The Americans who weren’t just abstract leaseholders were mercenaries and AWOL factotums left over from the war.
There was that joke about what a man needs to survive: food, shelter, papaya and strange papaya. In a world where papaya isn’t a fruit but the damp, warm syncline between a woman’s thighs.
He named the place Kuba, which is what the natives—who appeared to greet him from beyond the green jungle drapery—said it was called. And what the Germans, fond of the letter K, still call it. The Admiral napped in a hammock strung between a palm and a paw-paw, tired after such a long journey, lull…
There’s something in it, he decides later, standing in line for dinner. It’s possible to know you’re a criminal, a liar, a man of weak moral character, and yet not know it, in the sense of feeling that your punishment is somehow undeserved, that despite the cold facts you’re deserving of warmth and…
