Revolutionary

Revolutionary

• September 2025

Ezekiel 11:19 ● Matthew 28:18-20

 

From the bow, the island looked the same as when he had left. Lush vegetation blanketed the mountains, squandered itself throughout the valleys then fell like capes across the seashore. Haze lifted from the valleys, collecting sunlight, coveting it like treasure. How was it, he thought, that such abundance yields such crippling poverty?

“This humidity, it will take some getting used to. You know, after living so many years in Oregon.”

Nestor Aragon put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “No different than Little Havana. And you’re right, it will. We’ll adjust. We managed when we moved to Oregon, you know, back when. Where’s the bebé?”

“Oh, she found some children to play with. She’s fine. And fair warning: if Liliana hears you call her the bebé one more time, you know what she’ll do.”

“I do. I’ll get the hands-on-the-hips and fire-in-the-eyes treatment along with “Daddy! I’m almost ten!”

Ixtaro pressed her head against his shoulder. He felt his heart warm as she laced her arm around his waist. When she spoke to him, her tone was softer. “I love you, Nestor. I’m glad we’re doing this. It feels right.”

“Love you too, mi amor. Glad we’re together on this.”

A wave of feelings, some like old friends, others, new and strange, washed over him as he recalled the day he left Cuba, the day he’d whispered a promise to the wind. … “Adiós, tierra de mi corazón … algún dia volveré.” Farewell, land of my heart … someday I shall return.

Now, after more than twenty years, he was honoring the promise, this time carrying in his heart a precious and shining pearl … one, as a youth, he had not known. Things had changed. Dios mío, how things had changed.

Those many years ago, the weeks of training in Havana had made him dish-rag tired. Toward the end, it took all he had to attend to his mentor, the Repellant Russian, Timofey Morozov, whose so-called indoctrination of sowing the seeds of Communism in the U.S. had scarcely been worth the effort. Morozov’s interest lay not in proselyting Communist fledglings but in guzzling aguardiente. By two in the afternoon, the Russian was as useful as a pickle in brine.

The training ended. Then came the waiting. And waiting. And more waiting.

Eventually, word came. Nestor boarded the bus to Manzanillo, located the pier, then the boat, and ten hours later became one of a crowd going ashore at Montego Bay. Another bus ride left him at Jamaica’s Sangster Airport where, fake Puerto Rican passport in hand, Nestor took his first ever plane ride. Two hours later, he set foot on American soil.

Miami proper held little appeal for Nestor. For all its glitz and promise, to his eye, the city was but part of the capitalista fist that clutched the American soul to its grasping financial heart.

After establishing himself at a side-street posada, Nestor set to waiting again for the agreed-upon date and time when he would meet his Partido Comunista de Cuba contact. Although welcome as a stinging insect amidst Little Havana’s Alpha 66 Cubano exiles, the PCC clung to its anarchic hope of revolution with spindle-fingers.

Nestor’s arrival at Pequeño Habana went unnoticed; just one more Cubano, a pea in a pod, a cigar in a box. Nestor contented himself with walking Calle Ocho and the neighboring streets, perusing shops and sampling restaurants, finally settling on one that served arroz y frijoles that tasted like Mama’s. That was not the deciding factor, however, for the force that drew him was a waitress who caused his heart to thump like a tumbadora drum. Ixtaro, whose name meant ‘Hope,’ was a rose among thorns, gold amidst dross, and the one he hoped to marry.

On his strolls, he liked how fragrances of fruit and the sea roiled in the air. Murals abounded, filling whatever bare wall space as could be found: here, Jose Marti gave stern approval; across the street, Celia Cruz sang silently of joy. Danzón music thundered from rum bars as teen-age girls in tight jeans and colorful tops salsa-danced on the sidewalks. In Máximo Gómez Park, grey men skirmished over dominos. Come the Calle Ocho Music Festival, all traffic ceased, giving was to shoulder-to-shoulder celebrants.

The day of meeting arrived. His man, Mendo, was costumed in a military field jacket, black beret, beard, and the ubiquitous half-smoked cigar. After el Revolucionario was captured and executed in Bolivia, Che Guevara wannabe’s popped up like mushrooms after a spring shower. Nestor met Mendo in a cantina that burned Nestor’s eyes and nose with the reek of stale beer and cheap cigars, a place so poorly kept that he was sure los ratos had abandoned it to las cucarachas.

