The Passage

by David Poyer

  “There you are,” called a man, and she recognized Orlándo, the one who worked with the soldiers, or for them—it wasn’t clear, but he was a man of authority. He was educated and spoke to her condescendingly. But now he was motioning to her to come to the gate. Another man was waiting there. Three small children stood beside him, but no woman. Graciela looked critically at the children. The teeth of the oldest were rotten, brown. That was from the sweet condensed milk the peasants gave their children; you set the can on a burner till it turned to caramel, then the child ate it all day, a treat. She had never let her girls do that. Orlándo asked her loudly, “Señora, have you received your documents yet?”

  “Sí, yes. I have the green document.”

  “Are you ready to leave?”

  “What? To leave?”

  “You said you didn’t know anyone in the North, no relatives to come for you. Fine, my job is to find you a home anyway, you see? One cannot stay here forever. There is a woman here from a place called Tallahassee. It is in Florida, not near here, but up in the north. It is still warm, though; it doesn’t snow. A small city. They have a Cuban social club. The club will place you with a family and help you find a job. She can take two more people. Do you want to go and live in Tallahassee?”

  “Why not?” she said. “Wait a minute, I will find Miguelito and get my things. Just wait, por favor. Do not let her go; I will be right back.”

  The woman was Cubana all right. Plump, no longer young; as she smiled her face creased into wrinkles like an old piece of leather. Her name was Maruja. The name of the man with the children was Alejo. He helped Graciela and Miguelito put their clothes in the trunk of the car. It was a huge car, not new, but the engine sounded loud, very strong. The woman was talking a mile a minute about how much Graciela and Alejo and the children would like Tallahassee. She seemed to assume they were husband and wife, that Miguelito was their oldest. Afraid that contradicting her might cause them to be placed back in the camp, Graciela smiled and nodded and said nothing. The little girls looked up at her. They were cute, despite their terrible teeth. Graciela patted the rusty fender. She said hesitantly to Maruja, “Is this your car? Do you own this beautiful car?”

  “This is my car, yes.”

  “They gave it to you? The government?”

  “The government!” Maruja guffawed. “You will learn, they do not give you cars here. This is not communism. Here, you want, you have to earn. Me and my sister, we own a little grocery on Railroad Street. That’s where you’ll live, over the store, if you want. You can help us in the mornings, until you learn some English. There is also a nursery; a plant nursery; they always need workers. Or you can be a maid. It is not the easy life, here.”

  “I can work,” said Graciela. Alejo nodded, too, eyes darting around the interior as he slid into the backseat with her, and Miguelito got into the front, observing carefully as Maruja inserted the key and started the engine.

  Hugging the baby, Graciela snuggled into the plastic cushions. How comfortable it was, how soft. Then her eyes widened. Wonder, cold air inside the car! An open bag of potato chips lay on the floor. A rosary swayed from the mirror. The little girl beside her sat motionless, brown eyes wide. And like the child, Graciela, too, stared with her mouth open as they bumped forward and the gates swung open, and leaning back into the torn upholstery, she sped forward into the cruel, generous, licentious, gaudy, and tumultuous country that was to become her own.

  DAN sat in the cramped booth, in the telephone building up the hill from the pier area, searching his pockets for coins. He arranged them on the shelf as at the far end of the line the phone began to ring. He tapped a quarter nervously, reading the ballpointed graffiti: I WANT TO BLOW LARGE BLACK DICKS and USS MONONGAHELA, CAN DO. How far should he commit himself? He realized now that he’d never given her a chance. He’d decided before they first went to bed that it wasn’t going to last. Now, though, he’d come to understand love took more than that. To receive, you had first to give. To be loved, you had to be willing to love. He owed her an apology, to begin with; then, when he got back, honesty. No more lying, no more cheating. Maybe then what he hoped for could start to grow.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Bev? It’s Dan.”

  A pause, then: “Dan. Where are you?”

  “Guantánamo. Cuba. Calling from the phone exchange here. I, uh, sent Billy some things. A T-shirt, belt buckle …”

  “Oh yes, he got those. He enjoyed them.”

  “How are you? I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls before we left. A lot was going on. And I was confused.”

  “I sensed that.”

  He took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m sorry. I think I’ve got things more together now. I realized I missed you.” I, I, I, he thought; ask about her, you dolt. “So I thought I’d call, see how you were doing.”

  He listened to the static of the long connection to the mainland, the faint voices of other people talking. He could even make out the words: “No, I didn’t get that. When did you send it?” But he didn’t hear anything from Strishauser. He said, “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m still here. Dan—I had an abortion.”

  “What?”

  “While you were gone. It was your child. I tried to let you know. But I realized I couldn’t count on you. Maybe it was unfair to think I could. So when you didn’t call me back or write, I went to the clinic.”

  “Beverly,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything to add, and the lines hissed again. The closed booth seemed to be swaying through space. It didn’t even sound like her voice as he remembered it. It was calm, reasonable, final.

  “You don’t need to say anything. It was my decision and it’s over. Sibylla went with me. She came in and held my hand. But I don’t think we should see each other again.”

  “I’m … sorry. I’ll be back in Charleston soon, before we deploy—”

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea. Please don’t call me again, Dan. Or Billy. I think I knew you wouldn’t want to make it permanent. You might have done it for the baby, but sooner or later you’d have felt trapped; it wouldn’t have worked out. Maybe it’s no one’s fault. I hope you learn to love again. Get over Susan, and find somebody who’s right for you. And that you have a good life. But I don’t want to see you again. So … good-bye.”

