Gelato Guevara

by D.J. Huppatz

Marco Polo stepped from the plane in a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He paused at the top of the stairs to inhale the thick, tropical air. He’d traveled from Constantinople to Kashgar with little success. In Shangdu, Emperor Kublai Khan, though impressed with the foreigner’s flair for languages, was indifferent to his culinary skills. 

Marco exhaled slowly and straightened the red bandana wrapped around his forehead.

Palm trees hung over the end of the runway. On the tarmac below stood a dozen bearded men in combat fatigues smoking cigars. Each had a rifle slung over his shoulder and cartridge belts crossing his chest. One of them – the only one wearing a beret – waved. Marco recognized his face from the posters: this was the Guerrillero Heroico himself. 

“Welcome to Havana! I’m so happy to finally meet our first Minister of Ice Cream!”

After hearty handshakes all around, the great revolutionary handed Marco a cigar, lit it, and directed him to the back of a waiting jeep. The roofless jeep had a long rear tray fitted with wooden benches. Che sat opposite Marco as the bearded men clambered on beside them, holding their rifles upright as the jeep took off. Che put on his sunglasses and grinned at the young Venetian through a cloud of smoke. 

“We’ve heard great things about your ice cream,” he said.

“Gelato,” said Marco.

“Gelato?”

“My specialty, sir, is gelato. It has a density and richness beyond compare. The American variety – to which you refer – is mostly flavoring and air.”

Che and his men laughed. One of them slapped Marco on the back.

“Flavoring and air! Yes. You’re going to love Cuba.” 

Che whispered something about a sign to the man beside him. He puffed on his cigar. 

“We have a lot in common.”

“Sir?”

“We are revolutionaries, my friend, revolutionaries!”

“I’m not sure I understand, sir…”

“Taste, my friend, taste! You’re here to foment a revolution in taste! Your lab’s ready. The best machines. Fruits. All the sugar you need. And cream, the best, freshest cream – yes – don’t worry, I’ve rewritten the ‘crimes against cows’ legislation.”

“I must confess,” said Marco, “I have little experience with the dairy industry.”

The bearded men shook their heads. 

Che took off his glasses and looked intently at Marco. 

“My friend,” he said, “here, we don’t say industry when referring to animal friends.”

Marco nodded. 

Che returned his sunglasses and chewed on his cigar. 

“Once, beside a village in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, we camped in a field with the peasants’ cows. Around the campfire, I played my guitar and sang. The cows came over to listen. I began to sing softly and still closer they came. One even knelt before me and laid her head down in my lap.”

The bearded men hung on Che’s every word.

Marco’s bandana felt damp. He fingered the thin stubble on his chin.

“Don’t worry, we have an assistant for you,” said Che, “a man who knows cows.”

They bumped along dusty roads through cane fields where peasants, spotting the jeep, saluted with their machetes. As the jeep slowed at a village, barefoot children ran alongside and jumped to high-five the bearded men. Villagers stopped whatever they were doing and waved. 

“They can’t wait to taste the flavor of revolution,” said Che. 

Marco’s mind raced. Every hut in the village was painted a different hue: strawberry pink, mango sherbet, banana-leaf green, the misty blue of the Mediterranean in Spring. 

When the jeep entered Havana, cars pulled over to let them pass. Drivers wound down their windows, cheered, waved, and whistled. The jeep stopped in front of a lemon-colored warehouse with a bold red neon sign that read: MINISTRY OF ICE CREAM. Next to it, still under construction, Che pointed out Havana’s first ice cream parlor. He then showed Marco to his new home in a nearby apartment block. With another round of hearty handshakes, the great revolutionary announced they would return in two weeks for the tasting. 

The next morning, when Marco arrived at the warehouse, he noticed the new neon sign: MINISTRY OF GELATO. As promised, the warehouse contained the latest churners, pulpers, crushers and freezers. He opened the storage room to find it stacked with sugar cane, fruit baskets and spice jars.

