Havana Blues

By David Pereda

The year is 1952.
Ramon Rodriguez’s life as a youth in fun-loving Havana is filled with typical and mostly pleasurable activities, concerning girls, sex, education, religion, baseball, parties, and hanging out with friends. The country is enjoying a period of prosperity and happiness under President Carlos Prio Socarras – until General Fulgencio Batista stages a coup that topples the government and Ramon’s life is flung into chaos.
In a few short years, the carefree fifties morph into a vicious and repressive dictatorship highlighted by corruption, organized gambling, school closures, student demonstrations, police brutality, and assassinations.
As Ramon experiences his first romantic relationship, graduates from school and struggles to plan for an uncertain future, he is forced to make important decisions that may be dangerous to him, his family, his friends, and his girlfriend – the beautiful Sonia – and could turn deadly.
A provocative, compelling story of old Cuba!

• Language: English
• Publisher: CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: May 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463257838

David Pereda

David Pereda was born in Havana, Cuba. The award-winning author of seven previous novels, he enjoys crafting political thrillers and edgy mainstream novels with unique characters placed in exotic settings. He has traveled to more than thirty countries and speaks four languages. Before devoting his time solely to writing and teaching, David had a successful international consulting career with global giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked with the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Peru and Qatar, among others. A member of MENSA, David earned his MBA from Pepperdine University in California. He earned bachelor degrees in English literature and mathematics at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He lives in artistic Asheville, North Carolina, with his youngest daughter Sophia, where he teaches mathematics and English at the Asheville-Buncombe Community College. He loves sports and is an accomplished competitor in track and show-jumping equestrian events.

Book preview

PREFACE

Cuban history has been forged by turbulence and revolution. It took three bloody wars, the peculiar explosion of the U. S. battleship Maine in Havana’s Harbor, and, ultimately military help from the United States for Cuba to achieve independence from Spain, at last, in 1898. Four years later, in 1902, Cuba became a free republic.

During the following decades, political unrest and violent coups rocked the island to such an extent that the United States had a second intervention in Cuban politics from 1906 to 1909. By 1924, when General Gerardo Machado was elected president, Cuba had had a few more revolutions and violent government changes.

Machado himself was ousted violently in 1933. Seven presidential changes later, and several more revolutions, General Fulgencio Batista was elected president in 1940. He suffered, but was able to quell – thanks to his control of the military – various coup attempts during his term of office.

His successor, Dr. Ramon Grau San Martin, dismantled the powerful military infrastructure built by Batista and tried to project an image of ‘Cubanity as Love.’ Unfortunately, gangsterism and corruption were widespread during his presidential mandate. Grau was succeeded by Dr. Carlos Prio Socarras – who made famous the words, ‘I want to be a cordial president.’

Prio was such a cordial and permissive president that Cuba became known for its wild and unrestrained living. Esquire magazine published an article in the early fifties proclaiming Havana the unequivocal ‘Sin Capital of the World.’

The fifties marked a particularly turbulent period of Cuban history. On March 10, 1952, General Fulgencio Batista staged a successful coup that toppled the government of Carlos Prio Socarras. Once more, Cuba was flung into a confused and chaotic period, highlighted by corruption, gambling, prostitution, student demonstrations, and political assassinations, capped at the end of the decade by a frenzied Marxist revolution.

On January 1, 1959, a bearded young revolutionary named Fidel Castro led his rebel forces down the rugged Oriente hills and marched into Havana to the cheers of the people to oust Dictator Batista – who, judiciously, had fled to the Dominican Republic by private plane in the middle of the night, carrying with him three hundred million dollars of the nation’s money.

That historic New Year of 1959 initiated the establishment of the first Communist government in the island and another remarkable chapter in the saga of the Cuban people.

Unhappy with the new socialist government, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled the island during the following decades, often hungry or politically persecuted, searching for a new life. Large numbers settled in the United States, notably Miami, while others preferred countries with Latin roots such as Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Peru or Spain. To this day, surviving Cuban émigrés and their families continue to be uprooted, errant, and obsessed people searching for a past and an identity – and dreaming of a return to an idealized Cuba that, arguably, never really existed.

*****

BOOK ONE: Growing Up

Chapter One

My room was on fire. Orange tongues licked the crumbling walls and snaked across the burning floor toward my bed. Thick gray smoke choked me. My ears throbbed with an insistent and reverberating sound.

