Mujeres con agallas

Sometimes I have ran into people - men and women - who speak with bravado. I have also known people who are truly courageous as revealed by their acts. Abuela and mamita were in the latter group: they were mujeres con agallas.

One story about abuela's mettle has to do with Fidel. Abuela and most of our family opposed Batista and were part of the clandestine network that formed around Fidel. Because she had her rooming house near the University of La Habana and all those who lived with her and abuelo were students, she knew Fidel, a law student.

Fidel in his period as a university student.
There came a day when the Batista security forces set out to arrest Fidel who had to go into hiding immediately. In his escape from La Habana, abuela's home became his shelter for one night. He needed to move quickly from one hiding place to another to keep ahead of Batista's men so, after one night at abuela's, he moved on to another haven. But soon after he had left, the Batistianos arrived and searched abuela's apartment. She had pigeon coops in the roof and they also searched there. They searched everything but Fidel was gone. Frustrated and very angry, the head of the Batistianos took abuela with him and 1-2 other men back to her bedroom which was the last bedroom, the large one at the rear of the apartment.

I was a young child and I'm not certain they told me of all that happened to abuela after the Batistianos locked themselves in with her in the bedroom. But they did tell me that the head man held a gun against abuela's belly as he questioned her threatening to kill her, that he beat her and that he pistol whipped her breaking her front teeth. But she did not buckle and she did not give Fidel away.

So I grew up knowing that abuela was flawed - harsh and cruel at times - but I also grew up admiring and respecting her. She, like mamita, was a woman with agallas!