Cuba blue

1

Friday, late afternoon aboard the Sanabela II

Flowing across the sea-green coastal waters of Canal del Entrada, the mechanical cry of screeching gears aboard the shrimper, Sanabela II, trawling a few miles north of Havana, formed an oddly musical counterpoint to the shrieks of hungry seagulls hunting food along the shore. When the ship’s gears shuddered to a sudden standstill, the absence of that sound shocked the gulls into momentary stillness. Aboard the shrimper, all activity stopped. The men froze in place, afraid to breathe, afraid to hope. They stared first at the choked-off wench and then at one another. Fishing had been wretchedly poor all season; not once had the nets filled with so heavy a prize as the one promised by the old equipment groaning as the ship rocked in the waves. In the pilothouse, bearded and white-haired Captain Luis Estrada gasped. As another enormous groan choked from the wooden moorings and metal hoist, he rushed down to the main deck.

Everyone aboard knew what the subsequent silence meant.

Still, Estrada, like his crew, feared giving a moment’s vent to any jubilation. Not until a man stood knee-deep in the catch did he dare celebrate-an unwritten rule that all seamen knew only too well.

Pearls of small Christmas lights, strung from the tops of masts and the crow’s nest, created a colorful necklace for the busted-up old tub, Estrada’ cheap, efficient answer to the lighting problem whenever they worked into the night, or like today, under a dark sky threatening rain. The crew joked mercilessly about Estrada’s low-tech solutions.

The captain watched the net being slowly pulled up. Too slowly for his or anyone’s liking. He exploded, ordering, “Crank it up!”

The pulley operator shouted back, “She’s at full-throttle now!”

“It’s a full net!” shouted Adondo, his young eyes expectant.

Big Giraldo added, “Net’s heavier than my wife’s ass!”

“That’s damn heavy!” replied Adondo, laughing and adding, “but such a sweet one, that Miranda. You don’t deserve her, Giraldo!”

The jest made them all laugh, touching off their pent-up jubilation. Shouting, dancing, and singing erupted, with Adondo happily beating on oil drums with a knife in one hand and a huge tenterhook in the other.

With a burst of black oily smoke belching from the old machinery, the net lurched upward. Inside the rough-hewn many times mended net, hung a tangled web of bodies. Bloated skin mottled with dark bruises stretched over a grotesque catalogue of swollen body parts: eyes, ears, noses, limbs, torsos pressed tightly against the net, as if searching escape. The appalling package wore a ribbon of heavy chains with decorations of sea life.

The noisy celebration instantly turned into stunned silence.

Estrada exclaimed, “Madre de Dios!” Shaking his head, he muttered, “God just doesn’t like me, does he?”