Next Year in Havana(87)
“Why did you decide to fight?”
“I met Fidel when I was studying law at the University of Havana. We had a class together, and we went out for drinks one night after a lecture. He was so passionate back in those days; it was easy to get swept up in his words, in his enthusiasm for change. We were consumed by the idea of dethroning Batista, so caught up in the spirit of the fight that we didn’t think as much about the future as we should have. We agreed Cuba should be free, but we didn’t realize at the time that we had different views of what that freedom would look like, that the reality would be different from the one we spoke of when we were just kids playing at revolution.”
I’m surprised by the candor in his voice, by the thread of regret beneath it all.
“What would you have done differently?”
“Everything. Nothing. Who knows how much would have changed?”
“What happened that day in Santa Clara?”
“I was shot at Santa Clara. There were a few hundred of us. Some went with Che; others, like me, armed with grenades, were sent to capture the hill. El Vaquerito led us.”
“El Vaquerito?”
“Roberto Rodríguez Fernández. He died at Santa Clara. He was only twenty-three.”
He delivers the words in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, as though he is too familiar with men dying in war.
“Batista’s army had nearly four thousand soldiers, tanks, planes. We were outmatched and outgunned.”
“But you won. I saw the memorial, the train.”
He seems pleased by this.
“We did. Batista’s forces were tired of fighting. When we captured the train Batista sent with reinforcements, it was all over. Batista fled during the early hours of New Year’s Day, and everyone marched toward the city. I lost a lot of blood, and my wound became infected. I nearly died; the doctors didn’t think it was wise to move me. So I stayed and recovered in a house nearby. In the confusion, Guillermo thought I’d died.
“By the time I was well enough to contact Elisa, Batista was already gone and Fidel had taken power. There were strikes throughout the country, and everything descended into a state of chaos. I had to be careful; her family never would have approved, and at that time, I had nothing to offer her.
“I went to Havana to see her. Before I had a chance, I learned her father was in prison. They were after anyone who supported Batista in those days, and already the regime was discussing taking the plantations away from the elite. The Perez family was an attractive target.”
I’m struck by the way in which he describes the regime as separate from him, as though Castro’s revolution was almost, but not quite, his.
“He was in La Caba?a,” Pablo continues.
A chill slides down my spine as I remember the sight of the prison in Havana looming on the horizon.
“Che had him. I had a few cards to play, and I knew how much Elisa loved her father, that it would have broken her heart to have lost him, that the family depended on him. In the end, it wasn’t enough—”
This is the part of the story I didn’t get from the letters, Magda, or Ana, the missing piece to the puzzle.
“I met with Elisa’s father, your great-grandfather, before he was released, and he promised he would tell her I was safe, that I loved her, that I would come for her when I could, when I had something to offer her. I gave him a letter to give to her. He seemed grateful to me for getting him out, but at the same time, I saw the way he looked at me. I was just another criminal in green fatigues in his eyes. And still—I had hope. That the dream of Elisa, of a future of us together, the one that had sustained me through prison, my time in the mountains, would eventually come true.
“And then they killed Alejandro,” he says, sadness in his gaze. “After everything, I couldn’t save him.”
“What happened?”
I grew up knowing that once, my grandmother had a brother, but the mention of him was always too painful for her and her sisters to discuss.
“I didn’t know him personally, only what I heard through the rebel circles and my relationship with Elisa. He was well-liked, charismatic, well-placed to influence Cuba’s future. He was a threat, and someone took that threat seriously enough to kill him.”
“He wasn’t with the 26th of July?”
“No, he wasn’t.”
Those words seem particularly ominous.
“As soon as I learned Alejandro had been killed—I wanted to see Elisa, to comfort her. And at the same time, I worried my presence would be a slap in the face for all they’d lost. So I stayed away for a while, thinking it was the honorable thing to do. Eventually, I realized your great-grandfather never told her I was alive, never gave her my letter. I learned Guillermo told Elisa I was dead, that she thought I was gone. I don’t blame your great-grandfather, not after all he’d lost. My own family disowned me for joining Fidel. The last words my father said to me were that he was ashamed I was his son, that I had betrayed my country, my people. I didn’t want Elisa to feel the same way, couldn’t bear the thought that I’d destroyed what she loved, too.
“I went to her house to see her once I learned Guillermo had told her I died, once it became clear your great-grandfather didn’t tell her I was alive, once some time had passed. I asked one of the gardeners about the family, and he said they had gone, fled to the United States. He didn’t know when they would return. That was in March. I told myself she was safer there. You can’t imagine the fear we lived with during those days, even those of us close to Fidel. Perhaps those of us close to Fidel more than anyone. It took nothing to sentence a man to death. You learned to survive by following his orders, by agreeing with everything he said. Men who didn’t, good men, well—” His voice cracks, and I see the man my grandmother loved, the earnestness there and the immense sorrow at all that goodness and hope being twisted into something else entirely. “The firing squads, the blood—”