Caribbean: a novel Part 44

Biting her lower lip, she strode forward, willing to confront the expected a.s.saults on her behavior, but as she turned a corner and saw her house looming in the shadows, with who knew what awaiting inside, she slowed perceptibly, took deep breaths, and whispered to herself: 'Come on, ladybug. Fly away home. You sought this out. And now your house is on fire.'

When she opened the door, no one shouted at her or demanded to know where she had been. Instead, she saw four extremely sober men gathered in the living room: her father and brother; Harry, her acknowledged gentleman friend; and Canon Tarleton, her clergyman. They rose as she came in, stood until she sat down and turned to look at her father, who said: 'Sally, we've been terribly worried about you.'

'I took a ride to the airport with the Rastafarian.'

'We know. A person who saw you at Pointe Sud went to Lincoln's cafe and told him.'

'It was just a ride. We had things to talk about.'

'If you'd told us,' Lincoln interrupted, 'we could have warned you.'

'About what?'

In reply her brother said: 'Both Canon Tarleton and Father have received letters from Jamaica ... about your Rastafarian.'

'He's not my Rastafarian.'

'Thank G.o.d for that,' Lincoln said, and he indicated that his father should hand over his letter, the long one from the Jamaican police, detailing Ras-Negus' relation to the law, and when Sally finished reading she was shaken. Taken one by one, she could believe each of the legal accusations against Ras-Negus, for she'd had intimations which supported them, but she had never taken the time to tie one to the other until an unmistakable thread evolved. The Jamaican police had very carefully tied them together, and the result was ugly.

Seeing her shock, the men bore in with harsh and pertinent questions: 'Have you ever seen him with ganja?' Yes, at Cap Galant. 'Have you ever known him to speak to any All Saints person about ganja?' Yes, a farmer south of Tudor. At this information the two men of her family looked meaningfully at each other, and Lincoln said: 'That's where we think the airstrip is.' The next question came closer to home: 'Did you ever hear him speak of the police as the "Great Babylon"?' Yes, many times. 'And did you ever hear him say that this particular Great Babylon must be destroyed?' Many times.

But when they asked: 'Did you ever hear him say anything about starting trouble for the police on this island?' she kept silent, because she had felt that her suspicion about the phrase 'you big fat white pig' was that and nothing more. A coincidence in five words was not sufficient to d.a.m.n a man.

The questioning now took a more delicate turn, with Canon Tarleton partic.i.p.ating. The men wanted to know the extent of her personal involvement with the Rastafarian, and at first she thought she could handle this by confessing that she found parts of his philosophy about the future of black people fresh and challenging, but they pressed on. What her brother really wanted to know was: 'Were you and he in any way personally involved?'

She stiffened. Her brother's question was inept and she did not intend to submit herself to any kind of moral interrogation, and things might have become tense had not the phone jangled at this moment. It was for her father, and after only six or eight brief grunts of approval, with no words spoken, he jammed down the receiver, turned to his son, and said: 'They've found the airstrip. Up toward Tudor.' Before he dashed out the door, taking Lincoln with him, the commissioner turned to the minister: 'Tarleton, you'd better show her that other letter,' and as the car roared off, the canon produced his letter from the minister in Jamaica regarding moral behavior and silently handed it over. As she read it, Keeler watched.

The ugly report-which explained Laura's pregnancy and her willingness to have a Trinidad abortion-had a dull, sickening effect on Sally. Reading it twice, underlining the crucial words with her right forefinger, she understood why these four men had been waiting for her when she returned from her ride.

'I'm d.a.m.ned sorry,' Keeler said, moving his chair closer to hers. 'I suppose you've heard about Laura Shaughnessy? I thought so.'

After looking closely at the two white men who obviously wished her well, she said: 'Let's get the facts straight. I had no amorous involvement with the Rastafarian, not in any way. He made approaches, two or three times, and I brushed him off for the clown he was.' She stopped, aware that what she had just said was only partially true. Then she added: 'But as I said before, I did find him intellectually stimulating. It could be he represents the future.'

'G.o.d forbid,' Canon Tarleton said, and then Sally leaned back, totally relaxed, and said almost wittily: 'And as for the question that's really bothering you. No, I am not pregnant, and there's no way I could be.'

