Dialogue: Castro's enzymes at end of the line

By JOE BENNET

I once rang Fidel Castro. It was at the fag end of a party, not a teenage party with snogging on the staircase, but a middle-aged party, with daggers in the sauvignon.

But now it was late and the few remaining party-goers were barely going at all. They slumped on sofas with the dregs of drinks.

To cheer things up, I offered to phone the world.

"Name someone," I said, "anyone you like, and I'll get them on the line in three calls."

It's a good boast. I have made it several times. People swallow the hook.

"Go on," I said, "Anyone at all, famous as you like."

"Elvis," said a woman.

"Castro," said a man.

"Give me the phone," I said.

International directory inquiries gave me the number of some governmental office in Havana. I rang it and asked for el presidente. He was not available. He was at his country residence. Amazingly, they gave me the number.

Castro intrigues me. He's the tuatara of the Caribbean, the beast who should be fossil. The Berlin Wall has been made into souvenirs, the Kremlin has tottered and fallen like a shot elephant, but Castro goes on going on.

Castro, no doubt, sees himself as independent, but he was merely a child of his time. The seasons of thought and feeling govern how we all grow and Castro flowered into power when all was communism and revolution.

But having flowered and enjoyed flowering, Castro refused to wilt. He kept his combat fatigues and his Ancient Mariner beard and he stopped the political clock.

Castro's Cuba sits at the doorstep of America and reminds that country of otherness. America distrusts otherness.

America tells us that Castro's bad because he doesn't let his people grow fat. He has banned them from the shopping mall of Western capitalism.

I have not been to Cuba, so I don't know what I should think of Castro. I don't know if he runs a secret police. I don't know if he tortures his foes. I don't know if his people love him or fear him, though I suspect they do both.

I am sure someone will write to tell me what to think, but I suspect that things are not as simple as they seem and that he's neither good nor bad.

But I do know that he's mad. The evidence came this week when Castro collapsed while giving a speech. He had been speaking for a mere two hours.

Apparently there was an hour or two more to come. Any politico who speaks for two hours is mad. Megalomania has maddened him. Power has distorted his picture. He thinks too well of himself. He is plump with hubris.

Castro was speaking outdoors to a crowd of I don't know who. While he stood and spoke they sat and fanned themselves. But then his voice crumpled like paper and he fell against the lectern. The cameras panned away but the people carried on staring. They were staring at Ozymandias.

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Castro's works are Cuba and his own status. But his audience would have seen that though his status is unassailable, his body is not. The enzymes of decay are busy in it. And suddenly those enzymes had made their first statement.

We have been patient, said the enzymes, but look, we have been working. We will win. Prepare to lose thy leader.

It was a remarkable moment, a point of pivot. On a short clip of official film, pride met frailty, vanity said hello to the worms.

Castro will not go willingly or soon. He has so much to lose he dare not lose it. He is his office. And, sure enough, within minutes of collapsing he was back on the podium intent on finishing the great bore.

But his audience had seen a different finish. They had seen that for Castro, as for Ozymandias, the lone and level sands stretch far away.

When at that party I rang Castro's country residence, I said I was a dignitary from Nueva Zelandia and that I would like to speak to the great revolutionary papa on a matter of some urgency.

The secretary told me to esperar uno momento and in the crackling of the tinny international line I felt unwonted excitement.

For though I had often boasted that I could locate anyone in three phone calls, the best I had done was the switchboard of the hotel at which Sophia Loren was staying. And now I was about to speak to international greatness.

The secretary returned. She was sorry. The great revolutionary leader was having a nap. It was, she said, a warm afternoon.

"Gracias," I said, and left the great leader swinging gently in his hammock.