by Chris Leibig
•••
DECEMBER 19, 1958
I saw Fidel today. He stood in a group of captains at the end of a gravel road that ran next to a wealthy sympathizer’s farm. The others argued, passion bristling through their gestures and wide eyes. By contrast, Fidel stood still. His bearing suggested if anything, an earnest (or amused?) annoyance at the conversation, as one might feel about an important but mundane topic, such as the cost of a roof repair. Fidel Castro’s aura simply shined. Fidel gazed past the huddled group of captains, straining to see his fighters milling about as darkness fell. I hustled across his view as if upon an important task, not able to resist testing him. Certainly what Che so easily missed, this man would see. But Fidel’s manner did not shift as the strategy session continued. Hours later, I heard Fidel had left camp. It will be Che’s column that will march towards Santa Clara and Che’s column that will secure the final victory before the march to Havana. When, so the story goes, Fidel will supplant Batista, and the people will rule Cuba at last.
Moments ago, I sat outside my tent. The camp was devoid of human noise, but in that very silence, the symphony of crickets and frogs made it difficult to hear Fidel approach. Oddest of all was that I did not even sense him. Suddenly, he stood above me, relaxed, that same annoyed look on his face. But now, aside from annoyance, I saw something else. Puzzlement. Suspicion, even. His hooded eyes sized me up.
“Where are you from, young one?”
“From Bariloche, Argentina, Comandante.” I looked down, purposefully shy. One did not, I knew, rise to this man. Not at my age, maybe not at any age.
“One of Che’s recruits then?”
“No, Comandante. My brother and I were recruited by a man named Di Giorgio, a Comandante Guevara recruit to be sure.”
Fidel slit his eyes a bit more. He saw! I knew it. But what a human sees, he cannot believe.
“Since when do children travel to Cuba alone, only to fight a war for others? And peasants at that? Che’s recruits are always the fancy ones, the professors and the lawyers. Why are you here? What are you doing with us? Tell me quickly!”
Fidel leaned forward, his eyes ripping into mine, and then relaxed once again. What a person. His expressive aura would have intimidated the meanest crime boss in Buenos Aires.
“My brother and I ran from the law. I killed someone in Buenos Aires. We’re poor. We have nothing. We’re two people the world has tossed away like trash. Where, Comandante, would you suggest we belong, if not with you?”
Fidel burst into a rich laugh and pulled out a cigar. I smelled whiskey, a scent which, coming from Fidel, conjured strength, trust, and protection as strongly as Miguel’s booze-filled panting had stood for fear and hate.
Fidel stood. “You don’t lie. But there’s something not quite right about you and that funny brother of yours.” Fidel winked. A wink that said I know how it is, comrade. And now I saw that Fidel’s standard facial expression, which I previously read as annoyance, was more like loneliness. An amused loneliness, perhaps, like one who found it oddly funny that he was being screwed over and may as well play the advantages he has. A man like Fidel is always alone.
Fidel dragged hard on his cigar, raised his eyes to the stars for just a moment, and then disappeared into the darkness, like the way I imagine a stage actor fades away without moving under dimming lights.
Camp lore has informed me that while Che is a doctor, Fidel is a lawyer. A soldier and a lawyer at once? Or do the roles match? Maybe Fidel could lend some meaning to God’s allegedly trustworthy rules and statutes or let me know how I could go about enforcing them. Fidel seeks equality for the people of this island, but what of my equality in the eyes of God with the others born on Earth?
Something not quite right about you! If Fidel only knew what a quote for the ages that was. He makes me feel I deserve to be alive. He cannot understand it, but he sees me. A cousin maybe, Van Zyl would say. Being around such people makes all the difference.
•••
DECEMBER 29, 1958
An epic day! We were nearing the end of our march to Santa Clara for the battle, which Che believed would be the final one in the war against Batista’s army. As always, Paul and I trudged near the end of Che’s column, which now numbered about three hundred men (and a dozen women). All we could see during much of the marching were the men before us, and the tall fields of sugar cane along our sides. This method of travel petrified our comrades of similar rank, as one’s imagination arrayed a battalion of tan coats hidden in the cane ready to mow us down at any moment.
