Stabs at Happiness (5 page)

The plan for the attack is very simple. They surround the small barracks at
El Uvero
on the three sides away from the sea—and then open fire. Fidel fires the first shot, using his prized rifle with the telescopic lens. Che Guevera operates a machine-gun.

After about four hours of sporadic firing, Fidel gets tired of waiting and makes the decision to storm the barracks. They are in somewhat of a bad position, due to lack of cover, for such an advance.

Nevertheless they prevail.

“What are you going to do?” asks Leonora, and Justo cannot say. He's at a loss for words. He just sits there, looking at the wall, through with talking, ashamed of his naked fear.

Leonora's blouse sticks to her skin. It's hot out, and she feels impatient and annoyed. She wishes that she had been here to see Angel. She wants to call him up and talk to him, but not in front of Justo. Justo will have to go.

Ulpiano is taken out for a ride in a speedboat, and when they reach a certain point, his friends throw fresh bleeding fish into the bright cobalt water, until some sharks become interested, fins crowding around the gently drifting craft. Ulpiano, already having been extensively abused, is set upon with a razor until he's once again bleeding freely. He is still, it seems, in possession of a voice. Inside the black skin he is red, a communist.

One guy takes him under the shoulders, another by the feet. They swing him back and forth, one two three, on the last count flinging him into the teeth of the sea. Some of these men have gotten drunk, and they want to laugh, but the ensuing show is decisive and brief. Next time they come to feed the fish they'll have to bring more food.

Santamaria gets word that he's supposed to be transferred to the Sierra Maestre, to serve under the command of General del Chaviano. It's well known that the two generals directing the campaign against the rebels, del Chaviano and Cantillo, hate each other: it's impossible to conceive of them coordinating an effective strategy together. More likely, each will pursue an independent course of action, answerable to Batista only in the case of obvious disaster.

Angel thinks it's a farce. He knows all about it. Too many lazy, corrupt officers, without combat experience, who bicker among themselves with far more seriousness than they are ever able to bring to bear against Fidel. They take it out on the peasants they come across, raping and burning and looting, all the while sending back communiques that proclaim yet another successful action — coming in time, perhaps, to believe in this nonsense themselves. Fifty rebels dead today, a hundred tomorrow; thousands after that. No mention of such escapades as the time that Fidel got hold of a code-book and radio and talked the air force into napalming their own troops. No; just fictional victory after victory. Angel wants no part of this charade.

He speculates that his affair with Sally may be the underlying reason for the transfer. Her husband, or maybe somebody else in the United Fruit Company, someone with power, found out about it and didn't like it. Angel must have flaunted her once too often.

If it's a matter of a simple favor, and no money has changed hands, he may be able to have his order rescinded. Of course, this service will not be performed for free.

The best thing may be to go directly to General Tabernillas, the greedy Chief of Staff. Or, perhaps, better yet, to his son, who serves as Batista's private secretary, and whom Angel has met once or twice in the Sky Club late at night.

He wonders which one might be less expensive. He doesn't think he has enough cash on hand: he'll have to ask Sally for some money. She's bought him all kinds of presents, but this will be different. He despises the thought of it. No matter what he does, he will be lowering himself. It's inescapable. Every alternative is bad.

Just thinking about all this exhausts him. Life is too complicated. He feels like he's found some dirt from a graveyard in front of his door—which, if you believe in voodoo, is a very bad sign.

A devilfish swims round and round in the big, lighted aquarium with turquoise water that serves as the only ‘floorshow' in this sleepy bar. The tourists assume that it's the same one all the time, but I know that they frequently languish and die and are always being replaced. However, they all look the same, ugly bastards, and I too admit I can't tell the difference between this guy and the one who was here a month ago.

Lately, I've found myself drinking early in the day; it seems to help me write. I point with particular pride to a piece I did about the elections
El Hombre
has had to postpone (yet again) until the fall.

You can't write about Castro. He was interviewed on North American television, on CBS, right there in his camp in the Sierra, where the army can't seem to find him, and everybody found out everything he said—but so far as the papers here are concerned, he does not exist.

But the North Americans have made him into a star.

She's cooking rice and listening to a samba on the radio when they break down the doors, coming in swiftly through both the front and the back.

They handcuff her wrists behind her back. A man on either side of her: they walk her down to one of those dreaded black cars. She is driven somewhere, and then taken into a room, where she is instructed to sit down on a bare wooden chair. Her wrists are chafed by the steel of the too-tight, American-made handcuffs, which are shiny and seem brand-new.

Once they realize that she's Lieutenant Santamaria's girlfriend, she thinks, they'll say that it's all been a mistake and let her go. She says something, and is slapped and told to shut up, not to open her mouth until she's asked.

Her questioners sit behind a long table, as if they're a ‘panel of experts.' A mean, fat, very dark-skinned black woman is the one who pulls her hair and hurts her, presumably on cue or according to some prearranged plan.

“Where is Justo Dominguez?”

“I don't know.”

“Please try to think. He was with you: now where has he gone?”

“He didn't tell me. I didn't know that he was in trouble.”

“Then why did he leave?”

“I told him to.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn't want him around.”

Smack!

“Tell us about his friends.”

“I never knew them.”

Repetition. They ask where Justo got the bombs.

What bombs?

They ask her if she's ever thrown one.

Repetition. She is ‘stubborn.'

The big black woman knocks Leonora off the chair onto the floor. Kicks her in the ass as hard as she can. Jesus.

Repetition.

Back on the chair. Leonora is slapped, yelled at, threatened, thinking at the same time that it might get much, much worse.

There is a mirror on the wall to her right, a very large mirror, and she wonders if it might be one of those ‘whorehouse mirrors' Angel once told her about. Anyone could be back there looking at her, enjoying the show.

They start all over again.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I am a model.”

“I don't think you model very much. Try again.”

“I modeled for Bacardi Rum.”

“No you didn't. Tell the truth.”

Could Angel be back there, watching her in her torment? Is it possible? And yet he loves her, she knows this beyond all doubt.

She doesn't know a thing. She insists she does not know a thing.

Justo and Felipe have marched from the cactus on the lower slopes to the rainforest of tree ferns, and at last they have found a peasant in a
bohio
who will sell them some food. Hot black beans and rice. The peasant charges them at least twice what it is worth.

“You're asking too much,” says Felipe.

“Then don't eat it,” says the peasant. “How do you know what things cost?”

Justo doesn't want to argue about it. He thinks they should pay the guy whatever he wants.

The
bohio
has an earth floor and a palm leaf roof. They sleep, and the next day they find Raul Castro, who's not very glad to see them because they haven't brought him guns or ammunition. He might not let them stay. If he has no use for them, he certainly won't feed them, and this is made perfectly clear.