Читать книгу Against All Hope - Armando Valladares - Страница 13

6

ISLA DE PINOS

When the guards had something they wanted to announce to the prisoners, they would broadcast it over two loudspeakers installed in the prison yard. One afternoon at the end of the headcount, the loudspeakers began to blare out a list of prisoners who were to get all their belongings together immediately. These prisoners were being transferred.

While the names on the list were being called out in groups, a total silence reigned throughout the jail. Every man strained to hear whether his name was called. The loudspeakers went on chanting their litany for what seemed a very long time; the names were all called out twice.

I heard my name called, and I left the cell door to go get my things ready. In front of me Pedro Luis Boitel and beside me Alfredo Carrión were also getting their bags together. The men in my galera whose names had been called had already begun to throw their possessions into canvas sacks. There was a kind of anguish in the air; the authorities had never said where we were being transferred. But we could guess — leaving La Cabaña, and such large numbers of men, could only mean one destination: Isla de Pinos.

The transfer to that prison, which was located on an island south of Cuba, was a terrible blow to our spirits. Horror stories were told of what went on there. We all knew that visits had been suspended there, and that just a few days before a man named Monteiras had been kicked to death. Terror reigned on Isla de Pinos. But even more daunting to us than the treatment we might get — I’m sure the stories didn’t seem quite real to us — was being taken so far away from our families, being cut off from news and visits. At least in La Cabaña, news of our families came sometimes as often as twice a week.

That prisoner transfer was one of the largest ever carried out. More than three hundred prisoners’ names had been called.

Prisoner transfers are always a frantic rush. Before the echoes from the lists of names had faded away, platoons of soldiers were already formed up in front of the cells, ordering the men whose names had been called to get moving. Anxiously, we were throwing our few belongings together, any old way, into the canvas sacks which all prisoners were provided with. Our families usually brought them to us.

“Let’s go! Get a move on!” the guards were mechanically calling out. They looked tired. Reserves, soldiers that had just come off guard duty — everyone had to turn out and help during the transfers; they couldn’t sleep. And so they were all in a bad mood, but it was always the prisoners who paid the consequences.

The first prisoners, who had come out of galeras 8, 9, and 10, were gathering in the prison yard. They were loaded down. They all had to carry their sacks and other bags if they had them; aluminum cups and spoons hung from their belts, and towels were draped around their necks; many of them had a toothbrush and toothpaste sticking out of the pockets of their prison shirts.

“Let’s go, everybody out!”

As the guards hurried the prisoners into the prison yard, there were moving scenes inside the cells. The men staying at La Cabaña clasped the hands of their departing comrades and friends. Cries of “Good luck at your trial!” were called constantly. All of us, those of us staying and those of us leaving, were virtually certain that we’d never see anyone from the other group alive again, so there was really very little we could say in those moments. You embraced your friend in farewell, but it was almost like embracing a dead man — so few of us felt we had any chance of survival. There were no words for that — the eyes had to speak, and the prayer sprang up silently in our hearts.

Almost two hundred prisoners with their sacks were finally standing in the prison yard. A group of lieutenants carrying lists began to call out names, and the prisoners nearest the soldiers would turn and repeat the names so the men in back could hear. So we started filing out and forming up at the main gate, two by two. When there was a group of about fifty, they were taken out; then followed another, and another. Many hours passed in this roll call.

Our group was one of the very last. We were herded out into the street, Boitel straggling along. Boitel was a “ninetyseven-pound weakling.” He had been a sickly child. From the time he was a little boy he had had to work, though, helping one of his uncles in a coffee home-delivery business: And by dint of his parents’ efforts and his own will to overcome his weak constitution, he had managed to go to the University, where he studied electrical engineering. He was a popular student; other students admired him for his strength of character, his uprightness, and his dedication. But he left college to join the action groups fighting against Batista. He was almost caught, but he got away to Venezuela, from where he went on aiding Castro. It was in Caracas that the news of the fall of the dictator reached him; he returned to Cuba in January 1959. He went back to the University and was nominated for student president by the other students. During his campaign, he had worn a large crucifix that a Catholic priest had given him. But Boitel had to resign his candidacy and leave the University, since he had become an active anti-Communist and Castro had threatened him personally; Boitel went into hiding, living underground for months before he was finally tracked down and captured.