The interrogation might have continued had not the phone rung again. Keeler answered it. This time it brought a crisp command: 'Keeler? Lincoln here. North end of the island. We've found the ganja airstrip. Captured a two-seater plane. Pilots and the man tending the strip implicate the Rastafarian, so we've got to fan out and arrest that bounder. Now!'

Grabbing Sally by the wrist, Keeler said: 'I'll need your help to track him down,' and when she asked 'Who?' he said: 'Your Rasta Man,' and they sped off to pick up three policemen to help in the search, but even with Sally's knowing guidance, they had no luck in finding him.

Like most clever marijuana smugglers, the brainy men who organize the routes and hire the operators, Grimble tried never to be tied physically to the operation. No policeman must ever see him at a secret airstrip or even close to an airplane, and he had learned never to sleep three nights in a row at any location, so when Sally led Keeler and the policemen to the shack at which she had deposited Ras-Negus earlier that evening, they found nothing, for he had long since fled.

She remembered another house from which she had once picked him up for a night session of reggae and talk, but the people inside told the policemen: 'We not see more than two weeks.' She remembered one last house, but it was empty, and that exhausted her clues. The men up north had proof of the ganja smuggling, but the mastermind of the operation was hiding somewhere, laughing at the frustration of Great Babylon, but after more than an hour of going to the kinds of places in which Grimble might be hiding, a boy of ten told the police: 'You seek man long hair? Maybe he be with Betsy Rose.'

Betsy Rose was a woman from the British Virgins who had come to All Saints as a maid, and had fallen into trouble with her mistress because the master of the household delighted in sleeping with her. Betsy Rose had been kicked out, had drifted from one job to another, and had wound up the companion of a sailor who was not concerned about her male visitors. When the police stormed the house, they found her and the Rastafarian in bed.

At first, Keeler wanted to protect Sally from the ugly sight of rousting the Jamaican out, but then he had a stronger idea: 'Maybe you ought to see your hero as he really is,' and he took her inside to watch as the police hauled the long-legged Rasta Man out from beneath the covers and on to his feet. Naked, he looked as if he were all hair, for his dreadlocks reached to his waist.

It was a revolting sight, and Sally thought: So much for the inner soul of negritude. But as she watched him struggle to pull on his trousers while Keeler held his left arm, she felt a sense of pity for the confused fellow: Loud talker, sweet singer, but still he winds up captured by white authorities. Not much different from Africa four hundred years ago, and the lyrics of the Bob Marley song echoed in her mind.

When Keeler and Sally reported, alone, to the prime minister waiting at the police station, Keeler said: 'Good news. We have the Rastafarian locked up.'

'Where?'

'Stashed away in a shack out toward the Anse de Soir. What shall we do with him?'

After looking carefully about to ensure that no one could hear, the prime minister growled: 'Best if we could shoot him ... about six weeks from now when no one's noticing. But I'm sure there must be a better way. Any suggestions?'

Keeler said: 'I'd say s.h.i.+p him off the island on the first plane out.'

'Where to?'

'Anywhere.'

'Good. Pay his fare and throw him on the plane.'

Keeler said: 'When he landed, the airline told us that he had a prepaid ticket to somewhere,' and a sergeant broke in: 'He did. But he cashed it in the first full day he was here. Absolutely broke.'

'We'll have to buy him a ticket. Well worth the price,' the prime minister said. 'Will you men promise me that he has no broken bones? No conspicuous wounds?'

'None,' a policeman a.s.sured him. 'Clothes not even torn. Nothing.'

'I trust you, but as he heads for the plane I want witnesses at the airport who can later testify in court, if he launches a case against us, that he left the island without a scar. Even safer if we have photographs.' As he was about to leave for home and some sleep, he added: 'Fetch Tarleton, and his wife too. Clergymen make impressive witnesses.'

As soon as he was gone, Keeler sprang into action: 'Sally, go home and bring your big camera,' and when she returned she saw a waiting car that contained three policemen. As it prepared to drive away, Keeler came up in another car containing Canon Tarleton and his wife, and into it Sally climbed for the short ride out to the shack, where handcuffs were applied to the Rasta Man's wrists and ankles before he was dragged into the rear seat of the police car.