I knew no tan coats hid in the cane. Indeed, I have come to understand that Batista’s army lacked not only the skill, but also the will to counter Fidel. We also knew that Che’s guerillas scout from inside the cane, ready to alert him to ambushes. In such a way, Che’s eyes and ears covered miles of our flanks. Today, though, Che suffered a lapse in his brilliance as a guerilla leader. First, I heard his voice, shrill, passionate, and proud, calling desperately from the front for the column to get down. Then the machine gun fire began.
As I had done during previous such (albeit false) alarms, instead of merely hitting the grass like the men all around us, I yanked Paul into the cane. Enveloped within its prickly protection, we knelt beside each other, gripping our rifles. I saw Che’s dilemma in my head, even though it was occurring football pitches away and out of human sight. Che and another soldier tore through the cane after a small group of tan coats. And then I was off, flattening a path through the cane, knife in hand, rifle cast away. I burst out of the thicket into a clearing to see five tan coats training their weapons on a kneeling Che’s back while a pock-faced captain held a pistol to the back of his head. Suddenly I was among them, and the captain’s head tore in half, his face flying away and flopping onto the ground at the feet of a horrified tan coat. None of them had long to be afraid. Not one of the tan coats presented a defense while I ravaged them, so shocked were they to see someone my age mowing through their comrades so quickly. After a combination of guttings, maulings, and even one near-decapitation, I placed my foot atop the body of the captain. I looked at Che. Still on his knees, he had turned, calmly watching the carnage as if it were nothing more than one of his communist propaganda films. It seemed he was in a trance brought on by an experience one sees but lacks the capacity to believe. I shrugged and strode purposefully back into the cane. When I reached the back of the column, Paul standing quietly with some other soldiers, waiting for me.
•••
Sam stood and paced the room. He held his phone in one hand, his drink in the other. He hit a number.
“Hello, Sam.” Camille sounded alert. Like someone picking up a prearranged phone call. Like maybe she knew he would be calling.
“How do you know Andrada was born in Spain?”
Camille hesitated. “I guess because he told me so.”
“I need you to get me a DNA swab.”
“From whom?” she said.
“You know who. By tomorrow, Camille. Make it happen.”
Camille breathed heavily. Her voice felt tired now. “Okay, boss.”
Sam refilled his glass and resumed reading.
DECEMBER 30, 1958
Today, Che, arm in a sling from the bullet wound that should have taken his life, led us into Santa Clara. We routed Batista’s remaining army, and by late evening Santa Clara was not a bloody battle zone, but a party. Men and women danced in the streets, and peasants surrounded us with crude signs proclaiming, Viva Fidel!
Two minutes before midnight I sat on a dirt pile, rifle by my side, just outside the main city square, watching the celebration. Women held babies in the air, and everyone danced in the streets. The revelry reminded me of one year ago, the day I killed Salome. I cried on the dirt pile for her and for the dancing peasants and city workers who believed their lives were about to improve. I also cried for Che, not because I care for his politics, but maybe because I know I have no business sharing in such things.
It
is time for Paul and me to go.
•••
JANUARY 1, 1959
Today—New Year’s Day, 1959—Paul and I made it to Havana with Che’s column. Batistas and his soldiers are gone. The war is over. From this day on, Paul and I are no longer revolutionaries, at least not of Che’s kind. A highly impaired Di Giorgio hugged the breath out of me. It was interesting to me how strongly he believes we will be together—happy revolutionaries in an illicit love affair, right? So strong is the power of human want and so weak the ability to gain its objects.
By late afternoon, Paul and I, transformed from revolutionaries to escaping young Batistists, watched from a dock outside Havana while Americans and a smattering of well-dressed Cubans scrambled to load boats with everything from fine china to furniture. (Furniture? So funny!) Every moment counted, or so they believed. It was as if Fidel and Che would come tearing out of the woods at any moment to take their fancy sofas.
