Four Writers
By Ezequiel Minaya
I missed him again, this time by
only ten minutes. For about four days now, Ive been combing Havana for
Pedro Juan Gutierrez; a poet, novelist and journalist. I want to talk to him
about his writing, Cuban writers after the revolution and censorship. But, above
all else, I want to hear his thoughts on exiled poet, Herberto Padilla.
Ive stopped by underground
libraries, the apartments of independent journalists, and even the crowded night-time
hang outs lining El Malecon that Gutierrez wrote about in his latest novel,
Dirty Havana Trilogy. All Ive got to show for it is a messengers
bag full of illegal, dissident writing, a dozen new titles from the many Havana
bookstores and more offers of sex than I can afford.
Depending on whom you ask, Trilogy -- an international hit -- may or may not be banned in Cuba. Government officials have told me that its not widely read in Cuba because its not a good book. Its typical of the Cuban writing so popular overseas, one writers union official told me.
It has a dash of anti-Castro
though Gutierrez never directly names him -- and a lot of sex, the official
complained. But not just sex, he continued. Hot CUBAN sex, he said in a mocking
tone.
People on the fringes of the state
reporters transmitting pieces critical of the government to the United
States via the internet, librarians operating out of their apartments without
state sanction, writers estranged from government-run art institutions
have told me that some works are just not read in Cuba. Censorship, thats
your word, one nervous writer said to me; all Im saying, he continued,
is that somethings are just not read in Cuba. Stop asking these questions, another
writer advised, you are going to get yourself or me in trouble.
Yes, Pedro Juan is in town, I had
been told several times over the last days. Yes he was here but a day ago, a
renegade librarian said. At an independent library in Miramar: oh you missed
him by a couple of hours. And now, at the independent library Dulce Maria, just
blocks from the official writers and artists union, UNEAC, the caretakers
the married couple Hector Palacio Ruiz and Gisela Delgado Sablon -- say
I was off the trail by just ten minutes.
If you see Pedro Juan again, tell
him I just want a little of his time I plead. The three of us are sitting in
a small back room in the couples shabby apartment. The room is the extent
of Dulce Maria, and they say, a peaceful place to live when books arent
being tossed in the streets by soldiers.
Palacio Ruiz, in his loud, booming
voice says that Pedro Juan knows I am looking for him. He was considering it
says Palacio Ruiz, who has been in and out of jail because of his own writing
and Dulce Maria. He promises to put in a good word. And as long as we are talking
about favors, he says, could I do him one? Could I, he asks, carry his latest
collection of essays which included a letter he had written his wife
during his latest stint in jail -- to the United States. I say yes, but please
make sure that Gutierrez gets my message. Sure, he says, but you make sure you
dont get caught with these he waves the thick sheaf of papers.
Do you think Gutierrez will want
to talk about Herberto Padilla? I ask as I prepare to leave. I dont know
Palacio Ruiz responds. Whats left to say?
Plenty. For starters, how is the once international symbol of Cuban censorship remembered by notable Cuban writers living on the island today. What does Padillas fall from grace and subsequent exile mean to Cuban writers? Could it happen again? How has Cuba changed?
On September 25, 2000, Herberto
Padilla, a visiting writer and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, failed
to show up for his literature class. His students went in search of their professor
and discovered him in his apartmentdead of natural causes
Padilla, 68, had suffered from heart
problems. He had recently split from his wife, the writer Belkis Cuza Male,
who was living in New Jersey at the time, and had just begun teaching at Auburn.
Students barely knew the Cuban writer, who immigrated to the United States in
1980.
But, at the time of his death,
Padilla was considered by many to be Cubas greatest living poet.
His passing caused fewer ripples
in Cuba. Back in Havana, Raul Rivero -- a poet, journalist and friend of Padilla
-- remembered the news zipping by on television so quickly that it took him
a few minutes to fully understand.
Rivero tried to imagine what the
last years of Padillas life had been like in the United States. Did Padilla
whose vocation as a poet immersed him in Spanish ever grow accustomed
to hearing so much English? How had Padilla handled the winters? Did he ever
miss Cuba?
