The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy

by Roger Deblanck

  “What do you suppose they’re doing?” asked Benito.

  “They look disciplined,” said Juan.

  As they watched the regimen continue, Gonzalo approached. “What are you two guys watching down there?”

  “We just want to know what they’re doing?” asked Benito.

  “Training. Staying in shape. College isn’t all about reading and studying,” said Gonzalo. “It’s also good to stay fit, both mentally and physically.”

  “Yeah, but they look like they’re training for the army?” asked Juan.

  Gonzalo’s head rocked back with laughter. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with staying in shape, is there boys?”

  “Have you ever been down there, allí?” Juan pointed and asked.

  Gonzalo hesitated before saying, “Vamos boys. We got the afternoon to show you around some more.”

  If only I could know Fidel better, thought Juan. If only.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  Less than a month after Juan and Benito shook hands with Fidel in the law library at La Universidad de Havana, the name and face of Castro became synonymous with intrigue and fame. On the morning of July 26, 1953, Fidel led a group of his rebel followers in the daring attack on Moncada—the impenetrable yellow-stone barracks of Cuba’s largest military installation on the eastern half of the island. After months of intense training on the grasses below University Hill, Fidel’s rebels banked on the strategy that a successful takeover of Moncada would foment an island-wide uprising to end Batista’s reign. Instead, the rebels were crushed in a lopsided and bloody defeat. Fidel and the surviving conspirators of the attack were arrested, many of them tortured and executed, the luckier ones awaiting trial and imprisonment.

  Fidel’s foolishness of trying to overtake the castellated fortress of Moncada and incite la revolución exemplified a growing feeling across Cuba that something loco was loose in the air, something crazy in the corazóns of the people. In the aftermath of the attack, Juan theorized that you could ask anyone whether everybody else on the island was crazy and the answer would be yes, “Loco!” The rich dismissed the poor as locos. The poor disdained the rich as más locos. And the warring political parties thought their opponents were locos extremos. Batista condemned Fidel as a loco cabrón, and likewise Fidel despised Batista as a loco pendejo. And so the island was covered with locos, coast to coast, beach to beach, city to city, cane field to cane field, locos running wild everywhere, except, of course, when you were talking to a sane person who could easily convince you of his or her own sanity while wasting little time pointing out all the other crazies, “Sí, mira. Yes, look. Locos, locos, locos!” Rivals, enemies, cheats, thieves, beggars, bosses, friends, and family, yes, family, la familia loca.

  Juan and Alberto certainly thought their mother was a crazy woman, and they also started to think their father must be somewhat crazy for marrying her and crazier still for staying with her all these years. What was he thinking? How did he do it? And why? Pure craziness, they thought, like everyone else seemed to be on the island after Fidel’s daring venture at Moncada.

  Regardless that the attack amounted to a debacle for the rebels, the end result, even with Fidel jailed and awaiting trial, was that the whole island went on alert at any mere mention of his name, crazy or not. Loco Fidel! Viva Fidel! He represented hope to his followers: the pobre everywhere, the peasants and farmers in the fields, the factory hands and meat cutters in the cities, the shoe shiners and out-of-work musicians in the streets. They had Fidel’s back, crazy or not. And so did Juan and Alberto. They saw Fidel as a national hero, a Martí protegé, a young man with a law degree who put aside his practice with a willingness to sacrifice his own blood for the sake of his country’s freedom. But to Batista, Fidel was the son-of-a-bitch rich kid from Birán in Oriente province trying to turn the island into a war between economic classes. And so Batista and his authorities tried to keep the details of Fidel’s arrest on the hush, censor this and censor that, don’t let Fidel gain the upper hand, because Batista knew he still had the backing of the wealthy: the club owners and the gambling hall operators, the pimps and the players, the mobsters and their many mistresses, the Hollywood high-rollers and their divas. But no matter which side Cubanos were on, no one could escape the media attention that was focused on Castro and the riled up opinions his now popular “26th of July Movement” produced in people.

