by Nancy Stout
Celia promoted Cubanismo, pro-Cuban sentiment, emphasizing Fidel’s promise of a low-cost, see-the-Revolution type of vacation. At the same time she was pointing to a new kind of vacation, which wasn’t just for foreigners, since Cubans needed to get to know their country, too. Seeing Cuba became a goal that was promoted by her design teams, who quickly set about making other, previously off-limits venues available to the general population. “Celia worked in the INIT, the national tourist institute, while I was the accountant for that group,” Roberto Fernández explained. “She worked on a project called La Vuelta a Cuba, which translates best, although not literally, as Get to Know Cuba First, because people didn’t know the country. Many people had been to Paris, Miami, New York, but hadn’t traveled in Cuba.”
32.
The Urban Comandancia and the Zapata Swamp Resort
STEADILY, THROUGH THE EARLY MONTHS following victory, Celia was building a home for herself and Fidel. By mid-1959, most of the other tenants in Celia’s apartment house had moved out as she took over the building. Her own apartment grew into an urban command post, with security guards stationed on the ground floor (and both ends of the street). Her first apartment, vacated by Silvia, was on the ground floor, but she soon got an apartment on the first (above ground) floor, and there installed a kitchen and a dining room with a big, easy-to-clean countertop, plus a few banquettes for seating, and filled planters with Sierra Maestra flora. Then she took the apartment across the hall—a two-bedroom apartment—for herself and furnished one of those rooms with a small library of books and a few pieces of her father’s furniture, his carved-walnut bed, and gave this room to Fidel. The turn-of-the-century carved furniture that her father had purchased in the early decades of the century was mostly too large for any of the rooms in this 1950s apartment building. Most of it was sent back to storage.
“When we were young, we spent our weekends at Once,” Flávia’s daughter, Alicia, told me. I was to hear this from several of the nieces and nephews, from Chela’s son, Jorge, and Silvia’s sons, too. Everyone congregated in the kitchen and dining room apartment. “Fidel used to be more spontaneous. He would sleep in the next room, on my grandfather’s beautiful antique bed brought from Pilón. When he woke up, he’d go to the kitchen like any normal person, in his pajama pants. He’d get coffee. He was very natural. That life changed. It didn’t last long. He was still an idealist,” Alicia added.
The apartment building on Once was a far cry from the victors’ clubhouse of Celia’s imagination. At Once, she kept the lifestyle simple and didn’t bother to disguise the mundane architecture. “I went to her apartment weekly in the 1960s,” recalls her accountant, Roberto Fernández. “It was austere. Two chairs hung on the wall like in the country.” Time-saving efficiency became her new style.
Fidel was particularly interested in making public a legendary fish-and-game preserve in the Zapata Swamp (Ciénaga de Zapata), thought to have the best hunting and fishing in all of Cuba. Here again, Cubans had never actually experienced its bounty since this property had been privately owned since the sixteenth century by either Spaniards or North Americans. One of the first La Vuelta a Cuba projects became the Guama tourist center in the Zapata Swamp. Celia took over this project that Fidel initiated, which was meant to be a theme resort that resembled an Indian village. It can be seen in the opening scene of the film I Am Cuba, directed by Mikhail Kalatozov in 1964, a Soviet-Cuban production, as the camera zooms over thirty-eight palm-thatched cabins that stand on stilts above a lake, joined by a network of bridges.
Construction began in 1959; then everything came to a standstill when the project architect suddenly left the country. Since Guama was Fidel’s special project, Celia didn’t want a similar embarrassment to happen again. She needed an architect she could trust, and brought in Mario Girona—brother of Julio, Inez, Celia, and Isis—who was a society architect in Havana. Only a couple of years prior to this he’d designed the Hotel Capri for Meyer Lanksy. Girona explained his new role in the Revolution: “Professionally, as an architect, I worked with Celia, but first I want to make something clear: my grandfather and Celia’s father were cousins. Both were from Manzanillo. I am from Media Luna. My sister, Celia Girona, and Celia were children together in Media Luna.” The Girona and Sánchez parents and children had been the closest of friends, and Mario Girona was not going to leave Cuba.