We were standing with our bags and bundles in the street outside the main gate, that same street I had been on when they took me to my trial, but now it was full of guards coming and going constantly, in battle dress with helmets and fixed bayonets.

“Let’s go! Double file!” It was a fat black sergeant that I had never seen before. We began to form up. The sergeant went down the line counting. He checked the count against some lists he was carrying and gave the order to move out.

At the end of the first tunnel, a little beyond the portcullis-like main entrance to the prison, buses were waiting. They were English Leylands, painted white; they had originally belonged to a private busline and had been expropriated by the government. The rear seat was taken up by six escorts with submachine guns. I got in. Carrión sat beside me; Boitel had plumped down with his load on the first seat. When all the seats were full, other guards were posted at the doors and behind the driver. A lieutenant came in and warned us not to so much as dare to stand up, let alone try to escape. The caravan of buses, escorted by National Police patrol cars and Political Police unmarked vehicles, pulled out.

I had hidden my watch since the day of the search. I was sure that when we got to Isla de Pinos it would be discovered so I thought I might as well put it on my wrist, but not now; I’d do it when we were closer to the other prison. It might be that I could get it through there, without any terrible consequences.

The caravan of buses drew away from the fortress, came to the Vía Monumental, turned right, and entered the tunnel into Havana, headed toward the Columbia Military Camp, from which we prisoners, loaded into planes, would depart for Isla de Pinos.

Doubts and questions always plague the prisoner when he is transferred — hundreds of questions. They arise, one after another, but they always go unanswered. There is intense mental activity going on in every man; even as silence descends and not a single voice is to be heard. Many men, perhaps, passed by their own houses, since we were crossing the city. A rush of memories assailed all of us. How many times had I walked down those avenues a free man; never even remotely suspecting that one day I would be driven through them a prisoner!

We came to the military camp and rolled to a stop before hangars and other Air Force installations. High fences and lookouts with rifles protected the airport. A little farther on, the office buildings and barracks, gray runways, and silhouettes of transport planes were blurred shapes in the gloomy night.

We got out of the buses in front of a barracks. There were guards everywhere, coming and going like ants. There was the sound of hammering; they were finishing the job of boarding up the barracks’ windows. Inside, there was a large room full of bunks made of wood and covered with heavy canvas; there were no pillows. Outside, orders were still being shouted back and forth. They were stationing soldiers on guard all around the building. One soldier dragged a chair over in front of the only door and sat down.

Boitel, Carrión, Ulises, Piñango, and I took some of the last bunks. Prisoners were already beginning to adapt to this new situation. Some of them asked the guard where the latrines were, but they had to wait until he could consult his superiors. When the answer finally came, he let us go in groups of four. Boitel and I went more to look the place over than out of any physical urgency; we thought we should explore every possibility of escape. But there was only one window set very high in the wall, next to the ceiling, and it opened onto the side of the building where a large group of soldiers was posted. We went back and lay down on the bunks, some to sleep, some to meditate, trying to see into the future that awaited us.

Around that time, there was tremendous optimism about the possibility of the fall of the regime. Only a few weeks before, the United States had broken off relations with Cuba, and President Eisenhower had stated that “the Communist penetration into Cuba is real, and it constitutes a grave threat to the Western world.” At that time many Cubans believed that a Marxist regime would not be tolerated in the Americas; analysts argued, on the basis of OAS treaties and Cuba’s geographic proximity to the United States, that the United States would have to take action. People were saying with complete assurance that Castro would not last many more weeks in power. And at the same time, there was hope — and this was indeed more reasonable — that the Resistance in Cuba, which was becoming more and more powerful, could pull off a coup.

“On your feet! Headcount formation here!” Very early, before it was light, a group of officers came in to get us up.

Sleepily, we started lining up, wrapped in blankets — even though the barracks was completely closed up, it was cold.

They brought in a big aluminum drum and gave us a piece of bread and a sip of coffee. They ordered us to get our things together, then took us out of the barracks and headed us to the transfer point. The sky was still gray and dense, and clouds were running low before the north wind.

We crossed one of the runways. Battalions of militia wearing green berets were marching and singing revolutionary anthems, among them the “Internationale.” It was from this camp that Batista had escaped Cuba, early on the morning of January l, barely two years ago. Now the militia was parading and hundreds of political prisoners were awaiting an uncertain destiny.

