FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 6, Number 1 January-February, 1999 EDITOR'S NOTE: FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis. The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the public. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e- mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part of the message itself, rather than as an attachment. 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William Ramsay, Editor ================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Note Contributors Two Poems Tan Jen "Writers' Group," a short story Jeanne Coutant "Fidel and Electronics," an excerpt (chapter 12) from the novel "Ay, Chucho!" William Ramsay "Confidences," part 3 of the play, "Julie" Otho Eskin ================================================= CONTRIBUTORS JEANNE COUTANT, a native of France who has recently moved to Washington, traveled widely as a child as a child with her diplomat parents. A travel writer by profession, she has retired and is currently taking courses in both fiction and poetry. OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs, has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in Washington.. His play, "Season in Hell," recently had sixteen performances at the SCENA Theatre in Washington. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the Northwest Fiction Group. His play, "Revenge," recently received readings by the Actor's Theatre of Washington. TAN-JEN is an avid Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) gardener and student of Chinese literature. Her verses seek to capture in English the spirit and prosody of the classical Chinese lyric poems -- the ancestors of the Japanese haiku. ================================================== TWO POEMS by Jeanne Coutant House O house of dreams in you I stand awake And breathe the subtle scent of time gone by I reach to touch the memories never mine I lean to hear the secret footsteps on the stair When sudden sunlight dances through the door And lets in echoes of the laughter I know that lying curled in sleep the dreams That come are other dreamers other times Ghosts at Marguerite's House Silent and gray, like wisps of smoke They curl around the edges of a room Deepening the hues of present time With softer shades of memory =================================================== THE WRITERS' GROUP by Jeanne Coutant As Gary passed out the last piece scheduled for the evening's discussion, Nancy bolted down the rest of the Chardonnay in her lipstick-smudged glass and leaned forward in her chair, just enough to offer a glimpse of well-tanned cleavage. She touched Gary's fingers softly while taking the papers, then waved her empty glass in the general direction of Porter, the group leader. Porter, however did not jump up to offer another glass. James accepted the papers absent- mindedly, seemingly busy shuffling the other pages in his lap. Inwardly he was seething. "That arrogant son-of-a-bitch," he fumed, "he thinks he's such hot stuff, always showing off!" Jerry, her petite form etched sharply in black leotards and turtleneck, was already perched expectantly as always on the very edge of her chair. She snatched the proffered pages with one hand and quickly adjusted her overlarge horn-rimmed glasses before plunging in to the first paragraph. Next to her, Diana pulled the voluminous folds of fabric which draped her very ample body to one side and quickly stuck two fingers in the glob of melted Brie which was almost all that remained of the evening's cheese and fruit tray. A long term member of the group, she knew better than to hope for another glass of wine from Porter but had her eye on the one remaining pastry however, it was too far across the coffee table to reach. Watching the blob of Brie disappear into Diana's pursed lips, James was struck forcibly by an image of her large, fleshy thighs spread open tantalizingly. He peered down at the piles of paper in his lap, aware that he had started to harden slightly even as the thought of Diana's body filled him with disgust. Gary sank his long, lanky body into his chair and smiled amiably at the group. Even though he had just joined recently, he had never seemed to suffer the initial reticence which so frequently afflicted newcomers. "You know, " he said, "I thought I'd try something erotic for this exercise there's a great market for this sort of thing. I'll be interested to see what you all think." Fury stiffened James's spine at this remark. "Fat chance that this bastard Porter ever make any money on his writing!" he thought, as he attempted to scan the pages in front of him. Porter tapped the edge of his pipe thoughtfully, cleared his throat a little, and without looking directly at Gary suggested, "Why don't we all take a few moments to look over the piece?" Jerry of course had already read the few pages straight through and made a few tiny notes in the margin. Two bright red spots flamed in either cheek, and she tapped her foot impatiently while the others read through the piece. Even before Porter had time to offer his usual overview, noting points of stylistic interest, she plunged in with a flood of half articulated phrases, to the effect of "not erotic from the feminine point of view", "strictly testosterone-driven", "compares unfavorably with classics like "Story of O". Jerry's angry fusillade of criticism completely disrupted James's reading of the piece. Peppered with phrases like "throbbing member" and "warm little mound", the pages seem to send off sparks that further enraged him. He glanced sideways to sneak a look at Jerry's small, muscular legs and imagined her tight little backside, so like a boy's. "Wonder if she's really a dyke maybe all this stuff between her and Nancy is just frustrated lust!"" James tried as always to avoid looking in Nancy's direction but he longed, just once, to tweak those erect nipples and grab her blonde hair, forcing her head down, onto his " As Jerry warmed to her subject, Porter could see that Nancy was unsheathing her talons in readiness for another of the cat fights that seemed so often to characterize what he always hoped would be a measured, nicely balanced assessment of strengths and weaknesses without assassinating the author. "Jerry