The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,49

with Evangelina remarks on the girl’s beauty and grace. She’s an angel.”

I struggle to keep from retorting that it was likely her persuasive intellect and not divine beauty that saved her father.

“It depends on who you believe,” Michael adds, “but some say the Spanish governor Berriz took a liking to her and forced himself upon her. She defended herself, others came to her aid, and they were able to take Berriz prisoner. To hear the Spanish tell it, she was complicit in an uprising and lured him to her rooms one evening with the express wish of imprisoning him.”

“And what does Evangelina say?”

That seems to be the most important piece of the puzzle.

“That she is innocent, of course.” He shrugs as though guilt or innocence is of little import to him. “They’re threatening to transport her from Recogidas to a penal colony in Africa.”

“Why this woman? The atrocities have touched women before. Where was the outrage then?”

“Have you seen her?” He pulls a picture out of his pocket. “That face is the story.”

The image staring back at me shows a young girl with long, dark hair, fair skin, and dark eyes filled with a defiant stare. She is indeed lovely, and still, it seems insulting almost in the face of all she has endured to remark upon her beauty as though it is her defining characteristic, to consign her to hues and angles rather than the strength of her character and spirit.

“What do we know about her life in Recogidas?” I ask.

As much as I can’t agree with their take on things, if this is what Hearst wants, then I’ll become an expert on Evangelina Cisneros. After all, it’s the type of story he should want me to cover by virtue of my gender, and I did just promise him my loyalty.

“Our man in Havana spoke with some of her prison companions who said the conditions are harsh. She is surrounded by awful women—criminals, women of loose morals and character, and the like.”

“‘Awful women’?”

“Recogidas was built for women like that. Not women like Evangelina.”

His dismissive tone toward her compatriots sends a sleek arrow of fury through me.

“It seems like the problem is with Recogidas, then. Not the women,” I retort.

Maybe the story here isn’t just one woman, but a prison where women are treated so abominably and discarded. It’s Nellie Bly’s reporting at Blackwell’s Asylum all over again. Regardless of the country, there are always places where women are suffering.

“And the other women with Evangelina?” I ask. “What is their story?”

“One of the women is elderly. In her seventies, perhaps.”

“If the conditions are as bad as they say, I imagine she’s more in danger there than Evangelina. How did she end up in such a place?”

“Her sons have high-ranking positions in the Cuban Revolutionary Army.”

“And the other women?” I ask, incredulous. “What grave crime did they commit? Are their neighbors members of the Cuban Revolutionary Army?”

“No, their brothers.”

“And for that these women were imprisoned in Recogidas? Surely, there’s a bigger story here than simply Evangelina.”

“Grace, stop overthinking it. Evangelina is the story. Hearst has already said it. She is the perfect rallying cry to galvanize people to push for American intervention against Spain.”

It remains unspoken between us, but I can hear the words, as distasteful as they are:

Just think of all the newspapers we’ll sell.

“She’s one woman. There’s more here than that.”

“The women of America, the upstanding women whose husbands will listen to them, they will relate to this girl. They don’t care about a prison filled with criminals and the lowest women of society. They’ll see themselves in Evangelina, and they’ll want to help her. In doing so, maybe we can change this whole situation with Spain.”

That he condemns a group of women in the same breath that he seeks to save one clearly escapes his notice. Or the fact that despite everyone’s great admiration of her beauty, their intentions are hardly noble. She is a means to an end to sell more papers, to force the United States to act.

“Do you really believe that’s possible?” I ask. “Do you truly believe the stories we write will be enough to bring about a war?”

I started writing because I wanted to do something that mattered, because I wanted my life to serve a purpose, to illuminate the people and places society overlooked. And still—there is a difference between shining a light on the darkest corners of this society and daring to bring about a war that will change the world