BY HERALD STAFF

 CARDENAS, Cuba -- Seven-year-old Elián González's new life in Cuba is an existence of no wants, private bodyguards, and even a doting Fidel Castro who stops by in a swirl of black Mercedes-Benz sedans to kiss the child on the head.

 The 74-year-old Cuban leader promised the world a ``normal life'' for Elián when the boy returned from Miami last year to the drowsy, dilapidated city of Cárdenas. But what the shipwreck survivor got instead was a rigidly crafted world of privilege, as surreal as his often tumultuous public life in Little Havana.

 While Elián no longer lives in the glare of cameras, he goes to school each morning shadowed by police. His playmates are limited to the children at school, which is
 under police surveillance. Neighbors describe the husky, high-spirited youngster as a virtual ghost, rarely seen playing with local children in the narrow street outside his bright blue home.

 When heavily armed federal agents grabbed Elián from the arms of his Miami relatives one year ago today, many exiles predicted that the child would be used as a poster boy for the Cuban revolution. The notion was anathema to the Cuban-American community, which followed every moment of the emotional seven-month fight for custody from the time Elián was rescued on Thanksgiving Day 1999 to the day he left U.S. soil for Cuba in June last year.

 Instead, it is his father, 32-year-old Juan Miguel González, who has emerged as a highly visible hero, pictured alongside Castro at key national celebrations like last
 week's observance by the Cuban state of its victory at the Bay of Pigs.

 Juan Miguel has also been promoted to a leadership position in the local Communist Party, and enjoys overnight stays in government guest houses and free
 transportation.

 "You don't see Elián's face on posters or T-shirts anymore,'' says a longtime Castro loyalist in Havana. ``What you have is Elián, like a trophy in a showcase, and Juan Miguel, the loyal comrade applauded by Castro himself.''

 LOYALTY TO CASTRO

 Family reportedly lives well, watched over by Cuban guards

 Half of the González family may have fled to Florida, neighbors in Cárdenas say. But those who remain not only proved their fealty to Castro at the moment he needed a cause to galvanize a disenchanted population, but they emerged as authentic, even articulate supporters of the Cuban president.

 ``Well, that family has a new washing machine, a new television -- many new things,'' said a woman on the block next to the González family residence who asked that she be identified only as Pamela. ``These are the rewards for standing by Fidel even when the yanquis offered them millions of dollars [to defect].''

 But privilege has its price.

 Government agents monitor incoming phone calls at the González home. Neighbors say they prevent any contact with Elián's Miami relatives except calls from Manolo González, an uncle and the lone family member who argued for the return of Elián to Juan Miguel. They politely turn away reporters asking to talk with the González family.

 At least one, and sometimes two, unarmed but uniformed policemen stand guard at the front door of the home, whose windows and doors are protected by steel shutters. Neighbors say González is worried about a kidnapping attempt. They scoff at assertions by his Miami relatives that the Cuban government fears Juan Miguel might defect.

 Police also guard the pink-painted Marcelo Salado primary school that Elián attends, and often accompany Juan Miguel or Elián's grandmothers when they take him to school, pick him up, or take him to karate lessons.

 Juan Miguel has his own gard -- ``my friend,'' he tells neighbors -- at Parque Josone at the nearby resort town of Varadero. There, it is his job to wait on tables at the small Italian restaurant on the tree-shaded premises, or man the entrance booth to the park. It was once the summer home of the Arechabala family, which owned the now defunct Havana Club rum distillery across the bay in Cárdenas.

 Some foreign tourists dining at the restaurant have paid generous tips to have their photo taken with Elián's father, a caretaker said.

 "Lucky guy,'' said Ernesto Lanier, a visitor pulling at the oars in a boat on the park's private lake. ``His life here is a dream.''

 Sam Ciancio, the Broward County roofer who dived into the sea to rescue Elián, is one of the few Americans in the drama who still have regular contact with Juan Miguel. Others include the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches, which helped reunite father and son, and Jerry M. Weiner, professor emeritus of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School. Weiner was asked by the INS to check on Elián in Washington, and saw the boy again in March.

 Ciancio, 41, went to Cárdenas -- 90 miles east of Havana -- for four days at Thanksgiving. He stayed at a government guest house, visited Elián's school and saw the boy at his home, where he keeps a pet parrot he calls Ninoska. Ciancio plans to return to Cuba in June.

 ``He's still the same,'' he said. ``He's a kid who likes fun. Every 10 minutes he was fixing his hair. He'd get the hair spray out, run to the mirror, check out how he looks. Then he'd use some gel, run back again.''

 But Ciancio said he agreed to a request by the González family not to discuss the rescue with the boy or his playmates. In Elián's mind, he said, ``I am the American guy who splashed around in the pool with him when he was in Washington [awaiting the outcome of his court case]. He doesn't remember me.''

 ``When Elián gets older, then he can know the truth,'' Ciancio said of the rescue.

 However, Campbell, the religious studies director at New York's Chautauqua Institution, said Elián has not been shielded from the loss of his mother. Campbell made her fourth visit to Cárdenas two weeks ago.

 REMEMBRANCE OF MOTHER

 Elián displayed a photograph of the woman who died at sea

 ``This is my beautiful mama -- she's dead,'' Campbell said the youngster exclaimed matter-of-factly when he showed her a photo of Elizabet Brotons, who died at sea apparently after placing Elián in an inner tube in a desperate attempt to make sure he lived. Brotons' body was never found.

