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To my mother
To my second mother, María del Carmen Cueto
and
To the memory of my father
“Freedom, Sancho, is one of the
most precious gifts that Heaven
has bestowed upon men; no treasures
that the earth holds buried or
the sea conceals can compare with
it; for freedom, as for honor,
life may and should be ventured.”
—CERVANTES, Don Quixote,
PART II, CHAPTER 58
The wind that always blows from the east, off the coast of Africa, strokes the warm surface of the tropical Atlantic. The water yields to the constant wind and follows it westward across the ocean. At first the water travels in two parallel currents, the north equatorial and the south equatorial. But as these twin currents sweep into the Caribbean Sea they join to become one great stream that skirts the islands of the Lesser Antilles, rebounds off the Central American coast, and returns to the Atlantic through the Straits of Florida with the power of a thousand Mississippis.
At the narrowest part of the Straits, where the flow is strongest, the stream passes by the ancient port city of Havana before turning north toward the east coast of Florida. This turn to the north, and the carrying power of its currents, has made this stream at once the corridor and the moving force of a long and watery exodus from the island of Cuba.
“You shall not stay here grieving …
go, cut some beams of wood, and make
yourself a large raft with an upper
deck that it may carry you safely over
the sea.”
—HOMER, the Odyssey,
BOOK V
Chapter One
Driving back to Havana after delivering his lecture at the University of Camagüey, Professor Juan Cabrera took one last detour, looking for a fragment of a past that for thirty years he had pretended never existed. Forty kilometers west of the city of Camagüey he left the central highway that runs the length of the island and, after several wrong turns, managed to find his way to a dirt road that cut through sugarcane fields that were once part of the Santa Cruz, the old Cabrera family estate.
The spacious country house with its arched floor-to-ceiling windows, which his grandfather had built around the turn of the century, was gone now, along with all the outbuildings. The framboyán trees that had shaded and cooled the area around the great house in midsummers, and graced the yard in golden afternoons with their carpets of orange flowers, had all been cut down.
After the revolution, everything had been razed and later replaced by a series of long, barracks-style structures made of cinder blocks with corrugated zinc roofs. The barracks housed the sugar cutters in what was now a collective labor camp during the zafra, the time of the sugarcane harvest. But it would be four months before the zafra started, and today the camp was deserted.
Professor Cabrera stopped his car and walked toward the place where his home had once been. He looked for a trace of the foundation, for a rock from the old well, for some remnant of the flagstones lining the walks that had connected the main house with the other buildings on the property. Everything had disappeared. They had taken obvious care to leave nothing behind that would serve as a reminder of what had once been a splendid estate.
Juan remembered riding his tricycle, bumping along the flagstone paths, following his father to the stables where he would climb aboard an elaborately carved antique carriage bearing the Cabrera family crest. His grandfather, Don Francisco, had bought the carriage in Barcelona in 1901 and sent it to Cuba as a concession to Juan’s grandmother, Doña Pepa, before relocating his family, his fortune, and the collective fate of his posterity to the wild tropics.
Doña Pepa had protested, “Cuba is a savage place, full of flies and convicts.” But there was no dissuading Don Francisco, who had amassed a fortune selling the latest English bathroom fixtures all over Spain, and had even managed to land the toilet concession at the 1888 World’s Fair in Barcelona.
Don Francisco had grown weary of city life, with its stifling streets and priggish manners. “A man’s life must have room for adventure, Doña Pepa,” he would say every time she raised an objection. “I think your brains must be drying up, Don Francisco,” she would answer, teasing him with a coy smile.
The carriage, the latest landau model with thin rubber tires, was shipped ahead of the family, from Barcelona direct to Havana. Later it was transported by rail to the interior province of Camagüey, three hundred fifty kilometers east of Havana, where Don Francisco had bought a large sugar plantation for a pittance from a Spanish government official who had left the island three years earlier, during the Spanish-American war.
The Cabrera family took the more leisurely route from Barcelona to London, where Doña Pepa spent a month shopping (another concession) with their twin daughters, Isabel and Cristina, and Don Francisco used the time to explore business opportunities. Don Francisco’s shadow and the apple of his eye was the Cabreras’ eight-year-old son, Juan’s father, Fernandito, who walked the crowded London streets beside Don Francisco, huddling under the shelter of his umbrella in the constant drizzle, and sat quietly through Don Francisco’s negotiations with the English merchants.
Before they left London, Doña Pepa had six large trunks (two for herself and two for each daughter) brimming with fashionable English dresses, and Don Francisco had managed to strike a deal granting him exclusive rights to distribute the newest version of Sir Thomas Crapper’s flush toilet in Havana.
From London the Cabreras sailed to New York aboard the steamship Servia, the sleek British liner that had the distinction of being the first all-steel passenger ship to cross the Atlantic, a distinction that pleased Don Francisco’s thoroughly modern character.
