Chapter Six #3
He wore a summer suit, the fit just a little big on his lanky frame, as though the garment hadn’t come to him from a tailor like so many of the wealthy Americans she saw walking around the campus but rather he’d acquired it by other means.
His dark hair was mussed. A cigarette dangled from his fingers.
He was handsome, although not overtly so, not the sort of handsome that would make a girl feel twisted up in his presence, but rather like a puzzle you had to work your way through to step back and fully appreciate.
Much as she’d allowed herself to indulge in the moment of watching her friend enjoy herself on the dance floor, Eva also lingered in this moment—admiring his sharp cheekbones, deep green eyes, and long, lean bone structure, cataloguing his features as an artist might, wondering which parts she would incorporate when she worked on her novel again.
Her uncle had brought her a copy of Wuthering Heights once, knowing her desire to be a writer and offering some inspiration, and this man standing before her looked exactly like the image of Heathcliff that she’d conjured in her mind while she’d devoured the novel.
The man’s eyes widened slightly, as though he was perhaps caught off guard by the frankness in her perusal, their roles temporarily reversed, considering how much time she’d spent with everyone staring at her .
“I’m sorry—I didn’t see you out here,” Eva said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
She wanted to say something else, to clarify that she wasn’t staring at him out of romantic interest, but rather professional curiosity, but how did one explain such a thing without causing offense?
Besides, the words were stuck inside her.
Speaking English on its own made her nervous, but add the presence of a man and—
“No need to apologize,” he replied. “I just came out here looking for a break from the festivities. I suppose you were searching for the same.”
She nodded, acutely aware of the manner in which she had just burst out here. To be caught staring so unabashedly and to have bolted from the dance no doubt cast her in a most unladylike light. Hardly the paragon she’d hoped to represent for the media who studied her and the other teachers so.
“I’m James.” He put the cigarette out. “James Webber.”
“Eva Fuentes.”
“Eva.” He said it slowly, as though he were attempting to commit it to memory, savoring it, lingering over it much as she’d done when she first saw him. His lips curved into a wide smile, the effect softening his face somewhat. “Welcome to Harvard.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated, searching for the right words to convey how overwhelmed she was without giving offense. “I’ve certainly never received such a warm welcome anywhere.”
He laughed. “We’re a welcoming bunch. There’s certainly been a tremendous amount of fanfare surrounding your visit.
I’ll admit there’s much curiosity about Cuba considering you’ve dominated our newspapers for so long.
I suppose we all feel invested in your future.
It’s like when you meet a person who you’ve heard about for years for the first time. ”
During the wars for independence, some of her countrymen had believed that America was the answer to their attempts to free themselves from Spanish domination, that with the help of their powerful neighbor, they could finally be rid of the Spanish.
Many Cubans had taken this position to American cities, establishing powerful relationships with the newspapers and courting support from various groups.
Those who had been exiled by the Spanish, like her uncle, used their time in America to advocate for Cuban independence.
It was undeniable that they had been successful in achieving the aim of garnering America’s interest. Now it remained to be seen whether that influence would benefit Cuba.
There had been concerns that with Spain gone, Americans would turn their eyes to Cuba and her resources and seek to establish dominion over the island.
“What do you think of our fair city so far?” James asked her.
“It’s beautiful.”
In the little free time she had, Eva enjoyed exploring the campus with Dolores, walking through the pretty streets.
It was so different from Havana, but lovely in its own right, and it made her wonder what it would be like to travel, to see other places.
How much of the world was out there, the books she read the only way she would ever experience it?
“Do you miss Cuba? Where are you from? The city or the countryside?”
“Havana. I thought I might miss it since I’ve never left the island before.
But truthfully, there’s too much happening here for me to miss it.
Each day we are met with new activities, new people to speak with, new things to learn.
” The words came to her more slowly in English than in Spanish, the care and consideration she had to put into each word a little frustrating for someone whose life was defined by words, who had perhaps taken for granted the way that they never failed her when she needed them.
There was a courage, a bravery that came with expressing yourself while not knowing what mistakes you might be making or how your efforts were being received by the other person.
“When this opportunity was first presented to me, I didn’t appreciate how grand it would be.
Harvard has certainly gone to great lengths for us.
Not to mention the people of Boston. I never thought we’d receive such a welcome. ”
“It must be overwhelming at times feeling as though you are under a microscope, the press following you around everywhere you go.”
Surprise filled her. Was it so obvious? Did she wear her feelings so clearly etched on her face?
“It is,” she admitted. “I keep telling myself that I need to pretend that the reporters aren’t there, to enjoy the experience and make the most of it without worrying about what others think. It doesn’t come naturally to me, though.”
Some of the teachers navigated the attention with the panache of a seasoned politician.
“Where do you teach in Cuba?” James asked her, leaning against the brick wall behind him as though he was settling in for a long chat.
The movement brought them a little closer to eye level, the slouch still doing little to lessen the impact of his tall, lean frame. He must be a few inches over six feet, and suddenly, she felt diminutive in his presence.
There was an intimacy to his posture, too, the relaxation in his body giving the impression that they were longtime friends rather than the barest of acquaintances.
She liked the comfort, the sensation that they were removing the formalities between them. So much of her time here was governed by the responsibility to represent her profession, her country, and herself that it was good to merely be Eva for once.
“I teach at a small school for girls in Havana,” she replied, the words coming to her in Spanish first, before the English slipped out.
