The woman with the many millions

By Varela

Around the 1990s, Ana Margarita Martínez was a divorced woman who, like many others, sought temporary consolation in churches. Before that, I believe she had attempted classes in Casino Wheels, yoga and aerobics, but they were either very expensive, tiring, or just not what she wanted. To any grieving soul, an evangelist meeting is always welcome because, if it doesn’t instill faith in the great beyond, it connects the soul with the here-and-now, where it can find little gatherings and establish friendly relations. And that’s what counts, when you’re lonely.

The problem was that, amid the celestial choirs and the hallelujahs, she ran into a Richard Gere look-alike, a Cuban named Juan Pablo Roque, who had just defected. They married and proceeded to live happily. It is not clear whether the felicity was by mutual complicity or because a woman with a man who looks like a Hollywood actor is always happy. (I have not made a survey to that effect, so my guess is empirical.) One thing or another, Ana Margarita one day discovered that her loved one – Richard Gere’s double – had skedadled to Cuba and was making statements on television like an agent of the Cuban government.

Spited, the lady turned to the courts, where she alleged that she felt used, violated and abandoned, not by an actor’s look-alike but by the Cuban government. And she filed a lawsuit asking for compensation for emotional damages.

I think the greatest blow came when Roque was asked what he missed the most about Miami and he said, “My Jeep.” That will lower any lady’s self-esteem, and if she also has a tendency to obesity, her humiliation creates a revulsion to large vehicles, such as trucks, SUVs or planes.

It so happens that she won several multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the Cuban funds frozen by the U.S. government. In other words, she already owns half the island. But because the funds are frozen, they’re difficult to spend because nobody will accept a chunk of green ice, only a plastic card of any color, long as it’s backed by a bank.

During the government of Bush the Yam (Bush the Sweet Potato was the father), Ana Margarita managed to grab $200,000 in defrosted compensation. It is not known how the bills were thawed but they were good enough so she could buy herself a pair of high-heeled shoes for $700 at the Dadeland Mall.

Then there was talk that she would compete against Basulto and create the Sisters to the Rescue, because she went after a fumigation plane that was flown from Cuba to Miami by a defector. She asked for it in court so she could auction it and keep the money. This meant that any balloon, zeppelin, or glider with passengers, ship, yacht, launch or raft that arrives from Cuba to an American shore can be seized by this lady in no time flat. She might end up with her private airport and a personal seaport.

Sentimentally attached to a well-known spy hunter, Mrs. Martínez persists on her search for lost happiness by suing the evil government of Havana, who used a punitive instrument with male sexual organs and an imitation of the famous actor to create in this lady a craving for millions of dollars.

For my part, if I met a Monica Bellucci look-alike and lived with her one year and then she left me and revealed she was an Italian spy, I would send a letter of congratulations to Berlusconi. With due respect to the institution of marriage. But it’s not everyone who has a chance to live with the double of a movie star for a season.

Now, Ana Margarita is demanding from Cuba a payment of $25 million for damages, and it has occurred to her that she can get that money from the companies that operate charter flights to Cuba. Right away, she says on Univision that she doesn’t want to suspend or impede the trips of Cubans who live in the U.S. and visit relatives in Cuba. She even says she’s not against such trips.

It seems that what she wants is to be paid a commission for every flight to and from Cuba, because she wants to keep up her craving (à la Imelda Marcos) for collecting shoes and handbags, looking down her nose at Cuban maids. (She was a maid once, but not now; she has found a modus vivendi.)

I don’t understand how far she wants to carry her vendetta for a matrimonial deceit, if one ever existed. Suppose the alleged spy comes out and says that he, in a burst of sincerity, confessed everything to her one night but she said it didn’t matter. That would be his word against hers in a court of law.

Or maybe the perfidious agent says that he disobeyed the orders of his handlers, who warned him not to marry, not to tie the knot, because he could then fall in love with a Jeep. In that case, she couldn’t blame the Cuban government for anything.

I think that among the Cuban frozen funds there is some money that belongs to me (frozen funds that belonged to my father and my grandfather) and I want to fight so that Ana Margarita won’t take them from me.

And to avoid any argument between her and me in court, I think the best Ana Margarita could do, if she feels lonely again, is to go to the Friday socials on Calle Ocho. Maybe she’ll run into a Leonardo di Caprio or Brad Pitt look-alike. It doesn’t matter if he’s a spy or not. Cuba doesn’t charge for providing duplicates of famous people to Miami wallflowers.

Born in Cuba in 1955, José Varela worked as an editorial cartoonist in Miami for 15 years, at the magazine Exito (1991-97) and El Nuevo Herald (1993-2006). A publicist and television writer, he is a member of the Progreso Weekly team.