Chapter Sixteen
Pilar
Havana
She had to move the books.
After Esteban departed, his warnings of betrayal fresh in her mind, Pilar left the National Library with Eva Fuentes’s address jotted down and tucked into the pocket of her skirt, the notes she’d taken folded in her oversize tote.
She glanced at her watch as she walked toward the smaller library where she worked.
It was dark out; their community library had officially closed almost two hours ago.
She knew how Ignacio liked to linger in the stacks, but it would be late even by his hours, and he was probably home now with his wife.
She’d considered coming to him and asking for help, trusting him with what she was doing.
After all, if anyone loved books, it was Ignacio.
She’d considered it and then just as swiftly dismissed it because she couldn’t jeopardize his life like that.
Seeing Esteban at the National Library—how gaunt and haunted he looked from his time in prison—served as a stark reminder of how ruthless the regime could be.
She didn’t have a plan—as hard as she tried, she couldn’t come up with one. That was the problem—she no longer knew who she could trust, and since taking them into her confidence meant endangering them with something illegal, well, it was impossible to not feel very alone.
Pilar glanced over her shoulder as she crossed the street, approaching the back entrance to the library. The lights were out as she’d hoped they would be. From the exterior, it appeared to be quiet, the building empty.
Pilar used her key to open the back door, wincing slightly at the accompanying creak as she pushed it open. The sounds of families talking and laughing at the dinner table spilled out from open windows on the street.
She knew these families, had helped their children select a beloved book, had listened to their stories and offered suggestions. She had been a part of their lives, existing somewhere in the background, and now she wondered if they would turn her in if they had the opportunity.
Pilar closed the library door, locking it behind her.
She walked quickly, not daring to turn on a light, moving through the library with ease, her feet using memory to guide them. When she reached the shelf where she’d hidden the books, she slipped them into her bag alongside A Time for Forgetting.
She turned to leave—
“I’ve told you everything that I know.”
Pilar froze.
“I don’t think you have.”
The voices—both male—were coming from the front of the library.
She peered around the corner of the stack, but darkness greeted her.
There was the faintest light emanating from the desk where she and Ignacio perched while they worked, but she couldn’t see who was out there.
Their voices were too far away for her to clearly make them out.
One sounded almost pleading, the other angry and impatient.
She strained to hear the rest of their conversation, to make out what they were saying—
… need more…
…consider what’s at stake…
…I am. I promise…
She stood there, frozen, afraid that if she moved, they would hear her footsteps, surely would notice the sound of the door closing behind her when she left. Had they heard the creak when she came in?
Pilar peered around the corner of the bookshelf, taking a step forward.
The lamp that they kept at the circulation desk was on, giving off a soft glow.
A man came into view, his back toward her, his uniform instantly recognizable. He was a military man, one of Fidel’s men, and then he shifted slightly, his profile turning toward her, and she remembered the encounter with her neighbor in the hallway earlier in the day.
The major was here, standing in the middle of the library where she worked.
And beyond him—
Ignacio.
Pilar pulled back, heart pounding.
Ignacio?
She had respected him. Always. He had been so devoted to the books in their care, so kind and respectful toward her.
Was he working for Fidel?
Silence greeted her, and then the telltale sound of the front door closing.
She peered around the corner once more.
Ignacio sat on the stool at the desk, his body hunched over, his head in his hands.
Pilar hesitated, torn between her desire to flee and her inability to ignore what she had heard.
She stepped out into the main part of the library.
“I heard the back door creak. I had a feeling it was you,” Ignacio said, not looking up from his position at the desk. “After all, who else has a key?”
Pilar stopped right in front of him. “What are you involved in?”
She’d always admired him, wanted to impress him with what a good worker she was, tried so hard to get him to respect her .
He sighed. “I know you heard our conversation—much of it, at least. I imagine you’ve figured that out for yourself.”
“You’re feeding information to the regime. About what—our patrons, your neighbors, me?”
“I didn’t want to.” He looked up, his eyes red. “You have to believe me. I didn’t want any of this. My wife—”
There wasn’t much he loved more than his books, but his wife, well—
Pilar knew he loved her a great deal.
“She was taking in sewing, taking items in barter and someone reported it. When they came to our house—we had extra meat we weren’t supposed to have. Her health—she wouldn’t have survived if they chose to imprison her.”
No, she doubted Ignacio’s wife would have, especially after seeing the toll prison had taken on Esteban. And still, even as she had sympathy for the choice he’d had to make, she couldn’t reconcile his decision to sacrifice others.
“You must have given them something very valuable in order for them to spare her.”
He was silent for a moment. “It was the library. They wanted to make sure there was nothing subversive going on here. They made me report anything suspicious that I saw.”
This whole time she’d wondered why the regime was interested in her, assumed it had something to do with Enrique, but now she saw the truth—Ignacio had given her up.
“What did you tell them about me?”
How much did he know?
He blanched, his gaze moving to a point past her shoulder, still refusing to look her in the eye.
“Nothing. I swear it. They asked me about you, considering what had happened with your husband. It was exactly as I told you—they wanted to know if you’re loyal to the revolution and I told them yes, that I had no reason to believe otherwise. I warned you. I’ve protected you.”
She almost believed him. Or, at the very least, she almost believed that he believed himself.
She almost believed him, except for the fact that he wouldn’t meet her gaze, and more than anything, he looked like a man who was carrying a terrible guilt.
“What have you done?”
He met her gaze. Held it.
She saw the answer in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
No .
“How? Why?”
“They kept pushing me. Threatening me. Telling me I had to give them information. You know how important this place is, how important these books are. I didn’t want them endangering the library. Didn’t want them harming you.”
Horror filled her. “So, you gave up my husband instead?”
“I didn’t know what he was involved in. Didn’t know he was working against the regime.”
“Then what did you tell them to get my husband killed?”
“He was here to pick you up from work one day, and he was talking to a man. Enrique looked surprised to see him, and the conversation turned rather heated. I didn’t realize the man was someone the secret police were already watching.
All I did was tell them about it. I didn’t know things would turn out the way they did.
I didn’t know they would kill him. I didn’t—”
In her grief-stricken moments, she’d wondered how she would respond if she was ever confronted with the men who were responsible for Enrique’s death. In her nightmares, in her rage, she’d always envisioned them to be nameless, faceless strangers.
She’d never considered the possibility that it would be one of the few people she thought of as a friend.
Ignacio stared at her as though he was searching for some sort of absolution, some forgiveness she was both unwilling and unable to give.
And finally, when no words came, when she realized that all that existed between them was a vast nothingness, the library no longer a place she could ever fathom returning to, she fled.