dear, excuse me a moment," Nancy purred, "but I really have to disagree! Just look at this wonderful description of the heroine's sexual arousal, where he 's talking about that 'soft, tingling arc of desire beginning in her nipples and radiating down to her warm little mound'" She glanced archly at Gary, crossing her legs to expose a long stockinged thigh under the slit of her skirt, and laughed, "it's not only realistic, but it really turns me on!" James's attention was riveted on Nancy as she sweetly demolished Jerry. When she licked her lips and shot that look of pure lasciviousness straight at Gary, an X-rated image of Nancy kneeling in front of him, licking those lips, and rubbing her nipples against his thighs popped into James's mind like a firecracker. However Diana's large backside, swathed in fabric, momentarily blocked his view as she lunged around the table to grab the last remaining pastry. Through the crumbs, she mumbled "you both have good points but as I see it the essence of erotic writing is in the indirect, the suggestive, the allusive, rather than the explicit for example, language like "he thrust his throbbing member into her wet pussy" is just a little too, ah, frontal " she drifted off in mid-phrase, looking hopefully at James as she ambled back to her seat. A new image of Diana came to focus in James's mind, an image compounded equally of hope that she might be an ally in his as yet to be declared war on Gary and the somewhat exotic prospect of what lay underneath the long skirt as she settled into her chair. He was suddenly aware of Porter, the peerless and always tactful group leader, encouraging some comment from him. He could feel the thin film of perspiration forming on his upper lip, and tried to control the shaking in his hands as he stubbornly refused to offer the thoughtful and reasoned comments on which the group always counted. For a moment which stretched on an on, the group was uncharacteristically silent. Gary's smile never wavered but stiffened slightly. Jerry, frowning, foot tapping faster than ever, took refuge in her third reread of the piece. Diana shuffled her chair slightly closer to James's and gave him an encouraging little nudge with her knee. Nancy arched back in her chair, so that her blouse stretched taut over her nipples, just as James looked up, noticed the nipples, and blushed to the roots of his hair. Glancing at his watch, Porter cleared his throat slightly and said, "Well, folks, we're running out of time for this meeting, even though we haven't given Gary's piece the full attention it deserves. Why don't we break for tonight, and if anyone has any further comments or suggestions for Gary, you can just e-mail them to me or to him." As the group dispersed, the words of a savage e-mail to Porter about Gary's piece were forming in James's mind " no respect for literary quality prurient with no redeeming value, social or literary degenerates into nothing but soft-core porn an insult to the integrity of our group if we are to adhere to our standards, we should insist that Gary resign from the group shocked at the low level of morality exhibited here " In the front hallway, he fumbled to help Diana with her coat and said softly, "Why don't we work together on a response for Porter want to come by my place for another glass of wine so we can plan something?" ================================================== FIDEL AND ELECTRONICS by William Ramsay (Note: the is chapter 12 of the novel, "Ay, Chucho!" As you can imagine, I was a bundle of nerves, waiting to see what the "monster carrot" was going to do about things like me and Valeska and Paco and the counter-revolutionary plot she had discovered. After Valeska left, I tried calling Pepita at her hotel, but she was out. The next day, Monday, there was still no answer at her hotel. At about 7:15 that night, as I came down the avenue from a stroll along the Malecon, I heard a "chh-chh" sound, the Latin signal for attention, from behind a palm tree just inside the playing grounds. I peered into the dark shadows from the faint street lights. It was Paco. He was wearing a disheveled blue blazer and an undone tie. "Chucho!" I went over to him. The dim orange light glistened on the sweat on his forehead. "They've arrested Duran." Paco bit on his lip, worrying it. "Duran?" "Yes, they got to know something. I'm dropping out of sight, maybe I'll get a fishing boat back to the States if I can find one. Watch yourself." "It was a crazy idea." "I don't know how they found out." I felt uncomfortable. "They know _everything_." "Keep working on it, I've left the explosives and the detonators in a safe place." "Not with my mother!" "No, no, Elena doesn't know anything. We've got to protect her." He wiggled his little mustache as if his words were paining him. I suddenly missed my own handsome _bigotes_. "Valeska's found a safe place for the stuff." "Valeska? You trusted her with the stuff?" "She's a good kid, don't get jealous." "But Valeska?" It was like entrusting a crystal goblet to a two-year- old. Paco smiled. His smile was always one of his strong points. "Tell Elena I'll keep in touch." He shook my hand, gave me a brief but breath- stopping embrace, and stepped back into the shadows of the palms and ficus trees and disappeared. The next day I got a note from Pepita. She had gone back to El Salvador on the 6:30 plane. She said she hadn't mentioned my name to the authorities in her voluntary report to them on "you know what" and told me to stay away from counter revolutionaries and the "hoodlum element." Her prose was firm, rational: Felipe, those who aren't with us are against us. My glorious meeting with Fidel has only strengthened my conviction that the Revolution demands of all of us the highest standards in public and private life. I don't go so far as to criticize your conduct from the point of view of bourgeois morality, but I must confess to a certain disillusionment on the personal level. Remember also that the Counterrevolution operates through sapping the ethical fiber of the continuing struggle to achieve Socialist Personhood.... She went on like that for another paragraph. Then: I've given them that Duran's name and description. But after much soul-searching, I've given your friend Santos the benefit