Part 9 (1/2)
I dropped the four lobster tails into the sputtering water, added a little salt, then covered them. ”Right. It's all true. Nothing I like better than getting hopelessly drunk. How about you?”
”Do you have to work at being so sarcastic, Mr. MacMorgan? Or does it just come naturally?”
”It depends on who I'm talking to. And you're supposed to call me Dusky. Remember?”
When the lobster was done, I b.u.t.terflied them and set slivers of fresh lime on the table. The woman surprised me by asking for beer every time I got up to get one. It wasn't a meal for forks and knives and the dainty attack those things imply. It was a meal to eat with your hands, with hot b.u.t.ter and garlic bread; it was a meal that required plenty of napkins.
When we had finished, Santarun surprised me by gathering the dishes and pots together in the sink and putting water on to boil-for coffee and dishwater.
She saw the way I raised my eyes at that.
”Are you surprised that I'm volunteering to work?” she said, knowing full well that I was.
”Shocked might be a better word.”
”Actually, I want to do the dishes as a show of good faith; good faith because I'm about to tell you something that really might shock you.”
”Hold off telling me until the end of the trip. That way you can do all the dishes as a sign of good faith.”
”I'm afraid I have no desire to show that much good faith.” She laughed lightly. I studied to see if the sudden friendliness was forced, and decided-probably because of the four beers she had had-that it wasn't. ”Actually, Dusky, it has to do with my conversation earlier with that Cuban soldier-Captain Lobo.”
And that's when she told me about the preliminary steps it took to get a relative out of Cuba.
”But once the papers have been processed, and my father has been approved, I'm sure they're not going to just bring him down to this boat and wave goodbye,” she continued.
”What makes you think that?”
She hesitated for a moment while she squirted soap into the dishwater and went to work on the plates. ”For one thing, I've been listening to other Cuban-Americans talking on your radio. Some of them have been over here before, and they've talked with the refugees in Key West. Once the relatives have been approved, the first thing the Castro regime does is confiscate their homes and their property. And then they send them to refugee camps-”
”Which, I imagine, are more like concentration camps.”
”Exactly.”
”Well, that's not completely unexpected. I mean, Castro isn't exactly known as a humanitarian.” I nodded toward the stack of dishes. ”So why the unexpected goodwill gesture?”
”Wait,” she said. ”There's more. You don't have to listen to that radio for long to realize that we're in for a long stay here. That's the point I was trying to make. Castro's people are holding the refugees in those concentration camps for a reason. This afternoon, while you were working on the engine, I watched them loading the refugees through your binoculars. The dock's across the harbor-Captain Lobo called it Pier Three. Do you have any idea how many boats they loaded in eight hours?”
I shook my head. ”You can herd a lot of people onto a deck in eight hours.”
”You could-but they didn't. Only two boats were loaded. That's what I'm trying to get at. Castro wants it to be slow. I think he wants us all to stay here until we've eaten all our food and spent all our money.”
Suddenly it dawned on me. ”So now I see why you're being so nice all of a sudden-”
”If that's an insult, I'm afraid-”
I smiled at her. ”Face it, Santarun. You haven't exactly been Miss Congeniality on this trip. But now you're afraid I'm going to get tired of waiting around here in Mariel Harbor after a week or so, pull anchor, and head back to Key West. So now you're trying to charm me into some verbal agreement-”
”I am not! I'm just trying to tell you the facts!”
She glared at me. It was getting so I liked that glare. She had pulled on a baggy blue s.h.i.+rt over her swim suit, and she had her hands on her hips, leaning toward me like an angry kid.
”And you're trying to cover the facts with all the sugar and spice you can.”
”MacMorgan, you are so pigheaded! I was just trying to explain to you that we might have to stay here in Mariel a little longer than we had planned, but you have to read all sorts of devious motives into it.”
”But you do want me to agree to stay until your business is finished-right?”
”Yes!”
”Even if it takes a month or more?”
”Of course!”
”And even if we run out of food?”
”You were paid to bring me here, then take me back when I was done . . . when I had my father!”
She had slipped and she knew it. Quickly, she busied herself with cleaning up the galley. She had played the role of the daughter seeking her father so well that, for a time, I had wondered if she really did have a father still in Cuba. Now was the time to blow her cover-and mine-if I wanted. Why not get things out in the open? After all, couldn't we work better as a team?
I thought about it. I really did. And I came d.a.m.n close to putting all my cards on the table.
The only thing that stopped me was my promise to Norm.
He had ordered me to stay neutral. I was supposed to watch and report back. If things got too rough for the woman I could step in-but then and only then.
I got up from the booth, stretched, then reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. I expected her to flinch, but she didn't.
”I'm sorry, Androsa.”
She kept her head down, running a dishcloth around the little alcohol stove. ”It's okay. You're right. I have been pretty nasty to you.”
”That's true.”
She gave me a warning glance that said, ”Do you want to argue some more?”
I didn't, so I hurried on, ”All the lockers are filled with canned goods. We have ten pounds of rice, plenty of fish, and ten cases of beer. When the food is all gone-and we probably have enough for five or six weeks-then we go. Agreed?”
She reached as if to give my hand a sisterly pat, but stopped halfway.
”Agreed,” she said.
Outside, the sky was blurred with smog from the factories, and the military had big runway searchlights scanning the harbor. Boats in the distance stood out in blue silhouette in the vacillating darkness, and, standing on the aft deck, I could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of rapid Spanish drifting across the water. Somewhere, calypso music played from a radio. It seemed out of place in the somberness of Mariel Harbor.
I reached into my s.h.i.+rt pocket, took an after-dinner dip, then collected a blanket, pillow, and flashlight and climbed up to the flybridge and lay down.
I had only gotten about three hours of sleep after the long run from Key West. And I was tired. d.a.m.n tired.