I couldn’t breathe.

I gasped for air. My palms felt sweaty, and my heart thrashed against my rib cage, as if trying to escape my chest. I opened my eyes. For a moment, I was in a bright and silent void – then I heard my parents arguing in the kitchen.

It was a hot and sunny morning. I had been dreaming of hell again, and the alarm clock was ringing.

I shut it off.

Ever since Brother Santiago had given in Religion class a week ago a vivid and realistic description of hell as punishment for masturbation and having sex with prostitutes, I’d had the same dream over and over. Amid much commotion and speculation, Pacheco, the frail student with a perennially runny nose who sat behind me in class, fainted and had to be carted off to the school infirmary, pale and limp like a noodle in won ton soup. Everyone in class knew Pacheco was an assiduous masturbator – he bragged about it to other students often enough – but his blackout generated great speculation in the school about his frequent visits to brothels. I wondered what kind of nightmares Pacheco was having.

On second thought, I really didn’t want to know. I had enough with my own nightmares of hell.

I stretched lazily in bed. Today was a special day. It was my birthday. I was fifteen years old.

A door slammed somewhere, and once more I was aware of my parents’ angry voices in the kitchen. I likened their arguments to a sort of word symphony, the sound of their voices harmonized so well. My mother’s shrill, piercing sting was a nearly perfect complement to my father’s placating hum.

Though I couldn’t hear them clearly, I guessed what they were arguing about – money. Ever since Papa’s broom-making business started going bad, it seemed money was all they ever talked about. Poor Papa, he couldn’t compete against cheaper mass-produced imports flooding the country from the United States and China, never mind his brooms were the epitome of quality and lasted a lifetime. Who wanted a broom to last a lifetime, anyway?

Mama hadn’t forgiven Papa for insisting two years ago we move to a smaller and more affordable house in La Vibora, or for asking her to let Maria, our full-time maid, go. I guess Mama wasn’t the forgiving type.

I liked the move to our new neighborhood, though. I was closer to school, and I made new friends.

My parents’ voices ascended in a crescendo. By the loudness of their voices, I could always tell when to get up every morning. Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered to set the alarm clock. I really didn’t need it.

I listened. It was almost time. The only part missing from their daily morning virtuoso performance was the coda: Mama’s final triumphant verbal blasts – keeping time with Papa’s hurried steps out of the house. It had been like that for a long time now, and it was getting worse.

‘What’s so bad about buying new curtains?’ Mama’s voice trumpeted in the kitchen. ‘Tell me?’

So, it was curtains today. Yesterday it was shoes. What it would be tomorrow not even Mama knew, yet.

I hardly heard Papa’s muted answer. ‘Nothing, Marta. It’s a simple matter of income and expenses. I give you as much as I can for the house.’

‘It’s not enough.’

‘It’s all I can give you, Marta. Please understand. Business is bad.’

‘It’s not enough. I need more.’

Papa’s voice detached itself, a trombone playing a plaintive melody. ‘I can’t. I’m so sorry, Marta.’

I twisted in bed and covered my ears with the pillow, trying to obliterate the sound of their voices. I couldn’t understand why Papa had to apologize to Mama all the time. It was obvious he couldn’t give her more money. Why couldn’t she understand that? But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t understand that simple fact, so their arguments continued while their relationship deteriorated.

I looked out the bedroom window

The sun was a dazzling imprecise yellow, like melted butter. The sky was a peaceful endless blue. Fuzzy baby clouds, playful like sheep, frolicked around the sun. Mama’s victorious roar penetrated the muffling pillow, and I knew their argument was practically over in the kitchen. The coda was near.

I removed the pillow from my ears and listened. Papa’s shy retreating steps were punctuated by Mama’s persecuting screams. I knew it was finally over when I heard the soft closing of the front door. Papa was so controlled. He never, at least never that I could remember, slammed the door on his way out.

Quickly, to avoid my mother, I rolled out of bed and dashed into the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

A moment later I heard Mama approach and enter my room. ‘Wake up, Ramoncito. Your father has left for work. Oh, you up already?’

‘Si, Mama,’ I shouted from under the running water of the washbowl faucet.

