Slippery Slope / Fernando Damaso

Photo: Rebeca

The closing, on 1 November, of the 3D movie rooms, and the ban, after 30 December, of private shops, deals a hard blow to self-employment. The authorities, once again (we remember “Operation Bird on a Wire,” “Operation Flowerpot,” and the liquidation of Free Farmers Markets in earlier years — all crackdowns on private enterprise), demonstrate their inability to compete with private property, even if it is nascent and must exist within absurd straitjackets, and the falsity of the so-called updates and changes to the economic model. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and it wouldn’t be unusual for them to apply other or similar measures in the coming weeks. Time will tell.

Anchored in the past, dogmatic to the core, Marxism-Leninism and socialism fanatics, despite their more-than-proven failures, they are trying to survive (at least as long as they have a physical existence) in the closed feudal system they’ve turned the country into, light years away from the real world. The sad thing is that many citizens peacefully accept this arbitrariness, most often committed against their own neighbors, and they may even declare their support for them in some of the so-called “Public Opinion Polls,” which we are getting used to in the official press.

Forgetting the more then 54 years of failed improvisations and failed inventions, some who see a little hope in what was happening slowly, have received a real bucket of cold water. If the government intends, with the application of these measures, which respond only to the desire to demonstrate force and show who’s boss, it will gain followers and organize the country’s legal system, in which disorder is the greatest element, they are wrong again.

Once again, illegal activities and the black market will proliferate throughout the country, like before, simply because no one can force the citizens to starve to death and live in misery. Our young people, their life plans blocked by demonstrably incompetent authorities, choose exodus, like so many professionals, athletes and artists in Cuba; and as the lyrics of an old tango said, it will continue sliding down the slippery slope.

4 November 2013

The New Man, Fraud and Reggaeton / Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

DANI IS A WHORE / THE DONKEY (illegible)
BILLBOARDS OF DECREPITUDE – Photo by Camilo Ernesto Olivera

HAVANA, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org  A teenager, a wannabe to the “reggaeton fashion,” succeeds in paying for his Spanish Language exam grades on a regular basis: “In my high school you can do business, provided that you are willing to pay well.”  The young man, whose name I was not permitted to disclose, aims to get through the remainder of his high school years  in the same manner. “My older sister supports me since, “jineteando” [prostituting herself], she met a Yuma [foreigner] loaded with “baro” [money] and “got her claws into him.”

He aspires to attain fame in that musical genre, very popular in Cuba.  Because, in his own words “it is very lucrative, faster than going to school and getting a degree or going to a trade school.”  When I asked him what he’ll do once reggaeton is over, he looks at me incredulous:  “That’s never going to happen”.  Then he slowly looks at my long hair and says:  “And you guys, the “frikis” (rockers in the popular jargon), nobody sees you guys in the radio or TV.  But reggaeton everyone supports it, from the Communist party to Lucas on television”.

Musical Equipment for Sale…

Lucas, for those who don’t know, is a national television program that transmits musical video clips produced locally. In the absence of internet or other means, this program, directed by Orlando Cruzata, is taken like a barometer of the musical popularity in the island. Everyone knows that the burgeoning producer PMM is the Lord and Mistress of this television program. I try to clarify this last detail to the kid, but he doesn’t even flinch: “Of course, dude, the people with the most money are the reggaeton musicians; look at Daddy Yankee’s last musical video, he has a tremendous Lamborghini.”

Then he explains his point of view about what he considers to be a promising future:  “As soon as I finish 12th grade, if I don’t buy a diploma beforehand; my sister is going to give me the money so I can start my own musical group and buy the entry to a musical company… Then, I make a couple of hit songs so they stick (so they are popular) and I film a hot video clip like Chacal & Yakarta.  They’ll censor it, I become famous like Osmani Garcia and then I go to Miami.”

I listen to him, and think about that chant that we repeated singsong-like in elementary school:  “Pioneers for Communism…” or the other one that would add:  “Where a communist is born, difficulties die.”  Right after, the kid feels comfortable enough and improvises what in his view will be his first super hit on the “Lucasnómetro weekly.”

Just because you are in my field of vision doesn’t mean that you are the object of my gaze.

I am in a town on the periphery of the capital, Guanabacoa. It is Sunday, the day is boring and the week depressing.  After this instructive conversation with the “new man of the XXI.century.cubiche.cu”, I conclude that the paleontologists of the future will have a lot to talk about.

