Siege of Silence Read online

  I drink the last of the whisky and resolve that I will succeed. I will never lose control again. Quickly, I pick up my bag and walk to the guardhouse. I send the sleepy guard away, take out the file and unlock the door. I am sitting behind the desk looking at the file when he moves out and stands opposite the desk. I look up and my resolve is washed away. He is watching me, his head slightly on one side. There is concern in his eyes. Concern for me. I suddenly know what I feel for this man. It goes far beyond affection. It goes beyond what I felt for my grandfather. This man, this capitalist prude is closer to me than anyone I’ve ever known except my mother. It’s not love. I can’t find an expression for it. I don’t want to.

  “What happened to you, Jorge?”

  My name “Jorge”. It sounds so natural, this first time he uses it. It’s unbelievable! I’m close again to losing control. I have to swallow hard.

  “I tried to kill her.”

  Without taking his eyes off me he carefully sits down.

  “What did she do?”

  “Nothing unexpected. She left me for Bermudez. Her going was in keeping with her character. She was vicious. I allowed it to affect me, as she wanted. I was stopped from killing her. She enjoyed it.”

  After a thoughtful silence he says, “The same way that you enjoyed the risk when Fombona almost shot you on that first day.”

  He remains perceptive. Strangely, such a man understands people like myself and like Inez. I give him his prize.

  “Something like that.”

  “And when two people like that arc together one loses and one wins.”

  “Yes.”

  “You fell in love . . . so you lost.”

  In a dozen words he has painted the exact picture. He makes more brush strokes. “And this loss is your first. Devastating. You never conceived it possible. You imagined yourself different from other mortals.”

  I am pinned and squirming. He has peeled me open like an over-ripe banana.

  His voice changes tone. I feel like a boy as he gently says, “Jorge, bless your luck. Had you gone on that way your character would have fossilized . . . like mine. If that witch took away your arrogance . . . or made you aware of it, then she has done you a service beyond imagining. She may just have turned you into a human being.”

  It’s all going wrong. I know what I have to do and I sit and listen . . . and believe. I want to sit and listen and talk for hours; and maybe find the paths I have never seen. Maybe learn to love someone other than an animal. Maybe understand that being the best is not always best. I cannot do it now, at this time. I have to save my confessor, and by saving him inflict him with his own tragedy. With an effort I put coldness into my voice. “Peabody, my situation is immaterial. We both indulge ourselves with emotions. Now circumstances have changed. It is vital, both for me and for you that you give me the name I want.”

  Very quietly and very firmly, he states: “Whatever happened and whatever comes, I will never do that.”

  I have difficulty looking at him. I centre the file in front of me- position the weapon exactly between us.

  “Peabody, you know that name . . . and the others because you advised the CIA. You advised them because over decades you built up a hatred for my country . . . and my leader. A hatred based on a tragic incident. That incident never happened.”

  I look at him now. He is puzzled.

  “Never happened?”

  “No. Amparo Flores did not die in a Cuban prison twenty-five years ago. She died in the finest Cuban hospital two years ago . . . ironically from cerebral thrombosis.”

  Tension is immediately in the room. The link between us is broken. All feeling for me leaves his voice.

  “That’s a foul lie to utter.”

  I now have to make my little lie. He will not believe yet. His memory will scream “lie”, but then I have the next stage -and that must convince. With genuine sorrow I tell him: “A month after she enrolled at Havana University, Amparo Flores became an agent for Fidel Castro. She was a fervent believer in the revolution.” I tap the file. “Her first assignment was to seduce a Colonel in Batista’s National Guard and discover troop dispositions for defence of the city. She carried it out brilliantly. Her second assignment was to seduce the Political Councillor at the American Embassy . . . and influence him to the cause.”

  He is shaking his head, puzzlement still in his eyes. Puzzlement caused by these words coming from me. This lie being uttered by me. We are so close now. He must ask himself how I attempt such a cheap, unworthy trick. I force myself on.