After three more weeks of shopping in New York (the final concession) the Cabreras sailed to Havana on their twentieth wedding anniversary. Don Francisco engaged the ship’s orchestra to play Doña Pepa’s favorite tunes and they danced on the moon deck with such abandon that Doña Pepa broke the heel on one of her shoes and caused a minor scandal when she continued dancing after removing both shoes and throwing them overboard.
In Havana, Don Francisco bought a house in the exclusive El Vedado section of the city and there set up his wife and daughters, while he traveled with Fernandito to the plantation in Camagüey to build a house worthy of Doña Pepa.
Long after Don Francisco’s death, up to the day of his own death, Juan’s father would recall that first summer he spent in the wild “interior” of Cuba with Don Francisco as the happiest summer of his life. Juan’s father never tired of telling and retelling him the stories of dove hunting with Don Francisco on the plantation that summer, toting the beautifully engraved, double-barreled shotgun Don Francisco had given him as their train pulled away from the s
tation in Havana; stories of roasting birds over open fires on balmy evenings under the stars, of riding horses everywhere, of the nights the two spent together at the quaint little wooden hotel in the dusty town of La Esmeralda, while the country house was being built.
Juan’s father would tell him these stories as Juan absentmindedly ran his hands over the soft leather seats of the carriage while he helped his father polish the brass trim and side lanterns. The carriage had been used only once by Doña Pepa, when she tried to go to La Esmeralda to send a telegram to Havana, but it became stuck in mud three kilometers outside the main gate of the Santa Cruz, and Don Francisco had to send the overseer with a team of oxen to extract it from a bog of red clay that had threatened to swallow the carriage, the horse, the driver, and even Doña Pepa herself, who nevertheless managed to keep her composure throughout the ordeal.
After that everyone agreed that the thin, elegant wheels of the landau were not designed for the rough clay roads around the Santa Cruz, and the carriage was relegated to the northwest corner of the stables, where it sat for decades, eventually acquiring the status of a family relic.
Had life really been like this once for the Cabreras, or were these memories childhood dreams?
From the day he left the Santa Cruz at the age of seven and settled with his mother in that miserable government-assigned apartment in Havana, Juan Cabrera had begun to hide these memories, first from grief over his father’s murder at the hands of the revolutionaries, and later out of fear of a world that had no place for people like the Cabreras.
Juan shut the door on his father and grandfather and invented other forebears more acceptable to the new order of things after the revolution. He became someone else, someone who was a stranger, an enemy of the Juan Cabrera who once played here.
Had he really played here, or had he dreamed it? he wondered. And what practical difference could there be between the two now—now, when there was no one left to corroborate his memories?
Juan saw a huge ceiba tree in the distance, at the edge of the central clearing that had once comprised the farmyard and surrounding pastures of the Santa Cruz. The ceibas were sacred to the native tribes of Cuba and equally sacred to the African slaves, who called them irokos and firmly believed that the wrath of the gods would befall anyone who destroyed one. Sustained by twin traditions, and wrapped in a rich cocoon of mythology, the great ceibas reign over the Cuban countryside.
Juan’s father had helped Don Francisco plant the ceiba that first summer they spent together in the Santa Cruz. And now the tree stood there like an ancient sentinel guarding the boundary between the clearing and the great fields of cane that spread to the foothills of the Cubitas mountain range.
Juan walked over to the ceiba tree and stood at the edge of the clearing. The sounds and fragrances of the sugarcane fields were the same sounds and fragrances he remembered from his childhood, and they evoked memories of earlier days spent playing in the yard of the great house, days filled with so much joy and such uncommon beauty that they seemed to have been made only to be lost.
By the time he returned to the central highway, the fog was coming down from the hills, cool and quiet, following the path of the streams at first, then spilling over the trees along the riverbanks and spreading like a blanket across the fields of sugarcane. Years ago, from his vantage point atop one of the framboyán trees in the Santa Cruz, the evening fog had seemed to Juan like a gentle flood as it flowed down the southern slopes of the Cubitas range, overwhelming the distant fields, gradually obliterating the cattle and horses grazing in nearby pastures, rising slowly until it covered the shacks of the sugarcane cutters and all the countryside became a broad white sea.
Chapter Two
Juan Cabrera looked down and saw that his hands were shaking, and he felt his mouth beginning to go dry again.
“Open the trunk,” said the G-2 agent from State Security as he leaned his head inside the window on the driver’s side. The agent did not see Juan’s hands. His eyes were fixed on Raúl, who was seated behind the wheel, next to Juan.
“Open the trunk! Hurry up!”
But Raúl did not hurry. He met the agent’s gaze and reached for the key in the ignition of the old, dilapidated Ford. The ignition switch was dangling halfway out of the dashboard, and the wires were showing.