Fidel was particularly interested in making public a legendary fish-and-game preserve in the Zapata Swamp and began promoting this project almost immediately. Here, in a boat on Tesoro Lagoon, he and Celia display their day’s catch. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)
Celia had telephoned Mario to ask if he would come to the Once apartment and told him they’d be meeting about a project. Both Fidel and Celia were there, and each explained the need to finish the Guama tourist center, which was far from finished. Girona said that “there was really nothing there. They had a house for the workers, the beginnings of a cafeteria. They had done some cabins. It was all being constructed in wood. I never worked with wood.” Fidel explained that the idea was that Guama would be constructed from wood, and that all the wood would come from the Sierra Maestra. Groups of trucks were hauling it in, and the wood for the foundations was so hard and dense it could withstand years in the water. Mario agreed, and before he left this meeting Celia gave him the project of installing lockers at Varadero (8,000 were still there in 2000). “People need to change their clothes,” she told him, but cautioned not to disturb “the beach flora.” Girona took care of this job immediately so he could get to Guama as soon as possible.
Celia hired Havana society architect Mario Girona to complete the Guama Tourist Center, Fidel’s project to open up the Zapata Swamp to the public. Girona was Celia’s cousin and someone she trusted. Celia put all her power and energy into realizing this project. In the photograph, he is on the left. Emilio Aragones stands behind him while Celia speaks to her longtime friend from Manzanillo, who had become Fidel’s personal physician, Dr. René Vallejo. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)
“I worked there for three years. You have no idea what it was like,” Mario Girona continued, explaining the difficulties of getting the project off the ground. “We communicated by radio to Havana. Archaeologists found pilotes and pottery. The pilotes were the foundations placed there by Cuban Indians. The archaeologists found an Indian town.” An Indian theme had been given to the project before it was discovered that it was an archaeological site, and Girona had to make changes so as not to disturb the historic areas.
“I needed a boat—a rapid boat for the lagoon, and a car to get to and from Guama. I called Celia and explained that I couldn’t oversee the project without a car to get there, and a boat to get around in. She told me to see a particular person and pick up a boat [from the marina] on the Almendares River. The car I selected was a Plymouth, and I picked out a fast boat that had belonged to the Tropical Brewery owner. With a call from Celia, I could pick out anything.”
TO THE MEMBERS OF OLD VEDADO SOCIETY, Celia and Fidel looked like a couple. Members of Column 1 knew the relationship was a bit more complicated than that, but citizens of the capital saw them standing side by side in parades, boarding planes together to travel abroad, and eventually found out that they were living together but were not husband and wife. Good at being revolutionaries, this important couple was breaking the rules of the town. Many conservative people (although radical enough to stay in Cuba and support the Revolution) were not amused by the Bohemian lifestyle displayed by the couple at the helm. They did not approve of Fidel’s staying in “his secretary’s apartment,” which was, according to interior designer Maria Victoria Caignet, the most common sentiment at the time. They weren’t entirely critical of Celia, however. El Diario de la Marina, the most Catholic and conservative of newspapers, put a flattering picture of her on the front page, and Mas Martín, the editor of the Communist newspaper Hoy, declared that it was the only time El Diario got it right. The
apartment house was part of the problem; it was not on one of the lovely lettered avenues, like F or G; it was made of poured concrete and hadn’t been designed by an architect of note. A nicer house at a better address would have been a more acceptable approach to their new lifestyle: a grand house, preferably with columns (of which there are plenty in Havana), with a wing or two. Tactically, Celia should have created that clubhouse she wanted for herself and “the boys,” as Flávia always described it. Celia could have furnished it fabulously, and this might have created a smoke screen. But Celia knew her man, and had the right instincts as to how to set about creating an in-town field office reminiscent of the Sierra Maestra. Besides, she was a hero, and a victor and in charge now; and that held some sway. The trouble with Celia and Fidel was that neither of them had the mind of a common or ordinary person. They were hopeless when it came to doing what was expected. Their behavior got on the nerves of the old bourgeoisie more than the communism that was to follow.
