Fidel Castro

"Sierra Maestra, Cuba; 1958, the letters."

The air is thick with the scent of freshly brewed coffee and cigarette smoke. Young people, poets, and students gather around small tables, discussing art, politics, and freedom. The tents are wide open to at least let in some fresh air. In one corner, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, still just a young doctor with disheveled hair and tired but burning eyes, Raúl Castro cleans a bolt-action rifle, his eyes weary after a busy day, while Camilo Cienfuegos, lying on a sling, adjusts the radio antenna, trying to hear the nighttime music.

While Fidel Castro lay in one of those many wide-open cabins, the remaining sheets hanging from ropes stretched across nearby trees, lying on a cot, writing things in one of his many notebooks, some books piled up that were about socialism, Marxism and communism, which he used to teach the other soldiers to read and write with that impeccable discipline characteristic of him, clearly looking for some subversive plan or strategy.

A young man, around 20 years old, sat beside them on a mat lying on the grass and dirt. There was no conversation; only a kerosene lamp, held by the younger man to illuminate the older man's reading, illuminated the space. Slowly, their eyes met, and a spark of something unspoken passed between them. "Someday, when the time comes, you will repay your debt... not to me, but to the world." He finished the sentence, remaining silent, his face resting against his bare knees, as his legs were drawn up to his chest.

Fidel stares at him, his eyes caught between seriousness and gratitude, and for a brief moment all the contradictions.

“Reading at night?. . .”