of the doubt -- he seems like an honest, well-meaning fellow -- not too bright though. Maybe he was led on by this Duran type. After all that, her "_Salud_ -- _y_ _adios_" at the end was like a vague shadow of a peace offering. If she hadn't mentioned Paco to G-2, she certainly hadn't mentioned me. I thanked God or whomever that I was apparently in the clear in the Great Prison Break Plot. Provided Llemo Duran couldn't -- or wouldn't -- implicate me. I had to go to Santiago for three days to give a lecture for Comrade Deputy Assistant Administrator Millan of the Latin American Bureau of MINEXT on "my work with the progressive elements in the villages of the free zone of El Salvador." Maybe everything was all right, maybe not, but I did more of the usual amount of looking over my shoulder as I strolled back from my lecture along the dark winding streets of the old colonial city. When I got back to Havana, I stopped by the Club Pipi. A man in a red shirt stood across the street smoking. I glanced at him twice before I went in, but he seemed to be concentrating on his cigarette as if it were a last meal. Inside, Valeska smiled at me and asked me how things were with the "monster carrot." "Valeska, I'm worried." "About what?" she said, leaning into the mirror in the half-cubicle that passed as a dressing room and sponging away at her French pancake makeup -- another little gift of mine. "About the stuff," I lowered my voice, although only old Pancho the club factotum was around. "The 'equipment' my friend Paco left with you." She pursed her lips as she scrubbed them clean of rouge. "Your friend Paco's cool, I like him." "That's great, where have you got 'the stuff'?" "Don't worry. Paco didn't squeal on you. He said how much he appreciated your helping him try to get his brother-in-law out of the slammer." 'Brother-in-law,' I thought. "Of course I worry, if the secret police get onto that stuff, you'll be in deep shit." "No." "What do you mean, 'No'?" "I haven't got it any more. Hell, I haven't got any safe place to keep anything like that." "You haven't got it? But where is it?" "Pierre's holding it for us." Oh God, I thought, Pierre! "He said you had told him it was all right." I didn't bother telling her I hadn't even seen Pierre in over a week. She wiped cold cream on her face, massaging her cheeks. She glanced at me. "You sure look nervous." She cleaned off one cheek and pointed at it. "No," I said. "_Un_ _piquitito_," she said. "No, not right now," I said. "I've got to think!" "_Si_! A little, little kiss." I gave her a little kiss. She tasted of cold cream, sweat and lilies. "Don't forget about the panty hose with the gold spnagles," she said, reminding me of another item on my dollar store list. The next week I spent fending off my mother's questions about Paco. And her complaints about the time she was wasting in Cuba. Amelia had offered to come down and help, but Mama had written that it was pointless. "Chucho," said my mother, "tell me that Paco is all right. Please." "Don't ask, Mother." A faraway look. "I know I can't keep him away from the young girls. But still, I worry." "It's not that." "What is it?" "I can't say, Mother, I really can't say." And I really couldn't say where Paco was or what he was doing. But in Friday's paper, I did find out what another one of my "comrades" was up to. The Reserve Bank in Camaguey had been robbed by "counterrevolutionary elements, using arms supplied by the C.I.A., the F.B.I., and Emir of Bahrein." The outer wall and the main vault of the bank had been blown up, "probably by mortar fire." Elements of the Militia were being aided by volunteers from the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in carrying out searches throughout Camaguey province. A night watchman had been slightly wounded. He said that the attackers, faces masked in stockings, had brandished the clenched fist and that one of them, a fat man, had shouted "Viva 'Co-po-quin'," or something of the sort. I didn't blame the newspaper editor for not recognizing the name of the great Russian theoretician of Anarchism, but I for one now knew where Paco's electronic detonators and plastic explosives had ended up after the failure of the prison caper. At least I was in the clear on the prison business -- or so I thought. You know, sometimes when I think everything is O.K., when I've had a close call but have come out all right, it reminds me of the day after I first went to bed with a girl. I was fifteen, and I was sitting on the beach at Boca, feeling good about myself, about life, about everything. It was a nice day in November, looking out toward the horizon, and getting this calm but complex feeling, like there was a sort of beauty that made my mouth dry. Like music or poetry. But behind the line where the dark blue of the sea meets the pale sky, I could feel a hint of sadness -- as if it were all too good to be true. And life being what it is, all too damn often it turns out to be exactly that way! That's all philosophy, or whatever. But the tall man with the wispy beard wasn't philosophy, he was flesh and blood. Or rather, he looked more like a clothed skeleton, with his long legs spread out in shiny black leather trouser legs, arrogantly half-blocking the main pathway from the door to the reception desk. I think, looking back, that I had half-noticed him around town before, but there in the lobby was the first time I got a good look at him. Moving to one side half behind a pillar, I stared at him, trying to see his eyes. His dark glasses had fallen down halfway along his nose, but he kept his head down over a copy of "Granma," and all I could see were his eyelids. G-2, I thought -- even though he wasn't dressed in bright colors. After me? I wondered. Maybe, I thought. Even probably. But what could I do about it? The old beach-horizon melancholy welled up inside me. I didn't sleep well that night. And the next day, I felt tired and jumpy as I returned from attending a meeting of the Vedado Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, the neighborhood amateur spy network and social club, which had asked me for a lecture on guerrilla tactics. (I had had to study up on the works of Mao Zedong.) As I walked into the lobby of the Presidente, a tall shadowy form arose