  A few days after Fidel’s arrest, it was an unusual Sunday morning in the Ramos family’s home. Mother, father, and sons shared the kitchen table together for breakfast. Preparing for la iglesia, Lucretia had set curlers in her hair before coming to the table to scan through the Havana Daily and sip from her mug filled with honey-tinged green tea, wisps of steam rising from the hot liquid. Juan and Alberto knew she would need another hour or more in the bathroom to style her hair and put on make-up before they’d be able to leave for Sunday morning Mass. Between sips of her hot tea, she perused the paper’s coverage of Fidel’s looming trial and she stared at the front-page photo of his mug shot. The irony of the shot escaped no one: the police, for some preposterous reason, had chosen to photograph Fidel with him standing underneath a portrait of Cuba’s legendary liberator, the rebel martyr, José Martí. Fidel stood there looking undiscouraged by his imprisonment, his cleanly-shaven face a little pale with fatigue, but his pride was evident, defiance defining his features, as if he was Martí. Anyone on the island who saw the photo thought the same thing: whether supportive of Fidel or not, that mug shot is an omen.

  “I know one when I see one, y Castro está loco,” Lucretia commented to her family about the mug shot. “I hope they stand him against the wall. Paredón!”

  “Lucretia, por favor,” said Florencio, drinking his black coffee, his only breakfast, before heading to his office in the Royal Bank building. “We are a Catholic family. Escucha, do not say such things. Batista’s government has been executing the Moncada attackers. This is not a good thing.”

  Lucretia ignored her husband and flipped through another page of the paper. She then looked up and focused on her sons. In reference to Castro, she said to them, “I want you two to be aware of what you don’t want to become, and what will happen if you do not stay out of trouble.”

  Finishing their sausage and eggs, which Cuca had prepared for them, Alberto rolled his eyes behind closed eyelids while outrage lit red on Juan’s ears. As Alberto got older, his restrained temperament allowed him to ignore his mother better than his older brother. Juan had clearly taken offense to his mother’s comments about Fidel, and there was little chance of him holding back now. Alberto sensed that his brother and mother were headed for a fracas, a flare-up of who was right.

  “What has Fidel done? Tell me that?” countered Juan. “He fights for su país. I know.”

  His mother and father turned to him—Florencio’s eyebrows contorted as if pleading for an explanation, Lucretia’s lips curled funny as if to mock him. Alberto, however, knew exactly what his older brother was talking about.

  “What do you know about Fidel?” asked Florencio.

  Alberto chose to answer for his brother, “Papá, we know about Fidel?”

  “Sí, everyone knows about him now. How could you possibly know about him before?” asked Lucretia, her prickly question posed to both boys.

  “Cuca’s cousin Victor told us stories about him when we went to Guardalavaca,” Alberto answered again.

  “And I’ve met him,” added Juan, shooting a glance at his brother.

  “Qué?” Both Florencio and Lucretia responded to what they believed must have been a mistake uttered from Juan’s mouth.

  “I’ve never heard such a thing. How could you meet a man like Castro?” asked Lucretia.

  “On our field trip to la universidad. I was in the library with my classmates, and he came up to talk to us.”

  “And the day after Victor told us stories about Fidel, we saw him on the beach,” said Alberto, adding further clarification.

 
; Lucretia shook her head with aggravation over being challenged, so she called for Cuca. She came to the dining room a minute later, her infirm leg always dragging noticeably.

  Stirred up like a prosecuting attorney, Lucretia asked her nanny, “The boys say that in Guardalavaca, they listened to some cousin of yours tell stories about this Fidel Castro, el loco who led the attack on Moncada last week?”

  “Oh,” said Cuca, realizing she had been called in to the early stage of a brewing argument. “Sí, Victor, my cousin, he probably knew Fidel when he was younger and told the boys many stories. Victor and my father have worked for Angel Castro for years.”

  “Quién? For Angel Castro?” asked Lucretia, her brow a cluster of wrinkles.

  “Sí, Fidel’s father. I too was surprised by the news that his son was leading a military operation,” said Cuca. “I had no clue. I’ve never met the man. I’ve only known his name, nada más, until now.”