In Keeler's car the Tarletons had no idea of how the Rasta Man had been arrested, so they peppered Sally with questions. She said: 'We went to three different shacks, but found nothing till a little boy told us that he might be at Betsy Rose's.'

'Who's she?' Mrs. Tarleton asked from the back seat, and her husband replied: 'An unfortunate woman fallen from grace.'

'Were you pleased to capture such a rascal?' asked the canon's wife, and Sally was ashamed to reveal the details of the arrest: 'High time he's thrown off this island,' but then she was almost driven to add: 'I did feel sorry for him when they locked him in handcuffs. He is a free spirit, you know.'

'You sound as if you might have been in love with him,' Mrs. Tarleton said with the charming frankness that the wives of English churchmen often acquire, and Sally laughed: 'Not now, not ever. He had interesting things to say that I think we'd all better listen to. But that was all.'

Not satisfied with this evasive answer, Mrs. Tarleton asked Sally bluntly: 'What ideas of the Rastafarian did you find acceptable?' and before answering, Sally pondered how best to share her perceptions. Then, satisfied with her strategy, she said: 'Look, I'm the only black person in a car of whites. Just like it was a hundred years ago ... Today it ought to be three of us blacks and you, Mrs. Tarleton.' Someone gasped at her boldness.

'But since you three are such dear friends and such worthy people to have on the island, I'll answer your question, which otherwise I might have found quite condescending.'

She explained that Ras-Negus, no matter how he behaved with women, spoke as an authentic black man, with all the limitations of education and knowledge of history that this implied. She granted that his messing around with the English language, creating words like overstand as superior to understand was childish, and that his acceptance of Haile Sela.s.sie as the seventy-something incarnation of the Lord was preposterous.

'What's left?' Mrs. Tarleton asked, and Sally replied: 'He speaks to the frustrations of former slaves ... which is what I am, and all the officers on our island. He speaks to our African heritage, which I feel very strongly sometimes, and to which good people like you never speak. With you it's all England, England ... and what is there in England for us? And he speaks to that mystical word we're all trying to define and isolate, negritude. He taught me more about negritude in ten minutes than you three could in ten years, because he knows and you will never be allowed to know, regardless of how generous you are in your attempts to learn.'

She noticed that the Tarletons in the back seat elected not to respond, but she also saw that Harry, next to her in the front seat, had grown tense and that his hands gripped the steering wheel too tightly, so she quietly slipped her hand onto his left knee, patted it, and smiled as if to rea.s.sure him that whereas he would never understand the things that Ras-Negus had known intuitively, he deserved merit for trying.

When they reached the airport she saw something which made her burst into laughter. Her father and her brother had brought the Rastafarian to the departure lounge in a disguise which masked his members.h.i.+p in the Sela.s.sie sect. His long dreadlocks were ma.s.sed atop his head and hidden beneath a turban which made him look like a proper Sikh. His beard was tucked into the top of a poncho, covering his Rastafarian s.h.i.+rt calling for death to the pope, and instead of leather sandals he wore a pair of immense, cheap white tennis shoes. Whatever dignity his junglelike Rastafarian costume had provided was smothered in this wealth of everyday fabric. More than anything else, he resembled a messy long-haired mongrel dog dragged in from a storm, and Sally thought: You sired eight children in Jamaica and probably two or more here, and look at you now.

But then she heard the loud laughter of the Tarletons and Keeler, and the knowledge that Ras-Negus would be leaving All Saints accompanied by the derisive jeers of white folks was more than she could bear. Determined to make a gesture that would shock her white friends into realizing that she remained loyal to black causes, she pushed past them, ran to the departure gate, threw her arms about the Rasta Man, and kissed him. 'Thank you for what you shared with me,' she whispered. Then she drew back to watch him as he lifted his canvas bag, tucked his lute under his arm, and followed like an obedient child as the policemen unlocked his handcuffs and escorted him to the outbound plane.

'DR. STEVE CALDERON? Miami? Chairman of Win with Reagan 1984? This is the White House calling. Please hold for the President.'

