North of Havana df-5 Read online

  "Bets was screaming at you?"

  "Who do you think I'm talking about-"

  "Well, the French girl-"

  "No, I'm telling you. Bets was saying that stuff to me. I'd flown all that way, changed my whole schedule, and she's treating me like some stranger, some uninvited guest. Like she hated me…"

  I pictured Bets: a string-bean woman with muscles; long arms and longer legs; brown hair cropped short and brushed back; lean, European face with dark eyes that lived beneath heavy brows; eyes that knew a lot, that had seen a lot. Bets's face was familiar to anyone who subscribed to sports magazines. Bets was the one with the controversial lifestyle; the one who once told a reporter: "Your average reader and I probably have a lot in common. We both love beautiful women." Bets was the one who had become the darling of the news magazines because, as a Romanian, she had taken a hiatus from tennis to fight as a rebel leader against Ceausescu and the Securitate, his brutal secret police. I knew from friends, people in the intelligence community, that she had been implicated in the assassination of at least three of Ceausescu's people. Used her celebrity to open doors, then popped them. It was not public information. Bets did not know that I knew.

  I told Dewey, "I'm surprised she behaved that way. She's an extraordinary woman."

  Dewey said, "Yeah, well… Bets can also be an extraordinary bitch."

  The story didn't come pouring out. It wasn't easy for Dewey. She kept approaching the subject, then dodging away. I plodded along and listened, pretending to look at the scenery. There were pepper bushes and webs of Spanish moss on oaks and stilt-legged egrets high-stepping along the ditches as tourist traffic filed by… rental cars and mid-western license plates as pale as the winters they'd left behind; visitors viewing the tropics through windshields, as removed from the biota as if they were peering through television screens.

  I didn't say much. Friends aren't supposed to press friends for details, nor do friends leave friends waiting for answers. Both of us were chastened by our obligations. A further complication was that Dewey had never spoken openly to me about her homosexuality. We had a strange friendship. There were things I could not talk about and things she would not talk about, but everything else was on the table. Bets was always referred to as "my roommate" or "my housemate," as if their relationship was based on economic considerations. That I knew and understood was implicit-just as it was also understood that I must never, ever approach the subject openly.

  But now, that's just what Dewey had to do.

  "You're in love with Bets?" I asked.

  We were back on the shell road that led to Dinkin's Bay. It was nearly dark and a high wind sailed scudding clouds across a plum-colored sky. In a very small voice, she said, "I guess so… hell, I don't know. Are you surprised? I mean, that it's that way between Bets and me."

  Apparently, it was easier for her to pretend that I didn't know-as if that were the only reason she had never discussed it before.

  "I knew that you two were close," I said.

  "You think any less of me now that I've told you? It seems so… weird."

  "Offended, you mean? Outraged? Not likely."

  "If it bothers you, I'd understand."

  Nope, it didn't bother me. The biological truth is that homosexual behavior is almost certainly genetically mandated.

  I said, "Why? Does it seem weird to you?"

  She shrugged. "At first it did… then it didn't seem weird at all. Like the most natural thing in the world. I'd tried it with men"-she paused to look at me-"but it never seemed to work out."

  I already knew that because Dewey and I had once tried. It was sweet and tender but utterly without passion. Rather than feeling closer to her, I'd finished feeling as if we'd been distanced and, worse, as if our friendship had been jeopardized.

  "So you caught Bets screwing around. You're not the first couple to have to weather an affair. Maybe she was lonesome. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she just had to get it out of her system. But one thing we both know is that Bets is a good person and has a hell of a lot of character. So, when we get back to the house, you call her on the phone and start sorting it out. Madrid? It's about midnight there, I think."

  Dewey said, "No. Nope, we're done. What happened hurts like hell; catching them like that, but we were done before I ever flew to Spain. Before Bets left, we spent the whole time fighting."

  "About wanting to see other people?"

  She hemmed and hawed and avoided the subject. Dewey is one of the private ones. Talking too much about herself makes her uncomfortable. She needed a break; no more pushing.