Nestor approached the table. They exchanged the code phrases. Mendo gestured, take a seat. Would you like un cerveza? Un cigarro?

No, y no, gracias, no.

Mendo handed him an envelope. He opened it to find a pack of hundred-dollar bills, thirty of them, a plane ticket, and two names – one, his ultimate destination, and two, the name of his contact there. He gave Mendo a gracias and an adiós and returned to his pensión where he thought how it was that he had been brought to this time and this place. Mostly, he thought of Ixtaro.

At the family home in Bayamo, Nestor’s childhood had been a carefree one. Papá, a secondary school teacher of matemáticas, tended a small garden where he kept two trees, one for oranges, one for limes. He grew potatoes, tomatoes, chilis, maize and beans, and enough casava to satisfy Mama’s tradition which she would not surrender.

As for Nestor and his brothers and sisters, they had enough corn for tortillas and pesos for rice, so why was it that Mamá invested so many hours in the soaking, drying and scraping the casava roots into a mash that nobody liked? Ay carajo, that was Mamá.

Life was pleasant for him as a child, largely because he and his siblings didn’t know their condition was anything other than normal. With the average income of 300 pesos a month, an equivalent of $10 or $12 dollars, everyone in Bayamo had the same struggles. Milk, cheese, meat and eggs were unaffordable luxuries. Cooking oil was hoarded and recycled. Mosquito nets were seldom replaced as there were none to be had. One learned to live with malaria. Candles, those rare blessings of light, were treated with reverence. Sweets, other than gnawing a spike of sugar cane, came only from more of Mama’s labor; rendering sugar from cane took almost as much time as rendering casava paste. Helado, ice cream? A myth.

Remarkably, inexplicably, in the face of this poverty, ‘Viva la revolucion!’ sustained its shimmering illusion of faith, supplanting the Catholic church with its untenable promise of hope. Broadside slogans, once intended to encourage, had long since faded to impotence yet continued to fill wall space and billboards and banners – Viva Cuba Libre! Nosotras Venceremos! Hasta la Victoria! Long live free Cuba! We shall overcome! To Victory!

To Nestor’s father, Socialism was their guarantee to the future; to his mother, her “lo creeré cuando lo vea,” said it all: I will believe it when I see it. Once El Maximo, Fidel Castro, assumed leadership for Cuba, Papá and his four children relinquished the duty of church attendance to Mamá, who stubbornly made her daily trek to the Catedral de Santisimo Salvador for early mass. By the time she arrived back home, she had proudly repeated the rosary four times, adding more luster to her ebony beads.

When Nestor entered Bayamo’s premier university, ‘Venceremos’ was written inside his eyelids, tattooed on his tongue and engraved on his liver. So thorough was his indoctrination that when Professor Diego Álvarez clapped Nestor Aragon, “my burly, affable bear whom everyone loves” on the shoulder and suggested he would be an ideal candidate for furthering the Communist cause in the United States, Nestor raised his fist high and boomed, “Sí! Lo haré!” so loudly it caused others to stop and wonder just what it was this crazy man said he would do.

He did not linger at university; whatever matriculation he might need, he presumed he would be assigned to a Soviet or Cuban intellectual to fulfill. Although that was the theory, it was soon disproved by the foundering Morosov. In truth, all of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin that Nestor would ever need came from reading and re-reading Spanish translations of The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. Morosov, as far as Nestor was concerned, would forever be a pickled pickle.

At the age of twenty, Nestor, the true believer, the committed disciple, was  convinced of Communism’s merit, certain it would prevail throughout the world. So perfect it was, how could it not prevail … even in the profligate U.S.

So now he had been given his first assignment along with enough money to get started. There was promise of more to come. He was ready to leave, to fulfill his mission. But Ixtaro? Madre de Dios, what of Ixtaro?

Having never been in love, Nestor was unsure about what he felt. Worse, he was unsure about what this beautiful Cuban woman felt for him. She liked him, this much he knew. But was there anything more?

