Translating Cuba

Yesterday was my saint’s day. I have not gotten excited about it for a long time because, with each passing year, I have had to say goodbye to many important people in my life.

In the 1970s I had to say goodbye to my three beloved cousins, my aunts and my uncles. At that time we were a very tight-knit, extended family, frequented by a large number of close friends. They later left one by one—my childhood friends, my first boyfriend, classmates, other friends… The face of the neighborhood changed and, for me, took on a feeling of emptiness. The changes taking place in the country both entertained us and drove us crazy, but they did not make up for the losses. Some things are impossible to replace.

Eventually, new families came along, and with them new friendships grew. Our own grew after my sister and I got married. Later, my sons and her daughters were born, and some part of the lost happiness returned.

The 1980s arrived, then the 1990s, and with them the blows that once again broke up the already decimated Cuban family. Once again I had to experience the pain of seeing those whom I loved most—my sons—leave. My three beautiful granddaughters were born outside the country, granddaughters I hardly know.

Many of my new friends have also left, and many others want to. Nevertheless, God has placed in my path wonderful people with whom I have recently established new bonds of friendship and love, which I hope endure.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, in spite of all that is going on in the country which concerns us. The new people in my life came over to congratulate me and to share some very pleasant moments. Those who could not come did so by telephone or through email. Ultimately, against all odds, I had a very happy birthday.

November 15 2012

Room N. N for Nothing, Nobody, None.

I am writing in the suburban night in the Surgical-Clinic of 26th Street, next to Sports City, the flying saucer blocked by the architecture of the hospital itself.

The view, the crown of lights of the Plaza of the Revolution. From the third floor, passing in slow motion the buses and the sirens of the cop cars and the ambulances. There are ancestral trees. Crowns as the crow flies. And humidity, warm and stimulating to be seated in an armchair typing.

This I do. I am a witness. From the balcony the night is new, first-world, habitable. A night of post-socialist freedom. A night of uchronic beauty, anachronistic. A night where I remember all the people I loved, whom I will love until the end of eternity. From this free MINSAP* dive, making me want to be immortal in Havana, to live reversibly, to survive death in this time and place and, of course, never to tell. Because it would be criminal to contaminate those still unborn.

My uncle. It is not the first time I write of these atavistic uncles who suddenly fell into bed and there is no cure, caguairanes** of a communism today already without communists, the woodwork of a Marxist materialism that, before the fly-plagued pain of Bed 12, now means absolutely nothing, nobody, none. Room N of the Revolution.

His name is Felix, but we always called him Kin (as a child I would write it with an M), I suppose for some lost play on words. The spine, it seemed at first, exploded into a thousand shards of pain. A collapsed vertebra, osteoporosis and other palliatives against the worst. Then, the diagnosis put aside all benign traces . A diagnosis whispered drop by drop from week to week, to deceive like a child our patient of 80 years, according to the added tests and tests that must be resolved within and outside the hospital.

This is not the first time I spent the night here. I saw an error committed with the injections by an almost teenage nurse, that in a miracle could be fixed when the reaction of the affected seemed already irreversible, tachycardia and tremor (afterwards seeing the cover up among colleagues to justify it in the medical record). I saw a dying father hit his already adult daughter in the face, in the midst of terminal delirium, reflecting between fits that he had always been healthy. I saw the baths, no matter how hard they tried, always infected with odors (urine and blood, and little turds unsinkable for days). I saw, and I see again tonight, old men abandoned by their families, alone at least in the dark hours of the night, depending on the charity of the rest of the patients and their families (just now they look at me as if hoping to see me type stains of sense on the screen, the last light to turn off in this cubicle).

Sometimes I look out into the hallway. I see the vents with white steam of the Sterilization Department, I guess. There is a sign that says Nephrology. Some windows are missing (not as many as in other wards of this city) and I glimpse silhouettes lying in the distance, perhaps very serious patients who, I don’t know why, look to me like women. I am this, an eavesdropper in the midst of the most terrible intimacy of others.

