Cuba Libre

  He was saying now, "By the way, what did you do to be brought here?"

  "Nothing I know of," Tyler said. "That's everyone's answer." Tyler said, "What did you do?"

  And the lieutenant looked over his shoulder with raised eyebrows. "Oh, so you don't think this is a reward, uh, to serve here? I was on the staff of our legation in Washington, where I made many friends, aide to the military attach when I quite literally fucked myself out of a job. Perhaps I also drank too much of your bourbon."

  He came to a cell door, a grating of steel bars, and stopped. While one of the guards unlocked the door and pulled it open, the lieutenant looked at Charlie Burke and said, "You go in here, please."

  Light from the corridor showed the beginning of a row of canvas hammocks, sagging and rounded with the weight of men sleeping, in a cell that looked as wide as a road and with a vaulted ceiling, but too dark in there to tell how far it extended.

  Tyler said to the lieutenant, "Wait. Can't we stay together?"

  "I was told to separate you. I suppose so you won't be able to make up a story."

  Tyler said, "You don't care, do you?"

  "Listen," Molina said, "I could have been assigned to Africa. I can tell you the Morro is a hotel, the Inglaterra, compared to prison settlements over there. That Guardia officer who brought you, Lionel Tavalera? He wants to see you go to Ceuta, Melilla, one of those places where they send anarchists and assassins of the lowest class, men sentenced to hard labor or reclusion for life. Prisoners work in chains on a public road, beaten unmercifully by cabos, the prisoners they use as guards. Or they weld your fetters on permanently and drop you into a dungeon with a small hole in the ceiling, so that light comes to you only at midday. The food is a scrap of meat, usually infested with maggots, and some kind of pulse. The vermin eat you alive and you don't come out until they finish and you're dead." Lieutenant Molina looked at Charlie Burke then and said, "Please go in there. Here, not doing what you're told will be met with blows and imprecations."

  Tyler put his hand on Charlie Burke's shoulder and Charlie Burke shook his head saying, "I'm sorry I got you into this, partner, but I don't imagine we'll be here too long." He didn't sound at all sure of it and added, "Do you?"

  "Once it's in the newspapers and everybody knows about it," Tyler said, "Neely's pretty sure it'll get some action from the consulate. They'll demand a hearing right away."

  The worry was in Charlie Burke's eyes, watery and shining in the lamplight.

  He said, "Once they get hold of the Vamoose..."

  "We don't have to go into that, Charlie."

  He said, "Well..."

  And that was all as one of the guards shoved him into the cell and slammed the grating closed. Molina said to him through the grille, "If you can, find a hammock not occupied."

  Tyler asked, "Who's he in there with?"

  "Revolutionaries," Molina said. "From their point of view, patriots."

  Moving along the corridor again, their shadows accompanying them on the wall, he said, "You get food twice a day, eleven o'clock and I believe five, stew made from some kind of meat and rancho bread. It can make you sick, give you the shits, so don't eat it if you have money. Pay one of the guards to bring you food from the cantina. It's bad, but not as bad as the food they serve you. Let me see--you can buy coffee and fix your own, otherwise I don't think you get any." Tyler said, "You're not in charge here?" "I'm told what to do."

  Tyler let it go. They had come to another cell and the guard with the key was pulling open the door in the steel grating.

  Time to ask one more question.

  "How soon will we get a hearing?"

  Molina seemed to think about what he was going to say. Then: "If you're transferred to La Cabafia--you know the other prison? It's right here, so close it appears to be part of the Morro. Prisoners are usually transferred there before they go to a hearing. But then more executions take place in La Cabafia that here. They have a procession, the priest accompanying the condemned man, who usually acts quite brave while he must be frightened to death. He'll cry out, "Viva Cuba Libret." in the moment before the firing squad shoots him. The officer then uses his pistol to give the victim the tiro de gracia, a bullet in the brain. The executions take place in the foso over there, the moat; it's always dry. You see papaya trees growing there, the soil rich with the blood of martyrs to the cause."

  It sounded to Tyler like something Neely Tucker had said in the hotel bar. Molina, though, expressed the idea in a melancholy tone of voice that he changed immediately, adding, "That is, if you think of those people as martyrs."