Rivero had not forgotten Padilla.
No Cuban writer could. But Padilla is remembered less for his contributions
to poetry than for the chapter in the Cuban Revolution when the honeymoon between
Castro and his writers ended: El Caso Padilla.
In 1968, Padilla -- already a respected
poet and journalist entered the annual literary contest of the National
Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC). His entry, a collection entitled Fuera
del Juego, Out of the Game, was a scathing critique of the governments
iron grip on intellectual life. It had only been seven years since Castros
remarks at a conference of intellectuals. Having declared the Cuban revolution
a socialist one earlier in the year, Castro then wanted intellectuals to do
their part for the cause. He instructed : "What are the rights of writers
and artists, be they revolutionaries or not? Within the revolution all; against
the revolution nothing." That same year UNEAC was formed in imitation of
the Union of Soviet Writers.
Padilla chaffed under the restrictions.
In Out of the Game he wrote:
The poet! Kick him out!
He has no business here.
He doesnt play the game.
He never gets excited
Or speaks out clearly.
He never even sees the miracles.
An international and independent
panel of judges awarded Padilla the nations highest poetry prize, the
Julian del Casal award, for the collection. The writers union,
however, declared Padillas poetry "ideologically outside the principles
of the Cuban revolution."
No action was taken against Padilla
until three years later, in 1971. Padilla was reading from his work at the writers
union, when authorities arrested the poet. Among the tight-knit community of
writers, the subsequent weeks of his absence produced the inescapable question
of the season in Havana "Where is Padilla?"
He reappeared a month later and
addressed many of the same people he stood before when he was detained. This
time, however, he read a scathing indictment of himself and many other literary
notables and friends. He condemned, among others, his wife, the Cuza Male.
His public confession complete,
he disappeared again. But this time, in full view. Though released from custody,
Padilla would not be published for nearly a decade. He was also forbidden to
leave Cuba. Friends and family avoided the 39-year-old writer and Cuza Male
lived an internal exile.
Word of El Caso Padilla spread
around the world. And soon notable leftist intellectuals began to retract their
support for the revolution. A petition requesting the release of Padilla was
circulated and signed by, among many, Jean Paul Sartre and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
The diminished prestige of one man was becoming a costly loss of face for a
country that surrounded by real and imagined enemies could not
afford to lose friends. Finally, Castro decided that it was time to let Padilla
go. Cuza Male now living in Texas told me that Castro came to their house personally
and said to Herberto, "You can go. Come back when you are ready."
Padilla, then 48-years-old, never
saw Cuba again.
I Anton Arrufat
El Rehabilatado
Centro Havana is far-removed from the tranquility of El Vedado, home of several
state ministries, and the grandeur of Havana Viejo. This section of Havana feels
like a tough new York City neighborhood, with a similar insularity, a sense
that residents are caught, like satellites, by the pull of the place. This is
where Anton Arrufat, a national award winning writer, has lived for much of
his life, on the top floor of a two story house that, like many other buildings
in this part of town, is a crumbling beauty.
Four men ranging in age from
mid- 20s to late 30s are hanging out on the stoop of Arrufats
house. Walking near them, I can smell booze though its 10 a.m. They are
arguing over the compensation for a favor.
One of the younger guys -- a squat,
barrel-chested man insists, in slow drawn out words, that the agreed
price was a half bottle of rum.
One of the older men, skinny and
jumpy, his voice rising, disagrees. He distinctly remembers hearing a full bottle
and mira no venga con mierda, cono.
I ask them if this is the home of
Anton Arrufat. For a moment, they eye me, as if they dont understand the
question.
One of them responds, yeah, of course
he lives here, everybody knows that. They look me over and can tell Im
not Cuban. One of them decides to help the foreigner out. You know -- what are
you, Dominican? -- you know Dominicano that Arrufat won a national award, dont
you?
Yeah, yeah, another one chimes in,
he also has a new book out, a book of essays. Cono, Ive got to get it,
he adds.
At the appointed time, Arrufat walks
out onto his wrought-iron balcony and casually waves me upstairs.
