Siege of Silence Read online

  Again he is waiting for me to comment. I am tempted, but determined not to give one clue as to what I think. I don’t have to. He tells me exactly.

  “You know your President. You know he won’t go along with that. He’ll try threats first and then third party pressures and then, in a matter of weeks rather than months, he’ll order a rescue attempt and a simultaneous invasion.”

  He’s got it exactly right. The President will agonize and try to see everything in moral fables and his china-doll wife will stroke his arm, look admiringly into his eyes and say, “Honey, whatever you do, you’ll know it’s right. The country will know it’s right. Honey, God will know it’s right!” And with a heavy heart he’ll give the order and go off for a good night’s sleep. So what is this long-haired commie doing here if he knows all the answers? I ask him.

  “What’s all the talk about? I thought you had nothing to do with it.”

  “I don’t. I’m just indulging myself in curiosity. I wish Bermudez well, but he made a mistake taking you people hostages. But the mistake benefits Cuba.”

  He pushes the newspaper away and puts a black file in front of him. He is about to open it when there is a knock at the door. He shouts, “Enter!” and even as the door opens I smell the rich aroma of coffee. I recognize the young man who carries the tray. He is a Mestizo employed in the kitchen on menial tasks. Apparently the students are too idle to cook for themselves and have kept some of the local staff on- or more likely trapped in. He is nervous and avoids looking at me. After he leaves, Calderon pours the coffee, making a little ceremony out of it. Without asking me he puts three lumps of sugar in my mug and a little milk.

  “That’s how you like it I understand.”

  “How do you know?”

  He sips at his coffee.

  “I’ve been finding out a lot about your personal habits.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to be spending a lot of time with you.”

  “Why?”

  He taps the file and smiles very pleasantly. “Excellency, you’re going to tell me about ‘Operation Cobra’.”

  JORGE

  San Carlo

  Day 1

  It’s going to take time. I hate this man; what he is; what he represents. An elegant, foppish scalpel cutting into the flesh of millions. Sucking the blood of whole nations and peoples, in the false name of democracy. I loathe him with his crisp suit, perfectly knotted tie and groomed hair. He’s been attached to that kid for three days but he looks as though he’s just walked out of a barber’s shop. It’s oven-hot in here and he sits in his three-piece suit without a glimmer of sweat. I detest him; but he will be difficult. He was probably terrified during the business with Fombona but he concealed it. He recognized my name and its implications but his face showed nothing except the supercilious raising of an eyebrow. He won that one. Now when I mention “Operation Cobra” he merely looks politely puzzled. He’s very good. Were I to play him poker with a thousand dollars at stake I would win, but it might take a week. I have to be careful and very cautious; remember my own words to Cruz when he messed up with Cubelas. “Interrogation is seduction and, like seduction, is an art form.” The subject must be prepared and conditioned with great patience. The brain must be disorientated, the senses confused, the emotions chasing through a maze. Only then can the real interrogation start. I recall the Russian instructor Kubalov, was it only six years ago? All that rubbish with drugs. The subject gets turned into a babbling monkey and all you get is monkey chatter. It’s an insult to the art, like slipping knock-out drops into a girl’s drink and then fucking her inert body. No satisfaction; no art. Interrogation is a long fencing match. Probing for an opening. Recognizing it when it comes. The sudden lunge and the subject transfixed and flapping like a pinned butterfly. Above all, the art consists of the osmosis of transference. Of sucking in the thought process of the subject; his mental strengths and weaknesses; his fears and desires and conceits. You must know him better than your mother or child or lover. Your knowledge is his weakness. Finally, having exposed the weakness, you must be the strength to which it is drawn. When the subject finally talks he should weep with relief; and you know you have the truth.

  From this Peabody I need one name. In a conspiracy one name leads to all the others. He knows all the names but he will be difficult. In the file in front of me is a single positive weapon. It is the weapon to break him but it must be used at precisely the right moment. Too early, and the wound will not be severe enough. Too late and it could be fatal. He must be made ready for the wound as a patient is prepared for an operation.

