Boy Who Said No : An Escape to Freedom (9781608090815)

by Sheehy, Patti

  Every night the people on my block would dress up and go for a paseo, a stroll around the park. The boys would walk one way and the girls would walk the other, accompanied by stern dueñas draped in black lace shawls. The boys would wink and wave at the girls, trying to get their attention without attracting the wrath of the women in charge.

  They say a small town is like a big family. That’s how it was on my block. The people in my neighborhood knew all the houses and everyone in them. We knew whose mother was mean and whose father was mad. We knew who was sick and who could come out to play. We knew whose aunt drank cane juice and whose uncle drank rum. We even knew the names of each other’s dogs. That’s just the way it was.

  A lot was going on politically in Cuba while I was growing up, but I was too busy being a boy to notice. I was too busy playing baseball to know that Fidel Castro’s poorly armed rebels had led a failed assault on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, an assault that landed Fidel in the Presidio Modelo Prison for two years, but gave birth to a revolutionary movement that would eventually topple the government.

  I was too busy playing marbles to know that although Fidel’s forces comprised fewer than two hundred men, they often caused Batista’s army of forty- to fifty-thousand to cut their losses and run.

  I was too busy sunning myself on alabaster beaches to know that opposition to Batista in Cuba had been growing like rice in China, due to his pandering to the American mobsters and big business interests who controlled most of Cuba’s resources and wealth. I was even too busy to notice that the dictator had been forced to flee Cuba on New Year’s Day 1959.

  But eight days later, I got my first inkling that something was happening in my country. Something Abuelo didn’t like. That day, after my grandfather and I went fishing together, we stopped in Havana so Abuelo could get some coffee. We were both very tired.

  As we walked down the magnificent Malecón, the wide seaside walkway that circles half of Havana, a line of heavily armored trucks rumbled by. This was the first in a column of cars, lorries, and tanks that would carry Fidel’s now five-thousand-strong victorious rebels into the city.

  Fidel and his men had been traveling for days from their camp located six hundred miles away in the Sierra Maestra, stopping to speak to rapturous crowds along the way. I could hear shouts and cheering nearby. When we turned the corner, I saw thousands upon thousands of people lining the streets, smiling, laughing and hoisting placards that read “Gracias Fidel!”

  Many people seemed beyond jubilant, almost delirious. As the chanting grew louder, Abuelo’s face grew dark, and he quickly reached for my hand. A number of rough-looking men in olive-green uniforms jumped down from the trucks. They were a tough, dirty bunch with grizzled black beards, waists bulging with guns, and feet shod in mud-covered boots. A tank rolled by with Fidel sitting atop a pyramid of men. Abuelo placed his body partly in front of mine, as if to protect me. I tugged on his shirt.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Fidel and his rebels,” said Abuelo.

  “What does it mean?” I was getting a little nervous, sensing my grandfather’s unease.

  “There’s been a fight for control of the government,” he said. “Batista’s out and Fidel is in.”

  I looked at the men who had jumped off the trucks. “Are these the guys who won?” I asked. I could hardly believe that these scruffy, long-haired men could be the victors. But people on the balconies of the modern apartment buildings seemed to think so. They were waving red-and-black flags embroidered with a large white 26 Julio, throwing confetti and chanting “Viva Cuba! Viva Fidel!” Several of the men were drinking Hatuey, a fine Cuban beer. I had never seen anything like it.

  “Yes,” Abuelo said. “These are the guys who won.”

  A fleet of long, black Cadillacs drove by. The men in the cars were honking their horns, laughing, and brandishing their guns. There were a lot of machetes on display, a lot of knives, a lot of guns. I was eyeing the cars’ whitewall tires.

  “Where did Batista go?” I asked.

  “To the Dominican Republic. Took his family with him. After that, who knows?”

  I looked up as several airplanes thundered by. “Why are there so many planes?” We had to wait for a minute for the noise to die down before Abuelo could answer my question. I noticed some girls wearing tight red sweaters and short black skirts shouting “Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!” with the kind of enthusiasm young women usually lavish on movie stars.

  “They’re taking the Americans back to the States.”

  “Why?”

  “Shush, Frankie. Not now. You are asking too many questions. I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  Fidel approached the podium to address the crowd from the terrace of the presidential palace. He had a rosary wrapped around his neck and he was carrying a rifle. A bank of microphones amplified his voice so it could be better heard by us and by those listening to Havana Television and Cuban radio stations throughout the country. I stood on my toes, the better to see.

  “Fellow countrymen—” he began. The crowd grew quiet. People looked mesmerized. A car honked in the background and then the sound died away. Fidel’s voice rang out. “As you know, the people of Havana are expecting us on Twenty-Third Street—” The audience stood in rapt attention.

  I looked up at Abuelo as Fidel droned on. His eyes had narrowed, and he was listening intently while still holding my hand. A few minutes into Fidel’s speech, someone in the crowd released two doves into the air. We watched as they winged their way skyward. Then, as if by divine intervention, one swept down and settled itself on Fidel’s shoulder—a symbol of universal peace. The crowd went wild.

