chapter six

Elisa

I barely recognize myself anymore—last night I snuck out to a party with my sisters, today I am walking along the Malecón, on my way to meet a man whose last name I do not know, whose family I do not know, who my family would likely never accept.

We are the source of my mother’s greatest pride and also the instrument of all her ambitions. That Isabel at twenty-three is not yet married is a travesty my mother is unable to reconcile, compounded by the sheer volume of marriage proposals received and summarily rejected by Beatriz—who at twenty-one should already be presiding over a home of her own, a child tucked away in a nanny’s safekeeping. My unmarried state is hardly a priority with two older sisters, but it is no small thing, either. Love is for the poor. In our world, you marry for status, for wealth, for family.

And yet here I am.

The Malecón is one of my favorite parts of the city—five miles of seawall that showcase Havana at her most beautiful, especially during the moments when the sun sets, the sky exploding into a series of golds, pinks, and blues like the colors that adorn the heavy paintings that hang on our walls.

I pass a fruit vendor selling pineapples, mangos, and bananas. He offers me a toothy grin before returning to his customers.

I’ve chosen another white dress to wear to see Pablo—one of my favorites, another purchase from El Encanto. It was harder than I anticipated to sneak out of the house today. Maria wanted to come with me, and Magda kept glancing at me suspiciously as though she could tell something had changed.

This is to be a onetime indulgence.

I will see him, and I will let myself have this hour or so to enjoy, and then I will return to Miramar and the dinner party my mother has planned for a judge—one of my father’s cronies—whose son she hopes to foist onto Isabel. I will see Pablo, and then I will forget him, save for the very late hours of the night when I am alone and cannot sleep, or when I walk along the promenade, the waves licking at my skin.

When I arrive at the point where we agreed to meet, Pablo is standing at the edge of the seawall, looking out over the water. It’s surprising that I can already recognize him merely by the slope of his back, the dark hair, the manner in which he carries himself—but I can.

My pulse quickens.

I duck my head from prying eyes as my strides lengthen. It’s risky being seen in public with him, in the daylight, but in this, too, I can’t refuse.

Pablo turns as I walk toward him, almost as though the same string that yanks me toward him binds him, too.

A white rose dangles from his fingers.

My mouth goes dry.

We meet in the middle of the sidewalk, and by the look in his eyes, I’m immeasurably glad I wore the white dress.

“I wondered if you would come,” he says, his voice low.

“I questioned it myself a time or two,” I admit.

Pablo holds the flower out to me, and I take it from his hands, the silk soft against my palm, the simple beauty of it tugging at my heart. I’m grateful for its resilience, that I won’t have to watch it age and turn to dust, that I may tuck the rose into a drawer somewhere and pull it out, stroking its petals when I feel the need to remember.

“Thank you.” My words are both far too little and all I can afford to give.

“Would you like to walk?” he asks.

I nod, not quite trusting my emotions enough to speak.

Pablo positions himself between the street and me, although really, both sides possess equal treachery. On the one side there are the lanes of traffic, cars whizzing by, the opportunity for recognition high. On the other there is the water, the ocean crashing over the seawall, splashing pedestrians, the sea invading the street with Poseidon’s angry wrath. Today, though, the waters are relatively calm, and there is little chance of the salt water marring my dress, merely the walk sullying my reputation.

We walk in silence, Pablo measuring his stride against mine, seemingly content to follow my lead and opt for silence rather than meaningless conversation. I clutch the rose in my hand, every so often stroking the soft silk; each time I do there’s a hitch in his stride, as though he is aware of every twitch of my fingers, the rise and fall of my chest, the sound of my heart thudding in my chest. The wind blows a strand of my hair, and I tuck it behind my ear, only to be rewarded by his sharp intake of breath.

The air around us crackles with energy.

I avert my gaze from him, needing the moment to collect myself. As I survey the landscape around us, the others walking along the promenade, it’s impossible to miss that there’s a tension emanating all around us.

There are fewer tourists than you typically encounter on the Malecón. The attacks at the Montmartre cabaret and the Tropicana have rattled nerves and people are on edge. Then there are the bombs exploding around the city at random intervals, interspersed between parties, elegant dinners and lunches, and trips to the beach.

And Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

Some of these explosions make the newspaper the next day; other times they don’t and we’re left wondering if the loud booms, the screaming, were figments of our imagination, the product of a city poised for the next burst of violence. It’s hard when a country descends into such turmoil, harder still when there are so many groups vying for power, attempting to feast on the carcass of a dying island.

