Leave it to Fernando to suction all the fun out of a place. At the tiny Cienfuegos airport he strode up to the helicopter and made a show of stiffly embracing his brother. Then he whispered the lineup of interviews scheduled for the afternoon: The New York Times, Agence France-Presse, El País, Der Spiegel, CNN, Associated Press. The reporters had gone on a tour of Museo Girón, where key mementos of the Bay of Pigs—photos, film footage, weapons, tanks, even some airplane wreckage—were on display. Now they were eager to speak with the tyrant himself.
“No fucking way,” El Comandante interrupted with a forced grin. “It’s a press conference or nothing.”
“Don’t embarrass me, hermano. This took weeks to plan.” Fernando glared at him but scurried off to arrange the press conference.
The heat was unbearable, three-dimensional. The tyrant stood alone on the scorching tarmac, accepting floral bouquets from one pretty schoolgirl after another, each reciting a well-rehearsed speech he ignored. All he wished was to go inside, where it was cool and he could have a drink. El Conejo appeared out of nowhere (a rabbit out of a hat, como siempre) and escorted his boss into the terminal. Soon he was seated comfortably at the evacuated bar with a scotch on the rocks. Nothing escaped his twisted little adviser’s attention. In five minutes, El Conejo filled him in on everything he needed to know for the visit. He’d also dispatched an undercover agent to infiltrate the Bay of Pigs musical. The agent, a veteran of Angola, had been cast as a snapping turtle.
“A what?”
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.
At last, the overhead lights flickered off. A bespectacled narrator in a turtle’s carapace stepped out from behind the curtain into a spotlight and began singing in a high tenor. “Fever and madness consumed many men . . .” El Comandante perused the program. The musical consisted of a single act divided into three scenes: Day One—Advance on Playa Larga; Day Two—Mercenaries on the Run; Day Three—Victory at Playa Girón. So who the fuck was this turtle? He squinted and checked the program again. Cojones, it was supposed to be Fernández, the hero who’d commanded the main column of Cuban forces during the invasion!
The curtains slowly opened to reveal a spectacular swamp scene populated by amphibians toting toy machine guns. They were determined to defend their swamp and swore allegiance to their bearded commander in chief, a frog in fatigues. “Fear not,” Commander Frog croaked, simultaneously chewing on a cigar. “The tanks, antiaircraft guns, and other artillery are on their way!”
The creatures burst into jubilant song:
On their way, on their way
The guns and artillery are on their way
Our leader rules the island fearlessly
In our hemisphere he has no peer . . .
The audience laughed uproariously. “Animal Farm meets La Revolución,” the British ambassador stage-whispered directly behind the despot. A cardboard cutout of a B-26 bomber—the silhouette of a pig in its cockpit—incited pandemonium. “Is that our plane?” squeaked a crab with blue eyestalks before the chorus kicked in again:
Bombs they will drop
On our innocent folk
Steal our dignity
Make us drink Coke!
Even these preposterous lyrics got wild applause. Had everyone gone stark raving mad? The audience seemed entranced by the animals, the sets, the songs. The whole farce was an incurable disease to which all had succumbed. The tyrant had half a mind to walk out, but doing so would only call more attention to this disaster. He felt like a condemned man. In the next scene Commander Frog set up headquarters at the Australia sugar mill, issuing orders in his bass baritone. He was unintentionally hilarious, woodenly reciting his lines with a slight lisp. (Where was that handsome militiaman the despot had handpicked to play him?) This was no homage but a grand mocking of him and his revolution. He’d have that faggot’s head for this.
The spectacle trudged on as both sides suffered significant casualties. In spite of himself, the tyrant cheered the melodramatic deaths of the mercenary pigs. One of them performed a swoon worthy of Swan Lake, to much enthusiastic applause. At the height of the battle, Commander Frog ordered an artillery bombardment of Playa Girón, deafeningly rendered by the orchestra’s percussion section. He followed this with a showstopping aria, “Victory Is in the Air”:
Our victory will be sweeter than sugarcane
Sweeter than sweet potatoes, sweeter than rain
Our victory is righteous, it’s preordained . . .
Soon the swamp animals had the pigs on the run. U.S. Navy destroyers attempted to rescue the squealing swine to no avail. The audience gasped when one of the cardboard destroyers went up in flames (it’d gotten too close to a spotlight), believing it was part of the special effects. The pigs charged to put out the fire but were promptly taken prisoner. In the last scene, Commander Frog and his cronies launched into the grand finale, a reggaeton that had them hip-hop dancing under the erratic lighting.
The audience got in the swing, and a conga line broke out in the back row, snaking its way through the aisles, converging on the stage, shimmying and gyrating to the beat. The Danish ambassador swung a lacy black bra over the heads of her fellow dignitaries while the ordinarily reserved delegation from Japan let loose with hip bumping and high-fiving. El Comandante stayed put, smiling his lockjaw smile, mentally going down the list of people who would pay for this heresy.
1. “Una Noche con Tí” is our signature song. I picked up the maracas so I could spend more time with Feito, the lead singer. Mami taught me that all men are lying, cheating dogs like my father, who left for Miami when I was a baby. Feito wrote “Una Noche con Tí” after our first night together. I felt the pain before I felt the pleasure, but now I live for the pleasure. Our conjunto has swing, everybody says so. Feito promises me that we’ll be famous someday and travel the world like the Buena Vista Social Club.
—Eva Molina, maracas player