In Boston, she dreamed in both languages. It had surprised her at first when she woke up the seventh day in the city and realized that, for the first time in her life, her dreams had been in English, not Spanish. No doubt a product of now living so many of her days in English.
He smiled. “Your students must enjoy your classes a great deal. Your face lit up when you answered my question.”
She flushed. “I am fortunate, yes, to enjoy what I do.”
“And dancing? Do you enjoy that?” he asked, gesturing toward the gymnasium behind them.
“Not particularly,” she admitted. “I haven’t had much time for dancing. Or much practice. We weren’t exactly waltzing our way through the war.”
“What was the war like?” he asked her, his expression sobering slightly as though he sensed the unspoken sentiment contained there.
“You didn’t fight?”
She knew many Americans volunteered to join the military after the explosion of the USS Maine .
“No. I didn’t. I followed the war closely, though. We were all consumed by it.”
Eva closed her eyes for a moment, and she wasn’t in Massachusetts anymore, but back home, and it hit her, a pang of homesickness so sharp and sleek that it pierced her.
“I fared better than many did,” she replied once her eyes had opened. “It was a terrible thing.”
How did you explain that while war had raged in Cuba, while so many had suffered, she’d still taught her students, and cared for her mother as she became ill, and laundered the clothes when she could, and cooked when there was food to be had, and she had tried to—had to—go about her daily life even though the world as she knew it was at imminent threat of collapse?
And still—things could have been much worse.
The plight of the reconcentrados who had been rounded up in hellish camps controlled by the Spanish had certainly highlighted that.
When the war ended, they had no homes to return to—the countryside had been razed by the Spanish to squash all support for the revolutionaries.
Havana and the cities hadn’t seen as much destruction even if the effects of the war lingered after Spain had been driven from Cuba’s shores.
James didn’t say anything in response, and she was grateful for the silence between them, for the fact that he seemed to respect the wall she had erected around the subject.
She wasn’t here for her pain to be entertainment for the Americans.
There were boundaries she had to maintain around herself.
If this was to be a performance, then at least it had to be a performance on her terms.
“And what do you do?” she asked, more than a little embarrassed by how much she had revealed in such a short time to a man who was a stranger.
He glanced down at the ground for a moment, his hair falling forward over his forehead. He straightened, pushing the errant lock of hair back. “I’m a writer.”
“Truly? What do you write?”
He laughed. “That’s a great question and one I’m still trying to answer myself. I’ll admit inspiration doesn’t strike nearly as often as I’d like. I’m working on something right now, but—” He shrugged. “It’s causing more frustration than anything else.”
It was a natural point in the conversation for her to offer that she, too, was a writer, to talk about the book she was working on, to tell him that she knew exactly what he meant, but she’d already offered too much about herself in the conversation, bared too much of her soul.
There was something about James that made him easy to talk to.
Perhaps it was the way in which so many of the young men of her acquaintance filled conversational silences with their own thoughts and opinions.
For someone to whom gregariousness didn’t come easily, it was difficult to carry a back-and-forth when you didn’t have the sort of personality that led you to thrust yourself into pauses.
“What made you decide that you wanted to write?” she asked him, curious of what it was like for another writer.
She’d never met anyone else who wrote. As much as she enjoyed the privacy of writing, sometimes she wished she had someone she could share ideas with.
Teaching was at least a profession where she had the support of others.
But writing was such a solitary endeavor.
Did he feel the same way?
Her words had been honed by the war, forged in loss. What had shaped his?
“I suppose I had something to say,” James answered.
“It’s impossible to miss the influence that the written word has these days—they called our war with Spain the journalists’ war for a reason.
We’re entering a new world now where society is transforming, where you aren’t so defined by the circumstances of your birth, where anything feels possible. I want to be part of that.”
Strange how they could inhabit the same world, and yet occupy such different spaces in it.
She saw the sentiments he had just voiced echoed all around her; she just couldn’t countenance them.
Yes, Spain was gone, and yes, Cuba was “free,” and there was a sort of tentative feeling inside her that maybe things would be better, that perhaps the worst had passed, but she didn’t know how to trust the feeling, didn’t know how to believe that she stood on firm ground.
James wrote to be heard, because there was a place for him in this world.
Eva wrote to process all that had happened, to speak because it was the only place where she could.
The blank page listened when surely no one else would.
She wrote not knowing if anyone would ever read her writing, if her words even mattered.
She envied him the confidence that his words might make a difference.
“Why did you come to Harvard?” he asked her, changing the subject and turning his attention back to her once more.
“To represent my country. I taught during the war, but the fighting didn’t touch my life the same way it did for so many others in Cuba. This was my chance to do something, however small.”
He was silent for a moment, considering, his gaze intent on her.
She could feel her cheeks heating, and she ducked her head, his scrutiny slightly unnerving.
“There are many ways to love your country,” James replied. “You shouldn’t think that what you’re doing here doesn’t matter. It does.”
It was funny how a few words strung together could feel like an embrace.
“Thank you.” Eva glanced back at the door to the gymnasium. “I should get back to the party—I really only meant to take a few minutes of fresh air.”
How long had she been standing out here talking to him? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? Was her chaperone looking for her even now?
Something that might have been regret flashed in James’s eyes. “I hope our paths will cross again in the future.”
“I would like that,” Eva murmured, her cheeks slightly flushed from the admission, and the certainty that somehow took root inside her that she would see him again, and soon.
Once again, adventure had found her.