  “She also carried out that assignment brilliantly.” Emphatically I tap the file. “You became almost an advocate for the cause. You fell in love with her.” Again I tap the file. “You told her much about American policy- even as you argued against it. To keep you forthcoming she agreed to a betrothal. Peabody, when Havana abruptly fell to Castro her relief was boundless. Her assignment was over. But at the time, Castro did not want to alienate you or any other Americans. He persuaded her to continue the assignment. Even urged her to marry you and go on supplying information and influence. She tried for another month. But then it was too much. She had met Raul Gomez who had fought with Castro throughout the struggle. They fell in love. You will know his name. He is now Assistant Minister for Agriculture. It was arranged that she would be arrested as a subversive. In due course her death was announced. In reality her name and papers were changed. She married Gomez secretly. Meanwhile you had predictably gone crazy and eventually had to be recalled.”

  He is a bearded statue, carved into the chair. I pause now, waiting for him to react. Needing him to react. To set himself up for the next lunge. He speaks and his voice is still puzzled.

  “You cannot be telling me this. Not you. Stop it.”

  One small part of my mind revels in my skill. The rest is in pain. Another tap on the file. It is easier now. I am able to tell the truth.

  “She worked as a teacher. In ‘63 she had a son- Luis. He went on to become a doctor. I know him. In ‘66 she had a daughter- Pilar. She is also a teacher . . . I know her.”

  His mouth opens and then closes. He is breathing deeply. He shakes his head again.

  “Jorge, don’t make these lies. They will change nothing. Why try to smear her memory? She never deserved it. I don’t deserve it.”

  The moment has, at last, arrived, accompanied by ghouls dressed in black.

  I open the file and slide out the photographs. Eight by ten enlargements. I push the first one over. Amparo Flores aged twenty-seven sitting in a chair smiling at the camera. She is holding a baby. Beside the chair is a boy of three clutching her arm.

  I watch as he looks down at it. I wait, judging the moment, then reach out and place the second one on top: Amparo Flores aged thirty-nine. She is smiling at her tall, teenaged son who proudly holds a small silver cup won in a school athletics contest.

  Peabody is frozen, but an aura of pain is emanating from him. Very slowly, unwillingly, I reach forward and complete the pile with the last photograph: Amparo Flores aged forty-five. She is sitting at a restaurant table wearing a white dress, her hair piled high on her head. She is still remarkably beautiful. Her husband, Raul Gomez, is on her left. On her right sits Fidel Castro looking down at her appreciatively.

  Still he doesn’t move or utter a sound. This has to be the moment. Irrationally, I’m aware that if he actually survives this moment he is a dead man. To live he has to talk. For this reason, not thinking of myself, I concentrate all my skills. I must break through his silence. I must nudge him over the top and down to me. As though talking to a victim I quietly say, “You know these photographs are genuine. No science can fake her face or her expression . . . Jason, we did not kill her . . . you built a philosophy on a lie. .

  Still not a flicker from him. His eyes are riveted on the photograph. On the only woman he ever loved. The only person he ever grieved over. On her, on her husband, and on Castro.

  The moment is balanced. I dare not say another wo
rd. Doubts are building in me when the sound comes: a sob. Then another. Slowly he moves; his shoulders shake. There are drops wetting the gloss of her likeness. His head sinks. I watch in a storm of emotions as he slumps across the desk, as his sobs cry out for an explanation. I have won. He believes everything. This man who hasn’t wept for an eternity, who for decades has hermetically sealed his emotions, has cracked open. I feel no elation, but strange and deep relief. I want to reach out and help. To absorb and take away at least some of his pain. I cannot. I must end it now. The sobbing has stopped. His cheek is lying on the photographs, his arms around his head. I repeat my words.

  “Jason, you built a philosophy on a lie. Your logic was warped by hatred. It’s over now. You know that. I’m appalled by what you’ve gone through. Not just now, but all those years. You’ve been forced to live inside that lie. It’s over now.”