Im surprised by the lavishness
of Arrufats apartment. The big rooms and high ceilings seem like they
belong in New Yorks Dakota, renting out for thousands a month, as opposed
to one of Havanas poorest neighborhoods.
"This neighborhood is very
promiscuous, very crowded, very crime-ridden," he says, adding that fame
protects him. No one messes with the writer.
And, hes clearly one. The
walls are lined with books shelves filled with every imaginable title. Throughout
the tidy, quiet apartment are several paintings and sculptures. A small dog
scampers between rooms, apparently pleased to be hosting company.
Arrufat, a tall, solidly built man
with broad shoulders and soft middle, is quieter. His hair, caught up in a short
ponytail, is gray and he is wearing a plain white T-shirt and shorts. At 66,
he wears thick eyeglasses that barely soften an intense gaze.
Besides the national literature
prize he also won the 2000 Alejo Carpentier prize for best novel, for
La Noche de Aguafiestas, Night of the Spoilsports. I was introduced to
him a day earlier at the writers union. "Here is a true genius,"
the man said.
At the moment, Arrufat is Cubas
most celebrated writer. But it wasnt always so.
In 1968, the same year Padilla won
the poetry award, Arrufat took top honors in the drama category for his play
Siete Contra Thebes, Seven Against Thebes. The play, critical of the
Marxist-Leninist regime, tripped censor alarms. The writers union condemned
Arrufats work as containing "conflictive points in a political context
that were not taken into account when the winners were selected." To this
day, the play has never been staged in Cuba.
And so, as with Padilla, Arrufat
was imprisoned in silence. But he stayed, refusing to budge from the section
of Havana he has called home since 1959 when he returned to Cuba at the age
of 24.
"When the revolution triumphed
I was living in the United States. I was living in New York," he says.
But once Fidel rode into Havana, Arrufat, returned home to a Cuba brimming with
possibility.
"It was a moment of great energy,
of great happiness, of great vitality. It was like breaking everything that
had existed before; just destroying it. We didnt know if with good intentions
or bad, if what should have been done had actually been done or not, but that
didnt matter then, what mattered was the enthusiasm of the moment, the
magnitude of the time."
He became part of a group of writers
known as the Generation of 50, that included: Pablo Armando Fernandez,
Cesar Lopez, Manual Diaz Martinez, Fayad Jamis, Herberto Padilla, and on and
on and on. "It had the feel of a family," he says.
The group established its own identity
by sweeping away the old literary regime. "We belonged to a generation
less transcendental," he says. "We used colloquial language, conversational
language. We used the language that was around us. Metaphor was eliminated."
In illustrating the difference between
the writers of 50 and the older writers, Arrufat quotes nearly
sings reallya poem about fireflies by Lezama Lima. He takes a poets
pleasure in every word but "he never says the word fire fly," Arrufat
says. " I would have just said fire fly."
TS Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov and the Beat poets all influenced
Arrufats generation. "We tried to write a poetry whose musicality
was destroyed by the poet. When a real musical verse came to mind we busted
it up, fragmented it, we made it rougher, more arid, less musical, less melodic."
The writers soon, however, turned
their critical eye to what was happening to the miracle that had brought them
home. The revolution began to change, repressing homosexuals many of
whom were writers and artists like Arrufat excluding the religious and
demanding complete adherence to the party line. Within the revolution all; against
the revolution nothing.
One writer, Ambrosio Fornet, called
the late 60s, early 70s the gray period, but Arrufat says
now, "it was absolutely black."
It lasted about six or seven years,
Arrufat says, and during the time the government wanted writers to copy rigid
Soviet realism and produce proletariat morality tales. They were also pushed
to write childrens literature, to impart to the youth the virtues of the
revolution. But it was also an attempt, in part, Arrufat tells me, to steer
writers away from controversial topics.
But it failed, Arrufat says, with
him, with Padilla and a few others. They challenged the miracle and paid the
price. "I was largely excluded for 14 years," Arrufat says. Forbidden
to publish, Arrufat shelved books in a library. But, Arrufat says, he was going
to stay in Cuba.
But, Padilla, he remembers, was
struggling with the idea of leaving.
