"

Tyler was swatted again for an answer.

Once outside the building they were given over to a different squad of guards who pulled Tyler into the back end of an ambulance wagon, canvas covering the frame over the bed, and forced him down on the board floor. He heard Virgil say, "Goddamn it," and felt the marine fall against him. Then Molina was brought aboard. Tyler said his name. When he wasn't struck this time he asked, "You know where we're going?"

"To another prison," Molina's voice said close to Tyler, "or a place of execution."

"What did you do?"

"Offended the sensitive Guardia, allowed visitors, refused to permit torture, forgot to say my morning prayers. They resent not berg taken seriously. Or for whatever reason, here we are, carried off in the dead of night. I asked Tavalera where he's sending us; he wouldn't tell me. I said, "The Americans will be missed, you know." He said, "How can that be? They were never here.""

Jmelia could see the Morro and La Cabafia from the hotel suite's bedroom window: bleak walls in sunlight, way over there beyond the red tile roofs of the Old City and across the channel to the Gulf. Ironclad Spanish warships were now anchored in the harbor, with the U.S. Navy supply ship Fern among them. It would sail this evening with Fitzhugh Lee, the American members of the consulate staff, most of the correspondents and Amelia's friend Lorraine Regal. By tomorrow, Rollie had said earlier, everyone who was going would be gone, including Miss Amelia Brown. He said, "I'll miss you, cher." Indicating that he wasn't leaving just yet. Amelia didn't tell him she wasn't either. There would be no reason to tell him anything; when the time came she'd simply vanish.

Boudreaux, stretched out on the bedspread fully clothed except for his suit jacket, was catching up on the latest American newspapers to reach the island. The New York paper he held in front of him displayed the headline WAR SEEMS CLOSE AT HAND. The paper lying next to him announced HOSTILITIES NOT FAR OFF.

She heard him say from behind the newspaper, "What it comes down to, the limited form of autonomy Spain offered is not acceptable to the Cubans, or to the Spanish either, the ones living here. This writer has it on good authority that sometime this week McKinley will ask Congress to allow him to use military force to bring about a peaceful settlement. Don't you love the way that's worded? The next step will be a declaration of war against Spain, I'll say within two weeks, and that will be that. Anyone still here had better get out quick."

"Unless," Amelia said, "one has his own army."

"I'll get by. I'll hold off the mambis or pay tribute to them if I have to, until the United States Army comes storming ashore. I have a hunch it will be near Havana. I hope close enough I can see the show from here. Watch the cannonade with a glass of the house tin to and a good cigar. I'll send you a wire when it's safe to return."

"Neely hasn't left," Amelia said.

"Still sniffing around my lady friend?"

"He went off to interview one of the insurgent generals, Islero."

"He's crazy. I meant Neely, but they both are, for that matter. Islero's an animal, he'll make gumbo out of Neely and have him for supper. He's a perfect example of the kind of terrorist we'll have running things if we let the Cubans gain control. Weyler's a saint compared to that ferocious nigger."

Amelia, arms folded in her white satin robe, turned from the window. "The Chicago Times arrived with Neely's story about the marine being held and the military censor burned every copy. They're saying no such person is in El Morro, La Cabafia or anywhere else. The marine left San Ambrosio weeks ago on his own and they had no reason to stop him. Except Neely saw Virgil Webster at the Morro and spoke to him for more than an hour. It cost him a bottle of bourbon."

"He isn't there," Rollie said, eyes holding straight ahead on the newspaper page.

"Neely saw him."

"Yes, but-that was the other day. You were there, didn't you see the marine?"

Amelia hesitated. How did he know that?

"The officer would only allow Neely to talk to him."

Still behind the newspaper Rollie said, "I wondered why you didn't tell me you went there."

"I thought I should wait till Neely wrote his story," Amelia said, "before I started talking about it, risk some other correspondent filing the story first."

He seemed to accept that.