The names of the first transfer group were called off from lists which had already been made up at the prison in Havana. The plane, an old C-46, taxied up. The guards shouted and threatened the men getting on; it was a means they used to keep us frightened — even more frightened, that is.

When the plane turned for takeoff, a cloud of dust, dirty paper, and trash enveloped us. They had us off to one side of the runway, in a field of dry yellow weeds. The rest of us were going to have to wait for the plane to return before another contingent was transported. So the transfer was slow, but then it was suspended altogether because the plane was commandeered to carry a herd of cows to Camagüey Province. It was already nightfall. We hoped they would take us back to the barracks, but it was not to be. The militia received reinforcements and staked out a cordon of guards around us. We had to stay there on the side of the runway through the night.

The wind and cold rattled our bones. We took the blankets out of our sacks and huddled together as close as we could, to await the next day. Explosions were heard off and on.

Early in the morning the temperature fell considerably, and there was no way we could sleep anymore. We were shivering with cold. When above the houses and treetops on the other side of the fences it began to grow light, they brought us a little coffee and some bread. The wind swept across the grayish asphalt runway, bending the weeds and grass and scudding paper across the ground. I carefully took out my watch and put it on. I pulled the sleeve of my uniform down over it, and I also wrapped a handkerchief around it, to make sure it was completely covered. I might be able to use it in the other prison.

There was only a small group of us left. Platoons of militia stood in formation in front of the hangars and began their drills. They marched by within a few yards of us and looked at us out of the corners of their eyes. Many of those men, who at that time were ready to fight in defense of the Revolution, would fall fighting against it or go to the political jails years later for standing up to it; but at that moment they could not imagine what the country would become when Communism took over completely. So they couldn’t imagine our opposition, either.

At last our group was called. Boitel was taken aside for a moment to be handcuffed; other men were handcuffed in pairs. It was done not for security but out of simple cruelty. As we neared the boarding steps of the plane, the soldiers began to shout and yell and grow fiercer and more and more enraged. The transport plane had no seats, and they hadn’t cleaned it out at all after they had used it to transport the cattle, so the floor was covered with cow manure. A rope divided the plane in half lengthwise — we were crammed into one side and the guards were stationed on the other.

“Everybody on the floor! Down!” A murmur of protest swelled; were we going to have to sit in that cowshit all over the floor? But the guards began to push and shout like madmen. “Hurry it up! Everybody down! On the floor!” Boitel, handcuffed, tried to drag along one of his bags. Carrión was carrying the other one for him. They stuck a rifle butt into Guillermo’s back and shoved him violently. His feet tangled in his duffel and he fell flat on his face.

The metallic noise of the bolts of the machine guns was heard, and some orders were cried. No one moved. I was terrified.

“Now listen.” It was a lieutenant speaking. “We have orders to shoot any man that disobeys. No one is allowed to look out the windows or even raise your head. Anyone that does will pay the consequences. ... And another thing. Complete silence. No one will be permitted to speak during the trip. Is that understood?”

The aim of all those repressive measures was to discourage us from any attempt to take over the plane. After all, there were men of action in our group that had shown their courage on plenty of occasions — in the mountains fighting with the guerrillas as well as in the city and in underground groups.

The pilot was escorted on board by guards who shut themselves up with him in the cockpit. In Cuba this was not a measure taken only for transporting prisoners. Even at that early time in the Revolution all Cuban flights carried two guards, and the cockpit door and its peephole were armorplated. Until the plane touched down, the cockpit could not be opened, no matter what happened. This procedure is still being followed today.

With our heads lowered, unspeaking, we made the voyage.

The plane set down at the little airport of Nueva Gerona, the capital of Isla de Pinos. It bumped several times, as though the runway had ended and we were rolling across uneven ground. And so we were. The plane turned to the left toward the soldiers of the presidio, our reception committee, who were waiting for us with several military trucks. The door of the plane opened. Outside, high grass came up above the knees of the dozens of guards who surrounded the ship. Most of the soldiers in the group directly before the door were black, and they didn’t look like Cubans. Around their necks hung necklaces made of colored beads and seeds called oxeyes, and they had stuck little stalks of millet into their berets to distinguish themselves from the other guards.

