FERNANDO ARRABAL
19
you've moved the children's holiday Twelfth Night from January to
July.
-Henri, formerly of El Sol tailors, is considered by you and your
henchmen to be the finest tailor on the Island; he has been detained
in Cuba so that he can cut and sew the best English gabardine for
your armchair guerrilla olive green uniforms.
- You spend what you like without having to account for the money
to any King except yourself.
-You own several private beaches; one of them, a former club for
aristocrats, is reserved for your personal use. Armed police patrol it
so that no curiosity seeker from the masses can disturb its charm by
intruding on your oasis. Subservient servants, like those from co–
lonial times, minister to your needs. The oriental luxury of that
beach can be testified to by various European ministers who have
been your guests there. Etc.
An insatiable hunger for everything that nothing can satisfy,
your ingots are made of mud and your sky is made of medals.
To celebrate your birthday, the members of the Central
Committee of the (one and only) Communist Party of Cuba, in
joyful gratitude to the man who appointed them to that little trifle,
presented you with what they called
"a small gift."
Like wise and prudent servants, they knew how to denigrate
what was nothing less than the product of the first action they had in–
itiated in the Assembly without your permission.
Because you are, Prince of Cuba, the primum mobile, and they,
participants without principles, are your principal servants.
The gift was not so much "small" in size as it was large in
reverence for you; it was
a yacht,
the most luxurious yacht ever anchored in a Cuban port, and
bigger than
Onassis's.
But then protocol demanded it: you are the owner of an island
infinitely larger than the one in the Aegean owned by the Greek
millionaire.
The small gift was built on a grand scale in the Regia shipyards
that are controlled by the Ministry of Construction. Ramiro Valdes
Menendez directed the team of naval engineers with so much skill
that he was subsequently reinstated as Minister of the Interior.