Keeping his eyes on the agent’s Raúl held the barrel of the ignition switch between the two middle fingers of his right hand while he turned the key with his thumb and forefinger, taking care not to jerk on the wires. The engine dieseled for a few seconds after he pulled out the key, then it sputtered and died.
Raúl stepped out of the car and stretched to his full height, towering over the uniformed agent. The agent looked up at him, stroking the grip of his holstered pistol.
“Vamos, let’s go, open the trunk.”
Juan felt nauseous now, and he was glad the agent had not asked him to step out of the car with Raúl, because he was not sure his legs would hold him if he did. Even sitting down, he could feel the weakness in his legs, the twitching of the muscles in his thighs.
The agent followed Raúl as he walked to the back of the Ford. Two empty, dark sockets marked the place where the taillights had been. The lid of the trunk, like the rest of the car, had once been light blue. But now there were only scarce reminders of that color because the paint had worn down to the bare metal in most places and the metal had rusted over, with holes poking through here and there.
“I’ll have to hold the lid up while you look. The spring is broken,” Raúl said as he opened the trunk.
The agent hesitated for a moment, then glanced quickly inside the trunk and back toward Raúl. He had never seen anyone as big as Raúl, and he felt uneasy so close to the thick, muscular forearms holding up the trunk lid. The agent stepped back and looked at Raúl’s broad shoulders and at his tanned, chiseled face, framed by a reddish beard.
“Where are you two headed?”
“Guanabo Beach.”
“Why are you going there now?”
“Girls.”
“What?”
“I just got back from Africa, from the war in Angola,” said Raúl. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen Cuban girls? Anyway, my friend knows some hot ones. At least he says they are. We’re going to meet them at the beach, and drink some rum to celebrate our victory.”
“What victory?”
“Our great victory against the imperialist forces in Angola. Haven’t you heard? Come with us and I’ll tell you all about it. Come on, hombre, maybe you’ll get lucky with the girls at the beach.”
Raúl smiled a broad, secure smile at him, and the agent saw that he was not afraid.
“Go on,” the agent said harshly. “And be careful, be very careful. You’re not in Angola anymore.”
They had driven east from Havana on the road that winds along the north coast, through Cojímar and Alamar and Tarara. The state security agent had stopped them as they left Tarara on their way to Guanabo Beach, where Andrés was waiting with the paddles and the food and the water. They brought the three deflated inner tubes that Rogelio had sold them in Cojímar, the nylon lines, the canvas tarpaulin, and the hand-operated Czechoslovakian air pump, along with a few personal items.
“Didn’t he see the stuff?” asked Juan, the color returning to his face.
“I put it under the backseat while you were inside the house talking to Rogelio,” said Raúl, looking out toward the water as he cranked the engine. “It all fit nicely.”
The sun was setting behind them now as they drove toward Guanabo, following the shoreline. To the east the ocean showed deep purple with shades of violet far off in the distance.
It was dark by the time they arrived at Andrés’s place and drove down the narrow, winding dirt road that led to his little bungalow near the water. The road was lined with tall weeds, and Juan could see the reflection from the headlights shining on the upraised eyes of the big land crabs that came out of their burrows at night
and now scurried out of the way as the car approached.
“¡Aquí! Over here!” called Andrés as Juan went to knock on the door of the bungalow. Andrés was returning from the water’s edge, limping barefoot on the coarse sand.
“Just checking the water,” he whispered with an impish smile as he came up to them.
“Well, how is it?” asked Raúl.
“Nice and warm—like bathwater.”
“Let’s not speak out here,” said Juan.
“Yes, yes, of course, entren, come in, please,” Andrés said, opening the door.
Inside Andrés’s bungalow, a bare light bulb dangled on a black wire several feet from the ceiling at the center of the room. When the men came in, the breeze from the ocean set the bulb in motion, casting their swaying shadows on the blue walls. Three backpacks were stacked neatly in a corner next to three glass bottles filled with water. Above the bottles, three rough-hewn wooden paddles were leaning against the wall.
“Everything is ready,” Andrés said as soon as they walked in.
“Have you seen any guards?” asked Juan.
“Yes, I just saw two with German shepherds down by the water.”
In the harsh light from the bare bulb, Andrés looked old and frail, and Juan wondered if he was strong enough now to make the crossing. Twelve years as a political prisoner at Combinado del Este had aged him beyond his fifty-five years. His face was as wrinkled as that of a man in his eighties. Two of his teeth were missing, had got in the way of a rifle butt. And the leg they broke during the interrogation had never set right. But his spirit was fine. They never touched that. They never even came close.
And tonight Andrés was as sprightly as Juan had ever seen him. Talking about the escape, his eyes lit up like a child’s on Christmas Eve. He kept saying, “I can’t wait to see Margarita. I just can’t wait to see Margarita.”
The Lonely Crossing of Juan Cabrera Page 1