  Tyler said, "And if we're kept here?"

  "In the Morro? The best I can tell you," Molina said, "to give you hope..."

  Tyler waited.

  "Is to say, Who knows?"

  Chapter Nine.

  VRGIL HEARD THE NEW ONE PUT in here during the night, heard him bumping into hammocks and heard words in Spanish among the chorus of snores-louder snores than you heard in the crew's quarters aboard the Maine, these men here being much older than fleet marines-but Virgil made no effort to have a look at the new one. What for? Virgil was new himself, put in here the night before and spent the next day discussing the possibility of America declaring war on Spain with his sixteen cellmates; most of them skinny old guys losing their teeth who'd been locked up here the past two years, some of them locked up other places before coming here, stuck in cells the whole time, not let outside even once. They were excited to have Virgil, a United States marine; he was like a messenger from heaven, as good as the Angel Gabriel come to tell them Uncle Sam was on their side now, so there was nothing to worry about. They made coffee for Virgil and served him some pretty tasty black beans and rice; and they let him hang his hammock down by the outside grating that looked out on the prison yard. The cell, with its oval ceiling, was about fifteen feet wide by forty feet deep, the grating at one end being the door to the corridor, the grating at the other end serving as a barred window. Hammocks hung from hooks in the wall and extended to posts that ran down the center of the room. The floor was flagstone and a few of the geezers preferred it to trying to climb into a goddamn hammock every night. They'd bed down on the floor with straw mats and blankets.

  It was Lieutenant Molina who saw to Virgil's need for something to wear, having arrived drugged from the hospital in his drawers. Molina gave him one of his own cotton shirts and blue uniform trousers with yellow stripes down the sides. They fit snug--dons as a rule being smaller than Americans-and were shiny in the seat, but fine with Virgil. This was after the lieutenant told Virgil about his Washington duty and that he'd visited various points of interest along the Eastern seaboard. It turned out both Virgil and Lieutenant Molina had attended the dedication of Grant's Tomb. Imagine that. Virgil didn't mind not having shoes, the flagstone in here cool on his feet. He asked the lieutenant just what he was in jail for. Molina said he didn't know but would try to find out.

  As soor as Virgil woke up he saw the new man by the grating that looked out at the yard. Virgil thought at first glance he was U.S. Army, the dark coat and tan-colored pants, except there was no insignia on the coat. Right then the new man turned around and walked away and Virgil noticed the light blue neckerchief and heard that ching... ching and looked down to see the man was wearing high-heeled boots and spurs with big wheels that made that chinging sound. It looked like the new man was pacing. When he came back this way Virgil said from the hammock:

  "Mister, are you a cowpuncher by any chance?"

  "Yes, I am," Tyler said, locating Virgil in the hammock. "Ben Tyler, from around Sweetmary, Arizona."

  Now Virgil rolled out of the hammock and hit the floor in a pair of drawers, to Tyler a young guy with a full head of hair on top but none around the ears, a haircut that would last him a good while.

  "I could tell," Virgil said. "You have that look of a cowpuncher."

  "I had a panama hat might've thrown you off," Tyler said, "but a guard swiped it right off my head, grab
bed it as he shoved me in here."

  "Well, least you have your own clothes."

  "I just bought 'em yesterday; they're brand-new." "What'd you do to be in here?"

  "I thought it was for shooting a don, but now I don't think so. And you're " Tyler said. "I'm gonna say you're in the military from your haircut, but I can't tell which one from your drawers."

  Virgil stuck out his hand. "Virgil Webster, one time from Okmulgee, Indian Territory. Most recently Private Webster, a seagoing marine off what used to be the USS Maine. God help the boys still aboard her."

  "Jesus," Tyler said, shaking Virgil's hand, "you survived that terrible explosion."

  "Barely," Virgil said.

  Tyler squinted, studying him. "Well, what's a hero of the Maine doing in this flophouse?"

  "I find out I'll let you know," Virgil said. "How about yourself? An honest-to-God cowpuncher, what I always thought I'd grow u.p to be when I was little."

  "I know what you mean," Tyler said.

