CHAPTER 27

Mario confirmed that Felipe had left the country. Serguey bottled up his breath in his lungs and stared at the ceiling. Whatever happened on this night, it wouldn’t be for nothing. Felipe had been released under an extra-penal license, which Serguey knew meant that the charges weren’t dropped. He could be arrested at any time on Cuban soil. In other words, his father’s exile was permanent.

“He landed in Madrid this morning,” Mario said. “I imagine he’s being interviewed by TV channels and newspapers.”

Serguey probed the credibility of the dramaturge’s assured tone: “Do you think he’s that big of a deal?”

“There’s a strong Cuban artists community in Spain. He’ll be fine.”

Serguey noticed that Mario was wearing the same polo T-shirt he had worn at Toya’s. His shorts were different, smaller, perhaps in preparation for the trip across the straits. He realized that Victor hadn’t considered the possible conditions on the boat. He was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. Not the most comfortable or inconspicuous outfit. They hadn’t considered how long the trip might take, how long he’d be exposed to the sun.

“Do you know if my dad plans to end up in Miami?”

Mario tossed his head in a halfhearted glance. “It’s too soon to tell. But I don’t doubt it.” He refrained from explaining himself.

The sound of the engine crescendoed as the driver—a squat, muscular man—sank his foot on the accelerator. Though Mario hadn’t introduced him, Serguey assumed he was the famous cousin. He had a military haircut and pockmarked face. He was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeve workout T-shirt, which in this sultry weather seemed odd to Serguey.

The man took a longer route, past San Antonio de los Baños and Guanajay, on the way to Marhondo. Serguey suspected it was to avoid getting close to the city. Outside the car, there was nothing but the billowing silhouettes of trees and the occasional cluster of homes when they traversed a town. A vigorous breeze blew endlessly against the vehicle, whistling as it entered through the windows. There were no romantic views of Havana, no recognizable neighborhoods to educe a symbolic, maudlin goodbye. With each fleeting minute, the darkness became unsettlingly repetitious. The city was farther and farther away. Without budging from his position, Serguey inquired about the exact place they were going, making him sound, he knew, apprehensive and distrustful.

Mario’s cousin, in a matter-of-fact voice that tempered his palpable arrogance, described the roads he’d be taking. He took pride in showing how familiar he was with the area, in the niftiness of his strategy. He had picked a location not as concealed as others but was less patrolled. It was unquestionable from his accent that he’d grown up in Pinar del Rio, but his familiarity with Marhondo hinted that he could be from there. Regardless, his haughtiness worked in Serguey’s favor. Had the directions been difficult or unclear, he would’ve had to confess to the Alida swap sooner than he intended. He let a handful of seconds pass, then turned on his phone and texted Kiko.

“What are you doing?” Mario’s cousin said, glaring at Serguey’s reflection on the rearview mirror.

He instinctively jammed the phone between him and the door. “I was texting my wife.”

“Your phone should be off.”

“Can’t a guy say goodbye?” Victor said.

“How do I know he’s not texting the police?”

Victor grabbed the driver’s headrest and leveraged himself forward. “Call my brother a snitch again and see what happens.”

“It’s all right.” Mario gripped his cousin’s shoulder, and Victor retreated. “Serguey, just make it quick.”

Serguey lifted his phone, the text already sent, so they could see the screen going dark.

As they ascended the incline into Marhondo, Mario perked up his head and stared beyond the windshield. The streetlamps were far apart, a rate of one per block by Serguey’s estimate. A few minutes ticked by, and they took a winding road away from the town’s center toward what Serguey surmised was the water. The sidewalks disappeared, as they did in Mantilla, dark grass now leading into every tin-roofed home. Occasionally, a line of clothes floundered in the drying wind with eerie, non-human movements under the nearest streetlight.

“Is that all you’re bringing with you?” Mario asked the brothers.

They looked between their own feet and studied the bags.

“This is all we got,” Victor said.