  Abuelo shook his head, and a cold chill ran down my spine. I was a little scared and very confused.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Are you glad Batista’s gone? Was his leaving something good or something bad?”

  Abuelo drew in his breath. He let go of my hand and rubbed my head. “Time will tell. Now let’s go get you an ice cream cone.”

  But from the look on his face, I knew it was bad.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was a bright Saturday afternoon, warm and dry as old crackers. I had finished my chores around the house and was riding my bike down the road with Gilbert. Dust rose beneath our tires and clung to the hair on our legs. Occasionally I had to wipe it from my nose. A lizard darted near my tires, and I swerved to avoid it.

  We were in high spirits, headed for a swim in the river, when Gilbert suddenly stopped his bike and waved me forward. I pulled up alongside him, dragging my foot in the dust to bring me to a halt.

  “Why’d you stop?” I asked.

  “I almost forgot to tell you.” Gilbert took a breath and puffed out his chest the way he did when he had something important to say.

  “What?”

  Gilbert hesitated a moment for dramatic effect. “We don’t have to go to school anymore.” A smile lit his face, but a trace of concern filled his eyes.

  At age thirteen, I was old enough to know that what he was saying was nonsense.

  Still, there was something convincing in his tone of voice. I smiled and shook my head.

  “Are you crazy, Gilbert? Of course we have to go to school. Where’d you get that idea?”

  “Around,” he pronounced mysteriously. “Fidel’s got a new plan to eliminate illiteracy, so he’s going to close the schools. Not just ours—all of them.”

  Gilbert was always coming up with strange and ridiculous stories, and I figured his imagination had run amok again.

  “That’s totally backward, Gilbert. If you want to stamp out illiteracy, you open schools, you don’t close them.”

  Gilbert smiled smugly. “I know. But they say Fidel’s going to use us to do it. We’ll be working for him.”

  “To do what?”

  “To wipe out illiteracy.”

  “How do you figure?”

  Gilbert studied the ground for a minute. “They just passed a law closing all the sc
hools.”

  “Why haven’t I heard about it?”

  “Probably because you weren’t in school on Friday.”

  I looked up at the sky for a moment. A brown bird with a red breast settled lightly on a narrow branch and began pecking furiously at his feathers. He looked at us momentarily and then returned to his grooming.

  “Well, I don’t believe it.”

  Gilbert made a face. “It’s true.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “They’re going to get every kid to teach una familia pobre to read and write.”

  “What poor families?”

  Gilbert shrugged. “How would I know?”

  I laughed, dismissing the idea as sheer lunacy. “We’re going to be the teachers? Us? You are loco, Gilbert.”

  “No, listen. Fidel is forming a literacy brigade. He says a million illiterates in Cuba need to learn to read and write.”

  “Literacy brigade? You mean like an army? What will we do? Shoot people with letters of the alphabet?”

  “Have it your way. But you’ll see when they send you off to some awful place to teach people to read.”

  When I got home from our swim, my mother met me at the door. “I just heard that they’re closing the schools,” she said.

  “Gilbert told me. He says we’re going to teach poor people how to read.”

  Mima placed her hands on her hips and tightened her lips. “I hear it’s voluntary. Tell me you didn’t volunteer for anything.”

  “No,” I said.

  She looked at me sternly. “Good, because you are to have no part of this, do you hear?”

  “I said I didn’t volunteer for anything.”

  Mima gave me a long, searching look and then waved her hand. “All right, go get washed up for supper.”

  The following week, soldiers showed up at our school demanding the names and addresses of all sixth and seventh graders. The school was in an uproar, and the teachers kept leaving the classrooms to confer with each other behind closed doors. Their voices were strained and their faces were starched with concern. I still couldn’t believe the government would send us away.

  Just after the bell rang, four soldiers marched into the classroom, telling us about the difficult lives of the peasants—how they never had a chance to learn how to read and write. They described their squalid living conditions and how they couldn’t even decipher a food label. They told us to close our eyes and imagine how awful it would be to be illiterate. A wave of pity washed over me.

  Two well-dressed university professors joined the soldiers to announce that all the boys were “volunteering” to join the brigade. Girls could also join if they obtained their parents’ permission.

  Our teacher stood at the back of the classroom looking skeptical. She held her lips together the way she did when she was displeased with our behavior. She questioned the officials about where we would go, when we would return, what we would eat, and where we would sleep. Neither the soldiers nor the professors provided her with satisfactory answers.

  Within a week, signs started sprouting around Havana that read: “¡No creer, leer!” “Don’t just believe, read!” The slogan signaled not only a new Cuban government, but a new Cuban society. Rumors filled the air about how Fidel planned to wipe out illiteracy in the whole country. People were lauding his plan as a noble gesture, the first step in making Cuba a world power. Newspapers proclaimed the elimination of illiteracy as Fidel’s top priority.

  Parents were put on notice that their sons had been selected to participate in the government’s National Literacy Campaign and that any resistance from them—or their children—would result in severe repercussions. Peasant families were told that they would be given ten dollars to take boys into their homes to teach them to read—whether they wanted to learn or not.

