The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,34
puts on the word “affairs.” I have to admit, part of me is curious about his business interests, but the desire to see him gone far outweighs any curiosity I might have.
“Well, it was lovely to see you again, Mr. Harden,” I lie.
“Oh, I think we’re far past this ‘Mr. Harden’ business. Call me Rafael. All my friends do.”
“I wouldn’t describe us as friends.”
“No? How about this. In the spirit of our budding friendship, I’ll give you something you want.”
“I don’t think we’re well enough acquainted for you to know what I want.”
There’s that devilish grin again. “Well, now you’ve piqued my interest. I was talking about business, but you’ve just opened my mind up to a whole other host of delicious possibilities.” He leans against the wall, settling in, and it takes everything in my power to keep from looking over my shoulder to see if Pulitzer is in the room waiting for me. Would Rafael tell Hearst if he saw us together? I can’t imagine he wouldn’t, considering they’re friends. And still, despite the urgency, the word “business” reels me in.
“What business? Cuba?”
He nods, and before I can fully register the movement, he’s pushed off from the wall and leans into me, his lips inches from my ear.
“You need to tell Will to be careful with this Clemencia Arango story.”
It takes a moment for the name to come to mind with him standing so near to me.
The Journal recently ran a front-page piece on Clemencia Arango, a Cuban woman who was expelled from Cuba on suspicion of working as a courier and delivering letters to the revolutionaries. Richard Harding Davis heard that Arango and two other women were on the Olivette, an American ship in the Havana Harbor, when they were strip-searched by Spanish detectives three separate times. Frederic Remington provided an illustration of a naked young woman being examined by three male detectives, which Hearst printed prominently in the paper. He was sure the article would spur public interest, and it has, arousing much public condemnation of the Spanish.
“What’s wrong with the Clemencia Arango story?” I ask. “The idea that a woman was violated like that—and on a ship flying the American flag.”
Rafael grimaces. “Well, I don’t know what information Davis and Remington received, but what I heard is that the women weren’t searched by men at all, but by a Spanish policewoman. Clemencia Arango is in Tampa now, and she’s telling a different story than the one Will splashed on the front page of his paper.”
If that’s true, it will certainly damage the Journal’s credibility. Already, the paper has been criticized by the New York Press for partaking in “yellow journalism” and sensationalizing the news. At the same time, I was outside Hearst’s office when he first learned of the women’s predicament, and we were all horrified by the story.
“I’ll tell him.”
“I know Will is eager to help and to sway public opinion toward the revolutionaries’ cause, but he needs to be careful. One wrong step and he’ll lose the public for good.”
I agree, although “careful” is certainly not the word that comes to mind when I think of Hearst.
“If he’s looking for a story, though,” Rafael adds, “I have one that will definitely fit the bill.”
“Why are you telling me this? You hardly need me to serve as a conduit to Hearst. Why not just give him the information directly?”
“I could tell him. But despite your claims to the contrary, you and I are friends, too. If the information both helps Will and helps you garner credibility with him, why wouldn’t I give it to you? Still looking for your shot?”
“Every day.”
His mouth quirks as I pull out my notepad, and then his expression turns serious.
“There’s a Cuban-American dentist who wound up dead in a Spanish jail,” Rafael says. “His name is Ricardo Ruiz. He’s an American citizen. He was born in Cuba and fought in the Ten Years’ War before he fled to the United States and received American citizenship. When the situation in Cuba calmed down a bit, he went back, set up a dentistry practice, married, started a family. He was recently arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish because the revolutionaries robbed a train carrying Spanish government officials and they thought Ruiz was involved in the robbery. The police rounded him and others up. The governor of the jail claims Ruiz killed himself while he was incarcerated. But, that’s not the story I’ve heard.”