Stalked: The Boy Who Said No

by Patti Sheehy

  “Of course, I wonder how they’re doing, how they’re faring under Fidel.” Frank hesitated a moment. “I got a letter from my mother yesterday.”

  “And you didn’t show it to me?”

  “I needed some time before I talked about it.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “The communists tore down Abuelo’s house and sent him to an old-age home. My mother said he’s devastated.”

  Magda shook her head in consternation. “Your grandfather is perfectly healthy and able to care for himself. Why would they do such a thing?”

  “It may be in retaliation for my escape. That’s the kind of thing those bastards do. I can’t be sure, but I feel terrible. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head all day.”

  Magda covered her mouth with her hand. “That’s terrible. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it?”

  “Of course not. You know that.”

  The couple sat in silence for a while. Magda looked at Frank. “What else can’t you get out of your head?”

  “I worry about Manny and Lazo. Last night I had a nightmare about something happening to them. I can’t bring it to mind, but I know it was bad. They stuck their necks out for me. I owe them, really owe them.”

  “I know. You always say that.”

  “Because it’s true. I wouldn’t be here without them. In fact, I wouldn’t be here without a lot of people.”

  Magda brightened. “But you are here,” she said, reaching for Frank. Frank took his wife in his arms and kissed her on the lips, lightly at first and then more eagerly. His melancholy lifted, and he suddenly felt lightheaded with anticipation.

  Magda opened her mouth to accept his tongue, responding with a passion that matched his own. He ran his fingers through her hair, feeling its texture, its silkiness. He laid her on her back and covered her body with his, reveling in her curves and the sweetness of her skin.

  He thought about all the times he had longed just to touch Magda’s hand. She was his first love, his only love. She always seemed so beautiful, so unattainable, at least to him. He remembered walking past her parents’ house on a spring evening, hoping she would be outside on her balcony and honor him with a wave. That was before Fidel interrupted their lives. Before the army. Before his escape.

  For as long as Frank could remember, he had carried Magda’s face in his mind’s eye, heard her voice in his dreams. He still couldn’t believe it when he found her in the same room with him. Her mere presence lifted his spirits. And here she was, laughing and talking with him in bed.

  “Just a minute,” said Magda. She sat up briefly, worked her slip over her head, and unhooked her bra. Her breasts stood out straight from her chest, her nipples the color of wine. The sight of them made Frank drunk with desire. “If only the nuns could see me now,” she said, and laughed merrily.

  Frank reached for Magda, took her in his arms, and laid her gently down on the sheets. He held her breasts in his hands and moved his mouth to her nipples as she wrapped her slim legs around him. He kissed her neck, her shoulders, and the hollow between her breasts. Heat suffused his body, and he felt himself stiffen. He made love to her gently, patiently, waiting for her to want him as much as he wanted her. Magda made a muffled cry as Frank entered her, slowly, carefully, watching her expression to make sure he wasn’t hurting her. She moved beneath him, her breathing becoming more labored. She grabbed his back, pulling him toward her, holding his buttocks, taking him deeper inside her. Finally, she shuddered and called out Frank’s name. Then they made love again. They were insatiable. It was hours before they fell off to sleep.

  When the early morning sun danced on his eyelids, Frank rose on his elbows and studied Magda asleep next to him. Her hair was strewn about the pillow like cherry blossoms. He couldn’t help himself. He reached over and touched her forehead, running his forefinger along the ridge of her eyebrows, stroking her cheeks with the back of his hand.

  He looked down at her hands and saw the trinket ring he had given her when they first declared their love for each other. She was fourteen at the time. He told her then that it was a token of his love, but that he would buy her a real diamond someday. He hadn’t been able to afford one yet. Someday, perhaps.

  Magda murmured incoherently, sighed softly, and turned over. She pulled her knees to her chest and nestled her head deeper into the pillow. Frank pulled the sheet up to cover her back, draped his arm around her waist, and nuzzled her neck. How could her skin be this soft, this smooth? Impossible! He listened to the rhythm of Magda’s breathing, and thought how lucky he was to have such a wonderful woman in his life.