'Who is it?' Kate asked, seeing the startled look on her husband's face, the nervous tapping of his fingers. Then, frowning: 'Has the bank refused our request for a loan on the addition to the clinic?'

'Not even close-and you'll never guess in a hundred years,' he said out of the corner of his mouth. Then he tensed, held the phone away from his ear for a brief moment, and they both heard the husky voice they knew so well from TV and radio: 'Steve Calderon? I'm not going to pull the old politician's trick and say I remember you perfectly. But they tell me you did a great job for the party last time. Hope you'll give George Bush the same help this November.'

'He'll carry Florida in a landslide. We Cubans know who helped us when we needed it.'

'Dr. Calderon, some of us would like to have a meeting with you, tomorrow, my office, two in the afternoon.'

'I can be there,' Steve replied without hesitation. And then came the first of the warnings from the President: 'Speak to no one about this. That's of utmost importance.'

'Very good, sir. I shall speak to no one.'

'Well?' Kate asked as soon as he hung up. 'What's it all about?'

'You heard me. I'm to talk to no one ...' And she said: 'But I'm not just no one.'

She was right, as she usually was. Although Steve was in his middle fifties, he was as much in love with Kate as he had been almost thirty years ago when they drove at midnight in a darkened car twenty miles west of Havana to catch the small boat in which they escaped from Castro's Cuba. She had been his support then, a.s.suring him: 'You'll find a job somewhere, Estefano. The whole world needs doctors.' And when at the last moment he had been overcome with fear, it was she who would not allow him to falter: 'This boat! Crowded or not, this boat!' and it was almost as if she had willed the frail craft north to the Florida Keys and freedom.

Nor did her courage fail during those first terrible years in Miami when he had been unable to prove his credentials as a doctor; nurses found it easier to get accredited, so Kate, after establis.h.i.+ng an excellent record for dependability and attention to detail, persuaded the hospital administrator to give her husband a janitorial job on her ward, and for three years he patiently wore blue workman's jeans and watched as young American men who knew far less than he made decisions that determined life or death. Since she earned more than he, she paid for the courses he had to take to demonstrate his ability to be a doctor, and ultimately she watched as he marched up to receive his American medical diploma.

When he opened his office on what was to become Calle Ocho, Southwest Eighth Street near midtown Miami, it was her money that paid the rent, and during the first three years she served as his a.s.sistant so they could save money, and she encouraged those bold steps which led to Steve's becoming head of his own clinic with four a.s.sociates under him, and then officer of one of the first Cuban banks, and finally its president.

Her husband was by no means a pa.s.sive agent in this spectacular achievement-they were both proof of what an educated Cuban couple could accomplish in a new world. He was an excellent doctor, with a rea.s.suring appearance and manner: tall, slightly underweight, graying hair at the temples, with a winning smile and a habit of telling each patient in Spanish: 'Now, Mrs. Espinosa, I'm not sure I know all the answers in your case, but I certainly know how to find out, and we'll see if we can't help you.' He'd had such good results that patients spoke of him to their friends, and soon he started treating Anglos as well and on some days his office was crowded with them.

Until Steve Calderon was forty-eight he had been both a first-cla.s.s doctor and a bank official, but when one of the biggest banks bought out his small one at enormous profit to him, he became a full-time banker. Kate could afford to stop nursing, and now she served as vice-president at the bank in charge of enticing women in the Spanish community to become depositors. She was also supervising the building of the addition to the medical clinic in which her husband still had a financial but not an operating interest.

The Calderons were repeatedly and justly pointed out as exemplars of the relative speed with which the Cubans of the 1959 immigration established themselves in Florida life, and in their case, at the very top ranks, for Dr. Steve, as he was known, had made himself a major factor in Miami's social, business and political life. And since the Cubans were fiercely Republican in their sympathies, believing that John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter had let them down at moments of crisis and that Democrats in general were soft on communism if not in fact crypto-communists, the Calderons fell naturally into the Republican party, where both were figures of considerable importance, Kate serving as chairperson of Women for a Strong Republic and Steve as leader of Win with Reagan. Noticeably, neither organization used the word Cuban in its t.i.tle, in order not to alienate the old-time Floridians who resented how effectively Cubans had changed the region from Democratic to Republican.

