He sighs.
“Do you love him?” Eduardo asks, ignoring my questions.
I look down at the sand. “Fidel?”
“Beatriz.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I don’t love him.”
Everyone knows an affair is impermanent; I would be foolish indeed to risk my heart under such circumstances. I’ve already committed myself to one lost cause. Two seems exceedingly reckless.
chapter fifteen
October turns into November, and there is no word from the CIA, but I keep my scribbled notes from the meetings with the group in Hialeah in a box crammed in the back of my bedroom closet. The intelligence I’ve gleaned so far is hardly significant on its own, but perhaps Mr. Dwyer will view it through a different lens with his experience to guide him.
Eduardo is absent as well, and I am left to my own devices: wondering about Nick’s whereabouts, helping my sister Elisa set up her spacious new house in Coral Gables, worrying whether Isabel will be the next one to marry, her romance with her American businessman boyfriend gaining speed. Our mother couldn’t be more pleased, crowing over Isabel’s future matrimonial success, while simultaneously readying herself for the upcoming season and her marital designs for me.
“Did you hear Thomas mention his cousin, Beatriz?” my mother asks me from her usual spot in the living room.
Thomas is Isabel’s boyfriend, single-handedly bolstering the floral industry in Palm Beach with his wooing of my sister, and if I’ve ever encountered a duller man, I can’t recall. Suffice to say, I don’t have high hopes for the cousin.
“His cousin has his own firm. Accounting, I think,” she adds.
I make a noncommittal sound, my attention on the television. Our father is off somewhere on business, but Isabel, Maria, our mother, and I are gathered around the television in the sitting room in the late hours of November 8, awaiting the results of the American presidential election.
It is strange to live in a place where election results are not a foregone conclusion, to hear the excitement in the Americans’ voices as they wait to learn who their next president will be. Before the revolution, my childhood was dominated by Batista’s presidency, and just prior to him fleeing the country, we had an election of our own, one that, despite our hope for change, was dominated by whispers of rigged votes and the knowledge that Batista had ensured one of his cronies would take his place.
Of all of us, Maria is the most excited for this election. She sits on the couch with a pad of paper and a pencil in hand, eager to record the early results. They’ve been studying civics in her school, and she comes home each day with a new piece of information she has gleaned about the American political process. Truthfully, her enthusiasm and fervor for the subject have caught us all a bit off guard. Perhaps by virtue of her youth, she has acclimated the easiest to our life here, even as we have all worried about the toll it would take on her. I try to remember myself at fifteen; did I have her resilience, or is the manner in which she bounds through life merely another facet of her personality?
The rest of us watch the election on-screen with varying levels of interest, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley reading off the early returns. My mother is unconcerned with politics; our father has been closemouthed about the entire affair. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hedged his bets, doing everything he can to forge relationships with both parties. I’ve learned from our experience in Cuba that in my father’s eyes, business supersedes ideology.
If the media reports are to be believed, this contest between Kennedy and Nixon will be a close one indeed, the election dragging on into the early hours of Wednesday morning. My interest in the results is much narrower. Is the lack of communication from Mr. Dwyer a result of the upcoming election, the waiting game the CIA is playing to see how the administration changes hands? And if so, will the election’s outcome affect our plans for Castro and Cuba?
Nixon’s position mimics President Eisenhower’s: that the administration has helped the Cuban people realize their goals of progress through freedom. Kennedy challenges the position, labeling Castro’s regime as communist and decrying Eisenhower’s—and Nixon’s—inaction in preventing Cuba’s slide toward the Soviets. I admit to a degree of hope when I hear Kennedy’s thoughts on Cuba; there is comfort to be had in the fact that someone recognizes the political situation in my country for the farce that it is. Will Kennedy sign off on the CIA’s plans if he’s elected? Will he take military action against Fidel? The hope of it is enough for me to support Kennedy and his Democrats. That he and Nick share a political party in common doesn’t hurt, either.
It’s been a month and a half since I last saw Nick, his business card tucked away in a drawer, the number never called. What would I even say? There’s no future in this flirtation, and I wasn’t lying when I told him I had no desire to be a mistress, and even less to be a wife.
“Kennedy won Connecticut,” Maria announces triumphantly, jotting down the result on her pad. “He leads in the popular vote, too.”
I can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm, even as a pang of sadness hits me.
How will she feel when we return to Havana? Even in the best of circumstances, it’s hard to imagine our country won’t undergo a massive transformation period. Will she be able to experience the same level of freedom the Americans enjoy in their country? Will her vote truly matter in Cuba one day?
Change is all around us, both at home and here, and where I once fought so hard for change, now I must admit I fear it, a bit. Change is good in principle, but there is no guarantee in terms of what you will end up with, and I wouldn’t wish our experience with Fidel on my worst enemy.
Tonight, the trend seems to be a growing movement toward a new guard replacing the old, a slate of handsome, young, privileged men with heroic military backgrounds ushered in on the wave of Kennedy’s enthusiasm and success. Nick would fare well in such a climate, and I wonder where he is tonight, if he’s sitting beside his friend Jack Kennedy in Hyannis Port waiting for the results, or if he’s home in Connecticut surrounded by his family and fiancée.
“The race is tightening,” Maria declares, the pencil between her teeth now.
“I’m going to sleep,” our mother announces, sweeping from the room in a cloud of Chanel with a pat on the head for Maria and a nod for Isabel and me. Given our one-sided conversation about my prospects, I receive a frown my sisters don’t.
“Senator Kennedy is still leading,” Isabel says once our mother has left the room. “And the Senate results?”
I flush, staring down at the silk couch to avert my gaze from my sister’s prying eyes, running my fingers along the floral pattern.
“I imagine they will come later,” I reply.
“Things would probably be easier if he didn’t win,” Isabel whispers.