I pried around for a Di Giorgio-type, someone both sexually drawn to me and willing to act upon it. I found one soon enough. Jacob Rubenstein is a nice enough man, no dumber than most. More importantly, he has a boat. He and his captain loaded it with two huge, metal safes and cartons of random junk, which I learned were the expensive trappings from a casino.
Jacob is a soft man who smokes cigars. He has nice eyes and a simple thought pattern. His mind concerns itself primarily with the trifling financial profits one can earn by engaging in little scams and gambits. So much time on math, he bothers with little else. His old, white boat travels fast and has a cabin with plenty of space for Jacob, his captain, Paul, and myself.
At the beginning of our voyage, Paul stayed above with the captain while Jacob took me from behind as we stood in front of the mirror in the cabin’s bathroom. His rough-skinned hands were nevertheless gentle, and I actually stayed present for the speedy encounter.
•••
JANUARY 9, 1959
Today I watched Fidel on TV riding his donkey into Havana. Fidel is just a man, not a kindred spirit, yet he sees far and wide—a skill that has begun to strengthen in him upon his short interaction with me. As his donkey lurched slowly to and fro through the adoring crowd, Fidel wore the same facial expression I had noticed when I met him. Then he saw me in his mind. A fleeting look of puzzlement crossed his face. He was confused because I was not cheering from the Havana Street but watching him from a Miami restaurant. He wasn’t sure why the kid from Bariloche would not leave his head.
CHAPTER 18
SAM AND HIS COLLEGE friends strongly believed one could drink oneself sober. Somehow, especially several days into a streak of binge partying, the sloppy feeling of inebriation that kicked in after polishing off a twelve pack would transform into a clear-headed, sentimentally melancholy plateau. One more beer just did not matter. Ten more didn’t matter.
But that was then.
•••
Sam stood on his fire escape, filling his lungs with the early morning air. He had read the entire journal twice before delving into an all-night Internet research session spurred on by not one, not two, but three bottles of wine. The mystery man had a basic knowledge of the Cuban Revolution, but nothing a high school kid couldn’t learn online in three or four hours. The key was the personalities. Their guy was trying to convey a distinction between Che, the human side of some kind of cosmic equation, and Fidel, possibly the divine side. Or maybe the evil side? In all his grandiosity, the mystery man identified with Fidel and almost paternalistically pitied Che.
Fidel is to Che as what is to what? As the mystery man is to his victims?
Sam remembered something about a historical conspiracy theory. About Fidel having orchestrated Che’s murder in Bolivia, betraying him somehow. But this theory was roundly considered bogus, and if the mystery man believed that theory, he showed no sign of it, despite his professed ability to read Fidel and Che.
Sam sipped from a plastic cup of iced coffee, his day stretching before him across the expanse beyond the fire escape. A field marshal surveying the battlefield. The Cuban digression meant something, whether it was true or false. Was it possible that Leo Andrada was born in Argentina in 1942, fought in the Cuban Revolution, and wound up a priest in the DC suburbs? His age fit. And sure, he could be Roma. His tough yet wise bearing did suggest an unusual level of life experience for a priest.
But perhaps it was not the truth of the manuscript that provided clues but its falsity. Maybe all of it was just a story. And fiction, unlike fact, has meaning. Regardless, Andrada had less than a day before Sam went to the police, unless something broke the other way.
Sam stepped back over the windowsill, walked to the coffee table, and picked up his notes. It was almost eight. He would go into the office early this morning.
•••
“This project may be a wild goose chase, but what the hell, have some fun with it, Marvin,” Sam said. The intern held Sam’s investigative memorandum in his hand, a two-page description of a research assignment. Sam leaned back in his squeaky swivel chair, feet on his desk. The young man was clearly pissed off at him. Sam hadn’t been around to supervise him or to give him any interesting assignments. Basically, Sam had not lived up to his end of the bargain—free summer work in exchange for an interesting learning experience.
