Free The Double Life of Fidel Castro by Juan Sanchez Page A

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