The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,39
be freed.
In a stroke of immense good fortune, the wife and daughter of Consul General Lee visit me in Recogidas, showing me kindness I’d nearly forgotten. Mrs. Lee speaks to me as I imagine a mother would, and I am awed by her gentle nature. I did not know my mother well since she died when I was young, but it is in times like these, when I miss her most, when I wish I had someone I could lean upon, someone who would care for me and help me be strong. It’s exhausting carrying the weight of all that has happened on my own.
I see more of George Bryson and George Musgrave, and I am able to thank them for their benevolence in person under the suspicious eyes of my jailers. It is a delicate balance my captors are forced to maintain. They cannot risk angering the Americans entirely, for the worst possible thing would be for the United States to throw their full military might behind the revolutionaries. At the same time, it is clear the Spanish bristle at the Americans’ influence.
Each time I see George Bryson, I am cheered as he tells me I have friends who want to help me, who are advocating on my behalf. Bryson is working on securing my release, trying to bribe a military judge to let me go. I am also visited by Donnell Rockwell, a clerk with the American consulate staff in Havana who occasionally visits the Americans who are imprisoned here. Suddenly, I have a new host of American friends who are concerned for my welfare.
Finally, I beg George Bryson to get word of my father.
He slips me a note at our next meeting.
When I am back in private, I take the note from my pocket and unfurl the piece of paper, reading the words contained there with a sharp burst of joy followed by immense pain.
My father is alive.
He is imprisoned in La Cabaña.
Ten
Grace
“Grace!” Hearst shouts from his office.
I rise from my seat, grabbing my pad and pen off my desk.
Hearst’s newsroom is a modern one, filled with banks of typewriters, and in his printing presses and in his use of photograph, he’s embraced the newest technology, too. Like many, though, I’ve yet to fully embrace the typewriter, the loud noise too jarring, preferring instead to write my articles by longhand. There’s something intimate about putting a pen to paper that lets me express my thoughts more clearly. Besides, even with the allowance I receive from my family, the expense of such a machine hardly seems reasonable given how infrequently I’m able to put it to use. For Hearst’s star reporters, the typewriter’s speed can’t be denied, particularly when they’re working on a tight deadline.
The scoop Rafael gave me on Ricardo Ruiz made a good impression, but since the initial coup of delivering the news to Hearst has faded, the story passed on to more senior—and male—colleagues, I am back where I started: desperate to prove myself and looking for a story that could make my career. It’s a difficult time to be a journalist in the city. It seems there are more of us than the demand calls for, and all of the major newsrooms have been rife with layoffs. Each day, I walk into work wondering if it’ll be my last. It’s hard to stand out among the likes of writers like Mark Twain and Stephen Crane.
Hearst is standing just over the threshold with Arthur Brisbane when I walk into his office.
“We need someone to go to the Peanut Club and listen to the press briefing,” Brisbane announces. “Everyone else is tied up on stories right now and can’t make it. Besides, you did good reporting on Ruiz earlier. It seems fair to give you a shake at the story.”
Nicknamed the “Peanut Club” for the large boxes of peanuts provided for all who gather there, reporters meet daily each afternoon at the Junta offices on Broadway. The office where Rafael took me the night of the Bradley-Martin ball is the office of Horatio Rubens, a local lawyer who is sympathetic to the Cuban cause. It’s the primary place for the dissemination of news about Cuba, and is our own sort of wire service, offering details of life on the island we would otherwise be unable to glean, particularly useful considering Pulitzer has blocked all possibility of Hearst ever having an Associated Press wire service.