The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,14

even as I open my mouth to speak, something holds me back. My father raised me to believe in something more than myself, taught me the honor of sacrificing for my country, and I cannot betray my countrymen.

“The names are not mine to share.”

Don Jose’s lips tighten into a thin line. “Why do you insist on making this so difficult for yourself? It could be easier, you know, if you were friendly with the guards. If you made some attempts to ingratiate yourself to us.”

It is impossible to mistake the leer in his gaze or the insinuation in his voice.

I duck my head, my cheeks burning as the indignity of it all rushes through me, that they believe they have some claim to my body. I take a deep breath, and then I look into his eyes, meeting his gaze.

I refuse to be cowed by these men. I refuse to let them shame me.

“What are you charging me with?” I ask him.

“Instigating an uprising against the Spanish military. You lured a Spanish officer—the island’s commanding officer, no less—into a deadly trap when your friends accosted him. You will stand trial for your crime.”

“I am guilty of no such thing.”

Don Jose makes an impatient noise. “You cannot escape this. You can cooperate or you will be punished. Those are your options.”

“Is that all?” I ask. “If you are not going to listen to me, then I have nothing else to say.”

“No, that is not all. Your sister is being released.”

Relief floods me that Carmen will be let go, no longer forced to pay for my sins. But then it hits me—

I will be alone here.

1897

Four

Marina

They gave us eight days.

Eight days to leave our homes and report to camps in the nearest Spanish-held city or town throughout Cuba. Eight days to leave everything behind—our livestock, our land, our homes, our memories, our dreams. Eight days to make the journey across Cuba’s battered countryside, our world on our backs and sorrow in our hearts. They gave you eight days whether you were a babe fresh from your mother’s womb or days away from death; they gave you eight days whether you could run, walk, or crawl.

General Weyler reconcentrated the residents of the Havana province on January 8, and the Spanish printed the decree in the government’s newspaper, the Gaceta de la Habana. Local newspapers carried the news, but for those who could not read or write, the announcement was brought by the Spanish troops who dragged them from their homes and marched them into cities.

We have no home to return to; we are all refugees in our own country.

The Spanish dressed it up prettily enough, claiming their reconcentration camps are a manner of “protecting” us by bringing us into the fortified cities they command, but we know the truth. It’s General Weyler’s aim to cut off the support for the Cuban revolutionary armies by moving the population from the country to cities controlled by the Spanish to prevent us from supporting the revolutionaries with food and shelter, from enlisting in their ranks as I have dreamed of since my husband Mateo joined the cause.

Weyler is a fool if he thinks separating us will kill the spirit and means of those fighting for a free Cuba. We’ve come too far now to turn back.

They gave us eight days to leave the countryside and report to a camp before every man, woman, and child would be shot. Then they burned our homes so we would have no shelter, so we would have nothing to return to. They forbade us from bringing food, animals, our treasured possessions.

I didn’t want to leave. But what choice did they give us?

Black plumes of smoke fill the sky around us, the charred remains of others’ homes. We left before we had to see ours burn, the horses we raised and sold throughout Cuba stolen and slaughtered, all of our hopes and dreams disappearing in a flash. Our home was a far cry from the mansion I grew up in in Havana, but when I think of the life we lived there, the memories we made, the laughter, and hope, and joy, I cannot speak for the lump in my throat at the idea of watching those walls go up in flames.

We walk to Havana, my mother-in-law Luz on one side of me, my daughter Isabella on the other.

The country has essentially been divided between the Spanish and the Cuban army. The Spaniards control the fortified cities and towns throughout the