The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(25)
“He would be very proud of you, then.”
“I hope so.”
“How did he die, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Pneumonia. After all he’d been through, fighting in the war—they said it changed him, all that he’d seen, the men he’d killed. He didn’t come back the same. He had health problems. Sometimes he would be quiet for long periods of time. He told me once that when I was born it felt like he got a new start at life. He was a good man. I never imagined I’d lose him at such a young age. And then one winter when I was a little girl, he got sick. He was gone a few weeks later.”
“You must miss him very much.”
The kindness in his voice catches me off guard.
“I do miss him.” I clear my throat discreetly, past the emotion there. “He was my best friend. I looked up to him quite a bit.”
I can’t bear to meet Rafael’s gaze after sharing something so personal, so I turn my attention to the crowd before us, only to be surprised by how many people are staring back at us. Our conversation has drawn its share of notice, and I know I’m hardly the cause of them. I’ve been out of society so long, I’m quite sure I’ve been forgotten. But the glances our way are coming from the feminine quarters of the room.
Suddenly, he leans in closer to me, his lips an indecorous distance from my ear. “Do you want to get out of here?”
I lurch backward. “Mr. Harden, if I have given you the impression that I am interested in you in any way, I do apologize. I am not one of your women, nor am I—”
Rafael lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “Good God, I wasn’t asking you to come with me so I could have my way with you.”
My cheeks must be flaming red.
“I very much doubt we would suit. But, since you do have your notepad with you, there’s an event you just might be interested in. Some members of the Junta are meeting tonight. There’s news out of Cuba. Care to join me?”
I hesitate for a moment, staring out at the sea of royalty, but it’s no contest. The lure of a Junta meeting is no match for high society.
“Lead the way.”
* * *
—
If anyone in the meeting is surprised to see Rafael stroll in dressed dubiously as royalty, a poor imitation of Elizabeth I in tow, they give no indication. We spoke little on the carriage ride here, and when he led me into the closed law office on Broadway where the meeting was taking place, no introductions were made. The men are already deep in conversation when we arrive, so with a nod from Rafael, I pull out my notepad and get to work.
The Cuban Revolutionary Party has spent a great deal of time and money highlighting their cause, from the rallies they organize, to the chapters that have sprung up all over the country, and the newspapers they publish. They’re notorious for feeding stories to reporters, and I can’t help but wonder if this invitation was as spur-of-the-moment as it appeared at the time Rafael asked me to come or if he somehow finagled this whole endeavor in advance.
“We must do something about the situation in the camps,” one of the men says. “Women and children are suffering. The Spanish cut off their means of support with the destruction they’ve wrought in the countryside. If this doesn’t garner the attention of the Americans, I don’t know what will.”
Rafael adjusts beside me in his chair.
“Look at what happened to the Armenians,” someone else adds. “You would think the Americans would have learned by now and won’t want another situation like they had with Turkey.”
“Do Americans care about dead Cubans? Truly?”
One of the men lifts up a folded newspaper, and from my vantage point I can make out the article’s headline.
Just last month, Hearst sent Richard Harding Davis and Frederic Remington down to Cuba, putting the full force of the Journal behind the endeavor and paying them an exorbitant sum. The article in the newspaper is the one Richard Harding Davis wrote for the Journal about the death of Cuban nineteen-year-old Adolfo Rodríguez. An illustration of Rodríguez’s face in his final moments before the Spanish firing squad killed him takes up nearly the entire front page. The grotesque details have increased circulation and angered our readership, and Davis’s reporting leaps off the page, but it’s done little in terms of advocating for meaningful involvement in Cuba.
“Rodríguez was a boy,” the man continues. “He was a farmer. Civilians are waging this battle. They don’t stand a chance without help.”
“What will it take for the United States to intervene?” another man calls out. “They don’t care about the death of a boy.”
“A woman, maybe,” another man says. “Or a child.”
“Then they should go to the camps. Plenty of dead children there.”
My hand cramps from how quickly I write, their conversations flowing from one topic to the next. No one so much as turns our way, but I can feel the weight of Rafael’s regard on me even though he doesn’t speak throughout the meeting.
When the meeting is over, we exit the building and climb back into Rafael’s carriage. Despite the late hour, I’ve no doubt the Bradley-Martin ball is still going in full force at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. After everything I heard about the situation in Cuba, it’s even more difficult to imagine going back to the room filled with thousands of flower petals.