Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

  “Bullshit,” Luis snaps.

  “You need to think about this, Marisol,” my grandfather cautions. “Luis is right; it’s a risk. A dangerous one.”

  “Aren’t you putting yourself at risk as well?” I ask my grandfather.

  “I’m an old man. How many years do I have left? I’ve served the regime well for a long time, and I’ve accumulated enough influence.” His smile is wry. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Then don’t expect me not to do the same.”

  I came here searching for my family’s legacy, and now I know what it is.

  I grew up on their stories, but it was different hearing my grandmother and her sisters recount their experiences. They spoke of their own bravery in a matter-of-fact tone as though it was something they did that anyone would have done in their position. But now I’ve seen a sliver of what they lived through up close, the grace with which they bore their suffering, the strength with which they carried our family and our future on their backs. They sacrificed and risked their lives for those they loved, for their country. They were brave when it mattered most.

  How can I not honor their legacy?

  “Marisol—” Luis interjects.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I answer. I turn toward my grandfather. “You think this could be successful?”

  “There’s no guarantee it will work, but it’s the best chance you have,” my grandfather answers. “But we need to move quickly. Luis will be back on their radar soon. These things can only be covered up for so long. They’ve had people keeping an eye on you since you arrived in the country, Marisol. I had them momentarily reassigned, but it will only buy you a day or two at the most.”

  “And my family? What about them?” Luis asks, his mouth in a tense line.

  Our earlier conversations come to mind, his reluctance to leave, his fear that his actions will put his family at risk.

  “These are difficult times for the regime,” my grandfather answers. “There is international scrutiny that wasn’t there before and also an element of unpredictability in their relations with the United States. They need to have a better relationship with the United States; you know this as well as I do. Things will not change overnight; human rights will not change overnight. But Raúl is not stupid. Cuba needs to make some semblance of overture to the United States. The government needs to be careful about which battles they choose to fight, and given Luis’s grandfather’s prior relationship with the regime, his father’s heroism in Angola, and Marisol’s connections in the United States, they can’t afford for this situation to become exacerbated.

  “I’ve spoken to some friends in the government and impressed the gravity of the situation upon them. Your family will not be harmed, Luis. I give you my word. I’ve called in all the favors I can to assure it. But you have to leave. The more you push, the harder they’ll push back. If you disappear, they will move on and forget you. But if you stay—”

  “How can you stay?” I ask Pablo. “How can you support what they’re doing?” I’m grateful for his help, but I can’t reconcile the man who seems to have such a good heart with a government official involved in such corruption. “You have to know this is wrong.”

  “Is it better to stay and become part of the system or leave and be considered a traitor?” my grandfather replies. “A worm? I do not know. If I leave, what will change? If I stay, what will change? I have tried to be a counterbalance to some of the more extreme notions that have arisen over the years. Tried to preserve the rule of law. This is my home, imperfect though it is. I have to believe—hope—there is still some good I may do, some change I may effect to help Cubans. That has to be enough now. I do not begrudge those who live abroad now, who found the situation such that they could not stay. Please do not judge me for the fact that I cannot leave.”

  “You’re still fighting.”

  “I am. Revolutions are for the young. When I could, I fought for what I believed in. But I’m an old man now. The older you get, the more you realize that change—meaningful, lasting change—doesn’t always come with violence and bloodshed, but with reform, however slow, however gradual. When I was young and rash I believed the only way to defeat Batista was to kill him, to take his country and government away from him by force. But now?

  “The problem with revolution, with the wave of violence it carries with it, is that it’s like a flash flood—it sweeps everything away, and nothing looks the same as it once did. And you think this is good, change was what you wanted in the first place, change was what you needed. But suddenly you have a country you must govern, people whose basic needs must be met. You must stabilize a currency, and create a legal system, and reform a constitution. Those are not the things young men dream of. They dream of dying for their country; dream of honor in battle. No one dreams about sitting at a desk and arguing over phrases.

  “But those words, those laws, that infrastructure is everything. Without them, no government can succeed. I am not blind to what my countrymen are suffering, Marisol. Or the problems that exist. But I am here, with my pen. The revolution we need now will be fought by those arguing over words, phrases, passing legislation and loosening restrictions. Men willing to sit at a table and discuss the things we’ve been afraid to address for many, many years. I am meant to be here, to finish what I started, and hopefully, to be part of that change. For my family, for my country.”

  That’s the gap between him and my grandmother. She could not have lived in this world he created, and he could not leave it.

  He turns to Luis. “The longer you stay, the less I’ll be able to do for you. The more restricted your movements will become. The more danger to Marisol. You need to leave tomorrow. Marisol can get you a flight, and I have all the exit paperwork sorted out for you. We have a small window of time in which we can blame your release and departure as a clerical error, the product of departments not speaking with one another. The longer you wait, the greater the chance that you will be picked up by the police, that you will be prevented from leaving the country. If you’re picked up again, I can’t help you. You will be dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.”

