“So what answers are we looking for here?” he asks, our bodies tucked against each other.
One night has changed so much—the brush of skin against skin, the mingling of breaths, has rearranged space and time. Our hands are linked, resting against the convertible’s worn leather seat, our bodies as close as the car’s interior will allow. It’s the most natural thing in the world now to accentuate our drive with casual touches—his hand running through my hair, my head on his shoulder, our legs against each other.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “I’m hoping my grandmother trusted Magda, confided in her. And I’m excited to see Santa Clara. He fought there. At least, I think he did. His last letter mentioned he was joining Che.”
“In the Battle of Santa Clara?” Luis asks, his tone laced with interest, the history professor back in full force.
“Yes. What do you know about it?”
“It’s romanticized and vaunted as the turning point of the revolution. Batista had three thousand men in Santa Clara. They had tanks, machine guns, mortars. There were three hundred rebels.”
And my grandmother’s love was one of them.
“By all accounts, the rebels should have been annihilated. They were outgunned, outmanned. Batista knew the importance of defeating the rebels once and for all, and this was supposed to be his chance. Instead, it became his Waterloo.”
“What happened?”
“In the end, it wasn’t the guns that decided the victory, but rather the spirit of the men. At least, that’s what the history books say.” Luis shrugs. “The Cuban military was tired. They’d been fighting their own citizens in skirmishes for a very long time. And it was difficult to ignore the abuses of Batista’s regime. The rebels simply wanted it more. And the locals helped the rebel forces.”
“Did anyone die?”
“Yes—although that is disputed. There were injuries and some deaths, but as with so much involving the government, the truth has been obfuscated. Truth in Cuba is constantly being redefined so much so that it is now meaningless.”
“Are there sites to see surrounding the Battle of Santa Clara?”
Maybe I’ll include it in my completely neglected travel article.
“You can visit the train tracks where the battle took place, the box carriages and bulldozer that derailed the train. Santa Clara is a shrine to Che. There’s a museum in the city, and he’s buried in a mausoleum under a giant bronze statue of himself. The last, most important battle of the Cuban Revolution, and he was the one to lead it, not Fidel.”
“That had to burn.”
Luis laughs. “Yes, I imagine it did. You can see why there’s so much speculation about rancor between the two, concerns that Che’s legacy would overshadow the bearded one’s, suspicion that Fidel played a role in his death in Bolivia.”
“I would like to see it, if we can. Visit the town, get a feel for the place where they fought.”
“This isn’t just about finding the perfect resting place for your grandmother, is it? You’re looking for something for yourself, too,” Luis says, glancing at me again.
“I guess I am.” I stare at the countryside surrounding us. “I came here to learn about my family’s history, to find the perfect place to spread my grandmother’s ashes, but now I’m more confused than ever. When my plane touched down, I thought I’d come home. I’m as Cuban as I am American, as I am Spanish, and yet, until now I’d never been here. I don’t have a tangible connection to this place; my grandmother, my great-aunts kept Cuba alive for me, and now my grandmother’s gone, her sister Isabel deceased, my remaining great-aunts growing older, and my sense of being Cuban is slipping through my fingers.
“Yes, there’s a strong Cuban community in South Florida, and I speak Spanish, and ring in the New Year with grapes and a bucket of water, and eat lechon asado, and listen to Celia Cruz, but there’s an aimlessness to it all. I’m not grounded in anything; my feet didn’t touch Cuban soil until I was thirty-one years old. And now that I’m here?
“You’ve all moved on. There’s a modern Cuba now with a rich history, and emerging cultures, and experiences. And I’m not part of that. None of my family are. We left, and we haven’t been able to return, and we’re stuck in stasis in the United States. Always waiting, always hoping, wondering, praying that we would wake up and see a headline on the news that Fidel had died, that the government has admitted this was a terrible mistake, that things will go back to the way they were. As exiles, that hope is embedded in the very essence of our soul, taught from birth—
“Next year in Havana—
“It’s the toast we never stop saying, because the dream of it never comes true. And if it does one day, what then? There are Russians in the home my ancestors built. What will we return to? Is it even our country anymore, or did we give it up when we left? I’m trying to understand where I fit in all of this.”
I take a deep breath, the pressure building in my chest.
“I walk down these streets, and I look out to the sea, and I want to feel as though I belong here, but I’m a visitor here, a guest in my own country.”
Luis takes my hand.
“Then you know what it means to be Cuban,” he says. “We always reach for something beyond our grasp.”
* * *
? ? ?
We make good time, arriving in Santa Clara an hour before Magda expects us. We head first to the Tren Blindado—the monument to the turning point in the Battle of Santa Clara when Che and some of his rebel forces derailed the armored train containing reinforcements for Batista’s forces, ultimately defeating them.
“There were two major efforts in the Battle of Santa Clara,” Luis explains. “The battle led by Che to take the train involved a small group of his men. The larger contingent fought near Capiro’s Hill.”
We pay the entry fee and take a quick tour. I snap a few pictures—the infamous yellow bulldozer that derailed the train, the railroad cars lying around like broken dolls.
I try to envision the man from my grandmother’s letters here, holding the mortar in his hands that’s now affixed to the wall, contained in a glass case. Did he think of my grandmother as he fought? Did he know how much this battle would determine Cuba’s future?
We bypass the museum and mausoleum where Che is buried, although his statue is impossible to miss, looking down at us, a colossus in bronze.
We make our way to the Loma del Capiro, the infamous hill where the second prong of the battle took place. It has the added advantage of looking down over the city, providing a panoramic sweep of Santa Clara.
Two flags fly—the Cuban flag and the flag of Fidel’s 26th of July Movement. Below them lies the city where the revolution took place—
It looks like it’s been forgotten and neglected, the buildings in a state of disrepair.
Tourists mill around, snapping pictures and chatting in different languages.
“The events here happened almost sixty years ago, and yet, it feels so personal,” I murmur to Luis, ducking my head to avoid the crowd.
I look into his eyes, searching there, trying to read the emotions in his gaze. He’s so guarded at times, adept at hiding what he thinks and feels. I suppose in a country like this, that shield is a necessity—the difference between life and death. But there are hints—no matter how good he is, his feelings lingering beneath the surface, the passion and conviction in his voice unmistakable.
He yearns for a different Cuba, too.
* * *
? ? ?
Magda Villarreal lives in a small apartment near the Parque Leoncio Vidal. Her home is one of many stacked on top of one another and smashed together in a squat building with a crumbling facade. We climb the stairs to her floor; her living conditions are a stark contrast to the Rodriguez home in Miramar.
It’s loud, even in the hallway, the walls offering little privacy between residents. There’s a faint odor in the air, damp lingering in the floor, ceiling, and walls. Trash litters the stairwell. The railing is cracked and broken in places, the steps chipped, tile chunks missing.