The Double Life of Fidel Castro (8 page)

Fidel, who woke late—rarely before ten or eleven a.m.—and started his working day around noon, usually had just a tea or a fish or chicken bouillon for breakfast. He might sometimes drink a glass of milk like his children. It was home-produced milk, for it emerged directly from the udders of cows that grazed on the property. In a supreme touch of refinement, each member of the family possessed his or her own cow, so as to satisfy each one’s individual taste, since the acidity and creaminess of fresh milk varies from one cow to another. And so the milk would arrive on the table, each bottle bearing a number, a little bit of paper scotch-taped onto the bottle, corresponding to each person’s cow. Antonio’s was number 8, Angelito’s number 3, and Fidel’s number 5, which was also the number he wore on his basketball shirt. There was no question of deceiving him: Fidel possessed an excellent palate that could immediately detect if the taste of the milk did not correspond to that of the previous bottle.

Fidel’s lunches were frugal, often consisting solely of a fish or seafood soup, made with fresh produce. If the supplies of fish or crustaceans were running low, someone was sent to harvest the tide at La Caleta del Rosario, the coastal property where
Aquarama II
and the other boats in Fidel’s private marina were kept.

Dinner was the Commander in Chief ’s main meal, consisting in turn of grilled fish, seafood, chicken, sometimes mutton, or even
pata negra
ham—never beef, which his dietician had outlawed—accompanied by moderate quantities of rice, red beans, and root vegetables (sweet potatoes, parsnips, potatoes). On the other hand, he ate large amounts of green vegetables, cooked or raw, which formed the base of his diet. Thanks to the greenhouse cultivation in the garden, the head of state never lacked fresh fruit and vegetables and ate organically in every season. Another advantage of that local production was that it enabled absolute traceability of products, minimizing the risk of intoxication or poisoning. In the same way, Fidel Castro only drank water drawn from the well that was tucked away in the garden.

The Commander in Chief would willingly wash his meals down with a little white, red, or rosé wine, mainly Algerian since President Houari Boumediene was in the habit of providing his Cuban counterpart with entire cases, a tradition that was continued after his death. As for President Saddam Hussein, he regularly sent pots of jam made from Iraqi figs to his dear Fidel. Careful about his diet and on his doctor’s recommendation, the latter never drank coffee, although he sometimes allowed himself a digestive of Napoleon cognac. In Punto Cero, Dalia governed everything: the meals, the domestics’ schedules, and even the relationship with the head of the family and his children. When one of the five A’s wanted to talk with the patriarch, he had to go through Dalia, who would then approach her husband; he would grant a meeting at his convenience. Nobody, not even his offspring, was permitted to disturb
El Comandante
on the spur of the moment. Fidel Castro was the opposite of a doting father: in seventeen years, I never once saw him make a gesture of tenderness toward any of his children, although apparently after his convalescence in 2006, he grew a little closer to them.

Dalia was not exactly warm herself. She was rather a brittle, authoritarian, almost unpleasant woman. When Fidel was in the house, she eclipsed herself before
El Jefe
, “the Boss” (as she called Fidel in his absence, while he talked about her as
La Compañera,
“the Partner”). No sooner had he left, however, than she implemented a reign of strict discipline among the staff. Neither the domestic staff nor the bodyguards really liked her, which brings to mind an amusing anecdote.

At the Castros’ estate, numerous chickens wandered at liberty around their laying nests scattered in the grass. Now, these birds with their excruciating cackling generally laid their eggs at sunrise, and so when we were on duty at night in one of the two surveillance posts situated in front of and behind the house, we would discreetly go on an egg hunt. Certain nests contained seven or eight eggs! We would slip them into our pockets and take them to our respective spouses, who would then make tortillas for the whole family. Then, one day, a very irate Dalia suddenly declared to all and sundry, “My goodness, these hens don’t lay! I wonder if they’re ill. . . . Or else there’s a problem with the quality of grain I’m giving them. I’m going to call the vet just to make sure.”

At that very moment, my fridge was full of fresh eggs. Funniest of all, everyone was in on the scheme, even the faithful aide-de-camp Pepín Naranjo, who was usually in the habit of reporting everything to the
Comandante
. For once, it was Fidel and Dalia who were the butt of the joke!