  While these thoughts have been moving through my mind I have been watching his face. The expression of slight, unconcerned puzzlement is still there. The face is like his clothes- all in order. Smooth cheeks, neat eyebrows, brown eyes with identical crease lines at each outer corner. A perfectly straight long nose that certainly has never been broken. Thin lips, parted now, showing very white, even teeth. A wide, cleft jaw. His dark hair is short, flecked with grey and carefully combed straight back. He is sixty-three but looks ten years younger. He would be attractive to women. His normal expression is haughty and condescending but the face reflects his confidence, strength and intellect. He has the arrogance of intellect and the dignity of the position it has given him in life. I must undermine the dignity, and the arrogance will collapse with it.

  Like every art form, interrogation requires inspiration. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I have it. I see a path opening up that will lead to a point where I can use my single weapon. I feel the warm flooding of my senses which comes at the moment of inspiration. For a moment I indulge myself in the enjoyment of my intellect, then I consider the time element. I do not have the luxury of an open ended time-scale. But with this man it would be fatal to rush. Mentally I give myself twenty days. I would like more and maybe I will get it. Maybe I will get less but I will pace myself, and Peabody, for twenty days.

  I open the file in front of me and say, “We are both intelligent men. I know a lot about you and assume you know about me. I have an advantage. I’ve been studying your file for many days now.”

  He shrugs with feigned disinterest, reaches for his cup and takes a delicate sip. I harden my voice.

  “ ‘Operation Cobra’ is yet another attempt by your Government to destabilize mine. Operations mounted against us by the CIA now number in the twenties. They have all failed and so will this.” I tap the file emphatically. “You were the State Department’s top expert on Cuba. This CIA operation is the most significant act of aggression against Cuba since the ‘Bay of Pigs’. You were certainly consulted about it in great detail.”

  In a bored voice he says, “I’m a Foreign Service Officer. I have nothing to do with the CIA.”

  I turn two pages of the file and read, “On 28th November subject had lunch at the Metropolitan Club with Kirk Jameson.”

  I look up. His face is impassive. I harden my tone further. “Fact one: Jameson heads up the Cuban section of the CIA. Fact two: for the seven months prior to this posting you have acted as an advisor to that section on Cuban affairs particularly in relation to Government structure and personalities.” I turn more pages. “In the past three months you attended at least a dozen meetings at Langley. In fact you seem to have spent more time there than in your own offices at State.” Did I see something in his eyes? A subliminal flicker? I press forward. “Peabody, we never underestimate the CIA, though from their past performance we have good reason to. But you people underestimate us. I don’t mind telling you that eighty per cent of our budget is devoted to our USA Department. In addition, the KGB give us a vast amount of information that relates to Cuba. I know exactly what your role has been over the past months and your connection with the CIA and ‘Operation Cobra’. You are intelligent. There is no point denying it!”

  Good. He is angry. He stands and leans over the desk, thin lips compressed. He points a finger at my face and in a clipped voice says, “Deny? Why shou
ld I deny or confirm anything to you? By international law this compound is sovereign territory of the United States of America. You have no more right to be here than those terrorist scum. You are as guilty as them of an invasion of US territory- a fact that will outrage my Government when it learns of it. . . and will further sour relations with your jumped up little island!”

  I laugh loudly, watching his face get angrier. For a moment I think he might strike me. I hope he does. But no. In seconds his face is impassive again. He sits down and looks past me at a spot on the wall above my head. A pity.

  “Peabody, relations between our countries are as bad as they could be. So the US will be outraged; so what? Your Government is outraged with us all the time. Anyway no one has seen me come in here and naturally my Government will deny any knowledge of it. Now let’s get back to ‘Operation Cobra’.”

  Scornfully he says, “Calderon, if you think you have the impertinence to try to interrogate me, you are totally wrong. The only thing I have to say to you as a Cuban official, is to protest at your presence here.”