Before sleep took him that night, he thought of how easily they had fallen into comfortable, happy conversation. He thought of how her face was so beautiful that to look at her directly caused him pain and joy, made him want to weep and laugh. He thought of how her hair flowed like black silk, how her skin looked like caramel candy and should he touch it with his tongue, that is what he would taste. He thought of how her eyebrows peaked with joy when she laughed. He thought of how her delicate fingers felt like a butterfly’s caress the one time she touched his cheek. He thought of how her eyes, as dark as night but alive with fire, held untold promises he was desperate to learn. He thought of how her lips, full and rich and ripe, haunted him, and wondered over and again, what would it be like to kiss her?

In the morning, at the restaurant where she worked, Nestor, his head filled with doubt and his heart filled with resolve, said, “Ixtaro, something important has come up. I must speak to you. Privately. After work. May we meet somewhere?”

“Por supuesto, of course. At the park?”

And that is where they met and where Nestor told Ixtaro that he would soon leave Pequeña Habana and fly to Oregon where he would begin a new work. Then, feeling as if he was learning to walk and talk all over again, he fumbled and stumbled and spoke the words of his heart. “Ixtaro, all day and well into the night, I think of nothing but you. I have fallen in love with you. It … it is my heart’s greatest desire that we marry.”

Ixtaro rewarded him with the kiss he’d dreamed of, and it was even better than in his dreams, for with it came the words, “Te amo. I love you, too.”

A rose of joy blossomed within Nestor’s heart but its petals turned to ash the moment Ixtaro asked, “Nestor, tell me of this work. What is you do?”

Dread now shaded his heart where joy had so recently shone and he had no choice but to tell her, “Amada, beloved, I am a member of the PCC. I have been assigned to a city on the west coast, where I will build the Communist Party.”

He knew what her answer would be.

“Preciado, my father, he is Alpha 66, an exile. He despises Castro and Communism and all that it stands for, all that has happened there. Although my heart cries out for you, Nestor, I … I cannot marry you.”

Two days later, Nestor flew to Portland. There he met his contact and was assigned to a nearby city. There, he arranged to meet the party members two nights hence. Before the meeting, his hope shone like the sun; when he arrived, his hope fell like the night. Three people were at the meeting.

Nestor found employment in a lumber yard, stacking boards, sawing wood, and making deliveries. Using the funds he’d received from the PCC, he found a small furnished apartment and purchased a used pickup truck. He ate meagerly and lived frugally, something to which he was accustomed. He met twice monthly with his cell and carefully, cautiously and relying on his natural gregariousness, Nestor shared the promise of Lenin and the hope of Marx to any who would listen, inviting the curious and the dissatisfied to attend the meetings. After four months, the membership had grown to 16.

His letters to Ixtaro were frequent; hers, in return, came not often enough. The rose in his heart blossomed once again when he read, “Mi amor, my life is a barren desert without you.” 

Halloween, a holiday which baffled Nestor, came and went without notice. Alone, he ate Spam with two fried eggs for Thanksgiving; a Milky Way was dessert. After a Christmas dinner of soup and toast, he had just settled in with a book when there came a knock on the door.

It was Ixtaro.

Before they were married, Ixtaro made her feelings plain: “I do not agree with your politics, Nestor, but I am consumed with love for you. My belief is in you, and in our love. I do not doubt our love will triumph.”

The wedding took place in City Hall. A judge performed the service. Two party members stood witness. Her parents, who knew of Nestor’s politics, refused to come. His parents and brothers and sisters couldn’t afford to. The ceremony was over and done in fifteen minutes.

The political climate of America had become tenuous. Jagged claws tore at the nation’s fabric as people took sides: ‘Love it or leave it’ conservatives vied against ‘Make Love Not War’ liberals over the conflict in Vietnam. The appearance of Soviet missiles on Cuban soil was answered by a naval embargo as John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev stood toe to toe, rattling nuclear sabers at one another. A year and a month later, Kennedy’s assassination shocked and disjointed the country, turning uncertainty and paranoia to a creeping, insidious fear. When the murder of Martin Luther King was encored by the killing of Robert Kennedy, the United States fell into a miasma of suspicion, exaggerated by rumors of black helicopters at night and wiretaps on phones and the massing of clandestine troops ready to defend or attack one’s favorite paranoia, be it the Red Threat, the Black Muslims, the National Guard, the Chicago 7, a repeat of Kent State, Haight-Ashbury or Woodstock.

