A Sea between Us Read online

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

  A SEA BETWEEN US

  I have always been drawn to true stories. There is simply nothing more compelling than real life. A Sea between Us is not only true, but it is an exciting, heart-wrenching, hopeful, and wonderfully told story that is as important as it is beautiful.

  DR. MARTY MAKARY, New York Times bestselling author, surgeon, and professor at Johns Hopkins University

  I’m excited about this book, and I can’t wait to see how Yosely’s story impacts people throughout the world. Ivey captured something really special in A Sea between Us.

  TONY HALE, Emmy award-winning actor, writer

  I’ve been waiting for more than twenty years for this book. That’s not an endorsement exaggeration. In 1998, I got my first real job at an advertising agency in Birmingham, Alabama, and learned how to write from a guy named Billy Ivey. I’m thrilled this book is finally here, and when you read this wonderful story of human triumph, you’ll be thrilled too.

  JON ACUFF, New York Times bestselling author of Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking

  Gripping. Billy Ivey captures the trauma of human tragedy and the inherent loyalty in true love. This is the American story. It sheds light on dreams that persevere in imposed darkness and helps keep hope in our sight.

  TRACY FRIST, teacher, writer, farmer, preservationist, and conservationist

  Visit Tyndale online at tyndale.com.

  Visit Tyndale Momentum online at tyndalemomentum.com.

  Tyndale, Tyndale’s quill logo, Tyndale Momentum, and the Tyndale Momentum logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Ministries. Tyndale Momentum is a nonfiction imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois.

  A Sea between Us: The True Story of a Man Who Risked Everything for Family and Freedom

  Copyright © 2022 by Monarch Ministries, LLC. All rights reserved.

  Cover and interior photographs copyright © 2021 by Eric Chapman. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Lindsey Bergsma

  Edited by Bonne Steffen

  The author is represented by the literary agency of Alive Literary Agency, www.aliveliterary.com.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at [email protected], or call 1-855-277-9400.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4964-4850-7 (HC)

  ISBN 978-1-4964-4851-4 (SC)

  Build: 2022-03-14 16:19:01 EPUB 3.0

  This book is dedicated to our families and our many thousands of Cuban brothers and sisters—especially those who have lost their lives seeking freedom. To those who are still looking forward to a better life: No pierdas la esperanza.

  YOSELY AND TAIRE PEREIRA

  This book is dedicated to my family and my hermano. Thank you all for believing that I could tell this story.

  BILLY IVEY

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Preface

  1: Into the Black

  2: Not My Home

  3: Common Heartbreak

  4: I Am with You

  5: Estrella Norte

  6: Falling in Love

  7: Famous Land

  8: Fishing Expedition

  9: Welcome to Hell

  10: “Ahora Estamos Completos”

  11: Finally

  12: A New World

  13: “Están en Cuba”

  14: All the Help I Can Get

  15: How Do You Feel about Marriage?

  16: Time to Go Home

  17: Bienvenido, México

  18: Promises Kept

  19: “Esta es América”

  A Word from Yosely & Taire

  Q & A with Yosely & Taire

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  YEARS AGO, my lifelong friends, Chet and Mary Virginia Frist, called me from Nashville. I could hear the excitement in their voices as they told me about a man they had recently met: a carpenter named Yosely.

  I was intrigued. I didn’t know any carpenters.

  Yosely had spent a few weeks building and installing kitchen cabinets for the Frists, but it only took a few days for a friendship to be formed. “You need to know this man,” they said. “You need to hear his story. Everyone needs to hear his story.”

  Over the next two months, I met with Yosely several times, and he shared fascinating details about his life, his family, his friends, and his eventual escape from communist Cuba.

  I started taking notes when we talked and found myself falling in love with the tone of his voice as he shared his heart and expressed so many of his passions, heartaches, and joys.

  After a weeklong trip to Cuba with Yosely to see the places and meet some of the people I had come to know through our conversations, I agreed with my friends in Nashville: Everyone needs to hear his story.

  I asked Yosely if he would allow me to tell it, and he agreed wholeheartedly that the world needed to know.

  I am not a historian or an expert on communism or US-Cuba relations. I am just a storyteller who has been given the gift of a great one to tell.

  Yosely’s journey is remarkable. It is exciting, adventurous, gut-wrenching, profoundly sad, and exceedingly joyful at times.

  It is not, however, unique.

  His is the story of an entire generation, an entire country of individuals, families, and friends sharing the same reality.

  Yosely Pereira and I have spent countless hours discussing the details of his life. Like any one of us, he’s had trouble remembering various specifics as well as the people he has met along the way. With the best intentions, I have recast certain moments in order to tell his story in an inspiring, educational, and compelling way. Although the events actually happened, many characters are composites of different real people in his life. Some of the names in this book have been changed to protect certain individuals who may or may not still be living in Cuba. Yosely has read several drafts of the manuscript and has confirmed that the story we tell together reflects as closely as possible the major milestones of his life.

