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

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.

THE E SCORT : HIS REAL FAMILY
    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