Woody’s face lifted in exaltation as Dominguez spoke. His chin lifted, his eyes began to flare.
“Excellency, you inspire us, we who are about to die, for Cuba, for your cause, for FREEDOM!” Then he took a sip of rum—after first toasting Dominguez with his glass, which, when he held it up to the light, was really very dirty and smudged. Alex and Noel lifted their glasses too, and His Excellency, who was already drinking, thrust his glass toward them slightly, sloshing rum over his bare knees.
Then Woody began to speak, and this time he spoke in Spanish. His speech was long, and from the bobs of his head at its opening, I gathered he was offering kudos to the minister. Later, he seemed to be asking questions, and Dominguez answered, but then something seemed to be wrong, Alex joined in the conversation, and the three men looked around as if searching the room.
At last the minister shouted something, and no one spoke until the silent woman shuffled to the door and opened it. He gave her another order, and ten minutes later she appeared again with a large ordnance-type map of Cuba. The men all got down on the floor on their hands and knees. Dominguez began to pinpoint important sites.
I didn’t join them. I knew they would resent my intrusion, that Woody would act as if I were trying to pry into State Secrets. Besides, I didn’t speak Spanish. I told myself my job was to absorb the atmosphere totally, to study the minister, to try to read his character on his face. It was a fine face—deeply lined, sad, with traces of sensuality—but it is difficult to be confident about a face when you do not understand the words that come from it. I yawned. I felt overwhelmingly sleepy. It came on me that I was bored. Again. How could that be? I was almost never bored. Well, there is so much waiting, I thought. And this room is airless.
I sat there sipping my lukewarm Coke, head spinning from the heat, while they argued and exclaimed and pounced on spots on the piece of paper on the floor.
I was feeling faint. I tapped Woody on the shoulder and told him I’d be outside on the doorstep, getting some air. He looked alarmed, and turned swiftly to Alex.
“Ask him if it is safe if she goes outside!”
Alex did. Dominguez shrugged. I got up and left the room, I peered down the dark hallway, searching for the woman, but did not see her. The back rooms of the house were dark. (Did the woman sit in the dark? Why? Did she have lights, and a television set on in a cozy back room with all the drapes drawn? I hoped so. Was she his sister, his wife, his servant? Maybe just his landlady. I knew these questions would hold no interest for the others.)
I opened the front door, went out, sank to the step. I lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply. I looked up at the stars, brilliant in the southern sky. I waited.
It was after midnight when they came out, silent, tense with elation and a sense of importance. We walked back to the car in silence. Only when we had driven well away from the house did Woody explode: “Great! Just great! We got it now!” and Alex and Noel assented, all of them laughing, lighting up cigarettes, relaxing. Woody glanced at me. “We leave tomorrow,” he said between clenched teeth. “Be ready at six.”
3
AT SIX O’CLOCK ON the morning of December 30, 1961, I was sitting in the lobby with my knapsack and camera case, wishing I had a cup of coffee. Woody, Alex, and Noel appeared and disappeared. They were making telephone calls, sending messengers, trying to find a car. It seems José had not got the message, and Orlando’s car had broken down. At seven, the hotel restaurant opened, and I went in and ordered coffee. We did not get on the road until eight. Eleven of us crammed ourselves and our gear into two cars, a Ford station wagon and the rattly Buick from the night before. (What had happened to the red convertible? Whose car was it?) Sebastian and Ettore were to meet us with a third car at a Mobil station near the road to the Everglades. Some people from each car would move to Sebastian’s, so we would not be so crowded during the long drive to Key West. It suddenly occurred to me that there were thirteen of us.
It was a beautiful day, and lovely driving down the two-lane highway to the Keys. Sand, sky, narrow necks of land connected by bridges threaded water blue, blue-grey, Winslow Homer blue-green, depending on the sky, the clouds. There were only a few poor shabby settlements along the road, but they were—to me, at least—utterly appealing: shacks along the beach, small trailers with tattered canvas awnings, people in straw hats, barefoot, sitting on the bridges or piers dangling a fishing line. Sun. Silence.
