Late afternoon in Havana. October 25, 1965. A Cubana de Aviación plane lands at the nearly deserted airport. It comes from Mexico City. On the runway, a short, anxious man watches the passengers leave. His name is Raymond Quendoz. He is a member of the Foreign Interests Service of the Swiss Embassy and is in charge of communications in code. Inside the aircraft is supposed to be the woman whose beauty is all the rage in the streets of Havana and with whom she hopes to celebrate the fifth anniversary of a marriage made in Lausanne that day. She calls her Annie, but her identity card identifies her as Ana Maria Palhota da Silva Pais, 30, daughter of Major Fernando da Silva Pais, head of the PIDE, Salazar’s political police. In the tension of waiting, Raymond does not attribute meaning to the arrival of Commander René Vallejo, Fidel Castro’s doctor. greet each other. One says to wait for his wife; the other says he expects an American journalist. In fact, they are there for the same reason. The Swiss ends up leaving, sad for having waited in vain. The Cuban stays. Unlike Raymond, Vallejo knows the plane is not empty. Inside, a Portuguese woman with a Swiss passport remains, ready to join the Cuban revolution, indifferent to the impact of her rebellious attitude in Salazarist Portugal, whose father is one of the mainstays.
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