sm SECTION ONE
sm
AN EPITAPH FOR IVÁN EL TERRIBLE
MANUEL MENENDEZ
By Manuel Menéndez
He was regarded as the worst screw in the whole Combinado del Este penitentiary.
That's how he won his nickname. He didn't actually know who the historical Ivan the
Terrible was, but someone told him that he had been a mass murderer. And from then on he
felt proud of his nom de guerre. Dyslexic and too ignorant to go to an
officers
school, he had only made buck sergeant.
However, Iván had an invaluable innate talent, which granted him an easy, even
pleasurable duty at "La Tapiada"--- The Hole and Death Row in one. Not for him the daily
rough stuff like beating or locking prisoners into the "doghouses," the concrete cells
in total darkness, without space to stand or to lie, like a coffin, its only content a
stinking plastic bucket.
Iván's methods were more refined, and he had devised in his eight years of service a
whole arsenal of tricks that could madden the most hardened criminal or recalcitrant policomún
. Like throwing him to the dogs, literally, to the trained Dobermans and German Shepherds.
Or his mock executions: in the early hours he would wake up one of the inmates in
solitary, take him into the courtyard and make him kneel. First he'll shoot a blank round
into the air, then press the hot barrel of the Makarov on the nape, and shoot another.
Some victims died of heart attack.
But when the rats started once more deserting en masse from the ship that refused to
sink, the idea came to him with dazzling clarity, a revelation: Why not go to Miami too?
And start a new life: to have a small apartment for himself alone, a car, a color TV, and
a VCR to watch those Rambo movies he had heard about, and eat steaks, those rare
privileges unthinkable for a sergeant. Right then and there at 1:3O in the morning of a
graveyard Friday shift he went AWOL, a small bundle under his arm.
In belated buses and hitchhiking he arrived at dawn at Santa María del Mar. The white
sand in both directions looked like a miniature shipyard: truck, bus and even tractor
inner tires being inflated, tied together and covered with pieces of plywood or
canvas---fast, a race against time, like a gold rush. Sun like a Japanese flag rising in the
cliffs behind. He mixed with the groups of also olive-green garbed guardafronteras,
Kalashnikovs on their chests, who just ten days before would have shot dead every escapee
on sight, the whole crowd of them. Instead they watched with glee and even a tinge of envy
the shouting horde that entered the water, the formerly impassable Red Sea, now opening
before them by a whim of the aged, olympicaly remote, harassed tyrant, bluffing once
again with human chips.
Iván hid in the uva caleta bushes and changed into civilian clothes. Then
buried his uniform and walked east through the beach. Predator prowling. He went into the
water and hijacked a seaworthy looking raft: six big tires covered with tarpaulin, some
shelter. At gun point he dislodged the five huddled occupants---a young man, two women and
two children in school uniform. He climbed on and departed. The July sun ascended fiery in
the pale blue sky, the rafts drifted apart, became dots in the distance. Only midday, and
he had finished all the water aboard . His packages of Populares and the matches wet
despite the plastic bag. Unsmokable. Sundown, then an unending, interminably long
night. The slow motion, the lullaby of the warm water---at first, darkness seemed a respite
from the scorching sun. Until he began to shiver in the cold, and it was even worse.
The phosphorescent silhouette of the shark emerged out of the black water, biting,
compressed air exploding, pieces of rubber flying, cataract of plankton, and one tire
gone, and another, the huge bullet-like head twitching, jaws snapping, gleaming rows of
teeth, splashing, revolving, whirling like a maelstrom, and then gone, disappeared,
leaving behind the sheer naked terror, the brain drained, squeezed out of adrenaline like
a sponge.
The waves became rougher, numb fingers clinging to the ropes, the will on autopilot,
every while waking and gazing around into the surrounding black waters. Another
dawn came of unmitigated thirst, and the almost irresistible compulsion of drinking sea
water. He lost hope and fell soundly asleep, prostrated on the four tires, feet on the
water. Until his weary eyes opened to the mirage of the Coastguard cutter, half a mile
away and approaching fast. Suddenly alive and rational again, he sat, waved his arms and
shouted. Then threw into the sea the incriminating pistol, red military book and blue
internal passport.