Sam’s intern was a stocky, African-American Princeton grad at the very top of his NYU law class. He had gone to law school after three years as a successful investment banker on Wall Street. He spoke fluent Spanish and rudimentary Russian. The lad was indeed the rare law student who could command a decent salary as a summer associate at a big New York firm, even amidst the financial devastation that had left many lawyers unemployed. His decision to help society instead by working for free at a Virginia public defender’s office had likely turned out to be a major disappointment.
The intern wore an expensive gray suit and a red power tie. A shiny leather briefcase rested by his chair. His presentation made a clear contrast with Sam’s T-shirt, jeans, boots, and hung-over eyes. He sat politely in front of Sam, jotting on a pad, the very picture of professionalism. But his furrowed brow and barely disguised smirk told a different story. The kid was over it, over Sam, over a boring summer of neither paychecks nor excitement, over his crappy cubicle, and over working for a guy who, good rep or not, did not appreciate his sacrifice. He was over the whole bullshit package. He looked forward to getting back to school and applying for some real jobs.
“My name’s Melvin, Mr. Young.” Melvin looked Sam in the eye, and his voice carried an edge. Kind of like a cop who realizes he has spent the last hour talking to an eyewitness who, in the end, had not seen anything. “Do you mind if I ask what this case is about?”
Sam looked at the ceiling, hands behind his head. He probed in and around Melvin’s mind. He leaned forward and motioned Melvin to do the same.
“Not one word of this, Melvin. Not to your friends, not to the other students, not to anyone.”
Melvin held Sam’s gaze. He shrugged, almost mockingly.
“Mum’s the word.”
“This project has to do with the Rosslyn Ripper.”
Melvin swallowed. He scanned the investigative memo again, picking up on the details of the actual assignment for the first time. Melvin stood.
“The office will never pay for this, will it?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll have a firm credit card.”
“The Public Defender’s Office has firm credit cards?”
“No.” Sam calmly watched Melvin. “I said don’t worry about it. But you’d better hurry. All your other projects are on hold until you get this done. I’d like something within a few days.”
Melvin picked up his briefcase. “I don’t have any other projects. But I can handle this one. I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t, Melvin.” Sam held his eyes for a second. “It wouldn’t be your way to let somebody down.” Sam pivoted back to his computer, politely dismissing Melvin from his offic
e. As Melvin left, his parting thought was apparent to Sam.
Maybe this bullshit summer will be worth something after all.
•••
Sam shut the door of the Escalade and looked at his phone—almost eleven thirty. The lights from Camille’s carriage house illuminated the walkway in front of him. His steps echoed across the empty hall between the rectory and Camille’s room. Sam glanced towards the church on the other side of the parking lot, a sole light shining from a narrow side window. Andrada’s office.
“Crazy day?” Camille stood in the open door and remained leaning against the jamb for several moments, as if to make an assessment of some kind.
“We need to talk.” Sam stepped inside and followed her to the couch.
“Vodka with ice?” she called over her shoulder.
Sam sank onto the couch without answering, waiting for Camille to place the cool drink in his hand. When she did, he moved it slowly across his forehead, the cold glass almost painful on his hot skin. He shut his eyes while he brought the glass to his lips.
Camille settled in on the other side of the long segmented couch. She folded her legs under herself, and her eyes rested on Sam’s. He had come with an agenda, but a different thought shot out of him.
“Do you know Raj Buterab?”
“Of course,” Camille said without hesitation. “He’s the biggest donor to this church. Great guy.”
Sam watched her closely and, for the first time, caught her.
“I don’t know why, but you’re lying about something.”
“Everything I just said was true.”
Sam kept watching her closely after that non-denial.
“Have it your way. Look, I told you already, your guy is the Ripper. The DNA from the chalice proves it. But that’s not all.”
