Boy Who Said No : An Escape to Freedom (9781608090815) Read online

  THE BOY WHO SAID NO

  THE BOY WHO SAID NO

  AN ESCAPE TO FREEDOM

  HISTORICAL FICTION

  Patti Sheehy

  Copyright © 2013 by Patti Sheehy

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN: 978-1-60809-080-8

  Illustration copyright © 2013 by Emily Baar

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing,

  Longboat Key, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  This book is dedicated to my husband, Robert Hunter, and to my daughter, Patricia Larson, the bravest woman I know.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to acknowledge Frank Mederos for his brilliant storytelling and his depiction of people, places, and events that form the basis of this true-life novel. His ability to convey detailed information in a language other than his native tongue was truly inspiring. Without him, this story would have never been told.

  Books on Cuba, too numerous to mention, informed this narrative, but two were particularly helpful: Hugh Thomas’s weighty tome, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom and Fidel Castro by Robert E. Quirk. I highly recommend them to anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of Cuba’s complex history and culture. I would like to credit both gentlemen for their contributions to the details that enhanced or clarified this book. Any errors regarding the history and politics of Cuba are mine, not theirs.

  My heartfelt thanks go to Donald Gibson for his work surrounding this book. Thanks to my friends Barbara and Tom Gardner and to David Lenihan for introducing me to the fine folks at Oceanview Publishing. Thanks to the Haddon Heights Library for excellent customer service and to the Happy Bookers for their encouragement.

  Finally, thanks to my wonderful family and friends for their suggestions and readings of The Boy Who Said No, especially my book-loving friends, the Israels, Joyce Herrman, Carol Larro, and Janice Stridick. And always, always, thanks to my dear husband and partner, Robert J. Hunter, for his love and support.

  PREFACE

  The Boy Who Said No is based on the life story of Frank Mederos, who was born and raised in Guanabacoa, Cuba. Through a number of childhood experiences and the influence of his grandfather, Frank grew to despise the policies of his government.

  As Frank matures, he falls in love, is drafted into the army, and becomes a member of Castro’s special forces, making him privy to top-secret military information and placing him in direct conflict with some of the most powerful people in the Cuban military. He becomes an Antitank Guided Missile operator, defects, and escapes from Cuba in the manner described.

  After being introduced to Frank by his daughter, I began to write his story as part of his family’s history. But after several meetings with Frank, I decided that this story was far too compelling not to share with a wider audience.

  To advance the plot, I have fictionalized some descriptions and dialogue based on interviews with Frank and with information he obtained from his family, friends, and fellow soldiers after the fact.

  Since these events happened several decades ago, and since Frank does not have firsthand knowledge of certain events and conversations that occurred during his absences, I am calling this a “true-life novel.”

  With the exception of the name of Frank Mederos, all names have been changed to protect the privacy of family members and individuals still residing in Cuba. The material is presented as well as Frank’s memory serves.

  We are an army of light And nothing shall prevail against us And in those places where the sun is darkened, it will overcome.

  —José Martí

  Cuban poet

  THE BOY WHO SAID NO

  CHAPTER 1

  My grandfather loved to fish.

  He fished for tuna, yellowtail, red and black grouper. Sometimes he’d catch octopi, pound them on rocks, and hang them up to dry before bringing them to his home on Pepe Antonio Street. He lived only two houses from my family’s simple bungalow, the one my father supported on his meager wages from the fertilizer factory in Havana. Abuelo liked the solitude, the peacefulness of fishing. “Gives me time to think,” he said.

  Abuelo was always ruminating about something, his thoughts fueled by various radio broadcasts and his daily ingestion of news contained in the pages of The Havana Post and El Diario de la Marina. His was the only house in the neighborhood filled with books, fat tomes on history, philosophy, and religion that sat helter-skelter on tables, some opened to the page he was reading, some underlined and bookmarked with bits of paper, some coated in a thin layer of dust. The neighbors all looked up to him. He was revered as an intellectual by those who knew him.

  By the time I was four, Abuelo had declared me his “official fishing partner.” This made me feel very special. I was his oldest grandson, and he was my hero. When I was around him I felt safe in a way that was hard to explain. I think it was partly because he was a strong man with a soft heart and partly because I thought he was the smartest man in the world.

  Abuelo and I fished off the shoreline of the small village of Cojimar, where Ernest Hemingway kept the Pilar, the famous writer’s boat. Sometimes we’d fish from the dock. And sometimes we’d hop into my grandfather’s old fishing boat and head a little way out from the coast, gazing at the rum and sugar fleets in the distance and listening to the calls of seagulls and the waves lapping gently against the shore.

  I loved the smell of gasoline and the white burst of smoke that appeared when Grandpa yanked the cord on his small outboard motor. I was fascinated with how the clear blue water churned bubbly white around the propeller.

  Occasionally, Abuelo would take me for a walk along the Havana harbor, a place teeming with fish and clotted with lights, a place where painted ladies in fine fur stoles and glittering jewels teetered on spindly heels so high they could barely walk. These were the wives of rich Americans and Europeans who frequented Havana’s lavish hotels and brightly lit casinos, not people we interacted with, not people we knew.

