Next Year in Havana(62)

“I love you, too.”



* * *



? ? ?

We lie in bed beside each other, the sheets pooled around our waists. The act of being naked in front of a man, even Pablo, is too novel for me to be entirely comfortable, so I rest on my stomach, my head propped on the pillow, watching him. His hand trails down my back, his fingers walking the length of my spine, the sensation both soothing and ticklish. I bury my head in the pillow, stifling another laugh.

“I give up; I can’t take it anymore.”

Pablo grins, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me snug against his body, burying his face in my hair.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” he asks.

I turn to face him. “How much?”

A note of seriousness threads through my teasing tone; there are so many differences between us, and I know why I admire him—his passion, honor, and conviction. What does he admire in me?

“With everything I have, everything I am,” he answers. “You’re the hope in all of this. I’ve been fighting for so long now that I almost forget what life was like before, who I was when I was just a lawyer in Havana, a brother, a son, a friend. When I’m with you I remember the man I used to be, the man who had hope, a man who wasn’t surrounded by death.

“I want to be the kind of man who deserves you. A good man, an honorable man. A man devoted to his country and his family. You are my family now, Elisa.

“You’re smart, and you’re kind, and you’re loyal. You have faith and courage, and you push me to be better, to believe in those things, too. I want to be a man you’re proud of. A man you could love.”

I want the same things, to be someone he admires, to fight for what I believe in just as he does. He makes me want to be brave.

“I love you,” I whisper. “Always.”

Pablo takes my hand, his lips running over my naked ring finger.

“I wish you could wear my ring on your hand for everyone to see,” he says against my skin.

My heart thunders at the promise contained there. “Me, too.”

The keeping of this secret becomes progressively more difficult, a little more painful, and with each day he fights against Batista, protecting him becomes even more important.

Pablo’s fingers move to my brow, stroking there, tracing the line, sweeping down to caress my face.

“You’re worried,” he says.

There’s hardly a point in lying to him.

“I am. What happens next? Is this it?”

“This will never be it.”

“What else can there be?” I ask, my tone bleak.

“Us growing old together. Raising a family together. Watching our children have children of their own. Falling asleep beside each other at night and waking next to each other every morning.”

“Do you really think we can have that?”

“I hope so. If not, what are we fighting for?”

“How bad is it in the mountains? We hear things, but it’s impossible to know what’s real and what’s false with Batista. They say he’s censoring more and more.”

“That’s because we’re advancing. We captured one of Batista’s garrisons. At some point, morale will play a factor. His military is fighting their own countrymen, have been doing so for years now, and most of them know Batista’s not worth dying for. We’ll wear them down. And if we don’t, another group will. He has too many enemies to survive this.”

“How bad is it?” I repeat.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want it touching you. I get through the nights in the mountains by imagining you here, safe in the city. Imagining our future together.” Pablo grimaces. “War is never anything other than bad, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.”

“I worry about you,” I confess. “All the time. Wonder where you are, what you’re doing, if you’re alive. It’s so strange to go about my day as though everything is normal, to not be able to tell anyone about you, while I feel like half my heart has been torn from my chest.” I take a deep breath. “I worry something will happen to you and I won’t know considering we’re little more than secrets in each other’s lives.”

My brother is a conduit of sorts between us, my ears within Cuba’s rebellion, but his whereabouts are equally difficult to predict.

Pablo squeezes my hand. “If anything happens to me while I’m gone, Guillermo will find you. It won’t come to that, though, because I’m coming home to you, Elisa. Batista himself couldn’t keep me away.”

“Where will you go?”

“Che is marching toward Santa Clara. He and his men plan to make a stand against Batista’s forces.”

“And you will join them.”

“Yes.”

“Are you ever afraid?” I can’t imagine the risks he takes, the dangers he faces.

“I was with Latour in the Sierra Maestra at the end of July.” He pushes up on his elbow, the sheet falling to his waist, my gaze dropping to his lean chest before returning to his eyes. “We fought the Cuban army. Men died beside me, their bodies crumpling to the ground as their blood spilled over the mountains. Latour was killed. Fidel came to bolster our forces, but we were already surrounded by Batista’s army. Fidel had to negotiate a cease-fire—try to, at least—in order to give us a chance to escape. We were a breath away from being wiped out, the revolution, everything we’ve fought for over. I was afraid then.”