  On Saturday morning, my mother got up early to bake pastelitos de guayaba. She had just lined up the crescent-shaped dough on a cookie sheet and popped the pastries into the oven when Luis ran in the back door, red in the face and panting.

  “What’s gotten into you?” asked Mima.

  Luis was so excited he could hardly form the words. “It’s time to go,” he said. “Everybody’s getting ready—it’s really happening. Gilbert says they’ll take you so far away you can’t escape—you can’t get home. They’re coming right now ¡Cuidado!” Then he ran out of the house, the screen door banging behind him.

  My mother looked at me in alarm and turned off the stove. She removed her oven mitts and slapped them down on the counter in an expression of rage. Neither of us could believe this was happening.

  My hand flew to my mouth as I considered what to do. The knot that had been growing in the pit of my stomach after I saw the soldiers at school exploded into a stream of bile that burned the back of my throat. I looked around, not knowing whether to run or to hide.

  Our neighbors were standing in front of their houses, stretching their necks to see what was going on. Some people were whispering and mumbling to each other. A few women were crying.

  A child being taken from their parents was something Cubans had never experienced before. We had lived under President Carlos Prío Socorrás, a man who hosted lavish parties where guests snorted cocaine and relieved themselves in bathrooms outfitted with faucets of gold.

  We had lived under Batista, a dictator who hung dead revolutionaries from the limbs of trees and subverted the interests of his nation to those of the Mob. But the idea that children could be sent to some unknown place for the sake of the revolution was totally foreign.

  The “volunteers” were ordered to go to the baseball stadium for processing before being taken to the train station in Havana. I looked out over the crowd and spotted my sisters and brothers. Theresa was holding my father’s hand and sobbing uncontrollably. My brother, George, stood with his arms crossed, looking angry and rebellious. My mother was holding my baby brother Raúl.

  Anguish filled her eyes. I was her oldest child and the fear of losing me haunted her expression. My throat constricted in grief as I read the sorrow creasing her face. She squeezed my hand tightly and kissed me before I left.

  CHAPTER 3

  The railroad station was mass confusion. Trucks were lined up like sentries to drop off more than five hundred boys and adult teachers from all over the city. Some of the younger boys were sobbing for their mothers. The older boys looked just plain angry.

  A few scuffles broke out but, for the most part, everyone was too scared not to toe the line. We were herded into cattle cars for our three-day trip to the Sierra Maestra, the wildest, most remote part of the country. The mountains were six hundred miles away, the same mountains where Fidel’s Rebel Army had made their headquarters and launched their guerrilla attacks. Most of us had never even heard of the place.

  The train ride was long and tedious with the cars screeching and lurching along the tracks. There were no bathrooms that I could see, and kids were peeing and defecating on the floor. Many of the boys got sick. The stench was horrific.

  Boys were pushing and punching each other. I was lucky to find a place to sit. I closed my eyes and thought about the long grasses fluttering in the slipstream of the train. I wished I were fishing with Abuelo.

  When we got to Bayamo, heavily armed soldiers handed everyone a literacy ID card, a uniform, a blanket, and a canvas hammock. They issued each of us two books—¡Venceremos! and ¡Alfabetizemos!

  I tried thumbing through the books, which contained pictures of happy families proudly standing next to their animals and produce. One book contained phrases such as “The Revolution Wins All Battles,” “Friends and Enemies,” and “International Unity” as a teaching aid. I scanned the glossary, but there was too much commotion to read. Soldiers distributed blue lanterns donated by China to be used during lessons.

  None of us knew where we were going or how long we’d have to stay. Frightened and bewildered, I hoped I would end up somewhere near my cousins and friends. Luckily, Gilbert, Tato, Luis, an
d Antonio were still with me. We stayed in a small town in the mountains for two days, sleeping outdoors, drinking coconut milk, and wondering where we were headed. During the day it seemed like a big adventure, but at night I cried a lot.

  On the morning of the third day, soldiers arrived to escort us to our assigned families. Fifty or sixty of us walked in single file up Turquino—the highest mountain in Cuba. We marched up a narrow path thick with cacti and then wended our way through hanging vines and dense guaguasi trees. Lizards slithered through the underbrush and colorful birds pierced the air with cries of alarm. We were told to beware of large mud holes that could suck you in so quickly you would drown in mud before you could escape.

  When I stumbled on broken rocks, soldiers nudged me along with the barrels of their rifles. One of the soldiers allowed me to sip water from his canteen. A howler monkey narrated the scene.

  Boys were dropped off at different towns along the way. When they departed, the soldiers smiled. It was obvious we were a burden they were eager to unload.

  Below us, waving in the wind, were rows and rows of King Cane, harvested by the darkest of people, people who were considered too ignorant to make their own decisions and run their own lives.

  Giant sugar complexes, mostly American, had either bought out or driven out all the small farmers and now ran their consolidated holdings with an iron hand. The families of those who oversaw the operations lived in nearby gated communities where they swam in crystal-blue pools, dined alfresco, and sent their huge profits home.

  We passed under manchineel trees whose poisonous sap caused angry sores on our skin. I used my hands to slap mosquitoes from my sweat-drenched limbs.