I go out to walk the streets.  I observe the overwhelmed faces of the few that challenge the mid-afternoon sun.  I am sweating and the smell of the accumulated garbage piles (“in each block a committee…”) keep me company the rest of the way.  I see a sign that looks like no one has been able to erase it.  It is pretty offensive and I take a picture for you readers.  Then I see others with “spectacular” spelling errors and I do the same.  Then I understand why the “owners of the estate” [the Castro brothers] want to start a battle with the teachers that tutor students privately.

Let’s remember that in medieval times, reading and writing were privileges for the high classes.  As was access to the universities.  The children of the nomenklatura will always have their home tutors. There is and always will be, as is always been, schools for the ordinary Cuban and schools for the children of the generals in charge.

As I am heading back, I stumble upon the “reggeaton superstar”.  I show him the pictures and ask him if he sees anything wrong.  He looks at them for a few minutes, he gives me the camera back and says: “Dude, everything is cool”.

Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro,  From Cubanet, 24 October 2013

 Translated by LYD

Bayamo / Reinaldo Escobar

Great festivities today celebrated the 500th anniversary of the founding of Bayamo.

It was Diego Velázquez who, on 5 November 1513, christened this region as San Salvador de Bayamo. If we apply the same logic which leads the Cuban government not to celebrate Cuba’s independence day on May 20, we would have to be against celebrating what is, according to this way of thinking, a conquering victory by the Spanish invaders of our island. My share of aboriginal blood, recalling Hatuey’s ordeal, seethes with anger at the armed revelry for this event.

Television dedicated its prime-time show, The Roundtable, to this celebration, while the newspaper Granma filled its front page with a chronicle worthy of the Euphrates Valley (if it weren’t for the spelling mistake which, in Spanish, turned “burning” into “arm”), in which there is not the slightest allusion to the crimes that foundation allowed.

Personally, I feel good that each people has its own traditions and celebrations, starting with its birthday, what I can’t understand is the double standard that brings those who rule Cuba to remember with joy the act of conquering, and to ignore the instant we deprived ourselves of the metropolis, as incomplete as it was, as mediated by the Republic.

6 November 2013

Non-Agricultural Cooperatives: New Deception / Ernesto Garcia Diaz

campesino-cosecha-yuca-foto-cabrera-peinado-300x200HAVANA, Cuba, November www.cubanet.org – Last year the regime institutionalized non-agricultural cooperatives through Decree-Law No. 305 and its associated rules. There are now more the 56 institutions of this type. In principle, the legal statute is questionable, because it’s a rule dictated by the totalitarian power regardless of existing constitutional provisions .

In Article 20 of the Constitution, there is no contemplation of cooperatives other than voluntary associations of small farmers, which constitutes the only form of privately organized business permitted in Cuba, outside the state.

So, once again, the government violates its own laws and uses its totalitarian power to act according to its own interests. It also uses this chosen method to prevent citizens from association freely, or establishing forms of business that strengthen the role of private property within the national economy. Meanwhile, it avoids the process of constitutional reform and referendum, which could complicate its strategy of power.

By violating the provisions it itself has established, the regime socially and economically assaults the supposed beneficiaries (unemployed workers in the state system), as it states in the law that this new aperture is “experimental.” At the same time, disguising their own statements about these institutions, which are claimed to have “their own legal structure; use and enjoy and dispose of the benefits of their property; cover their expenses with their income and liable for their obligations.”
7687ccab99db4753c2afcd636e6f694c_XL-300x204In fact, the legal provision is permeated by authoritarianism, centralization and interference, and oriented to state control of economic life. The regime establishes for cooperatives a set of measures and administrative bans for the interventions of municipal governments, to provide that, for the constitution of each one, the project must be presented to the local organs of People’s Power or the national agencies that govern the activities.

These entities, in turn, must refer the matter to the Standing Commission for Implementation and Development to evaluate and present the proposal to the Council of Ministers at the beginning of the process proposed in the relevant entities. I ask you, will they be free to act as true owners of these new cooperatives?

As a demonstration of the fact that that economic opening in not genuine, it is also provided that: “The cooperatives may not merge, fold, split, or modify themselves without the prior approval of the body, agency or entity authorized its national constitution.”

