When We Left Cuba(84)

I nod.

I follow Eduardo out of the room, down the hall, to Juan’s study. Eduardo closes the door behind us.

I sink down on the couch, the tremor in my legs finally getting the best of me. Even though I knew Eduardo would be here, even though I came here for this, the shock of seeing him has caught me off guard in ways I never expected.

“You look well,” he says.

My heart clenches.

“Beautiful as always,” he adds.

The words hurt, and somehow, I have a feeling he means for them to hurt.

“I thought of you. Every day I was in that hellhole. I told the other men about you. Beatriz Perez. Sugar queen. Too beautiful to be believed.”

“What was it like?” I ask as some part of me embraces the pain.

“You don’t really want to know that. Don’t you have enough dead bodies haunting your dreams as it is?”

“What was it like?” I repeat, my voice growing stronger with each word he hurls my way, as I embrace his pain, cultivating it inside me. Perhaps I have grown too complacent, too sedate, these days and nights I have spent in my lover’s arms, Cuba and her future somewhere in the back of my mind. Perhaps I have lost my edge somewhere in all of this.

Eduardo turns from me, striding over to one of the bookshelves that flank Juan’s impressive desk. My sister’s husband will likely be chosen by our father to take over the management of Perez Sugar when our father dies, to pass it on to Miguel when he comes of age. It was Alejandro’s legacy until he didn’t want it anymore, until he was murdered, and now it is to be my brother-in-law’s.

I’ve never felt the pull of sugar the way our father has; the industry has done enough damage to Cuba and its people. I’d wash my hands of the whole thing if I could, but I suppose there are larger practicalities at play here.

“It was hell,” Eduardo finally answers, his back still to me. “The moment my feet hit that beach, I regretted the stupid impulse of heroism that pushed me to take such a ridiculous action. I should have stayed here, and drunk champagne, and danced with homely girls looking for husbands.” He pivots, and his lips twist in a sneer, his gaze running over me, condemning me for dancing and drinking champagne while he bled.

“What a damned waste,” he mutters, more to himself than to me.

“They knew,” he continues. “The Americans. From the beginning, they had to have known we were outmanned, outgunned, that we had no chance without their involvement and support. That the little they gave us was not nearly enough. They abandoned us, left us to die on that beach, and for what? So they could rid themselves of the exiles causing trouble in South Florida. So they wouldn’t get their hands dirty. So they could preserve their ridiculous image in front of the international community. As though the rest of the world doesn’t know all too well what they are capable of, where their loyalties lie, how they prioritize their own national interest above everyone else’s.

“‘What was it like?’” he mimics. “You know what Fidel does to his prisoners. You know what it was like.”

I do.

“Perhaps it was better because they were bargaining for us, because we had some value, at least—what was it they wanted first? Tractors for our lives. Then money. So much money. I should be grateful, of course, that I had some value. That they didn’t just let me die there. Kennedy and his powerful political friends saved me.”

It’s coming. Like a storm building over the water, it’s coming. I recognize the anger in him, the uncontainable, dangerous whiplash of rage pushing and shoving its way outside of him.

We are so very alike.

“What good allies we have in these Americans. They said we would hit the beach and we would march straight to Havana. They told us people would join us along the way, come out of their homes and greet us as liberators just as they did for Fidel and his men.” He snorts. “We should have known it sounded too good to be true. That when they told us the sky would be filled with planes, that we would have more support than we needed, than we knew what to do with, it was just another empty promise from the Americans. We should never have been foolish enough to hope.”

Does he see me as one of them—the Americans—because I love one of them? Does he view me as a traitor to my people?

“After we were captured, Fidel and his lackeys marched us with their guns trained on us, our hands tied behind our backs, surveying us as though we were animals being led to slaughter.”

It’s not enough to take our country from us; Fidel and his compatriots are also determined to take our pride, to break our spirit.

“They attached monetary value to each of us as though we were chattel. The lowliest among us were worth a mere $25,000. The rest of us, well, it turns out I was very expensive.”

“Eduardo.”

My heart breaks for him.

“Did he know?”

I flinch at the question, at the condemnation contained in his gaze.

“I don’t know.”

Liar.

“You don’t want to know. Which is, in its own way, answer enough, isn’t it?”

“I left him. When it happened, we fought. I left him. I understand the anger you feel right now. You don’t think I was angry watching what happened to all of you, helpless, stuck here? I wanted to go with you. I wanted to fight. This is my fight as much as it is yours.”