  He sat there shaken, gripping the receiver, listening to the seashell hiss, the sound of the empty sea, and of his own blood singing in his ears.

  And in himself, he sensed the darkness lurking, and living, burrowing and burgeoning, even as he sat immobile in shock and horror. And knew finally and irrevocably that that shadow presence would always be part of himself.

  For all men wore masks, and most tragically and terribly of all, even to themselves; and of all masquerades, the bitterest and most destructive was that of one’s own virtue. So you could not distinguish the just from the unjust by the uniforms they wore, or the words they spoke, or by what they were called. They could be judged only one by one, by what they did. Evil lived in each man and woman, and above and before all, he knew now, in his own heart. Like a virus, that corrupted and spread until a program was written to filter it out. That was the only battle worth fighting. A war no one could deter, or avoid, or win … only refuse to surrender. The war that would never end, that would continue till the final passage into darkness, and perhaps also, just perhaps, into the light.

  THE starving, ragged men on the timber raft had seen no one else for days. For a time after they set out, there had been other craft around them, scores, hundreds of them; but gradually all had drawn ahead of the clumsy raft, dropping one by one below the curving sea. Then the storm had come, blowing them far to the south and west.

  When the sky had cleared again, the wide sea was empty. They’d lost their plastic tarpaulin sail, had no oars, no engine, no compass. For days now they’d seen no other boat, no hint of land.

  Now they were too weak to paddle, even if they had known where t
heir goal lay. They’d brought water but no food. They’d tried to catch fish and birds, but without success. Now they were starving. The raft rocked gently on the quiet sea, like a cradle, like a coffin.

  Suddenly, one man stirred. Then he spoke. And the others woke, sat up painfully, shading their eyes, looking where he pointed.

  Far off, birds wheeled and darted above something floating on the shimmering surface.

  Paddling with their arms and a piece of driftwood, they slowly made up on it.

  It was a body. Eyes pecked to jellies, so swollen only a few rags of khaki clung to it. They pulled it close to the boat and stared silently. Then came discussion, low, painful murmuring through cracked, bleeding lips. For a long time, they argued under the broiling sun. Finally, silence fell again. Then a shared murmur arose, each, in his own way, asking forgiveness, and giving thanks.

  With a faint rasping noise, one of them began whetting a knife.

  THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

  TAKES PLEASURE IN PRESENTING THE

  SILVER STAR

  TO LIEUTENANT DANIEL V. LENSON

  UNITED STATES NAVY

  FOR SERVICE AS SET FORTH IN THE FOLLOWING CITATION:

  FOR CONSPICUOUS INTREPIDITY AND GALLANTRY IN ACTION DURING OPERATIONS IN THE WINDWARD PASSAGE AND CARIBBEAN OPERATING AREAS WHILE SERVING AS COMBAT SYSTEMS OFFICER, TACTICAL ACTION OFFICER, AND OFFICER OF THE DECK ABOARD USS BARRETT (DDG-998). LIEUTENANT LENSON PERFORMED HIS DUTIES AS COMBAT SYSTEMS OFFICER AND OFFICER OF THE DECK IN AN EXEMPLARY AND HIGHLY PROFESSIONAL MANNER DURING HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE OPERATIONS IN THE FLORIDA STRAITS AREA, FLEET OPERATIONS IN SUPPORT OF OPERATION TEMPEST, AND IN RESPONDING TO SERIOUS CHALLENGES TO THE RIGHT OF FREE TRANSIT OFF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CUBA. AS TACTICAL ACTION OFFICER DURING TRANSIT OF THE WINDWARD PASSAGE, LIEUTENANT LENSON WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN EXTRACTING HIS SHIP FROM A THREATENING SITUATION OF ACTIVE HARASSMENT DURING WHICH HIS COMMANDING OFFICER AND SEVERAL OTHER CREW MEMBERS WERE SERIOUSLY WOUNDED AND TWO MEN WERE KILLED. SUBSEQUENT TO THIS CONFRONTATION, THOUGH PARTIALLY BLINDED BY SMALL-ARMS FIRE, HE PERSONALLY TOOK THE LEAD IN PURSUING AND SUBDUING AN ARMED AND DANGEROUS CREW MEMBER. BY HIS INITIATIVE, COURAGEOUS ACTIONS, AND COMPLETE DEDICATION TO DUTY, LIEUTENANT LENSON REFLECTED GREAT CREDIT ON HIMSELF AND UPHELD THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.

  FOR THE PRESIDENT,

  SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

  Every sin arises from a kind of ignorance. A man’s will is secure from sinning only when his understanding is secured from ignorance and error.

  —St. Thomas Aquinas

  Novels by David Poyer

  Louisiana Blue

  Winter in the Heart

  The Circle

  Bahamas Blue

  The Gulf

  Hatteras Blue

  The Med

  The Dead of Winter

  Stepfather Bank

  The Return of Philo T. McGiffin

  The Shiloh Project

  White Continent

  THE PASSAGE. Copyright © 1995 by David Poyer. Map copyright © 1995 by Mark Stein. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  eISBN 9781429927796

  First eBook Edition : April 2011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Poyer, David.

  The passage / David Poyer.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-11874-0

  1. United States. Navy—Officers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3566.0978P37 1995

  813’.54—dc20

  94—24626

  CIP

  First Edition: January 1995