The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(39)

That this woman has reached Hearst’s notice seems a bit unusual given how many women are likely in the prison down there. For a while, I thought Hearst’s attention was diverted to the troubles in Greece, but now it seems he’s back with his original instincts that the revolution coverage will set the Journal’s future.

“Who is she?”

“Evangelina Cisneros,” Michael replies. “She’s reportedly the niece of the former president of the Cuban Republic. Bryson says she’s beautiful. Like no woman he’s ever seen. He’s half in love with her already. They’re referring to her as a Cuban Joan of Arc.”

With each fact he dispenses about her, his voice rises in triumph, a crescendo building until his cheeks are reddened with excitement.

“So that’s the story?” I ask. “A beautiful woman is imprisoned in Cuba?”

What about all the other women imprisoned there who don’t have the benefit of fine eyes?

“Hearst thinks she’s the perfect person to compel the American people to push for intervention.”

It’s a page right out of Pulitzer’s own newspaper, a similar tactic that Pulitzer used when he rallied support for Sylvester Scovel’s imprisonment. Still, the public isn’t the one Hearst needs to worry about swaying. Despite his party’s aggressive stance toward armed conflict, President McKinley is reluctant to thrust us into war with Spain.

“How has she ended up in such a notoriously foul place?” I ask.

Michael grins, the near glee on his face at odds with the predicament of a young girl in prison.

“That’s where the story gets even more interesting,” Michael answers. “She was living on a penal colony on the Isle of Pines with her father, who was exiled for his role in the Cuban insurrection.”

“They imprisoned her along with her father?”

“No, she and her sister volunteered to accompany him. Readers are going to love that fact. Her father was originally sentenced to death for raising a rebel cavalry unit. Reportedly, she negotiated with Captain-General Arsenio Martínez Campos and later General Weyler to have his sentence reduced to life imprisonment.”

“I didn’t think Weyler was so easy to persuade.”

General Valeriano Weyler, the Spanish crown’s military governor in Cuba aptly known as a butcher, has a nasty reputation that precedes him.

“He’s not. But then again, everyone who comes in contact with Evangelina remarks on the girl’s beauty and grace. She’s an angel.”

I struggle to keep from retorting that it was likely her persuasive intellect and not divine beauty that saved her father.

“It depends on who you believe,” Michael adds, “but some say the Spanish governor Berriz took a liking to her and forced himself upon her. She defended herself, others came to her aid, and they were able to take Berriz prisoner. To hear the Spanish tell it, she was complicit in an uprising and lured him to her rooms one evening with the express wish of imprisoning him.”

“And what does Evangelina say?”

That seems to be the most important piece of the puzzle.

“That she is innocent, of course.” He shrugs as though guilt or innocence is of little import to him. “They’re threatening to transport her from Recogidas to a penal colony in Africa.”

“Why this woman? The atrocities have touched women before. Where was the outrage then?”

“Have you seen her?” He pulls a picture out of his pocket. “That face is the story.”

The image staring back at me shows a young girl with long, dark hair, fair skin, and dark eyes filled with a defiant stare. She is indeed lovely, and still, it seems insulting almost in the face of all she has endured to remark upon her beauty as though it is her defining characteristic, to consign her to hues and angles rather than the strength of her character and spirit.

“What do we know about her life in Recogidas?” I ask.

As much as I can’t agree with their take on things, if this is what Hearst wants, then I’ll become an expert on Evangelina Cisneros. After all, it’s the type of story he should want me to cover by virtue of my gender, and I did just promise him my loyalty.

“Our man in Havana spoke with some of her prison companions who said the conditions are harsh. She is surrounded by awful women—criminals, women of loose morals and character, and the like.”

“‘Awful women’?”

“Recogidas was built for women like that. Not women like Evangelina.”

His dismissive tone toward her compatriots sends a sleek arrow of fury through me.

“It seems like the problem is with Recogidas, then. Not the women,” I retort.

Maybe the story here isn’t just one woman, but a prison where women are treated so abominably and discarded. It’s Nellie Bly’s reporting at Blackwell’s Asylum all over again. Regardless of the country, there are always places where women are suffering.

“And the other women with Evangelina?” I ask. “What is their story?”

“One of the women is elderly. In her seventies, perhaps.”

“If the conditions are as bad as they say, I imagine she’s more in danger there than Evangelina. How did she end up in such a place?”

“Her sons have high-ranking positions in the Cuban Revolutionary Army.”