She was looking, shaking her head-it was a how-do-you-know-so-much mannerism with which I was growing familiar. "You've been there, too, I suppose."
"A couple of times. You'd like the parks and there's a palace tour. Some pretty spectacular Mayan ruins, too." As if I'd visited as a tourist. Even so, I could feel the question coming; the same question she'd asked me in Panama City.
"A marine biologist who spent all his free time traveling." She said it quizzically, thinking it over. Yesterday, my reply-"I used to travel a lot"-hadn't put the subject to rest. I could see her wondering: Why is he being evasive?
So I decided to stop it before it went any further. "Traveling in my free time? I never said that. I went to these places, Panama, Masagua, some others because it was part of my work."
Dewey nodded, listening. Finally, it was all going to start making sense.
I said, "See, what happened was, when I got out of school, I was recruited by a company to do research-"
"This was after you played baseball."
"Yeah, just after I played ball, but pretty close to that time, though." Already lying to her. "This company, they'd pick a research area then provide funding so I could set up a research station. Usually a small house or shack, and money for a boat and a lab. Or the host country would provide me with a place, like a kind of educational exchange. I'd be there a few months or sometimes as much as a year or more."
All true.
She said, "We'd send them our people, they'd send us theirs?" Not doubting it, just asking.
"Right. But usually it was just this company, the one I worked for, setting me up, paying the bills, while I did my work. For a biologist, it was a great opportunity." Also true. I said, "I was able to spend time in places, do the kind of serious work that most people in my field only dream about. Like Masagua-" It was gone from the window now; once again I was leaving Pilar behind. "-I spent more than a year in Masagua. I had this great beach shack and lab on a deserted stretch of shore about fifty kilometers from the city. The fishermen there-same as the fishermen in Honduras-had a legend about a place off the coast. They called it the Magic Mountain-"
"Underwater, you mean."
"Yes. An underwater mountain. Not that you could tell it was there, but the fishermen, they knew. They claimed that every year sea turtles and manta rays came there by the thousands. They could see them on the surface, understand. And they weren't making it up. I confirmed it. Biologists are still researching it, but the fact that the mountain contains large deposits of iron ore probably has something to do with the migration. Turtles and rays both have great navigational abilities; fragments of iron in the mastoid area, like a built-in compass. Some people think it has to do with that."
Dewey said, "Man, I've got to pull things out of you." Like: Why didn't you ever tell this story before?
I was enjoying talking about it; pleased that I could neutralize the subject so easily. That, plus it was nice being honest for a change. "I spent nearly a year in Africa," I said, "studying freshwater sharks on the Zambezi River. Later, I studied the same shark-bull sharks, we call them-on Lake Nicaragua, more than a hundred miles from the sea. Only now the Japanese fin industry has all but exterminated them."
"And this company paid you to do this. Like one of the really big conglomerates."
"The parent company, yeah. But the group that hired me was very small. You've never heard the name. No one has."
"Hoping you might discover something and they could make a lot of money off it."
"Or contribute to their overall knowledge. The sea products industry is a huge global business. It had to do with that."
Dewey had finished her beer. Hatuey, in a can. She crushed the can with one hand-her jock side showing- and thought about it before saying, "I can see why you liked it, but I can see why you quit, too. All those places you mentioned, wasn't there always a lot of fighting going on? Like revolutions and stuff? Panama, Nicaragua, Masagua, that's all you ever read about."
I didn't like the direction the conversation was headed. I said, "That was the great thing about being a marine biologist. A credentialed researcher. The world's scientific community takes pains to be nonpolitical. No one much notices us. I could come and go as I pleased."
"Still," she said, "you'd think the company would have sent you to places that were safer. Africa? Wasn't there fighting there?"
I was nodding, eager to be done with it. "Yeah, it started getting dangerous. You're right. That's why I quit."
She said, "I don't blame you. Jesus, Ubangis with guns. You're lucky to be alive."
That was true, too.
After the jungles of Central America, after the space and light of the Caribbean, western Cuba looked barren, un-tended-like some massive ranch that had been worked too hard then abandoned. Treeless hills on a treeless windscape etched with dirt roads that seemed to originate from the sea and traveled architect-straight to nowhere. No cars, no movement, no people. The jetliner's pressurized silence assumed the silence of the land beneath us. Then we were descending and Cuba accumulated life-but not much light-as we neared Havana. I looked away when I saw the bluffs and basin of Mariel Harbor… looked again and saw the blanketing gray suburbs and high rise hotels along the beach and lichen black Morro Castle bonded to rock above Havana and the sea… then we touched down fast and heavy on the tarmac, but contrary to Latino custom, no one applauded upon landing, and I wondered if my fellow passengers were subdued by our destination or simply exhausted with gratitude at having survived the flight.
As we waited in line at immigration, Dewey said, "Christ-o-mighty, it's hot, huh?" She thought about that for a few seconds before smiling. "Hey, it is hot. Two days before Christmas, they're freezing up in Florida but it must be like eighty-five down here in Havana town. And Bets is stuck in New York!" Very pleased with herself; she had talked herself into a vacation in the tropics and was already enjoying it.
Good. Dewey was no actress. For me to be convincing as a tourist, Dewey had to be convincing. It had to be real.
"Doc, know what I think I'll do? We find Tomlinson, get checked into our hotel, I think I'll go down to the beach and bake a little bit. I haven't been really warm in about a month. Maybe send Bets a post card and rub it in."
Her mind still in New York, up there with snow and smoking chimneys… and her lover.
"Wait and call her when you get back. That would be faster. A card out of here would take a couple of weeks. Maybe a month."
"I don't care. I want her to get it and picture me down here on the beach. Up there freezing her ass off and she goes to the mailbox and there it is."
I smiled. "Because you're friends."
Received a catty smile in return. "Yeah, because we're friends."
I was less aware of the heat than of the three men watching us-a customs officer in naval blue and two soldiers in khakis. Baby shit brown, Tomlinson had described it. Not shy about staring at us, either. Ruddy faces, short black hair and with eyes you expect to find behind mirrored sunglasses. Looking right at us and not looking away when my eyes briefly met theirs. Forty-some people in line-still outside on the tarmac beneath a sign that read "Welcome to Jose Martf International"-and they had singled us out.
I touched Dewey's arm. "Give me a kiss."
She said, "Huh?"
"Give me a kiss. Like you mean it."
Privately, our relationship had changed. But publicly, Dewey was still Dewey. She was a nudger and a rough-houser, not a hugger or toucher. Public displays of affection were as out of character for her as they were for me. She said, "Knock off the mush, Ford. Not in front of all these people."