We reached Key West in the early afternoon. We drove straight to the pier where the boat was anchored. It was a cabin cruiser with sleeping accommodations for six. Its name, somewhat faded, was the Argo. An unshaven Cuban was standing by the boat, smoking a cigar. We all clambered out; Woody and Alex went to talk to the man—Luna?—while Noel supervised the unloading of our gear from the trunks of the cars. The other men disappeared.
There was a bar/bait shop at the pier, and I went in to get out of the sun. The three Americans were already sitting at the bar, drinking beer, and Lope came out of a door zipping up his fly. I assumed he was coming from the john and used it myself. The toilet seat was wet and covered with old dark stains. The room stank, and flies buzzed, hovering around the toilet and the floor around it.
I joined the others at the bar and ordered iced coffee and a ham sandwich. The bread was so dry its edges had curled up. A radio was playing, reminding me it was New Year’s Eve. I longed to call Toni and the kids, but didn’t dare. I’d been told over and over how secret this mission was, especially now that we were actually embarked. I sat there imagining I was going into battle, trying to feel what soldiers feel at such a time. I managed to develop some sentimental thoughts about the kids and Toni, although I had no sense whatever that I would be in danger.
I went outside and wandered down to the boats. No one was around, and one of the cars was gone. I set up my camera on a tripod and began to take pictures. I moved around, walking as far from the scene as I could—there was thick scrub brush behind the bait shop—and took two more rolls. Then I plopped down in the sand, pulled my visor cap down over my eyes, and fell asleep. I woke up at voices. Noel, Alex, and Jose were loading our gear onto the deck of the boat. It was almost five. Woody emerged from the cabin and jumped the railing onto the pier. His shirt, face, and arms were smudged with heavy black grease. I looked at him inquisitively.
He shrugged. “Problem with the generator. Had to replace it, don’t make them anymore, had to find a rebuilt. Things take time,” he concluded in a resentful voice, as if I’d been criticizing him.
Maybe I was, I thought. Maybe it showed on my face.
What with other “things,” we did not weigh anchor until six. I stood on deck watching land recede. That experience always moves me, it feels mysterious and terrible, and arouses tragic emotions I savor. I was breathing deeply, the suffering of loss thrilling through my nerves, when there was a terrible crunch and squeal and the boat stopped.
It was hours before it became clear what had happened. Immediately after the crunch there was the usual harangue; we chugged slowly back to the pier; something was wrong with the propeller. José donned a frogman suit and dove under to examine it. It seems we had rammed a coral reef. (Where were the maps? Who was the navigator?) Usual chaos—argument about what was wrong and what to do, checking the maps, starting up the motor and listening, discussing the matter—that’s a polite way to put it—with Luna, who glared at Woody as if he would kill him. Time passed. I sat on the deck, smoking, with Philip and Cyrus, whom I suspected of giggling behind their hands.
The sun was sinking into the water behind us, a great red ball falling into the sea. Then it was dark. Philip made daiquiris and served them in real cocktail glasses he had found in the galley. The Cubans joined us, except for José, who was still under the boat. The men began to grow mellow. Then Clemente gasped, sat up, pounded his fist on his knee.
“Iss New Year! New Year! I must call!” He stood up. “Where iss phone?”
Philip pointed to the ship-to-shore telephone.
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Clemente went into the cabin and called someone—his wife, I suppose. He talked for a long time, expostulating, laughing, wishing her felices año nuevo. When he finished, Sebastian got up and used it. One by one, they trotted over and called, all a little high from the daiquiris, the sun, the excitement.
After several hours, Woody appeared all cleaned up (where had he found a shower?) and announced that it had been decided we would go ahead without repairing the propeller. We would make slow progress, but the Cuban coast was only an overnight trip. It was true we had to make two stops to pick up the weapons Woody had hidden, but to wait for repair might delay us several days, even a week. Then Woody relaxed with a Bacardi, and called his wife in Houston. And I could understand what he said. He told her everything! Where we were, the trouble we’d had, the fact that we were leaving as soon as José was cleaned up and ready! And I’d been afraid to call!