  “I can’t believe any of this,” said Lucretia, rising with anger from her seat at the table. “Florencio, what do we do?”

  “What do you mean, what do we do? It is nothing. The boys know a name—Fidel Castro. Who cares? Everyone knows his name now.”

  Lucretia sighed with annoyance and again ignored Florencio by reseating herself and returning to the paper. “Ay, Dios mío,” she exclaimed a few seconds later. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “Qué ahora? What now!” said Florencio with discontent, slapping down his coffee mug on the table.

  “Mira aquí, look. The paper has a list of those who died at Moncada. This must be a mistake?” Lucretia pointed to a name on the list. “It says someone named Dr. Manu Muñoz was among the deceased on July 26.”

  “It cannot be,” said Florencio, moving over to crouch behind his wife. He squinted to see the list of names.

  “Escucha, listen,” she said. “It says, ‘A general practitioner from Havana was killed.’”

  Florencio shook his head in disbelief. How could the good doctor abandon his practice for purposes of underground activity? “Does it say how he died?”

  “It only says, ‘He was killed during the attempt at storming the gates,’” said Lucretia. She put the paper down and stared at Juan. “I tell you, this Castro is el diablo.”

  Juan’s anger had been stoked. “What an ignorant thing to say!” he said in a raised voice. “I met Fidel! He’s a good guy!”

  “Do not speak his name again! Not in this house!” ordered his mother as she stood up again, this time to confront him.

  Juan paused and waited until he was ready to speak in a clean and level tone just as a television reporter would. Then he said, “Fidel fights for his country.”

  “Juan, stop it!” demanded his mother, her hand sidled but shaky at her side.

  I’m testing her, Juan thought, seeing if she can summon the nerve to slap me. But he and Alberto both knew she would not, so Juan stared her down. Their eyes locked like lions not wanting to cross that threshold where claws were necessary. With the tension thick as rope in the kitchen that morning, Florencio, Cuca, and Alberto sat there in tense silence, watching and waiting.

  His heart apace, Florencio finally stepped between them and said to Juan, “Escucha a su madre.”

  “Porqué?” asked Juan. “She’s the one acting loca.”

  “No one is acting crazy,” said his father. “This stuff with Fidel has nothing to do with us. If the courts find him guilty, they will issue a punishment accordingly. His actions mean nothing to us.”

  “Oh, Florencio, por favor. Castro is a fanatic and a socialist!” said Lucretia. “He wants everyone to be equals! He doesn’t want anyone to have anything! He would take everything from us in a second! Everything you and I have worked so hard for.”

  “You’re in a frenzy,” he told her.

  “You’re so naive, Florencio. If they don’t execute him, he will get out. Somehow, someday. Mark my words, or let the Lord strike me dead this second.”

  Juan was going to say he didn’t care if God struck her down, but he saw that she was nearing the verge of a tantrum, tears forming in her eyes. He prepared for her to crumble to the floor, the way she had done so often in the past, but somehow she summoned an untapped composure within herself and remained poised. Juan glared with concern at his mother, and suddenly sympathy rose in his chest. He shifted his eyes to his brother. He could tell that Alberto also felt sorry for their mother, standing there before them, powerless as a parent, unable to assert control.

  “All I want to do is open my beauty salon. Something I can call my own. Is that too much to ask? And none of you care that Castro would take it away,” she said before leaving the glass dining table and slowly walking to her bedroom.

  Alberto raised his eyebrows as if to question his brother, what next? Juan nodded an acknowledgement that the fight was over for now, let’s move on. This was about winning the war of the crazies, thought Alberto. They both knew they could use Fidel against their mother. Maybe someday she would see what she’d brought upon herself her entire life.

  Before going to Mass on that Sunday in early August, Lucretia drew new lines in the sand: herself on one side and everyone else on the other, her sons included. Although she spent the same amount of time fixing her hair, perfecting her make-up, putting on a new dress, and accessorizing herself with white gloves and a little white purse, she did not seem to care about the hot, sticky weather, which usually had a visceral affect on her. That Sunday, she flaunted an air as though she would conquer the unconquerable and refuse to let the summer heat impact her. The beautiful Lucretia could do anything and everything by herself, she seemed to be saying, because everyone conspired against her, everyone was crazy, and she could depend on no one but herself.