  This was how they began talking that first day.

  On the fifth day, February twenty-third, two guards brought Tyler along the corridor to the lieutenant's office, a large room with bare walls, a swept stone floor and a feeling of having been left abandoned until a desk and file cabinets were moved in. Molina looked up. He said in Spanish to the man sitting across the desk from him, "I'll leave you. Take as much time as you like."

  The lieutenant got up and came this way, giving Tyler's shoulder a pat as he walked past him. He paused in the doorway and said something to the two guards. They turned and followed him out.

  The man at the desk, one of those little Cuban guys with a big mustache, gestured for Tyler to come over, saying in English with the usual accent, "I like to ask you some questions."

  There was something familiar about him. Tyler approached the desk and stood there, a few feet from it. "Please, sit down."

  The only chair was the one Molina had left, behind the desk, a wooden swivel chair with a leather pad on the seat. "Here?"

  "Yes, why not. It's all right." The man, in a rigid-looking straight chair, waited until Tyler was seated. "My name is Rudi Calvo. I'm an investigator with the municipal police for the city of Havana." Tyler remembered him now.

  "You were at the Inglaterra the other night."

  "Yes, I was present." He smiled then. "You notice me, uh?"

  "I did, and you saw why I shot him. You were a witness, you and a barful of correspondents. It must've been in their newspapers."

  "The ones I saw," Rudi said, "they say it was self-defense. So they want to know why you're here if it's not for the shooting. Also why do they arrest your partner. The Guardia Civil say you're held on suspicion of being spies while they look for the boat, the Vdmanos, you came here with the horses." "What do they want with the boat?"

  "It's Lionel Tavalera. He believe you brought guns for the insurrectos. They waited at Matanzas, but the boat never came there."

  "What if they don't find it?"

  Rudi shrugged. "Yes? What if they don't?"

  "I could be here the rest of my life?"

  "Well, it isn't something new, is it? You were in prison one time before."

  "How do you know that, from the newspapers?" "Someone told me."

  "You talk to Charlie Burke?"

  "Not yet."

  Tyler stared at Rudi Calvo. When the police investigator looked away, Tyler said, "You know they're holding a U.S. marine here?" He watched Rudi Calvo's gaze return, eyes full of interest. "Private Virgil Webster, off the Maine. You don't know about him?"

  Rudi shook his head.

  "Blown into the water. Picked up and taken to a hospital. The night before last the Guards dragged him out of bed and brought him here. They think he saw something the night the ship blew up."

  "Did he?"

  "Not that he knows of."

  Tyler watched the municipal police investigator taking time to think about this, staring at one of the bare stone walls.

  "You're police, the Guardia are policewthey don't tell you what they're doing?"

  Rudi took his time. "They have their own way of doing things."

  "You knew I was in prison. Did you know I was here before, in Cuba? That my father ran a mill?"

  "I heard that, yes."

  "Do the Guardia know I was in prison back home?"

  Rudi again took his time. "I don't think so."

  "It was Fuentes told you about me," Tyler said. He waited, and Rudi waited, not saying a word. "You followed us when he took me to buy clothes. I'm guessing, but I'm pretty sure about it. We're on the street, Fuentes says, "Don't look now..." No, he said, "Don't look around when I tell you we're being followed." But I did, I looked around. You know why? Because Fuentes wasn't worried about it. He said, "It's okay, it's the police." See, but before that he wouldn't say much talking about the Guardia or what side he was on; he was careful. I asked him if he was for Spain or a free Cuba. He said, "If I told you I was for Cuba, would you believe me?" I said, "Yes, but I'd keep an eye on you." And he said that's the way to be, don't trust anybody."

  "But you believe he wants Cuba to be free," Rudi said. "Is that right?"

  Tyler said, "Do you care what I think? What difference does it make? You said you wanted to ask me some questions. Is that it? What I think about Fuentes?"

  This man made you wait while he thought things over.

  "I want to ask you about your boat, the Vdmanos."

  "The Vamoose. If she isn't in Matanzas, I don't know where she is. Are there guns aboard? I haven't seen any. If I tell anyone what I believe about Victor Fuentes, should I say what I believe about you?"