"He chose to leave," Arrufat
says, without rancor of Padillas departure, "I dont criticize
him for it. I think its fine. I chose to stay."
"His life was made a little
impossible, all those things that are done so a person will go overseas, things
that would give the reason to people who were accusing him. So it was look,
he was an enemy, look how he ends up leaving."
Arrufat stayed and over time, became
"rehabilitated." Arrufat attributes the recovery to the natural development
of the nascent revolution. "Things just went about changing."
In part, he says, the government
reconsidered its campaign against writers because it looked bad. "It became
a serious problem for the revolution." Many of Cubas friends, Arrufat
says, "were displeased."
With his reputation salvaged, Arrufat,
and others, including Armando, Lopez, Lezama, and Pinera, were published again,
but rarely overseas. Writers who wanted to do so had to submit their manuscripts
for review, and the government further discouraged it by restricting writers
abilities to accept dollars.
But publishing in Cuba changed dramatically
with the fall of the Soviet Bloc. Cubas GNP shrank 35 percent and the
state slashed along with everything else -- publishing budgets. The number
of titles dropped by two-thirds over a five-year period. Only 2,500 to 3,000
copies of any new edition were printed. Many writers wanted out.
But, in a move as dramatic as the
legalization of the dollar in the 1990s, writers were permitted direct
publishing contracts overseas. It is a move that many credit with staving off
a mass exodus. Arrufat is at the forefront of a wave of Cuban writers who now
publish internationally once a crime. Grijalbo-Maodadori, a Spanish publisher,
released Arrufats Antologa Personal, Personal Anthology, and also
plans to offer La Noche del Aguafiestas. Even Abel Prieto, Cubas
current minister of culture, publishes outside Cuba.
Though Arrufat makes it clear that
he has not lived outside Cuba since 59, he travels often. He has spent
up to three months visiting Spain and Mexico in 1993 he spent about five months
visiting family in St. Paul, Minnesota.
I ask him if his life is what Padilla
could have had, had he stayed. "I think so," Arrufat says. "I
think so."
But freedom has its limits. I ask
Arrufat about President Castros comments during the annual Cuban book
fair. Castro told visitors that there were no prohibited books in Cuba.
Arrufat gives me a long, steely
gaze. "Well, here, I dont think there are prohibited books."
He stops for a moment. "There are books that dont enter. There are
books that dont enter. That dont enter." He repeats the phrase
softly, letting it trail off.
"Well, thats enough," he says suddenly. The interview is over.
My search for Pedro Juan has hit
rock bottom. Ive just paid over $20 to two jinteros who say they can find
anybody in Havana. Yeah sure, we know the writer Pedro Juan.
I met them at a jazz club. We can
show you the real Havana, they say with inviting smiles.
Pedro is the good-looking one of
the two. He is tall and an unbroken shade of dark brown. He has a shaved head
and big, sparking eyes. Manny is the brooder. He is heavy set and wears a baseball
cap low.
As we walk toward El Malecon, Manny
asks, Do you like girls? How about some real Cuban rum? How about some coke?
A block away from the sea, two police
officers stop us. The muscular men wear neat brown uniforms, shirts tucked in,
tight over their broad shoulders and big arms. They address Pedro and Manny
with disdainful formality; come here comrades, IDs comrades, stand still, comrades.
They ignore me and pull Pedro and
Manny several feet away. Im told to wait. I cant hear what he is
saying, but Manny is explaining the hell out of himself. He is waving his hands
with an urgent look on his face. Every once in a while, after one of the officers
asks a question, Manny just vigorously shakes his head; no, no, no.
The officers approach me. One of
them, with a neatly trimmed mustache, addresses me. Sir, do you know who you
are hanging out with. My friends, I say and smile. That man, he points to Manny,
has been in jail for robbing tourists like you.
No me diga, I say.
Now sir, he continues, have these
men sold you any tobacco or rum? Though he is out to stop a black market transaction,
he has stumbled across something better, I think to myself; an American with
a satchel full of dissident ramblings. Dont get caught with these, I can
hear Palacio Ruiz say. At worst, I would be arrested, questioned and deported
but Palacio Ruiz said he would catch hell again if anyone found his writing
in the hands of an American journalist.
