After registering with the Santiago Port Authority and stretching his legs with a walk through town, Bud stops at a grill set up on the wharf. A girl with a quadroon shade of skin and her hair tucked under a red bandana only smiles when he tries to order first in Dutch and then in French. Finally, he points to a simmering pot of fish stew thick with vegetables. She waves him toward a picnic table set up under a canvas sunshade and follows him with a crock bowl. Bud sits across from a man in a khaki uniform bent over a plate of black beans and rice.
“Dutch?” the man asks as he wipes his mouth with his sleeve.
“American.”
He points to Carpe Diem at anchor in the harbor. “You fly a Dutch flag. You are a smuggler then?”
Bud puts a finger to his lips. “Not so loud, there may be police around.”
The man sits back and laughs.
“You speak good English.”
“It is my chief qualification for being a Guarda Frontera. I was born in Havana but I lived in Key West for twenty years. I never became a citizen, you see, and they finally got around to kicking me out.”
“So, what did you do in Key West?”
“Yes, well that is my other qualification. I was a smuggler—drugs, contraband, people—anything that needed to go back and forth.”
The girl returns with change for his ten-euro note in pesos, two bills and various coins. Bud has no idea what they are worth.
“Did she cheat me?” Bud talks to the man but smiles shyly up at the girl who is pretty.
“She is a notorious swindler. She’s already given herself a generous tip.”
The girl walks around the table to behind the man and playfully cuffs him on the ear. The man throws up his arm as if to ward off a second blow.
“Poppa is a liar,” the girl says in perfect English.
The man rocks back in open-mouth laughter at Bud’s surprise.
“Siddhartha—that is your name, I believe. This is my daughter, Emma.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I am a border patrolman. Did I not tell you? And you are a smuggler, so of course, I know your name.”
“I’m not a smuggler.”
“The smuggler talk is only a joke. But why are you here?”
“No reason other than there was a favorable wind.”
“Just passing through then. So where to next?”
“East, I suppose, or maybe I will sell the boat and stay here.”
“Two weeks. An American can only stay in Cuba for two weeks without a special permit.”
“Then I’ll be French. I’ve got dual citizenship. How long can a Frenchman stay?
“The American part of you will have to leave in two weeks.”
Bud finds himself staring at Emma standing behind her father as he talks. She is short like Lolita, of indeterminate origin, but something about her, the impish grin maybe, reminds him of Nicki. Bud looks past them at Carpe Diem gently bucking in the harbor, impatiently calling to him. She had meant freedom to him only a year ago, but now she is a prison.
“Do you suppose I can find a room in town? I could use a real bath and a real bed.”
The girl grabs her father’s shoulders from behind and smiles brightly at Bud. “Poppa, Dora would put him up. It would be perfect.”
The excited tone of his daughter’s voice causes the man to crane his head back to study her face and then he faces Bud solemnly. “Young man, you should get back on that boat and sail away before this one sets a hook in you.”
Emma rolls her eyes and pops the back of the man’s neck. Again, he throws up his elbows in mock defense before she stalks back to the grill.
“Are you serious about selling the boat? I know a man who’s looking for one about that size.”
“Guess I’ll need it to get out of here. If I could stay, I’d sell it.”
“Stay? My friend this is the most backwater place in the world.”
“That’s why I like it. The rest of the Caribbean is one big tourist trap.”
“Can’t say I don’t like it here myself after twenty years doing the hustle in Key West.” The man reaches a hairy paw across the table as he is getting up. “People around here call me Diego. I’ll talk with my friend about the boat. If he likes it, maybe something can be worked out.”
“But—”
“Sometimes things work out is all I’m saying,” Diego says as he carries his plate and Bud’s bowl back and dumps them in a galvanized tub beside the grill. Diego talks to him but stares at his daughter. “If you’ll come back to the wharf an hour before dark, Emma here will take you to see Dora.” A smile creeps onto the corners of Emma’s lips as she washes the dishes but she does not look up. “If she is not in my house by nine PM, you will become a smuggler again. Do you understand?” Bud does not answer because Diego is still looking at his daughter.
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On the first anniversary of hurricane Claudette, Bud sells Carpe Diem to a corrupt Cuban government official. As part of the deal, Bud assumes the identity of a Havana dissident the official thinks is either dead or hiding in Miami. Bud names Emma’s first child Siddhartha, Sid for short.
On the island of Saint Martin, the name Siddhartha Legion enters into the realm of legend. Over time, it is variously rumored he died at sea, he never really existed at all, or he became a hermit in the USA writing novels under a pen name.
≈≈≈