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Due
to unsatisfactory communication with Havana, I decided,
being a British Subject and therefore permitted to travel
to Cuba, that I would visit his parents and try to explain
what little I could of this tragedy, to them, in person.
Finally in the autumn of 1963 I embarked on my mission to
Central America, spending the first month painting in Mexico.
I bought my ticket, at the end of my stay, two days before
taking the flight to Cuba. As the virtually empty aircraft
landed, I was concerned to see, on looking out of the window,
so many heavily armed soldiers surrounding the plane in
the blinding searchlights.
After being escorted to a small room I was interrogated
for three quarters of an hour by two officials, one of them
a Russian. They tried to elicit the names of the Cubans
I knew in New York but I managed to evade mentioning anyone.
I was, however, astounded that they already knew the whereabouts
of my family in England and that my father worked for the
First National City Bank of New York, in London. I had only
applied for a visa two days beforehand!
Eventually I was allowed through the plate glass barrier
to be greeted by Betty Morro, a friend of a friend in New
York. Betty kindly drove me out through the old town to
Marianao, in her old Buick, and finally up the drive to
the Pujadas house on the edge of the Country Club, where
I was greeted warmly by Luis' parents. I did what little
I could do to comfort Luis' mother and father, filling them
in on the days and months leading up to their only son's
untimely death.
Privations were extreme but they shared their meagre rations
with me for the duration of my stay. I explored, sketched
in the old city and swam in the clear blue waters off La
Concha. Being there went some way to assuage the pain and
I hope gave them some solace in their grief.
Suddenly, however, we were cast into an atmosphere of extreme
tension and anxiety; President Kennedy was assassinated
on Friday, November the 22nd.
The air was rife with rumors that Cuba was to be bombed.
As a result darkness and terror held un in its sway and
Castro's address to the nation did little to calm the feeling
that the noose on the fragile economy was tightening. The
outlook was shrouded was gloom and foreboding. |
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