Raft hauled with a long shining hook, the black iron flank of the vessel looming and he
felt like jelly and as frightened as a surrendering prisoner. The language he
didn't
understand at all engulfed him, oppressive---Americanos [¡Fideeel, segurooo, a los
yanquis dale duro!] . Helped aboard by two sailors dressed in khaki; and then another
asking questions, talking Cuban like an extranjero. The mug of steaming hot coffee
that tasted like glory and the first Regalías cigarette of freedom.
The vessel sailed due east, picking around 50 more balseros in the way. About 150
in all, the ship overcrowded. The stories of empty rafts, of frenzied sharks. Of cowardice
and self-sacrifice. Sleeping everywhere there was space available. Many still afraid, but
Iván the most. Hot tomato soup. Coca Cola. Real coffee. Fresh donuts. Milk. And
cellophane wrapped packages of cigarettes, Malbóro, Regalías, just for the asking.
Things that not even the macetas, the rich among the miserables, or the jineteros,
the hard currency
A thousand balseros arrived each day, many decent citizens, but many hardened criminals freshly released from prison
dealers, had. The land was visible sometimes in the horizon, so near but
already so remote and alien, like in another dimension.
Then Guantánamo base. Fences all around, mine fields, sentry towers, machine guns,
attack dogs: just like the Combinado. Sleeping eight to a tent. Iván kept to himself.
Spent all day on his bunk, leaving only for the line at meal times. Surveying the
increasing crowd, a thousand balseros a day arriving, most of them quiet, decent people,
but criminals freshly released from prison among them. Unmistakable for the trained eye.
Their carcelary haircuts. Their way of walking, strutting. The tattoos [No hay
amor como el de madre] [Nací para crear dificultades] . Even a whole San Lázaro
drawn in a back, to the minutest details. Or given away by their accent. Some packed
knives, despite the systematic shake-downs by the American soldiers. He recognized no
faces: too many of them in eight years. Only that now he had no uniform, no chevrons, no
pistol, no brass knuckles. He was on the wrong side of the bars. And he began to repent of
his brash escape.
One night at eleven or so he went to the latrines and they jumped him. Gagged and tied
him, arms behind his back. This time he knew immediately that he was going to die, the
only remaining question: how? Heart bursting. They prodded him with their knives, rolled
him through a gap in the hurricane fence; took him to the bushes, went uphill, where there
were trees. They stopped under an old, thick iroko tree. The moon was round and splendid,
and besides some had flashlights. There were eight of them, all black, all Abakuá, all
Efór. They formed a semicircle around him with his back and bound hands against the tree trunk.
Passing pungent joints of marijuana and a bottle of cheap rum calmly among themselves
while their eyes partied on this notorious screw whose exploits were well known through
the grapevine, one of them, an Usagaré, came forward. Short and brawny, with shaved oiled
head. He kneeled and touched the soil. Then raised his right hand to the sky and invoked
for several minutes in Yorubá.
The semicircle opened, and a last man came in and stared coldly at Iván . White, in
his early twenties, with short cropped brown hair, green eyes and what was once a handsome
face now criscrossed by scars, he seemed somehow familiar to Iván. Then came a flash of
recognition. Three years before. La Tapiada. Iván had loosed on him four inmates, all
lifers. Gang rapists. Afterwards Ivan had sent him to La Patera, the
homosexuals'
ward, where the strong jockers completed Iván's handiwork and made a queer out of the
young man.
It was the scarred face of death itself, austere, impersonal, unmoved and unforgiving.
"Here, it's all yours," said one of them, named Lusaga, who handed the knife, handle forward, to this man.
Then, an amazed Ivan saw the world turned upside down. His captors went back into the base
rejoicing as they passed the word around.
"Iván el Terrible was killed by La Macantaya!" ##
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