There are—were—the Organización Auténtica, an ill-fated group of guerrilla fighters; the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil, a group of students from the University of Havana; the mostly defunct Federación Estudiantil Universitaria, another group of students from the University of Havana who together with the DRE fought their way into the Presidential Palace and attempted to assassinate Batista last year; members of the Communist Party whose uneasy alliance with Batista wanes; the 26th of July Movement fighting Batista’s army in the Sierra Maestra mountains; and any number of other enemies Batista has garnered over the years.

The waves crash over the seawall ahead, spilling onto the road, their white foamy caps full of such energy that they appear alive. We pause and wait for the sea to cease its angry assault, and I take the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do since we began walking. I stop and look at Pablo, my gaze hungry, lingering over his features, the faint lines around his eyes, the hint of darkness beneath them, as though he did not sleep well last night.

“I saw you in the paper this morning,” he says, standing just a bit closer to me than is necessary to be heard over the sound of the waves, the noise from the street.

I flush. “I didn’t take you for someone who reads the society pages.”

I’d counted on that, actually.

This time it’s his cheeks that look a bit ruddy. “I’m not. At least, I wasn’t until today.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. The words hover in the air between us, unspoken—

Until I met you.

“You know who I am, then.”

“Yes.”

I look out to the sea, my heart pounding. “Then you know this afternoon is all I have to give.”

There is a difference between small rebellions like sneaking out at night with my sisters and big ones like falling in love with a man and going against my family’s wishes. I stand on the precipice of one, and I need the reminder, perhaps more so than he does, that I must not under any circumstances allow myself to give in to the temptation. It’s not just my reputation, or my mother’s and father’s, but it’s Beatriz’s reputation, and Isabel’s, and Maria’s. I’ve seen firsthand what can come of going against our parents’ wishes. Moreover, it’s not lost on me that at nineteen, I have limited skills, that if I was cast out of the family I would have a very hard time supporting myself, especially with the employment challenges facing Cuba.

“Yes,” Pablo responds.

My gaze sweeps across the seawall, at the people around us. There are so many different versions of Cuba before me—tourists, locals—all of us inhabiting different realities within Havana. Which one is his?

“Tell me about yourself.”

So I will have something to hold on to when I must forget you.

“What would you like to know?” he asks.

Anything. Everything.

I start with the little I do know about him. “You mentioned you grew up in Vedado. Does your family still live there?”

“They do. My parents and two sisters.” His voice cracks. “I haven’t seen them in a while, though. I’ve been away.”

There’s a hint there, a thread of family discord I’m uncomfortably familiar with lingering behind his words. There are natural pauses in conversations when one speaks of family estrangement—the inadequacy of words to convey the unnatural state of breaking from those to whom you are bound in blood, the pauses physically manifesting themselves in an empty chair at an ostentatious dining room table that hailed from Paris. I know all about those pauses—a relationship severed at the knees, a sibling lost to ideology, a family forever fractured.

I fight to keep the tremor from my voice.

“Are you back for good now?”

I’m not quite sure which answer I wish to hear. This will be easier if he is to go—a clean break.

“No. Only for a short time. I have business in the city.”

I wait for him to elaborate, and when he doesn’t, I press on.

“Do you like your job? Practicing law?”

I know enough about topics I’ve studied in heavy books given to me by tutors, but I know little of the practical applications of things. Lawyers dine at our table occasionally; however, the conversation rarely turns to their work or anything of substance.

“I like it well enough, I suppose,” he answers. “I enjoy helping people—trying to, at least. Justice in Cuba—” His voice trails off, but I’m not so oblivious to the reality around me to not fill in the blanks.

Most of my education on Cuba’s political condition was given to me through the walls of my father’s study in the form of the angry shouts and recriminations I’ve overheard.

How can you justify the way we live? People are starving, suffering. You built your fortune on the backs of others. We all have.

Up ahead, a group of boys dive for coins left by American tourists, the children’s bodies bobbing against the waves before disappearing beneath the surface in waters likely overrun by sharks. All for a few coins.

“These are difficult times,” Pablo says, his gaze—like mine—on the boys. “So many of my friends graduated from university years ago and can’t find jobs. They’re frustrated, and they’re angry, and they’re scared for their future.” He turns from the boys, back to face me. “I took some time off from practicing law to focus on other things.”

The phrase “other things” dangles ominously between us. The winds of change coming from the former students of the University of Havana—who are now left without a place to study since Batista closed the university out of fear for their subversive activities—have already torn through my life once. This is one afternoon, one indulgence. I don’t need to know all his secrets; can pretend he is merely an attorney, nothing more.