So when Kate stared with good-natured determination at her husband as he hung up the phone, and said: 'Well?' she expected him to tell her what the President said but he parried: 'You heard what I had to promise. I can speak to no one,' and she maneuvered: 'Tell me only one thing. Cuba?' and he said: 'Since I don't know, I suppose I am allowed to make a guess. Probably.'

Now she became alert, pressing, moving close to him and warning: 'Steve, under no circ.u.mstance, I don't care what, must you have anything to do with the Cuban question. It's just too inflammatory,' and after taking her hands in his, he said: 'I know.'

And he did, for if a chain of recent incidents had not reminded him of how dangerous it was, an ugly visit from the wild man Maximo Quiroz would.

The incidents were representative of the pressure under which the Miami Cuban community lived. When a high military officer in the Castro government defected by flying a small plane at great danger to himself from Cuba to Key West, the American government was delighted to have in their hands a man who might provide substantial information, but even before the cheering stopped, experts warned Was.h.i.+ngton: 'Get him the h.e.l.l out of Florida right away! His life's in danger! Those fanatics will argue: "If he stayed with Castro this long, he must have been involved in the Bay of Pigs. Let's shoot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" ' So the Cuban general was whisked out of Florida, and four days later the FBI learned that had he dared set foot in Miami, the Quiroz Group had planned to a.s.sa.s.sinate him.

Maximo Quiroz was a special problem to the Calderons, for back in 1898, when Cuba gained its independence from Spain, the great-grandfathers of Steve Calderon and Quiroz, who stemmed from the same family, formed a friends.h.i.+p which had extended and flourished in the next generations, so that when Steve and Maximo fled Cuba in 1959 it was as fellow freedom seekers, young men of high intelligence and determination. But in Miami, their lives had separated dramatically, for Steve and his wife had followed the path of total integration into the Miami elites, while Maximo had become the obstreperous leader of those Cubans who said in effect: 'To h.e.l.l with America and American ways, we want to get back to a free Cuba,' and his determination was so profound that he was among the first to volunteer for the Bay of Pigs invasion and the last to retreat from that fiasco. The failure of this gallant but shamefully mismanaged mission so infuriated Quiroz that he became a monomaniac who would never rest until Cuba was liberated and Castro was dead. The FBI was wise to keep a close watch on him, for Cuban circles reported: 'If any refugee in Miami can be expected to get in a little rubber boat, paddle back to Havana and try to a.s.sa.s.sinate Castro, it will be Maximo Quiroz.'

As recently as July of this year, when handicapped children from Cuba were invited by good-hearted people to partic.i.p.ate in the International Special Olympics held at Notre Dame, Quiroz organized a group of super-patriots to descend upon the airport to taunt the adorable lot of wide-eyed youngsters, creating an ugly fuss which alienated many. Sometimes his activities generated a popular response, as when, in late August, on the opening day of the big Pan-American games in Indianapolis, he had a low-flying crop-dusting plane fly overhead trailing behind it a long banner reading: 'Cubans! Choose Freedom!' while on the ground his volunteers distributed thousands of handbills which explained in Spanish how any member of the huge Cuban delegation could defect and claim political asylum in the United States. Again the FBI kept close watch.

More disturbing to the Calderons was the case of the Cuban artist living in exile in Miami who was invited to show examples of his work at an exhibition in Havana displaying art from all the Hispanic countries of the Western Hemisphere. This fellow had the bad luck to win second prize, and at the distribution of medals and checks that went with them, he had been photographed with Castro, who had thrown one arm about his shoulder. After this picture appeared in Miami papers, someone set the artist's studio ablaze, and when the firemen reached the embers they found tacked on a nearby wall the warning: 'Don't fraternize with tyrants!' Although it could not be proved, it was widely suspected that the arsonist had been Quiroz.

He was definitely not involved with the bombing of a tobacco shop selling Cuban cigars, for when that incident occurred he was agitating in Chicago, but even so, knowing Cubans along Calle Ocho whispered: 'Quiroz must have done it by mail.' As a member of the Hispanic community observed: 'To Quiroz and his kind, if you're not in favor of dropping a nuclear bomb on Havana, you're a communist.'