There are cats of the roofs of the lower level, some plump beasts who depend on the food waste thrown from every floor of the hospital, sacks that burst with a greasy sound. Here I never eat or drink or use the bathroom, fearful of contracting a certain kind of susceptibility that then would force me to be admitted. The bulbs in the park are yellow-orange and give the building a dark splendor. It’s beautiful. It’s nice to watch this spectacle of the debacle, imagining that one is never tapped to be a victim, that we are safe from that.

Time moves slowly, but not too much so. With a little glass of warm milk, the canon sounds on the horizon and the doors of the room close (so as not to attract death in these hours when there are no doctors anywhere). After the usual Cuban brawls between personnel and patients the silence becomes sepulchral, barely heard apocryphal moans from under the sheets. The muteness of midnight. The gratefulness. It’s an inevitable omen, of the posthumous peace that so much martyrdom will first cost my uncle. The neon lights go off over my head and then it cools down still further.

I read a Pole, Adam Zagajewski, and his precious political prose. I drink of these atrocities in the heart of western civilization. His book oozes compassion for the human being. I want to imitate him when my time comes. I would like to be a noble European writer and not this trapped Cuban who still can’t get free.

Years ago my uncle (maternal) and my father discussed the guilt of Fidel, in a little house in Lawton during our family lunches at the end of the week (technically, the end of history). I was on the side of both of them, but not of Fidel, so ubiquitously abusive. My father was much more intelligent and cynical (which made me proud, but I was sad for Kin) and perhaps because of this he died first, sarcastically one August 13th*** (by merciful, painless, metastasis), that opprobrious Sunday of the years zero and two thousand. So, the dispute was truncated between the ballsy peasant communist and the cowardly liberal functionary. Long-lived men, both of them, who lived difficult lives in different ways. Antipodes. Now, fate seems to want to erase with a single broom the other two legs of the discussion: Felix and Fidel.

A bitter Cuban broom. How many nights like this do I wait, between sounds and moans and retching, between my memory and this secret manipulation. How many friends and lovers have I betrayed along the way, pretending not to notice that the truth is vile? Is that why nobody calls to feel sorry for me now? Perhaps I am safe from State Security in this bunker of boredom? My Adamic writing in Zagajekski style will have its Genesis this September? Orlando Luis, 1:1.

I hear the vicissitudes of civic activism by text message, chains of mass messages. Prisoners for pleasure, acts of repudiation, unlikely charges, wholesale proclamations, condemnations that make a joke of the same court that issued them, hunger strikes with reporters, accidents of convenience, new generations of brilliant people squandered while I lose sleep here. Shielded by the tap-tap of my laptop. At the margin of Good and Evil. Lost, like the beginning of the world. Like before the first line and the charitable view of Havana. Like after the last that I demonically dare to write.

Translator’s notes:
*MINSAP – Ministry of Public Health
**Caguairán is a tree known for its longevity and strength, and is one of the terms Fidel Castro’s acolytes use to refer to him.
*** August 13th is Fidel Castro’s birthday

September 22 2012

FUCKED FASCISM

The only time I left Cuba I went to the International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in November-December 2002. There Mexico gave me a disheartening lesson. In Cuba, as we all knew already, we were heading towards a police state capitalism. But in Mexico I had a surprise that my restless imagination had never imagined: in Mexico, the Cuban Revolution was given daily laurels, was a living legacy, tangible theory, rhetoric of redemption.

Like a totalitarian time machine, I saw the leftist hysteria of crowds of teenagers with the most outdated songs of Silvio Rodriguez (even he wouldn’t dare to hum them in Cuba). Even the hotel’s porters tossed praised for Fidel my way. Families received me with admiration in their home (they gave me money to buy my bad books out of pity: I was always a mercenary). In restaurants they tended not charge me for the best dishes for the privilege of being a Cuban in Cuba and not a little shit in Miami. Not being one, I felt like an ambassador: or at least mayor in a city where I had gone out without much work.

