It is still not known with absolute certainty whether Fidel Castro is dead, alive or somewhere in between.
But with rumours churning all week that he was dead or nearly so, tantalising evidence that he is out and about in Havana surfaced yesterday when a Venezuelan politician visiting the island said he had met with the former Cuban leader for five hours and then showed off a picture of Mr Castro smiling and dressed in a checkered shirt and straw hat, like the retiree he is.
"Fidel is very well," Elias Jaua, the former vice president of Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally, told reporters yesterday.
It was the first publicly shown photograph of Mr Castro (86) since he appeared with Pope Benedict XVI in March during his visit to Cuba, and it seemed to be an effort by Cuba and Venezuela to bat down a deluge of rumours about Castro's health.
New whispers almost instantly sprouted over whether it was really him or if the photo was old or a fake.
The Cuban government did not release any photos itself yesterday, but state news media reported that Mr Castro would publish an article in government publications today, accompanied by pictures.
A spokesman for the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City also released a statement that included a video of Mr Jaua speaking to reporters, and his comment that Mr Castro had engaged in an "animated" dialogue with employees at the hotel where he was dropping off Mr Jaua.
Mr Jaua said he took the picture on Saturday afternoon in a minibus carrying him, Mr Castro and other guests to the landmark Hotel Nacional in Havana. They discussed agriculture, history, tourism, international politics and other topics, he said.
The photo shows Mr Castro smiling at the camera and making a gesture, surrounded by five guests that included the director of the hotel, Antonio Martinez Rodriguez, and Mr Castro's wife, Dalia Soto del Valle.
Mr Castro did not seem to be in a vegetative state, hooked to a life-support machine or already dead, as rumours on social media had it last week, partly fed by a Venezuelan doctor in Miami who said he had heard that Mr Castro had had a serious stroke and was terminally ill.
The fact that Mr Castro published a congratulatory note to medical students in a government newspaper on Thursday did little to tamp down the rumours.
Mr Rodriguez said in an interview yesterday that Mr Castro had turned up unannounced and invited him into the minibus to talk. Mr Castro did not get out of the bus, he said.
"That's just how he is," he said.
"It was very exciting."
With reporters in Havana tipped off that he had met with Mr Castro, Mr Jaua emerged from the hotel yesterday and was peppered with questions about the encounter, producing a print of the photo when asked if he had a picture of Mr Castro.
Mr Castro, after a mysterious intestinal ailment, stepped down as president in 2006, handing over official power to his brother, Raul Castro, who is 81.
State news media reported that the former leader had voted by absentee ballot in municipal elections.
Granma, the official newspaper, said Mr Castro "was visited at home by a member of the electoral council to submit his ballot that was later turned in at a local precinct and deposited in the ballot box."
Raul Castro, for his part, appeared in pictures and state-released video yesterday as he voted. Scholars not allied with the government called the elections a charade.
New York Times