The top of the ninth inning was the Vertientes’ last chance. They had their best batters coming up. Nandito felt good. The first batter, their center fielder, lined a single between shortstop and third base. The second batter struck out. The third batter hit a deep fly to center field that was easily caught, but it was so deep that the Vertientes player was able to take a base.
Needing only one more out, Nandito was nauseated, his skin drenched with a cold, nervous sweat. He pulled out his dirty handkerchief and mopped his brow. He heard the voices of his teammates urging him to pitch a fastball and Chirra’s laughter and cheers as he danced in front of their bench. His first pitch was wild. His second pitch was high. Yet he came back with two strikes. With the count two and two, Ernesto asked for a low ball, but Nandito didn’t know if he could control the ball, so he shook his head. Ernesto then gave a signal for an inside pitch. Nandito did not like that one either, and Ernesto asked for a time-out. The umpire told Ernesto to make it quick. The fans of the Vertientes team, knowing that this was their last chance to win the game, chanted:
Pin Pon, que se vaya el cabrón
Pin Pon que se vaya el cabrón
Vertientes para acá,
Vertientes para allá,
Dale,
Dale,
Hasta que se acabe
Cachin, cachan, cachunga
El Vertientes le zumba
Ernesto asked for a curve ball. Nandito, with all his remaining strength, looped a ball that ended up sailing across the outside corner. The umpire, to his annoyance, was forced to call it a strike. The game was over. San Joaquin had won.
Nandito could not believe it. They had won a game against the best team in the league. His teammates lifted him up and carried him for a triumphal lap around the field. Amid the celebrations, Paulino stood by his stand and swatted off the kids who tried to cadge free drinks.
The Vertientes group sullenly walked off the field. Many boarded their trucks, cars, and taxis deeply stung by their unanticipated defeat. Paulino had run out of cold beer, and was selling the remaining warm ones.
Ernesto appeared in front of the makeshift stand. “Hey, my friend, how about a drink? It’s time to celebrate.”
Paulino handed him a beer. “Hey, this one is on the house. I told you we were going to win. See, you have to think positive,” he said with an exuberant smile. “This is my last one. I ran out of beers!”
Ernesto took a swig and said, “Yes, but it’s hot.”
Nandito was dropped at last by his teammates, who congratulated each other on their win, embracing, laughing, clapping, and shouting, “We won, we won! We’re going to win the league championship!” They drank hot beer and threw their baseball caps into the air as the children ran around the field, sliding into home plate, hitting imaginary home runs, and making difficult double plays.
A group of well-wishers followed the team from the playing field to the bohíos in San Joaquin. Beer was abandoned for rum, drums played, and young girls danced, shuffling their feet on the black dirt, hips moving to the sound of the bongo and the conga drums as claves set the rhythm with their syncopation. The men joined, aloof, unconcerned, and in control, but then the music, the energy of the dancers, the heat, the sight of the girls moving their hips and arms, and the rum circulating in their blood brought out their passion.
A tired Nandito rested his lanky body against the trunk of a mango tree. Rosita placed her hands on his shoulders and gave him a kiss. “You were great, my man. You were great.”
The tiredness drained from his bones with her words, and he took her by the waist, led her to the middle of the crowded dance floor, and danced with his Rosita to show that this pretty mulatta was his. He felt her legs rubbing his legs. He was excited, young, and proud. Their eyes locked as they danced with each other, for each other. The other dancers noticed and like a dance troop, following the precise instructions of a choreographer, formed a circle around them and encouraged them to do what they knew best, moving their bodies to the beat of the drums. Then a trumpeter joined and his trumpet whooped with joy. Rosita, seeing she was the center of attention, increased her swaying, and the drummers, watching her hips, increased the speed of their beat. Nandito felt the urge to be only with her, outside of this crowd, and held her tightly by her thin waist. Still dancing, they crossed out of the circle amidst thrown kisses and friendly slaps. Nandito took her hand and slowly walked his young wife to the quiet of their bohío.
