HAVANA, January 23: It was to be a historic first meeting on Cuban soil of the last revolutionary and the Vicar of Christ. But for a few moments, they were just two old men, talking of the aches and pains that come with age and making a joke of fame.Fidel Castro walked with a stiff-kneed gait that he had to slow for John Paul II, who relied on a cane as he labored down the halls of the Palace of the Revolution for yesterday evening's private talk.
"(See) how we are are seventy and something years...?'' the Pope, his hair as snowy white as his robes, said in Spanish.
The tall and grey-bearded Castro, in a dark business suit, had to bend down to catch the stooped Pope's remarks. He replied with a single word: "Si." And a little more..." the Pope added then, an apparent reference to the six years he has over Castro. John Paul is 77. Castro, 71.
No one is revealing what the Pope and the communist leader of Cuba said during their 50-minute private talk. But TV microphones picked up snatches of their
conversation as they went in and out of the palace.
The Pope's frailty was evident as he made his way along the palace's gleaming marble floor. Castro, not exactly spry himself, seemed to see no reason to ignore it.
"I can see you're having more trouble than me lately with the leg. It must be because of the accident," he said, referring to a leg injury that required John Paul to undergo hip replacement surgery a couple of years ago.
Several times as they walked, Castro solicitously touched the Pope's elbow or back as if to support him.
They posed briefly in the room where they held their talk, seated in two brown chairs.
As the flashbulbs popped, Castro's eyes widened and he quipped about the price -- or lack thereof -- of fame.
"They should be paying us something for being here," he told the Pope as they posed for a moment for a gang of news cameramen and photographers. "They are exploiting us, holiness, and they aren't paying us anything."
The Pope said a word in reply, and both men
laughed.
In one room of the palace, the men stopped and looked over the gifts they were exchanging as mementoes of the Pope's first-ever visit to Cuba, a trip he had long spoke of making.
Castro gave John Paul a rare, leather-bound biography of Father Felix Varela, a 19th-century priest whom Cubans consider one of the founders of Cuban nationalism. The book is 120 years old and one of only nine in existence.
"We wracked our brains a lot" to come up with the right gift, Fidel told the Pope. John Paul gave Fidel a large, brightly colored mosaic portrait of Christ.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