"You waited, huh? Didn't see anyone?"

She said, "No, I didn't," without hesitation this time. She came over to the bed, a big four-poster, and stretched out next to Rollie, there in profile behind his newspaper. "Do you know where he is now?" Amelia waited.

It took Boudreaux several moments to say, "Who?" "The marine."

"If this suite were across the hall and you were looking out the window," Boudreaux said, "you'd see an old star-shaped fortress at the south end of the harbor, and I mean old. It even has a drawbridge. The place is called Ataros, and that's where they're holding him."

"Why?" Amelia said.

She watched him concentrating on a news item to make her wait--something he'd been doing almost the entire year they'd been together. She wondered what the satisfaction was in making her repeat herself. "Rollie?" "What?"

"Why is he being held?"

"The marine? They believe he's a spy."

"That's impossible. He didn't leave the ship till he was blown off the deck."

"Cher, I'm not saying he's a spy, they are."

"How'd you find out where he is?"

"I was asking about the two that brought the horses. Remember? Charlie Burke and the other one?"

"Ben Tyler," Amelia said.

"That's right, Tyler," Boudreaux said, turning his head to look right at her for the first time, "the cowboy. I asked Lionel Tavalera--you remember Lionel, that Civil Guard officer? Tall for a Spaniard and fairly good-looking if you don't mind them more than a bit swarthy."

"The way I remember him," Amelia said, "is on the station platform at Benavides."

"That's right, when he shot those two boys. My Lord, but that must've been an awful shock to your system; you'd only left New Orleans a few days before. That's why I want to get you away from here, before there's a chance of your being exposed to any more violence. Anyway, I asked Lionel if they were still holding the cowboy and the old man, as I'd been out in the country awhile and had lost track. I remember they were in all the papers when the cowboy shot that officer and they were under investigation of aiding the enemy, running guns or some such activity. We came back from the estate and I don't recall reading any more about them; it was all the Naval Court of Inquiry and how their investigation was coming along. I said to Lionel, "We're in the middle of negotiating for a string of mustangs and you throw the horse traders in prison. What am I suppose to do now, I have the horses?" He got a kick out of that. He said, "Keep the horses if you want them." By the way, that dun you were riding last week, in the country? That's the cowboy's; I didn't buy that one, but I guess it's milxe now."

He turned back to the newspaper he was still holding upright in front of him.

"Rollie?"

He made her wait a few moments before finally saying, "What?"

"You haven't answered my question," Amelia said, in no hurry, never letting her irritation show. "I asked how you found out about the marine, where he is."

"And I told you, he's in Atars, that old fort."

"You found out from the Civil Guard officer?"

"Yeah, Tavalera."

"Well, what happened to the cowboy and his partner? You said you were asking about the two that brought the horses?"

"Charlie Burke, the old man," Boudreaux said, looking at the paper as he spoke, "came down with a serious case of dysentery, if you'll pardon my saying so, and wore himself out sitting on the bucket. Lionel says he's buried in the Colon cemetery."

"And what happened to the cowboy?"

Boudreaux turned his head for the second time to look right at her.

"Tyler? He's hanging on."

"Where do they have him?"

"In Ataros, with the marine. Lionel says he'll be there till they locate the shipment of guns he brought, and then he'll be in La Cabafia the rest of his life." Boudreaux turned to the paper, but then turned back again to Amelia. "Lionel says that's if they don't send him to Africa or shoot him."

Amelia lay there for several minutes staring at the ceiling, until Boudreaux said, "Cher, bring me one of my cigars, if you'd be so kind?"

She got one out of his humidor, nipped the end off with her front teeth before Rollie, calling her name, could stop her. "You know I like it cut with my penknife." Amelia paid no attention. She found a match to light the cigar, got it going good, handed it to Rollie and crossed to the armoire, where she took off the robe and hung it up. She stood there naked deciding what to wear this afternoon, fairly sure Rollie was watching.