Chirra, watching Rosita and Nandito, felt happy for them, for himself, and for the whole world. Everything was so easy, so free, and so pure. He was thirsty and searched for a stronger drink. He saw Paulino looking for bottles in the bushes. “We won, the girls are dancing. I need one more drink,” he convinced himself. “And then I’ll be complete again. I’ll talk nice and pretty to the girls, and they’ll laugh at my jokes. I’ll take them to the beach at the bank of the stream, and they’ll feel the softness of the sand on their naked backs while I make love to them. They’ll moan, and swear that I’m their man, and I’ll laugh and make love again. Now, where is a bottle of rum?”
He searched around the perimeter of the dance area for abandoned bottles. He took a sip from one and a sip from another. He felt the heat of the rum and staggered close to the dance floor. He saw his daughter Consuelo dancing with Ernesto, who had abandoned his dour sense of humor and now tightly held his partner, a large smile stretched across his face. “But Consuelo is so young!” Chirra thought, outraged.
Chirra broke into the group of dancers, grabbed Ernesto roughly by the shoulder, and said, “Who do you think you are? Just because you have a glove and play catcher, you can’t dance like that with my daughter. She’s not a puta. You better behave! I have my saber and I know how to use it on scum like you.”
Ernesto merely laughed at him.
“You have to respect me. I won’t permit it,” Chirra blurted.
Ernesto put his arm firmly around Consuelo’s shoulders and led her away. He did not want to confront a drunken old man.
Chirra shouted one more time, “I’m her father. Stop!”
Ernesto and Consuelo ran instead. Chirra stumbled a few steps and fell down amid the laughter of the dancers.
PAULINO WAS PICKING up the returnable beer bottles. His recalcitrant helpers had vanished, so he used children young enough to think that finding the amber bottles with their Indian head logo was a fun game. Paulino wanted to finish loading the boxes of empties on Nandito’s truck so he could go back to his room and count his money. He had to keep it in a safe place. He didn’t believe in banks. They had crashed before, and he remembered the stories of businessmen firing revolvers in their mouths or jumping from tall buildings.
Paulino had always kept his money in his socks, but now that he had more, he reconsidered. Maybe he would open an account at a bank for the first time. He surrendered to the sound of music—drums pulsating, trumpet blaring, the claves clicking. He sat next to a tree to get a better view, sipping his first hot beer. He never relaxed at a quateque, and did not feel at ease with the uneducated girls and women of San Joaquin, pretty as they were. Their fathers and brothers also knew him, so he had to behave. Marriage and living in this area did not fit into his life plans.
He noticed three attractive women in their late twenties or early thirties, sitting on taburetes as they watched the crowd. Paulino had seen them around. They were sisters who owned a sugar plantation near the farm. They rode and trained their own horses, managed their land, and had a reputation as tough businesspeople. Perhaps because of their self-reliance, they had not accepted local suitors. Carlos, the bodeguero, had approached the oldest, but she was not interested in a bodeguero. The three sisters wore long sleeves and large soft straw hats with bandanas covering part of their faces and their necks. Their bodies betrayed the slight movements of those who want to dance, but can’t because of the rules dictated by society. The sisters were not free to mingle with the Joaquineros, young sugar cutters, and vaqueros.
Elena, the youngest sister, got up from her taburete,
“I would like to dance this number. Thank you for asking me.” Taking Paulino by his hand, she led the speechless man to the dance floor.
— 10 —
The Park
DON MIGUEL WAS sitting on the terrace reading the Diario de la Marina when Estrella came with his breakfast. He had been at the house for a week, and Estrella was frustrated, as she hadn’t cooked a meal for him yet.
“Don Miguel, when are we going to have the girls for dinner? I don’t know why you have me here! I’m not a charity case. The wives of your friends constantly call me to find out when I’ll be ready to leave your service. Yet once you show up, you only eat out.”