  He fixes his gaze again over my head. His mouth is set in a straight line as though sealed by clear tape. Good. The interrogation has started well. He is addressing me by name. He has taken the first rung up the ladder. He thinks he will go no further. Now is the time to start him up the next few rungs. The time to put into effect my earlier inspiration. I stand up and walk to the door of the other room and open it. There are two high windows with bars on them. It was obviously built to act as a detention room if necessary. I turn; he is watching me intently.

  I say, “You will not have to wear that explosive jacket again. You will be separated from the others and will live in here.” I indicate the empty room. Did I see a flash of relief in his eyes? If so it was not about the jacket. The other hostages are being held in two big rooms in the chancery; men in one, women in the other. Peabody is a private man. The thought of being alone pleases him. He will shortly be less pleased.

  “Peabody, I’m going to come back in a couple of days. In the meantime I’m going now to give orders to Fombona. The bunks will be cleared out of the room and a straw palliasse put on the floor. The doors to the toilet and shower will be sealed. A bucket will be provided for you to piss and shit in. There will be another bucket with water to drink from and wash yourself . . . but no soap. You will get one meal a day . . . not what you’re used to. Thin soup, rice, beans, plantain, cabbage and so on. Occasionally some stewed meat or fish.” His face is no longer impassive but incredulous. I continue, “You are to take off your clothes and leave them on the desk. You may keep your underpants on. Anyway it’s too hot for all those clothes. I suggest you do that as soon as I leave. Fombona will have orders to take them off forcibly if you are still wearing them when he arrives. That would be undignified. He would enjoy it.”

  He is standing now; shocked and furious. His mouth opens and closes, then he asks icily, “You expect me to live like that? Me!?”

  “Yes, Peabody. Thanks to people like you who put people like Vargas into power and keep them there, millions and millions of campesinos in this country and others in Latin America live exactly like that. They sleep on dirt floors, shit in buckets, drink only water and eat the sort of food you’ll be eating. Campesinos who worked like slaves on Vargas’s estates; picked thousands of tons of coffee and could not afford to drink a single cup of the stuff . . . Think about that. When I come back we’ll talk about ‘Operation Cobra’ and the traitors in my country.”

  He shouts the word.

  “Never!”

  I cross the room to the outer door, open it, turn back and say, “You will tell me about them. Be sure of it. One way or another.”

  He takes a step back, coming up against the desk. His voice rising in disbelief, he asks, “You would torture me . . . ? An American Ambassador?”

  I shake my head. “No, Peabody. I never use torture. It’s usually counterproductive. Also no drugs. Drink your water and eat your food without fear.”

  He thrusts an arm towards the inner room, his face mobile with indignation.

  “Forcing me to live like that is a form of torture . . . mental torture!”

  I laugh.

  “Peabody, even being in love is mental torture . . . you know that.”

  PEABODY

  San Carlo

  Day 3

  My rage has subsided. It has taken a full day and night. It subsided only slowly and marginally, but enough for rational thought to surface. During the same time, the hatred has distilled into a single burning, vibrating spot inside my core. Perversely, it brings a form of serenity. At last, after all the years, my amorphous enemy has solidified into the form of one man. It is twenty-five years since I felt such hatred. Then it was hatred with a passion. Blind and consuming and ultimately sterile. Now it is refined and logical and targeted. It burns in my brain and the rage cannot compete and so subsides. Rage is meaningless. Hatred is wonderfully logical. I read him easily. I am not a half-educated reactionary, or an agent dimwitted enough to get caught. I am trapped by circumstances beyond my control, but I can control my own mind and he will not tamper with it. He expects to take away my dignity. He is a devil in his perception, for it is a solitary weakness. In all men of taste and breeding and high position, dignity is a lynchpin. It’s why a bankrupt financier throws himself from a twentieth-storey window. With the loss of his millions he also loses his dignity. It’s why Hemingway blew his brains out. For him dignity was physical strength. When senility stole that away, his life was over. It’s why rage consumed me. Not discomfort but the loss of dignity. Standing in my shorts, thin and almost naked, while that animal Fombona sneered and laughed. It’s true, I have always been conscious- over conscious, of my thin legs. Ever since childhood.

