Topaz - Leon Uris [30]
A model house was built. It was the forerunner of an entire new village that would come ... someday.
A school was built. The first in the history of the Finca. Others would follow ... someday.
A communal was established where a man could air his complaints. Heaven had been promised on earth.
But when the full heat of the summer struck, the peasants came to realize that the new bureaucrats had merely replaced the foremen of the old days. In the beginning, for a time, the hoax worked, for the illusion of the small landholders was so great and so desperate that they were unwilling to believe that things could really be worse than before the Revolution. They were worse. The always increasing quotas imposed a toil beyond capacity.
They spoke among themselves at great length about the documents of ownership and even went to someone outside the Finca who could read and write.
The documents said that no farmer could sell or rent his land. How could he own it if he could not sell it?
The documents said the land had to be worked diligently and the quotas had to be met or the owner could face imprisonment.
The documents said that the land had to be farmed by the oldest son after the death of the father. This eternal bondage was the Revolution’s definition of “ownership.”
It was clear they were deeper in serfdom than ever. Finca San José and hundreds of other “liberated” villages about Cuba dried up listlessly and reverted to ramshackle pestholes.
One day a large convoy of Czech-made trucks showed up at the Finca gate. Most of the trucks were empty. Others were filled with soldiers of the Revolution.
The village alarm bell was rung and the men ran in from the canebrakes with machetes in hand, the women from the hovels and the sugar mill, and the children from the new school which taught little but Revolution. They were herded to the village square, now called Liberation Plaza, and addressed by a Castro official from the back of one of the trucks. He read from a document equally as impressive as their own “ownership” documents.
His document said that for the betterment of the Revolution the Finca San José was to be evacuated. He did not explain how this would be better.
The families were given an hour to gather together their belongings of not more than two suitcases or packs and to load aboard the trucks for resettlement. They were dispersed with the Revolution’s slogan, “Fatherland or Death,” ringing in their ears.
It was not much of a place, this Finca San José, but it was the only home that any of them had ever known.
No time for weeping or sentimentality! Onto the trucks and away! Long live the Revolution!
Among the Rico Parra papers was an involved document spelling out the terms of a Cuban-Soviet pact which had been negotiated earlier in Moscow. Rico Parra was to turn over certain details to the Soviets in New York during the United Nations meeting.
André Devereaux found most enticing the sudden evacuation of Finca San José and its reassignment to the Soviet armed forces.
Another portion of the pact pertained to the port of Viriel, which lay fifty miles due east of Havana. It was an old port and all but rotted with disuse. Now Viriel was to be reactivated and become the recipient of a sudden large influx of Soviet shipping. Elaborate security measures were to be taken to cloak the port in secrecy. With Havana more than adequate, it appeared obvious to André that the Russians were hauling in secret cargo.
Other articles of the pact detailed the arrival of heavy construction equipment and materials specifically for storage tanks and the building of barracks and highway and rail spurs in the Pinar del Río and Remedios regions.
With this windfall in his hands, André Devereaux was now compelled to reach a crucial decision. If it were a correct decision, he would have to reach it alone and it did not necessarily mean a popular decision.
According to the bylaws of Inter-NATO Intelligence Network, if the security of a sister country was threatened, a person in Devereaux’s position could report directly to the threatened