Chapter 1 Summary

Eight-year-old Carlos wakes up on New Year's Day and is told by his father that Batista has fled, and Fidel Castro is now in power. In this chapter his parents, his brother, his Aunt Lucia, his maid Inocencia, and her evil replacement, Caridad, are introduced. His parents are introduced as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette because his father swears to remember that that's who they were in their past lives. As he is delivering the news of Batista's defeat to Carlos, Louis XVI is putting his trousers on over his shoes, the way he always puts them on. Carlos thinks about how he has tried to put his trousers on like this with no success. What he doesn't know is that Louis XVI wore very baggy trousers. To the 8-year-old Carlos, it is proof that he will never be like his father. The...