No less paranoid than everyone else, Nestor purchased a pistol, a .45, and a shoulder holster. He had a shoe repair shop sew a sheath into his boot for a Bowie knife with an 10-inch blade. Ixtaro was horrified, not so much that her husband had these weapons, but that he never left their home without them.

Within a year’s time, Unhappiness joined hands with Paranoia in Nestor and Ixtaro’s home, bringing along their partner, Dissatisfaction. Resentment showed up soon after, then Disrespect came and soiled the place. Chirpy little Bickering visited frequently. Misery waved from the doorway. Self-Vindication snickered from dim corners.

For Nestor, the solution was to double his efforts, to work harder, more diligently. After all, the United States’ national dissatisfaction was a formidable tool for the Communist recruiter, was it not? As was said in the Bible, ‘The field was ripe for harvest.’

By the end of the war in Vietnam, Nestor breathed a sigh of pride and relief. Membership of his cell now exceeded 200. 217, to be exact. Surely, Communism was taking root. Surely, it would continue to grow.

His pride blinded him to Ixtaro’s eyes, now pouched and darkened with futility. No surprise that one evening, she announced, “Nestor, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore. Your devotion to that damned party, your cell, whatever you call it, takes all your time, your energy, your focus. You have nothing left for us and you do it all for what? Other than building membership, the party accomplishes nothing! You just meet and plot and plan and nothing happens! American rolls on, oblivious to you. What do you think you’re doing?”

Something dark crept across his vision. He felt anger burn and boil in his gut and saw the alarm in his wife’s eyes as his hand rested on his pistol. He kept his tongue, put on his jacket and slammed the door on his way out, so hard as to splinter the frame.

Three mornings later, Nestor awoke to warm sunlight peeping through the curtains. Ixtaro slept at his side. Nothing had changed. Everything was different.

He drifted his fingers across his wife’s shoulder. Her eyes fluttered.

“Mi amor, you have not told me anything I do not already know. You are right,” he said. “It does not work. Communism is an empty dream.”

They breakfasted together, exchanging tentative looks over second cups of coffee. Nestor’s cup clacked when he set it down. “Let’s take a ride,” he said.

When they left the apartment, for the first time in more years than he could recall, he left his pistol and knife in the dresser drawer.

As he drove, desolation filled his mind. His body felt as if it had been filled with the detritus from a grease pit. His soul? Mere vapor. He wanted to weep, but could not.

They drove for an hour, more, perhaps. When they passed a tall, white structure, it caught Nestor’s eye. A cross. A church. He turned in the driveway and stopped. “I need to go in. I must talk to someone.”

Ixtaro’s eyes widened, and softened. “Want me to come with you?”

“No. Yes. Yes, come with me.”

Nestor asked a receptionist if the pastor was in. “Could he see us? Please?”

Her kindly, “Is it urgent?” drew the reply, “Yes! Please!” Nestor held his breath.

“Please have a seat. I’ll see if Pastor John can meet with you now.”

Ixtaro sat as Nestor wandered about the anteroom, peering at photographs, glancing at posters, settling on a framed hand-lettered document titled Our Mission.

He read, To all who mourn and need comfort; to all who are weary and need rest; to all who are friendless and need friendship; to all who are lonely and need companionship; to all who sin and need a Savior; and to whosoever will – this church opens its doors and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, says, Welcome!

He felt something move inside but did not know what it was. He felt short of breath. He clapped his hand over his heart. A tear escaped and slid down his cheek.

“The pastor can see you now.”

Pastor John Smith (yes, his real name) welcomed the couple into his office. “How can I help you?”

Like water, Nestor poured out his story of how he had been the leader of the Communist cell in their city for these many years, and how he had awakened this very morning to a between-the-eyes lightning bolt that spoke to him: Nestor, all this time, it said, your efforts have been for naught.

Rather than relieving oppression, he saw how Communism used the hammer of poverty to crush the proletariat into submission, enticing him with the carrot of false hope only to beat him about the head and shoulders with a stick of mindless obedience. Workers of the world, unite! Are you hungry? Here, have a slogan: You have nothing to lose but your chains, nothing to gain but a new illusion! Have faith in the party! Are you filled now? Are you free?

