Natalia Revuelta was the woman who perhaps best knew Fidel Castro. She at least she treated him in the intimacy of all the human facets of him. First as a revolutionary leader, later as a world statesman, and in between as the fiery lover with whom she fathered a daughter, Alina. I was fortunate to meet her in 2008, in Havana, thanks to the help of a great connoisseur of the country such as José Manuel Martín Medem, a former TVE correspondent.
Naty not only opened the doors of her beautiful house in Miramar to me, but also offered me a piece of her history, a narration of the complex coexistence she had with a key figure of the 20th century. She wouldn’t let me record the meeting and demanded that she not publish a word of our conversation while she was alive. “Take notes and save them, just. Someday they might serve you,” she told me.
That time has come. Naty died in February 2015 and Fidel Castro this Saturday. I remember that I felt a certain disturbance when listening to her talk about unimaginable things about an almost literary character like Castro. From strategic orders that he gave from Los Pinos prison to the typical weaknesses of an ordinary man when what hurts is the heart. She knew that no amount of confidence would change the relationship built between the two of them.
“We know each other very well and respect each other a lot,” he added. She talked nonstop for hours, stopping only to drink water. Then he returned to the figure of his leader and the anecdotes of a time full of changes that he kept in his memory in perfect order and that, on rare occasions, he dusted off.
Like the one that happened to him in 1992. He hadn’t spoken to him in years, but suddenly he heard a cohort of soldiers taking up positions around his house. Someone came up the stairs like a Percheron horse and banged on the door rudely. “Who is he? I asked like hell, because I knew it was him” recalled this petite woman, with clear aquamarine eyes and as seductive at 82 years old as she was then at 26, the age at which she met Fidel during a rally against Batista organized at the university.
“It’s me,” he answered very rudely. I come to talk to you”, Naty described, imitating the solemn tone that Fidel made famous in his endless speeches.
Alina is the daughter they had when the revolutionary leader was still imprisoned after the failed assault on the Moncada barracks. She was the only one recognized outside of marriage and the only relative who left the ship of the Revolution.
It happened in 1993. Castro had found out that he was preparing to escape and wanted to know his opinion. “She just asked me if he was okay with it. I replied that it was her decision and as a mother I could only support her. He stared at me like an ox and he told me that if I accepted his departure to Miami, he wouldn’t be against it. He turned around and left”, Naty recalled that day sitting in the middle of the enormous library that for her was more than a treasure.
“It really always impressed me. But in the sense that Fidel was very charismatic and convincing. I didn’t even think about what happened next. I was married and so was he, with Mirta (Díaz-Balart), with whom he had a son, Fidelito”, he recounted. Raised in the pre-revolutionary haute bourgeoisie, there was no play in the city or art exhibition that she did not attend. She was very cultured, she maintained friendships with writers and artists, whether or not they were Castroists, who she was passionate about and for whom she was respected, even more than because of her clear and profound gaze that not even an egomaniac like Fidel Castro managed to resist.
How did he achieve such a feat? Some say that he earned the respect of the entire revolutionary command during the assault on the Moncada Barracks, where he played an astute role as a liaison in guerrilla communications. In fact, she was decorated a decade ago. Others think that her character was even more indomitable than that shown by Fidel with the gringos.
Naty Revuelta certainly fueled this legend by revealing the most unexpected details of her relationship with Castro. After the leader’s imprisonment for the failed assault on Moncada, they began exchanging correspondence. “They were letters, I don’t know how to define them, of love! albeit from a distance”, until one of them ended up in Mirta’s hands and chaos ensued. Fidel divorced Díaz-Balart and decided to cut off all contact with Naty until an amnesty was decreed in 1955 and he was released from prison. “Then it happened. The romance was brief, but intense, ”she recalled.
A heavy smoker for many years, Naty began to feel in 2008 the first ravages of the disease that ended her life seven years later. In spite of everything, it was evident that telling her secrets with Fidel pleased him because she continued to admire him. “It was very hard for me to take it off my heart and put it on my head.”
From time to time he repeated that no photos. “If it had been 40 years ago, then yes. Now I am old”, she added as she stood under a portrait of her youth where she clearly appreciated her beauty but also a bombproof character.
After a few seconds of pause, he continued unraveling his memories, sometimes he got excited, other times he looked towards the sea. “Fidel always put the revolutionary project above his personal life. So he didn’t fool anyone. Me neither, that’s why I think he’s not cruel or bad. That they have accused him of everything.”
At the time of that meeting with Revuelta, Raúl Castro was already president of Cuba and was beginning to implement some changes to improve the battered Cuban economy. Naty felt great sympathy for him and, especially, for his wife Vilma Espín, who had died a year earlier. All the coldness that Fidel showed her was sympathy for her brother.
“Fidel led with high beams on. He saw the great dilemmas of civilization, he analyzed them very well, but he was incompetent with the everyday problems of normal people. Unlike Raúl ”, he assured.
The question of whether the revolution had been worth it disrupted his happy and restless tone and I remember that he answered with a resounding yes and compared Cuba with some Latin American countries “where fate has turned out worse.” She did not consider herself a victim of the Revolution, but she did consider herself a sacrifice “although you already know Cubans, we are resistant”, she dropped with a certain irony. Despite everything, he defended to the death Fidel’s stubborn resistance to jumping through the hoops of the gringo empire: “We endured 40 years and we can endure another 40 more.”
Naty Revuelta met again with Alina in Havana. More than 22 years had passed since the last kiss. “Not only do I maintain a relationship with her but we have reinforced it through letters and the internet,” he revealed that day. Well-informed sources say that it was Fidel himself who allowed his daughter’s exceptional return when he learned that Naty was leaving. But he returned to her labyrinth.
Alina said of him: “I don’t hate him. Hate is too strong a word. I consider him a person with a fairly high level of cruelty, but I never came to hate him. Revuelta also criticized Fidel’s bipolar relationship with his daughter on several occasions. “He was not a good father. Perhaps he wanted a child, although he never told me that, ”she pointed out in an interview with Paris-Match that caused her tremendous disgust.
“European journalists are too impressionable and you like the show,” he said as he said goodbye from the porch of his home. At her side there was always a faithful gardener because for that Naty Revuelta was the woman, perhaps the only one, who broke the power of a legend.