On December 13, 2012, the General-President emphasized to the National Assembly of Popular Power: “We appreciate that updating of the economic model and with safe passage will begin to delve into broader issues.” Is he referring to the new deception that they are pulling over Cuban society by not allowing the establishment of private corporations?

Ernesto Garcia Diaz

Cubanet, 6 November 2013

From Doorways to Catalogs / Yoani Sanchez

Private businesses must clear out their merchandise before December 31.

In an album for weddings there are photos of blouses, pants, shoes. They aren’t good photos, but you can see the labels and brands, which is most important to the buyers. They have everything: evening wear, tennis outfits, socks for teenagers, sportswear, underwear. Most of the goods come from Panama and Ecuador, but they also come through Terminal 2 at the international airport. So-called “mules” bring them on flights from Miami, and also through Nassau and the Cayman Islands. Ephemeral fashions, trendy colors, synthetic fabrics, big names painted on the fabric, it all fills the precarious catalogs displayed door-to-door.

The so-called private “boutiques” or “trapi-shopping” (‘trapi’ comes from the word for ‘rag’), have been hit hard legally in recent weeks. After becoming a growing phenomenon in the country’s most central doorways and streets, they’ve now been given an ultimatum to clear out their merchandise. They have until 31 December to sell what they already have in stock, but 2014 will be “a year free of imported clothing sales by the self-employed.” That privilege will be enjoyed only by State stores, where a bathing suit can cost three-month’s wages. Merchandise that is old, poor quality, and out of style, meant the government stores couldn’t match the more modern and cheaper offerings provided by the private sector.

Reluctant — or unable — to compete, the Cuban State has put an end to the business of “trapi-shopping.” Several of the best-known and air-conditioned places have already closed their doors to the public. Some have invested in redecorating their living rooms to receive their customers, having seen that their prosperous business days are numbered. However, as happens in a country with so many prohibitions, some are already looking for a solution to the current crisis. For now, they are shifting from doorways to catalogs; from on-site sales to in-home shopping. No law can stop people from looking for what they need. So they will go underground, continuing to sell skirts, shorts, sandals… with that aura, so attractive, of the new and forbidden.

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Justice and Prayers for Angel Yunier Remon Arzuga #FreeElCritico / Angel Santiesteban

Ángel Yunier Remon Arzuaga ’El Critico.’ Jailed since March 2013 for being a non-conformist rapper and an opponent of the Cuban dictatorship. In July he contracted cholera in prison.

Jailed since March 2013 for being a non-conformist rapper and an opponent of the Cuban dictatorship. In July he contracted cholera in prison.

The chain of suffering continues for Cuban opponents. Now adding to the injustice committed, among many of the dictatorship, against the artist and human rights advocate Ángel Remon Yunier Arzuaga, who was hospitalized in intensive care and reported to be in critical condition having gone on hunger strike.

He has been imprisoned since 26 March of this year, after the fascist hordes who obey the totalitarian regime of the Castro brothers, undertook in an act of repudiation in front of his house. In addition to being a victim of government provocation, as a great irony of the dictatorship and that we can never get used to, he was accused of “attacking,” and so the prosecution requested eight years of imprisonment.

Since his arrival in prison, he has suffered the hostility of his repressors, those who dealt out to him multiple beatings, and he was infected with cholera.

It’s no secret that Ángel Yunier Remón Arzuaga’s crime, like that of all of us opponents who are in prison, is to confront the system, which for a long time, if it ever was, stopped being communist or left leaning politically, and only responds to the desire for power of Fidel and Raul Castro in their State without rights.

Yunier Angel belongs to the duo “The Children Nobody Wanted” — to my honor* — and if that wasn’t enough, with the suggestive name of “The Critic,” together with Yudier Blanco Pacheco. The lyrics of their songs are hymns among youth, making an impression with immediacy and profundity on Cuban youth who then learn and repeat the verses. Through their voices they feel that they also reclaim that which belongs to them by right: freedom.

His real and unforgivable offense, in the eyes of the political police, is to think differently, and expose this through his art. State Security sought to stop his rise in the Cuban culture.

Taking from experience the awesome rise of Los Aldeanos (The Villagers) and the phenomenon it immediately caused among the youth. Guided by a sense of support towards this young artist, I am obliged to announce that if the worst is to happen to this activist for the rights and freedom, from the place where I am detained, I will start an indefinite hunger strike.

