The Passage by David Poyer Read Free Book Online

the city did at first. Or, if you had a sharp-enough blade, you could slice through with a sudden, nearly invisible wrist flick that clipped through the tough fiber like a razor blade through a stalk of celery.
    And gradually, her tight lips relaxed. She forgot what was past and what might come and swung the flat blade, dust-streaked now,
again and again. She merged with the work and the dry heat, the smoke and dust that drifted in golden sparkling, itching clouds between the stalks; with the endless stoop-slash-trim-toss, the steady progress across the fields, hearing and sometimes glimpsing at the edge of one’s own gradually lengthening clearing the knotted kerchief or the plaited straw hat of a neighbor, the quick grin or averted eyes of another worker. Till all that existed in the world was the swaying, waiting cane, darker green at the base, then lighter, and finally a withered brown at the leaf tips. Each stalk shuddered as she grasped it, as if it sensed the moment had come when it would lose its grip on the earth and become raw material for the mills. She worked in silence, without joining in the shouts and encouragements of the other workers, or the songs. Although she listened, and sometimes her lips moved with the refrain.

    Â¡Venceremos! Venceremos!
¡Guerrillero adelante, adelante!

    After an hour, a boy made his way through the stalks, carrying galvanized buckets carefully balanced, one to each hand. When he came to her, she paused and lifted her head to the bright blue sky, put her hands to her back, wiped her face, and only then bent to the dipper of cool water that she drank a few swallows of, a few swallows only. She smiled at the thin, shy youth with the gaptoothed smile and big dark eyes that searched the ground as she spoke.
    â€œMiguelito, this water is fresh? You didn’t let the men piss in it?”
    â€œNo, Tia Graciela. How are you feeling?”
    â€œI’ll get through the day. Go on, along with you.” She gave him a playful tap with the back of the blade, then reached for the next stand of cane.
    When she saw the shadow stretching forward from behind her, she thought at first that it was the boy again. She was thirsty, and she said sharply, not pausing, “Miguelito, bring it up here. I don’t want to take one step backward today.”
    â€œSpoken, at least, like a daughter of the revolution,” said an unfamiliar voice. Her hand went tight on the stalk it had already grasped, then released it.
    He stood with the sun behind him, so she couldn’t see his face. She could see that he was a large man, though. And what they called a gallego— light-skinned . He wore boots but not a uniform. His clothes didn’t look ragged, though, as hers and all the other workers’ did.
    Suddenly, she shivered. A cold wind seemed to blow over her, like the icy breath from the heart of the approaching storm.
    â€œAre you speaking to me, compañero ? I’m working now.”

    â€œI’ve been watching. You’re a good worker.”
    â€œWho are you? What do you want with me? I have a meta to meet.”
    â€œI have a question for you, mulata —a question about certain worms.”
    â€œWhat worms?”
    â€œThe question is: ‘The guitars, why do they sing to me of your tears, O Cuba?’”
    She blinked sweat out of her eyes, staring into the sun and in front of it this blackness, this shadow, and suddenly she was so frightened, it was hard to breathe. He wasn’t in uniform, so he wasn’t from the army or the police. He carried a machete, but his boots were new and his clothes fit him and were not torn or patched, and he was muscular and well fed. So there was really only one thing he could be.
    â€œGraciela Gutiérrez?”
    â€œYou’re speaking to me. But who are you?”
    â€œWhat do you say to my question?”
    â€œI don’t know anything about guitars. I don’t have a guitar.” He came a