from the skeleton's chair in the Presidente lobby. But when he turned into the light to face me, there was no beard, no dark glasses -- it was Eddy Paniagua. God, I was relieved. I gave him a handshake and a sketch of an _abrazo_. I found out he'd gotten a ride with a friend to Casablanca across the bay and had been waiting for me all evening. I took him into the coffee shop and bought him dinner. He ate fastidiously but steadily -- Cuban students may get fed better than manual laborers, but Eddy looked at his steak as if it were a brand-new laptop computer. He gazed up at me from time to time with his large eyes. I can only describe the look as worshipful -- and hey! Not many other people were worshiping me these days. "How did you get here from Casablanca?" "I borrowed a bike, Doctor. No trouble at all. We Cubans have to be inventive." "God, Casablanca's miles away," I said. I invited him to use the other bed in my room for the night. As I was getting undressed, I noticed that he was staring at me. Then his eyes dropped as he saw me looking. Kids and their curiosity! I thought at the time. The next day, we did find a book, a kind of old one, on computer software, at the bookstore. Then Eddy let it drop that it was his sixteenth birthday. "Oh, your birthday!" I said, thinking fast. An idea. I asked him to wait for me and I went into the dollar store across the street. I found a little Japanese notebook computer with a memory of 640 whole words, not much by American standards, but to any Cuban kid, a small marvel. Anyway, I gave it to him. He stared a moment and then grabbed me, leaning over and giving me a really close _abrazo_, caressing my back. I wanted to say, thank "The Men" and the "Company," I'll put it on the expense account -- but I didn't. His eyes filled up, he mumbled "Thank you, thank you." The caress continued, but I broke it off. Latin male bonding! I thought. I was in a good mood after Eddy left, cycling away, his legs too long for the bicycle, headed east down the Calzada toward the harbor. That night, going for my customary walk along the Malecon, I was making a resolution to get together some more computer references for the kid. The night was moonless and misty, the lights along the Malecon shone dimly. I was passing a row of waiting Turistaxis. Suddenly I noticed a lighted cigarette and a flash of reflected streetlight from a pair of dark glasses on a tall form leaning against one of the taxis. Back at the hotel, I walked upstairs -- the elevator wasn't working that night -- and sat down on the bed, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I had no idea what to do. I didn't know where Paco was, I couldn't get help from my mother -- I could only cause trouble for her. Pepita was back in El Salvador and probably wouldn't have helped me if she had been there. How about Dominguez in Cayo Hueso? Maybe. But maybe all that would accomplish would be to blow Dominguez' cover -- the tall guy in the dark glasses and his friends could presumably follow me anywhere they wanted to. But suppose it wasn't me they were after? Christ, I told myself, I could well be worrying about nothing at all. So the next evening, when "shades" was back in his appointed chair in the lobby, I willed myself to smile jauntily as I approached the desk. The respectful voice of the reception clerk saying, "_Buenas_ _noches_, Doctor Elizalde," made me feel like a baby rocked in the cradle of a secure, respectably socialist identity. I was safe, there wasn't anything to worry about. Lots of luck, Chucho! A few days later, I was scheduled to give a lecture to the Revolutionary Action Committee at the College of Fine Arts -- Dr. Felipe Elizalde was getting to be quite a flexible fixture on the local lecture circuit. The car that picked me up at the Presidente at eight P.M. was a Mercedes painted olive-green. As I got in, I stuck out my hand to greet the short man, tieless in a dress shirt and a pale gray suit, who sat on the edge of the far side of the back seat. His handclasp was limp. We moved out onto the Avenue, but then we turned left instead of right at the intersection with the Pinar del Rio road. I started to say something, then I looked over at the round face of the little man. He shook his finger at me and smiled. The car accelerated. Uh-oh! Suddenly I had to piss like mad. First I thought of forcing my way past shorty to the car door and jumping out of the speeding vehicle. Then, abruptly, I had an insane desire to lay my head back against the old, moldy- smelling cushion of the back seat and go to sleep. In the wildly flapping streaks of light from passing streetlights and autos, the man's little round face smiled faintly. Something clattered on the floorboards, and the short driver reached forward, picked up a Kalashnikov from the floor, and laid it down on the seat beside him. Shorty's smile was now wider and showed some gold teeth. We passed one of the big red-and-white billboards that carried Party messages -- I could make out as we passed some of the words of the familiar message: "Cubans, choose to stay in Cuba." The car drove up an alley near the Old Town and stopped. The driver jumped out, took the Kalashnikov by the barrel and, reaching in, slapped the butt into my thigh. From the other side, Shorty poked me in the arm with a sharp finger. I got out. "_Amor_, _amor_, _amor_," crooned Shorty in a wispy tenor voice as we walked into a bare hallway and then through a door with a small window set into it into a box-like room containing only a chair and a bucket. The bucket was stenciled with the letters MININT. Shorty frisked me, confiscated my pocket knife, and then went out, interrupting his singing long enough to slam the door shut: "_Amor_, _amor_, _eres_ _de_ _mi_, _eres_... SLAMMM. I faintly heard.. _de_ _ti_, _eres_ _de_....." I was in the cruel, grubby hands of Castro's secret police. First I used the bucket, my urine splashing into a few inches of clear water on the bottom. I sat down on the chair, my stomach trembling. Then I got up and started to pace. After what seemed like an hour, I finally eased myself onto the floor. The adobe felt cold and when I shuffled my body into a more comfortable position, something sticky pulled at my trousers. They hadn't bothered to take