A Moment in the Sun (38 page)

The clerk has the side of his hand in his mouth, biting down on it. There are men in the water now, some of them on fire, swimming away from the wrecks or rowing lifeboats, desperate to be out of killing range. The American ships each take a second, then a third and a fourth turn, as evenly spaced as a line of mechanical ducks at a shooting gallery, only they are the sportsmen and the thrashing Spanish
marineros
the prey.

Most of the Filipino leaders were evasive, or at the best noncommittal, when he spoke to them, noses to the wind.

“Give Miyong my regards,” said Buencamino, who fought for the Span-iards in the ’96 uprising. “Tell him I will do what is best for our people.”

Any of them watching this carnage will have chosen sides by now.

Diosdado has planned for this day, he and his fellow
universitarios
have longed for it, but at this moment, with the mighty Spanish Navy revealed as a floating scandal, his heart is with the men struggling to keep their heads above the waves. Morning sun flashes off the steel hull of the last American warship in the procession as it turns, then the rolling smoke and the roar of cannons and one of the long lifeboats is blasted into flying splinters, the rowing men simply gone, gone from the world. Somebody beside him is sobbing.

READER

Quiroga sits on his platform, surveying the bowed heads below. They never look up, not even if he pauses for a very long time, not even at the most emotional moments, as when poor little Nell died in Mr. Dickens’s wonderful tale—only a wagging of the bowed heads, maybe a cry of “
Ay, Dios!
” from one of the women at the back benches, stripping the fibers from the leaves, and the one instance where Fermín Pacheco was so upset that it seemed one of the Musketeers had been killed he slammed his fist down and ruined a Corona. No matter what Quiroga reads or how powerfully he presents it, the work, the chopping and pressing, the rolling and wrapping, the tap-tapping of wooden boxes being assembled, continues unabated, the fingers keep on moving.

“
MUCH CONJECTURE IN LIBERATORS
’
CAMP
,” he reads in the tone he reserves for newspaper headlines and chapter headings.
La Verdad
and most of the other Ybor City papers invariably refer to the American force as “
los liberadores
” unless they choose to use the more fraternal “
nuestros hermanos de la Causa
.” Don Vicente allows him to read the Cuban papers if he sticks to the reporting, the editorials invariably too inflammatory and likely to injure the sensibilities of the Spaniards at the
fábrica
, who are, after all, his key employees.

“
General Shafter Cites Progress in Organization
.”

Still declamatory, but at reduced volume. Quiroga prides himself on delivering the sensation of reading, even for those few illiterates in the factory, prides himself on finding an equivalent for the effects of font and justification. He has a vocal technique to match everything in the arsenal of author and printer.

The fingers keep moving.

“
United States Major General William R. Shafter, in an interview granted today from his headquarters at the Tampa Bay Hotel, displayed a cautious but optimistic viewpoint when asked about the readiness of his force for the impending confrontation on Cuban soil. ‘The logistics of transport and supply for an army that has not been employed on foreign shores in one hundred years are daunting,’ he stated. ‘But I am confident we shall overcome them in time to engage the enemy to our best advantage.’ When pressed to verify that Havana will be the primary focus of the assault, he reiterated that all sensible military options remain open. Major General Shafter reassured this newspaper that contacts with Cuban patriots already in arms on the island are being maintained, and that these groups are considered an invaluable part of the liberation process
.”

Though the author of the article, a Cuban zealot of his acquaintance named Flores, employs a very high and impassioned style, Quiroga tries to deliver the story in the matter-of-fact tone befitting a news dispatch. He is paid by the workers themselves like any other
lector
, but he understands he is here at the sufferance of Don Vicente.

Quiroga notes that Señor Aragon is not at his bench. It has been entrusted to him, Quiroga, to “keep an eye” on Aragon, a Spaniard of openly Royalist sympathies. But Aragon is a crafter of
perfectos
, an artisan paid by the bundle and not by the hour and thus able to stroll out onto La Séptima whenever he wishes. When a special order was presented to the wonderful writer, humorist, and cigar
aficionado
Mr. Samuel Clemens, it was Aragon who was honored to fashion the
puros
. Any man who makes nearly three cents per cigar is an aristocrat among workers.

