Waves E-Book

José Ramón Torres

• Herausgeber: José Ramón Torres
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

"The only thing to be done with this country is leave it, once and for all."Ángel could never have pictured himself in a situation like this — hungry, tired, and unsure if he’ll live to see tomorrow. But no price is too high for his family’s future.Waves plunges the reader into a world of dominoes, rum, cigars, sex, drugs and boleros while weaving together three episodes of Cuban mass migration to the United States. A book about Cuba which doesn’t side with left or right but with ordinary people suffocated by circumstances. A tribute to migrants, their hopes and sacrifices.

Leseprobe

Waves

José Ramón Torres

Copyright©2015 José Ramón Torres

ISBN: 978-0-9929684-5-8

Cover art: Dariel Llerandi Torres. Author’s collection.

All rights reserved. This novel may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without prior written consent from its author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this writer.

All characters and events mentioned in this work of fiction, except for historical ones, are the products of the author’s imagination and anyresemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Louise Durkin, Robin Myers, Jackie Cannon, Maggie Carr and Elizabeth Torres for helping me complete this English version of the Spanish original. Without their time, patience, valuable advice and useful interventions I would still be struggling with words.

To my wife Liz and my children Daniel and Amelia,

for the time this book has taken away from them.

Contents

The Press Release

The Gardens

Down with the Worms

That Settles It

In the Footsteps of Francis Drake

The Goodbye

Cuatro Ruedas - El Mosquito - Mariel

The Crossing

Operation Departure

Verdi

Seal

Mafuco

The Can

Route 61

Gilbert and King

To the Smell of Sardines

Bombs

All Roads Lead to the Seawall

The Key

Ships in the Night

Beauties on Duty

Boca Ciega

Secrets

It’s Official

Time to Row

Be Careful What You Wish for

The Horse

Beyond the Ninety Miles

For Sale

Guantánamo

Krome - Miami Beach

Blood

Interaction with the Author

The Press Release

In view of the tragic death of a guard at the Peruvian Embassy and given the tolerant attitude adopted toward such criminals by the Peruvian government, the government of the Republic of Cuba has decided to withdraw protection from said diplomatic mission. The diplomatic staff will, henceforth, be fully responsible for what happens in the embassy. We cannot protect embassies that do not cooperate with their own protection.

(Granmadaily newspaper, Havana, Cuba, Friday 4 April, 1980)

The Gardens

As the sun sets on Saturday, April 5, the number of asylum seekers approaches ten thousand. Swarms of people are battling their way to the embassy in pursuit of exile. Among those who have managed to make it inside are a group of students from Havana University who arrived at around nine in the morning, three bus drivers who abandoned their vehicles mid-route, and a tanker driver who came to deliver water and decided to end his rounds right then and there.

Three young men have just arrived, half naked, straight from the beach. Before heading in, one of them flags down a taxi, scribbles his family’s address on a scrap of paper, and asks the driver to bring them to the embassy. He also gives him a watch, a baseball cap, a snorkeling mask, and the promise that this will be the best fare of his life.

“Remember the woman who said she’d given birth here and asked to be urgently flown out to Peru?” a white-haired woman asks another leaning against the dog kennel. “Well, turns out she made off with the baby in a sheet all covered in blood from the maternity hospital on Línea.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes, my dear, there’s not a word that isn’t true.”