I even experienced an act of repudiation lived 2002 book fair when at the presentation of the magazine Letras Libres — Free Words — there was an invasion of shit-eating choirs and, thus, a little university troop paid from Havana (perhaps by the local Reds) fratricidal boycotting the event of the Reds of universal range who would be its presenter.

Of course, there are many more examples, including assassinations, that my poor biography recalls firsthand. Now, the rapid spy brigades when and crucified a mafia threat at the door of a Cuban family who lived between Mexico City — known as the Federal District, Distrito Federal in Spanish or “DF” — and Havana (the DF, as indicated by its initials, is also “De Fidel”… of Fidel). Nailing posters: in this we are profitable in the midst of our material misery. They’ve made so very many on the Island, and now it was the terrible turn of a family of beautiful and loyal people, whose cardinal sin is to think aloud in their own words. A family whose original sin is perhaps to prefer the dark poets before the socialist sun of this nation of coercion. A free family whose beauty has vilely attracted death.

Our agents are specialists in intimidation and swindling. In undermining the body from inside (with panic or carcinogens, they don’t care): perhaps that’s why it is essential to spend millions and millions on a Ministry of the Interior. We kicked out the truth. Bricked off future desires lock stock and barrel. Hence the obscene hatred that removes the unnamed generals when a foreign publisher like Cal y Arena launches book of stories such as Tailwind, by Eliseo Alberto — whom we called “Lichi” — (1951-2011).

They never forgave Lichi, his uncomfortable report of the end of another century and millennium (the last of the Revolution, except in Mexico). His spiral of betrayal continues today post-mortem, despite giving up those little entry permits to his own country, despite tolerating sacred ashes on a bridge about to collapse, despite reluctantly seeking a kidney by way of MINSAP, despite the pats on the mane of the former Culture Minister Abel Prieto (now civil presidential candidate of the military junta in this atrocious self-transition). This we all know.

They filmed a movie that unfortunately forecast to be bad, after editing that novel to make it palatable to power. Lichi everywhere. And at the same time they massacre the mental health of their descendents. Letting them know that the Cuban chains are perpetual far beyond death. The eye at the tip of the pyramid of Plazatl has ever more criminals in the pay of the utopia. To live for one’s country is to die. May the heart eaten by the bearded ones now beardless on the sacrificial stone of stone of barbarism, whether you like it or not.

I read the news with tears. Of mercy. I’m a madman. In Mexico they had put a bullet in my ass and in the dick of the faggot blogger. That is globalized jargon coming your way very soon. And it will sell. They will take revenge on the nonconformists, the very few still don’t wear uniforms. On Lichi, on me and on everyone.

I reread this column with tears. With no mercy.

September 16 2012

The quadrennial U.S. elections were held on Tuesday, November 6 with the victory of Barack Obama, the first black president in the history of the United States, who was re-elected for another presidential term. I do not like to talk about race or to note differences between people, but like some international media, it’s worth nothing that “Obama defeated for the second time a white candidate” in a system that leftist propaganda usually noted as markedly racist.

Also in this election, it is notable that the triumph was against a billionaire opponent, destroying the thesis of the Cuban leaders and their acolytes in the world, holding that only the very rich — multimillionaires — can aspire to the presidency of that country. I remember in a reflection of Fidel Castro in 2008, he highlighted doubts that the lawyer and former senator from the state of Illinois would be elected, because he had a personal fortune of just over a million dollars.

The attachment to democratic values and practices is not exactly a virtue nor endorsed by the despotic and dictatorial regimes like Cuba. Here there are no elections. Our society is denied the excitement and pluralistic rivalry inherent in the fair struggle for obtaining public office, from which the problems of their constituents can be solved in “real, not nominal” ways.