  It was later, when we were back at my stilthouse that she told me, no, what she and Bets had been fighting about was me.

  3

  We had showered and changed. Because Dewey said she wasn't in a party mood, we decided not to go to the marina. How long had it been since I'd missed a Friday night with the fishing guides? I made a light dinner: grilled snapper with mango chutney and salad. We did the dishes exchanging the kind of polite conversation that is really silence. Finally, as I was putting the last dish away, she said, "Are you still in the mood to listen? There're a couple of things I left out."

  I told her, "No kidding," then listened to her tell me that, for some reason, it would be a lot easier to talk about if she didn't have to look at me. I suggested we sit out on the deck, lights off, and look at the winter sky. Dewey said no, what she wouldn't mind doing was maybe lie on the bed, her face in a pillow, with only the reading light on. Then she added, "And you might as well rub my back while I'm down there," giving it a tone of indifference- why not do two jobs at once? "I pulled a latissimus the other day when I was lifting. My whole back feels out of whack."

  I thought: Why does she want to try this again? Then I thought: Because she's trying to rebound from Bets.

  But I did what she said. She was trying to orchestrate so carefully that it seemed needlessly cruel not to go along with it. Sometimes I try hard to believe my own lies…

  So I switched the reading light on, switched the other lights off. Heard her fiddling with the stereo and then heard Marianne Faithfull come on, soft, haunting, ephemeral- one of Tomlinson's albums from his flower child days. Then came around the clothes locker into shadows to see Dewey lying there in nothing but her heavy bra and bikini panties. Anticipating me, she was up on one elbow, face looking soft and serious. Before I could speak, she said, "Just shut the hell up and let me get this out of my system. All I want you to do is work on my back."

  I said, "Your call."

  She buried her face in the pillow and said, "Don't say a word."

  "If that's what you want."

  " 'Cause what I need to do is, I'm going to pretend like you're not here…"

  Sitting on the bed, hip-to-hip; Dewey sprawled belly-down, talking softly about this and that, nothing serious, until she said: "I guess this thing with Bets's been on my mind. So, yeah, maybe I need to talk with somebody about it. Lucky you, huh?"

  Long silence.

  Then: "What'd you ask me-am I in love with Bets? I answered you, but I didn't answer you. Bets told me for nearly a year-'I love you, Dewey'-before I could even make myself say the words."

  I waited through another long pause. Heard, "So… I finally said them and… Christ, it was like freedom. Like I could finally admit, yeah, this is what I am. All the time I spent worrying-hey, why'm I the only one who doesn't fit in? God… and the guilt. Gone, just like that. 'I love you, Bets.' Said those words and it was the greatest feeling. Like letting go. You know?"

  No, I didn't know. But I didn't say it. Kept working on her back, using my thumbs to knead the lean muscle cordage beneath soft skin. I wanted to tell her something Tomlinson had once said: Guilt is the curse of those who care. It wasn't often, but the man's unrestrained spiritualism sometimes made sense even to me. But this was her time to talk… and it was sounding more and more like a catharsis…

  "So I moved in with Bets. It wasn't just because I wanted a roommate, li
ke I told you. All I wanted to do was be with her. Be with Bets. Man-we laughed so much together. Something else, first time in my life, I enjoyed… sex. First time anyone ever touched me that I wasn't tense or worried or felt like I had to fake it. You know Bets- those long fingers of hers?-but they're soft, too. The way she uses them. And kissing-"

  I felt Dewey's body shudder beneath me.

  Could feel my own pulse as I listened to her say, "The kissing was so nice. You know that feeling? You're kissing someone so lost in it all, like you're breathing for each other. Then we'd giggle like little girls." She said, "Whatever happens, I've got Bets to thank for that," as she pushed herself up on an elbow, fished around beneath her

  … heard the sound of contracting elastic… and she slipped her bra off. Got a brief look at the pendulous weight of her left breast as she turned to toss the bra on the floor. "You mind? This thing's choking me plus it's getting in your way."