  I reach out and grip his elbow. “Jason, after that pain you can be yourself again. What you were thirty years ago. What you were trying to be with Vargas. You can find the ideals and emotions that you smothered . . . Jason, give me a name. Let it out of yourself . . . “

  He raises his head. I am looking at a bearded skeleton. Cubelas looked like this when he finally talked. I wait for his quivering voice. I wait for the words.

  They come in a whisper, but without a quiver. “Jorge, whatever I became after that lie, whatever I’ve done, whatever is done to me, I will never give you a name. I know the names; all of them. I will not betray them. I will not betray my country. Whatever that lie did to me. No matter what road I went down. I know that my country, for all its ills and mistakes, is a force for good in this world . . . I will not betray it.”

  The words, the quiet conviction of them, the astonishment of hearing them from a broken man, snap my control. I scream at his gaunt face.

  “You are stupid! You are dumb! Just a stupid, dumb American!”

  Through the haze of my rage his whispered words come back. “In a dictionary, dumb is defined as mute; silent. When it comes to betraying my country I’m proud to be dumb.”

  PEABODY

  San Carlo

  Night 16

  I have lost the sense of time. Was it ten minutes or an hour ago when he stood up and walked out? He left his files on the desk. I can’t find the desire to look at them. I sit in this chair and look at the wall. I sat for a while before a guard came, took away the files and locked the office door. It never occurred to me to walk out into the compound. I have nothing left now. Not even a memory.

  Not so. I have the names and I must cling to them. They are the only threads to my sanity. I think about sanity. I’m aware of how close to the edge I am. I may have even dropped over. What a pathetic waste I’ve been, shuffling around on this earth. Half my life an idealistic fool; the other half a puritanical fop. Because a woman looked at me in a bar one night.

  Shame and frustration well up as I recall my little story about falling in love; my homily about jealousy. But inside him, he was not laughing. How could that be? He knew everything, even then. Christ, I am so confused!

  I hear the key turn. He comes in briskly, but his attitude is more resigned than confident. Over the past days I have been sledge-hammered into mental change. So has he.

  He sits down and with an air of conclusion says, “Jason, it is time now to face reality. Your position is not good. I am going to tell you the situation. You are going to consider it and then reach a decision. There is no more time for sparring. I am going to talk to you and for your sake you must believe me.”

  My mind is a desert. Suddenly the palliasse becomes an inviting option. But there is a different intensity in him now. I try to concentrate.

  “Why must I believe you?”

  “Because of your very life. Listen, I accept that whatever I do I’m unlikely to get a name from you. What I do now is not a trick. Not part of an interrogation. What I do is for you.”

  “Then why do it?”

  He is as numb as I. It shows in his eyes. He says, “I don’t want you to die.”

  “Why?”

  He turns his head and looks at the wall, makes a decision and says, “Because I cannot bear that thought . . . don’t ask me more, please.”

  I don’t ask. I know why. He feels as I do. I find myself clawing back to sanity.

  “Why should I die?”

  He tells me with precision.

  “I told Inez that I was giving myself twenty days to break you. She told Bermudez.”

  “Inez?”

  “The witch. Bermudez has delusions. The power has affected him. He’s decided that after twenty days, if I don’t have a name, he’ll set Fombona on you and extract it . . . by torture.”

  His words are incredible but he states them with conviction. Before I can react he says, “First listen. The situation out there is changing fast. Bermudez is overwhelmed by himself . . . don’t think it’s my jealousy talking. He wants that name as a gift to Fidel. He also wants it to make me smaller. I cannot communicate safely with Fidel. I only have a radio code to give him a name or names.”

  I should be suspicious but I’m not.

  “If you could communicate, what would he do?”

  “My guess is let it happen. Jason, over the past twenty-odd years your people have tried to kill him time and again. Kennedy authorized it for sure. So did Johnson and Nixon and I wouldn’t doubt those that followed. You know this better than me. Fidel knows what ‘Operation Cobra’ implies. He will take whatever information he can get . . . and not worry how he gets it.”

