After he kissed her he sat on the top step, leaned back so he could see her face.
“Why aren’t you in school, teaching?” she asked.
He made a gesture, looked away to the north, toward the sea.
There was nothing out that way but a few treetops waving in the wind, with puffy clouds floating overhead.
He turned back to look into her face, reached for her hand. “Ocho went on a boat two nights ago. They were trying to reach the Florida Keys.”
“Did they make it?”
“I don’t know. If they make it we won’t hear for days. Weeks perhaps. If they don’t reach Florida we may never hear.”
Dona Maria leaned forward and touched her son’s hair. Then she put her twisted hands back in her lap.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Ocho should have told you.”
“Good-byes can be difficult.”
“I suppose.”
“You are the brightest of my sons, the one with the most promise. Why didn’t you go to America, Hector? You had plenty of chances. Why did you stay in this hopeless place?”
“Cuba is my home.” He gestured helplessly. “This is the work God has given me to do.”
Doña Maria gently massaged her hands. Rubbing them seemed to ease the pain sometimes.
“I might as well tell you the rest of it,” Hector said. “Ocho got a girl pregnant. He went on the boat with the girl and her father. The father wants Ocho to play baseball in America.”
“Pregnant?”
“Ocho told me, made me promise not to tell. He did not confess to me as a priest but as a brother, so I am exercising an older brother’s prerogative — I am breaking that promise,”
She sighed, closed her eyes for a moment.
“If God is with them, they may make it across the Straits,” Hector said. “There is always that hope.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
It was at that moment that Dona Maria saw the human condition more clearly than she ever had before. She and Hector were two very mortal people trapped by circumstance, by fate, between two vast eternities. The past was gone, lost to them. The people they loved who were dead were gone like smoke, and they had only memories of them. The future was … well, the future was unknowable, hidden in the haze. Here there was only the present, this moment, these two mortal people with their memories of all that had been.
Hector stroked his mother’s hair, kissed her tears, then went down the walk to the road. When he looked back his mother was still sitting where he had left her, looking north toward the sea.
Ocho was probably dead, Hector realized, another victim of the Cuban condition.
When, O Lord, when will it stop? How many more people must drown in the sea? How many more lives must be blighted and ruined by the lack of opportunity here? How many more lives must be sacrificed on the altar of political ambition?
As he walked toward the village bus stop, he lifted his hands and roared his rage, an angry shout that was lost in the cathedral of the sky.
The pain was there, definitely there, but it wasn’t cutting at him, doubling him over. Fidel Gastro made them get him up, had them put him in a chair behind his desk. He wanted the flag to his right.
Mercedes and the nurse helped him into his green fatigue shirt
He was perspiring then, gritting his teeth to get through this.
“Do you know what you want to say?” Mercedes asked.
“I think so.”
The camera crew was fiddling with the lights, arranging power cords.
“I want to say something to you, right now,” she whispered, “while you are sharp and not heavily sedated.”
His eyes went to her.
“I love you, Fidel. With all my heart.”
“And I you, woman. Would that we had more time.”
“Ah, time, what a whore she is. We had each other, and that was enough.”
He bit his lip, reached for her hand. “If only we had met years ago, before—”
He winced again. “Better start the tape,” he said. “I haven’t much time.” He straightened, gripped the arms of the chair so hard his knuckles turned white.
With the lights on, Fidel Castro looked straight into the camera, and spoke: “Citizens of Cuba, I speak to you today for the last time. I am fatally ill and my days on this earth will soon be over. Before I leave you, however, I wish to spend a few minutes telling you of my dream for Cuba, my dream of what our nation can become in the years ahead ….”
The door opened and Alejo Vargas walked in. Behind him was Colonel Pablo Santana.
“Well, well, Señor Presidente. I heard you were making a speech to the video cameras this afternoon. Do not mind us; please continue. We will remain silent spectators, out of the sight of the camera, two loyal Cubans representing millions of others.”
“I did not invite you here, Vargas.”
“True, you did not, Señor Presidente. But things seem to be slipping away from you these days — important things. The world will not stop turning on its axis while you lie in bed taking drugs.”
“Get out! This is my office.”
Alejo Vargas settled into a chair. He turned to the camera crew. “Turn that thing off. The lights too. Then you may take a short break. We will call you when we want you to return.”
The extinguishment of the television lights made the room seem very dark.
Colonel Santana escorted the technicians from the room and closed the door behind them. He stood with his back against the door, his arms crossed.
“If you are pushing the button near your knee to summon the security staff, you are wasting your time,” Vargas said. “Members of my staff have replaced them.”
“Say what you want, then get out,” Castro said.
Vargas got out a cigarette, lit it, taking his time. “I am wondering about Maximo Sedano. The night before last he was here, you signed something for him, he left this morning on a plane to Madrid, with a continuation on to Zurich. What was that all about?”
Fidel said nothing. Mercedes noticed that he was perspiring again.
“I am in no rush,” Vargas said. “I have all the time in the world.”
Fidel ground his teeth. “He went to move funds. On a matter of interest to the Finance Ministry.”
“The question is, where will the funds end up when their electronic journey is over? Tell me that, please.”
“In the government’s accounts in the Bank of Cuba, in Havana.”
“I ask this question because the man who was here last night did not see you check the account numbers in any book or ledger. You have the account numbers memorized?”
“No.”
“So in reality you don’t know where Maximo Sedano will wire the money?”
“He is a trustworthy man. Loyal. I cannot be everywhere, see everything, and must trust people. I have trusted people all my life.”
“How much money are we talking about, Señor Presidente?”
“I don’t know.”
“Millions?”
“Yes.”
“Tens of millions?”
“Yes.”
“Dios mio, our Maximo must be a saint! I wouldn’t trust my own mother with that kind of money.”
“I wouldn’t trust your mother with a drunken sailor,” Mercedes said. “Not if he had two centavos in his pocket.” She handed some pills to Castro, who glanced down at them.
“Water, please,” he whispered. He put the pills on the desk in front of him.
Vargas continued: “If we ever see the face of Maximo Sedano again, Señor Presidente, you have me to thank. I am having one of my men meet the finance minister in Zurich. We will try to convince Maximo to do his duty to his country.”