  From there we could see the Havana Yacht Club where the wealthy Americans who ran the United Fruit Company entertained each other on their expensive boats. Nattily dressed men smoked Montecristo cigars and gulped shots of Dewar’s White Label, while their women sipped daiquiris decorated with tiny paper umbrellas. Abuelo told me that Fulgencio Batista had been blackballed from that club because he was uneducated, a mestizo, and a former cane cutter. I thought it strange that the president of the country could be kept out of any club, even if he did have mixed blood.

  Early one evening when the air was rich with the scent of jasmine and Abuelo’s boat was bobbing beneath us, my grandfather put a hand on my shoulder and urged me to look up.

  “I want you to get to know the sky, Frankie. And to learn about the wind.”

  “Why?” I asked, sensing his seriousness.

  “Because if you pay attention to those things, you can predict the weather. And predicting the weather can be very important in life.”

  I nodded and trailed my fingers in the water. Abuelo ran his hand over the stubble of his beard, making a rasping sound. I liked that sound, the sound of a man. The back of his hands were furred with curly black hair speckled with gray and riddled with flat, white scars. But his fingernails were invariably clipped and filed. And imp
eccably clean.

  Abuelo was always trying to teach me things, practical things, like how to tie different kinds of knots and how to sharpen the blade of a knife. We rarely engaged in idle conversation. It was as if he was trying to impart everything he knew to me before time ran out, before it was too late.

  “Do you see those clouds, Frankie?” I looked up to see purple striated clouds in the gloaming.

  “Look at how they’re formed, how they move. Different shapes mean different things. I’m going to teach you about them, and I want you to pay close attention. And more importantly, I want you to remember what I have to say.”

  Abuelo looked at me, and I nodded to let him know I was listening. We sat in silence for a moment. I wasn’t sure whether the conversation was over. I hoped it wasn’t.

  Abuelo coughed. “You’d be surprised what you can tell by watching the clouds.”

  “Like what?” I wanted Grandpa to keep talking. He looked at me and laughed at my earnestness.

  “Like whether you and Gilbert will be playing baseball together tomorrow,” he said.

  I smiled. Grandpa always brought the conversation down to my level. It was one of his talents.

  “Look. Do you see the boat drifting?”

  I looked at the movement of the boat in relation to the shore. “The boat is moving with the current,” said Abuelo. “You must know the direction of the current, how strong it is and how fast it is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the current will take you where it wants to go. If you want to go in the same direction, it’s your friend. But if you don’t, you must work very hard to defeat it. Nature is very powerful, Frankie. Never forget that. But if you pay attention and know what you’re doing, you can use the clouds, the wind, and the currents to your advantage.”

  I thought for a moment, feeling the breeze on my face. “What about the stars, Grandpa, what do they tell you?”

  “The stars are very special, Frankie. You have to know the stars like the back of your hand. If you know the stars, you can tell direction, you will know where to go. In the olden days, men crossed the oceans by reading the stars. That’s how Christopher Columbus found Cuba.”

  “Oh,” I said, mightily impressed by the power of the stars.

  “Do you remember what Columbus called Cuba?”

  I thought for a moment, making sure I got the words right. “He said it was the most beautiful land that human eyes had ever seen.”

  My grandfather nodded, proud of me for remembering. “That’s right, my boy.”

  We sat quietly for a while, and I knew Abuelo was hoping I had taken in what he had said. The water was very still, the way it sometimes got once the sun went down. A dragonfly skated by, its long, slender body barely creasing the water. In the fading light it took on a peacock sheen.

  We looked up at the twilight sky suddenly darkened by a flock of wild ducks. They honked plaintively. My grandfather raised a finger skyward.

  “Look, Frankie, do you see that constellation? That’s Orion, the great hunter of Greek mythology. It is said that Zeus placed him among the stars. If you look carefully, you can see his bow.”

  I looked where my grandfather was pointing. I felt very grown up gazing at the stars that way. The boat rocked slightly, underscoring my excitement.

  “Will you teach me the constellations, Grandpa?”

  Abuelo chuckled. “I’ll teach you all I know, my boy. Mark my words—someday it will come in handy.”

  • • •

  From the time I was a small child, my grandfather would sit me on his lap, his breath fragrant with smoke, and read the Bible to me. His was a hefty book with a cracked leather spine and pages as thin as gossamer. He told me about Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, about the leper Lazarus being raised from the dead, about Noah building his Ark. He taught me about God and the lives of the saints.

  In his living room was a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He was depicted with a loving face, wavy hair, and fire leaping from a red puffy heart. After a cup of rich Cuban coffee, Abuelo would hold his fist to his chest, look at the picture and say, “Dear Jesus, save me from this heartburn!” I figured heartburn was something Jesus and Abuelo had in common, and that’s why Abuelo asked for His help.

