King of Cuba (22 page)

El Conejo assured him that nothing seemed amiss except for a certain extravagance of bad taste.

“Gracias, hombre.” El Comandante chased his scotch with a swig of cough suppressant.

His adviser was rarely granted any direct expression of appreciation, and he flushed with pleasure. “A sus órdenes, Jefe,” he whispered before vanishing as inexplicably as he’d appeared.

Fernando redirected the press to the Palacio de Valle, where the tyrant’s birthday reception would be held later in the day. The palace was a garish mixture of Gothic, Venetian, and neo-Moorish architecture built by a local sugar baron in the early 1900s. Its sole redeeming feature was a stunning balcony overlooking the sea. El Comandante took one look at the place and decided to move the conference to the Castillo de Jagua instead. By the time Fernando and the sweaty, disheveled band of journalists found their way there, the mood was ugly.

El Comandante had been displeased with the international press coverage of him lately. This was his opportunity to remind these loser reporters who ruled around here. Last spring he’d stonewalled
Le Monde’
s political correspondent after he’d referred to the
Revolution in a prominent Sunday feature as “an exercise in irrationality.” It unhinged reporters to be denied access to power and made them lose credibility with their editors. The tyrant called on the irascible Associated Press correspondent first.

“Excuse me, but why the hell have we been moved here?”

El Comandante beheld the man for a moment before answering: “This castle was built nearly three hundred years ago to protect the bay from pirates. I thought it the most appropriate venue to host our friends in the press.”

The room erupted with laughter, breaking the tension. The tyrant knew how much journalists hated leaders who took themselves too seriously. Essentially, the whole lot of them were cynics, relegated to the sidelines of history, never making news themselves unless they happened to be killed in the line of duty, after which they became footnotes to their own headlines. This inconsequentiality led to chronic bitterness and no small amount of Schadenfreude in their ranks.

“How many more birthdays do you plan on celebrating?” joked the sideburned correspondent from
Corriere della Sera
.

“Another three Popes’ worth,” El Comandante retorted to more laughter.

“It’s said that despite your brother’s official position as head of state, you continue to be in charge. Is that true?”

In the bright lights, the tyrant couldn’t tell who’d asked the question. He spied the querulous Fernando standing against the far wall, balancing on the balls of his feet, hands clasped behind his back. Waiting, always waiting.

“I give him my full support as commander in chief, and I believe he’s doing a good job on multiple fronts.”

Fernando’s grievous face brightened.

El Comandante then leaned mischievously into the microphone. “But I can still kick his ass.”

“Tell us what we can expect at tonight’s performance.” This came from a Peruvian reporter, an old newshound whose few strands of hair were unattractively plastered to his forehead.

El Líder shrugged. “That, ladies and gentlemen of the press, will be my brother’s surprise birthday gift to me.”

“They say this citadel is haunted. What can you tell us about it?” asked the feisty bureau chief from Madrid’s largest daily newspaper. Years ago El Comandante had tried, unsuccessfully, to bed her.

“Bueno, legend has it that a mysterious lady in blue—very much like yourself, Señorita Díaz”—an outburst of wolf whistles here—“roamed the rooms and corridors of the castle, frightening the security guards. One morning a guard was found at the edge of the moat in a state of shock, twisting a swatch of blue cloth and babbling nonsense.” The tyrant rolled his eyes heavenward. “Ay, the torments of a beautiful woman . . .”

Laughter and hooting all around.

“Many say that the Cuban people are starving, that they are resorting to prostitution again to survive—”

The tyrant turned to his brother. “Who the hell is he?”

The reporter, a hulking redhead with a jutting chin, persisted. “The country’s rations are lower than during the Special Period and they last for only six days out of—”

“You are misinformed!” El Comandante roared. “You should get your facts straight before embarrassing yourself and your publication. What is the name of your rag?”

“
Harper’s,
” he said, and the journalists tittered.

“Since the triumph of the Revolution, our people have never gone hungry,” the tyrant boomed, jabbing the air with his forefinger. “Nor have they gone without medical attention, or a world-class education. These privileges cost your people untold billions every year and the quality is substandard. Starving? What rubbish! If anything, we need to go on a campaign to
lose
weight . . .”

Fernando approached the podium. The dictator rattled off a stream of facts: the caloric discrepancies between rich and developing nations, the nutritional value of yams, the unrivaled purity of island sugar. Once he got going, he could talk for four, eight, twelve hours, his hacking cough notwithstanding. For once, Fernando wished he could just tell his brother to shut the fuck up.

“Perdóname, Jefe, but we need to continue this conversation at another time.” Fernando placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder, then turned to the reporters. “We look forward to seeing you at tonight’s performance of
Bay of Pigs: The Musical!
, and to your positive coverage of this historic event.”

“Get your fucking hands off me,” the tyrant growled, close enough to the microphone for everyone to hear. How dare Fernando humiliate him in front of these vermin? If he didn’t control himself, decades of revolutionary history would boil down to this: a Shakespearean tragedy between two brothers. El Comandante looked out at the sea of scribbling hyenas. “If you thought that was good,” he teased, “just wait until you see the play.”

