Raoul knew that Enrique would never be convinced that those village boys were innocent of any depravity, any bestial intent. The new day had dawned, and here was this lithe and lovely and rebellious little upper class chicken, a bonus from the benign gods of revolution. Now that all were equal, she could be given her chance to labor for the glory of the people’s republic, to scrub and wash and cook and serve and carry and, inevitably perhaps, share the bunks of those young heroes of the revolution who, in turn, had the force to quell her and take her.
Once she was found, it was not difficult to arrange to have her brought out. The new Cuban Government was not eager for that kind of publicity. But there would be certain fees — and somehow they knew almost to a penny how much Enrique had managed to escape with, after everything else had been confiscated.
She was taken directly from Miami International to the hospital, dangerously thin, anemic, pregnant, alarmingly docile and submissive, and running a high fever of unknown origin. A bad reaction to the antibiotics they gave her caused her to miscarry. Old friends of the family competed for the chance to take her in and care for her. Perhaps conscience had something to do with it. During the final months of the Batista rule, they had been busily liquidating holdings and quietly and shrewdly shipping the money out of Cuba, investing it elsewhere. ’Cisca had nothing left, poor child, and she was a symbol of the brutality of the new order. And she is no trouble at all, really. Hardly says a word. The little thing just sits with her head bowed, sewing and knitting, and has that shy little smile when you speak to her.
During training Enrique had taken Raoul with him when he had made the last visit to his younger sister. He did not think she even glanced at him, or was more than remotely aware of another person present. It seemed to him then that the psychic damage had made her withdraw so far she would never return.
Apparently Enrique thought so too, because before the landing he asked Raoul to sort of watch out for ’Cisca should anything happen to him. Something happened. In the fumbled, sickening chaos of the Bay of Pigs, Raoul, diving for cover, saw Enrique run into a hammering rain that stopped him abruptly, then drove him back, emptied him, spilled him in a loose, wet, ragged ruin.
Raoul Kelly survived the invasion and survived the imprisonment on the Isle of Pines, and was exchanged for medicines, and could not find Francisca. After she had heard of Enrique’s death, she had packed and gone away. They thought she was working somewhere.
He found her working as a waitress in a café in Homestead, Florida, merry and grinning and quick at her work, popular with the owners and the customers. To his surprise she remembered him at once, but she did not care to talk to him. He lost her, and then found her again, working as a live-in maid for an elderly couple in Miami Shores. She was friendlier to him than before, but not quite enough to make him feel welcome.
Six months ago he had looked her up again, and had traced her to this place. And, by now, she had been working for Crissy Harkinson for almost a year. She greeted him warmly, and he had fallen into the habit of coming to see her whenever he could.
She seemed always in good spirits, but he learned that it was forbidden to talk about anything which had happened to her before she had taken the first job. She would become very angry with him and make him leave. So he played the game on her terms. He knew the pitfalls inherent in any amateur psychiatric analysis. But it seemed to him that because she had found one identity, one existence, untenable, she had become quite another person.
Seeking clues to this new person, when he was alone in the little apartment over the garages, when the Harkinson woman had summoned her on the intercom, he would look through her belongings seeking the clues as to what she had become. Aside from her necessary identification papers and permits, the only personal things she had were some photographs of her taken with the other waitresses at the café, arms around waists, smiling in the sunshine, and the few little presents he had brought her. He was touched by the small furniture of her existence — sensible little cotton mesh briefs from Sears, simple and durable little brassieres from J. C. Penney, bright cheap skirts and blouses, supermarket cosmetics, and the blue and white maid uniforms the Harkinson woman had her buy. It gave him the saddened feeling of inventorying the possessions of the dead.
He knew her education had been good. From the things Enrique had told him, he knew she had been sensitive, imaginative and thoughtful. But this ’Cisca was a merry little thing, and her Spanish was that of the shop girls. She prattled about the plots of the television she watched, the fan magazines she read. He took her to the beaches, to outdoor movies, and to the back country to fish in the drainage canals. Being with her was undemanding fun. And it was a relief after the demands of his work. He had developed contacts which gave him reliable information about developments in Cuba and infiltration and subversion in other Latin American countries. He was doing news coverage and feature articles in this field for a Miami paper, and freelancing for Spanish language newspapers and periodicals in Florida and New York. Lately he had been doing magazine articles evaluating the total situation and attempting to anticipate trends and policies. As he attempted to be both thorough and scrupulously honest, his work had begun to attract attention on a wider scale. It was almost a blessing that his work fell into an area which was taboo insofar as ’Cisca was concerned.
When the early spring had brought the first softness in the Florida air, he had become more aware of a problem which he had been trying to ignore. On the beaches her slender thighs were golden, impossibly smooth and unflawed. There was a special and sensual intricacy of curve and pattern and texture in the way her mouth was made. The ivoried eyelid and the dense curve of black lashes slid down over the healthy gleam of eye with a meaningful perfection that seemed magical. At any casual and accidental brush of her body against his, he could feel his heart bumping against the hard wall of his chest. His jaws would ache, and he could believe the touch had left a visible weal on his flesh.
He could not sleep as well or eat with as good appetite as previously, yet he knew that any attempt to seduce her would be an unthinkable crime. Not only was he under the obligation of the request Enrique had made the night before he was killed, but he knew that only a selfish monster would, for his own need and pleasure, take the chance of smashing the adjustment she had made to the world. Soldier rape had driven her into the shadows, and she had found a way out. But quite evidently the new personality had no memory of rape, pregnancy or miscarriage. The physical act could not help but trigger the memories and destroy the new structure of personality.
And so he endured, sometimes half sick with desire, knowing it would be far easier to stay away from her, yet feeling the need to be with her and thus punish himself for his animality.
Two months ago, in mid-March, she had solved the whole matter with a blitheness and directness that disconcerted him as much as it pleased him. He had taken her bay fishing on her afternoon off, and then they had gone to a place which would broil their catch for them and which served cold draught beer in big chilled steins. Then he had to hurry her home because she was alarmed that she might miss the beginning of what she declared was her third favorite television program.
The show did not intrigue him. He sat on the couch, dulled by the afternoon on the water, by the beer and food. He fought to stay awake. Then he was awakened by the sudden warm weight of her on his lap, her arms around his neck. The set was off, the room dark. A weak lamp in her bedroom made a path of light out through the half-open bedroom door. There was a nervous edge to her small laughter, and an anxious quaver in her voice as she said in her butchered English, “What kind of boyfriend I’m telling Rosita I’m having, eh? Sotch a trouble her boy is giving her, I tell you, every minute. I see you looking to me with the quick little eye, eh? I wait, wait, wait. Nothings, eh? I am loving you, Kelleeeee, something tough. But ’Cisca is maybe a little scare now you theenk — I’m a bad theeng.”