anything besides the knife: in the Bogart flicks they always took away your belt and shoelaces. I took off my shoes and tried to prop up my head on one of them, twisting, trying to get comfortable. I took off one sock and made a kind of sleep mask out of it. But the sock was hot and smelled musty on my face, the bright overhead light still shone in my eyes. I lay awake, thinking, feeling very alone and very scared. Duran must have talked after all. Despite everything, I fell asleep. The shaking woke me up to the brightness of the light, glowing with painful sharpness like the pictures of the sun after an eclipse. Shorty stood above me, looking tired too. He motioned for a guard in a blue uniform, who prodded me to get up and follow them down a corridor and into an office. Shorty sat down in a chair behind a desk. He looked very official, I expected him to start shuffling papers or something. There was no place for me to sit. He looked at me expectantly, raising his eyebrows. "You don't seem to have much to say," he said. "I don't know what all this is about..." I started to say. He laughed. He started to sing again: "_Y_ _tu_, _quien_ _sabe_ _donde_ _andaras_, _quien_ _sabe_..." I had already recognized the old standard "Perfidia." I found myself shaking my head, my eyes felt heavy, irritated. "Come on, what's going on here?" "You tell me, Comrade Elizalde." His voice had dropped, he was no longer a would-be lyric tenor, but he pronounced the "Elizalde" without irony. "I mean..." I started to say. "Shut up." He sounded peevish. The narrow nostrils looked reddened. "I have an official status here..." He jumped up. "'Official status,' Oh aren't we important." He bowed at me. "How elegant!" he said. I shook my head, I felt as if I hadn't waked up yet. He took several large steps around the room, took his pistol from its long leather holster, and started to dance, waggling his head like an irritated elf. "Of-fi-ci-al bu-u-u-ull-shit, of-fi-ci-al bu-u-u-u-u-u-u-ull-shit," he started singing, to the tune of "Guantanamera." He waved one hand like a ballerina, the other flopped with the weight of his automatic pistol, while his head swung and his body bounced to his own singing. The door opened. Shorty's mouth stopped in mid "Bu-u-u-ull-shit," and he raised his head high. A blue-uniformed guard looked through Shorty as if he were some kind of insect and said, "Pineda wants to see him." Pineda was the name of one of the chief officials in G-2. Shorty raised himself even higher and said, "Elizalde, move!" He waved the pistol at me. Going out, the guard muttered "Cokehead" under his breath. We went up a set of whitewashed stairs. Pineda had solid-looking wood furniture in his office. He needed it, he must have weighed 250 pounds, his arms bulged out of his short-sleeved uniform blouse, propped on piles of papers, inundating them with flesh. He stared at me. "There's nothing to be said," he said. He had buck teeth that darted out at every other word. "What?" I said. "Don't talk, listen!" "Yes sir," I said. "Yes, _comrade_." "Yes, comrade." "But I forgot, you're not one of us, are you?" "I'm Salvadoran." He waved his arms as if he were warding off a swarm of bees. "Lies, lies, all I get is lies." He stroked his little mustache. I said nothing, I wanted to think, but my mind seemed to have slipped gears. "The Cuban Revolution is one of the most beautiful things produced by mankind!" He glared at me. "Yes, Comrade." "Don't say 'Comrade'!" "Yes, sir." "And not 'sir,' -- God, the ways of the bourgeois past are with us always. How can we build a new society without a New Man?" "Yes, sir." "Shut up, shut up!" He made a move as if to stand up -- I found myself wondering if his muscles could handle the task. "SHUT UP!" I said nothing. I felt as if there wouldn't be much time left for me to say anything, ever. "_El_ _paredon_ is too good for you!" Oh shit, oh shit, I said to myself. The phone rang. He picked it up. "Yes, yes, Comandante." He talked for a moment in monosyllables, hung up and pressed a buzzer. "_El_ _paredon_ must wait patiently for you, it appears," he said and turned away to stare at a photograph of Che Guevara on the near wall. A soldier in camouflage came for me, clamped my elbow in his fingers, and guided me off down a darkened corridor, painted in what looked in the gloom like pukey olive-green. Then into a small room. There sat Fidel in an overstuffed chair by a small table piled with papers. He looked up from under his thick brows and grinned. I didn't like the thin-lipped economy of the smile. "Comrade Elizalde," he said. The smile faded entirely. "_Mr_. Revueltos." He pronounced the "mister" as if it were evidence of criminal behavior -- which I guess in this case it was. I wanted to sit down badly, my legs felt heavy -- I also had a wild desire to urinate again. He rested one hand on an automatic pistol lying next to some papers and with the other waved at the soldier to leave. After the door was shut, he told me to come up to where he was sitting. He peered closely into my eyes. His looked very dark, like pools in the mangrove forest of the Everglades. He pointed a finger at a straight chair and I sat down. He held out a box of cigars to me, looking anxiously at them -- I knew he had quit smoking, but he looked as if the addiction were merely lying dormant. I declined. He snickered. "Fedy Revueltos' little boy," he said, rolling the phrase around with his lips and smiling oddly. "A crazy man," he said. He rehearsed the story of my lawsuit against the Cuban government, with a bare mention of the outstanding charges for counterrevolutionary activities, fraud, and alienation of state property. He needn't have gone into details, I remembered it all. The need to urinate suddenly disappeared as if the liquid in my bladder had evaporated, or rather turned into a lump of metal under my navel. I suddenly wanted my mother. I've never been one for suicide. I don't know, I'm too chicken I suppose. God knows I've felt bad enough about life sometimes -- doesn't everyone feel at one time or another that there's no way out but to open a window on the tenth floor or so and lean out over the ledge and just keep leaning? No, I never hope for death -- as a rule. But at that moment with Castro, I played hard