Breakfast waited in the small dining room – and so did Mama. She sat across the green-checkered tablecloth, sipping a cup of strong black coffee and smiling broadly at me.

‘Happy birthday, Ramoncito.’ She rose from her chair to give me a hug and a kiss. ‘Felicidades! You want anything special for dinner tonight?’

‘No, thank you, Mama.’

‘Black beans and rice? Yellow rice and chicken?’

‘No, thank you, Mama.’

I gurgled down my orange juice under my mother’s reproving stare. ‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’ The tone of her voice showed her disappointment. I bit a big chunk off a piece of buttered bread and chewed.

‘The nerve of that man,’ Mama said, chomping on her words like she was biting on a hard piece of meat. I swallowed and sipped my café-con-leche. My mother’s regular morning complaining was starting. ‘You know what he said to me?’

I said nothing. I knew from experience she didn’t need prompting to complain to me about Papa.

‘He told me…’ she began, but I wasn’t listening. I was imagining myself playing baseball in the park with my friends. About a year earlier I had discovered the advantages of daydreaming. My mother was driving me crazy in the mornings with her complaints about Papa. I used to leave the house always in a bad mood. Then, one morning, as she was talking, I started thinking about baseball, and it helped me a lot. I’d been doing that ever since, thinking about baseball whenever Mama started complaining to me about Papa.

‘So, what do you think?’ Mama asked.

‘About what?’

‘You weren’t listening to me? About your father!’

‘It’s good.’

‘Good?’ Mama was suddenly angry. ‘Good?’

I shrugged, astonished by her outburst. She was quick to anger, I knew, but the speed sometimes surprised me.

‘He spends all his time accusing me of not making ends meet,’ Mama said, as if continuing an old conversation – which it was. ‘How can I? With the money he gives me? You know very well the curtains I bought last week were a necessity, not a luxury. The others were falling apart.’

I munched on the last of my bread and butter. I knew what she said wasn’t true. The old curtains were fine and less than a year old. Mama was a compulsive buyer who bought mostly on impulse, whether she needed it or not. But I knew better than to tell her that. I sipped the last of my morning coffee and got to my feet.

‘I’ve got to go to school, Mama.’ I kissed her on the cheek. ‘See you for lunch.’

I retrieved my brown leather school briefcase from my room and rushed out of the house, feeling relieved. I shook my head, wondering why Mama persisted in using me as a sounding board every morning at breakfast.

‘Be careful walking to school, Ramoncito,’ she blared after me. The sharp sounds of her voice reminded me of the harsh tones she used with Papa earlier in the morning. In defiance, and perhaps to honor my father too, I slammed the door hard behind me.

My friends Pepe, Joaquin, and Hermes were already at the street corner, waiting for me. Unless one of us was sick or otherwise indisposed, we usually walked to school together every morning. We had been doing that ever since I moved into the neighborhood.

‘Hola, Ramon,’ Pepe said, grinning. ‘It was about time you showed up. Went partying till late last night and couldn’t get up this morning?’

‘I wish,’ I said, falling in step next to him. Joaquin and Hermes followed closely behind. ‘Just fashionably late.’

‘Uh-hum.’ He made a face, looking down at me as if he knew better, his forehead wrinkled and the whites of his eyes bulging. It dawned on me Pepe was growing faster than any of us and was easily three or four inches taller than I was, not to mention much more muscular. ‘Your mother again, right?’

‘Right.’ I turned back to Joaquin and Hermes. ‘Morning, guys.’

‘Morning, Ramon,’ they answered automatically.

We certainly were an odd assembly of friends; in the way of the three musketeers, I liked to think, who were really four anyway… like us. Pepe was tall and muscular, like Porthos; Hermes was small-boned, skinny and pimply-faced, like Aramis could have been in his youth; and Joaquin was short and fat and hawk-nosed – like Athos? Granted it was a forced fit, but that was the way it was in real life; nothing really fit exactly right unless you jiggled with it. And who was I? Of course, I was dashing D’Artagnan – who else?

San Mariano Street was jam-packed with uniformed students walking to one of the three large private schools in the vicinity. The predominant color was blue, which represented the two dominant schools and, indirectly, the preferred religion in the neighborhood – Catholicism. The Champagnat boys, like me, wore khaki pants and imperial-blue short-sleeved shirts with white ties, while the Lourdes girls dressed in austere blouses and navy-blue skirts. The sprinkle of white blouses and shirts in the crowd belonged to the handful of co-educational and non-religious – and mostly ignored by the rest of us good Catholic boys and girls – Edison Institute students. Ahead, where the street sloped upward past the park where we played baseball, I could see the stream of students flowing freely toward school; a solid mass of blue, diluted by a fine mist of white.

