191 Trouble in paradise 



sion of some sort seemed imminent. All at once, across the park, 

 a different sound was heard, followed by a sudden hush that fell 

 like a low whisper over the entire crowd. Then we could see that 

 people were running headlong, and with strange, frightened ex- 

 pressions on their faces. Men stumbled and fell, tripping over one 

 another or barging blindly into benches and shrubbery, and then 

 leaping up and running again, some of them leaving hats or coats 

 where they dropped them. In back of this suddenly terror-stricken 

 crowd we could see the uniformed figures of troops on horseback, 

 each swinging a bare saber or brandishing a service revolver. The 

 Army had evidently decided to break up the demonstration before 

 it got out of hand. Arturo and I, after one glance, scattered with 

 the rest. 



Later in the day I learned that the main airport at Havana, 

 Rancho Boyeros, had been taken over by Batista's men and that 

 all international flights were canceled. I could not leave the coun- 

 try. Neither was I able to get messages out. Banks were closed 

 down, and most business places, excepting, of course, the bars. 

 In one of them, over a cold bottle of cerveza, a citizen I had 

 talked with before told me in halting English, "We are crushed 

 by the fact that this this could happen again to Cuba." I asked 

 what the local army garrison, the authorities in the town and the 

 people themselves would do about it. My friends looked at me 

 sadly. "Nada!" they said. "Everyone," Arturo added, "will be wait- 

 ing and watching." 



Later on, at the hotel, the manager, in some agitation, told me 

 that a man had been there looking for me. The manager thought 

 that he was "a kind of policeman." Feeling that his excitement 

 was probably just Cuban love of dramatics, and that it was merely 

 someone from the police wanting me to register as an alien, or 

 something like that, I told him not to worry and went up to bed. 

 But next morning Arturo was much concerned when he heard of 

 it on top of other rumors with which he was overflowing and 

 urged that I go with him to his father-in-law's sugar plantation 

 down the coast (the one we had visited briefly before) and stay 

 there until things simmered down. I had to pass the time some- 