She well remembered the family meals at Lola’s house: The whole family had gathered at the table. The Señora at one end, presiding over her children, cousins, aunts, married, and unmarried; and then, after her death, Adelaida, as her oldest daughter, continued the tradition. Don Miguel remembered, too, but such memories haunted him. Why recreate the past and give life to thoughts that tormented him? Why bring them back?
“No,” he said. “Soon, I’ll call the girls. Punto y acabado. Tonight, soup and ice cream in the dining room at seven-thirty. You can serve.”
Out in the garage, Fernando absentmindedly passed a dry chamois over the headlights of the car. He was bored, and walked to the kitchen to see if Estrella had leftover meat loaf for a sandwich.
“Fernando, what do you want? Take a walk or go somewhere,” Estrella snapped as Georgina came into the kitchen. Georgina had prepared Don Miguel’s room for the night, placing his pajamas and night-robe on the bed. She glanced at Fernando and slowly stretched her short skirt, making it tight on her ass as she walked past him.
“Hi, Fernando!” she said with a hint of seduction in her voice. “How do you like La Capital?” She didn’t wait for his reply, but added, “I love it myself, but to truly enjoy Havana you need companionship. It’s so big. Maybe if—”
Estrella cut in, “Georgina, you have to clean the table, and then I’ll find you something else to do. I told Fernando that he has better things to do than stay here and be a drone.”
Fernando knew that it wasn’t his day and disappeared. Besides, he was finished with Georgina and the sexual frustration she caused. Three blocks from the house was a French-designed park. It occupied a square block; four sidewalks met at a big round fountain with thick concrete sides, a gigantic wafer inside a concrete cross. Benches were scattered around the park. Large ficus trees, whose massive roots broke their way up through the sidewalks, shaded them. The abandoned fountain had debris, abandoned beer bottles and dirt, at its bottom. The air near it was putrid with the smell of decomposing leaves as puddles of rainwater waited to evaporate.
Fernando had used that park to charm the maids who had preceded Georgina. He knew exactly what to say and do to them to make them breathless, pining, in virtual physical pain, full of desire, and then take them to a nearby inn that rented rooms by the hour, where they would surrender in his arms. Fernando chose a bench that had a good view of the sidewalks, hoping, perhaps, that a new romance might appear.
A car stopped at the corner, and a young man, who wore a tight white guayabera, dropped a package behind a large ficus tree, then jumped back into the car, which sped away. A moment later, the small explosion startled Fernando. His first reaction was to run from the park, but he was afraid that it would call attention to him, so he started to walk, as fast as he could, back to the house.
He was half a block away when a tan Oldsmobile screeched to a halt in front of him. Two men jumped out and threw him against the hood, roughly patted down his body, and then shoved him into the backseat.
“You’re under arrest. What are you doing here?” one of the men said, closing the door as the car sped towards the G2 station next to the entrance of the bridge on 23rd Street on the Vedado side of the Almendares River.
Once they arrived, Fernando was thrown in an empty cell.
“Hey, you have the wrong guy. Let me call my boss. He lives nearby. He’ll tell you. Hey, this is a big mistake. Please let me call him.”
“Shut up. We know what to do.”
The cell door clanged, leaving Fernando in the loneliness of the room. He sat there for an hour and nothing happened. He started to pace, and out of frustration shouted, “Hey, I have to make a call. Let me out. I haven’t done a thing. I don’t live around here. This is a mistake. A big mistake.”
Two agents swiftly came for him. Letting him out, they shoved him into a small office and pushed him into a steel chair. They took his wallet, his driver’s license, the few pesos that he had in his pocket, his lighter and cigarettes, belt and shoelaces.
“Your name”
“Fernando Gomez.”
“Where do you live?”
“Finca San Joaquin, Piedrecitas, Camagüey.”