  Rudi said, "I don't know what you think." When Tyler didn't tell him he said, "Why would you talk about me?" And when Tyler didn't answer, Rudi said, "It's best not to say anything if you don't have to," and left.

  Twice a day criminal convicts from another part of the Morro brought fresh water and carried away the slop buckets. Three times a day one of the guards handed in a broom and the men took turns sweeping the flagstone floor. The guards didn't bother them much: half the men in here sick with fever and diarrhea, and there were always two or three moaning in their hammocks all day with stomach pains. The doctor was supposed to come twice a week, but they rarely saw him, told by the guards the doctor himself was sick or he was drunk. When he did come and look at them, he would attribute their ills to worms, or vermin. So these men in here accused of committing treason would bang the filthy metal food pans against the grating, demanding aspirin and quinine and once in a while they were given some. When cases of cholera or yellow fever were diagnosed, the sick ones were removed from the cell, Tyler was told, and never seen again. There was a leper among them from Santa Clara who was beginning to acquire the facial look of a lion, but had not yet lost any of his fingers or toes.

  After a few days their cellmates had asked all the questions they could think of and left the Americans in peace to sit by the grating, the one that looked out on the yard.

  "That's cannister stacked out there," Virgil said, "what used to be called grapeshot. It looks like they're getting ready to load it onto Spanish warships. You know what one of their problems is? Their coal ain't worth shit. We got 'em beat a mile in the grade of coal our ships burn. The Maine carried eight hundred and twenty-five ton, enough to steam seven thousand miles at a speed of ten knots. Our 10-inch gunsm there was a pair mounted fore and aft. Each one could throw a five-hundred-pound shell a good nine miles, mister. We had 6-inch guns, 6-pounders, rapid-fire 1-pounders, four Gatlings and a stock of Whitehead torpedos. Man, if we had known what was coming..."

  He said, "I've been in the brig aboard ship, but it was nothing like this, nothing to eat, everybody sick...."

  Tyler said, "Yuma was worsen this. You know why? You lived with convicts there, not political prisoners."

  On the tenth of March, Tyler's twentieth day in the Morro, Victor Fuentes came to visit. He sat in the swivel chair behind Lieutenant Molina'
s desk, waiting. Tyler was brought in and took the straight chair that was too small to offer comfort. He said to Fuentes, "Your friend the policeman was here." Fuentes hesitated, then nodded. "He told me." "Can anyone visit?"

  "If you pay. It cost a bottle of dark rum for an hour or so. A bottle of bourbon whiskey you can stay as long as you want. The lieutenant drinks it and goes to sleep." Fuentes shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit coat, came out with a half-pint bottle of quinine in each hand and placed them on the desk. From a vest pocket he drew two double eagles, worth twenty dollars each, and reached across the desk to put them in Tyler's hand.

  "For whatever you need."

  "We appreciate it, all of us, but who is it from?" "What do you mean, who? Is from me." "Can you afford it?" "Don't insult me."

  "Sorry." Tyler thought of Virgil and said, "I imagine the policeman told you about the marine."

  Fuentes said, "The rumor that he's here? I heard that." "He is here. We're in the same cell."

  Fuentes said, "Listen, we took the horses to Matanzas. All of them, yours too, on the train. I didn't want to leave your horse in Regla."

  "And you don't want to talk about the marine," Tyler said.

  "I have no reason to."

  "Or the policeman, Rudi Calvo?"

  "I know him, that's all. So, I took the horses to Matanzas. Boudreaux went, but now he's in Havana again. Also Amelia Brown, she's here. She wants to visit you." "She wants to come here?" "That's what she say." "What for?"

  "If she comes you can ask her."

  Tyler pushed the image of the girl out of his mind and said, "Have you seen Charlie?"

  "A little while ago. He looks worse than you." "What's wrong with him?"

  "He has the shits, what else? Listen, I have to get him some medicine and come back. What I want to tell you, they haven't found the ship yet, the Vamoose, and they won't find it. Don't ask me where it is, all right? Or ask me anything about it. I say this because they going to come and ask you where it is, and if you don't know you can't tell them. That's all I'm going to say to you," Fuentes said.