The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(101)
“I know. And I understand what it means to be a mother, to have to make difficult choices.”
Tears fill her eyes. “I know you do. You could come home. You and Isabella could live here. Mateo could be anywhere, he could—”
“Mateo is my husband,” I reply. “I do not know what has happened to him, but he will always be my husband. I cannot deny that. Not even to come home.”
She holds the bag out to me. “This is for you. It will give you the start you and Isabella need.”
I take the bag from her wordlessly, pulling the drawstring and staring at the contents.
She’s given me jewelry—pieces that have been in the family for longer than I’ve been alive, pieces I’ve seen her wear throughout my life.
“I wish I could do more, but your father—he won’t notice that these are missing. They should be yours anyway. They are your legacy.” She offers me a sad little smile. “We women collect these currencies, this power wherever we can.”
“It’s too much. I can’t accept it.”
“You can. You will. For Isabella and for yourself. You have always been strong, Marina. You will need that strength to guide you through this new part of your life. To help you start over. We all need to be strong now.”
“The food—was that you?” I ask, finally voicing the question that I’ve wondered about since Carmela first handed me the bundle.
“Of course it was me. You’re my daughter. I love you.”
Our relationship has never been an overly affectionate one, but I take a few steps forward, closing the distance between us and wrapping my arms around her.
“Some of the revolutionaries are coming back to the city,” my mother whispers in my ear as she embraces me. “There is to be a reception of sorts for them today. You should go look for Mateo.”
We break apart at the sound of another set of footsteps in the room, and then I see her, my daughter, and she runs toward me, throwing her arms around me.
* * *
—
We walk along the edge of the sea in silence. Isabella has spoken little since we left. I’ve agonized over whether this is the right thing to do, whether I should have left her with my mother and father where she would live in better conditions than I likely will be able to give her.
I don’t know if Isabella truly understands why I left her, or if she’s angry with me for having done so, but I hope that I will be able to make it up to her and that she will never have to make the same choices I’ve made, that she will not one day be called to fight as I have done, as her father and grandparents have done.
The Spanish are finally expelled from Cuba. Here is what we are left with:
Nearly all of the countryside has been destroyed, almost all livestock slaughtered, the crops we’ve relied on for sustenance, the very earth itself a barren char. No one knows exactly how many lives perished in Weyler’s reconcentration camps, but the estimates are nearly a third of the island’s population. The freedom we fought for as women, the blood that was shed so we could be treated as equals with men, so that we could vote or hold political office, is another dream lost to the war.
Where we were once indispensable in the war for Cuba’s independence, we are now forgotten in her future.
I am surrounded by forgotten, abandoned women.
They beg throughout the streets of Havana.
The Evangelinas of the world were feted with parades and cheering crowds, whereas the women who fought on the battlefield, who lived in reconcentration camps, who worked as nurses and couriers, who raised the cry of independence and lost so much, are left without prospects, impoverished and desperate, ill and malnourished. We dreamed of a free Cuba, gave our lives and our families to her cause, and we’re given nothing in return. Perhaps if we’d been younger, prettier, our skin lighter, our virtue untouched, our fortunes would have been different.
It’s not Evangelina’s fault, of course; even in my more bitter moments, I know that. Our lives are not defined by one thing; we are more than the events that happen to us, as Evangelina should be. But it’s hard not to feel like in Evangelina the Americans saw a Cuban who needed to be protected, and after saving her they decided the whole damned island needed saving, too. That America feared this new Cuban identity we are forging. It’s hard not to question my part in the whole affair and wonder what I could have done differently even as I ultimately benefited from my role in her rescue. It’s hard not to feel that if we hadn’t been seen as victims, we would have had a chance to be treated as equals.
It’s impossible to feel victorious when the “victory” leaves your country in ruins. Rather, it’s as though we helped the Americans win a war against Spain. We had no part in the negotiations that ended the war, were relegated to onlooker status when the Spanish flag was finally lowered over Havana.
Many believed that because the United States knew what it was to wage a war for their independence, they would support our right to have the same freedom. But democracy seems to mean different things throughout the world.
Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain has signed the armistice handing over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States for the sum of twenty-five million dollars.
Isabella and I walk on, toward a ceremony that’s being held by some of the revolutionaries.
I pray my husband will be there. That he is alive.