Bilingual Specials from the Best Paladar in the Capital

Croquetas de pescado / Fish croquettes

Frituras de malanga / Fried taro root

Cherna frita / Fried grouper

Arroz con frijoles / Rice with black beans

Plátanos maduros / Fried sweet plantains

Pastel de limón / Lemon pie

Shortly before dusk, the whole world was on the balcony of the Palacio de Valle. Waiters circulated with mojitos and tropical drinks, and the thirty-foot-long buffet offered up the island’s finest: fresh grilled lobsters, calamari, garlic shrimp, deep-fried snapper, roasted pork, baked plantains, marinated hearts of palm salad, coconut flan . . . The despot was still incensed over the press conference. The insolence of those questions! As if he were ruling over a Haiti or a Sudan, not the most enduring revolution on the planet. Despite the food shortages, nobody went hungry in Cuba. Only the goddamn dissidents were starving—and that was by choice. Even those hard-core Damas de Blanco were a portly lot. In any case, why the hell should the Revolution supply food for thirty days a month when citizens stole enough for twenty? Furiously, he ferreted out pecans from a bowl of roasted nuts.

A conjunto from Santiago was playing a traditional
son
.
¹
Its singer had won a nationwide Beny Moré impersonator contest last year. If the tyrant closed his eyes, he could imagine himself in a nightclub circa 1950, listening to the velvety crooner. The singer was a dead ringer for Beny, too: the same slicked-back hair and soulful eyes; the same smooth moves. El Comandante had known the real Beny but quickly discovered that the singer had been infinitely more interested in rum than in politics.

The aging president of Zimbabwe greeted El Líder with an
entourage of stunning consorts. The two statesmen compared notes on folk remedies for insomnia and virility—
not that we would ever need it, ha!
The tyrant offered the Zimbabwean a Cohiba and promised him a tête-á-tête in the morning. The Nigerian leader joined them, and the talk turned to the superlative skills of their respective drug-busting airport dogs: Rottweilers in Lagos, heattolerant Chihuahuas on the island. If only they could sniff out their enemies as easily, they joked. “Most of my friends
are
my enemies,” the Nigerian added, and everyone laughed.

Thunderclouds darkened the skies. The rumbling drowned out the conversation, and the first drops of rain drove the guests inside. Lightning struck a nearby royal palm, torching its fronds into a fiery headdress. “Changó is with us this evening,” the Nigerian said with a nod. As the rain came down hard, the crowd fought its way into the ballroom, which grew insufferably close from the sudden body heat of a thousand guests. The waiters did their best to continue serving drinks, but the commotion impeded their efforts. The atmosphere grew anxious without the music and nerves-soothing rum. To make matters worse, the air-conditioning died with a deafening clank, replaced by the drone of mosquitoes carelessly let in by the stampede.

El Comandante held up an arm to quiet the crowd. “Distinguished guests,” he began. “I am grateful that you’ve come to share in the triumph of our revolution this evening. No minor storm engineered by the CIA”—a surge of appreciative laughter—“will interfere with our celebrations.” He signaled the reassembled musicians, who struck up “El Cuarto de Tula,” a hit from the film that had traveled the world in the nineties.

The guests swarmed the dance floor, their heat and discomfort momentarily forgotten. Dancing to island music wasn’t easy if you weren’t born to it. In colder climes, people moved their hips like hinges—forward and back, or side to side with creaky imprecision.
But here, por Dios, hips swiveled, rotated, thrust, shimmied, lubricated by the humidity and the anticipation of the superior sex that awaited them. El Comandante chose to “dance” only in private, but he could tell everything about a person by the way he or she moved. For years he’d employed confiscated yachts for his most special assignations—unforgettable women from here and abroad—as armed frogmen protected the vessels anchored offshore.

The band transitioned into a salsa version of “Happy Birthday.” The waiters rolled in a gigantic meringue cake with flaming candles. It looked like a forest fire glowing over a field of glittering snow. El Comandante approached the cake warily, as he might a land mine, searching for anyone who could help him extinguish the flames. This was either another plot by his enemies to burn him alive or an homage to his longevity. The guests joined him in a collective gasp, then blew as hard as they could. The chaotic crosscurrents of high-alcohol-content breaths fueled the flames to new heights, ultimately requiring the efforts of six bodyguards and a rusty fire extinguisher to put out. Nobody got so much as a soggy piece of cake.

The Teatro Tomás Terry, a splendid two-tiered theater with ornate balustrades, had been restored to its former colonial glory for El Comandante’s birthday celebration. Both Enrico Caruso and Sarah Bernhardt had performed here in their primes, a source of great local pride. The tyrant was escorted to his seat in the third row center (no one was permitted to sit in front of him). The program cover featured a vintage photo of him looking quite dashing at the height of the Bay of Pigs invasion: a megaphone in one hand, a pistol in the other, the ubiquitous cigar in his mouth. The excitement in the theater was palpable.