The elite here and at the Sanchez and Haya
fábrica
down the street are Spaniards. Cubans, thus far, are only the masters of a few storefront operations, full of moody Sicilians churning out inexpensive cheroots for those who can tolerate them.

“
LOCAL MERCHANTS OFFENDED
, ” Quiroga announces, switching to the other front-page story. “
Colored Troops Behind Disruptions
.”

Aragon has never so much as acknowledged his existence, even when he is reading from the more exhortatory of the Cuban papers. In fact, the only Spaniard he can be sure is listening is wizened old Infante, the blade-sharpener, who puts something especially dull and noisy on his wheel if the writer’s opinions upset him.

“
Several Tampa merchants have complained of distasteful and sometimes violent incidents involving bands of negro soldiers set loose on the city streets each night. They complain that military officials have not considered the effect on local sensibilities of encamping such troops in the area without adequate supervision. ‘We are left at the mercy of these insolent brutes,’ a prominent merchant accuses, ‘and ask at least that the authorities disarm them before allowing them to leave their bivouacs.’ The murder of a white man by members of the colored 10th Cavalry, prompted by his refusal to serve them in his establishment, has terrorized the inland community of Lakeland recently, and residents there warn of impending retribution. ‘We have plenty of white boys down here ready to fight, and more coming from our Western states,’ continued the downtown merchant. ‘The colored should either be sent home or immediately dispatched to Cuba, where their loss on the battlefield will be no great misfortune.’
” Quiroga folds the newspaper carefully. “Reprinted from the
Tampa Post and Defender
.”

A few of the
negros americanos
stand in the rear talking softly to each other, the ones who tend the wagons and carry crates to and fro. He wonders if they have any Spanish. Most of the Cuban rollers know only a scant handful of English words, and with the Sicilians it is impossible to tell. English is not necessary here in Ybor City.

His facility with the two tongues, his
lector
’s erudition, has led the Junta to employ Quiroga as an interpreter for their overtures to the American command. But the latest meetings on the vast porch of the Tampa Bay have been polite in protocol alone, the Junta being told in no uncertain terms to tend to their flag-waving and leave military intrigue to the professionals. Undaunted, they have convinced themselves of dire Spanish plots to reveal details of local troop maneuvers, when in fact the schedule of Don Vicente’s trolley service into Tampa City is harder to divine than the open and predictable drilling of Shafter’s regiments. No doubt the Crown has spies in Tampa, feverishly translating the reports of the flock of war correspondents that hovers about the palatial hotel waiting for something, anything, to happen, but Aragon the
puro
artist is not likely to be one of them.

It shamed him, the American officers smug in their rocking chairs, cocktails in hand. Arturo Quiroga knows when he is being condescended to. He wanted to tell the
yanquis
to keep their ten thousand men and send instead fifty thousand rifles with twenty rounds of ammunition each, to tell them that with these Cuban patriots would control the country in a week. It made him wish he was a true orator, not just a medium, a channel for other men’s words. Martí—he met the man at the Pedrosos’ boarding house just after the Spanish tried to poison him—Martí should have been on the porch of the Tampa Bay Hotel. “
The belly of the Beast
” Martí called America in his speech at the Liceo, the speech praised or blamed for starting the Ten Years’ War, “
he vivido en la barriga del Monstruo del norte
,” and offered no apologies when the quote was picked up by the
yanqui
papers. He was a little man, slight of build and stature, but the voice, the eyes—he spoke and every Cuban in Ybor became a believer. Quiroga was there listening on the stage with his own brother, Pablito, not much more than a boy, who was moved to buy a pistol and join Martí’s fated expedition of ’95, and gunned down in Dos Ríos at the side of the Apostle.