Joaquin, Hermes, and Pepe were unusually quiet this morning. I strolled along, still mulling over in my mind my breakfast conversation with Mama. I knew I needed to do something about my parents’ situation, but what? I wondered briefly how D’Artagnan would handle a situation like that.

He probably wouldn’t know what to do, I concluded.

D’Artagnan was an action hero, capable of great swordplay and unbelievable athletic feats. What did he know about family problems? His own father gave him some meager advice along with a little money and sent him to Paris at eighteen years of age on a hairy yellow pony to seek his fortune. And what advice did D’Artagnan’s father give his son? Not much, really. He told D’Artagnan to be courageous always, not to hesitate if fortune offered him a chance…and to fight duels on all possible occasions. Some advice, I’d say! No, D’Artagnan wouldn’t know how to handle my family situation. And that made two of us, because neither did I.

I gave up my mulling and listened instead to the familiar noises around me; the occasional laughter, the loud conversations, the overall clamor of automobile horns, the noisy clanging sound of the buses blowing their horns loudly as they squeaked by the narrow street. I could smell the pungency of briefcase leather, too, and the crisp whiff of starch. Sometimes, when someone whisked past and yelled hello too closely, there was the tartness of morning breath.

The noises and the smells had a comfortable feel to me. They were predictable and familiar, like my worn leather baseball glove. I liked going to school, if only to see my musketeer friends and get away from Mama’s complaints.

Joaquin abruptly interrupted my reverie.

‘Whatssamatter with those kids?’ he asked loudly. ‘They’re coming back from school.’

‘Right!’ Hermes said. ‘What’s going on?’

I brought myself out of my deep concentration to look up ahead. There was a disturbance in the street. The smooth flow of blue and white had turned chaotic. Indeed, the stream of students was coming back.

‘There’s something definitely wrong,’ Pepe said, puzzled.

A police car sped by, siren at full blast, nearly running over some kids who had spilled out onto the street. Two Champagnat boys had to jump out of the way. The car was full of grim-faced, armed policemen.

‘The president’s dead,’ a kid screamed, running past us in the opposite direction. ‘The president’s dead!’ He looked pale and scared. Several other kids ran behind him, looking pale and scared, as well.

School was just ahead. We pushed through the throng until we reached the massive Champagnat school door. It was closed. Two large policemen stood guard in front of it, armed with machine guns, turning kids away. One had frog eyes, black skin, and a droopy scouring-pad mustache. He chomped on a cigar stub. The other was fat and had grizzly eyebrows over a puffy face.

‘School’s closed,’ Puffy Face announced. ‘Go home.’

‘Why?’ Pepe asked him.

‘Because it is,’ Black Face said. ‘Aren’t you lucky? You won’t have to study today. Go home.’

I looked around. The chaotic throng was rapidly disintegrating as the students were heading home. Several Champagnat students formed a semi-circle a few steps away and watched curiously.

‘When will school be open again?’ Pepe asked.

The frog eyes on Black Face narrowed. ‘I don’t know. We’ll let you know. Now go home.’

‘And take your friends with you.’ Puffy Face chuckled. The students on the semi-circle cautiously moved to the other side of the street, where it was safer.

‘Will school be open tomorrow?’

Black Face chomped on his cigar, eyeing Pepe with deliberation. He was big and muscular and mean-looking. Pepe looked frail next to him. ‘Go home, muchacho.’ He finally said. ‘Now. Before you get in trouble.’

‘Is the president really dead?’ I asked. ‘Is it true?’

The fat policeman laughed in my face. He had rotten teeth and bad breath too. He winked at Black Face. ‘Hey, Valdez, did you hear that? This boy wants to know if the president’s dead. How do you like that?’

The black policeman laughed too, as if what Puffy Face had said was the funniest thing in the world, his burly body shaking all over. He coughed, and tears came to his eyes.

‘Is he dead?’ Pepe asked.

The two policemen laughed some more, but not so hard.