  I cleared my throat; looked at her clothes in a pile by my feet. Stood and folded them neatly over my telescope, more to put some distance between us than anything. My body was reacting to her story in a way that I could not control. I needed a break.

  Heard Dewey say, "Get back here, Ford." Heard her say, "Hey-while you're up? You got any oil? Body lotion, I mean?"

  I did. Knew I shouldn't get it… but I found it in the medicine locker anyway. Then, when I was settled, pouring oil on her back, she said, "Now… where were we?"

  ***

  I kept telling myself that I was listening with the careful ear of an objective observer… but, more likely, I was forcing an interest to keep my mind off what my hands were doing; off what my hands wanted to do. This was a Dewey that I'd never met and didn't know: the secret Dewey giving me a tour of her secret world.

  "They're mostly nice people," she said, "just like anybody else. Not kinky or weird; not perverts. Just women living their lives. Our friends were mostly jocks-it's what we call each other. 'She's a dike.' Or 'she's a jock.' There's a difference, understand. Doesn't mean she has to play sports-it's a look-but she probably plays sports.

  "I was always what they considered a jock, but then that started to change. It's what I'm telling you about; the trouble between Bets and me. See, the third type's a 'lipstick': a girl who's pretty and feminine. A lipstick is gay, but she can probably go both ways and enjoy it." She hesitated a moment before she said, "I ever strike you as feminine?"

  "Of course."

  "Well, Bets really got mad when I started thinking that way. Before she and I became lovers, she wanted me to be absolutely certain how I felt. I give her credit, she did her best to help me find out." I felt Dewey's hand slide back, feel around, and finally find my thigh. Gave me a gentle pat. "That time you and I tried to sleep together? Bets knew about it. In fact-and this is something I never told you-it was mostly her idea."

  She didn't have to tell me because I already knew.

  Now I was more aware of what Dewey's hand was doing than of what my hands were doing… her fingers exploring around on my thigh… stopping here, pressing there… maybe searching for something.

  "Don't get a big head."

  That startled me. I said, "Huh?"

  Her voice had gotten softer, sleepier. "Because I said you're the man I was thinking about. Let's face it, Ford- you're not what anybody would call handsome. Kind of interesting-looking, yeah. Big and solid and safe-looking. And maybe that's it. You're a nice guy."

  I thought: You don't know…

  She said, "Some of those guys used to come sniffing around our group were such jerks. Know what this one said to Bets? This dude-he's a little drunk; got the jive attitude-he comes swaggering up and he says, 'Ma' lady, the only reason you're the way you is 'cause you never been with a real man.' I mean, Bets, all of us, just cracked up laughing. Four or five of us standing there, laughing in this idiot's face. Didn't even have a clue what we were all about."

  "Apparently not," I said.

  "So that's what happened. I finally told Bets: 'Hey, I think I'm a lipstick.' Some of the other girls had already been saying it-they can pretty much always tell. Even if a woman doesn't realize it herself. Like we're on the street and they see some woman, has a couple of kids, hubby there guiding her around. They make eye contact with the woman, nothing more, and we walk away and one of our group would say, 'She's a jock, doesn't even know it.' Or 'She's borderline lipstick, probably never even tried.' They know. They really do."

  "And now you want to find out if they're right."

  "Yeah, but another thing was… pretty much the main thing, really"-Dewey removed her hand from my thigh, getting serious-"I told Bets something that really pissed her off."

  I said, "Oh?"

  "I told her that I was thinking about kids. That I was thinking about having a child, I mean."

  I almost stopped rubbing her back but caught myself.

  "I told Bets that I'd thought about it and it was something I wanted to do."

  "I can see why that would surprise her."

  "Because I'm gay, you mean? No, that's not the way it is. A lot of gay women have the urge, but I think it was the combination of the two: I'm feeling attracted to men and women, and I want to have a baby." Felt Dewey's hand return to my thigh, feeling around as she settled herself on the bed; heard her say, "No, there was a third thing, too. When Bets told me she had to go to Madrid, I told her then maybe I'd fly down to Florida and see you."