We left near midnight and sailed all night. I slept on deck wrapped in a blanket because I could not bear the gasoline smell below decks, it made me seasick. Around noon the next day, Philip and Cyrus spotted some mounds of earth in the distance; they yelled and waved their arms, and everyone on board grew animated. Ettore, who was running the boat under Woody’s orders, had difficulty in steering toward the right ones. We sailed around them, Woody and Alex passing binoculars from hand to hand, others scanning the view with hands held as shields over their eyes. Woody cried out, “There! There! That turtle shape! That’s Dannyboy!”
We pulled in as close to shore as we could, and Alex and José lowered a large rowboat. Noel and Orlando were delegated to stay with the ship, José and Alex to row. The rest of us clambered down the rope ladder and rowed to shore.
It was hard to walk on the wet slimy rock. You’d take a few steps up, then slide back down. It was especially hard for me with my heavy camera case, and José would sometimes reach out a hand to help me. Eventually we gained dry rock, a narrow flat surface, and followed Woody around to a spot that offered footholds for the rest of the climb up. The older men were red-faced and puffing when we reached the top, a plateau that stretched for a mile or so, offering a clear view of the few groves of scrub trees that grew on this “island,” which was really just a rock in the sea.
Woody and Noel began to argue about precisely where the bazookas were hidden. It was hot. The other men threw themselves down on the baking rock and passed around the canteen. I took some pictures. We waited. At last they came up with a plan: they broke us into groups, sending each group to a different grove of trees, with orders to call out if we found the guns. I was assigned to go with Sebastian’s group. We set off across the rock.
It took about twenty minutes to reach our grove. We all bent and searched beneath the trees, unsure of just what the cache would look like. Suddenly Woody gave a long triumphant yell that stopped short as if his throat had been cut. We all rushed to where the sound had come from—the scrub trees right in the center of the island. Woody was standing there holding a small box in the air.
“We been robbed! Robbed! Somebody’s been here and taken them!” he cried. “The fuckers left a clip behind, just to be sure we’d know they were here!”
There was a rough spot beneath the trees where conceivably something had been stored. That and the box—a clip, he said. Bullets. Nothing else. Woody kept screaming “It was here, it was! Look at this, somebody got here before us!”
There was muttering, cursing, kicking of the dust. Not all the hostility was directed at whomever had robbed Woody. I slumped down again—I was tired—and lighted a cigarette. Who? I wondered, remembering all the people who could have overheard us at La Fonda del Sol, at Mi Tierra.
Woody read the mutiny in the faces around him and mustered us together swiftly. “We got to get to the little island before they do,” he insisted, and hurried us back to the boat. We climbed back aboard and set off again, again winding in and out of small rocklike islands, again having trouble finding the right one. Philip and Cyrus made sandwiches in the galley and shared them—tuna fish and mayonnaise. They tasted good. We hadn’t eaten much that day.
About four-thirty, we anchored again near a small friendly looking island: it had a wide beach, a forest beyond, with some pines and cypress among the scrub. Some of the older men remained on the ship this time, while the rest of us rowed to the island and headed for a tall pine at its north end, where the four BARs—Browning automatics—and the two satchel charges of dynamite (I had learned something listening to these guys) were hidden. Had been hidden. Only a weatherbeaten tarpaulin remained.
Woody sank down onto his heels cursing. The others threw themselves on the ground. I smoked.
“Okay, war council,” he announced, finally. He looked at his watch. It was almost six, and the sky was nearly dark. “It’s getting dark. Maybe we should camp here tonight—it’ll be more comfortable than that tub. And we need to have a meeting, decide what to do.”
We were all pleased by the decision to camp on the island; we were irritable from our cramped uncomfortable sleeping arrangements: even by day the boat was overcrowded. So José and Alex and Noel rowed back to the ship, and ferried back and forth conveying people and equipment—sleeping and cooking gear. Woody ordered Philip and Cyras to gather firewood, sent Jack and Ettore to find water, and ordered me to help him find places for the sleeping rolls. When everything was done, and a fire was started, he passed around a bottle of bourbon.
“War council,” he announced.
The men attended with seriousness broken only by the passed bottle, and they even tried to rouse themselves to their usual level of debate and argument. But their hearts weren’t in it.