“I apologize for the obvious questions.” Mario wiggled lazily in his seat. “I’m a bit nervous. I’m not used to doing this kind of thing.”

The driver said loudly, “The guys who’re coming have been doing this for a while.” He checked the rearview mirror on his door and shifted the wheel ever so slightly.

“So, are you the cousin?” Victor said.

“You could say that.”

Serguey observed the man’s hands, his knuckles coated in calluses, as they rattled along with the car. “You’re going with us?” he asked.

“No.” The man narrowed his eyes, puzzled by the question. “Otherwise someone else would be driving.”

“You can give him Antonio and Julia’s stuff,” Victor whispered to Serguey, and he nodded coolly.

Everyone was quiet as Mario’s cousin veered into a series of off-road trails, wide enough for a single vehicle or tractor. His maneuvering seemed to match the directions he’d spewed earlier, but Serguey couldn’t be sure. He prayed that Kiko was close enough to meet them at a moment’s call. Directions of unmarked streets were always ambiguous, especially when followed in the dead of night. They bounced their way into the middle of a thicket whose surroundings looked like gnarled mangroves. To their right, there was a parked car. It was difficult to discern, but Serguey thought it was a 1950s Chevy.

Mario’s cousin shut off the engine and headlights.

“Who the fuck is that?” he said, reaching under his seat. Serguey could make out a machete’s handle.

Mario jerked his head. “No one else’s supposed to be here.”

“Should I peel back?” the cousin said. He cut his eyes at the brothers. “Did these motherfuckers set us up?”

“It’s Kiko.” Serguey reached for the door and swung it open. “He’s a friend.”

“Kiko?” Victor said, exiting on his side. “What the fuck is he doing here?”

Kiko emerged from the Chevy. Alida did the same from the passenger side. Serguey walked over and embraced him, then his sister-in-law.

“How’s Anabel?” he asked her.

Alida had on a sweater. She tunneled her hands inside the opposite sleeves, forming a straitjacket. “She’s worried about me, but she trusts you’re coming home.”

“Are you holding up okay?”

She leapt briefly on her toes. “I’m ready.”

He smiled. He could tell she meant it. “Get your things.”

Doors slammed behind him. Footsteps were moving closer.

“Serguey,” Mario said, “the arrangement was for you and your brother. We can’t bring any more people unless we pay extra. And even then—”

“I’m not going.” Serguey pointed at Alida. “She is.”

“Oh, dear,” Mario murmured. He hadn’t recognized her.

“This is really fucked up,” Mario’s cousin said. He folded his arms like a bodyguard watching a door, waiting for someone to address him. The machete dangled from his belt.

“It’s fine,” Serguey said, moving toward Victor. His brother was staring at Kiko’s car, his features warped into a scowl.

“I can’t be responsible for someone other than you two,” Mario said to Serguey. “Does her family even know she’s here?”

“They do,” Alida said, stretching her neck from the opposite end of the vehicle, where she’d been retrieving her belongings.

“Really fucked up,” Mario’s cousin repeated.

Mario clutched Serguey’s shirt just below the shoulder. “This is going to complicate things. Felipe—”

Serguey clasped Mario’s wrist and brought his mouth centimeters from the dramaturge’s ear. “You owe us. You wanted to be a man of action? Here’s your chance. You’re taking her.”

The cousin sidled behind Mario, giving Serguey what in the gritty darkness became a hostile gaze. Mario stepped back and bumped into his cousin. Regaining his stability, he cleared his throat and showed his hands in surrender. “You’re right,” he said ruefully. “I’m sorry.” He turned to his cousin. “Can we do the switch?”

The cousin held off as long as he could. He did a panoramic scan of the clearing. Then he nodded. “The boat guys only know the head count.”

Mario hastened around the front of the Chevy and gave Alida a kiss. He seemed out of breath for an instant. “You’re doing the right thing,” he told her. He retraced his steps while holding hands with her; this, in Serguey’s view, was a convincing gesture of commitment.

