Everyone had feared Porteños’s arrival. Workers whispered that he’d broken the legs of an insouciant servant, that he knew about cigar factory strikes in the US and said he’d shoot anyone in his own workshop who dared complain.

“You are not to incite our workers with the imbecile ramblings of European artists with little understanding of the practical labor our good people perform!” he yelled.

Antonio looked at the crumbled scroll in Porteños’s sun-spotted hand. He muttered what sounded like an apology, turning so that María Isabel could see only his back. Her hands trembled so fiercely now that the tobacco fillings scattered across her lap.

Antonio turned, spun the pages of the book on the lectern, adjusted his glasses. He read from Les Misérables as though no disruption had taken place. He didn’t look toward María Isabel once that day and rode off before she could meet him by his horse. And the words of Victor Hugo to Emilia Casanova de Villaverde reverberated through her that lonely night: Who are we? Weakness. No, we are force. She wished he’d read Emilia’s own words.

Each week, there were fewer and fewer rollers in the workshop until only two dozen remained. Some had grown ill from diseases that spread after the fighting—obvious as they grew sallower each day, as they stopped smoking because of the labored breath that followed. When they stopped showing up, María Isabel assumed they had died or grown so sick they could no longer work. Others continued to save their earnings to secure their place on the private ships and dinghies that trekked to Tampa. The war made trade difficult too. Fewer cigars made their way out of the eastern provinces, though demand did not cease.

Antonio took on a different tone—seeking the most uplifting news from La Aurora to highlight, the paper finally reaching them, and suggesting novels that detailed adventurous quests, dramatic romance. When Les Misérables concluded, Antonio never mentioned Victor Hugo again. Voting stopped too. Now Porteños approved the readings, which Antonio spread across his desk each dawn, and María Isabel could sometimes hear whispered objections from Antonio quelled by a slammed fist on the table.