The Grand Hotel Castro – Folha de S. Paulo, January 15, 1969
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
I had a dream. I dreamed my secretary was handing me a commercial advertisement sent by mail, with the envelope bearing the Grand Hotel Castro’s rather plain letterhead.
As expected, the letter highlights the outstanding qualities of this hotel that will delight potential tourists. As I read it, the places and scenes described came alive in my mind’s eye with color, shape, and vibrancy. On an island surrounded by a vast blue sea, a spacious mansion sat atop a hill, radiating a sense of stability and refined taste that suggests comfort, cleanliness, and luxury. The wooded slopes and gardens descended to the beach. The beautifully appointed rooms, furnished with large, comfortable pieces inviting relaxation, featured expansive windows through which one could see wind-blown sailboats. A feeling of the high seas combined with the fresh mountain air and scents. An attentive, discreet staff served friendly, polite guests. The moderately busy dining room had a pleasant, elusive aroma from the’ peaceful coexistence of various delicacies. At the front desk, a courteous senior employee guided guests to a basement with individual safes for jewelry and valuables. Shops, a bookstore, a barber shop, a hairdresser, showers, and even a discreet little pharmacy for guests who might be bothered by too many delicacies: nothing was missing, and everything reflected taste, class, and a high sense of what a vacation should be.
The circular listed prices for fares, apartments, suites, and more, with great prices and discounts.
In the end, true to his style, the owner of the Grand Hotel Castro said he looked forward to having me and my friends back for vacations. He used common phrases to show his high regard, sympathy, and admiration.
* * *
Dreaming is easy. With the paper in hand, I imagined my friends and me sailing to that wonderful hotel on the enchanted island. Soon, the blue sea was decorated with more than a hundred sailboats carrying TFP friends from Latin America, Manaus and Belém do Pará via the mighty Amazon, Argentina via the majestic River Plate, Chile via the epic Strait of Magellan, descending from São Paulo to the ocean on Anchieta highway, leaving Campos via Paraíba, coming from Minas Gerais via the enchanted coast of Espírito Santo, and arriving from Curitiba, Florianopolis, Blumenau, beautiful Bahia, Pernambuco’s rugged and poetic reefs, Niteroi and the incomparable Guanabara Bay, cheerful Montevideo, prestigious Porto Alegre, prosperous Caracas, Medellín and Bogotá, Lima and São Luís do Maranhão, Fortaleza’s clear and wild sea, extravagant Brasília, busy Goiânia, and dozens of other places. In short, we all arrived in boats with huge red sails displaying the golden rampant lion. I smiled with pleasure and enthusiasm, only slightly bothered by a faint uneasiness from a mixture of impressions whose elusive connection escaped me. Somehow, I knew those from Caracas were coming closest to the island. Castro? Island? Something didn’t feel right.
Still holding the paper, I looked away from the shiny TFP fleet to finish reading the circular. Indeed, below the signature of the director-owner, Mr. F. Castro, I read:
P.S. The Grand Hotel Castro’s security services are outstanding. The incident reported in the press last week, in which some guests managed to escape despite our hunting dogs and armed guards, was truly exceptional.
Startled by this unexpected message, I woke up. In my hand was indeed a sheet of paper, a newspaper page with tourism ads and the news that Fidel Castro’s police had chased a group of nearly 200 unlucky people—including women and children—fleeing the communist “paradise” to the U.S. base at Guantanamo, using hunting dogs and gunfire. My constant amazement at TFP’s rapid growth led to the dream I’ve just recounted.
When I read the postscript, I thought the whole ad was nonsense. How can the Grand Hotel Castro be so charming and still have guests risking their lives trying to escape? Call it Castro prison, a concentration camp. Castro hell is what it is… I’m not going there.
* * *
When I woke up, everything fell apart, but the conclusion stayed the same. How can anyone believe in the supposed benefits of a regime designed like a concentration camp to keep a terrified population under control?
While conceived in a dream, this was a simple, clear, and undeniable reasoning based on basic common sense. I am sending this article for Father Comblin’s use in Recife and to his admirers in cassocks, miniskirts, and expensive sports shirts across Brazil. In short, I am sending it to that small group of men from sacristies, universities, and nightclubs who falsely claim to champion social revolution on behalf of rural and urban crowds—our peaceful, honest, and hardworking crowds who stubbornly refuse to become “woke” in Comblin’s style.
P.S. not only does F. Castro have a P.S. to write in my dream, but I do too. I know all too well that nothing is more anachronistic than a “Comblinista” in a cassock. No one dislikes the holy, venerable, and likable cassock more than a typical “Comblinista.” Like millions of Brazilians, I am tired of knowing it.
