194 The Meadow weave, their whisper of intimacy, the smooth ebb and flow like a splinter of moonlight gliding in and out of clouds. The vision of San Pedro de la Cruz as it was, dusty, rutted streets, the wide plaza with the Madonna, all of it rising out of the rhythm of the voice and the music that faded long ago. She looks at the unswept floor of the cantina, feeling for the husk of these memories, what remains of them. A silent old woman has brought her a small glass which rests near her hand, cloudy, amber liquid coating the bottom. Marina raises it to an old photo of Che propped on a shelf near the door, dust covering its face. The young warrior of revolution, eyes alight, a troop of rebels at his feet in some jungle, secure in his righteousness. A long-forgotten image from a magazine comes back to her: his shirtless corpse lying on a slab surrounded by different soldiers laughing, his open eyes staring up, searching like a saint. She thinks of all that once lay behind the eyes, the desperate acts, the ceaseless pull of revolution, a final volley of shots. The martyr’s death. Marina resents the stillness, regrets the absence of voices now. All around her, the tired pueblo seems to be sleeping and her thoughts give way to a swell of regret. I came here to save my brother then. Despite everything, that much I know. Well, not only him, I came to help people who needed it. But it was Sandy’s idea to come. I came to help. She says this aloud in a soft voice. I meant to help, only that. “Yes, that’s what you said then too.” The old man’s words rise up gently from the stillness and leave some absolution in their wake, perhaps just forgiveness. Forgiveness will do. What were you playing? In your room that night, can you remember the melody? “Of course, it was an old Cuban love song.” The old man’s words glide through her mind, intimate like the whisper of a secret. “I learned it in Havana before the revolution, before Castro. There was music everywhere then.”
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