flashlights to indicate the size of the passages they walked through, Qui imagined it would feel claustrophobically small.
“The story I must tell you begins before the time of Fidel in the mid-fifties, when Batista’s men defiled and disgraced Cuba. Here in the mountains, there was as much support for the rebels as for the government. Occasionally, this came to violence.”
Qui stumbled over an especially rough passage, and JZ caught her fall, dropping his flashlight in the process, saying, “Careful, walls here are as dangerous as coral.” After ensuring Qui stood firmly on her feet, he knelt for his light and saw something reflected in the beam: toy-sized metal statues. Intrigued, he directed his light identifying them as cast-iron toy soldiers, whose painted features had remained distinct, their green uniforms reminding JZ of his boyhood collection of G. I Joes.
Pasqual gasped at what the beam revealed. “My lost soldiers!” He kneeled and gathered his long lost childhood mementos. “Never thought I’d see these again. Providence?”
“Yes, perhaps a sign,” JZ agreed. “First the Lady gives Qui a vision and now this.”
“A weird little sign, then,” commented Cevalos, lending Pasqual a hand up. “I came back afterwards to gather toys, but as you see, some were missed. Gabriel, I’m sorry.”
Confused, JZ asked, “Children? Down here in this black hole?”
Stretching, Father Cevalos, replied, “It’s the remainder of my story. Government soldiers claimed El Cobre gave refuge to the rebels. When they entered the village, they executed any men brave enough to stand against them-those who hadn’t run into the hills. At my urging, the women and children took sanctuary here in the chapel. I never thought soldiers would violate the sanctity of the church, but human nature being weak…
JZ muttered, “Sadly, little has changed in that regard.” His words were promptly absorbed by the limestone as if consumed by walls hungry for human expression.
Cevalos returned to his story as they continued through the cave. “The commander, over his men’s protests, ordered wholesale slaughter. The soldiers who dared refuse were themselves killed alongside the women and children they’d tried to save. The commander’s final order was to seal the doors with the lock you brought home. Then he set the chapel afire. This last fact I learned from Pasqual, because it occurred after I was knocked unconscious. When I came to amid the smoke, I gathered as many as I could to me, knowing of this escape route.”
JZ asked, “How many survived?”
“And how many killed?” asked Qui, angry she’d never learned of this incident in her country’s history. Not one mention of it in a single history text.
“Survivors?” replied Pasqual. “Myself, Rita, six other children, and Father Cevalos. Victims? My whole family, Rita’s family…everyone. All dead…our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers…murdered.”
“Smoke inhalation killed anyone left alive inside that inferno,” Cevalos added as they found themselves stepping from the cave onto a stone outcropping. They had traveled steadily upwards in a curved direction that now afforded them a view of the almost hidden lake far below them and the nearby church across the crevasse. “When we got out that night, we stood at this exact spot, watching the flames.”
“Not my brother! His eyes were fixed on the lake and the wavering lights.”
“Lights? What lights, Gabriel? You never mentioned lights before.”
“I saw lights that night…Alejandro called them ghosts.”
“Perhaps it was some of our men still making their way into the hills.”
JZ asked, “Did any of those men ever return?”
“None. Murdered by Batista’s soldiers…killed in the revolution…who knows? All eight children became orphans that night. All placed with other relatives…save two.”
“Two for the orphanage in Havana.” Staring out to sea, Pasqual added, “My big brother, Alejandro, and myself.”
Realizing what the words meant, Qui shuddered. “How old were you at the time?”
“Alejandro was five and I was, we think, three.”
“I’m sorry Father Pasqual,” said Qui. “My own mother died in childbirth, so I never knew her. I can only guess the ongoing nightmare this must’ve been for you.”
“Yes, horrible,” added JZ. “Accept my sincere regrets as well.”
“Thank you both. Too young to remember much, my memories are of my brother, the orphanage, Havana, and Father Cevalos, my almost-father who often came to visit, never forgetting holidays and our birthdays.” He smiled at them before adding, “It’s my brother who needs sympathy. Alejandro has never known peace… carries the nightmares to this day.”
Noting the lateness of the day, Cevalos suggested they begin the journey back. “Look, someone’s at the chapel waving. It’s that rouge Estrada. What’s he doing here?”
Shading her eyes, Qui confirmed it was Luis. “Rouge? He brought us here from Havana, and has proven invaluable.”
“Invaluable? Never heard him described as that,” replied Cevalos. “You must see a side of him I’m blind to. But be careful of that one.”
“I’ve known him long enough to realize he burns both ends of the candle, but he’s been straight with us.”
Father Pasqual shrugged and said, “Rita says the same thing about him, Francisco. Has to be some grace in the man.”
“Yes, the church tells us there’s grace in every man, but with Estrada, I’ve taken a wait and see attitude.”
“You question his morals…his loyalties…his black market dealings, I know. But the man loves life!”
“Life in the form of women and drink?”
“What can I say? There’re far worse sinners lurking in Santiago.”
“You’re referring to the gathering at the Forteleza, no doubt.”
Qui said, “Tell me more about the Forteleza…this gathering.”
Pasqual replied, “Take it up with Luis. He knows more than any of us about that infamous place.”
Father Cevalos indicated that the quickest route back was through the tunnel. He led the procession back, muttering something about the lateness of the hour to which Pasqual muttered, “I still have a sermon to prepare.”
“Yes, and your Santiagueros congregation is demanding, to say the least. How is the young Italian priest working out? Any help to you?”
And so their conversation went, rushing away from the ghosts of the past and the trouble brought by Qui to their sedate lives even as Pasqual clutched his recovered toys. Their demeanor recalled for Qui how the fishermen aboard Sanabela had gone back to business as usual amid the chaos-so typical of Cubanos. Life goes on in spite of government excess, SP provocations, and outright lies. People love, eat, marry, have children, grow old, tend to their private affairs, die…all under the cloud of Cuban politics. Just as Benilo had argued the night she met him. She smiled, missing her father’s confederate, and wondering what-if anything-his tests had turned up back in Havana. She felt Havana was a world away from Santiago. Where Havana was a tango, Santiago was the conga.
Following the two priests, Qui said softly to JZ, “We’re getting closer to the truth with every step.”
“I feel it, too.” JZ then asked, “I wonder if your vision at the Madonna is a premonition. If it has to do with all the blood spilled here? Not a watery grave but a fiery one, you know, torched churches and blackened corpses?”
“Maybe…”
Grabbing her hand in a show of guiding her through the darkness, JZ commented, “Visions are tricky, Qui. My cousin has visions. Sometimes reliable, sometimes not, sometimes true only after the fact, but always there’s an element of reality.”
“Yeah, JZ, you’re right. We may be walking through my vision right now. But I have a nagging feeling there’s more.”
“More?”
“I saw the two of us in that watery grave.”