  Frank worried whether he’d ever speak English well enough to find a good job, to succeed. He knew the best time to learn a language is when you are a child, and he’d have to work extra hard to learn English at his age. But he was determined to do it. Between Magda and Marcos he was starting to get the hang of English vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, but he had much work to do before he was fluent.

  Frank thought about his inadequacies and the skeleton of fear that had shaped his world since he arrived in America. He was always looking over his shoulder, startled at the slightest noise, afraid that someone was after him, or worse, after his beloved. His nightmares were frequent and frightening.

  Magda said it would take time for his nerves to settle down after his escape, and he wanted to believe her. But the men standing outside on the street corners reminded him that tyranny takes many forms. The last thing he wanted was for Magda to be stalked by the kind of fear he had come to know.

  Some women were too beautiful, too sweet, too trusting for their own good. Magda was one of them. He wanted to protect her. She had led a sheltered life, but at least she was smart. Very smart. That would help.

  Frank glanced at the nightstand and saw a paper sitting near the lamp. He picked it up and squinted, adjusting his eyes so he could read the words in the dim light. It was a poem, written by Magda, scribbled in Spanish, words smudged, erased, crossed out, circled with arrows to be inserted here, there. It spoke of love, of Frank.

  Suddenly, he thought of his mother, her gestures, her hands, soft and brown, as she removed a dessert from the oven, drew a needle through a button, tucked him into bed. He remembered being a child and her washing soapsuds from his hair and teaching him how to tie his shoes one loop at a time.

  He tried to conjure up her face, but it was like a dream he couldn’t hold onto. But he could still hear her voice telling him to be brave, to be strong. He thought of Cuba, of the waves crashing like shattered glass along the Malecón, of bright butterflies riding the wind like horses galloping the plains.

  Suddenly a song by Up with People ran through his head. Some- one had recently sung it at the factory.

  Freedom isn’t free!

  Freedom isn’t free!

  You’ve gotta pay a price

  You’ve gotta sacrifice

  For your liberty.

  He was free, and he was so grateful to be in America, in a land where he could make his way, pursue his dreams, and speak his truth without the threat of torture or death. But he had paid a price. Everything has a price.

  But Frank didn’t want the price to include Magda being robbed or mugged—or worse. He comforted himself with the thought that Abuelo once said that life’s troubles seldom turn out to be the ones you worry about.

  Frank wondered what life was like for Abuelo in the old-age home. Did he know people there? Had he made friends? Did he play dominoes? Frank couldn’t imagine his grandfather without his boat and his fishing pole.

  Frank missed his family. And he knew they missed him. He leaned back on his pillow, looked up at the ceiling, and allowed his tears to muffle his memories.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Pino arrived in the Soviet Union, grateful to First Lieutenant Torres for the opportunity to rebuild his career. He was in Russia to pursue the equivalent of a master’s degree in one of the Motherland’s finest military academies. This w
as a chance of a lifetime, and Pino was determined to make the most of it. But it was not easy.

  Born and raised in Cuba, Pino found the Russian winters to be long, dreary, and gray as mud. Beginning in October, ferocious winds funneled down Russian streets as steady and relentless as an army on the march. The winter brought snow that swirled in blinding sheets, hugging the trunks of trees before obscuring windows and doors.

  Freezing rain slicked the lieutenant’s thick hair and frosted his eyebrows with tiny icicles. Ice crunched beneath his boots and his feet rebelled with toenails as brittle as bone. Pino’s hands, ears, and lips became permanently chapped, and he was constantly scraping dead skin from his lips, heels, and hands.