No sir, no rum, no cigars, I say.
Can we check your bag, sir?
Of course, I say.
I do my best imitation of a bumbling
Yuma. Oh, I dropped my notebook, its a little dark on this side of the
sidewalk, oh, there goes all my change, well, I guess you cant really
see inside the bag, lets
what do you say we cross the street to
get under those streetlamps.
No, no sir, its fine, the
officer says. Have a good night.
Thank God Havana police dont carry flashlights, I think to myself. My heart is racing. How does Hector live with this fear?
II
Raul Rivero:
Inxile
Neatly arranged on a small glass coffee table in the Central Havana home of
Raul Rivero -- an award winning poet and internationally acclaimed journalist
-- are small, framed photographs of various sizes. They form a triangle, the
tip of which is a picture of a young girl. The second tier is two photos of
teenagers. In all, there are about ten frames. Mrs. Rivero, Rauls second
marriage, points to each picture and says a name and then whether the person
lives in Cuba or Miami.
Hes gone, she says about her
son. Shes gone, she says of Rauls daughter from an earlier marriage.
There is no emotion in her voice; its as if Miami is around the corner.
She agrees to wait with me; Raul
is running late. Hes, no doubt, working on a story, she says. I sit in
one of three rocking chairs in the small living room. There are a few photographs
on the walls portraits of young people bearing a resemblance to either
Raul or his wife. There is a small television, the small coffee table, a larger,
round wooden table against the wall and the rocking chairs. The floor is tiled
in dingy linoleum.
We are joined by the silent, and
slightly hunched mother, of Raul. She slowly shuffles to a rocking chair and
sits down. Mrs. Rivero takes from me a small duffel bag filled with medicine,
vitamins, video cassettes of childrens television programming and a digital
video camera. Their friends in Miami sent the care package.
We strike up a conversation.
We talk about the movie Before Night Falls, the biography of exiled
Cuban writer Renaldo Arenas. Mrs. Rivero, who knew the writer, remembers Arenas
as a rude, blunt, moody character, who said whatever was on his mind, no matter
the consequences.
She says the actor who played the
lead caused a buzz in Central Havana when he moved into Arenas former
home. She hears the actor is up for an Oscar. She recalls an editorial in the
few, slim pages of the official newspaper, Granma saying that it would be a
victory of politics and not art if he won the award. Later that month, he loses.
The light from the open balcony
begins to dim. Over the next round of strong, syrupy coffee, the talk shifts
to politics. Mr. Riveros mother gets up, slowly shakes her head and shuffles
out of the room. Mrs. Rivero cant contain a small chuckle, nodding her
head in the direction of her mother-in-law.
Raul finally comes home. He is average
height and stocky. He enters the living room, sees me, smiles and walks forward,
hand extended. The three flights up have left the heavy-set smoker out of breath
and speaking in short, clipped bursts.
He has one more thing to do before
his day is done, he says. It has something to do with his journalist network.
Im sorry, he says, it cant be helped. In moments, Im standing
in the hallway, the door closed behind me. The meeting is rescheduled.
A couple of days later Raul, keeps
the appointment. Hes relaxed but his face is still a light shade of red.
He sweeps his thinning blond hair with his hand often. He is causally dressed,
with the top buttons on his striped shirt open. He is wearing shorts and slippers.
Raul chain-smokes throughout the conversation, whittling to the butt one Marlboro
red after another.
We sit in rocking chairs, facing
the balcony and its view of Central Havanas rooftops.
"The same thing that is happening
with the Cuban family," he says pointing toward the photos around him,
"is happening with the literary Cuban family- there is division."
On one side of the divide are writers
that work with the government and collect all the perks: travel, book signing
parties, conferences, he says. Many of them were once sanctioned, he says, during
the gray period but have returned to good graces with a vengeance.
"Pablo Armando Fernandez, was
sanctioned for about ten years because of the Padilla case, Anton Arrufat, Cesar
Lopez, all those people had problems. But they have returned and are now in
absolute harmony with the government."