Their laughter was running out of steam. Maybe they were getting tired. I realized, suddenly, how scared I really was of them – my heart was pounding hard and my breath was coming in shallow little gasps. It was time to leave. Who cared if the president was dead or not, anyway? We could find that out later.

‘Is he dead?’ Pepe asked again.

‘You sure ask a lot of questions,’ Puffy Face replied with annoyance. ‘No, he ain’t. Bastard ran away. Scared.’

‘Maricon!’ Black Face spat on the sidewalk, serious now. ‘Fucking queer ran away. He ain’t got no cojones.’

‘A kid told us he was dead,’ Pepe insisted.

Black Face cocked his head and stared at Pepe. ‘Well, he ain’t.’

‘He shoulda been, eh, Valdez?’ The bloated policeman dried the tears in his eyes with his big fat hands. ‘He shoulda been.’

‘Si.’ Valdez nodded.

‘Why is our school closed then?’ Pepe asked. ‘And if the president ran away, who’s our president now?’

Puffy Face looked quizzically at Pepe. By the expression on his face, I knew what was coming wasn’t good. I grabbed Pepe’s arm to leave, but he shrugged me off. Hermes, Joaquin, and I exchanged alarmed glances.

‘You’re a serious little bastard, you know?’ Puffy Face scratched his crotch.

‘You ask too many questions. Hey, Valdez, did you hear this?’

‘I heard ‘im, Perez. Tell ‘im we ain’t got no patience with serious little Catholic bastards who ask too many questions.’ His huge hand fell on Pepe’s shoulder and pushed him away. ‘You hear that? Go home!’

‘Don’t push me.’ Pepe removed the hand from his shoulder.

‘Let’s go, Pepe,’ I said, more alarmed each instant. Trouble was coming our way and fast. ‘Come on.’

‘Please, Pepe, come on,’ Hermes pleaded, his face so pale I could hardly distinguish his pimples.

Puffy Face said, ‘You wanna take this little bastard and his friends in, Valdez?’

‘No, please, Officer,’ I said quickly. ‘We’re leaving …’

‘Then go,’ Valdez snapped. ‘Now!’

‘You act pretty big with machine guns in your hands,’ Pepe said. The policeman’s face turned crimson with rage. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Por favor, Pepe! Calm down,’ Joaquin said, helping me drag Pepe away. ‘What’s the matter? You’re going to get us into trouble.’

‘Cabrones,’ Puffy Face said. ‘Pricks. Get the hell out of here!’

‘Cabron yourself,’ Pepe said under his breath. ‘Fat ass!’

‘What was that you said?’ Perez scowled at Pepe.

‘Nada, Señor Policia. Nothing!’ Hermes said, walking rapidly toward the other side of the street. ‘He didn’t say nothing.’

Perez watched us with his frog eyes as Joaquin and I struggled to take Pepe away. Black Face chewed on his cigar stump.

‘What these little bastards need is work,’ Perez said. ‘Trabajo.’

‘Trabajo, si.’ Valdez took the cigar out of his mouth and spat again. ‘Put them to work in the sun ten hours a day with a pick and a shovel. That’s what they need. I guarantee you they won’t be so sassy then.’

‘Si,’ Perez said. ‘That’s what they need.’ He laughed. ‘And palos. Una buena partida de palos. Beat the shit out of them with a stick.’

As if to emphasize his words, Perez hit the façade of the school building hard with the butt of his machine gun. ‘And here’s where they learn all that mierda. Right here!’ He banged the wall again. ‘From the curas and their goddamned Catholic schools.’

‘That’s the problem with Cuba, the goddamned curas,’ Valdez said. ‘Fucking priests stick their noses into everything. All they do is create trouble. Look at these kids, asking questions. No respect for authority. Wanting to know who’s the new president.’

‘Si, what the fuck do they care who’s the new president? That’s the fault of the curas,’ Perez said, adding so softly I had to strain to hear him as we rambled away, ‘School and curas. Never liked them and never will.’

Unexpectedly, Black Face screamed something at us. The jumbled words reached my ears with the force of a slapping wind as we hurried down the street. For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying and then, finally, I did.

‘It’s Batista, cabrones. You hear me? Batista! That’s the name of your new president. And he’s black too. Like me.’

