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RAMÓN HAD BEEN at the Montero House for a while. In fact, he had been the first to arrive. He waited for the others and sipped from a bottle of clear, homemade liquor he had confiscated from a worker at the tannery. He rubbed the stubble on his chin with satisfaction, as it was a sign that he had gotten up long before dawn to secure his neighborhood. He had worked hard that day as an important member of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. He had attended two meetings, one at the community center, the other at a grade school, where his voice rang out in confident tones as he handed out mandatory assignments. His compañeros listened to him with what he took to be a respectful silence. None dared to contradict his ideas. Everyone knew at least one person who had unfortunate dealings with the authorities after a run-in with Ramón. Now they were beginning to whisper about his brother’s death.
Without robust debate, the meetings broke up more quickly than others held in the province. Soon he would be honored by the authorities for his efficiency and the general orderliness of his watch area. After the meetings, he arrived at the tannery with an uncustomary air of command. It dissipated as soon as he stepped out of the bright sun and into the rank darkness of the main room. He found fewer than half of his men at work. The others would claim defense assignments, as sure as bullets shot into the sky fall to earth.
A peak of tangled hides rose from the lime bath. His brother’s replacement ignored it as he lay on the catwalk and read a newspaper. Soon after beginning this job, he had discovered his manager wouldn’t venture out onto this particular catwalk. Taking advantage of Ramón’s reluctance, the oaf camped out there, working when he felt like it and feigning deafness when Ramón yelled at him from the safety of the floor. Let him rot, Ramón thought. Although the loafer had been assigned to the factory as a reward for his hard work during the last sugarcane harvest, his position was not assured. Ramón could contrive a way to send him to the swamp around Playa Girón, where the Americans had made a mess of their earlier invasion. The thought cheered him. He slipped off to his office and closed the door. The bottle of clear liquid and a bag of mints waited for him there. He left the factory before quitting time, at an hour that he sometimes had left to pick up his girls at school. No such errand detained him that day, and so he drove directly over to the Montero House to wait.
Just as he was closing the gate behind his car, Diego drove up with a tap on his horn. Ramón swung the gate wide to admit Diego’s truck. After parking in the side yard, the men settled in the courtyard with plantain chips and drinks while Lola kept her own company in the kitchen. She was not particularly welcomed outside.
A man with a bullhorn rode by with a nonstop line of patter. His amplified voice crested the house and fell on the gathering in the courtyard. “Stay inside if not on duty. Don’t open the door to strangers. The enemy comes in many guises.”
Ramón listened intently and nodded as the patter repeated. “That was my idea.”
“It’s a stupid one.” Diego snapped the last fried plantain strip in two and shoved both pieces into his mouth.
José leaned his elbows on the cast-iron table. “I don’t think so. Some of the worms that landed at the Playa Girón had been my friends.”
“Not that part,” Diego said. “I mean the part about not letting in strangers.”
He leaned back. The sapote tree rustled with the evening breeze as Lola came out to check on the snacks. The tree towering over the front of the house shook and dropped a mango on the roof. It thumped, rolled off, and splattered on the pavement of the courtyard. Lola went over to clean it up. Diego watched with crossed arms.
“Look here,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, the devil is locked inside here with us.”
Mango juice dripped from Lola’s hands. She dumped the pulpy mess into the snack bowl. “Look, mister big-shot mechanic . . .”
“Woman, enough!” José’s voice rumbled. Lola rounded on him as if to land a verbal or physical blow, but she stopped herself. Plenty of time for arguing later. When she went back inside without a word, José’s chest expanded.