  “He’s going,” Ana replies, speaking for the first time, her fingers on the bracelet again.

  “Abuela—”

  “We’ll discuss it later,” she says, her tone firm. Her gaze turns to my grandfather, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for what you have done for my grandson.”

  He bows. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get home. My wife will be worried.” He turns to face me. “Marisol, I would very much like to see you before you leave.”

  The reality that we’re leaving so quickly hits me. I thought I would have a couple more days here, but now it’s all unraveling.

  “Will you meet me at the Malecón tonight?” I ask him. “There’s something I need to do.”

  “Of course.”

  chapter twenty-eight

  After my grandfather leaves, Luis and I retreat to his bedroom with a makeshift first aid kit in hand. My fingers sweep across his face, careful to keep from hitting the bruises, the cuts near his eye. He unbuttons his shirt, his knuckles scraped and bleeding.

  I suck in a deep breath. “What did they do to you?”

  His hands tremble over the buttons. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  He shrugs off the shirt, the bloody fabric hitting the floor.

  I gasp.

  Bruises mar his torso, a particularly nasty one dangerously close to his kidneys.

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. They could have killed you, and there’s nothing we could have done about it. Nothing you can do about it. Do you realize how crazy that is?”

  “They just wanted to scare me a bit. If they’d wanted to kill me, they would have.”

  �
�And the next time? You heard what my grandfather said. You have to stop. What you’re doing is dangerous. It’s going to get you killed. Is it worth it?”

  “Of course it is.” Whatever they hoped to beat out of him, I fear they’ve only made it stronger. “It has to be.”

  It’s one of those moments when blinding clarity hits me and two halves cleave together.

  Like my grandmother before me, I’ve fallen in love with a revolutionary.

  I feel the same helplessness she must have felt, the same sensation that we’re on a train hurtling off the tracks and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t know what to say anymore, how to convince him he has to leave.

  I can’t fathom living in a world where you have no rights, where there is no oversight, no accountability. The United States isn’t perfect; there’s injustice everywhere I turn. But there’s also a mechanism that protects its citizens—the right to question when something is wrong, to speak out, to protest, to be heard. It doesn’t always work, sometimes the system fails those it was designed to protect, but at least that opportunity—the hope of it—exists.

  The ability to crush a voice is staggering here.

  “Do you really think you can change the government? That they’re going to let you?”

  I dab at the wounds on his face with the antiseptic.

  Luis hisses as I touch the cut near his cheekbone.

  “I see the hope for change everywhere I look, the undercurrent of it running through Cubans’ daily lives,” he says. “They know this isn’t enough, that we deserve more. They dream of little changes that would make their lives easier, make their children’s lives easier. Most of us remember when things were really bad, when it was a challenge to get enough to eat, and we remember the desperation we felt, the gnawing hunger in our bellies, the weakness in our muscles, in our bones, and the willingness to break the law because otherwise we would quite simply die. We’re dying a different death now, one that isn’t physical,” he continues. “We need to keep putting pressure on the government, keep pushing for change, demanding they do better. They should fear us. We have a generation now that looks ahead and isn’t pleased with what they see.

  “My students—the future of this country—they care about technology, what little they’re able to access through legal means or not; they care about popular culture, which is smuggled to them through flash drives and in foreigners’ suitcases. They’re pragmatic in their desire for change, for more. For now, they’re occupying themselves with the fight—with gathering all they can on the black market, with changing their own realities. But what happens when they’ve exhausted their limited resources? What then?”

  Isn’t that what I admire most about him? What attracted me to him in the first place? The passion, the commitment, the absolute dedication and love for his country. The men I know in Miami are obsessed with what kind of car they drive, or the brand of watch they wear, what club they’re going to on Saturday night. Luis lives for Cuba, and I love him for it; but now I fear Cuba will kill him.

  I continue patching his wounds, soothing his bruises, struggling to keep the worry from my voice, to stifle the fear. “I understand that you want to make those changes. I admire your passion. But what if the limitations imposed by the government are too stringent for you to accomplish those goals?”

  “I don’t know. But what you’re asking me to do—it’s not in my nature to give up. To run. And I don’t want to risk you in order to do it.”

  “It’s too late for that. In their eyes, I’m probably already a threat. And don’t consider it giving up or running. Call it a strategic retreat.”

  “I’m abandoning my country, my family, my people. My father died fighting for what he believed in. And I’m running away to save myself. How can I live with that?”

  My heart breaks for him, because I understand the responsibility he carries with him, the desire to honor his family and to live up to the sacrifices they made. And at the same time, the chasm between us has never felt greater than it does now, the sand stretching on to an infinitesimal length, the sea boundless. Ninety miles feels like an impassable distance.