  Although brilliant, Pino found his studies to be tedious. He excelled at math and science but struggled to learn Russian. The language sounded harsh to his ears, and the Cyrillic alphabet was strange and unfamiliar. Although the academy offered classes for Spanish-speaking students in their native tongue, the professors’ accents were often thick and incomprehensible. Still, Pino was determined to finish at the top of his class.

  In addition to his rigorous physical training, Pino tackled a wide range of subjects, including history, philosophy, psychology, and political science. He enjoyed reading the writings of Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky, but he preferred classes in military leadership, strategy, and tactics. He improved his parachute jumping and survival tactics. He excelled at the use of explosives and gained further expertise in the demolition of bridges, factories, oil refineries, and utility companies.

  He was schooled in Soviet weapons, their nature, use, and deployment. He became skilled in the assembly and disassembly of firearms— rifles, pistols, and machine guns, including AK-47s. He memorized the location and purpose of strategic Soviet and American bases around the world and knew their strengths and vulnerabilities.

  Having learned his lessons in the cane fields, Pino worked diligently to bond with the other soldiers. He expressed an interest in their families and friends and helped them with their studies. He did favors for his fellow officers, knowing the contacts he made in Russia would serve him well when he returned to Cuba.

  But it was not all work. While in the Soviet Union, Pino broadened his horizons in a number of ways. A former scotch drinker, he developed a taste for vodka and drank it with relish and near abandon with his comrades. He dined on bowls of borscht and lobio, a thick red bean soup, which he enjoyed with hearty peasant bread. He even ate some Ukrainian delicacies, including homemade sausages and black bread with salo, a dish made from salt-cured pig fat. He attended the ballet, gained an ear for poetry, learned to play chess, and improved his backgammon game.

  Due to his excellent performance, Pino was among a group of select soldiers who were treated to a trip to Leningrad. The city was constructed on what was originally more than one hundred islands formed by small bodies of water that flow into the Baltic Sea. Gazing at the map, Pino wondered how much Leningrad resembled Venice or Amsterdam, cities he hoped to visit one day.

  The entourage arrived during the “White Nights,” the eighty evenings when the sun barely sets on this grand city. Full of wonder and enthusiasm, Pino traveled by riverboat toward the former winter palace of the czars, the Hermitage.

  Pino and his comrades gazed at the art museum that contained priceless treasures. Their minders explained how Catherine the Great had begun to acquire the collection and had chosen to spend her private time in the shadow of her beloved paintings and sculptures. Pino was dazzled by the palace’s scale and splendor.

  He then boarded a barge that wended its way down the Neva River to Zayachy Island where he toured the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. The building was turned into a museum in 1924 and contained the remains of almost all the Russian emperors and empresses, including Peter the Great.

  Looking up at the breathtaking bell tower reminded Pino of pictures he’d seen of the destruction of the gold-domed Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The largest Orthodox cathedral in the world had been demolished to make way for the Palace of the Soviets, which was never completed. In 1958 Nikita Khrushchev turned the gaping hole into the world’s largest outdoor swimming pool.

  On the afternoon of January 22, 1969, Pino stood with a group of soldiers outside the Borovitsky Gate at the Kremlin. They were awaiting a special motorcade bearing the cosmonauts of the Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 who had recently completed their successful space mission.

  The heroes were to be honored at a ceremony inside the Kremlin’s Palace of Congresses. They rode in an open-air limousine, waving to the crowds. Suddenly, several shots rang out. Pino ducked and covered his head. All hell broke loose with security officers scrambling to do their jobs. The KGB soon whisked away a young man disguised in a police uniform.

  The would-be assassin had assumed the limo carried General Secretary of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev. It did not. The Soviet leader was traveling in a different car and escaped unharmed. The ceremony continued as planned, but it made Pino think of Mederos. It left him feeling even more convinced that worms who oppose the government should be wiped from the face of the earth.

  Torres had told Pino that if he worked hard he could earn a promotion upon graduation. Pino did everything in his power to make that happen.

