Next Year in Havana(28)
“I was at the Moncada Barracks with Fidel. The soldiers opened fire on us. We thought we would catch them off guard, that everyone would be distracted by Santiago’s carnival festivities, drunk and careless, but we missed something in the planning, and once we lost the element of surprise, it was all over. We shot at them until we had no bullets left—men I’d laughed with, drank with, died beside me—and then we ran. Fidel wasn’t so lucky. I escaped, helped him while he was in prison.”
That was five years ago. I was a young girl when armed men attacked the Moncada Barracks—the second-largest military garrison in Cuba—in Santiago de Cuba on July 26th in Fidel Castro’s failed attempt to seize control of the government away from Batista. The news said that the rebels boarded buses in Havana and followed Fidel to the country, not realizing the details of their mission, failing to understand how suicidal it was—how they were outmanned and outgunned, armed with recklessness, idealism, and weapons that paled in comparison to those of the military. Men were killed that day on both sides, the trials that followed somewhere in the background of my childhood. I played with dolls while he went to war.
“So you have lived a dangerous life.”
He shrugs as though he takes no pride in the matter, as though such actions are merely a by-product of doing what he believes to be right.
“I have. It is dangerous to fight for what you believe in. It is also dangerous to speak of the corruption in Batista’s government, of our dependence on the United States, to complain about unemployment, the failing economy, how sugar controls all of our fortunes.” He breaks off with a curse as I blanch.
I’ve listened to the same words hurled at my father by my brother, except the difference between Pablo and Alejandro is that I’m familiar with Alejandro’s disdain for Fidel and the 26th of July, his belief that they are not willing to go far enough in the change they wish to bring to Cuba, that the “revolution” they call for will not do enough to upend the economic disparities that have plagued our island since the Spaniards came.
“You hate my family,” I say, my voice dull.
Another oath falls from Pablo’s lips, and in a flash, I see the conflict in his eyes, the truth and the lie contained in his words.
“If only it were that simple. I should hate your family. Men like your father have stolen this country from the rest of us. I should hate your family, but—”
His voice trails off as though he cannot explain the vagaries of the human heart.
“I’m not my family,” I protest even as I recognize the falsehood for what it is as the words fall from my lips.
It is a remarkably painful thing to have someone you care about and admire judge your existence, your very identity, the world you inhabit, and deem it rotten to the core. My brother hates everything about being a Perez, and the more he professes his desire to distance himself from our family, the more it seems impossible for him to love those of us who were born into this lifestyle. I am my parents’ daughter. How can you love something you denounce with such fervor?
“Of course you are,” Pablo says. “It’s in your bones, the tilt of your head, the sound of your voice, every step of your stride. You’re a Perez, through and through.”
And that’s the problem. I don’t know how to undo a lifetime of behavior, of rules, of manners that have been drilled into me. How to repudiate those I love the most—Beatriz, Isabel, Maria, my parents, Alejandro. We are not Batista, nor do we agree with many of his policies. But where is the difference between sin and survival? Does the benefit we receive from his position of power automatically damn us?
“I wish things were simpler,” Pablo adds. “I wish you could live in my world and I could live in yours. I wish there wasn’t such a sharp divide between those who have everything and those who simply yearn for a chance at more.”
“And you think you can bring that to Cuba?”
“Me and others like me. Fidel Castro for one.”
I know little about Castro besides the mentions of him I hear in the news and the derision in my brother’s voice. Fidel is calling for those running for the upcoming presidential elections to be shot and jailed; he says he will bomb polling places where people will gather. Perhaps Pablo thinks he is a good man, but the little I’ve seen of him has yet to convince me, and as much as I might disagree with my brother, I can’t ignore his thoughts on the matter, either.
“Were you with Fidel on the Granma?” I ask.
“Yes. I’ve been with him throughout the journey.”
“He’s your friend.”
I don’t bother hiding the fact that I’m mildly appalled. My mother has always cautioned us that we are to be judged by the company we keep, and it is difficult to not do the same to Pablo. Just as it appears difficult for him to not do the same to me.
“He is,” Pablo answers. “He’s also one of Cuba’s best chances at stepping out from under Batista’s shadow. He’s a good man, a lawyer, a reformer, a constitutional scholar, and a student of history.”
The bombs going off around Havana—some of them have belonged to Castro’s 26th of July Movement. Some of the Cuban blood that has spilled on the streets, the lives lost, have been at their hands, too. Either directly or indirectly, he’s been responsible for those deaths.
How can I admire such a man? How can I care for him?