The Calderons, fully aware of these tensions, had during their stay in America followed one simple rule: 'We're totally opposed to that fiend Castro and wish him monstrous bad luck, but we're willing to let him fester on his island.' They never said a good word about Castro or the Democratic party, and thus kept their credentials clean, but they also never descended to the pathological hatred that spurred Quiroz to his outrageous acts, and although they were distantly related to him, they kept away from him. 'Maximo has made himself judge and jury where Cuban orthodoxy is concerned,' Kate had warned her husband during one outbreak of anti-Castro demonstrations, 'so beware of him. Let him ride his horse, but let us go our own more sensible way.'

On the evening before her husband's departure for Was.h.i.+ngton, she repeated her warning: 'Steve, have nothing to do with anything Cuban. Leave Castro alone. Stick to your work here at home,' and he agreed: 'I'm as wary of Maximo as you are,' and on that promise they went to sleep.

Early next day, a very hot morning in September, Kate drove Steve to the always-crowded Miami airport, where he caught an Eastern flight to Was.h.i.+ngton, and after a hurried lunch reported to the White House, where guards inspected him and his briefcase with special care. The President did not take part in the meeting, but he did spend several minutes greeting the partic.i.p.ants, and to Calderon he said: 'Yes! Now I remember. You chaired that big dinner in Miami, and I hope we can count on your cooperation again.' With that he vanished, calling back over his shoulder: 'See you when you're through.'

The discussion involved only six people, two from State, two from the National Security Council, plus a junior member of the President's staff on political matters and Steve. His intuition had been correct, the subject was Cuba. Said the senior man from State: 'We've heard persistent rumors from our friends in Latin America that Castro is keen to receive some gesture from us-economic loans, promise to relax policies. You name it, we don't know.'

'But have we received such hints from him?' Steve asked, and one of the NSC men said: 'Vague rumors. Nothing substantive.'

The man from State resumed: 'Putting it all together, we've concluded it might be proper to send him a quiet signal-nothing flashy, nothing to get in the evening news, just a sign to let him know we're in the same ballpark. He's a great baseball fan, you know,' he chuckled at the aptness of his phrase.

'What did you have in mind?' Steve asked, and one of the NSC men took over: 'Like Tom said, nothing spectacular,' and he opened a folder containing a sheaf of papers. 'Says here that you're a cousin of Roberto Caldern Amadr, one of Castro's advisers, and curiously, that you're also his brother-in-law.'

'Right on both counts. His grandfather and mine were brothers, and we married twin sisters.'

'Let me verify this,' and he checked his papers: 'Your wife, Caterina, is the twin sister of his wife, Placida. Were you by chance married on the same day?'

'Two years apart. I was attracted to Kate because Placida was so attractive. Great wife, each of them.'

'So if you were just to mosey down to Cuba ... to meet your cousin ... so your wives could renew childhood a.s.sociations ...'

'It would look quite normal, wouldn't it?' the State Department man broke in.

'Yes, except that as you probably know, Roberto and I haven't seen each other since Kate and I left Cuba in '59. Why would I have this sudden outburst of interest?'

'That's where your wives come in. Sentiment. Old ties of a pair of twins. What could be more natural?' The men spent some time congratulating themselves on having found a perfect cover, but when one of the NSC people used it in conversation later, the head man from State cautioned: 'Do not use that word. This is a cover for nothing. In fact, Dr. Calderon will be doing nothing, nothing at all.'

'He's right!' the second State man added. 'The word cover would be totally misleading,' and the NSC man asked rather testily: 'What, then?' The man from State elaborated: 'Don't even use excuse for visiting. Perhaps it's best if you just say reason for visiting.'

'And your reason for going,' chimed in the second NSC man, 'is to quietly, almost accidentally, let your influential cousin know that when you worked for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 campaign, blah-blah-blah, that if the time was ever going to be ripe for a softening of att.i.tudes toward Cuba, blah-blah-blah, well, it could be right now.'