  On a fine day in May, Pino learned that his disciplined study, his extraordinary dedication, and his keen intellect had served him well. Torres informed him that he was one of only ten graduates of the academy to be awarded the rank of captain. For a brief moment, Pino’s heart felt as light as helium. He accepted the news with smug satisfaction and an internal smile.

  Captain Pino stood at his graduation ceremony, thinking of the might of the Soviet Union, proud to have his diploma of this great nation in hand, and even prouder that his five years in Russia had proved so productive. He was rehabilitated. He had acquired a plethora of new skills and a host of powerful friends. More importantly, he had a gleaming medal on his chest that announced his rank. He was happy. His hand drifted upward to caress the scar on his jaw. His time in the cane fields had been worth it.

  Now he had important work to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Thanks to Marcos’s tutoring, Frank received his GED a year after he arrived in the States. Frank and Magda started taking courses at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City. Frank took some business courses while Magda pursued a degree in computer science.

  Frank had left his job in Clifton and had been hired by R. G. Thomas Corporation in Palisades Park. He made aluminum shells for bombs used in the Vietnam War.

  Magda had landed a job at Merrill Lynch in New York City. She commuted to the city and was making a good salary. By Cuban standards, it was a small fortune. She had been promoted and was overseeing an exciting new project. Her goal was to become one of the few women computer scientists on the East Coast.

  On a Friday night in mid-September, a night when Frank and Magda usually dined out, Magda called Frank at work. She didn’t sound like herself. She told her husband that she wanted to eat at home. She said she had something important to tell him. Frank wondered whether she had received a promotion. Puzzled, he hurried home.

  When Frank walked in the door, the house was clean, the table was set with flowers and candles, and Magda was in the kitchen cooking Frank’s favorite meal—roast pork, mashed potatoes, and salad. A bottle of red wine sat uncorked on the table.

  After kissing his wife, Frank showered and changed his clothes for dinner. Magda lit the candles as he came to the table. She wore a black skirt and a white silk blouse. A strand of pearls circled her neck. Candlelight danced off her hair.

  Frank settled himself in his chair and looked across the table at Magda. She had a coy look on her face.

  “What’s up?” asked Frank. He glanced at the table. “This looks lovely. It must mean good news.”

  Magda smiled. She had never looked so happy. “I just got a call from Dr. Alexander.”

  “And
?”

  “And you are going to be a father.”

  Frank sat back in his chair and dropped his napkin on the table. His face lit like a grassfire. He whistled his joy. “Really? You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Frank got up from his chair, beaming. This was totally unexpected news. He was filled with a sense of pride and wonder. He and Magda were going to have a child, and their baby would be born in America—free from the treachery of Fidel. This was the icing on the cake, the fulfillment of Frank’s dreams.

  “We’re having a baby, our baby—an American citizen,” he said. “Can you believe it?”

  Magda laughed. They stood and hugged. Frank’s thoughts turned to his mother, father, and grandfather. This would be his parents’ first grandchild and Abuelo’s first great-grandchild. He imagined how thrilled they’d be when he telegrammed them the news.

  Frank remembered when his mother was pregnant with his siblings. By the seventh month of her pregnancies, her belly was so big she couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep. She suffered from swollen ankles, heartburn, and back pain. Suddenly, Frank felt very protective of Magda.

  “Do you feel okay?”

  Magda laughed. “I feel fine.”

  “So what do we do now? Did you tell anybody? Does anybody else know?”

  “No, you are the first.”

  “Wait till your parents find out!”

  Magda giggled and held her hands over her stomach. “I know.”

  “Have you thought of names?”

  “I have.”

  “So?”

  “I was thinking of calling the baby Frank, if it’s a boy.”

  “And if it’s a little girl?”

  “If it’s a girl, I’d like to call her Darlene.”

  “Then Darlene it is.”

  “It’s okay with you?”

  “Whatever you want is okay with me. I’m just so happy we’re going to have a child.”

  “Would you rather have a boy or a girl?”