His assistant, Pedro, arrived – as he did every morning – carrying a metallic can filled with fresh cream in one hand and a songbird in a bamboo cage in the other. He was old, gaunt and always wore a checked shirt and a battered cowboy hat. He spoke little. As he did in the morning for the cows, at the end of the day, he thanked the songbird for its service.

The trio worked long hours every day creating new flavors. Marco mixed and strained and sweated while Pedro pulped and churned and went to the market for more fruit, fresh honey and other ingredients. The bird – an olive-green, yellow-cheeked little seed-eater – chirped cheerful melodies that echoed through the warehouse. 

On the appointed day a fortnight later, Che and his posse reappeared. The parlor was not yet complete, so Pedro had prepared the front room of the warehouse. He’d laid a long table with a lace tablecloth and a set of silver spoons in front of each of the twelve chairs. Marco, now dressed in a white lab coat with a khaki bandana, presented the first flavor. 

He put down a gondola-shaped, porcelain dish in front of Che. On it sat a single scoop of deep purple gelato. Pedro put one down in front of each of the bearded men.

“I call this one Xanadu,” announced Marco with a flourish. “Blueberry, coffee and chocolate synthesized into the sentiments of the people.”

Che spooned a little into his mouth and smiled. The bearded men did the same. 

“This is a good start, my friend, but…” said Che, “it lacks fervor.”

The bearded men nodded. 

“Let’s try another,” said Che, pushing his dish aside.

Pedro cleared away the porcelain dishes and brought a silver tray filled with waffle cones. Into each, he scooped a creamy, lime-green gelato infused with bits of candied lemon peel that sparkled like crystals.

“This one,” said Marco, “I think of as the sun, filtered through lime leaves, setting over the Caribbean Sea.”

“Mmm,” said Che, “this is better. What do you call it?”

“Coconut Key Lime Sorbet,” replied Marco.

Che placed his cone on the tablecloth. 

“Key lime? From Florida? No, no. This won’t do.”

Pedro grabbed all the cones before the bearded men could do the same and disappeared with the tray.

“Forgive my misunderstanding,” said Marco. “Let me show you something new.”

Marco took up three pink bowls and, from the freezer behind, scooped into each an exquisite violet-colored scoop.

“This one is called Electric Lavender,” said Marco.

Che licked his spoon. 

“No, this won’t do. It’s like licking the neck of an old woman.”

The bearded men laughed and put down their spoons. One of them handed out cigars and they began to smoke as Pedro cleared the bowls.

“My friend,” said Che, “We need a taste like an orchid just beginning to bloom.”

The young Venetian was sweating into his bandana.

“You’ll like this last one. The base flavor is banana, mixed with pistachio and…”

At the word “banana,” Che flinched. His men put down their spoons.

Pedro shuffled out of the room. He’d warned Marco.

Che pushed his dish aside and lit a cigar. He took off his beret and put it on the table.

“My friend.” He swept the hair from his eyes. “The great tentacles of the United Fruit Company control banana production throughout the Caribbean. We cannot support such an imperial enterprise.”

He puffed on his cigar. 

“Sit,” he gestured to Marco. Macro sat beside the great revolutionary who gave him a cigar and lit it.

“We were deep in the Sierra Maestra, after hiking down the steepest valley of the Turquino, patiently trailing Sanchez’s troops past burnt-out villages. All day we trekked through the jungle until we came across an unburned village where the peasants shared their food with us, and, with fire in their eyes, begged to join us. The mountains trembled with the coming thunderstorm. The leaves above trembled with revolutionary fervor. After lying with a peasant girl in the grass, I slept under the stars and awoke in the middle of a vivid dream. I was in a crystal metropolis surrounded by bright gardens and blossoming trees. My mother’s voice called out. “Ernesto,” she said, as she handed me a paper cup of ice cream. Then she disappeared. The ice cream had the acrid scent of gunpowder and blood, a hint of smoke from the burning imperialist tanks. I realized then we need an ice cream that can untether the people from the ties that bind them to distant billionaires, an ice cream loved around the world by all who value freedom!”