“SO I GOT THE BOAT, but I had to get it to Guama,” Girona said. “I told the person at the marina that I needed to take it to the Zapata Swamp, and he gave me a trailer. I had a suitcase of clothes, and my drawings for the week ahead. When I got to Matanzas, two policemen stopped me and told me to return to the marine military post in Havana. [They] accused me of wanting to leave the country.” Girona had considered the long drive back to Havana with the trailer and boat, the bureaucratic haggling that would ensue, and the time lost while he could be working on the project. “I told them to please call the comandante who gave me the boat and they’d find that it had been confirmed by Celia Sánchez. When they heard that, there was no problem.” Girona continued: “Everything was wood. I had never worked with wood. Wood construction was used by farmers. But Celia wanted to use wood because she wanted to employ people from the Sierra Maestra, and because she liked wood and wanted to recreate the Sierra Maestra.”
THE NEXT GENERATION, who grew up with the Revolution and were teenagers in 1959, think of Celia and Fidel as a pair, not a couple—a pair of heroes. And heroes are not ordinary. To that first revolutionary generation, Celia is a mystery, mysterious and powerful, the closest thing to him. When I asked the current generation about the living arrangements in the apartment house in Once, they couldn’t imagine why I asked. “It is the one place he could find shelter,” was one reply. “Neither Fidel nor Celia cared for material things,” said another. Underlying their answers was a simple reminder: ordinary politicians need presidential or stately residences, but heroes don’t. Offended at my question, especially coming from an American, one person snapped, “We were learning to defend ourselves. Modesty was appreciated in 1959.”
Gone were the beautiful dresses; Celia wore her uniform. She didn’t move out of the poured-concrete apartment house, and the public took notice of the fact that she’d chosen an ultra-simple house. By the end of 1959, it was clear that a certain kind of revolutionary etiquette had been established: Celia and Che refused to live the life of privilege. “They were normal and humble when,” as one person put it, “all these people, and everyone around them, lived with privileges. The ministers were an elite corps with no housing problems, they had access to cars. [With these things] you feel superior.” But that was not true of the country’s larger-than-life heroes, Celia, Fidel, and Che. They lived in their own glory.
By the end of 1959, it was clear that a certain kind of revolutionary etiquette had been established. Celia and Che refused to live the life of privilege. Her old Martíano upbringing, the philosophy and ethics derived from Jose Martí ingrained by her father, was kicking in. Gone were the beautiful dresses: Celia wore her uniform. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)
She’d changed. Her old Martíano upbringing, the philosophy and ethics derived from Jose Marti ingrained by her father, was kicking in. She could see the fallout from the Revolution everywhere, especially in Havana, where the professional classes were leaving daily: medical offices closed, nurses and secretaries were looking for other work; by the 1960s, the bourgeoisie were leaving daily. Their servants—mostly women—were left with no employment. If lucky, they’d be given a couple weeks’ salary but were unable to find other rich families to work for; most did not know where to turn. Celia had power, and was in the position to help. She threw her heart and soul into setting up large and small businesses to hire women, and she also reached out to all professionals, grateful that they wanted to stay in Cuba.
“SHE WAS VERY FINE AS A CLIENT. She convinced you it was the best thing to do. When you finished talking with her, you were one hundred percent in agreement.” Architect Girona was speaking about Celia’s persuasive qualities, the same qualities that had served her so well when she was setting up the Farmers’ Militia. “But, when you think about it, she was also respectful of what you did.”
SHE DROVE TO WORK EVERY DAY in an Oldsmobile painted “blanco con crema” (now aged to faint lavender and preserved in a car museum). Her office was on Revolution Square in one of the large governmental buildings. She had both desk and air conditioning removed, preferring a couch as a less intimidating place to discuss problems people brought to her. She sat with her staff as well, knew the names of all their children, along with the state of everyone’s heath. And later, perhaps a decade later, she had the desk reinstated—but not an air conditioner, preferring a ceiling fan instead, and added plants to increase the humidity.