May God be with Remon Yunier Angel Arzuaga, may He protect him in the name of his baby of nine months, his wife, and all the Cubans with shame and good feelings that accompany him in prayer.

The dictatorship is responsible for his life. The die is cast.

Ángel Santiestebn-Prats

Lawton Prison settlement. November 2013.

*Translator’s note: “The Children Nobody Wanted” is the title of a book by Angel and also the title of his blog.

Translated by: Shane J. Cassidy

6 November 2013

Abortion on an Island Where Women Don’t Want to Give Birth / Polina Martínez Shvietsova

Aborto-hospital-1-300x149HAVANA, Cuba, October, www.cubanet.org – Cuba has been suffering a fertility crisis since the late seventies. And although voluntary abortion is legal, it is a problem because the island’s birthrate is below the replacement rate, with a consequent aging population.

Abortion is also a health problem, as it is used by young people as the main method of contraception.

There are young women who have had three to six interruptions. According to statistics from the National Fertility Survey (NFS) in 2009, 21% of Cuban women between 15 and 54 years have had at least one pregnancy which ended in induced abortion or a “menstrual regulation.”

Such behavior, the study indicates, is sustained by “confidence in the Cuban health system” and the right of access to such service. However, it is necessary that the public, especially young people, understand that voluntary abortion is not a method of contraception.

At the root of the problem is the increasingly earlier onset of sexual intercourse, promiscuity, the little and poor use of contraception. This brings a pregnancy which, in turn, brings an abortion, and, ultimately, infertility, as well as problems such as ectopic pregnancy, another cause of infertility in women, cervical cancer or whose occurrence is increasingly frequent at early ages.

Aborto-2Cuban women delay the age when they first give birth. Health professionals must be prepared to work with a high-risk pregnant population: women over 35 years of age.

Also keep in mind the pregnancy among teenagers. According to statistics from the Fertility Survey, about 85% of young people know that there are contraceptive methods but do not use them. While 60 % report having used the, but for the vast majority they do it sporadically.

The scarce family doctors try to persuade women of childbearing age to become pregnant. This leads to a suspicion of possible directions from the government to curb the population decrease, rather than to stimulate the birth rate, as is done in other countries.

It occurred to me to ask at random, “Does anyone know any happy young couple?” Encountering stable and happy young couples is very rare. Many couples do not want children because of unemployment, low wages, the  currency, the deterioration of housing, overcrowding with several generations living together, and a great desire to emigrate.

Polina Martínez Shvietsova

Cubanet, 5 November 2013

Sad Tiger / Orlando Luis Pardo Luiz

(1)

The unfathomable universe, lonely and cold.  Your footprints on the cement, still soft in our sidewalk. Your small steps, near and probably lost: Apology of the p. The world, the city, of the town: Cuba, Havana, Lawton. The sea, the year. The hum of the space left by you. The unspoken words, yet waiting. Like tigers, like me. The sadness of zero years in a country not as deserted but as defected: detested. 2000, 2001, 2002. Cuba, Cuba, Cuba: Hypothesis of country. 2003, 2004, 2005. Armenia, Armenia, Armenia: Hypostasis homeland. And the loud rabid sound of a car that turns the corner and stops in front of me. 666: is a police car. The law finally has remembered me.

(2)

Half hour before, I was a free man of the world. Half hour later I would be a free world of the man. Now, for the time being, that uniformed man interrogated me:

-Your name- he said

I looked at him.  I was afraid to say the truth.  I hesitated.  But at the end I told him.  And I was wrong.  I think.  Or maybe not.

-William Saroyan- I said.

The day was beautiful, the town peaceful, and his gaze was noble. He wanted to destroy me, that is true, as perhaps he wanted to destroy himself too. However, even now I am convinced that the mulatto policeman had a noble gaze. Simply he was tired, overwhelmed by himself. And by me.

-Your indentification- he said.

Of course, I didn’t have identification.  Otherwise, this story wouldn’t have existed.  I told him.  That I didn’t have identification, otherwise our story would have never existed.  Plus I was sitting on the sidewalk of Fonts and Beales, the strangest two streets in Lawton, just in front of my house.  However, the latter I didn’t say it.  I shouldn’t confess everything ahead of time.  With the law is like that.

-Then you have to come with me- he said, and started pronouncing phrases through his walkie-talkie.  He was euphoric, perhaps he would never forget that day.  I was happy for him.