  “If you die, things won’t be better. What will your family do then? At least if you’re alive, you can send them money, more than they would make here; you can make a difference from outside of Cuba. Perhaps more of one than you would make inside the country with all the restraints the government imposes upon you.”

  “You want me to go with you.”

  “I do.”

  “Because you love me or because you think it’s the right decision?” Luis asks.

  How has he known this when I only just worked it out myself?

  “Because I love you and I think it’s the only decision.”

  His eyes close for a moment when the word “love” leaves my lips as though he’s absorbing the force of that word, as if I’ve hit him with a physical blow.

  His eyes open. “I’m not afraid to die for what I believe in.”

  “Maybe not, but what does your death accomplish? You wouldn’t be the first one, and you won’t be the last, and what changes? Nothing. I would rather you be alive in the United States than dead in Cuba.”

  He makes an impatient noise. “You don’t understand. You speak as though Cuba is just a place to live, as though it’s nothing more than taking a few boxes and moving them from one house to the next. It’s not. This is my home. My country.”

  “How can you love a country that does this to its citizens? A government willing to throw you in prison for speaking out against their abuses. I came here wanting to love Cuba; I told myself I would look at it through clear eyes, that I wouldn’t be swayed by Miami’s view, that I would judge it on its merits and not through the lens of the exile. But I can’t. I’m Cuban, too. Perhaps I wasn’t born here, but my blood is Cuban. How can you fight to stay somewhere where you are not wanted, in a place that will get you killed? You’re a smart man; it makes no sense. Where is the logic?”

  “Ahh, but love is not logical. It is my weakness, perhaps, but it is my country. How do I not love it?”

  “But at what cost?”

  “When you love something you don’t count the cost.”

  “And me?”

  Luis smiles sadly. “You know I love you, Marisol. Do not ask me to choose between who I love and who I am. I fear it would not reflect well on either one of us.”

  “I’m not asking you to choose. There is no choice. They’ve made the choice for you. You cannot stay here and live; and death is not a continuation, it is not a way of fighting them; your death will mean nothing. You can do more good alive in Miami than dead in Havana.”

  “The exile’s refrain.”

  “So what if it is? At least we’ve preserved a version of Cuba that does not exist in this place. We’re the only ones who’ve preserved it.”

  “You cannot live in a museum, Marisol. The problem with your ‘preservation’ is that it fails to account for the fact that there is a real Cuba. A living, breathing Cuba. You’re all so busy fighting imaginary ghosts in Miami while we’re here, bleeding on the ground, dealing with real problems. Your exile community isn’t concerned with the black market, or the housing shortage, or the very real flaws in the much-touted education system, or the fact that racial discrimination occurs on a daily basis. You’re still pissed because your grand mansions were taken away and are now occupied by the very men you hate the most. The rest of us are caught in the middle, worrying about how to survive.”

  “So teach us. Come to Miami. Get involved with the movement there. Change the narrative. The discourse is changing. Fidel is dead. The enmity toward the regime is turning to a very practical approach on Cuba. We’re on the cusp of a new era in Cuban-American relations; perhaps there is an opportunity for something better. That article I’m writing? What if it wasn’t about travel? What if it was about contempor
ary Cuba? What if you told your story? Help us. Teach us about the problems facing Cuba now.”

  “It still feels like I’m abandoning my country.”

  “It’s already abandoned you. This isn’t your country. Or your grandmother’s. It’s Castro’s. And now, his ghost’s. It was supposed to be yours. That was the promise of ’59. But they broke that promise almost from the beginning. This version of Cuba belongs to the regime, but that doesn’t mean the future has to.

  “Retreat is a victory of sorts. You can’t win this battle, not like this. You’re not giving up, just giving yourself a better chance to change the system in a world where you don’t have to play by their rules.”

  He shakes his head. “Marisol.” His tone is resigned, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.

  “You know I’m right.”

  “Perhaps,” he acknowledges.

  “We have to make do with the opportunities that present themselves. We have a chance to get you out. We need to take it.”

  He’s quiet for a long beat, the only noise in the room the sound of our breathing, the whirl of the ceiling fan overhead. And then—

  “I know.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I run into Cristina on my way out. She’s sitting on the steps, smoking a cigarette, staring out at the rusted metal gate at the entryway.

  “You want him to leave with you,” she says, her tone flat, not bothering to glance at me.

  I guess Ana filled Cristina and Caridad in on the conversation with my grandfather. I’m exhausted from my talk with Luis, with the events of the last few days, my grandmother’s ashes a weight in my bag, and more than anything, I don’t have much fight left in me.

  “Yes.”

  She takes another drag of her cigarette, the smoke billowing in the air.