She wasn’t a minister like her colleagues, the men who had fought in the war. It is often said that Fidel wanted her to be the minister of education, but she declined. As far as I can determine, she was Celia Sánchez, a member of the government who took care of what she thought was crucial. No one seems to question her role, but I asked people I interviewed for the reason. Maria Antonia Figueroa said that Celia had faced death many times in the underground and in the mountains, and she had huge intellectual credibility. They saw her, papers in hand, consulting with Fidel, watched her set up her own initiatives.
Underlying this revolutionary view of Celia, a simple fact remains: for every project she created, supplies were needed. Supplies equaled jobs. She created projects by the dozens to employ hundreds on each one of her seemingly small endeavors during the first years after victory, by setting up small businesses, whereas the jobs she created for women were stopgap measures put in place in the early months of the Revolution. Classically, there would be with one master craftsman in charge, a gifted artisan to spearhead the project. It might be a metalsmith, a woodcarver, a textile designer, ceramicist, leather worker, glassblower, stained-glass maker, cigar roller, baker, or an excellent yogurt maker. Then she’d establish an atelier to give them a place to work. This small place of production would be run by the master, who taught his employees how to craft specific products, how to meet demands, how to bring jobs to fruition. She also created a few businesses on whim: a bakery that made breadsticks, and another that made large crackers (Flávia said she was copying a type of cracker she used to buy in Brooklyn when she visited her Girona cousins there in 1948). Later, there would be much larger projects employing construction crews from the Department of Buildings and Construction, employed by one or two leading architects; and she moved on to set up larger units of manufacturing, such as a textile factory and a factory for making plastic shoes. One of Celia’s factories made (or assembled) a small tractor, designed in Italy, so women farmers could work the land using more manageable, smaller equipment.
Quite early on, Celia created something akin to a permanent mission to liaise with the people of the Sierra Maestra, where she functioned as consul general. It was in an office separate from her own within the palace in Revolution Square, and was specifically designated to serve the citizens of the Sierra Maestra: farmers, bodega owners, housewives, teachers, mule-team owners, ranchers, and fishermen. Probably many were the two hundred-plus families that had been members of the Farmers’ Militia and had helped them win the war. In the beginning, these men and women would arrive in Havana unan
nounced. I’m under the impression that she opened the office out of need. This group was quite apart from war widows who came to see Celia personally, usually women who had to find a way to survive. Celia soon realized that they needed basic education and opened a school, not far from Once, where they were taught to read, write, and know enough arithmetic to run a household. They were also taught to sew. When they graduated and were ready to return to the Sierra, they were given sewing machines so they could make clothes for themselves and their families, and generate income from sewing for other people as well.
Celia and Fidel were the only people many of these knew in Havana, and when they arrived at the bus station, they’d ask where they could find the two heroes. Now, Sierra arrivals could be directed to the newly opened Sierra Maestra office, where Carmen Vásquez, Celia’s protégée from Pilón, would take care of them. Carmen described her job, and what happened on a typical day when one of the mountain families would arrive to ask for Celia and Fidel. She claims that Celia—and sometimes Fidel—made it a point to meet with them on the day of their arrival. The husband might have come to ask for a tractor, and while the initial meeting was taking place, the farmer would talk to Fidel, who enjoyed catching up on Sierra news. Meanwhile, Carmen would book them into a hotel. This was a procedure she followed on Celia’s orders.
Luis Crespo and Celia speak with Antonio Nuñez Jiménez while Raúl Corrales, on the porch, with camera held ready to make a shot, keeps an eye on Fidel. They have returned to the Comandancia La Plata, the rebel army’s headquarters during the war. They have convened here to sign the Agrarian Reform Law, on May 17, 1959. (Courtesy of Oficina de Asuntos Históricos)