  When I got a little older, Abuelo regaled me with tales of heroes such as Antonio Maceo, José Martí, Calixto Garcia, brave and honorable men who had fought for Cuba’s independence from Spain. His eyes glowed when he spoke of them. He told me incredible things, like how Cuba’s national anthem, “El Himno de Bayamo,” was composed from the saddle of a horse. It was my favorite story, and I pleaded with him to tell it to me again and again. When he described the 1868 Battle of Bayamo, I felt like I was there. When he was finished, we’d break into song:

  Hasten to battle, men of Bayamo!

  That the homeland looks proudly to you;

  Do not fear a glorious death,

  Because to die for the fatherland is to live.

  To live in chains is to live

  In dishonor and ignominy

  Hear the clarion call;

  Hasten, brave ones, to battle!

  Then Abuelo would tickle me, and we would laugh.

  • • •

  When I started school, Abuelo helped me with my homework before we went out fishing. Sometimes he would try to tutor Gilbert and Luis. But they were not academically inclined. And Luis tried Abuelo’s patience with his constant fooling around. After a while, he only helped me.

  Three years my senior, my cousin Luis spent a lot of time at my house in Guanabacoa, a district of Havana. He was lively and fun and my family liked having him around. He and my cousins Tato, Gilbert, and Pipi spent so much time at our house when I was young I thought they were my brothers. Pipi was not his real name. It was just what we called him. Nicknames were common in Cuba.

  Luis had his own way of thinking about things. When he got to the fourth grade, he just stayed there. For years. I told him he had to move on, but he stubbornly refused—even though he could.

  “I like the teacher and I know the school work so it’s easy for me,” was his excuse.

  “But, Luis, you can’t stay in the fourth grade forever.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s stupid, that’s why.”

  “It makes me happy.”

  “You’re happy being held back?”

  “It’s not being held back if you do it on purpose.”

  “Aren’t you bored?”

  “No. I know the fourth grade material so well now the teacher says I can help her teach next year. So I’ll be smarter than you—I’ll be a teacher.”

  “That’s crazy, Luis. You won’t be a real teacher. You’ll just be a big fourth grader. If you know the material, why don’t you just take the test?”

  “Because I don’t want to take the test, and I don’t want to go to fifth grade. I’m happy where I am. I don’t think that’s stupid at all.”

  I just shook my head.

  • • •

  Gilbert had his own little quirks. For the first two years of school he rarely washed his feet. His mother would reprimand him. But nothing worked. Like Luis, Gilbert was stubborn.

  Gilbert liked to take his socks off in school and show off his pitch-black feet as if they were a badge of honor. Then he’d scrape the bottom of his feet on the floor beneath his desk to scratch an itch.

  The girls in the class would wail and complain, but that just encouraged him. I felt sorry for any girl who sat next to Gilbert. Not only did she have to smell his feet all day, but when he took off his shoes and the odor grew worse, he’d shamelessly blame the smell on her. Gilbert loved girls, and this was his way of getting their attention.

  There was no end to our boyish pranks. Some days we got together with our friend Jabao and rigged the blackboard so it would fall down when the teacher touched it. Then we’d all laugh so hard, we’d be sent to the principal’s office. Some days Pipi would bring his pet parrot—
the one he had taught to swear—to school in a brown paper bag and hide it under his desk. When the parrot let loose with a string of expletives, he’d blame it on someone else. Then we’d all laugh so hard, we’d be sent to the principal’s office. Some days Gilbert would put glue on the teacher’s seat and blame it on some hapless girl. Then we’d all laugh so hard, we’d be sent to the principal’s office.

  We drove the principal crazy. He was a strict disciplinarian who demanded to know the perpetrator of these acts. No one would ever snitch. Except Antonio.

  Antonio was a slightly built boy, a fearful kid, the type of child other kids pick on. To make matters worse, his older brother was always beating him up. Antonio often showed up to play with a swollen lip, a black eye, a bruised arm. He always claimed to have fallen down.

  On warm sunny days when the sky was dotted with fat white clouds, we’d all play hooky and go skinny-dipping in the area’s rivers, marshes, and streams. We would play tag, merrily skipping from one warm river rock to the next, our arms outstretched to keep our balance.

  Jabao came up with the idea of playing hide-and-seek by using dry, hollow reeds that grew on the river banks to breathe underwater. For a while it was our favorite pastime. We would sneak up and scare the other boys, splashing and giggling until we almost drowned.

  Since everyone in Guanabacoa knew one another, whenever we skipped school we had to figure out how to get back to our homes without being seen. Many limestone caves skirted the port of Cojimar, and a complicated warren of tunnels ran under the nearby Rio Lajas.

  Always on the lookout for someone who might report us truant, we ran from one tunnel and cave to the next, hiding from prying eyes and enjoying the thrill of it all. Our fear of being caught was somewhat abated because no one knew the ins and outs of these hiding spots better than we.

  Mostly I hung out with boys, but there was a special girl in the neighborhood who had stolen my heart. Miriam was sweet and shy and had hazel eyes. My mother said it was just a crush—but it lasted for years. Whenever I was feeling upset about something, I’d talk to Miriam. If I found a caterpillar, I would show it to her, and I was always looking for presents to give her, like shells I had found on the beach or bright butterflies that had lost a wing. On the days my mother made cookies, I would hide one in my pocket for Miriam.