The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,31
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.
“Where to?” Rafael asks me once we settle into the carriage.
“Home, I think. It’s just off—”
“I remember,” he replies, giving the instructions to his driver, his gaze on me.
“Why did you bring me here tonight?” I ask.
“You were looking for a story, one that would do something to distinguish you with Hearst.” His lips twitch slightly for a moment. “It can’t all be haunted buildings.”
“How did you—” I wrote the haunted construction piece under a nom de plume lest having my name out there make it more difficult for me to do investigative stories in the future. How did he know it was mine?
He ignores my question, and his expression sobers. “Given everything the Spanish are doing, the Junta could use the coverage.”
“Do you really think the press can sway McKinley to act?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure American intervention is a good thing.”