Bah! Not only did Communism not work, it took the lives of its subjects, squeezed them like lumps of clay and set them to tick and tock like clockwork parts. Where was the reward, the satisfaction? Nowhere. It did not exist.

His cell of communists, the one he’d grown to more than two hundred believers in the Revolution? He was a shepherd of sheep whose fleece had become thick with briars and thistles of discontent, whose guts were filled with bog-water and sour straw. No, wait: he was no shepherd – he was another sheep. Baaa.

 Marx was wrong. Lenin was wrong. Josef and Nikita were wrong. Fidel was wrong. His father was wrong. Did anyone get it right? Well, yes, as a matter of fact: George Orwell, as they say, was ‘right on.’

“Pastor,” he said. “Tell us about Jesus.”

It is possible for something to be broken and filled at the same time, Nestor realized, for that described his heart. As Pastor John began slowly, carefully unfold truths from the Gospel, Nestor devoured and drank in the words … I am the good shepherd … I know my sheep and my sheep know me … my sheep listen to my voice and they follow me … I give them eternal life and they shall never perish … no one will snatch them out of my hand … come unto me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest … the Spirit of the Lord is on me … he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor … set the oppressed free … your sins are forgiven … I am the way and the truth and the life … no one comes to the Father but by me … I am the light of the world.

Unashamed tears caressed Nestor’s cheeks. When he turned to look at his beloved wife, to see if she, too, was hearing the Words of God, her tears were very much like his own.

When Pastor John read, “I am the resurrection and the life … whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life,” Nestor fell to his knees and cried out a litany of grief and failure, of confessions of shame and sinful acts. Finally done, emptied, he was refilled with blessings with shining forgiveness and healing and restoration. Again, he wept, now, with gratitude.

Together, they sang, “Glory to God in the highest … may his name be blessed forever and ever … He is King, He is Lord, He is the Holy One of Israel.” Their voices joined with Pastor John Smith’s as they caroled, “Hallelujah, hallelujah” and “Amen and amen.”

            “Amen and amen.”

“Amen and amen.”

Long moments came and went before anyone could speak. In time, Pastor John whispered, “The Lord is with us” and Nestor and Ixtaro knew this to be true.

As they drove to their home, a new vision attended Nestor’s heart. He knew what he must do. The preparation would take time. The journey would be a long one. He found comfort, often, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.” He was consoled by the words of his wife, “Truly, we have become one, mi amor.”

A year passed, then another. Pastor John said, “Nestor, you have grown like the mustard plant Jesus spoke of in his parable. But you still are not ready. Be patient. Soon.

In time, Nestor and Ixtaro were blessed by the arrival of Lilliana. Then, the waiting was done. Seminary was a joy, hallmarked with hard work, diligent study, and stimulating discussions with new, lifelong friends. At the end of two years came graduation and a diploma: the certificate that headlined his name in Old English lettering pronounced him a Master of the Art of Global Leadership.

But they were not done, for then came the onerous raising of funds; another eighteen months came and went. In that time, the scope and screed of politics was fully subsumed by the shining light of the gospel. Salvation and saviors would never, could never come from the political arena. Jesus was about redeeming the human spirit. Politics with all its hype and baying and pirouettes pretended as if it, too, was up to the task. But no, it could never be. Too much godless clutter, the mounds of tinsel and glitz, the backroom promises and secret-deal dollars got in the way.

They knew they were ready that morning Nestor opened the mail and read a letter to his wife. It was from the village of Cascoro. “A man there, Paz Guerrero, says they are open to receiving a missionary family. The government, he says, it will turn a blind eye.”

Nestor embraced his wife. “Ixtaro,” he pronounced, “it is time.”

“Husband of mine,” she said, “where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” She gave him a kiss even better than the first one she had given him in Little Havana those many years ago.

Coming now from the sea, the fragrance of his homeland was rich with the sea and the trees and grasses. Something long lost reawakened in his heart and he whispered to the wind, “Tierra de mi corazón, he regresado. Te amaré como nunca antes.”

“Land of my heart, I have returned. I shall love you as never before.”

Revolutionary © copyright 2023 Peter K. Schipper