The equality of electoral opportunities in Cuba election is a fallacy, because only one-party adherents and/or their members, can aspire to be candidates. There is also a ’Nominations Committee’ — State controlled, of course — which by law, provides 50% of the delegates from the base. Where is the equal treatment between persons advocating equality, regardless of social class, gender, race or other circumstances? All this is but demagoguery.

They spend time openly criticizing the American system on the one hand, and on the other, asking them to invest in the ruined Cuban economy and send tourists to our country. They try to mask their inadequacies diverting the news focus and information toward U.S. affairs.

But the most objectionable, is systematically using evils already overcome in that country as if they were happening in the present, which is equivalent to lying.

Why don’t we worry about and take care of our problems? They also criticizes the media in that country, but there both political aspirants as well as ordinary citizens have full access to the mass media organs, in contrast to the security of “closed doors” under ours.

The United States is the best example that democracy is perfectible, as they have journeyed — as the undisputed model of freedom –from segregationist situations and practices in the past, to elect an African American for president, and four years later, to ratify him.

The attitudes and actions speak better and louder than the spokesmen of the Cuban dictatorship and its dwindling number of fans worldwide.

November 15 2012

Dear Laura Pollan, Lady in White, a year without you. A year of sobremuerte* for the Revolution.

*Translator’s note: Sobremuerte — “over-death” — is a play on the word sobrevivencia, literally “over-life”, i.e. survival.

October 13 2012

THE ODOR OF DEATH

 

By Gladys Rodiles-Haney

My brother Antonio Enrique González-Rodiles Fernández was born in Havana on July 21, 1972.
He attended primary and secondary school in Havana, and graduated from the “Marcelo Salado” National School of Swimming where he belonged to the National Team.

From when he was little, arbitrariness bothered him. When he was a boy at “December 2nd” school a second grade teacher wanted him to do something he didn’t want to do. He asked the teacher why he was obliged to do it and she told him because she said so, and now. My brother laid on floor and said he wouldn’t get up until they called my parents and he began to sing a song from a children’s cartoon with the refrain: “What? Me worry?”

In his childhood he represented Cuba in various international swimming competitions, including the Central American and Caribbean Games, where he earned multiple gold, silver and bronze medals. My father was a fundamental part of his training and often my brother swam in open water behind our house and also trained in deep water wearing a life jacket to exercise his legs, wearing shoes with several pounds of weights.

On multiple occasions speedboats approached him and asked him why he was so far from shore, because this was the time when many Cubans were throwing themselves into the sea to reach the United States. But they realized they were making fools of themselves when he showed them the weights on his legs.

When he finished junior high school, despite the refusal of many of his teachers, my brother presented himself to take the entrance exams for the “Martyrs of Humboldt 7” High School of Exact Sciences where he wanted to study physics. Despite the poor academic preparation offered in “Marcelo Salado,” my brother studied extra and was one of three selected from Playa municipality to enroll in this school for elite students.

In that school were Angel Castro and Mirtha Castro (son and granddaughter of Fidel Castro, respectively). My brother once told “Angelito” that his father was corrupt and this triggered a movement to not let him graduate from high school.

He received great support from the majority of students in his class despite the immense pressure exerted on them to deny my brother the chance to graduate, and they didn’t fold.

However he was expelled from Humboldt high school and graduated from “Pablo de la Torriente Brau” in 1990.

He began career in Physics at the University of Havana in 1991, yet also struggled again with “political” problems, so in 1992 he went to Mexico to live for a while, with the Permit to Reside Abroad (PRE).

He returned to Cuba in 1994 and graduated with degree in Physics in 1998.

Then he decided to return to Mexico where he received the title of PhD candidate in physics at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 2002.

In 2003 he emigrated to America and settled in Tallahassee, Florida. He earned a Master’s degree in Mathematics in 2005 from Florida State University (FSU).

He worked as a professor at FSU and Tallahassee Community College before returning to Cuba.

