Next Year in Havana(47)

My heart turns over in my chest. “No.”

Not Pablo.

“He’s alive. They’re holding him in Havana. In La Caba?a.”

My legs tremble. Batista’s prison is notorious.

“They say he’s being questioned on Fidel’s movements.” Alejandro’s voice lowers. “Did you know he was Fidel’s eyes and ears in the city?”

I suspected. That Pablo is on Batista’s radar is a death sentence.

Despite the ideological differences between us, Alejandro’s still my big brother, and in this I can’t help but search for reassurance.

“What will happen to him?” I ask.

Alejandro’s silence is answer enough, even if it’s not the one I wanted.

“They’ll kill him, won’t they?”

He nods.

That’s the thing about families. They always tell you the truth, even when you’d almost prefer the lie.

“What can I do?” I ask.

I’m not sure how much more helplessness I can stand.

Alejandro’s gaze narrows. “Do you care about him?”

The words are clogged in my throat behind a morass of fear and guilt. “I do.”

“Then there’s one person who might be able to help.”

If helplessness is my Scylla, then the solution is most definitely Charybdis.



* * *



? ? ?

I hover on the threshold to my father’s study. I’ve never done this before, never used my family’s influence in such a blatant, flagrant attempt to secure what I want. I’ve been in a daze since my brother came to see me, panic flooding my veins. My father is seated behind his enormous desk, papers spread before him. I wince at the sight of the newspaper shoved into a corner. Has he already read about the arrests? How will I convince him to throw his weight behind freeing Pablo?

He looks up from his desk, and his eyes widen in surprise. This study is my father’s domain, and we tiptoe around it, reluctant to bother him when he’s working, when it’s clear he has little time for our frivolities.

Let him think this is a whim, nothing more. Don’t let him see my heart is breaking.

“Elisa, what can I do for you?”

“I have a favor to ask,” I answer, nausea rolling around in my stomach.

A brief look of annoyance crosses his face, but he waves me in. “Come in.”

I close the door behind me, crossing the Persian rug, and take a seat in one of the antique chairs opposite his desk. The corsair, captured in yet another painting, stares down at me from his place of prominence behind my father. This iteration of him is more dour than the one in the upstairs hallway. They say the corsair was once threatened with the gallows; perhaps this portrait was captured around that time. I now have an uncomfortable familiarity with men who look as though they are on the precipice of hanging by one means or another.

My father leans back in his chair, studying me over his black-rimmed reading glasses. “What do you need?”

My father is an imposing man in both his public and private life. He’s never been cruel, but he’s not the sort of man who invites confidences. Still, I’ve always believed him to be fair. He must know Batista’s actions are wrong. I’ve never viewed him as a blind supporter, but rather as a man willing to do anything to survive, a father and husband willing to sacrifice his integrity to protect his family. I take a deep breath. “I have a friend. He’s in La Caba?a. Can you secure his release?”

I have the novel experience of seeing true shock on my father’s face. He gapes at me, his mouth hanging open like a fish. If I could have avoided this, if there were anyone else I could ask, I would have, but my brother is right, in this I need someone with the kind of power our father wields.

“What did you just say?” he asks, a knifelike edge to his voice.

There is a delicate balance to this, the art of giving away enough to convince him to intervene, but not so much that he will lock me away in a convent somewhere. “My friend is being held in the city. No trial, no charges.” It’s a struggle, but I fight to keep any emotion from my voice, to stick to a dry recitation of the facts. My father will not be swayed by sentiment, and in this case, I fear any affection I show for Pablo will condemn him rather than save him. “He’s innocent,” I add hastily.

The lie slips out with far too much ease.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

“He’s a lawyer, a good man. From a good family.” I swallow. “Please.”

My father blinks, momentarily in a stupor. “You want me to do what?”

“They will kill him. They’re probably already torturing him. I thought perhaps—” A tremor racks my body. “I thought you could use some of your connections to see if he could be released.”

“How can you ask me this?” my father sputters.

I reach now for some thread of courage I didn’t know I possessed, the same courage I admire in those around me—my brother, Pablo, Beatriz.

“Because it’s the right thing to do. Because he’s a good man who has been put in an untenable position. He hasn’t done anything wrong. You know what’s happening in Cuba, how paranoid Batista is. You raised us to know right from wrong. What Batista is doing is wrong.”

“Not you, too.” A wealth of sorrow fills my father’s voice.