Accompany him. The idea appeared fatal. I told him. He pushed me and handcuffed me great skill, hands to the back. It hurt me, but I kept silent. He hit me without too much force in the legs. It was an action that I never understood. In fact, I still don’t understand it. As if he was looking for something, as if he wanted bend something in me. And that was simply impossible. In fact, it still is.

We rode in police car 666 and the car accelerated up Fonts and then slowed down at Beales, until he parked in front of the police station. At the side of a children’s playground, now in ruins.

I was a good man and I was crying. Crying of happiness.

The driver was looking at me surprised; he would scratch his head under his blue hat. The mulatto too. He couldn’t shift that crazy noble gaze from me. I told him.

-Shut up already, you sound like a little girl- he said

And I followed instructions. And just like that we lost our first possibility, in 50 or perhaps 500 years, to have a conversation.

I don’t know. Now I suppose that was the price of our mutual happiness. Mute happiness.

(3)

Isn’t it suspicious that even language exists? And that also rusty railcars from Railways of Cuba exist, stopped at the Luyano crossroads? And the Metropolitan Buses crossing the railways, shimmering in the moonlight, lunatic moles, like dead tigers almost to be point of being revived from a shot at the heart? And the pain of the yellow lines over a zigzagging street that during the day the asphalt has melted? And the metro buses, and big rigs, and bicitaxis, and other reality particles? And the flat feet of the pedestrians, as pedants and forgivable as any policeman, as flat as the eternal first page of the Jairenik newspaper, as precarious as the cries of the Chinese Fu to the long and narrow neighborhood: Jaileni…, Jaileni…, Jaileni…? And the blue color of the night, of the sea, and the uniforms of the authorities? And the extended hands of the beggars at the restaurant, sitting down without dreams at the old sandwich place at Lawton’s bar waiting not for a coin but that it would never dawn? And the natural flowers, like the plastic ones: kimilsungias with super red petals, Bulgarian roses of worker descent, tuberculosis tulips, and lilies from the Pastrana River? In fact, isn’t it even suspicious to live? Just like your radical absence in Havana, except in my room. Just in like your sad smiling picture, hanging from my wall, perhaps from the neck. Just like that smile without memory that, night after night, you remind me that just now you are forgetting me. From another town, anywhere in the world, except Lawton.  From Miami, Mexico, Montevideo; from Manila, Moscow, Milan; from Marcella, Melbourne, Madrid or La Mecca: amnesia of the sh. Like the smile three times sadder of that woman in black and white hanging at the lobby of the police station. Under it, someone has written her name and hung a flower. Plastic, of course. But the typography is miniscule and I can’t read it from the bench on which I am detained without a major accusation. Perhaps “Celia”, perhaps “Cielo”, perhaps “Celia in the Cielo” or the reverse. I really don’t know. And me, isn’t it suspicious that I even exist?  And the tiger, the beautiful beast that ignores which of the successive cages they have moved him to, isn’t it very suspicious this sudden exhibition?

(4)

They took my fingerprints.  There was no ink and they did it with an open pen refill.  Blue ink, just like the cap of the driver, and the splendid sky of that January, and the uniforms of all those men there. Good men forced to all like the same color fabric.

They took my fingerprints.  For the first time I saw my fingerprints.  All fingerprints look like those of a criminal.  However, not even criminals can stop being good, despite the ink marks on the top right corner of a “Detention Form”.  Or Defunction.

Next to me an old lady was shaking, her hands opening and closing the zipper of her bag.  A nylon bag, full of something that no one could now imagine what.  Cubanacan S.A., Made in Armenia.

To my other side, squeezed on the other side of the bench, two young girls of 15 or 16 looked at Celia or perhaps at the fake room ceiling. Either way, both with rabies. Good girls trapped by the equitable strap of hate. Black. The old lady was white. Three sad faces and not even a trace of the tiger. I simply didn’t exist. And it was fine like that. If I had existed then, the story wouldn’t exist later.

At that time, kids were screaming outside, having fun in their play ground or paradise now in ruins.  A man dressed in plain clothes walked up to me.  He kneeled down at the bench and looked at me with all the benevolence of the New Year, century and millennium.  After that look without bad intentions, Armageddon could come: humanity was saved.  I sensed that this man was a saint and that he was far above good and evil.

