Thursday, March 24, Havana
Elizabeth rose from her desk and answered Lisa’s knock at her hotel room door, looking expectantly at the younger woman.
“Yes?” she asked. “What is it, Lisa?”
The circles under Elizabeth’s eyes surprised her young chambermaid, who then had to remember her purpose.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Ashley,” Lisa said, still noticing her face, “but there’s a sailor downstairs that has brought you a message. He has orders to inform you that events have forced Captain Eulate to return to his ship until this political situation has ended. He regrets he can no longer act as your interpreter. The man is still downstairs. Should I give him a message from you to take back to the captain?”
Elizabeth blinked her eyes momentarily and put her hand against the doorway to lean against it, feeling the solidness of the wood.
“No,” she said.
The word felt foreign, as if spoken by someone else, but knew she must say it again, if only to make it true.
“No.”
It was best this way to end it, she thought, without seeing him again—cleanly, without the mess of goodbyes or lingering glances.
She should not have fallen in love with a man whose whole life was different from hers. She had been foolish—worse than foolish—to imagine that such a thing could exist between them. A borrowed world, no more real than a dream one wakes from and cannot return to.
And now to have their respective nations on the verge of war with one another over a scurrilous act of his side made it unbearable. Yet, she could not tell him this without also telling him she was an American and tantamount to a spy.
They should just forget each other. The situation had become impossible.
“But, Miss Ashley!” Lisa said in surprise. “He may leave port without seeing you again!”
A protest rose sharply in her throat—unwelcome, unbidden—at the thought of him leaving, and she swallowed it down before it could reach her eyes.
Elizabeth nodded instead. She hoped he did. It would be easier for them both that way.
“But, Miss Ashley!” Lisa insisted. “Only two days ago you were—”
“I’ve changed my mind about him,” Elizabeth said curtly, cutting the girl off. “That is my right.”
Lisa stared at her, as though she no longer recognized the woman before her.
“But you—”
“No more buts! The captain is not the hero he would have you believe!” Elizabeth snapped in irritation. “May I remind you I am responsible for the polish you attach to him and I know all too well the depths of its luster? You would do better to admire someone else.”
“You think that?” Lisa asked, aghast. “Of Captain Eulate?!”
“I am entitled to think whatever I choose of the man,” Elizabeth reminded her. “It's over between us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do believe there is a gentleman downstairs waiting on you.”
Lisa went, reluctantly, and Elizabeth closed the door behind her.
For a moment she stood quite still, her hand resting against the knob, as though she might yet open it again. But she did not. As she closed the door behind Lisa, Elizabeth felt the world outside was unraveling, and with it her own life as well.
She had wanted him—wanted him in a way that made no sense in daylight—and the wanting had not died just because she told it to.
She moved instead to her window to find Eulate's ship. She could still hear the words of his song to her, his voice low and steady in her ear, the notes of his guitar lingering in the air between them. She’d let herself believe, if only for a moment, that he could be hers. He had made it so easy to forget what he was.
But she knew better now.
He belonged to his ship. To his country.
And she—she had never truly belonged to him at all.
It was all a fantasy. It had always been doomed, but it angered her that he had tried to manipulate her pen to make it feel like betrayal.
Far beyond her window, men with far heavier burdens were making choices just as impossible.
Ramon Blanco gravely set aside the papers on his desk to open a just arrived cable. Admiral Manterola watched his captain general for some sign of what the news might be.
“It’s from Prime Minister Sagasta,” Ramon determined as he read the cable. “The United States Ambassador to Spain, Woodford, has conveyed their demands to the queen yesterday. They have called for a cessation of hostilities in Cuba and for us to sign an immediate armistice with the insurrectos good through October 1. The Americans will act as arbitrators of the dispute. Mr. Woodford’s demands include complete independence for Cuba and an end to the Reconcentrado camps.”
Blanco set the cable down and looked up at his Admiral.
“Sagasta,” he said, “wishes to know if I’m willing to go along with their demand to end reconcentration.”
Manterola understood, commenting. “He is looking for a bargaining point with the Americans.”
“Yes. But I see little hope for its success.” Ramon let out a long sigh. “He has also requested that the Vizcaya and Oquendo put out to sea immediately and that I prepare for him a complete report on our military preparedness here in Cuba. Things look bleak.”
“Not necessarily,” Manterola said. “Those orders may exist only as a contingency in case the bargaining chip fails.”
“When one holds the door open behind one's self to retreat through, one invariably winds up using it. If the reconcentration camps are closed, the people in the camps will have to return to their homes. There, Garcia and Gomez will give them but one choice. Join them or die,” Blanco answered.
“I doubt Gomez and his murderers will give them any choice, my Captain General.”
“You’re right. He’ll simply shoot them as traitors to his revolution.”
“Except for maybe the women and children,” offered Manterola.
“If Gomez won’t honor a flag of truce with Colonel Ruiz, why would he honor women and children?”
“So you believe you consign all the reconcentrados to death?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” replied Ramon Blanco. “If I end food to the camps and remove our soldiers as guards to protect them from Gomez and Garcia, what do you think will happen? They’ll shoot the men and starve the women and children. And now I’m being asked,” he added, “to voluntarily support it. And if I do, how many loyal innocents do I kill?”
“At least a hundred thousand,” said the admiral.
“Yes. At least that,” agreed Blanco. “One hundred thousand sons of Spain. I was sent here to save them, and all I do is consign them all to death in a single day by a single order.”
“Will you do it?”
“Issue it? I have to! What other choice do I have? If I refuse, what other offer can the queen make the Americans? With no offer, there will be war, and if there is war, we must requisition all food and withdraw the guards from the camps and return them to the army.”
“So no matter what you decide, they all die?”
“Yes. No matter what I decide,” said Blanco solemnly, looking at his admiral. “But it will not be on our conscience. It is the Americans who demand their deaths.”
“They will never admit to that.”
“You're right. They won’t.”
Then Blanco whispered to himself in regret. “A nation does not die in a day, but today I sign the first grave.”
Then he straightened and changed subjects. “So? What are the conditions of captains, Eulate and Lazaga? Can they put to sea? I’m surprised the Americans haven’t blockaded them in already.”
“Both ships have reported they are able to sail, my Captain General, and have requested orders.”
Ramon’s fingers tapped on his massive desk.
“Very well, Admiral. Have them set sail for Puerto Rico at the earliest possible date. I will cable Sagasta of my willingness to end Reconcentration. You will then cable to the Minister of Marine, Bermejo, and inform him of the condition and readiness of your remaining ships. Please allow me to read your communications before you pass them along.”
Manterola’s eyebrows went down.
“Begging your pardon, sir. But you do realize Bermejo is a fool?”
“All the more reason we should provide him with the facts. I should not wish him to operate under any delusions about us.”
“I shall word my report accordingly.”
“Good,” Ramon stated. “Dismissed then.”
After his admiral left, the captain general took up his pen to write a reply to the cable, knowing a hundred thousand people were about to die horribly at the next stroke of his pen. He stared at the cable on his desk and then reluctantly turned his eyes upwards.
“Ruiz! Ruiz!” he called out to his dead friend. “Where did we go wrong? We had such high hopes for peace, you and I! How can I avoid war now?”
Author’s Note: General Blanco’s estimate that 100,000 loyal Cubans would be killed if released from the camps proved incorrect. Records show 170,000 Cubans had died in the camps by 1898. Yet when reconcentration was ended, the figure rose to 400,000, creating a highly debated controversy that 230,000 were murdered by the insurrectos after the camps closed. The US Congressional Library offers no explanation for this.
