Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,44
Inquiring Camera Girl articles?” Jackie asked, surprised. Emiliano seemed much too serious to appreciate lighthearted copy like that.
“No, the piece that you wrote for the Grand Prix contest.”
“Where on earth did you see that?”
“Deputy Director Dulles mentioned that you won the Vogue contest when he gave me some background on you. I wanted to see what you wrote, so I went to the library and got hold of the copy of the magazine that printed your winning essay in it.”
A true scholar, Jackie thought, flattered by Emiliano’s interest in her work but also somewhat uneasy at being snooped on in a way.
“And you liked what I wrote?”
“Very much. You’re an accomplished writer, Jacqueline, but I was wondering,” Emiliano said, sounding curious, “why did you pick Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde as literary subjects you wish you had known? They were rather decadent, weren’t they?”
Jackie laughed. “Yes, they were decadent, but that’s not why I chose them.” She didn’t want to tell Emiliano that she was drawn to Baudelaire and Wilde, both rich men’s sons who lived like dandies and ran through all their money and died in poverty, because they reminded her of her father’s plight. So she said, “I admired them because even though they wrote about the seamy side of life from firsthand experience, they were still idealists who believed in a better world. They brought about reform in their own way, not by leading a rebellion, but by using their words to accomplish what activists had been trying to do for years.”
Emiliano nodded. “Yes, sometimes, the pen is mightier than the sword, as they say. But I’m afraid there are other times when you need both the pen and the sword. And for Cuba, we’ve come to the point where words alone are not enough.”
“It’s sad to think that violence is the only answer,” Jackie said. She took another bite of her shrimp dish, gathering her thoughts before she went on. “I’ve done some background reading myself… on Fidel Castro… and there are people who say that although he’s an eloquent orator and very smart, with a lot of talent as a leader, he’s too fond of guns, too reckless. Do you think that’s true?”
Emiliano shook his head. “No, not really. That may have been true when we were freshmen in law school and gangsterismo was very popular. Young men, even educated ones like us, wanted to show how tough we were. You know, like imitating John Wayne in your country, which was rather foolish, I suppose.” He smiled in a self-deprecating way. “Fidel was like that, so he carried a fifteen-shot Browning pistol on his person all the time and got into fights with rival gangs. But in his senior year, he gave an impassioned speech against gangsterismo at the university before a group of administrators and students, and he hasn’t changed his position since then.”
Emiliano pointed his fork at Jackie like a defending counsel stressing a point in a closing argument to a jury. “Believe me, if there was a peaceful way to depose Batista, Fidel would be all for it. But when a dictator seizes power with a military junta and holds on to power by squashing protest with a murderous secret police force, a bloodless revolution is a vain hope.”
Much as she hated violence, Jackie was swayed by Emiliano’s discourse on Cuba’s dire straits. “You’re an eloquent speaker yourself, Emiliano,” she said. “You must be very effective in the courtroom.” Now it was her turn to be curious. “If you don’t mind my asking, how could poor farmers like your parents afford to send you to law school?”
“They couldn’t afford to,” Emiliano said simply. He pursed his lips. “Before I explain, let me give you some idea of how hard it was for my parents just to survive, let alone support a family. My father came to Cuba fresh off the boat from Spain in the early 1900s, with no prospects and no way of making a living. He met my mother, and they fell in love. He wanted to get married and start a family. But how, when he had no money? Then along came Major Walter Reed, the U.S. Army doctor. You’ve heard of him, I’m sure?
“Of course,” Jackie said quickly. “He was the one who conquered yellow fever. They even named a hospital after him. It’s in Washington, D.C.”
“Well, actually it was a Cuban doctor, Carlos Finley, who first had the idea that the germ that caused yellow fever was