As I have said, Dalia turned into a protective she-wolf with her children. Egotistically, she considered her five boys Fidel’s sole legitimate heirs. Fidelito, for example, only came once to the property of Punto Cero, and he had never been welcome on the island of Cayo Piedra.

On one of the few times he went there, his five half-brothers were also present. I don’t know why, but it had been decided that family ties would be strengthened. After everyone had gone to welcome Fidelito and his wife, Natalia Smirnova, at the landing stage, Dalia felt obliged to murmur to me as an aside: “Ah, the family need to get to know each other a little.” But it was obvious her heart wasn’t really in it. As the awkwardness was palpable, Pepín suggested to Fidel that Fidelito be sent to Cayo Largo del Sur to supervise the worksite under way on that fifteen-mile-long island of fine sand that had been designated a future tourist site (which it has indeed now become).

So Fidelito, his wife, Pepín, and I took off in a helicopter for the tourist island, situated thirty miles southwest of Cayo Piedra. After a thirty-minute flight over the blue seas, we landed on Cayo Largo del Sur. We settled into the only existing hotel, where I rapidly noticed that Natalia, Fidelito’s Russian wife, was a nuisance incarnate: at the restaurant, she sent her chicken back three times, on the pretext that, according to her, it smelled bad. Pepín, who knew her well, was unsurprised. “She’s always in a foul mood,” he told me.

At the time, Cayo Largo del Sur was still almost untouched, and it was impossible not to notice the presence of a rather luxurious forty-foot white yacht moored at the sole landing stage. From the intelligence officer posted on the island, I learned that it belonged to “the American.” The American in question was Robert Vesco, the famous fugitive who had duped the U.S. tax authorities out of more than two hundred million dollars, and who was known by Washington to be in Cuba, despite Fidel’s denials. The resulting Ameri-Cuban imbroglio lasted for years until, one fine day,
El Comandante
was forced to acknowledge the obvious: yes, it was true, Robert Vesco was indeed in Cuba. (I imagine that Fidel extorted a pretty sum of money from him in return for the Cuban hospitality. . . .) Later, when this criminal had become too burdensome to him, Fidel got rid of him by sentencing him to thirteen years in prison, where he died in 2007 without the American fiscal services ever being able to get hold of him.

After this rather strange episode, we took off again the following day to Cayo Piedra, and, to Dalia’s obvious relief, Fidelito rapidly took his leave. Fidelito never again returned to the Castros’ private island.

As with all couples, the relationship of the “boss” had its ups and downs. Nobody knew anything about it at the time, but the low point was reached in 1984 when Fidel found out that Dalia was cheating on him with Jorge, a member of the escort. . . . The official chauffeur of
La Compañera
at that time was René Besteiro; one day, Dalia sent him out to buy something and, taking advantage of his absence, asked Jorge to take her to her mother’s, who lived on Seventh Street in the Playa quarter, not far from Punto Cero. Between ourselves, we nicknamed Dalia’s mother La Abuela, the Grandmother. Fidel’s mother-in-law was a rather unrefined, party-loving, heavily made up and very flirtatious lady who, despite the age difference, did not hesitate to hit on us young men.

In short, when Besteiro, Dalia’s chauffeur, returned to Punto Cero and learned that his boss had gone to see La Abuela, his professional conscience obliged him to go there at once; when the Grandmother opened the door, a stupefied Besteiro glimpsed Dalia dancing in the sitting room with our colleague Jorge.

Instinctively drawing back, he said to the Grandmother, “Tell Dalia I’m here.” A moment later, Mrs. Castro appeared on the doorstep: “What are you doing here? Nobody asked you to come.”

So René Besteiro left. Back in Punto Cero, he immediately went to confide in the head of the escort Domingo Mainet. In order to cover himself, Besteiro told him what he had seen and said he was worried about finding himself on the wrong side of Dalia. The head of the escort was flabbergasted. As he and I got on extremely well, he decided to talk to me about it and ask my opinion.