Marco was sweating profusely into his headband. 

Che pointed at the dish, “Ice cream licks the same from cone, spoon or dirty finger. We will serve our ice cream in paper cups, khaki paper cups. We are a khaki nation, famed for our khaki.”

Che stood up and patted Marco on the shoulder. He stood and the bearded men stood too.

“I have business in Bolivia and may be away for a while. But we will return for another tasting before the parlor opens. I have great faith in you.”

With this, Che and his posse left Marco to his cigar. 

“As you know, Che never returned from Bolivia.”

The eyes of old surgeon who’d been telling me this story misted over. We’d been waiting in line outside Havana’s oldest ice cream parlor in the heat for over an hour. I’d already taken a selfie in front of the Marco Polo statue in Plaza Vieja and a photo of the faded MINISTRY OF GELATO sign on the factory next door. My flight home was in three hours, and I was getting anxious.

Behind us, the line that snaked around the block comprised doctors, nurses, and medical students, all still in their scrubs. A doctor behind us had a stethoscope around her neck. The surgeon explained that when a shift at the hospital finished, another group joined the line. He smoked a cigar as he spoke. 

“They got him in the end.”

“Who got him?”

“Bolivian militia. Funded by the United Fruit Company.”

“But Marco? Did he make the revolutionary ice cream?”

“What do you think all these people are lining up for?” he replied with a smile. “But Marco was never entirely happy with the recipe. He lived out the rest of his days at the Ministry, working towards perfecting his Gelato Guevara. He died at a churning machine in the warehouse right there.”

“How do you know?”

“I am,” he said proudly, “Pedro’s nephew.”

On hearing this, the doctor behind us extended her hand, and, when he shook it, she clasped his with both hands and thanked him profusely.

“I can’t wait to try it,” I said. “Tell me, what does it taste like?”

The surgeon puffed on his cigar and sighed as he looked up to the sky.

“The vaporous whisper of hope on the fuzz of a baby’s head.”

I pressed the surgeon on expansion.

“Why not increase production and export it?” I asked.

He smiled at me, “That’s not how it works.”

“Is that all there is? Only the single flavor?”

“No, no,” he replied, “We have many flavors now. Young people like the Frosted Banana. Made with artificial flavor, of course.”

At this point, the surgeon’s phone rang, he answered it and said apologetically that he was needed in emergency. He left me to step inside the parlor door alone.

It was cool in the parlor. Every booth was full of doctors eating ice cream. In cones, on gondola-shaped dishes or in paper cups. The walls were adorned with gold-framed oil portraits of cows. Melodious songs from a bird in a bamboo cage over the counter filled the parlor. 

I reached the counter at last and asked for the famed revolutionary ice cream. The man behind the counter said they’d sold out. I asked for Xanadu. This, I was informed, was also sold out. I asked if they still made Electric Lavender. He said he’d never heard of it. I got the same reply for Coconut Key Lime Sorbet. He pointed a tub below. 

“This is all that’s left. Parfait Hemmingway. A fat-free, vanilla soft scoop.” 

I found a spare seat at the edge of a booth full of doctors. The ice cream was white and watery. The well-known photo of Marco Polo was printed on its paper cup, the one where he’s holding a cone above his head, eyes fixed in the distance, a halo around the khaki-colored scoop on top. 

D.J. Huppatz lives in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Recent fiction in Exacting Clam, Variant Literature, Menacing Hedge and Fugitives and Futurists. Author of two poetry books, Happy Avatar (Puncher and Wattmann, 2015) and Astroturfing for Spring (Puncher and Wattmann, 2021). He also writes about design and architecture.
Bluesky: @djhuppatz
Instagram: dj_huppatz