It’s Christmas, 1958, and is there anything
sexier than Cuba? Errol Flynn, faded swashbuckler, bloated
from a floating
decade of vodka, bent spoons, and hypodermics, steers
his white convertible—Havana to Santiago—through the central
battle sectors
of the revolution. He’s here to shoot his latest feature, Cuban
Rebel Girls, starring ingénue Beverly Aadland, seventeen, thin
and green as cane,
playing the young American in love with a rebel
fighter. Flynn will appear as himself. There’s a spot to park back
of the hotel,
so they dock the car, then ask around for Castro. He’s here,
turns out, across town, in a room at the Central America, digesting
the better share
of a festive meal of turkey, black beans, rice, and a cup of mud-
black coffee. Past midnight, a message comes. “Who?” “You know…
Robin Hood, Don Juan, Captain Blood.”
The last minutes of December. Casinos
and nightclubs boom with Big Bands and high-stakes swagger.
Lucky Luciano,
capo de tutti capi, from a high window verging on the Newest Year,
admires the waves’ blunt force rushing the rails of the Malecón.
He’s here
for the fireworks show, and to toast the last heyday of a gangster era
when the mob-boss delegates paid him homage, when the honeymoon
of Frank and Ava
shared the self-same atmosphere with Disney, Astaire, and the tobacco reek
of Churchill’s pout reflected off the Nacional’s tiled lobby.
But now the break
is coming as Batista arrives, across town, late to his own private
party. Glum, he eats dinner where he’s standing, clears his throat
as the date
ticks to the first stark minute of ’59. Already back
in the presidential suite, his children clutch their stamped visas; the DC-4
is fuelling on the tarmac,
waiting on the hurt, defiant speeches of another violent shift of power.
His guests’ leather shoes creak. He’s here to say they have
one hour
to pack and join him as he slips through the noose of history.
Now there’s a jangling of telephones in Miramar, high-heel
staccato and teary
gasps down the halls, a collective rummage for money and jewels. Those
with no time to change, arrive at the customs counter
still in gowns and tuxedos.
8 a.m., January 1st.
Edwin Tetlow, British correspondent, is startled awake by a sudden
unmistakeable burst
of silence. “He’s just gone
with the night,” his assistant blurts. Who? “You know. Batista. El Presidente.”
Along the Malecón
nothing moves; no resident, police
or soldier, and the painted shutters of the shops are closed.
Tetlow eyes
his Underwood, its work-rubbed keys.
He’s here to finesse the reports of troops, chaos at the desks
of foreign embassies
with the sound of news coming off the wire.
The letters clack against their rollers, predictable as the rush of surf,
as Hollywood, or gunfire.