Alida was wearing a backpack and carrying a medium-sized plastic bag, the handles looped tightly on her left wrist.

“Is that all?” Serguey asked her.

She slid her thumb under the strap of her backpack. “Yes.”

“Where do we have to wait?” Serguey asked Mario’s cousin.

The man poked his head away from the group. “It’s about three hundred meters.”

A gust of wind swept over the thicket. It stirred the hair on Serguey’s arms and neck. His nostrils caught the scent of the sea, as if they’d been standing on a cliff and were just now taking note. Above them, the sky was florescent, an eruption of stars.

“Lead the way,” he said to the cousin.

“Is this a joke?” Victor said. He looked at Kiko, mumbling something ineligible.

Serguey stood in front of his brother. “You have to go.”

“Fucking traitor,” Victor said slowly, painfully.

Serguey’s throat tightened. He could sense tears bubbling in his eyes. “This isn’t about me and you,” he said. “I can’t leave Anabel, and you have to respect that.”

His brother’s heartbroken voice sounded shrill in Serguey’s ears. “You set me up.”

Serguey thought of them standing outside Raidel’s car, Victor tugging at his arm. “You wouldn’t have come otherwise.” He tapped his index and middle fingers on Victor’s chest, as Larido had done to the frog-faced man years ago. “This can’t all have been for nothing.”

Victor sighed deeply, silently, curving his head to one side and looking at the grass-spotted ground.

Serguey seized the opportunity—a crack of serenity in Victor’s demeanor—and walked toward Kiko. “I’ll be back soon,” he whispered. “Say goodbye to my brother.”

Kiko took Serguey’s place. “Hey.” He was asking Victor to raise his head. “This isn’t easy for anybody.”

“There’s no time for second-guessing,” Mario urged.

Victor gave himself a moment before hugging Kiko. His voice was muddled with harrowing acquiescence: “Goddamn it.”

Kiko returned to the Chevy, coughing away his own tears.

Alida let go of Mario’s hand and took Victor’s. Serguey smiled gratefully at her.

Mario’s cousin was plucking a military style canvas bag and a long rope from the trunk of his car. He informed the group that they needed to form a line, tied by the rope, since they couldn’t use a flashlight.

“Can’t risk being seen by the coastguard,” he said.

Once they were all fastened, they filed into the mangroves. The tugging of the rope and sopping terrain made it a strenuous journey. Entangled, serrated branches barraged their bodies with the implacability so typical of nature. Whenever someone groaned or whined, Mario’s cousin shushed them. After the first hundred meters, they understood they had to suck it up and get through it. Soon they could hear the sea gulping and swooshing, but in the impenetrable darkness, it was impossible to determine how close they were. The land beneath their feet became completely solid. Mario’s cousin ordered them to untie themselves and remain quiet in a crouched position. They laid the rope on the ground and waited like a row of patient ducklings.

Twenty minutes later, Serguey’s legs were cramping, nearly numb. The salty scent of the ocean, whipped about by the surf, dried his mouth and made his nose burn. Fearing that he might at some point have to sit, he kept shifting his weight from one half of his body to the other, often matching the rhythmic music of the waves.

Out of nowhere, Mario whispered, “These mosquitoes are killing me.”

His cousin muttered, “Florida’s full of mosquitoes too.”

Serguey could hear Victor scoffing behind him, his anger and disappointment fermenting again.

Finally, his brother said, “You should’ve trusted me to know from the beginning.”

Serguey refused to acknowledge him. He wanted to dodge conversation, any chance that either of them might waver. But a refusal to speak had been their undoing, and how safe or perilous a trip lay ahead for his brother, he could only guess. “I should have,” he said as a form of apology.

Victor allowed a breeze to graze the compact ground beneath their stooped bodies before saying, “I still think Toya was talking about me.”

Serguey smiled, relieved at his brother’s acceptance. He was spared a reply when a dinghy abruptly materialized—as if out of a fog—and glided sideways toward the shore. He’d pictured a yacht of some kind, though, in hindsight, it didn’t make sense for such a large vessel to pick up only three people.