  This book is my attempt at communicating the harsh realities that this man, this family, and their home country have endured and sometimes, by the grace of God, overcome throughout several decades.

  This is an important story.

  I’m forever grateful that Yosely allowed me to tell it.

  Billy Ivey

  March 2022

  Our hearts were always united—even when we were apart. We had faith and love and dreams we knew could come true. The only thing that separated us was a sea between home and hope. And how wonderful that this great nightmare of ocean was the same beautiful water that connected us and allowed us to believe in a better life, a better story. Once upon a time . . .

  1Into the Black

  MY NAME IS YOSELY PEREIRA.

  On February 7, 2002, I escaped Cuba.

  Under the cover of darkness and with the determination of a runaway prisoner, I left my home. I left my family. And—quite simply—disappeared.

  Why?

  Because I had to.

  For her.

  For them.

  This is our story.

  * * *

  There is an indefinable magic to my home country.

  Valleys rich with farmland, ideal for growing sugarcane, corn, fruit trees, and bananas; fields low and wet enough to grow rice; and towering palms sprinkled throughout the landscape—a deep palette of greens dotted with flowering trees of oranges, yellows, reds, purples, and whites.

  Cuba is a land of abundant forests leading to mountain ranges housing coffee and tobacco plantations, outlined by waterfalls, cascades, and crocodile-infested swamps. The Island’s iridescent coasts are traced by bright white beaches or black coral—as mysterious as the waters that meet them.

  The Island is a natural wonderland so especially breathtaking that even Christopher Columbus was astonished when he saw it for the first time in 1492, remarking that it was “the goodliest land that eye ever saw, the sweetest thing in the world.”

  So why would anyone ever want to leave?

  I once heard Cuba described as the most ironic place on earth. I imagine the person who said that was referring to the beauty of the Island matched by its bewildered population—friendly, proud, and passionate; downtrodden, desperate, and lost.

  But it hasn’t always been that way.

  My grandfather was the administrator of a sugarcane factory in the 1950s. He came to Cuba from A Coruña, Spain, when he was just a teenager. Cuba was once known the world over as a place of unmatched beauty and opportunity, so he set his sights on the tiny Island and set sail toward a brighter future for him and his family.

  He worked hard, went to school in Havana, and was promoted up the ranks at the factory just before Fidel Castro came into power.

  * * *

  In 1959, when he arrived in Havana with his band of revolucionarios, Fidel Castro installed a provisional government.

  For a time, the lower classes prospered, but this was only a ruse to buy time until he built up the armed forces and security services—including a powerful, politically tied police force. Then, e
verything changed.

  Castro signed into law the First Agrarian Reform, setting a cap for landholdings and prohibiting foreigners from owning Cuban land. Suddenly, my grandfather—along with hundreds of thousands of Cubans—became displaced, having to learn new skills and embrace a much simpler way of life. Almost overnight, his aspirations changed from wealth and success to mere survival.

  Before the Revolución was even a year old, the bourgeois element in Cuba’s government were removed or forced to resign. Then one by one over the next several months, media outlets were silenced. And within a few years, all private property—down to even the smallest corner shops—was taken and solely owned by Fidel.

  This calculated degradation of humanity left an indelible mark of bitterness on an entire generation, a sadness marked by hopelessness and melancholy.

  Cuba became a prison.

  But we were about to be free.

  * * *

  JANUARY 13, 2002

  It had been just three weeks since I approached my lifelong friend, Enier, with my idea to leave the only home I had ever known. The notion was something we had whispered about since childhood and dreamed about as young men, drinking beers at night in the dark alleyways of our neighborhood. But this time was going to be different.

  I had never thought about building a boat. I was a furniture maker; not a sailor. But something had to be done, and this was the only answer that made sense. As it turned out, Enier had already thought the idea through and echoed my excitement.

  “You are the best carpenter I have ever known,” he said. “How hard can it be? If you can build a table and chairs, surely you can build a boat! I can get the materials. You just have to build it.” He had already saved more than enough money to purchase the wood we would need.

  Enier worked at the gas station in town and would, from time to time, siphon extra fuel to sell on el mercado negro. The black market. The government controlled all fuel consumption at the time, so Enier was able to make pretty good money selling a gallon here and there.

  “We will buy the wood—piece by piece—and store it in your shed. When you are ready, we’ll move it, and you can get to work. You can do this, Yosely. You must.”

  But how can I?

  How can I leave Taire?

  She will never forgive me.

  The children won’t understand.

  What if I am arrested, or killed?

  What if it doesn’t work?

  What if saving myself puts my family in danger?

  What if I can’t save them?