  “Vamos boys,” she said when she emerged from her room, her hair curled and puffed, her make-up immaculate. That morning she walked with a higher strut than usual—her head up, her ass a little more firm—as her heels clacked with purpose along the sidewalk.

  The boys followed behind, silent but snickering, knowing they had pierced a weak spot in her shield. Earlier at breakfast, as Juan had dared her to slap him—and he and Alberto knew she had wanted to—they also knew she believed God was watching her, making her back down. It bothered them that she claimed to be a devout Catholic, yet she so easily passed judgment, especially in regard to others such as Fidel. To Juan and Alberto, their mother’s despise of the young rebel leader worked in their favor: they had something they could throw at her, something she could not take away from them. They could admire Fidel, believe in him as they chose. They could feel what they wanted, and their mother could do nothing to stop them. So they walked behind her and observed how ridiculous she looked swiveling her hips as though she’d been blessed with a perfect gait to display her figure.

  When they neared the church’s plaza in the Marianao district, their mother did not slow down in her usual manner to allow for stares from onlookers. Instead, she drew more heads that day as she clacked fiercely in her heals upon the cobblestones and headed in haste to the entrance of La Iglesia de Jesus de Miramar. The Ramos brothers kept after her pace, giggling as they followed behind. When she reached an empty pew, she halted and spun around like a globe on its axis. With her fuchsia-painted lips and ire in her voice, she leaned into their faces: “Where is your respect? We are in the house of God. Now show you belong here.”

  They said nothing as they slid into their seats beside her, Alberto as a buffer between Juan and their mother. She stared ahead at the altar, her spine erect, her neck straight, her hands folded in her lap, her breathing barely audible, her eyes unyielding towards the direction of the cross, the icon of Christ suffering. The service was fifteen minutes from beginning, so la iglesia was mostly vacant. The smell of incense from inside mixed with the odor of tobacco from the plaza outside. Their mother, nonetheless, sat there determined to sit without distraction for the duration of the waiting until the priest took the pulpit.

  T
he boys realized she was trying to pit them in a contest against her, so they played along and showed that her antics did not faze them. They sustained a similar discipline of silence and focus, just as she did, waiting for the rows ahead of and behind them to fill up. Neither Lucretia, Juan, nor Alberto moved an inch before the priest, Father Ballesteros, entered and the congregants rose. Father Ballesteros was in his mid-sixties. He had large jaw bones, a pug nose, and one of those shiny bald heads where not a single, straggly hair hung on. Strolling up the middle of the aisle, he reached the front platform and sat the incense burner on the altar. Citronella candles flickered and tiny whisks of smoke headed towards the rafters. Joining el Padre Ballesteros that morning was another elderly Father, unfamiliar to the congregation. The sun streamed in through the stained-glassed windows in long narrow rays that crisscrossed the church in swords and lances of lavender and gold. Motes in the sunlight danced like joyous little angels. Draped in their vestments, the Fathers approached the altar and turned to look at the icon on the wall of Christ on the cross, nailed and bleeding into his eternity. They put their hands together and then bent over as if to kiss the feet of the Lord. They proceeded to the pulpit and crossed themselves before praying. After a long minute of contemplative silence, Father Ballesteros uttered an “Amen” and his flock of parishioners resounded in unison and looked up at him out of their silent prayers.

  “As all of you can see,” he addressed his gathering, “we have a guest with us este día. Father Moreno has come a long way from his diocese in New York to be with us today. In recent years, many among us have had familia and amigos who have gone to the states to start new lives. So I have asked Father Moreno to visit us as a reminder that wherever you live, do not stray from the Lord. His congregation in New York is large and growing with fellow Cubanos like you, and so if anyone here someday finds their way north, Father Moreno wants you to know you are welcome to worship with him. As a token of my gratitude for his visit today, I have asked him to share his great wisdom with us, and I know you will all show your kindness to him.”