As we descended from the plane, the soldiers began to shout fiercely and brandish their bayonets. But if the guards outside the plane were screaming and threatening us, the ones inside were even worse. “Get out! Now! Hurry up, quick! Jump!”

This time there were no boarding steps. The only way to get off the plane was to jump, and so prisoners were jumping out of the plane carrying the dead weight of the sacks. It was a mad marathon, a desperate jumble. Boitel dropped straight down and landed right in front of the door, and although he hardly scrambled two seconds to get to his feet again, one of the soldiers yanked him up by his arm, put his boot in his back, and shoved him away. Boitel fell on his face in the grass, handcuffed. He lost his glasses.

“Get on those trucks. Let’s go! Hurry it up!” And they called us every name in the book. “You’re on the Island, you sons of bitches! You bastards! We’re going to see to it that you like it here! Let’s go!” The noise, the confusion, the newness, the viciousness of our guards created a bedlam, ten endless minutes of pure panic. Prisoners ran like frightened animals, or at least I felt like one. I expected at any moment to be prodded with a bayonet or kicked headlong into the grass. Fear had overcome me. I felt a terrible tightness in my gut, like an iron claw squeezing and twisting my insides and slowly pulling them out of my belly. From that moment on, that sensation would remain with me for years, and I knew it was fear, panic, pure animal terror.

Hounded by the constant cries of the guards, we climbed up onto the trucks. There was one very fat, very slow-moving prisoner in the group, whom we called Tito. It was no easy task for him to get up onto a truck, and he stood there on the ground waiting for someone to give him a hand, but in those moments of fear and confusion, we had forgotten all about him. One of the guards raised his rifle and struck fat Tito with the flat of his bayonet, screaming, “Get up there! I told you to get on the truck!” And he hit him again. Several hands went out toward Tito and dragged him up onto the truck.

A rope bisected the truck bed. We prisoners were crammed into the front part next to the driver’s cab; on the other side, as in the plane, were the soldiers. They were glaring at us fiercely, and when the truck began to move they raised their bayonets and held them up almost against our necks.

Carrión and I were among the prisoners closest to the dividing rope. The sharp points of the bayonets, just inches from us, swayed with each movement of the truck. A lurch of the truck, a quick stop, a pot-hole would have been enough to bury them in our throats. In the truck, too, we were forbidden to look out, even to turn our heads or speak. The bayonets kept swaying, moving forward and back to the swaying of the truck. Instinctively, your head drew back, and then the guard would push the rifle forward a little more.

“Are you scared, faggot?” And you had to swallow the insult. “You don’t know what’s in store for you. You’re on Isla de Pinos now, and you’re going to find out whether what they say about it is true,” they said.

We had, in fact, heard a lot of talk about the prison we were being taken to, about the forced labor in the quarries, about the chilling searches in which some prisoners always wound up dead and hundreds wounded by bayonets. We had also heard about the sinister, dark punishment pavilions with their solitary-confinement cells. Prisoners, we had heard, were put in solitary confinement if they dared to complain about the injustices and abusive treatment committed against them on a daily basis; or they might be sent there simply because it pleased the jailers’ taste for sadism to see the prisoners lying naked on the hard, cold floor with the cell door welded shut. They would spend months there, and every day the guards would throw pails of freezing water and excrement over them. Even if a prisoner managed to control his mind, to keep his mental faculties intact, he would still almost always come out tubercular, his lungs destroyed.

And that was where we were being taken. We rode in silence, breathing deeply, trying to fill ourselves with the free air we wouldn’t breathe again for a very long time. And there were those bayonets too — swaying hypnotically, menacingly before our eyes like cobras in some nightmare, ready to sink their fangs into our throats.

But at that moment I seemed to wake up — the memory of my fallen comrades, executed by the firing squads of La Cabaña, came into my mind. I thought about Julio and his scorn for life as he defended his belief in freedom and patriotism; I thought about all of those men who marched to the firing squads with a smile on their lips; I thought about the integrity of those martyrs who had died shouting, “Viva Cuba Libre! Viva Christ the King! Down with Communism!” And I was ashamed to feel so frightened. I realized that the only way to honor the memory of those heroes was to behave with their firmness and integrity. My heart rose up to God, and I fervently prayed for Him to help me stand up to this brutality, and do what I had to do. I felt that God heard my prayer.