*****

Chapter Two

Batista turned out to be neither black nor white but technically, both. He was a mulato – short, stocky, with straight black hair combed back and glistening with Vaseline, and high cheekbones. I saw his picture in the newspaper the following morning. He had been a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections in June. I guess he figured that his chances to win were bad, so he took over the country by force.

The coup did not create any major chaos in Cuba, at least not at first. Two days later school opened again, and everything went back to normal with my life. My parents’ arguments about money continued at breakfast, the musketeers and I met every morning on the street corner and walked to school together, and I played baseball in the park with my friends as often as I could.

Even my nightmares of hell returned – although they disappeared forever shortly afterwards, thank God. I found all that out later, however. As we rushed home that morning, I was not D’Artagnan, the epitome of courage, and we were not the brave musketeers seeking to duel Cardinal Richelieu’s guards. We were four frightened teens whose normal lives had been jolted.

‘That was a close call,’ Hermes said, looking back over his shoulder to the two policemen, nearly a block away. His face was regaining its normal color. ‘Phew! We were lucky to get away, Pepe. That cop had it in for you.’

The morning had settled down heavily, like sediments in brackish water. Dark clouds hovered over the horizon, and the sun’s rays were diluted with the premonition of rain. The streets were rapidly emptying of vehicles and people, although small groups of students still cluttered around. They were quieter, though, and their glances were furtive and confused.

We slowed down to a walk.

‘Things like that make me angry,’ Pepe said through clenched teeth. ‘You know what happened to my father! I hate dictators, and I don’t like abuse.’

Pepe’s father had been assassinated at the beginning of the Grau presidency when Pepe was only five years old. A gifted and vocal lawyer, he had helped overthrow dictator Machado in the thirties while still a law student. I had heard rumors that he was a communist with the Socialist Revolutionary Movement…and a rival revolutionary group killed him. Pepe didn’t remember much about his father but Maria, his mother, had made their house a shrine to her dead husband. His pictures were everywhere. Maria blamed Grau for his death.

‘It doesn’t make no difference to me.’ Hermes picked up a small stone from the street and threw it at a bird perched on an oak tree nearby. Hermes’ father was a policeman. Sometimes I wondered if that was the reason for his poor grammar and his constant use of foul language. ‘One president’s just as good as another to me, that’s what I think.’

The stone bounced off the tree, scaring the bird away and slithering to a stop on the grass below.

‘Makes a difference to me.’ Pepe’s brow was furrowed. ‘A lot of difference. What about you, Ramon? What do you think?’

I didn’t know what to think, really. I was depressed and physically spent, and felt like the night of the street fight two months ago, at the basketball game between our school and arch rival La Salle. I remembered only hazily the screaming, the chaos, the angry students storming the street after the game, the people fighting and rolling over on the ground in front of me…

But about the kid I remembered clearly.

He had a thin nose and big brown eyes. His hand – the hand with which he tried to hit me – had long slender fingers connected to a fragile bony wrist. He could not have been more than eleven.

Of course, I had no way of knowing. I was shouting and fighting, same as everybody else. I ran after the La Salle school bus, hanging with one hand from one of the windows and yelling names to whoever was inside. The kid had been inside. He struck my fingers with his hand to make me let go, and when I wouldn’t, he stuck his head out to push me away.

That was when I hit him with the rock I held concealed in my other hand. The blow broke the kid’s nose with a crunching sound and pinned him against the window frame. Blood started gushing out, and he let out a terrified scream. It was then I realized how young he really was. Startled, I let go of the window and watched the bus speed away as Champagnat students around me shouted names at the La Salle students inside.

Later that night, as I washed to go to bed, I saw the dried bloodstains on my shirt and arms. Alone and away from the screaming mob, I felt sick with guilt and revulsion – and tired, extremely tired, more tired than I ever felt before in my life. My wobbly legs gave way under me as I leaned over the toilet bowl and vomited out my insides. I had to support myself against the walls to reach my room.

In bed, I stayed awake for a long time, thinking about the kid, and hoping I had not hurt him badly. I prayed before falling asleep that night – a guilty, restless sleep that lasted past my waking hour.

That was how I felt now – tired and guilty – though I couldn’t imagine why. ‘I feel guilty,’ I said. ‘Tired and guilty. I didn’t like those policemen back there. But I don’t feel angry like you, Pepe.’

