"Mariel is still believed to be an invasion point. Land there and take Havana."
They sat in silence for several minutes, staring.
"When you were on the train," Tavalera said, "you don't know if they had opened the hammock. But what about their faces? Did they express a particular kind of feeling to you? Their attitude, their state of mind?"
"You want to know," Osma said, "were they joyous or were they depressed, their faces hanging? This cowboy has a gun in my belly. You think I'm making a study of their faces?"
Tavalera said nothing and they were silent again, Osma staring at the drug shop. Now Tavalera closed his eyes.
He sat without moving, hands folded in his lap. He heard in his mind the words: Oh God… Listen, if You let this man be Victor Fuentes and he takes me to the hammock and inside is forty thousand dollars, American funds… if in Your divine generosity You make this happen, I will give to the Church that portion of the money I was going to give Osma, who is an atheist with the manners of a fucking goat and is unworthy.
Though he had not yet decided how much he'd give Osma, he realized the amount wouldn't seem enough to pledge to Holy Mother Church. No, he would have to give something else. Perhaps offer an act of mortification. He thought about it and when he continued to pray said:
Oh God, grant my petition and whenever I go to Mass, I promise to fall on my knees at the Consecration and remain there until after the Communion, which I will receive, after I go to Confession.
He saw himself at Mass, perhaps the only man on his knees in the entire Havana cathedral, his head bowed in supplication.
0sma turned to look at him.
"What are you doing, sleeping?"
Tyler decided against riding the dun. He saddled Amelia's sorrel and brought it through the grove of broad green leaves to the yard behind the main house.
Miss Janes in her sun hat was there, and Amelia, at a wooden table where the twelve lepers who lived here stood in line and Miss Janes, from Gretna, Louisiana, would speak to each one in turn, touching them, applying medication, passing them on to Amelia, who bandaged the ones with open sores. The lepers with missing toes hobbled off. The man with elephantiasis moved past on his enormous legs and Tyler saw Amelia looking at him. She said something to Miss Janes, rose from the table and came over.
"You've made up your mind."
"He's been gone too long."
"You said yourself he was up to something. Whatever it is, there's nothing we can do about it. Is there?"
"You can tell me whatever you want to say and I'll listen,"
Tyler said, "but I'm going. I'll ask at the drug shop if he was there. Victor told me how to find it. I'll look around, stick my head in a cafe-he's got friends here, you knowmand if I don't see him I'll come right back."
She said, "I don't want to lose you."
Looking up at him with her sad, moist eyes, this adorable girl. He said, "I want so bad to pick up and take you in the house."
"Why don't you?"
It made him smile because he believed she meant it. "When you get your strength. I don't want you going around with bruises all over you."
"You promise?"
"I'm yours, girl, from now on."
She said, "I've never wanted anybody so bad in my whole life. You promise you'll always love me?"
"Wherever we are."
She said, "That's something we'll have to talk about, huh?" Beginning to sound her normal self again. "You want to stay here?" "Here?" "In Cuba." "And do what?"
"Run a cow outfit, a horse ranch. It's all I know how to do."
He watched the tip of her tongue play against her upper lip, back and forth, Amelia picturing things. He said, "Think about it while I'm gone. I won't be long."
He saw the woman in the sun hat watching them. She called out, "Amelia?"
Amelia glanced over her shoulder and then looked up at Tyler. "I almost forgotmwe need chaulmoogra oil. Should I write it down?"
There was a sameness about these city streets in Cuba, lined with one- and two-story buildings, stone and concrete, weathered facades wearing away, big windows with wood shutters open. Tyler found the street he wanted and came to the drug shop in the middle of the block. He heard people some distance away yelling, and gunfire that sounded more in celebration than serious. He wondered if today was some kind of national holiday.
Spotting a pair of Guardias in a doorway didn't seem cause for alarm; that's what they did, they stood around.
The drug shop was dim inside, rows of drawers on the wall behind the counter. The druggist, an elderly man in a white doctor's smock, asked to help him. Tyler gestured toward the street. "What's all the yelling and shooting about?"
The druggist's eyes came open behind his pinch-nose glasses on a black ribbon. "You don't hear? The Americans have come with their army. Two days ago in Oriente. You don't know about it?"
"Where did they land?"
"Two places, Siboney and Daiquiri, to march on Santiago de Cuba. Also I think Guantfinamo. You know where those places are?"
"I don't care," Tyler said, wanting to hug the man, "long as they're in Cuba. Have you heard they've had a battle?"
"I only know the American army is here, thousands of soldiers, thank God, finally."
"How did you hear?"
"It came to the train station, on the telegraph."
All kinds of questions were popping in Tyler's head, but now he was anxious to get back and let Amelia know. He told the druggist he needed a bottle of quinine, then brought a note out of his coat pocket and glanced at it. "And chaulmoogra oil, if you have any." He looked up to see a younger man in a white doctor's smock appear through a doorway from the back of the shop.
Right away this one, this clerk, staring hard at Tyler, said, "chaulmoogra-that was it, what the old man wanted I couldn't think of. Are you with the old man?"
"I might know him," Tyler said. "Have you seen him today?"
"You are with him, yes?"
"What old man you talking about?"
"You buy quinine and chaulmoogra as he did. Yes, you're with him, I know you are."
"Just tell me, was he here today?"
The druggist, looking confused, began speaking to his clerk in Spanish, Tyler not able to catch any of it except qud pasa, the druggist wanting to know what was going on. His clerk didn't even look at him. He said to Tyler, "Not today, yesterday. And you know where I saw him?" This young know-it-all looking down his nose at Tyler. "On the road talking to another old one like him, on the road by the banana trees. You one of the Americans they looking for, and you live at the leper house don't you?"
He didn't stay for an answer or even hesitate as the druggist was questioning him, excited now, raising his voice. By now the clerk was around the end of the counter and running out to the street yelling, "'iEstd aquit. iEstd aquf. r'" Telling anyone who could hear him, "He's here!" as he yanked on a rope and an awning came down across the front of the shop.
Tyler got his horse from under it, slapped its rump and swung up on the saddle as the horse bolted, stretching its head to run. Behind him he could hear the clerk yelling, "Chaulmoogra por los lazarinos!"
"I thought I'd die once Dr. Henriquez was gone. I said, "How can they take you? You're not even Spanish." It didn't seem to matter. When I think about it, it was only four months ago, during Mardi Gras when we met. Luis had been visiting the hospital at Carville? It's up above New Orleans-I'd heard of it, but of course I've never been there. Dr. Henriquez told me about his work here and I said, "Oh, Luis, please take me with you." I was prepared that moment to dedicate the rest of my life to these people."
They sat at the table in the yard cutting up squash and yucca for soup, both in sun hats and aprons, Miss Janes' hands in white gloves. She spoke in quiet tones, unhurried by her anguish. "Do you think I was foolish? My mother does. She can't believe I'm here. At least I keep busy-thank God for small blessings. I keep hoping I'll hear from Luis. I don't even know what I'd do. I can't just leave. Until you came I had no one at all to talk to. While you were ill Victor provided some company. You're so fortunate to have Ben. Do I envy you. I think, my Lord, just a few months ago my only concern, would my carnival gown be ready in time. This country, it's so primitive. I don't think I can stay much longer." "I love it," Amelia said. "It is pretty."