“What about you?” Pablo asks.

“What about me?”

“You never really answered me before. What is life like on the other side of the gates?”

I laugh softly, relieved to be back on firmer ground. “Not as exciting as people seem to imagine.”

Pablo is silent for a moment, his gaze far more intense than an afternoon walk on the Malecón merits. Everything about him is intense—when he discusses politics, when he looks at me. It’s that intensity that has me gravitating toward him; it’s refreshing to be around someone who cares more about substance than frivolity. He reminds me so much of my brother—Alejandro has that same determined glint in his eyes, the same conviction underscoring each word.

Pablo grins. “So if you aren’t marching all over Havana, capturing hearts, what do you do in your free time?”

“I spend time with my sisters—I have three.” And a brother no one speaks of anymore. “I read; I go shopping. We like to ride horses, go to the beach.”

I don’t mention the social obligations. It all sounds so frivolous and tedious. And it is, this waiting around for a man to walk into our lives and marry us. A part of me envies Alejandro for his ability to cast off the weight and responsibility of being a Perez, the ease with which he is willing to risk everything for his beliefs. And at the same time, there’s an anger there I cannot erase. Loyalty is a complicated thing—where does family fit on the hierarchy? Above or below country? Above or below the natural order of things? Or are we above all else loyal to ourselves, to our hearts, our convictions, the internal voice that guides us?

I wish I knew.

“I’m surprised you’re not in school overseas somewhere.”

“My mother didn’t support us going to university. Beatriz lobbied the hardest for it—she would have made an excellent attorney—but in the end, it wasn’t worth the fight. My parents have a very traditional view of what it is to be a woman in Cuba, and no matter how much society might disagree with them, they weren’t going to change their opinions. A working Perez woman is a blight on the Perez name.”

He looks faintly outraged. “So you’re just what—supposed to wait around until one day you move from your parents’ home to your husband’s?”

“Yes.”

“What if you never marry?”

“Then I’ll stay in our house taking care of my mother until I grow old.”

I don’t find the idea any more appealing than he does, but I don’t know how to explain to him how few options are afforded to us. I suppose I could break from family tradition, go against my parents’ wishes, but the truth is there’s never been anything I’ve been passionate enough about to risk severing all ties with my family. I don’t possess secret dreams of being a doctor or lawyer. I’m nineteen, and I don’t know what my future looks like, harder still to predict when I’m surrounded by such uncertainty.

“And you’re happy with that?” he asks, his expression doubtful.

“No, of course not. But you speak as though there are limitless options available to me.”

“What if there could be?”

“I have no interest in politics,” I reply.

It is both warning and caution—I have no interest in revolution, in even a hint of it. Bombs aren’t the only things that go off in Havana; President Batista’s firing squads have been especially prolific lately, and no Cuban, regardless of their wealth, is above his notice. My own brother is proof of that. The best thing to do, the smart thing, the way to survive in Havana is to keep your head down and go about your daily life as though the world around you isn’t creeping into madness.

“You speak as though politics is its own separate entity,” he says. “As though it isn’t in the air around us, as though every single part of us isn’t political. How can you dismiss something that is so fundamental to the integrity of who we are as a people, as a country? How can you dismiss something that directly affects the lives of so many?”

“Very few can afford the luxury of being political in Cuba.”

“And no one can afford the luxury of not being political in Cuba,” he counters.

The fervor lingering in his words, the conviction with which he speaks them, transforms him before my eyes. His overlong hair blows in the breeze, his dark eyes flashing, and there’s something about the ferocity in his gaze that reminds me of the corsair on our wall at home. This is not the sort of man who waits for permission, but a man of action, a man of deep abiding passion.

What would it be like to have such a man be mine?

“Aren’t you tired of keeping your head down and praying for invisibility?” he asks, his voice soft.

His question tugs at me, the undeniable fact that I am both attracted to and repelled by this zeal within him. How many hours have I spent having these very conversations with my brother, and in the end, where did it leave us? I didn’t lie—I have no interest in revolution, in armed revolt, in killing. There are women who fight this battle for Cuba’s future, but I have no desire to join their ranks, for my presence to be excised from our family as Alejandro’s has been. But the freedom Pablo speaks of? The love for his country that infuses each word that falls from his lips? There is beauty behind that sentiment and a devotion that is admirable.

Batista’s policies aren’t about Cuba or what’s best for the Cuban people. They’re designed to serve Batista, to increase his wealth, his power, to keep his stranglehold on the island forever.

