Every now and then Ocho sat or stood and searched the horizon. Nothing. Not a boat, not land, not a ship. Nothing.
Oh, three airplanes had gone over, two jets way up high making contrails and a twin-engine plane perhaps two miles up that had crossed the sky straight as a string, without the slightest waver as it passed within a half mile of Angel del Mar, rolling her guts out in the swells.
To see the airplanes, with their people riding inside, safe, full of food and drink, on their way from someplace to somewhere else, while we poor creatures are trapped here on this miserable boat, condemned to die slowly of thirst and exposure …
Surely the boat would be found soon … by somebody! Anybody! How can the Americans not see us? How?
Do they see us and not care?
Ocho was standing, watching for other ships and listening to Dora talk of the house she wanted, with the flowers by the door, when he realized that the dark place he could see to the west was a rain squall.
“Rain,” he whispered.
“Rain.” He shouted the word, pointed.
The squall was upon them before anyone could muster the energy to do anything. The people stood with their mouths open as raindrops pounded them and soaked their clothes and ran off the awning and along the deck, to disappear into the scuppers.
“The awning! Quickly. Make a container from the awning to trap the water!”
Ocho untied one corner with fingers that were all thumbs, the old fisherman did another corner, and they held the corners up, trapping water.
They had a few gallons when the rain ceased falling.
Several of the men tried to lean over, drink from the awning.
“No. Children first.”
Ocho managed to catch one man by the back of the neck and throw him to the deck.
“Children first.”
One by one the children were allowed to drink all they could hold. Then the women.
Several of the men got a swallow or two each, then the water was gone.
Ocho sat down, wiped the sweat and water from his hair and sucked it from his fingers. The only water he had gotten had been from holding his mouth open.
Dora had drunk her fill. Now she lay on the deck with her eyes closed.
Diego Coca had even gotten a swallow. He looked about with venomous eyes, then lay down beside his daughter.
“We must rig the awning so that it will catch water if the rain comes again,” Ocho said to the old fisherman.
They worked at it, cut a hole in the low place in the canvas and put a five-gallon bucket under the hole.
If it will just rain again, Ocho thought, studying the clouds. Please God, hear our prayer.
“Why are you here, on this boat?” the old fisherman asked Ocho, who stared at him in surprise.
“Why are you here?” the fisherman repeated. “You aren’t like us.”
Ocho looked around at his fellow sufferers, unable to fathom the old man’s meaning.
“These people are all losers,” the old man said, “including me. We came looking for something we will never find. Why are you with us?”
“It’s time for someone to relieve López on the pump. I will do it for a while, then you relieve me, old man.”
“We are going to die soon, I think,” the old man said.
Ocho hissed, “There are children listening. Watch your mouth.”
“When we can pump no more we will swim. Then we will die. One by one people will drown, or sharks will come.”
“Look for a ship,” Ocho said harshly, and went below.
Sharks! The old windbag, scaring the children like that.
Of course sharks were a possibility. Blood or people thrashing about in the water would attract them, or so he had always heard. Sharks would rip people apart, pull them under.
He pumped for a bit over twenty minutes, then took a break. The water came in fast. After five minutes he began pumping again. Another twenty-one minutes of vigorous effort was required to empty the bilge.
The water was coming in faster than it did yesterday. Pumping the handle manually seemed to require more effort too, though he knew he just had less energy. Pump, pump, pump, take a brief rest in the stinky bilge, then pump again ….
The more tired he grew the more hopeless he felt. All of them were doomed. Dora, the baby growing within her, the baby that he had put in her womb …
It was his fault. If he had been man enough to say no, to not surrender to lust, all these people would still be in Cuba, they would have a future to look forward to, not watery death. All the people who had been swept to their death would still be alive.
Alive! He had no idea of the horrible things he was setting in motion when he opened her dress, felt the ripeness of her body, felt the heat of her.
The guilt weighed on him, made it hard to breathe. He must do what he could to save them all. That was the only honorable choice open to him. Save as many as possible and maybe God would forgive him.
Maybe then he could forgive himself ….
And he shouldn’t give up hope yet. As he worked the pump handle he scolded himself for being so negative, for not having faith in God, in His plan for the twenty-six human beings still alive on Angel del Mar.
Soon a ship would come. The sailors would see the boat and rescue them. Give them cool, clean water, all they could drink; and food. Let each of them eat their fill. Soon it would come. Any minute now.
He pumped and pumped, sweat burned his eyes and dripped from his nose, though not so much as he sweated yesterday. He was very dehydrated. The salt had built up in his armpits, his groin, and it cut him. With his free hand he scratched, which only made the burning worse.
Any minute now a ship will come over the horizon. Soon …
Maximo Sedano took a taxi from the Zurich airport to an excellent hotel in the heart of the financial district where he had stayed on six or eight previous visits. The hotel was old, solid, substantial, almost banklike, yet it was not the primo hotel. This was the last time he stayed here, he told himself. Eduardo José López would stay at the best hotel in town because by God he could afford it. And because the staff over there had never seen him as Maximo Sedano.
He would have to make many adjustments, avoid photographs, avoid places where prominent Cubans might see him, like the heart of Madrid or London or Paris. Of course, if Vargas was assassinated in the turmoil following Fidel’s death, he could relax his vigilance somewhat. Vargas was a bloodhound, a humorless man with a profound capacity for revenge. Still, if Vargas came out on top after the succession struggle in Havana, he would have many things on his mind, and a missing ex-finance minister would of necessity be far down on the list.
Maximo would take his chances. He was in Europe, the money was in the banks just down the street, the loud and clear call of destiny was ringing in his ears.
He was sipping a drink and thinking about where he might go for dinner when he heard a knock on the door.
“Yes?”
“Delivery.”
“I ordered nothing. There has been a mistake.”
“For the Honorable Maximo Sedano.”
Curious, he opened the door.
The man standing in the hallway was European, with thinning hair and bulging muscles and a chiseled chin. And he was holding a pistol in his right hand, one pointed precisely at Maximo’s solar plexus.
The man backed Maximo into the room and closed the door.
“Your passport, please?” A German accent.
“I have little money. Take it and go.”
“Sit.” He gestured toward a chair by the bed with his pistol. Maximo obeyed, thankfully. His knees were turning to jelly and he had a powerful urge to urinate.