  The realization is reaching me, but something is wrong. I concentrate again, then ask, “How can you believe that Bermudez would allow me, an Ambassador, to be tortured, knowing the consequences when my Government finds out as they surely must?”

  Dismally, he completes the picture.

  “I told you, he’s deluded. Otherwise why would you be here now? I told Fidel, Bermudez is crazy. He’ll let Fombona torture you without leaving a mark. Fombona will know how to do that. Afterwards they inject you with a drug. It will appear that you had a heart attack. This is feasible, Jason. I know about the drug. It exists. Afterwards the ‘militant students’ will make a regretful announcement and hand over your body to the ‘authorities’, who in turn will beat their breasts and give it back to your people.”

  With a chill I realize he’s telling the truth, but still the whole scenario is preposterous. My sanity is firmly in place.

  “Jorge, my people will know. Doesn’t Bermudez realize the consequences?”

  He sighs. “I told you, he’s deluded. As a Marxist he shouldn’t believe in God, but he does. He worships his maker . . . himself.”

  I think about torture. How would I react? I try to imagine the pain. Once when hiking in Maine, I slipped on a loose rock and fell down the side of a hill breaking my leg. I was alone and had to hop and drag myself to the nearest road, more than a mile away. The memory of the pain washes over me. Can it be worse than that? In a stark instant I realize that the pain alone will not constitute the torture. That will come from its being deliberately inflicted by another human being; by a human being who will draw pleasure from it.

  He is watching. His eyes see into me, into my thoughts.

  “Jason, this is not a trick. You must believe me. You must give me a name. I will send the coded signal and you will be safe. I cannot protect you if I don’t have that name.”

  I can picture Fombona’s face as he listens to my screams. For one wild moment a name, then more, are rushing from my brain to my lips. In the next moment my conscience catches them. I shake my head. “I cannot do it, Jorge.” I am surprised by how much conviction I hear in my voice. Apparently he is not. He merely nods thoughtfully. There is a long silence while I contemplate my short future and how I will face it, then he says firmly, “They will not torture you.”

  I feel a surge of relief, mingled with anger. It was a trick after all and I nearly fell for it. I burst out: “That’s a filthy thing to do.”
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  His smile is wan. “They will not torture you because I will leave here in the morning and signal Fidel two coded names. Those that I suspect the most: Pineda and Samarriba.”

  Those eyes are totally alert as he says the names. While I keep my expression neutral I marvel at his perception. One of them is correct. I shrug negatively. With resignation he continues. “With the names, I will signal the words: ‘Hold until my arrival.’ Fidel will do that. He will not let anyone else interrogate them. I will go overland to Managua and then fly to Havana. Of course I may be right in my guesses. Then so much the better. If not, I will drag out the interrogations. When you are free- and I think it will not be too long- then I will release them and tell Fidel the truth and take the consequences.”

  Fombona’s image fades from my mind. I am almost paralysed with gratitude. I manage to ask, “What will be the consequences?”

  He smiles and it lights the room. “I don’t know, Jason. I know Fidel well but I cannot imagine what he will do. It will give me much to think about in the coming days. I will have to be a brilliant lawyer and argue my own case.”

  I have a feeling of helplessness. He is destroying his own life to save mine; and telling me about it with a smile. I search around in my mind.

  “Jorge, if you are right, and if I get out of here soon, there’s a way I can help. So far, we didn’t manage to overthrow or kill Castro. I can tell you that we’re no longer trying to kill him. That policy’s changed. But the CIA still has a strong presence in Havana. There’s a good chance they could get you out. You could have a new life m the States.”

  He smiles again. “Thanks, but no. My failure here hasn’t changed my convictions. I’ll go on with my old life . . . wherever it leads. Anyway forget that. Things are about to change. I feel it. Like they used to say in your old westerns; ‘It’s too darned quiet out thar.’ I think there will be some action soon. You will lead your life- I will lead mine.”