It was once that way for Raul. "I,
once upon at time, also made that pact. I moved in that world, when I supported
the government."
That was before he crossed over to the other side of the divide.
Raul was one of the first generation
to get a degree in journalism from the University of Havana after the triumph
of the revolution. He eventually became a senior correspondent for the state
news agency.
He was also successful with his
art. In 1969, the writers union awarded him the David award for
his poem Papel De Hombre and in 1972 the Julian Del Casal award
for the book Poesia sobre la Tierra. He also served as the right hand
man of the first president of the writers union, Nicholas Guillen.
But in 1989, Rivero, like Padilla
before him, grew disenchanted. He quit his position at the writers union.
And, in 1991, he completely broke with the government when he joined nine other
writers in composing an open letter to Castro, asking for greater freedom of
expression and the release of prisoners of conscience.
"When we signed the letter
there were ten of us. [Members of the group] began to leave immediately. People
were attacked. Maria [one of the signers] went to jail for two years, reasons
were found to arrest them.
"I wasnt a member of
any political party so I was left here. But we got harassing phone calls. People
saying they were going to kill us in our sleep." Raul says that, like Padilla,
friends and family stopped visiting.
"We spent many years in a very
bad situation. Im telling you, we sold everything we had, everything,
clothing, everything, because we had nothing. I couldnt publish."
Rivero says that crowds of his neighbors
would gather beneath his balcony yelling threats at "the family of traitors."
He says the yelling has stopped, but his home still gets searched by police
from time to time and his phone is tapped.
"On television they have a
program called round table." They have said on that show that Raul
Rivero is a reactionary, counter-revolutionary who receives money from the US
interests section."
Last year, in a speech, President
Castro referred to Rivero as a drunk. Rivero, who had a drinking problem, he
admits, has been sober for years.
Of the ten signers of the open letter,
Rivero is the only one still left in Cuba. "Why should I leave," he
says, raising his voice, indignant, when I ask why he decided to stay. "This
is my country."
Raul is now an independent journalist,
and professional Inxile, a name he coined last year in a Miami Herald
article. Inxiles are, according to Rivero, writers who still live in
Cuba but openly oppose or at least are critical of the government and as a result
are kept from publishing and are often harassed.
Arrufat was an Inxile, he says,
as was Lezama Lima and Pablo Armando. But the first Inxile was Padilla, Rivero
says. "Herberto was left completely alone, all of us younger writers completely
distanced ourselves from him. After having much of the same things happen to
me, I understand more than ever [Padillas suffering]."
"You cant call people
because you dont know if they are scared to meet with you." He gives
the example of a friend - who Rivero asks not be named - who still moves in
official circles. If anyone was to find out that they still spoke, he says,
his friend would be at risk of losing his job and status in the community. So,
if they were ever to run into each other in public, his friend would probably
ignore Raul. Rivero wouldnt blame him.
"Hes not a bad person.
He just lives in Cuba," he says with a smile.
Rivero is openly harassed, but other
writers, he says, are kept in line by more subtle means -- a change from the
open repression of the gray years. "Dont forget that here the state
is the only employer, the one owner of everything.
"[The government] used to insist
that [writers] show publicly their loyalty to the country. Now, if not that,
at least try not to write in opposition, keep quiet, in a very discrete way."
If a writer steps out of line, Raul
says, their requests to travel are suddenly denied, their invitations to conferences
and events stop coming. And in the case of a writers continued and open
defiance, Raul says, they lose their jobs and are left to the ravages of poverty.
In 1994, in the midst of his own
precarious financial situation, Rivero was contacted by an exiled Cuban journalist
living in Spain, who commissioned two columns. Thats when, Rauls says,
the idea for an independent news service began to form. A Miami contact gathered
the financing for a web site and Cubapress was born.
"We try to have people from
all over the country. Its hard, because its hard to get people in
the remote provinces and its hard to train others. At the moment we have
16 reporters."
Reporters dictate their work over
the phone or smuggle it overseas over black market internet lines. Wages are
around twenty-five dollars a month, which in Cuba, Rivero says, is enough money
to survive. In 1997 the French foundation, Reporters Sans Frontières
honored Rivero and Cubapress with its annual award. He was unable
to attend the award ceremony, he says, because of fears he would not be allowed
back into Cuba.