Before he answered any other questions, he was lifted from the chair and thrown into another cell. He heard screams from a nearby room, followed by periods of silence. He nervously paced around his cell. Paulino had told him of young men who were against the government who had disappeared, but he never thought it could happen to him. Another hour passed and the door of his cell opened, and a mulatto, younger than Fernando, holding up his slacks with his hands and wearing a guayabera that had seen better times, was thrown in. After he recovered from being pushed, he pressed up against the bars of the cell and screamed, “You can’t do this to me! I want out. I haven’t done a thing. I want out! Let me go, let me go.”
“Hey, you’d better calm down,” Fernando said, “It’s just a matter of waiting. If you haven’t done anything, they’ll let you out. Just calm down and sit. Relax, it’ll be fine.” Fernando tried to be reassuring with the young man, although he was getting more anxious every minute.
The young man looked at Fernando with disbelief. “Do you know where you are?”
“Of course,” Fernando answered. “I’m at the G2 prison, but I’m not the person they want. I was just sitting in a park when a bomb exploded. I walked off, and they came after me. But I didn’t do anything.”
The young man smiled wryly. “You don’t know a damn thing about the G2. They’ll torture you, maim you, and even kill you. Yeah, sure, you just walked by. They couldn’t care less who you are. This is the G2! Are you crazy! They’re going to beat us up badly, very badly, or even worse,” he said, as a look of terror swept over his face.
They sat silently on the floor of their cell and stared blankly at the dingy hallway beyond the iron bars. Each one was afraid to confide in the other. They were nervous the other could be a G2 informer. Sporadically, men were forced to walk in the hallway, subjugated, with fear in their eyes. At the end of the hallway, a door opened into an office where Fernando could hear the laughter of the jailors. A radio played at its highest volume to conceal the shouting and howling coming from the room.
Suddenly, the younger prisoner leaned his head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe I’m here. Who is taking away my freedom? When did we give them that power? God help me. Help me understand. Help me be free again.” He turned to Fernando and said flatly, “They don’t know who I am, and I’m not going to tell them.”
“I would tell them with pleasure who I am, but they haven’t even tried to find out. I work for this man who owns a large farm in Camagüey. I don’t even live here. If they ask the right questions, they’ll let me go.”
The young man smirked. “Man, are you a fool! Do you guajiros know anything about what is happening in Hav
ana? They may not ask any questions, or they may ask you the wrong one.”
Just then, two guards appeared and opened the cell door. They jerked Fernando to his feet, led him to the same small office, and sat him on the metal chair.
“What are you doing in Havana?” a tall agent asked him.
“Why were you near the park?” a second agent, smaller, almost rodentlike, asked.
“Do you come from Oriente province?”
“Who are you?”
“Fernando Gomez, I told you so.”
“Where were you tonight at six-thirty?”
“Walking near the park close to my boss’s home.”
“Do you drive a blue car?”
“No.”
“Do you drive a Chevrolet?”
“No.”
“Do you know Enrique Perez?”
“No.”
“Romualdo Rodriguez?”
“Romualdo, no”
Fernando answered most of the questions without hesitation, but if he hesitated even briefly, the rodent slapped Fernando on the mouth.
“You can not think. You answer!” he commanded.
Fernando controlled himself, though he was angry. He wanted to stand up and hit the rodent with his fist. He tasted the blood in his mouth.
They asked questions for two hours, and they didn’t believe any of his replies. Fernando’s back hurt from sitting in the uncomfortable steel chair. Still, they wanted to know more. He was groggy and tired. He wanted it to end.
“Do you have friends at the university?” the agent asked.
“I don’t know anyone there. I’m poor man. I’m a worker at a farm.”
The rodent slapped him again. “I don’t care who and what you are!”
“Do you travel to Trinidad?” he then asked.
“Never,” Fernando replied.
“Have you been recently at Bayamo?”
“I have, with my boss’s farm cattle and horse show string,” Fernando answered, hoping the agent would ask about his boss, and learn that he was a well-known man. They ignored his reply.
My Lost Cuba Page 13