  I felt her hand slide up higher on my thigh; felt her fingers fumbling with my zipper. "We had a big fight about that one. But after she left I started to feel guilty, so I decided to fly to Madrid and apologize. After that, I wasn't in the mood to apologize anymore."

  Heard my zipper open-the sound of silk tearing-felt her fingers patting around, not finding anything.

  Heard her say, "Oops, wrong side," then laughter. Told myself I should pull her hand away as she said, "My oh my, you really are a right-hander."

  Which is when the phone rang.

  Tomlinson calling from Havana…

  4

  The way Tomlinson's voice faded in and out, it was as if my house, elevated on stilts off Sanibel Island, was connected to Havana by a piece of string that was being battered by a Gulf Stream squall. On a crow-flies course, the only landfall between Sanibel and Cuba is Key West. Couple of hundred miles of water stood between us; all that dark ocean out there… Tomlinson's voice straining to get across it.

  "This is serious, Doc. I shit you not. They took my damn boat!"

  Talking about the Cuban military.

  "You've got to get down here with some money. Cash. They won't take credit cards, they won't take checks, and my good character wouldn't get me a cup of their damn sugar on loan. I'm talking about No Mas!"

  No Mas, his 35-Morgan sailboat. It's one of the curious things about water-people: Sailors love their boats-or pretend to; power-cruisers almost always hate their boats-but pretend as if they don't.

  Tomlinson said, "When I got here, I had close to two grand stashed away. You know where I kept it-in that little hidey hole forward the bilge? I was damn lucky to get it out before the bulls took my boat."

  Dewey was up off the bed now, giving me her "You-were-a-jerk-to-answer-the-phone" look; a little brazen, a little shy. She'd seemed comfortable touching me; comfortable with my hands on her. Not tense, not working at it too hard… not at all like the first time we'd tried.

  Tomlinson said, "So now I'm down to five hundred bucks or so 'cause they're charging us on a day-to-day basis. You know what they're hoping-"

  Yes, I knew what they were hoping. 'They' was the Guardia Frontera, the harbor-tasked body of the island's largest governmental agency-MINFAR, which stood for Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Largest and also the most corrupt branch of a very, very corrupt government. All under the control of Raul Castro, Fidel's younger jockey-sized brother.

  I said, "They want you to spend every cent you have so you have to abandon your boat. Put you on some government fl
ight out."

  "Exactly! That's just what I've been thinking." The flavor of panic was beginning to fade from Tomlinson's voice; he was sounding more and more like the old laid-back hipster and sociology guru that he had once been. "So how long before you get here, Doc?"

  There was something I had to communicate to him, but I couldn't come right out and say it. I knew from newspaper reports, and also friends who are paid to know, that the Cuban government had gotten sloppy and desperate and meaner than ever, but there were probably still a few good people around doing their jobs, manning the Lourdes eavesdropping systems that the Soviets had left behind.

  The call probably was being monitored.

  I said, "Look, buddy, how's an American go about getting into Cuba?" Gave it a hick-hard inflection. Said, "It's illegal, right? I mean it's not like I've been there before."

  Tomlinson said, "Huh?"

  I watched Dewey cross to the telescope; watched her stretch the bra around, sliding the cups down over her breasts, then snapped it tight as I said, "What am I supposed to do, call my travel agent? Or maybe run down there by boat? But I do that, hell, they'd probably just take my boat, too."

  I was rewarded with Tomlinson's guarded tone-he understood. "Yeah

  … well, I was thinking maybe you could take a plane. Fly in here. I've heard they've got flights from Nassau and Mexico City. Americans fly in, the Cubans don't ask any questions, give them a temporary visa right at the airport. They need the tourist money."

  "That's why you sailed there? As a tourist?" Changing the subject, like I wanted a little time to think about it.

  "Hell, no. Why do you think they took my damn boat?"