with the wish that I could do the job myself -- anything but to be stood up against the _paredon_ as an enemy of the Cuban state -- and to suffer God knows what grim games the G-2 creeps would think up for me beforehand. My head felt as if it were about to explode. I stared at Castro, seeing his mouth moving but not hearing anything but a loud buzzing noise, like a swarm of hornets, with an occasional word like "Revolution" and "crime" appearing out of the background. Abruptly I noticed that he had stopped talking and was looking at me as if I had just dropped in from outer space. "Electronics," he said, evidently repeating the word. "What?" I said. "What? What?" He looked annoyed, he picked up a file folder and waved it at me and said that I was supposed to be an electronics expert. I suppose I qualified as an expert in electronics, all right -- but at that moment I would have admitted to being a prima ballerina if that's what the big man with the long wispy gray beard wanted me to be. "Sure," I said, "Sure." He still looked annoyed. "What kind of electronics -- be precise!" I said TVs, VCRs, stereos, you name it, all the standard items in a retail store. He raised his eyebrows, and I realized that _no_ electronics store in socialist Cuba -- if such a store even existed -- would have as many different kinds of merchandise as any single row of the white vinyl counters back in my store in Miami. "Nothing special, you know," I said in modesty or terror. "Could you get me one of the Philips DX-360 VCRs?" I nodded. "With stereo capabilities?" I nodded again. He started to discuss television and satellites, the role of video in the recent upheavals in Eastern Europe. My stomach muscles were softening, and my bladder started to ache again. Somewhere inside a small voice was wondering what the hell was this, was he looking for a bribe or just passing the time of day before my execution the next morning, or what? But I said shush to that little voice as I concentrated on hanging onto the present moment, clasping onto the image of Fidel sitting there, blabbering on about Lech Walesa's TV image and Havel's speeches. My throat was tight, my heartbeat felt irregular. My ass ached slightly from being scrunched into the hardness of the solid wood chair. My body reassured me I was still in this world. For the present. He stopped and raised a finger for emphasis. The finger was very large, almost fat. He said that the really interesting development was the cellular phone. "Phone communications will replace speech, comrade -- Mr. Revueltos. All over the world people will soon use miniature handsets, even ear-and-throat- sets -- everywhere, even at home." He laughed and said that even in bed between a husband and wife... He broke off, chuckling, and looked at me. But when I tried out a smile, his face turned stern, puritanical. The plump finger again. The Russians, it turned out, had promised him some help in getting a system -- this was before the Soviet Union had cooled off so completely on aid to its Caribbean comrades. But the engineer they had sent had been incompetent -- worse, the Cubans had gotten the idea that the Russians knew precious little more about cellular phones than they did themselves. He stopped and looked at me again from underneath the gray-flecked bushy eyebrows. I said that the technology was relatively simple, but the systems problems, how to forward and relay the calls, required some analysis. We had had some problems in Miami, I admitted, but we had solved them. He raised his head. Him: You worked on these systems? Me (wondering if toe-dancing might really be coming next): Sure, I was involved. Him: Involved? Me: Yes, I helped set up the south Dade County cells. (Well, a friend of mine had been on the staff of McGraw Cable, and he had told me stories about it, I _felt_ as if I had been there. And I had to learn something about these things to help out the customers who bought cellular phone sets in my shop -- I mean, I knew _something_.) Him: Good. Me (now catching on completely): Yes. Him: I'll need fast results. Me: Fast results? Him: They must be ready for the Latin American Rural Initiatives Conference here next month. The explosive feeling in my head now started to sputter and fizzle in all directions, like an uncoordinated Fourth-of July display. On the one hand, I grasped immediately that I wasn't headed for the _paredon_ in the near future. On the other hand, did I really have the know-how to put together a cable network for Fidel -- which is what he obviously wanted? And -- when and if I succeeded in giving him what he wanted -- what would happen to me afterward? I looked into the gentle-looking eyes, with their deep lazy wrinkles radiating from the outer edges, and wondered about if any real gentleness -- or mercy -- lay in them. Fidel was famous for his enthusiasms -- methods of secretarial education, cassava cultivation, new types of flame-throwers. I had been elected to provide him with a new toy. The king must be amused. The aging, long-bearded Merlin-King Arthur of Cuba. But what was the outlook for the jester? He smirked. "I'd like to see the Mexicans' faces -- they've been having a lot of trouble with the American consultant they hired!" His face grew truly radiant. He told me to keep my alias going -- it would "reduce complications" - - to keep him or Pineda informed of progress, to get started immediately, to "redeem myself." "Maybe something can after all be done about your father, if everything works out," he said. Or maybe I could join him in La Cabana if everything went blooie, I thought. Maybe "mercy" would mean prison instead of the Wall, I thought. I left feeling as if I had just pulled back from the edge of a high cliff above a deep river gorge -- but that now I had to cross a swinging rope bridge to get to safety on the other side. But first -- I needed to piss. How come Errol Flynn never had to piss? ================================================= CONFIDENCES by Otho Eskin (Part 3 of "Julie," a play based on "Miss Julie" by August Strindberg, a new version by Otho Eskin) CHARACTERS: MISS JULIE White, early thirties, the only daughter of a "patrician" family in the deep south RANSOM African-American, late twenties. The family chauffeur. CORA