  It’s true I have not made friends easily. Scarcely at all. I don’t know exactly why. It was always so. Solitary people often take solace in style and order. He saw that already. Of course he will have questioned the residence staff; know that there is pleasure in a perfect cup of coffee or a correctly pressed shirt. So he tries to pry me away from my dignity. He knows the revulsion I feel having to crap into a bucket and cat slops with my fingers and lick up fetid water from a bucket. But he miscalculated. A man will suffer much if sustained by hatred.

  He does not know, cannot know how intensely I hate him and the man and the system that sent him. He will not find me pleading for comfort. I pray this will end; but he will never know it.

  I have just eaten what they call food. The little tin bucket lay on the floor for hours. When Fombona had water brought and saw it untouched he told me there would be no more until that was finished. He enjoys my humiliation. He probably spat in the food. Logic forced me to eat it and I did so almost retching throughout. I need physical strength. I ate it thinking about Calderon. Seeing his cynical eyes and arrogant mouth. The hatred helped me force it down and keep it there. Later I felt a twisting in my bowels. The food or the filthy water will surely give me diarrhoea . . . then more indignity at the bucket. He has thought about all of this.

  What did he mean, “Being in love is mental torture . . . you know that . . . ?” Is it in that file . . . ? All those years ago? I doubt it. I have never spoken about it. Even now it is painful to think about it.

  I am sitting on the straw palliasse with my legs drawn up under my chin. My big toe is swollen from gout, and throbbing. It’s going to be a bad attack. When I asked Fombona for my pills he laughed scornfully. I fervently wish the gout on him with all its pain and immobility. Perhaps Calderon will give them to me. Will he come today or tomorrow? What will his next move be? I think about ‘Operation Cobra’. Of course I know all about it. I was in on the debriefing of the defector Llovio, and saw the possibilities immediately. I virtually planned the whole thing with Jameson. Calderon is right. It’s the most significant move against the Castro regime since the Bay of Pigs. In October, Castro will surely go to Moscow for the big anniversary celebration and the bastard will f
ind out what it’s like to be on the wrong end of a coup d’etat. Find out how he likes his own medicine. The thought gives me immense pleasure. Imagine sending that damned hippy here to try and make me talk. To humiliate me like this. They will pay for that. Calderon will suffer. After “Cobra”, I’ll make sure he suffers.

  I’ll be able to return to Cuba again. I can never think of that island without a mental picture of her coming to my mind. Strangely in recent years the picture has changed in subtle ways. Certain of her features have become more distinct, particularly her lips and eyes. Sometimes lately, in dreams, that is all I see- lips and eyes. I wonder at the significance. I hate people who constantly interpret dreams- who love talking about them as though they are anything more than disjointed ramblings of the subconscious. But why do I sometimes only see her eyes and mouth? As though all her other features are not blacked out, but burned away by a bright light. It was the eyes that used to watch me; always strangely mournful; and the lips that used to touch me, always soft, even in passion. My memory moves back across two decades. The pain, never diminishing, spreads through me yet again. For me, the gift of memory is nothing but a curse.

  JORGE

  San Carlo

  Day 3

  She stands naked by the window and I change my mind again. It was not a mistake to bring her. We have passed through the ritual. First we made love; as always, long drawn out; as always with her pounding her heels against my buttocks and screaming my name as she soars into orgasm. As always lying still for ten minutes and then watching as, lying on her back, she masturbates herself quickly to a second orgasm. I had been greatly offended the first time, my manhood impugned. But she had laughed and told me what a pleasure it was, lying next to a lover, remembering the past moments. She called it the “instant replay orgasm” and the next time made me try it, watching avidly. She understands such things. For me it was not quick but it was erotic in the extreme and afterwards, for the first time, I was truly sated.