By MIGUEL BONASSO, reporting from Havana*
I had prepared myself to see him, but the reality was much more striking. I was even bringing a travel bag for him. That is, an Argentine leather case that has predetermined spaces for papers, cards, plane tickets, passport, for notes, all that a traveler needs. I know very well that Fidel Castro does not carry credit cards nor money with when he travels abroad, but the modest present had an implicit subliminal message: "I hope that you will soon be well, so that you can travel again."
But one thing is what one imagines, fears, or wishes and another is very different, the facts themselves. Suddenly there was a telephone call. "You should be at a given time in a given place." And nothing more. It could be possible that I met him personally or I could be meeting with some of his right-hand people in a preparatory meeting.
I could not believe that I was so lucky. I was the first guest to the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement that would have the privilege of seeing the commander during his recovery, as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales had done before the summit.
I was so stunned that I even forgot to take a notebook with me, just in case I had the additional luck that he made a statement.
But when I arrived on the spot, I immediately knew I would see him. Along with his closest collaborators, I walked down an aisle just as if I was watching a travel sequence in which the visitor sees reality intensify as he moves forward. At first I saw his bodyguards dressed in olive green uniforms, then his personal doctor who is always very good-natured, and at the end of the corridor there were two women and a tall man, the three of them wearing white robes. Were they doctors or nurses? At last, a very kind woman led me into a room. An austere white bedroom without a single decoration: Fidel, who was sitting on a bed, before a movable white table, stood up to give me a hug.
He was wearing a purple robe and matching pajamas, and fortunately, was the usual Fidel. It was true that he was thinner, but not as much as in pictures that had recently been shown."I lost forty-one pounds," said he, "but I am putting on weight. I have almost gained half of the weight I lost."
Those were many kilograms for someone who already looked like a Spanish gentleman extracted from a novel by Cervantes and now shows a Quixote-like profile.
We sat to talk. It was half past eleven in yesterday's blazing hot Havana morning.
The lump I had in my throat softened up suddenly; it might seem incredible but Fidel was as lucid and ingenious as ever. He had the same confidential tone of a conspirator that his listener must unravel, the same mysterious winks or gestures for any verbal finding, some very loud orders to his collaborators to prove that he can give a speech again any time.
"You see," he stressed. "I can speak very loud if I want."
Some time passed by before he made the confession that fills this note with an existential nature. He started out as usual, speaking passionately about collective and political issues, pushing personal matters into the background. He was very enthusiastic about Venezuela's bid for a seat at the UN Security Council. "He is the same man," I thought. His transit through the illness and the certain presence of death have not diminished at all the intensity of his dreams and obsessions.
"They won't be able to prevent it [Venezuela]from joining in," he assured, underscoring that his great friend Hugo Chavez has become a world leader. "Chavez has been creating an indestructible model. He is not the defender of an extreme socialism, but a realist one. Indisputably, he will be successful in creating a big party that gathers and represents all Venezuelan revolutionaries.
"The diverse parties that supported him have responded favorably to his call of unity. Besides-Fidel added-he has promised to carry out the changes in a democratic manner, by consulting the people. He is not an extremist.
"He has promised to cooperate with the middle class and respect and collaborate with the private companies that comply with the principles of the revolution.
"He has also undertaken social programs that have no precedent worldwide. That has made him an invincible leader.
"I think that a people so plundered like the Venezuelan people deserve this change.
"I joyously see the impetus for Latin American integration, in which Venezuela will be an example of what can be done when a country puts its resources in the service of its people. Chavez does not only use those resources properly, but he multiplies them as well with fiscal measures that were not taken before."
Then he went on to speak about "Operation Miracle", one of the healthcare programs that he is most passionate about. And he did it with the same zeal as usual. As if he had never been in a serious health condition that kept millions of people in suspense. He recalled that in barely two years, some 400,000 Latin Americans had been operated on for cataracts, pterigium, and other eye diseases with the application of new ophthalmologic techniques developed by Cuban specialists.
He also remarked that all those operations, many of which had been performed in Cuba, had been free of charge for the benefit of the poorest Latin Americans.
Later, Fidel offered me more coffee, while a lot of photos were taken. With his perennial enthusiasm, he admirably commented: "These digital cameras are incredible."
At this point, we were coming closer to the confession. There was a thick book on the table. It had an unpretentious but well-designed cover, which read "One Hundred Hours with Fidel. Conversations with Ignacio Ramonet. Second edition. Revised and enriched with further information."
A few months before, I had seen—with visible envy—the first edition of that mega-interview in which the Cuban leader reviews his life and the world history in which he stands out as one of the main protagonists.
In June, the Commander-in-Chief had shown me the handwritten corrections to his answers in the first edition. Ramonet's questions had, obviously, been kept unaltered by the interviewee. By the end of July, when I met him again in Cordoba, he was carrying the proofs; he was in the middle of the process of revision and enlargement. But I would have never imagined what happened after his July 27 operation.
"I kept doing the corrections even in the worst moments," he whispered, "I did not stop correcting it. Don't believe that I did it when I got better. I did it since the first days. And I did not only do it because of its content but rather because I had promised the people that I would revise it before having it published. So I spent many hours dictating to Carlitos [Carlos Valenciaga, his secretary]. Long hours."
He looked at me, with his eyes wide open and that expression of amazement that normally surrounds his mouth when he shoots a decisive dart, and then said with a serious but unemphatic tone:
"I wanted to finish it, because I didn’t know how much time I was going to have.”
The shadow of an immense limit, the impossibility of all possibilities, was floating in the bottom of his eyes. Then I said: "Another great battle."
He nodded and added, “I am telling those things as a friend and a writer."Then he apologized for not being able to give me a book for protocol reasons, as a copy had to be handed first to each head of state attending the Non-Aligned Movement meeting.
Next to us, pondering over some of the new contributions to the revised edition was the tireless Carlitos Valenciaga—the young collaborator that read the historical proclamation in which Fidel relinquished his responsibilities.
"It includes unpublished letters [by Fidel Castro] to Saddam Hussein recommending he withdraw from Kuwait. The contextualized letters to Nikita Khrushchev," said Valenciaga.
On the white table there was also a booklet reproducing the cover of the book and the following title. "Chapter 24: The events of April, 2002 and other Latin American issues."
"It has been translated into nine languages," Valenciaga explained. I asked for a copy to have it reproduced as an advance in Pagina/12 [Argentine newspaper] after it was distributed among the heads of state.
Particularly two loyal friends whom the commander awaited impatiently: Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. In addition to the failed coup d'état against Chavez, in chapter 24 the reader will find interesting reflections about nationalist and progressive militaries in Latin America, such as Omar Torrijos, Juan Velasco Alvarado or even Juan Domingo Peron.
And he makes sharp comments on the defeat of Carlos Menem and the triumph of Nestor Kirchner in 2003.
The moment to say goodbye was nearing. The conversation had lasted an hour and a half. Fidel pointed at a modest TV set that was in front of his bed (it didn’t have a plasma screen nor stereophonic sound) and said: "Television is more and more violent. Everything is extreme violence. Everything is advertising and violence, from fiction to international newscasts."
I said, with all honesty, that I was leaving very happy to see him so well."Everything in its due time," he noted as he gave me a handshake. "You must not forget that the machine that is being repaired is already 80 years old.”
*Published in the September 14 edition of the Argentine daily newspaper Pagina/12