He is no orator though, Quiroga, only a channel for other men’s words, other men’s ideas. The
torneadores
have their favorites, books they love to hear again and again, Mr. Dickens and Monsieur Dumas
fils
prominent among these, but occasionally he is able to widen their scope, to introduce them to authors and ideas of his own choosing. It is a tiny act of persuasion, an act not of revolt but of subversion. “
Each serves as he may
,” said Martí, standing not an arm’s length away from him in the boarding-house parlor, “
and ideas may triumph while weapons fail
.” Are they listening, these bowed heads, stacking, pressing, rolling, binding, cutting, fingers ever moving, these human machines spread at the benches below his platform? And if listening, do they intuit a connection, decipher a metaphor, find instruction or reassurance in the lives of those fictive characters? Or is it all just a story, buzzing over their heads?

Quiroga is beginning a novel today, and has some question as to how its content will be received. Don Vicente Martínez-Ybor, though a Spaniard by birth, is said to be sympathetic to La Causa, allowing on the premises the collection of monies to arm and organize the revolt, Quiroga faithfully tithing his ten percent like most of the others. But Don Vicente’s opinions on organized labor are less tolerant, the move from Key West blatantly an anti-unionist stratagem, and though the old man rarely enters the factory these days, his ears, as they say, are long. Freedom, true freedom, is not only a matter of what flag flies above your head. After the star and the triangle are raised over Havana, the struggle will truly begin—

The fingers keep moving.

Quiroga opens the new volume gently, attempting not to crack the spine.

“
Germinal
,” he announces. “
Escrito por Don Émilio Zola. Capítulo Uno
.”

A GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT

The White Admiral sits in a wicker chair in his quarters on the flagship of the victorious Fleet. He is dressed in white, with a white head of hair and a thick white moustache, resplendent against the stateroom’s dark, polished wood. This could be a room in a grand hotel, the
Olympia
so huge that they are barely rocked by the waters of the Bay. The White Admiral crosses his hands and rests them against his middle, while the smaller brown men sit facing him with their hats in their laps, afternoon rays slanting into their eyes from the skylight above. One of them, the exiled General, ventures to speak in careful Spanish.

He congratulates the White Admiral on his great naval victory.

The White Admiral smiles and nods when this is translated for him.

“We have come,” the Admiral says in English, looking the exiled General directly in the eye, “to lift the yoke of Spanish rule from the backs of the Philippine people.”

Diosdado sits behind and to the side of the White Admiral, hired by the Americans to help if the exiled General cannot say what he wishes in Spanish and needs to revert to Tagalog. But Aguinaldo’s Spanish is adequate if not elegant, and Diosdado only listens.

The exiled General expresses his admiration for the grandeur and beneficence of the American nation. It is a courtly dance, between partners who have been only recently introduced.

The White Admiral asks if the exiled General will not soon return to his country and lead his people against the Spanish forces still occupying it.

“My people are willing,” replies the General, “but lack arms with which to demonstrate their patriotism.”

The White Admiral and the exiled General discuss details of bringing arms into the country. A quantity of Mausers and ammunition are already here, carried up from Corregidor Island, and many more can certainly be purchased and shipped from Hongkong with the help of the U.S. Consul. An aide to the White Admiral, standing discretely to one side and speaking as if it is a somewhat insignificant consideration, mentions the sum of seven American dollars per rifle, of thirty-three dollars and fifty cents for a thousand rounds.

The exiled General is soft-spoken and polite as always, his expression guileless. Did his face look like this, wonders Diosdado, when the Bonifacios were led away to be slaughtered?

“I must tell you,” says the General to the White Admiral, “that there is some uneasiness among my fellow patriots, men who worry that once the Spaniard is vanquished and we are weakened by the struggle, your country may decide to replace them as our masters.”

The White Admiral nods pleasantly. The floor of his stateroom is littered with wicker baskets overflowing with congratulatory cables and letters and gifts. There is a rumor that his cook travels into the blockaded city by launch every day, to buy fresh fruit. He answers slowly in English, as if reassuring a child frightened by a storm.

“America is wealthy in both land and resources,” he says. “It has no need of colonies.”