Castro is presented with the gift of a Galápagos turtle, but he declines it after learning that it might live for more than a hundred years. “That’s the problem with pets,” Castro says. “You get attached to them, and then they die on you.”
Castro has died, and his body is lying in state. Mourners have lined up to pay their respects. At the head of the line is Felipe Pérez Roque, Cuba’s forty-one-year-old Foreign Minister, who is often called Felipito. (Behind his back, he is also called a Taliban.) Pérez Roque stands before Castro’s coffin, his head bowed, while Ricardo Alarcón, the president of Cuba’s National Assembly, waits his turn. The minutes drag on; Alarcón becomes impatient and taps Pérez Roque on the shoulder, whispering, “Felipito, what are you waiting for? He’s dead, you know.” Pérez Roque whispers back, “I know he is; I just haven’t figured out how to tell him that.”
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does seem like castro will never die
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