“It’s simple, you have two options,” I explained to him. “The first, which I do not recommend, is to say nothing. But the day Fidel finds out about it, you won’t last very long. The second is to repeat Besteiro’s account word for word to Fidel, as every military subordinate is supposed to do with his superiors.”

We immediately set off for the palace, where the head of the escort had a private meeting with Fidel lasting half an hour. When he emerged, Mainet declared to me that from then on and until new orders were received, all communication with Dalia would cease. For a month, Fidel and his escort did not set foot in Punto Cero. Fidel traveled all over the country, sleeping in several of the twenty or so houses he owned, in the province of Las Villas, in Camagüey, or else on the island of Cayo Piedra. We all thought the relationship with Dalia was over at that point, but we were wrong. After four weeks, we returned to Punto Cero without warning Dalia of our arrival—and married life resumed its course as if nothing had happened.

As for the bodyguard Jorge, he disappeared from circulation overnight and we never heard of him again. I don’t know whether he was transferred to the province of Oriente, far from

Havana, or whether he died. I didn’t ask and above all I didn’t want to know: at the time, what was uppermost in my mind was that Fidel should not find out that the head of the escort, Domingo Mainet, had taken me into his confidence. If he did, I ran the risk of the same fate happening to me. The official chauffeur of
La Campañera
, who had uncovered what was going on, was also effectively ousted, being demoted, I believe, to chauffeuring for the Fishing Industry Ministry
.
Which all goes to show that it is never good to be the bearer of bad news.

The Dalia affair had another victim of collateral damage: La Abuela. Fidel had already been unable to stand her for some years. Constantly at her daughter’s in Punto Cero, she had the bad habit of drinking too much and
El Jefe
had more than once found her at his home in a state of manifest drunkenness, which made him mad with fury. A veritable Mrs. Do-As-YouPlease, this inveterate drinker felt no qualms about plundering her son-in-law’s cellar when he wasn’t there. One day when he came back from Punto Cero—this was at the beginning of the 1980s, several years before Dalia’s adultery—Fidel opened the bar and found
his
bottle of whisky empty! He exploded, stamping the ground with his feet and pointing downward with his two index fingers: “i
Esto es ya el colmo!
[That’s the limit!] Not only does your mother turn up here without warning, but she ransacks my things! I-do-not-want-to-see-her-here-anymore!”

The mother-in-law cleared off on the spot and her visits to Punto Cero became less frequent, although for two or three years she continued to put in an appearance. Dalia’s infidelity (about which her mother was fully in the know, as she provided the setting for her daughter’s secret meetings) was the final straw. From then on, La Abuela was no longer seen at Punto Cero.

At any rate, one thing can be retained from this marital crisis: Dalia Soto del Valle was the only person in the world who ever psychologically got the better of Fidel Castro Ruz. All-powerful macho, the Commander of the Cuban Revolution, had a single Achilles’ heel:
La Campañera.

Fifty-five years after the Triumph of the Revolution, the Castro family was a well-established dynasty: seven brothers and sisters (including Fidel), ten or so children, grandchildren, and even several very young great grandchildren. Not to mention nephews, nieces, and cousins. However, the real family of the
Comandante
has always been the guards that make up his escort. It was understandable: the
Líder Máximo
has certainly spent far more time in the company of the soldiers devoted, 365 days a year, to his personal protection than with his wife and children. A soldier to the core, Fidel had more affinity with his men in battle dress than with his own children, who had never known anything other than the comfortable status of “son of ” and who had no personal experience of combat.

It was, for example, with his bodyguards and chauffeurs, not Dalia or his children, that the
Comandante
celebrated January 1, July 26, and August 13, the three key dates in Castrist historiography. January 1 commemorated the Triumph of the Revolution that took place on New Year’s Day 1959. August 13 was Fidel Castro’s birthday (he was born in 1926). Finally, July 26 was the date on which the anti-Batista revolutionary era began in 1953, with the “heroic attack” (that ultimately failed) on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. To ensure that everyone realized the historic importance of this event, Fidel even made July 26 the Cuban national holiday. The message was clear: it was on this date that everything in Cuba had begun, like some political big bang.