-They have told me that your name is William Saroyan- he said.

I nodded.

-Could we trust in your word?- he said

I nodded.

-And in the wildness of your look?- he said and smiled.

I nodded, and also smiled.

And without realizing, we were giving each other a long hug in front of everyone’s surprise. Incapable of the smallest reconciliation, them; incapable of the greatest rancor, us. However, everything had been an error. Horror always is. And then, the man dressed in plain clothes whispered just like when someone says I love you in your ear:

-You are under arrest.

Definitely, he was an immortal.

Or perhaps I loved him.

Or both things at the same time.

(5)

And, ultimately, they are nothing but days of the universe flush with January, time retracted by the tedium of looking at it all wrong. A Sputnik knife, or an Inout pressure cooker, an Amadeo shoe. Nothing fits, everything evaporates in the evaporated milk of reality. Nata Nela. I had a Polaroid camera , and the world at times reminded me a snapshot scene and sometimes a very scenic snapshot. I took photos. Nothingness. Objects left behind. Books without letters. Kids that died with me. Waterfall promises. Wishes to feel wishes. Empty looks, emptied by the boredom of looking at it in reverse. Mine on a rooftop in Lawton, for example. Yours in a corridor of Armenia, for example. Your look humiliated by another Polaroid camera far away, on the other side of the ocean, perhaps two or three meters away: hanged, perhaps by the neck, over the most solitary wall in my room, in my house. And the Caribbean Ocean, the year of the Horse. The indigo blue, the blue uniform from the Industriales baseball team. Nothing settles, all memories float like drool. And, ultimately, they are nothing but days of the universe flush with January: lost time, or even better, a story out of time.

(6)

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Rock Wagram? – said investigator number one.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Arak Vagramian? – said investigator number two.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Aram Garoglanian? – said investigator number three.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Wesley Jackson? – said investigator number four.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Ulises Macauley? – said investigator number five.

-No- I said.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Armenak Saroyan? – said investigator number six.

-No- I said.  That’s only my father’s name.

-William Saroyan, isn’t your real name Takuji Saroyan? – said investigator number seven.

-No- I said. That’s only my mother’s name.

-William Saroyan, do you swear then be called William Saroyan and nothing else than William Saroyan? – the man dressed in plain clothesshook me by the shoulders.

-No- I said. That’s only my name.

(7)

Every man is always a good man in a mistaken world. No man is capable of changing even half the story around him. Nor a word. Nor a syllable. Nor silence. Loneliness and sadness are the tribute and the failure of every good man. That’s why we are tragic and innocents and we have long distance loves that will never leave us. Even if we are jailed because the law, finally, has remembered us and it asks us to confess some name, even a false one. Preferably a false one, but plausible: Who would dare to profane the word truth? Itis like a beautiful silence that at the end always obliges us to participate. It overlaps and involves us. From there, then, our implied guilt. From there, out notable guilt. These are the rules of the game. Good laws, like all laws have always been.

(8)

I was released, on my word. That is, under silence. They ask me not to say to anyone what had taken place. It was useless to convince them that in reality nothing had taken place, and it was just there where my story was. I was released even without a fine, by the pure trust of the police institution.

When I got home they were holding a wake for me.  My mother, who had not yet passed away, was pouting again. And my father, dead in 1990 something, was consoling her as badly as it was impossible:

-Don’t cry, Takuji.  Our son will soon be fine – he would repeat.

The neighbors lookedat them as if they were raving lunatics. And they were. Then they looked at me, as if suddenly they had become the raving lunatics. And they had. And even then, they all slipped stampeding from my wake, the most hysterical yelled “Alleluia, he has been resuscitated.”  But I only kissed my mother and a squeeze for my father. It was so unknown that I guess it was just as well.  I assured them that there was no horror:

-Dear parents: nothing has happened here – I lied to console them.  It has all been a misunderstanding.

And then I walked through the mansion at Fonts and Beales, straight through the longest and narrow halls of the world, and I closed the door of my room to cry. It was a winter cold: the driest season of the year, of the old century, and of the new millennium. Therefore, not one tear I cried.

I looked at the picture of my old love, also in black and white. Just like Celia, or Sky, perhaps Celia in the Sky, or to the contrary, in the police station.  Just like the mud accumulated on the sidewalk after the successuve stations of the world.  And at that point the phone rang and it was her.