‘Guilty? Why? It’s not your fault,’ Joaquin said, then stuck a hand in his shirt pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes, Partagas Superfinos. He believed himself to be a man of the world and smoked and drank already. His father owned a restaurant. He offered the pack around. ‘Let’s all have a smoke.’

No one accepted Joaquin’s offer. Smiling, he lit a cigarette from a Zippo lighter and took a deep drag. A car full of policemen streaked by, siren whining. Pepe turned to look at them. The street appeared half-deserted now. The police car turned at the next corner with a screeching of tires.

Pepe sighed and then kicked at the broken cement of the curb. ‘I wonder if Batista is really behind this whole thing,’ he said, sticking his hands in his pant pockets.

Joaquin shrugged. ‘Who cares?’ He let out two plumes of smoke through his nostrils in a very professional manner. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

‘Look, why don’t we forget about all this mess and go play some baseball, uh?’ Hermes suggested. ‘Nobody has classes today.’

‘Sounds like a good idea.’ Joaquin smiled brightly at me. ‘Will do you good, Ramoncito.’ He was the only one of my friends who called me Ramoncito, like my parents did. He threw his cigarette away. ‘What do you say, guys?’

I really didn’t feel like playing baseball that morning, but I went along and said yes. Pepe was quiet. We all looked at him, waiting. ‘Okay,’ he finally said, ‘but first let’s go home and tell our mothers we are all right. They might be worried.’

I found Mama fluttering on the porch, accompanied by half a dozen worried women, among them Hermes’ mother.

When I opened the garden gate, Mama saw me and came running. ‘You had me so worried!’ She hugged and kissed me. ‘I was going out now to look for you. You all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘Isn’t my son with you?’ Hermes’ mother asked me. There was no denying the family resemblance. She looked just like him, except she wore large black-rimmed glasses and her hair was graying already. ‘He went home looking for you, Victoria. He’s fine too.’

The women gathered around me. To my nostrils came the fragrant smells of perfume, make-up, cold cream, and face powder. They were excited and chatting rapidly.

‘Were there any policemen at the school door?’ the lady next door asked. She wore a robe and her hair was in rollers. Her son went to Edison.

‘Two policemen, armed with machine guns. They were turning all the students away. We asked them to tell us who’d taken over. ‘

‘Batista has,’ Hermes’ mother said.

I nodded. ‘That’s what they said. Isn’t he the same person who took over from Machado in the thirties?’

‘The same… and he did a pretty good job then, let me tell you. He wasn’t a bad president.’

‘How do you know it is Batista?’

‘The radio just said it.’

‘The radio is working again? It wasn’t earlier this morning.’

‘Most of the stations are still not working,’ Mama said from behind me. ‘We heard it on Radio Reloj.’

The women chatted animatedly. They all wanted to talk at once, it seemed, to give an opinion or make a comment.

‘Terrible,’ the lady next door said, her rollers trembling with indignation.

‘Disgusting,’ said the divorced blonde who lived in the big white house on the corner. She was perfectly made-up and perfumed.

‘It’s getting so that a decent woman can’t go out of her house anymore,’ the oldest of them said, and everyone looked at her.

She added with an unbecoming blush, ‘It’s frightening.’

They went on and on and seemed to be enjoying themselves. I wanted to leave but didn’t know how to do it in a polite way.

After a while Hermes’ mother said, ‘Well, I’d better go home and look after my son.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, Victoria,’ I said, seizing the opportunity. ‘He won’t be there. We’re supposed to meet at the park to play baseball in a few minutes. All of us are going; Hermes, Joaquin, Pepe.’

‘What?’ Mama exclaimed, unhappy with the news. ‘Are you out of your minds? In chaos like this you want to go and play baseball? You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you out of this house. All we need is for you to go and get shot or something.’

The women agreed, noisily, all except Victoria. Hermes’ mother obviously thought highly of Batista. Although she voiced nothing, she shook her head in disagreement.

‘Don’t be so dramatic, Mama, por favor,’ I said, annoyed. ‘I haven’t heard a shot yet. I’m sure this man Batista has better things to do than go around shooting kids playing baseball.’

‘That’s right,’ Hermes’ mother said. ‘Batista is a good man. He helped overthrow Machado in the thirties and was an excellent president during the forties… and at a time when the