 Campbell said she especially admired the efforts by Elián's stepmother, Nercy Carmenate Castillo, to help the boy adjust to life in Cuba and come to grips with the fact that his mother died at sea.

 She said both Juan Miguel and his wife have a close, warm relationship with Elián, who dotes on his half-brother, Hianny.

 ``Nercy is expecting a baby boy in June,'' Campbell said. ``I asked Elián what he would name the baby and he said, `Elián II.' He still has that mischievous twinkle. And he know's he's joking.''

 Campbell said Castro kept his word, as far as she is concerned.

 ``Promises made, promises kept,'' she said of a pledge made to her by Castro in Havana before Elián returned. ``He said, `We will not expose him to publicity. We are not going to put him in a parade.' That hasn't happened.''

 APTITUDE FOR CAMERA

 But boy has been spared from the public spotlight

 She said Elián said nothing about his Miami family. But when she gave him a Polaroid camera, the most photographed boy in Florida acted like a camera pro, asking
 people to pose just as the photographers once massed around the Little Havana home demanded of him.

 Weiner, who had told the INS that he believed Elián would be better able to cope with the death of his mother if he lived in Cuba, said he, too, was ``very, very pleased to see how well [Elián] was doing.''

 ``My impression was they've really done a wonderful job of not having Elián become the victim of attention, and of making his life as normal as possible,'' Weiner said. In his view, the police were on hand only to safeguard Elián's privacy.

 Leovigildo Contreras, who lives near the González family, said ``Fidel kept his word when he said everything would return to the way it was once the boy came home.''

 NO STATUES OF BOY

 ``If you look around Cárdenas, you won't see any statues of Elián,'' Contreras said. ``Sometimes we see Juan Miguel taking the boy to school'' on the crossbar of a bike. ``Two or three times, I have seen news about him on television.

 ``But mostly, we see Juan Miguel standing by the side of Fidel'' on television. He is introduced as ``a symbol of the homeland'' and lauded as a model communist by
 Castro, Contreras said. ``Fidel loves Juan Miguel,'' he said.

 Evidence of Juan Miguel's special status, other neighbors said, came last July when Castro summoned González to the Karl Marx Theater in Havana to pin the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes medal on his chest. It is the Cuban state's highest civilian award.

 On Dec. 6, Castro arrived in Cárdenas unannounced to toast Elián and his father at the boy's birthday party. In March, Castro returned to introduce father and son to South African President Thabo Mbeki.

 FATHER IN THE LIMELIGHT

 He appeared with Castro at recent public ceremonies

 Last week in Havana, Juan Miguel González -- clad in Cuban militia fatigues with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder -- joined Castro on center stage at a vast outdoor political gathering. On Thursday, he was with the Cuban leader in Playa Girón to celebrate the defeat in 1962 of the U.S.-trained Brigade 2506. Elián was not at the official ceremony but was playing at the nearby Horizontes resort.

 ``Everyone knows that Juan Miguel is a very good man and an excellent father and that since he returned [from the United States], he has been promoted,'' said Mayda Moreira, a woman collecting firewood at La Sierra. La Sierra is the rocky waterfront near Cárdenas where Elián began his voyage to the United States with his mother on Nov. 21, 1999.

 Julia Almenar, another neighbor, said the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution -- a block watch that monitors and reports on the activities of Cubans -- held meetings before Elián returned to discuss ``how we would guarantee their privacy.'' Yet some Cárdenas citizens appear only too happy to give outsiders directions to the González house.

 Still, Almenar said, ``It is the duty of all of us to ask questions when strangers come. Sometimes we tell them to go away, or we report them. We do it to protect the boy.''

 The home is one block south of Fifth Street, a crumbling collection of formerly elegant commercial buildings long disused. Horse-pulled carriages -- ``coches tradicionales'' -- clip-clop past the house bearing Cárdenas citizens. Other locals weave down the street on Chinese-made bicycles and wave to a policeman seated on a chair outside the González residence.

 'SAVE ELIAN'

 A small sign above the front door, erected by Almenar's committee, reads, ``Salvemos a Elián'' -- ``Save Elián'' -- a slogan used in Cuba during mass demonstrations organized by Castro to demand the ``liberation'' of the boy. It is, apparently, the sole symbol of the struggle still visible in town.

 A few neighbors share stories discreetly after ensuring that no one is watching.

 Elián, whose hair was cropped close in Miami, has let it grow a bit longer and slicks it back ``like a real good-looking guy,'' one woman said, laughing. ``His father thinks he should have short hair, but he spoils the boy.''

 Elián is shy around most visitors, but he is not bashful when the visitor is also a celebrity -- ``like him'' -- said a woman whose daughter attends Elián's school. ``When Fidel was here for Elián's birthday, the boy took the microphone to welcome him. Fidel was so impressed he bent down and kissed the child on his head.''

 Elián often goes to Parque Josone with his father, a man said. ``He splashes the water'' in the lake ``and chases the birds like most boys. He is a sweet child, but he is used to getting his own way.''

 ``He does not miss Miami,'' the man said. ``He never mentions it anymore. . . . He is a very happy little boy.''

                                    © 2001