Her, her, her.

After exactly one decade, I heard her voice again.  The voice of my old love, or at least, my own voice pronouncing again that old word: love.

(9)

All man who lives without love has to look for love.  No man can live in love for too long a time, nor does he want it even if he wants it. And at the same time, love too soon grows bored from any man’s history.  These are also, the rules of the game.  Magnificent rules, for a magnificent creature. The rest is all literature: literally, hard letters. Exquisite cadaver.

(10)

-I have missed you a lot- she said in Armenian from Erevan.

-Me more- I answered in Armenian from Lawton.

It had been a long time since I had spoken the mother tongue. All the same, it took half of phrase to restore my country to me.  I remembered the first verse of the hymn: “Oh, Armenia, the absent sea under your blue peaks on the horizons, they are enough promise for my adoration.”

-And I adore you too- she instantly replied, now talking in Cuban from Europe.  The calling card is ending: so is best that I call you tomorrow.

Best tomorrow.

And she hung up.

My old love hung up, hung up, hung up.

Leaving me with the silence in my mouth. Leaving again hanged only from my wall, perhaps by the neck. As smiling and sad as if my room were the lobby of the police station.

And I didn’t even have time to answer her in Cuban from Cuba. There was a knot in my brain before the one in my throat.  It had been a long time that I hadn’t spoken that borrowed tongue. Stray. On occasions, not even half a million phrases are enough to be silent.

(11)

The solitary, fathomless and universal cold. Your footprints in the now rigid cement of our sidewalk: rigor mortis. Your footprints dissected, distant, definitely unknown: deception of the d. The mute, the wicked, the mud: Cuba, Havana, Lawton. The sea, the year. The ringing of the silence left by you. Never ask for whom the bells are silent. The over used words, still lying in wait. Like tigers, like me. The sadness of the zero years in a country not as deserted as defected: detested. 2000, 2001, 2002. Armenia, Armenia, Armenia: homeland bandage. 2003, 2004, 2005. Cuba, Cuba, Cuba: homeland apostrophe. And the endearing silence of the car that turns the line and stops in front of me: the joke of the bells announcing that the paper ended. The rusty keys of my old Underwood still doubling the alarm. All aboard. All aborted. Until you finally forget justice. The good thing is that one can dispense of the righteous. It’s as easy as to dispense with a beginning, with no story, and to  simulate an end. Irreparable laws to mitigate, without too much success, the noble excellence of our unreality. Good laws, of course, as any laws they should always be.

Translated by LYD

3 November 2013

The Welcome of Our Brothers in the USA / Mario Lleonart

US churches and ministeries plus the media and secular institutions are giving us a warm welcome.

Tomorrow at 9 am we will participate in the special service dedicated to the Protestant Reform Day that will be celebrated at 9 am in the Lutheran Church “Prince of Peace” (6375 West Flager Street, Miami, FL 33144).  We were invited by its pastor Lenier Gallardo; we listened to him from Cuba for many years preaching a liberating gospel through the program “Yesterday, Today and Always” or through his famous sermons of seven words each Holy Friday, through WQBA.  In this special service the sermon will be provided by the Baptist pastor, also a prolific writer, journalist and historian, Marcos Antonio Ramos, and with whom we already had the honor of sharing at Miami Dade College.

Then at 11 am we wiil have the responsibility of preaching in the New Jerusalem Baptist Church at 760 SE 8 St in Hialeah, invited by its pastor Luis Estevez.  We already did it at Adonai and Mi Ebenezer, invited by its pastor Moises Robaina; at Estrella de Belen, invited by its pastor Javier Sotolongo; at Bethel, invited by its pastor Gerardo Garcia and at Nazaret, invited by its pastor Noel Perez.

We have also been invited to the Baptist program of Multicultural Radio (UNAVISION RADIO), to several programs of the services of “Onward” by 1450 AM; and to the program of Life (1080 AM) and Radio Luz by 1360 AM, this last can be heard perfectly in Cuba, and we had the unforgettable opportunity of being heard by our brothers there.

To top it off, pastor Javier Sotolongo gave us the opportunity to exercise a professorship in the Miami Bible College that he directs.  The live transmission of his church services permitted us to reach with our preaching many around the world, including those who had the privileged and very exclusive possibility of accessing from Cuba.