Do we all dare to hope for more?

Of course.

But it’s hard to hope when all you’ve known is corruption, when your reality is rigged elections and the possibility of more of the same.

I admire his hope; I envy it. And even more, I fear it.

Pablo shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t speak of such things.”

A rueful smile settles on my lips. “You don’t strike me as the sort of man who worries about ‘should.’”

“That’s true,” he concedes, his mouth quirking.

We walk side by side, the sun shining down on us, close but not touching. His lean, tall frame shields me from the view of onlookers. My hair blows in the breeze with the faintest gust of wind, and he inclines his head, watching the strands in the light, his expression softening. My cheeks heat again.

I’m not normally this serious, not normally this shy, but everything about this feels different, important somehow. There are a finite number of minutes left in this one afternoon I’ve granted myself, and I’m torn between hoarding them, feasting on every look, every word, and making the most of them, filling the spaces in our conversation with words I’ve yet to seize.

The rose is almost unbearably soft in my hands.

“Have you read Montesquieu?” Pablo asks, the question catching me off guard.

“I haven’t.”

“You should. His words never seem more true to me than when I am in Havana.” He turns away from me, his gaze sweeping over the buildings on the other side of the Malecón. “Montesquieu said that an empire born in war must maintain itself by war.”

“Cuba is hardly an empire,” I interject.

“True. The spirit is similar, though. When have we ever not been at war? With others—Spain and the United States? With ourselves?”

“Are we to be forever at war, then?” I counter.

Why do men always think war is the answer? Alejandro was eager to take up arms against Batista, to spill Cuban blood, and for what? Batista remains in power, and all it earned Alejandro was exile from Havana. Officially, my parents have told their friends he is studying in Europe, traveling the world. There are whispers, of course, but no one has the temerity to challenge my father or mother, to ask if the rumors are true—my brother, Beatriz’s twin, is a radical.

“Bombs are exploding in movie theaters,” I argue. “Dead bodies litter our streets. Are those not Cuban lives being taken? Innocents caught in the middle of a fight that is not their own? You speak as though all Cubans should take up arms, but what if we don’t want the same things? Then what?”

“And what of those who stand by and do nothing while a tyrant runs our country into the ground, slaughtering our countrymen because they speak out against his injustices? What is the cost of inaction, of turning away when atrocities are committed in the name of Batista? There is a disconnect between those in the city who yearn for change and those who pretend everything is grand. The industries we rely on as a nation—sugar, tobacco, coffee, tourism—enslave us as a nation, as a people who serve others in the fields, in the casinos and hotels run by American scoundrels.”

I flinch as the word “sugar” falls from his lips. What must he think of my family? Of me? He is here, walking beside me, and yet, I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t see my father as part of the problem. Alejandro certainly did.

“The Americans control so much of our industry, our economy, and who benefits from that largesse? Batista,” he continues. “The rich are extravagantly rich, and the poor are so desperately poor.”

Everything disappears, the roar of the Malecón, the noise from the road. I can’t tear my gaze away from him, the conviction in his voice mesmerizing. With each word that falls from his lips, he’s transformed. The serious man I met at the party last night has been replaced by someone else entirely.

“When I am in the country, I see my fellow Cubans without electricity, running water, unable to read, their children unable to go to school,” Pablo says, his gaze once again on those looming buildings. “When I am in Havana the lights are on, people walking down the Paseo del Prado as though they do not have a care in the world. There are other parts of the city—far too many—where people are suffering tremendously, yet it still feels as though Havana exists in its own self-contained bubble. I was a boy in ’33 when we overthrew Machado. I understand that people are tired of violence, tired of conflict, tired of Cuban blood spilling. But—”

“I have a brother—” The words tumble out without thought, the secret that isn’t really a secret at all. “He shared those thoughts once.”

Beside me, Pablo stills as though he is adept at reading the pauses in a conversation, the tense, unfinished sentences and words uttered in a whisper.

“Families can be hard,” he says after a moment.

“Yes.”

“Is he safe?” he asks, as though he, too, knows a thing or two about the precariousness of going against one’s family, defying one’s president.

“I hope so.”

I wish I possessed more optimism to inject in those words.

“In any event, I have not read Montesquieu, but I will search for his work in our library.” I flinch as the word leaves my mouth, but really, what’s the point in pretending? He’s seen the newspaper, knows my last name now. As much as I envy Alejandro his freedom, I lack the ability to cast off my family, to repudiate them and all they stand for. They—we—are flawed, yes. But the legacy and blood that binds us is inescapable.