  * * *

  Over the next few weeks, I cut, shaped, sanded, and pieced together a twelve-foot glorified rowboat in the darkness of night, just outside of town. Enier and I found a ravine at the edge of an orange orchard to hide our materials during the day. We would cover the pieces with palm branches, sugarcane husks from neighboring fields, and windswept trash from town. At night, we would go to the orchard, and I would work until daybreak.

  Enier stood watch while we devised our escape through whispers.

  There were many nights when my wife would startle awake and find I wasn’t in bed. More often than not, her panic would turn to deep relief when she would find me curled up next to my son in the early morning before sunrise.

  She only questioned me once about my absence during those few weeks. My eyes pooled with tears as I asked her to please trust me.

  “You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I would never do anything that doesn’t honor you. Everything is for you and for them.”

  But I couldn’t do it alone.

  “We need more people,” Enier said. “The two of us will never be able to get to freedom alone. I know others, Yosely. People who can help us.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who? Who is crazy enough to get in a boat that we built in an orange grove and paddle to America? If you know these people, you need new friends, Enier, because they are crazy.”

  “Rafael, Alberto, Javier. They all want to leave. They are all ready.”

  “You told them? What’s the matter with you!”

  I was furious. I simply couldn’t believe he had shared our secret. Three weeks of sneaky, sleepless, scary nights; three weeks of wondering when, not if, I would get caught creeping out of the house or we would be arrested for wandering the moonlit streets of our town. Now I knew. It was tonight. We were done for.

  “Take it easy, Yosely.” He tried to calm me down, but I was enraged and erupted out of the ravine and ran toward him, ready to tackle him to the ground.

  “They are ready to leave, Yosely. They can help us get out of here!”

  The three men Enier mentioned were all friends of ours and often joined us in the dark alleyways—to drink and dream.

  “And what about Neo?” he asked. “That would make six of us. An even number.”

  “No. Not Neo,” I said, now thinking of each of the men named.

  “Why not? Neo would dog-paddle to America backward if you told him to,” Enier said, almost pleading for affirmation.

  “My wife is stronger than Neo,” I snapped back, my eyes wide as the full moon above us.

  “But he is loyal to you, Yosely. He will help us. We need him.” Enier took a deep breath and waited for me to speak.

  I climbed back into the ravine and started sanding the sides of the boat.

  “Well?” I said, after a few minutes. “What are you waiting for? Go get our crew.”

  A new routine began with this unlikely band of brothers. Night after night, different men would join me at the boat to help sand and waterproof the sides. We were never all in the same place at the same time because we didn’t want to create any suspicion, but I was there every night. After my family fell asleep, I would make the hour-long trek on foot to the orchard, never taking the same route, but always arriving in time to work for a few hours before slipping home.

  The project took a lot less time than I had anticipated. Using only the light of the moon and a myriad of materials collected by my friends, I built our boat in just thirty-nine days.

  When it was finally finished, I looked at the boat and started to cry. Slowly, everyone gathered behind me and put their hands on my shoulders.

  Enier spoke for all of them. “Well done, Yosely. She’s beautiful.”

  Then, the weight of our entire lives—our families’ lives—fell on us all. We stood there for what seemed like an hour and silently thought of what might be.

  “Tomorrow, then?” Javier finally grunted.

  I shot a quick glance at their faces, and my sense of accomplishment suddenly turned to panic.

  Tomorrow?

  That’s too soon.

  How can we be ready tomorrow?

  What about our families?

  What about our supplies?

  What if the boat isn’t ready?

  The others waited for me to take a deep breath and answer. I nodded my head and then, “Tomorrow,” we all agreed.

  I returned to my tiny home to find my family curled together in a half-lit room, asleep on my son’s mattress on the floor. I stood in the doorway to his room and watched them sleeping, breathing, dreaming. Suddenly, Taire awoke, startled.

  “¿Qué te pasa, mi amor?”

  I wiped my eyes and smiled. “Nada, mi corazón. Todo es perfecto.” Nothing, my heart. Everything is perfect.

  To tell Taire my plan would be opening her up to indefensible interrogation after I was gone. The policia would no doubt question where I had gone. The less she knew, the safer she and the children would be without me.

  I turned out the light and climbed onto the mattress with them. Four of us, about to be three.

  * * *

  FEBRUARY 7, 2002

  The next night, I met my friends in the orchard and hid near the embankment with the boat until we saw a truck’s lights break the dark horizon.

  Neo jumped up immediately and started waving to the driver. “Over here!” he screamed.

  Alberto grabbed Neo by the collar and pulled him down. “Are you crazy! You idiot! What if that’s not him? You could get us killed!”

  But it was him.

  Neo pushed Alberto away. “You can stay in this hole if you want. Me? I’m going to America.”

  The five of us each grabbed hold of a section of the boat and dragged it up the embankment. It was heavy. Very heavy. Even though it was only about twelve feet long, the weight surprised us all.