Cuba by Stephen Coonts Page B

woman mere. Even his mother couldn’t take
    her eyes from him, Mercedes noted, and grinned
    wryly. This last childshe bore Ocho when she was
    forty-foureven Dona Maria must wonder about the
    combination of genes that produced him.
    Normally an affable soul, Ocho had little to say this
    evening. He grunted monosyllables to everyone,
    kissed his mother and Mercedes and his sisters
    perfunctorily, then found a corner of the porch in which
    to sit.
    Women threw themselves at Ocho, and he never seemed
    to notice. It was almost as if he didn’t
    want the women who wanted him. He was
    sufficiently different from most of the men Mercedes
    knew that she found him intriguing. And perhaps, she
    reflected, that was the essence of his charm.
    Maximo Lui’s Sedano’s sedan braked to a
    stop in a swirl of dust. He bounded from the car,
    strode toward the porch, shouting names, a wide grin
    on his face. He gently gathered his mother in his arms,
    kissed her on both her cheeks and forehead, kissed
    each hand, knelt to look into her face.
    Mercedes didn’t hear what he said; he spoke
    only for his mother’s ears. When she looked away from
    Maximo and his mother she was surprised to see
    Maximo’s wife climbing the steps to the porch.
    Maximo’s wifejust what
    was
    her name”…ccdemned forever to be invisible in the glare of the
    great man’s spotlight.
    Another dominant personalitythe Sedanos
    certainly produced their share of thoseMaximo was a
    prisoner of his birth. Cuba was far too small for
    him. Amazingly, be-
    cause life rarely works out just right, he had found
    one of the few occupations in Castro’s Cuba
    that allowed him to travel, to play on a wider
    field. As finance minister he routinely visited the
    major capitals of Europe, Central and South
    America.
    Just now he gave his mother a gift, which he opened for
    her as his sisters leaned forward expectantly, trying
    to see.
    French chocolates! He opened the box and let his
    mother select one, then passed the rare delicacy
    around to all.
    The sisters stared at the box, rubbed their fingers across
    the metallic paper, sniffed the- delicious scent,
    then finally, reluctantly, selected one candy and
    passed the box on.
    One of the sisters’ husbands whispered to the other, just
    loud enough for Mercedes to overhear: “Would you look at
    that? We ate potatoes and plantains last month,
    all month, and were lucky to get them.”
    The other brother-in-law whispered back, “For
    three days last week we had absolutely nothing.
    My brother brought us a fish.”
    “Well, the dons in government are doing all right.
    That’s the main thing.”
    Mercedes sat listening to the babble of voices, idly
    comparing Maximo’s clean, white hands to those
    of the sisters’ husbands, rough, callused,
    work-hardened. If the men were different, the women
    weren’t. Maximo’s wife wore a chic,
    fashionable French dress as she sat now with Dona
    Maria’s daughters, whispering with them, but inside the
    clothes she was still one of them in a way that Maximo
    would never be again. He had traveled too far, grown
    too big….
    Mercedes was thinking these thoughts when Hector arrived,
    walking along the road. Even Maximo stopped
    talking to one of his brothers, the doctor, when he
    saw Hector coming up the path to the porch.
    “Happy birthday,
    Mima.”
    Hector, Jesuit priest, politician,
    revolutionary… he spoke softly to his mother,
    kissed her cheek, shook Maximo’s hand, looked
    him in the eye as he ate a chocolate,
    kissed each of his sisters and touched the arms and hands of
    their husbands and his brothers, the doctor and the
    automobile mechanic.
    Ocho was watching Hector, waiting for him to reach for
    his hand, his lips quivering.
    Mercedes couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing,
    Hector hugging Ocho, holding him and
    rocking back and forth, the young man near tears.v
    Then the moment passed.
    Hector refused to release his grip on his
    brother, led him to Dona Maria, gently