In 2010 he founded Estado de Sats with the aim of creating “a plural space for participation and debate” between various members of Cuban society. The initiative soon began to be targeted by propaganda orchestrated by State Security, which threatened to withdraw his Permit to Reside Abroad and so prevent him from leaving Cuba again.

In 2011 they took away his PRE and he continued his activism. His first arrest came during the funeral Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, on July 24. On November 8, he was arrested again when he went to inquire about the fate of the lawyer Yaremis Flores, arrested the previous day.

My brother is an honest, intelligent man, respectful of the rights and opinions of others. He likes to converse and to look for logical solutions through objective analysis of the things that are happening.

He has always had a vision of a better Cuba for all Cubans and the right of Cubans to be heard and the responsibility to take the reins with regards to which direction our country should follow.

He is a man of integrity, he knows how to present his ideas clearly at all levels to be understood both by the Doctor of Science and by the high school student. He knows how to pay attention without discriminating against anyone’s opinion, because everyone has different experiences in life and all are valid and enrich the perspective from which we see the problem.

Translated from Cafe Fuerte

14 November 2012

 

A few months ago, in a post about Puerto Rico, I wrote that in November, in a plebiscite to be held, we would know what Puerto Ricans now think about their political status. The results of the constitutional inquiry show that most citizens were in favor of changing the current status of the Commonwealth and becoming the 51st state of the Union.

According to data released by the Election Commission, the 53.99% voted to end the current status and 46.01% voted to keep it. In addition, 61.15% voted for statehood in the United States, 33.31% for continuing as the Commonwealth and 5.53% for independence.

For the first time in history annexation to the U.S. received the highest number of votes. In previous consultations, 1967, 1993 and 1998 the Commonwealth option had won. It seems that now, more than ever, the independence option is not of interest to Puerto Ricans. Indeed, in the recent elections, the independence won only 2.6% of the votes.

It now rests with the Congress of the United States, in line with the provisions of Article IV of the Constitution, to determine their acceptance as the 51st state, as Congress decides which areas are incorporated into the Union.

I think that the Cuban authorities as well as those other ALBA countries, looking at this demonstration of the democratic will of the majority of Puerto Ricans will stop interfering in the internal affairs of the island and withdraw their absurd demands for its independence, raised in international bodies, and will cease to call it a colony.

It seems that Puerto Ricans, intelligently, without losing their Latin American identify, prefer to be full U.S. citizens. In short, since 1917, they have enjoyed this citizenship and have not suffered coups, fratricidal conflicts, revolutions and dictatorships, common in other countries in Latin America.

November 10 2012

Year after year the issue of the U.S. embargo against Cuba is presented in the United Nations. Year after year, the majority of countries votes against this fossil of the Cold War. But even though the existence of such economic sanctions has been condemned 21 times, they remain in force. On both sides of the Florida Straits there are too many interests who want to perpetuate the situation, even though the political discourse says otherwise.

On one side are the many who believe that financially strangling the Cuban government will produce democratic change in Cuba. These are the people who hold the view of the “pressure cooker” on which they just have to put greater and greater pressure until it explodes. For these defenders of the embargo, if daily life on the island becomes ever more miserable due to lack of material goods, Cubans will finally throw themselves into the streets to overthrow the current system. This theory has demonstrated its failure over five decades. What has actually happened is that when the economy hits bottom, people prefer to escape from the Island, legally or illegally – in some cases to literally throw themselves into the sea – rather than confront the powers-that-be.

The others who dream of continuing the embargo are all those ideologues of the Cuban government who have run out of arguments to explain the dysfunction of this system. They are those who need, as in a child’s fairy tale, a big bad wolf to blame for everything. They say it is because of the “blockade” that we can’t enjoy the internet, that we can’t freely associate with others who share our ideas, that we can’t even travel freely. They try to justify everything based on the existence of this mistaken policy of Washington. Trapped in the middle of these two positions are eleven million Cubans, caught between the absurd restrictions of some and the implausible justifications of others.

14 November 2012