explaining, promising to fix things, to heal the people, put them to work, give them jobs and houses and medical care and a future for their children.
Words. All words.
Wind.
He coughed, and the coughing brought him fully awake. The nurse was there in the chair watching him.
“Leave me, woman.”
She left the room.
He pulled himself higher in the bed, used a corner of the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face.
The sheets were thin, worn out. Even el presidente’s sheets were worn out!
A sick joke, that.
Everything in the whole damned country was broken or worn out, including Castro’s sheets. You didn’t have to be a high government official to be aware of that hard fact.
On the dresser just out of reach was a box of cigars. He hitched himself around in bed, reached for one, then leaned far over and got his hand on the lighter.
The pain made him gasp.
Madre mia!
When the pain subsided somewhat he lay back in the bed, wiped his face again on the sheet.
He fumbled with the cigar, bit off the end and spat it on the floor. Got the lighter going, sucked on the cigar … the raw smoke was like a knife in his throat. He hacked and hacked.
The doctors made him give up cigars ten years ago. He demanded this box two days ago, when they told him he was dying. “If I am dying, I can smoke. The cancer will kill me before the cigars, so why not?”
When the coughing subsided, he took a tiny puff on the cigar, careful not to inhale.
God, the smoke was delicious.
Another puff.
He lay back on the pillow, sniffed the aroma of the smoke wafting through the air, inhaled the tobacco essence and let it out slowly as the cigar smoldered in his hand.
The truth was that he had made a hash of it. Cuba’s
problems had defeated him. Oh, he had done the best he could, but by any measure, his best hadn’t been good enough. The average Cuban was worse off today than he had been those last few years under Batista. Food was in short supply, the economy was in tatters, the bureaucrats were openly corrupt, the social welfare system was falling apart, and the nation reeled under massive short-term foreign debt, for it had defaulted on its long-term international debt in the late 1980s. The short-term debt could not be repudiated, not if the nation ever expected to borrow another peso abroad.
He puffed on the cigar, savoring the smoke. Then he shifted, trying to make the ache in his bowels ease up.
Of course he knew what had gone wrong. When he took over the nation he had played the cards he had … evicted the hated Yanqui imperialistas and seized their property, and accepted the cheers and adulation of the people for delivering them from the oppressor. Unfortunately Cuba was a tiny, poor country, so he had had to replace the evicted patron with another, and the only one in sight had been the Soviet Union. He embraced communism, got down on his knees and swore fealty to the Soviet state. With that act he earned the undying hatred of the politicians who ruled the United States—after several assassination attempts and the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion debacle, they declared economic warfare on Cuba. Then the cruelest twist of the knife—the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990-91 and Cuba was cut adrift.
Ah, he should have been wiser, should have realized that the United States would be the winning horse. The Spanish grandees had bled Cuba for centuries, worked the people as slaves, then as peons. After the Americans ran the Spanish off, American corporations put their men in the manor houses and life continued as before. The people were still slaves to the cane crop, living in abject poverty, unable to escape the company towns and the company stores.
A few things did change under the Americans. The island
became America’s red light district, the home of the vice that was illegal on the American mainland: gambling, prostitution, drugs, and, during Prohibition, alcohol. Poor Catholic families sent their daughters to the cities to
Words. All words.
Wind.
He coughed, and the coughing brought him fully awake. The nurse was there in the chair watching him.
“Leave me, woman.”
She left the room.
He pulled himself higher in the bed, used a corner of the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face.
The sheets were thin, worn out. Even el presidente’s sheets were worn out!
A sick joke, that.
Everything in the whole damned country was broken or worn out, including Castro’s sheets. You didn’t have to be a high government official to be aware of that hard fact.
On the dresser just out of reach was a box of cigars. He hitched himself around in bed, reached for one, then leaned far over and got his hand on the lighter.
The pain made him gasp.
Madre mia!
When the pain subsided somewhat he lay back in the bed, wiped his face again on the sheet.
He fumbled with the cigar, bit off the end and spat it on the floor. Got the lighter going, sucked on the cigar … the raw smoke was like a knife in his throat. He hacked and hacked.
The doctors made him give up cigars ten years ago. He demanded this box two days ago, when they told him he was dying. “If I am dying, I can smoke. The cancer will kill me before the cigars, so why not?”
When the coughing subsided, he took a tiny puff on the cigar, careful not to inhale.
God, the smoke was delicious.
Another puff.
He lay back on the pillow, sniffed the aroma of the smoke wafting through the air, inhaled the tobacco essence and let it out slowly as the cigar smoldered in his hand.
The truth was that he had made a hash of it. Cuba’s
problems had defeated him. Oh, he had done the best he could, but by any measure, his best hadn’t been good enough. The average Cuban was worse off today than he had been those last few years under Batista. Food was in short supply, the economy was in tatters, the bureaucrats were openly corrupt, the social welfare system was falling apart, and the nation reeled under massive short-term foreign debt, for it had defaulted on its long-term international debt in the late 1980s. The short-term debt could not be repudiated, not if the nation ever expected to borrow another peso abroad.
He puffed on the cigar, savoring the smoke. Then he shifted, trying to make the ache in his bowels ease up.
Of course he knew what had gone wrong. When he took over the nation he had played the cards he had … evicted the hated Yanqui imperialistas and seized their property, and accepted the cheers and adulation of the people for delivering them from the oppressor. Unfortunately Cuba was a tiny, poor country, so he had had to replace the evicted patron with another, and the only one in sight had been the Soviet Union. He embraced communism, got down on his knees and swore fealty to the Soviet state. With that act he earned the undying hatred of the politicians who ruled the United States—after several assassination attempts and the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion debacle, they declared economic warfare on Cuba. Then the cruelest twist of the knife—the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990-91 and Cuba was cut adrift.
Ah, he should have been wiser, should have realized that the United States would be the winning horse. The Spanish grandees had bled Cuba for centuries, worked the people as slaves, then as peons. After the Americans ran the Spanish off, American corporations put their men in the manor houses and life continued as before. The people were still slaves to the cane crop, living in abject poverty, unable to escape the company towns and the company stores.
A few things did change under the Americans. The island
became America’s red light district, the home of the vice that was illegal on the American mainland: gambling, prostitution, drugs, and, during Prohibition, alcohol. Poor Catholic families sent their daughters to the cities to
Similar Books