“Okay, men,” Woody said in a particularly solemn, portentous voice. “How many weapons we got with us?”
They had seven handguns, three Springfield rifles, and a hundred cartridge clips.
Woody tried again. “What kind of handguns? Anybody but me and Alex and Noel got a Colt?”
Most of them had Smith and Wessons, they confessed mournfully.
Long silence. We were camped among trees, sitting on blankets over a thick layer of pine needles and leaves of scrub oak. It smelled clean and green, and through the trees we could see the sky, still a deep purple. No stars yet, and just a pale moon low on the horizon. It was peaceful.
Woody sighed.
“Well, let’s get on with it. Stevens, you cook.”
“What?” This was the first time during our expedition that I had rebelled, but rebel I did. “I can’t cook! And I’m a photographer, not a member of your team to be ordered around!”
The Cubans murmured. “Of course you can cook,” Woody laughed. “You’re a dame, aren’t you?”
“Oh, come on, luv, give it a try,” Noel smiled at me. “It can’t be any worse than what we do.”
Sullenly, with a bad grace I was ashamed of, I got up and searched the food locker. They had brought four boxes of spaghetti, four large cans of tomatoes, two cans of kidney beans, two of baked beans, and a giant can of tuna fish. There was dried onion, dried garlic, dried parsley, salt, pepper. There were thirteen of us. There was a large pot and a medium-sized one, neither big enough for cooking for thirteen people. I groaned.
Feeling wretched—exactly like the old slave in slippers who waited on Excellency—I poured two cans of tomatoes into the middle-sized pot with some spices and set the big pot full of water on the fire. We went on drinking. After half an hour, I poured one can of kidney beans and half the tuna into the tomatoes. I cooked spaghetti in batches, lifting the cooked strands out with a fork and spoon so I could save the water from the first batch to cook the second. Then I served the glop on seven plates and started a new batch of sauce, and after another half hour, served the rest of the guys, who by then were pretty drunk.
They ate it, sloshed it down. They were on the second bottle of bourbon. I managed to swallow a few strands. I refused to clean up.
“That’s not the cook’s job,” I announced imperiously, try
ing to recapture some dignity. “I’m not your servant. Share the labor.”
Woody assigned the chore to Noel. I was grateful to him for finding a way to save my pride, so I got up and helped him. Most of the men were completely drunk now. Only Woody and Noel seemed sober, and maybe Alex and José—they weren’t saying anything, so I couldn’t tell. Jack and Clemente and Orlando and Cyrus were talking about their exploits, past glories, the ones that got away and the ones that didn’t.
I didn’t listen. I had heard it all before. I sat, leaning back against a tree, watching the sky turn blacker, the stars appear. It was a rich black with stars like a whole pouch of diamonds poured out on a velvet cloth. I tried to appreciate the beauty.
When it got dark, it got cold. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and burrowed into the layers of dead leaves. The fire was dying. Several men were already asleep, I could hear them snoring but I couldn’t see them anymore. I could see only the small light of the embers and the tips of cigarettes, moving in darkness like fireflies.
I let myself slide down a bit against the tree trunk and tried to close my eyes. But the sky kept me awake in a way no sunny bright sky could ever do. Then, suddenly, I felt an arm come around me. I turned, but I knew by his smell who it was—Woody.
“What, you get me to cook so you think you have me domesticated?”
He laughed, nuzzling my neck. “That really got you, hey, kid?”
He laid his head against my breast.
“Knock it off, Woody.”
I wriggled away from him. What in hell was he doing? Did he expect to make love here, in front of everyone? I glanced at him. He was leaning against the same tree with me, smoking. I could see the dark bulk of his profile, the tip of his cigarette.
The problem was part of me did find part of him attractive: much as I detested it, I was drawn to that assured command, that assumption of superiority of his. Once, when I was married to Brad, I dreamt I was Leda, being overpowered by the swan, and I awoke hot and horny. But the swan was Zeus, King of the Universe, and he had to be Zeus for me to accept his acting as he did. Woody was not Zeus, he was not even superior; by now I seriously doubted that he had any intelligence at all.