Cevalos took a deep breath and reluctantly replied, “It was a terrible thing that happened here at the outbreak of the Revolution. It can do no good to dredge it up.”
Pasqual added, “They are determined, Father.”
“All right… If you’re determined to unearth this…this terrible thing, follow me.” Cevalos led them out into the slanting afternoon sunlight toward a nearby stone and wood chapel. The sight of the small picturesque building, overgrown with bougainvillea and brilliant with red flowers, stunned Qui and JZ. Its double doors proved to be the real-life image depicted in Tomaso’s photograph, minus the fire damage.
Qui grabbed JZ’s arm her nails digging in as she said, “I knew we’d find answers here.”
“You were right all along, Qui” JZ commented. “You have the intuition of a first-rate detective.”
The priests each held open a door to the shaded, cool interior. “These doors have not been locked since. The lock you carry disappeared sometime after your father photographed it.”
As they entered the chapel, Father Cevalos turned to his young colleague. “Pasqual, you don’t have to come any farther with us. I can handle things from here. Go back to the basilica, make your next move on the chessboard.”
“No, Father, this is something I have to be part of,” Father Pasqual replied. “Just like Rita and the others.”
Cevalos calmly nodded understanding while Qui and JZ were left to puzzle over these last words.
They made a sharp turn just inside the vestibule and descended a spiraling stairwell. The stairs led into the dungeon-like basement. Reaching level ground, Cevalos turned on a switch illuminating a room full of discarded church paraphernalia, from candelabras to pews, the wall lined with dust-laden boxes of forgotten mementos. Approaching what appeared to be a retired confessional, Cevalos entered and deftly removed its back wall revealing a narrow corridor that only nature could create-an ancient limestone cavern. Turning back toward them, he smiled at the surprised expressions. “The Church keeps many secrets.”
Reaching into the cave, he withdrew flashlights, which he passed to the others. “Check your batteries. It’s been awhile.”
“Beginning to feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland,” Qui commented as she lit the flash and stepped into the cave ahead of the others.
“And I’m Buck Rogers,” muttered JZ bringing up the rear, the two priests having gone ahead of them.
“I must show you something.” Cevalos spoke over his shoulder as he marched onward down the corridor.
As they followed Cevalos deep into the upward slanting cavern, his words were swallowed in the dead space, eerily dropping off so that just a few feet away Qui and JZ struggled to hear them. The pitted limestone walls and floor created a space acoustically dead, so peculiarly quiet that Qui felt as if they were inside a tomb. Without the 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.”