Topaz - Leon Uris [47]
Their hands, their mouths, their bodies spoke in a way more wonderful than it had ever been.
And when it reached its uncontrollable zenith, Juanita burst, at last, and trembled and cried for an hour and was unable to take her hands away from him until they loved again. He drifted into a euphoric dream with her fingers massaging away the tension in his back and neck.
He awoke with a cool chill passing over his body and saw the sea breeze blowing the curtain into the room. He had been in her arms, against her breast ... all night ... in the same position they had fallen asleep.
Juanita told him she loved him and she wept again and he asked why she was crying and she said it was from happiness.
André knew now that it was the same way with her as it had been with him. Wasn’t it always that way? Hadn’t she hidden her feelings to protect herself from heartbreak?
The sands of time had now run out. There was little left for them together. And, she need not keep her feelings from him any longer.
21
WHEN SHE HAD PASSED through Viriel a year earlier, Juanita de Córdoba related to the Mendoza brothers the tragic news.
Carlos and Shuey Mendoza were to learn that their beloved father had been sent to Castro’s concentration camp on the Isle of Pines after being branded, without trial, as an enemy of the Revolution. He was shot dead on the old ruse, “la fuga,” the killing of a prisoner allegedly trying to escape. It was out-and-out murder and they all knew it, for one does not escape from the Isle of Pines.
After that, it was not difficult for Juanita to enlist Carlos and Shuey into the espionage group.
At one time the Mendoza family had had considerable interest in the shipping business of Viriel. Castro had confiscated their business.
But Carlos and Shuey had been born and spent their lives there, and they knew the old harbor like their mother’s smile.
A day after André Devereaux arrived in Havana and gave instructions to Juanita, she traveled to Viriel and visited the Mendoza brothers and gave them cameras, field glasses, and orders to keep the harbor under scrutiny day and night.
On the third evening of their vigil four Russian ships ... Pinsk, Margrav, Georgia, and Vladivostok .... crept into the sagging harbor ahead of an onrushing storm. They were precisely the type of ship that the Mendozas had been told to look for. They had extremely wide beams, having originally been designed for the lumber trade.
All roads to and from the port area were sealed from the town by Cuban Army regulars. No Cubans were allowed into the port compound.
Russian troops debarked from the four ships in battalion strength and took up guard of the port area as well as all stevedore duty.
At the Castro rallies one saw great portraits of the Russian and Cuban brothers clasping hands, embracing, side by side, fists upraised in play of white and Negro brotherhood. The marching brothers were grim in their determination. The embracing brothers smiled, comrades in this great new world of revolution.
But in Viriel the Cubans were puzzled, for the Soviets belied the posters by being standoffish and removed. So many strange things had happened since the Revolution. The local committees told the people the arrival of the Russian troops meant something for the better.
Yet the natives of Viriel remembered the brash Marines from Guantanamo and the American sailors when their little port was entered. They were different men. Wild and free, like the Cubans themselves. But one did not question these days.
The Russian entry had frightening overtones. Cubans were barred from their own places in their own land. They were kept from the hotels and bars in Viriel, where the Russians were billeted. Not even the prostitutes were allowed. During the day the four ships sulked at anchor. Only at night did they discharge their cargoes, while others slept.
But Carlos and Shuey Mendoza did not sleep. They crouched in the cliffs that surrounded Viriel. On the first night the storm hid the moon and bubbled the sea with increasing swells. During daylight they slept