African-American, early twenties. The family cook. PLACE: The kitchen of a large, once-elegant home somewhere in the Deep South. One door leads to the kitchen garden. Another door leads to Cora's bedroom. TIME: Sometime during the 1930's. It is Saturday night Midsummer's Night (June 23). At Rise the sky, seen through the doors, is still light. As the play progresses the sky will darken, then lighten again with morning. JULIE (Continued) You know, like they do in the movies. With the pretty flowers and the waltzes and the beautiful girl and her gallant. (Obviously uncomfortable, RANSOM takes JULIE's hand and kisses the back of her hand. Instead of letting go right away, he holds her hand, gently. JULIE pulls her hand away, slightly flustered.) JULIE That wasn't so terrible, now was it? I do believe you are truly shy. RANSOM (Angry) I think we better stop play actin'. Right now. JULIE Why on earth would we want to do that? RANSOM We not in the movies. Besides somebody might see us. JULIE What if someone did? Who cares? RANSOM People talk. They already begun to talk... JULIE (Delighted) What are they saying, Ransom? Do sit down and tell me what they're saying. RANSOM They suggestin'... well, you know, they see someone like you alone with a man like me, at night, drinkin'...they get ideas. JULIE What ideas? RANSOM You know ideas. JULIE Stuff and nonsense! We're not alone. Cora's here. RANSOM She's sleepin'. JULIE I'll wake her then. (Calling out) Cora! Are you asleep? Wake up! She's dead to the world. Wake up, you silly girl! RANSOM (Angrily) Let her sleep! JULIE (Offended) Don't give me orders! RANSOM She been standin' all day at the cook-stove. Let her sleep. JULIE Yes. Let's stay by ourselves. RANSOM You not like other ... other people... JULIE You mean I'm not like my father and other white people you've met. RANSOM I think you not like anyone I ever met. JULIE Perhaps I am different. So are you. I think we understand life better than other people. We know that life, people, everything is just a bubble, pretty and bright, floating on top of the water until finally it bursts vanishes. RANSOM I don' know what you talkin' about, Miss Julie. JULIE I used to have this dream. For years I had this dream. I'm on top of a pillar. I look over the edge and I become dizzy. I'm terrified of heights. I know I have to get down but I can't jump. But I can't stay there either. I want to fall but I can't. There's no peace for me there no peace for me until I'm on the ground. Even then there's no peace. Not until I'm under the ground. Maybe not even then. Have you dreamed too, Ransom? RANSOM No, Miss. Nothin' like that. JULIE Don't you dream at all? RANSOM I got dreams. Sometimes JULIE Tell me. RANSOM I rather not... JULIE I want to know. RANSOM When I was a boy there was this old elm tree by the creek... JULIE I remember that tree. RANSOM Sometimes I dream I'm lyin' under that tree. I want to climb to the top an' look out to where the sun shines. I climb an' I climb but the tree trunk is thick an' smooth an' the first branch is very high. I know if I can just reach that first branch I can get to the top. I haven't got there yet. But I will, I can tell you that, even if only in my dreams. JULIE Do you believe in dreams? RANSOM My grandma used to say to me, if you want your dreams to come true, you gotta sleep on nine Midsummer flowers tonight. JULIE Let's find out. Let's go into the garden. RANSOM With you, Miss Julie? JULIE Pick some lilacs for me. RANSOM I don' think that's a good idea. JULIE You don't think...? You don't think that I...? RANSOM I don' think nothin'. But others will. JULIE What will they think, Ransom? That you and I are having an affair? You, the family chauffeur? And me? The daughter of the Judge? A man known throughout the county as a hater of colored people? RANSOM People 'round here are ignorant. They don' know no better. They think all kinds of things. JULIE And you're not like them. RANSOM I didn' spend my life in the fields. I lived in the city. I got some book learnin'. JULIE So you're a gentleman. RANSOM If you say so, Miss. JULIE What does that make me? RANSOM I s'pose that makes you a lady. JULIE Does a lady spend the night alone with the family's colored servant? RANSOM No, ma'am. JULIE Maybe I'm no lady. RANSOM I can't say, Miss. JULIE Why don't we find out? (JULIE takes RANSOM's hand and draws him toward the door to the garden door.) JULIE You're trembling, Ransom RANSOM Miss Julie! JULIE Yes, Ransom? RANSOM I'm not made of stone. You'll be responsible if anythin' happens. JULIE What could you mean? Responsible for what? RANSOM We not children. We playin' with fire. JULIE Fire keeps me warm. RANSOM You can get burned. JULIE Are you going to burn me? RANSOM I'm a man an'... JULIE ... and good looking. (RANSOM tries to kiss JULIE; she steps back and slaps him.) JULIE How dare you! RANSOM (Angry) This all a joke to you! JULIE I'm deadly serious. RANSOM You playin' games an' I too old for games. Besides, yore kinda games are dangerous. If you don' mind, I think you better leave. JULIE Don't you dare order me! RANSOM I won' become one of your toys. I'm better than that, Miss. JULIE Have you ever been in love, Ransom? RANSOM People like us we don' talk much 'bout love. JULIE Did you ever want somebody so bad you could die. RANSOM Once. Once there was this girl I wanted her so bad I got sick for wantin'. JULIE Who was she? (Silence) Tell me, who was the girl? RANSOM You can't order me to tell you! JULIE What if I ask you as an equal...? What if I ask you as a ...friend? Who was this girl who made you sick for love? RANSOM You. JULIE That's ridiculous. RANSOM Yes, it is. That's the story I didn' wan' to tell you before. JULIE Please tell me now. RANSOM You got any idea what the world looks like when yore someone like me? I was born not more'n a mile from here on the Larson land. My daddy was a sharecropper. I was the youngest of seven brothers. One room. No runnin' water. No 'lectricity. A couple hounds an' some chickens. There was nothin' there 'cept a packed dirt floor. But when I stood on the front steps of the house I could see the apple orchard at the edge of the field where we worked. An' beyond that, I could see the Big House in the distance, surrounded by trees. For me, that was a Garden