“When I say go, you go,” Mario’s cousin said. He tiptoed over the rocks in anticipation of the boat.

Serguey felt a gentle pull from behind. He recognized the touch, from his balcony, from the night Alida had confessed she wanted to leave. When he didn’t react, her hands bypassed his shoulder and yanked his chin. She kissed him briefly on the lips, then breathed the words into his eyes: “Take care of my sister.”

“I will,” he said.

“Let’s go!” Mario’s cousin said. He grabbed Mario’s canvas bag and hurled it onto the boat. Mario hopped clumsily over the gunwale. The man who’d been piloting the dinghy, his features shadowed like an apparition, steadied him as he landed. Alida went next, not needing assistance.

“I won’t forgive you for this,” Victor said, his tone, the endearing glimmer in his eyes, his faint smile all signifying the contrary. He threw his arms around Serguey.

As soon as Victor released him, Serguey clamped his brother’s collarbone. It was solid as a steel rod. “You take care of Alida.”

“I take care of her, and you get the kiss.”

“Hurry it up,” Mario’s cousin said.

Victor offered Serguey the keys to their father’s house. Serguey took them, clinging to Victor’s fingers. There was sturdiness in the tips of his brother’s hand, in their hands being joined together—a complementing vigor he now was petrified of losing. Victor let go, and Serguey clamped the keys, stabbing himself with the toothed metal to keep from shaking. Victor walked away, slinging his bag on board. As he stepped in, the boat sank momentarily and took on water. Neither the cousin nor the shadowed man seemed perturbed. Victor stood next to Alida, looking back at Serguey. Mario’s cousin pushed off with his right foot, and the man on the dinghy took hold of the oars. Serguey watched as Victor, Alida, and Mario lowered themselves. The man steered the boat out of what Serguey could now see was an inlet, a semi-circular stage under the stars. Eventually the figures all disappeared into a dark mass where the sea, vegetation, and sky seamlessly blended in the distance.

Serguey immediately regretted not being able to distinctly see his brother’s expression or Alida’s. He’d have no memory of it, no image to return to, no picture to paint Anabel. The entire ordeal felt rushed. Now he had the rest of his life for everything to slow down.

Mario’s cousin spooled the rope with his hand and elbow, leaving enough for him and Serguey to enclose their waists. As they began the trek back to the cars, Serguey was vexed that he hadn’t double-checked if Victor’s money hadn’t slipped out of his pants. Small things like that could make a difference. He thought again about the size of the dinghy. He didn’t recall seeing a motor.

“That’s a small boat,” he said. “How far are they going?”

Mario’s cousin slashed away with his machete, clearing a path. “The bigger boat will meet them at an outer island. It’s too noisy to come all the way in here.”

“How big is it?”

“Medium-sized, but the motor’s strong. They’ll be in the Keys before noon.”

The rope was pulling Serguey along—short, vehement tugs—as the cousin assailed the boughs and shrubs. “What if something breaks down?”

“They got food and water. They’ve made a lot of trips.”

“Are they friends of yours?”

The cousin stopped momentarily, the rope slack between them. The blade of his machete glinted above his head as he appeared to wipe sweat from his brow. “Better they go like this than with ten or fifteen people,” he said earnestly. “Anyway, it’s harder for the coastguard to notice a dinghy.”

Serguey had no idea if any of it was true, but he chose to trust the man for his own peace of mind.

By the time they exited the mangroves, Serguey could feel a stinging, prickling sensation in various parts of his body. He was sure he was bleeding somewhere. Mario’s cousin unhooked the rope and placed it back in the trunk. He looked at Serguey and Kiko inquisitively, but they had nothing to say. Seconds later, he drove away, sticking his hand out the window as a farewell gesture.

“Was that Mario’s cousin?” Kiko asked.

Serguey swabbed the sweat from his forehead. “You could say that.”