He now knows how Padilla felt, Rivero
says. And hes happy he was able to tell him before Padilla death.
One day, not long ago, Raul was on the phone with an editor in Miami. After
they were done talking business, the editor said that she had somebody there
who wanted to say hello. "It was Herberto," Raul says.
"And I told Herberto Youve
must of suffered a lot because its exactly how much we are suffering now,
but it must have been a lot worst for him, because he didnt have some
one like Herberto Padilla, in exile, to talk to him." He pauses and buries
his chin in his hand.
Rivero talks a bit more. But soon
the seemingly boundless energy Rivero had at the beginning of the interview
wanes. Rivero lends me his only copy of his latest poetry collection, which
was published in Spain.
Outside, while waiting for a taxi,
I open Riveros book and begin to read at random. I stop at the poem:
NATIONAL PRIDE
None of our officials are rich
None have estates, factories or companies
None have accounts in Swiss banks
Nor do they want them
and cant help but be surprised.
III
Alberto Guerra
El Muerto
Even by the lofty standards set by street after street of haunted, crumbling
mansions in El Vedado, UNEAC, the Cuban arts union on the corner of 17 and H,
is impressive. It is a peach-colored two-storied mansion with marble columns,
ringed by the thin bars of a black iron fence. Just off to the side of the front
entrance and down a small stone path, artists sit in the Huron Blue Café,
enjoying the rays of the mid-afternoon sun, quietly talking at small tables.
The porch is also peopled with groups talking in undulating volume about painting,
film, writing, art. There are young people who could pass for New York bohos,
and older conversationalists who have a more rigid informality to them, as if
they were on a corporate picnic. This is the place that the World comes to when
it want its fix of Cuban Culture. Want a trio of folk musicians plucking
out revolutionary arrangements? An Afro-Cuban poet? A Cuban sculpture? This
is where you go.
Alberto Guerra, one of the young
stars of Cuban writing, prefers to stay away. He stays at home, in the far-flung
Havana neighborhood of Playa, seated in front of his computer, chasing his dream,
his foremost ambition, of being a great writer.
The revolutions victory in
59 led to the establishment of all of the now internationally known cultural
institutions in Cuba; Casa de las Americas, the Cuban Institute of Cinematography
(ICAIC), UNEAC, the National Ballet of Cuba and many others. Castro vision for
these institutions was made clear; "Within the revolution all; against
the revolution nothing "
In 1976, Castro went a step forward
and decreed that "basic cultural centers" were to be built in each
of the 200 municipalities across Cuba. These
centers were: a museum, a cultural hall, a movie theater, an art gallery, a
bookstore, and a library.
It was in those culture centers,
especially the library, that Alberto Guerra, and many of the young writers of
his generation, first discovered literature and their own talent. It was there
that, during the international furor over Padilla, he says, he studied, gaining
a solid intellectual foundation.
But now, all Guerra wants to do
is write. He quit his job at UNEAC and has withdrawn his membership in the communist
party.
"I try to stay as distant as
I can so I can write. Thats to say I dont engage in a social
life. Because the more of a social life, the less intellectual intensity. So
I stay here. Here in my neighborhood, in Reparto Flores, in my house, writing,"
he says.
Guerra is 39, but can pass, with
ease, for someone ten years younger. He lives in a modest one bedroom with his
wife, who also defies her age and their teenage daughter. Guerra, has a shaved
head and is black.
He is proud of his heritage. One
of the few adornments on his wall is a portrait of one of his ancestors, Tiburcio
Naranjo, who was one of the first Afro-Cuban officers in the Cuban military.
Guerra is very pleased that Ive
come to speak to him. I read a story by Guerra in the UNEAC literary magazine
and saw in it a quality that I had not seen in any of the other pieces in the
unions literary offers.
The story is called El Muerto,
The Dead Man. It is a muscular, taut story, that only uses commas, no periods
and tell the story of a young Cuban who assumes the identity of tourist.