of Eden, guarded by terrible angels with flamin' swords. My mama tole' me never to go near the Big House. But I used to climb that ol' elm tree an' from there I could look at the house an' garden. For a long time I didn' go no nearer the house than that elm tree. But one day I was still little my mama took me with her to weed the onion beds. She was workin' just out there in the kitchen garden an' I saw this wooden buildin' hung all over with jasmine an' honeysuckle. What you call it? JULIE A gazebo. We call it a gazebo. RANSOM I never seen nothin' like it. All painted white an' cream. It was the most beautiful thing I ever 'magined. After that, I used to come back to the garden an' just look at the gazebo. I didn' know what it was for. I jus' liked lookin' at it. I'd watch people white folks go in an' out. Then one day, when I come to the garden there was no one 'round. I snuck inside. It was like I was in a dream. It was like I was drunk with the smell of the flowers, with the sunlight streamin' onto the floor. I don' know how long I stayed there. I 'magin it was a couple of hours. Then I heard someone comin'. Footsteps on the gravel path. I was young but I knowed that was no place for a colored boy. I was able to slip through a space in the floor an' crawl out from under the gazebo an' hide in the honeysuckle. From where I was hidin', I saw a pink dress an' white stockin's. It was you. I lay there for a long time just lookin'. You sat on bench readin' a book. An' I looked. You know what I was thinkin'? What was goin' through my head? Why couldn' I visit this beautiful place and play with this beautiful girl? Why couldn' we be friends? JULIE Is that what all colored children think? RANSOM Yes! They all dream that. JULIE It must be terrible to live that way. RANSOM That's right, Miss Julie. It's terrible. Much more'n you can ever know. A dog can play with you in the garden. But not a nigger boy like me. We not allowed to even look. The niggers are too much like animals to 'ppreciate a gazebo on a spring mornin'. JULIE You mustn't talk like that. RANSOM Sometimes one of us gets the chance to change. To stand up an' walk heavy in the world. I did. For a while. In Chicago. For most niggers, the mos' we gotta dream on is to look from a distance an' hope we don' get caught. The next day, I got up early and washed an' done put on my best Sunday clothes an' went to the front gate to the big house down by the interstate an' waited. In the afternoon I seen you. You was ridin' a horse. You rode right by me an' never seen me. But I was happy. I thought, if I die today I be happy. After that, whenever I had the chance I watched you, from a distance. I knowed we'd never be friends, we'd never play together. RANSOM (Continued) I knowed I'd never be 'vited to sit next to you an' read a book. But you meant somethin' to me. You meant there was another life. Somethin' better than a sharecropper's life, livin' an' dyin' on another man's land. That's what I saw when I was watchin' you, Miss Julie. JULIE You're not like the others. You speak well. RANSOM That's 'cause I listen... listen to white folks talkin'. That's where I learned the most. JULIE You listen... to us? RANSOM Sometimes I think maybe there ain't that much difference between people like you an' people like me. JULIE How dare you! RANSOM Remember, Miss, I see an' hear a good deal I not supposed to. No need to ack innocent with me. JULIE You're talking about my fianc‚, aren't you? I saw you that day, watching us. Pretending to work on the car. Watching us. Well, he was a terrible man a brute. RANSOM I think you better go now. JULIE Go to bed on Midsummer eve? Nonsense! Let's go for a drive. Get out the LaSalle and drive me into the country. RANSOM I don' think that'd be a good idea. JULIE You sound as though you were afraid. Are you worried about your reputation? RANSOM They's a lot of folks 'round here I mean black folks as well as white folks who don' look kindly on seein' a black man out with a white woman. I don' wan' to get ridden out of this place on a rail, Miss. Or worse. JULIE You're exaggerating. RANSOM No, Miss. Any number of black boys ended up hangin' from a tree for less. Yore daddy, in the old days, he put a rope 'round a lot of niggers necks. He like to shoot me down like a dog if he knowed I was even talkin' to you. He don' take kindly to uppity niggers. Least of all a nigger messin' with his only daughter. I 'spect he'd skin you alive too. JULIE Don't you worry about my father. I can handle him. Let's get the car and go for a ride. RANSOM We both had too much too drink, I think. An' the music, it's gotten into our blood. Take my advice: go to your room' get a good night's sleep. You'll feel better in the mornin'. JULIE Are you giving me orders now? RANSOM For your own sake, jus' go. 'Fore it's too late. It's been a long day an' we both tired. When people tired they do dumb things. (The sound of music swells as musicians and members of the party approach.) RANSOM (Continued) (Very anxious) They comin'. Lookin' for me an' Cora I 'spect. (RANSOM goes to the kitchen door and looks out into the garden.) RANSOM (Continued) They comin' here! You can't go through the garden now. JULIE Let 'em come in. I don't mind. They're mostly my father's field hands. They're our niggras. I've known them all my life. I know them all and I love them. And they love me... RANSOM No, Miss Julie, they don' love you. Believe me, they hate you an' everthin' you stand for. JULIE How horrible! I never knew. RANSOM They comin'. We gotta get outta here. We can't stay here in the kitchen. JULIE The gazebo! At the end of the garden. We can hide there until they go back to the barn. RANSOM Alright. The gazebo. But hurry. (RANSOM takes JULIE by the hand and leads her quickly to the kitchen door. JULIE looks around in panic; stops at the door.) JULIE Ransom. RANSOM Come on! They' at the gate. JULIE I'm relying on you to behave like a gentleman. RANSOM Come on! They'll see us. JULIE You promise you'll be gentleman. RANSOM I promise, Miss. Now let's get outta here. (JULIE and RANSOM rush out through the kitchen door. The sound of the approaching musicians grows louder.) ================================================= =================================================