We are receiving invitations to go share with churches and ministries in other cities and states like Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Indiana.  We were already in Washington DC where one of our most important stops occurred: the visit to the headquarters of the World Baptist Alliance where we were received by the unforgettable brother Raimundo Barreto who directs the Commission of Justice and Liberty there; in Oklahoma where we met courageous brothers, typical inhabitants of the not coincidentally named Bible Belt of the United States. We thank God for offering us the excellent opportunity of also proclaiming his Word on this shore where we also have found so much of Cuba present.

Translated by mlk.

26 October 2013

Jumping into an Empty Pool / Osdany Morales

Luis Trapaga Morales 1
Art by Luis Trápaga.

1

If this were a Woody Allen film, Ariel Costa thought, the evening he arrived in Santo Domingo, I would meet two women at two different bars.

I would vaguely fall in love with both. One would be American—an actress vacationing in the tropics. The other would fit the same description with the same three attributes. But the first would be blond, the second one brunette.

In short order I would marry the blond. Together we would fly out to Los Angeles. Her father would see something of himself in me, as he was years ago when he was younger, except for the part about me being Cuban. Stirred by the reflection of his own image, my father-in-law would arrange for me to meet with producers. They would acquire the screen rights to my short stories with the idea of turning them into blockbuster movies. I’d settle for an oceanfront home where I would write, all the while feeling inscrutably happy.

One morning, on the golf course, my father-in-law would introduce me to Orson Martinez. He is the ghostwriter who would adapt my stories into screenplays. Orson Martinez is French and spellbound by American movies. His successful screen adaptations have brought several stories to life and have spawned over seven sequels. Some even made it past a fourth prequel.

Orson Martinez’s theory is that if you are French and so taken with Hollywood movies, the best thing to do is move to California and start making films. The rest would take care of itself. I am clueless as to what “the rest” is, although my wife and her father seem to know. They both nod and then look at me.

Orson Martinez takes the book I published in Cuba. He waves good-bye from his convertible as he drives away with my book. He sends a text message to let me know he made it home but has yet to read my book. He sends a text message again after reading the first story and then another after the second story. After that there are no more texts. He shows up at my house in Los Angeles at exactly twelve past four. The pages of my book are all scribbled with notes. Although I don’t quite get it, he found a movie somewhere in those stories.

My wife asks whether it has a role for her. It does. It is that of a woman whose son goes missing. She asks him whether it also has a role for her dear friend Jimmy. It does. He is the one who kidnaps the child, but that is to be revealed only towards the end of the movie. My wife squeals delightedly. She is torn between texting or phoning. She decides to call. Jimmy, she whispers on the phone, we have a screenplay. We both have parts. Jimmy’s own squeals are heard on the other end of the line. It’s Ariel’s script. Wait until you read it. You’ll be so excited you’ll be jumping into an empty pool.

READ THE REST OF THIS STORY AT SAMPSONIA WAY MAGAZINE, HERE

Translated by Diana Álvarez-Amell

Thankful / Rebeca Monzo

Yesterday, November 1, in the afternoon hours, once again we crossedthe now familiar threshold at Estado de SATS.  In this opportunity, I was the guest of honor, with an exposition of my art in patchwork titled “Women,” dedicated to a gender I belong to and of which I feel proud of, because each day we manage, despite the shortages and inconveniences, to integrate ourselves more into society, sharing and competing side by side, fair and square with many men, without neglecting those tasks that, as mothers, wives and daughters, ancestrally, were “assigned” to us.

I was moved by the beautiful opening words about my trajectory, spoken by my good friend Regina Coyula, but even more was the satisfaction of my friends’ presence, that despite of having work and professional relationships with the only employer of our country, had the courage of ignoring the operation orchestrated by State Security, now so habitual, and came closer, for the first time to this emblematic and “stigmatized” place.

I noticed and missed the presence of some friends that I thought would be there, above all women, the gender to which this exposition was dedicated; some were sick and some had last minute incidents, which sadly must have pleased the “comrades that were taking care of us.”  However, the exposition met its objective, and we showed once more that Estado de SATS is an inclusive place, where arts and thoughts converge, and where the common denominator is the aspiration that Cuba be again a free and democratic country, with all and for the well being of all, as our Apostle Jose Marti would have wished.

My most sincere gratitude to Estado de SATS, the organizers of this beautiful event and to all that came to provide me their support.

Translated by LYD

5 November 2013