"I wanted to take a look at
the situation in Cuba of the presence of tourists. But I decided to look at
it through the eyes of an average Cuban."
The story opens with the first person
narrator in a hotel bathroom stall, counting Fula, street slang for money:
Seated on the can, my man, with
the door nice and shut, I count the money and I cant believe it, my lord,
I say to myself, I count it again, slowly, with my pants at my ankles, as if
I was wrapped up in the business of taking a dump, so the employees and the
curious suspect nothing, nine hundred bucks is not a dream, I say to myself,
real, constant, I count them again,
The narrator then decides to wear
his new identity out on the town, carrying himself with the mixture of stupidity
and arrogance, according to the story, typical of tourists. Soy una yuma,
the narrator says to himself, to convince himself that he is passing in his
guise. Yuma is a derogatory term for tourist.
As a tourist, Havana opens up to
the unnamed narrator. Women throw themselves at him, drawn to him by his money.
Bartenders, who would otherwise not look twice at him, busy themselves, almost
exclusively, to his comfort. Hotels, that would do not permit Cubans to enter,
open up to him and his money.
In a sense, with Guerras short
story, contemporary Cuban literature has come full circle. In 1950, Nicholas
Guillen wrote an essay entitled Josephine Baker in Cuba. The opening
scene of the piece is a hand-wringing clerk of the National hotel turning the
singer away because of her dark-skin.
El Nacional was off limits
to black people and all other Cubans who couldnt afford the exorbitant
prices. Guillen writes that the hotel might as well have been a part of another
country, dropped into the middle of Cuba. It was not for Cubans.
Today, with the legalization of
the dollar and the increased dependency on tourism, the government does not
allow Cubans to step into hotels and other tourists areas. Now, its not
only black people who cant go into hotels, its all Cubans, who are
subject the apartheid-like laws.
This is the environment that Guerra
wants to capture. The Havana overrun by young girls from the country side, who
come to work the street as jinteras. It matters little that some of these
women are college educated because their jobs, if they have one, will only pay
a fraction of what it costs to survive. Its an Havana where socialist
ideals vanish as the need for dollars becomes the ruling principle. The narrator
of El Muerto ends up gorging himself on all the food and drink he can buy. Then,
in a vivid scene, he throws it all up.
"Im happy when my work connects with someone," Guerra tells me.
His wife is giving him the cold
shoulder today, Guerra says. Shes upset that he has quit his job at the
writers union. But Guerra saw his position there as little more than a
distraction. He has to write. A black man has to prove himself twice to measure
up to standards in Cuba, he says. Nobody, certainly not anyone in the union,
is going to give him what he wants, a place in the Cuban canon. Hes going
to have to take it.
Hes made progress. In 1992
he won a major writing award. And he also accompanied Miguel Barnett on a reading
tour of Germany. Barnett, head of the culture ministrys Fundacion de
Fernando Ortiz, and a major writer of an older generation, thrilled Guerra
when he mentioned that many years earlier he had gone on the same tour with
famed Mexican writer Juan Rulfo. "Thats the first time I ever felt
like a writer," Guerra says with a smile.
Guerras generation is called
the "the newest of the new." But even though his generation is celebrated
as the next big thing, there are already, he says, a group of young twenty-somethings
preparing themselves to charge up the literary hill.
"We have yet to fully arrive
and already were being challenged," laughs Guerra.
We smoke cigarettes and talk writing
for hours.
But he doesnt seem to want
to talk about Padilla.
Finally, he relents. Of course,
he says, hes heard about Herberto Padilla. Who hasnt? Sure, it can
happen again, he says. He seems reluctant to pursue the topic.
"Look," he finally says, "I just hope it doesnt happen to me."
Ive pretty much given up on
finding Pedro Juan but I decide to stop by Dulce Maria one last time to see
if my luck changes.
Hector is happy to see me. After
coffee and cigarettes I ask if hes had a chance to speak to Pedro Juan
about seeing me.
Yes, he says, he was able to meet
with Pedro Juan one last time before he went back home to another province.
Im sorry, Hector says, he did not want to talk to you.
He doesnt want any trouble, Hector says.