“Yes—my father has a library in his home, the walls brimming with books,” I continue, my tone dry. “I’m sure you think us decadent. We are decadent. My family’s fortunes were cast a long time ago, and those of us born under the Perez name have enjoyed the benefits of that wealth.”

“And would you apologize for it?” His tone is idle, but there’s real interest behind his words.

“For my family’s fortune? For the grand house and the rest of it? You could strip away the paintings—except for the corsair, I am indeed quite fond of him—and I do not think I would mind.” I cast a sidelong glance his way, attempting to take his measure. “Or perhaps I would be better served by exclaiming my disgust with our wealth and the shame that it brings me? Or tell you of our charitable endeavors, the men who served in the military and died for Cuba’s independence, my father’s efforts to work with Batista drafting the 1940 Constitution, the ancestors who have served in the national legislature?”

I sigh.

“Perhaps our legacy will always be that we have more than we ever need in a country where many do not have enough. And even so, I see the limitations my father faces—the whims of the sugar crop that was once booming and now keeps him up working late in his office. I overhear his strained conversations—the broken promises, the fears over the direction in which the country is headed. Even the wealthy are not immune—we have friends who have been thrown in Batista’s prisons; we fear the firing squad as much as the poor. My own brother is evidence of that. Money buys us the proximity to power, but in this current climate that proximity is a target on all our backs.”

My little speech leaves me a bit breathless, the ferocity of it catching me off guard. When was the last time anyone asked me what I thought? How I felt about the world swirling around me? When was the last time I was able to utter Alejandro’s name? I sneak a peek at Pablo, wondering if I’ve scared him off—the girl who is too free with her opinions.

Instead, a gleam of admiration enters his gaze.

“You’re brave, Elisa Perez.”

In a family such as mine, there are varying degrees of bravery, but I’ll take the compliment all the same, even as I wonder just how brave I really am.

“Why me?” I ask, pushing the limits of my alleged bravery a bit further, indulging the curiosity turning over in my mind.

A moment passes before he answers me. “Because you’re comfortable in your own skin. Because you appear content to show yourself to the world exactly as you are without deception or artifice. That’s a novel quality these days, and I suspect, in Miramar, even more so.”

It’s the sort of compliment whose very nature makes testing the veracity of it exceedingly difficult, and the pleasure of it seems best savored with acceptance rather than dissection. I smile, though, holding his gaze for a moment and lingering there before ducking my head and looking out to the sea.

We both seem content to let the silence swallow us up, for the wind, and the waves, and the car horns to do the talking for us—a trumpet interjecting every so often, our bodies moving in tandem as we stroll along the promenade.

“You’re not what I expected,” he says finally, breaking the silence between us, his words little more than a whisper, an aside to himself that I’m privy to.

Does he feel it—this thing between us—too?

“What did you expect?” I can’t resist asking.

“I don’t know. Not this. I didn’t expect to meet someone—”

His words disappear with the wind.

They seem safer there.

“Elisa—”

I turn and face him, the sun bright in my eyes, casting a glow around him. I fear he can see every single emotion—the worry, the confusion, the desire—in my gaze, stamped across my face.

Deep down, I know what he is. How can I not? It couldn’t be clearer if it was written in the sky before me. Deep down, a part of me gravitates toward what he is, even as I am horrified by it.

“Elisa—” he repeats.

A tremor trails down my spine at the sound of my name falling from his lips, at the husky timbre of his voice.

Enough.

One of us moves. Both of us move. I don’t even know anymore. Only that his lips meet mine and it is both everything and nothing that I expected.

For all that I anticipated, imagined, my first kiss, the reality of it comes to me in pieces, fractured moments unfurling themselves.

His hand on my waist. The brush of his fingers against the fabric of my dress. His lips on mine. His breath becoming my breath. His heart thudding against my chest.

He strokes my hair, fisting the strands as the kiss changes, deepening, leading me into treacherous waters until I’m left gasping for air.

Pablo pulls back first, staring down at me with those dark, solemn eyes. I should take a step back. And another. And another, until I’m safely ensconced in the mansion in Miramar.

I step forward, laying my palm on his cheek, my fingers sweeping across the dark shadows just beneath his eyes.

He shudders.

In one step, I know power, the drugging effect of it coursing through my veins. With one step I am removed from the fringes and thrust in the middle of my life. In that space of the step, my world shifts. Everything is different now, and nothing will ever be the same again.