Again the man from the State broke in: 'And if, as would seem highly probable, you could get your cousin to introduce you to Castro ... Well, it would be advantageous for us if you would be able to meet the man.'

'What would I say to him?' Steve asked, whereupon the blah-blah man from the NSC jumped in with a warning: 'Nothing definitive, because you know nothing definitive. Keep the conversation casual and say that from conversations you've had with Reagan's men in Was.h.i.+ngton, you gleaned the distinct impression that if there ever was a time, blah-blah-blah. Just that, nothing more, and add that would be undoubtedly true: "Of course, nothing may come of the mood, and I may be overstressing it, blah-blah-blah." But let it be known that you personally think there might be a good deal in it.'

'Could there be?' Steve asked, and now the young man from the President's office, obviously opposed to this meeting and the proposals coming from it, felt compelled to come in, and he did so with cold force: 'Understand, Dr. Calderon, there is no change of policy or att.i.tude in the White House. We still see Fidel Castro as a communist menace and we deplore his involvement in Nicaragua. If you should meet him, you're obligated to make that clear.'

'They're largely my views, too,' Steve said, but the man from State said quietly: 'Of course, we wouldn't be meeting with you if things at headquarters hadn't changed somewhat, isn't that right, Terrence?' and the President's man said: 'Naturally. But I didn't want Dr. Calderon to go to Cuba with any Sunday-school impressions. Castro is still the enemy.' The man from State had the last word: 'If your signal gets through, don't be surprised if a couple of months from now your cousin Roberto comes to Miami so that his wife can visit yours and so that he can slip you a countersignal.'

Steve, aware that these men were playing hardball and that collegial agreement had not been reached among them, felt he had to speak: 'You're aware, of course, that for a Miami Cuban to have anything to do with either Castro or Cuba is dangerous? Tempers run high in Miami.'

Three of the men considered this an overstatement and said so, but the two NSC men had had ample confirmation of Steve's point, and one conceded: 'Dangerous, yes, but not fatal. Besides, there would be no reason for anyone in Miami to know that you were going.'

Steve's legitimate fears were not dissipated by this easy a.s.surance, since the man giving it did not know Miami, but when, at the close of the meeting, the President reappeared to ask: 'Well, is it all set?' Steve felt impelled to say: 'On track,' and the last ten minutes were devoted to hard-nose decisions about the logistics of his trip and a reminder that his commission was extremely limited: 'You're to make contact with your cousin. Nothing more. But if he can work it for you to see Castro, grab the opportunity ... but don't seem too eager.'

On the flight home Steve reflected on his curious relations.h.i.+p with the United States, of which he was now a citizen, and particularly on his ambivalent position in Miami, capital of the Cuban immigration into the country. Within the first few weeks of Castro's takeover of the island, he had foreseen with considerable accuracy what must happen in Cuba, that the drift toward communism would be inescapable and irreversible. And he had also realized that in such a country, there would be no place for him; his tendencies were too strongly imbedded in freedom and democracy.

He and Kate had been among the first to leave Cuba, far ahead of the ma.s.s emigrations of 1961, and they had never regretted their early decision, for as Kate had said at the time: 'Everyone in Cuba knows that your branch of the Calderons was always in favor of joining Cuba to the United States-since the 1880s to be accurate-so maybe we better go there, now, while we can still get out!'

From the moment they landed at Key West, both Calderons had been satisfied with their choice, and even in the dark days when Steve could not become qualified as an American doctor, they had remained steadfast in their loyalty; they had been the first married couple in the initial group of immigrants to win American citizens.h.i.+p and had never once, not even in moments of understandable nostalgia, considered returning to Cuba. They never wasted time or imagination dreaming of the day when Castro died and all the Cubans in Miami would be free to flood back to the island; for them, Cuba was a historical fact, an island on which their ancestors had prospered for nearly five hundred years and on which they themselves had known great happiness, but it was part of the past now. It was a memory, not a magnet.

Two little prepositions, Steve mused. Maybe they summarize everything. Down there I always said: 'I live on the island of Cuba.' But up here I say: 'I live in the United States.' I've traded a colorful little island for a great continent, and when you make a switch of that dimension, your mind expands to meet the challenges of a bigger arena.