The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,53

war continues on. What we lack in numbers facing a military force five times our size, we make up in ingenuity and resourcefulness, exploiting the weak areas of Spain’s defenses. Cuba’s terrain has proven useful, and the revolutionaries shelter in the mountains, making raids down into the countryside. All sorts of ailments and maladies plague the Spanish, thinning their numbers as they’re unused to the hostile elements we’ve grown accustomed to. We may be unable to defeat them in a single battle, but there’s no denying Spain is growing weary with each attack.

At the same time, so are we.

The situation in the camps has grown dire. Sewage fills the streets, people sleeping nearly on top of one another in cramped quarters, using threadbare blankets for cover against the elements. Disease is everywhere, and it seems that not a day goes by when someone hasn’t succumbed to their illness, death a constant companion. Yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox plague us, many of the camps’ inhabitants walking around with sores over their bodies. The dead are no longer buried; their numbers are simply too great. They are left on the ground, their flesh devoured by dogs and birds; they are eventually tossed in roving death carts to be ferried away.

I’ve been fortunate to stay mostly healthy, although I fear for Luz and Isabella given their ages and their more delicate constitutions.

It is mostly women and children here, and we are the casualties of war, the ones who stand the greatest chance of losing our lives, while the men in the mountains are protected by the island’s natural defenses.

I am more determined than ever to do my part to see this war to its natural conclusion, with the stakes for independence higher than ever. The Spanish have demonstrated what they will do if they’re given unfettered reign on the island, and the Americans have certainly been hesitant to intervene on our behalf.

Washing clothes for the city’s elite has turned out to be both the difference between us going hungry and being able to sustain ourselves, and has also provided the perfect opportunity to pass intelligence throughout the city. Through a referral from one of the women in the network Luz was acquainted with, I’ve begun laundering linens for some of the American diplomatic staff in their private quarters, and today I received a note folded in some sheets from one of the consular officers, asking me to meet an American who has a job for me.

The American is staying at the Hotel Inglaterra on the Paseo del Prado, in front of the Parque Central, the lodging reportedly frequented by the likes of Maceo and Martí when they were alive. The hotel’s café is a popular gathering place for artists and intellectuals who meet to discuss the war and Cuba’s future.

I travel to the hotel’s guest rooms on the second floor, following the instructions my contacts gave me.

I knock twice on the door, gazing around the empty hallway. In my current attire, everyone makes a concerted effort not to make eye contact with me as I pass by them. My appearance provides the perfect opportunity to work as a courier because no one, least of all the wealthy and privileged citizens of Havana, wants to confront the human face of this war.

When the door to the room opens, I am greeted by my past.

The man on the other side isn’t the American I expected, but the very familiar face of Carlos Carbonell, my father’s old friend and a banker in the city. I haven’t seen him since my marriage to Mateo all those years ago, and I certainly never would have envisioned him working as an intermediary between the revolutionaries and the Americans.

He smiles at me. “Marina. It’s been a long time. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” I say cautiously, recovering from my initial surprise.

It’s clear he was prepared to see me again, but the connection to my past makes me nervous, stripping away some of the anonymity I clung to for safety. The stakes are high, the punishment for spying severe, and I cannot bear the thought that something might happen to my daughter because of my efforts with the revolutionaries, or the possibility that something will happen to me and Isabella will be left without both parents.

Carlos Carbonell is a complication I didn’t see coming. With his connections, he’s well-placed to pass information around, but I never took him for a revolutionary. My parents and their friends