Un inconnu, généreux ou désoeuvré, a traduit en anglais un de mes textes sur Yoani Sánchez. ---- Sunday, October 6, 7:00 am, Hotel Colina patio, Vedado, Havana. I write happy but embarrassed on a keyboard that would cost twenty-five months salary to the man who brings me my third coffee. I write happy but embarrassed two blocks from Yoani Sánchez, the dissident blogger, the monitored journalist, who must be incredibly resourceful to make every one of her words travel, while the regime watches. I write happy but embarrassed because this morning, I have a sense of freedom even as my fingers tremble with ambivalent joy. Detox. Havana is my cottage, my getaway, my country without stores. A break from progress and all its alienating signs, a break from the clock, a break from efficiency. Put on yesterdays shirt and forget to shave, take it slow in the noise and chaos and the black exhaust of the ever-late bus, be madly in love with chaos, submit to a different dictatorship. The indecent pleasure of the comfortable tourist, the obscenity of being a free man where nothing comes easy: Yoani would be furious. But another morning, Ill go tell her. Ill go tell her that I understand that she wants to be free, and liberate her compatriots. I will tell her that I see the absurdities of the system that she denounces, that I hear the forced silences, and that this impoverished captivity disgusts me. But I will also tell her what to expect in that other world to which she aspires, the world after Fidel. I will tell her that this new world will be just as absurd and oppressive. Tomorrow, the money that is so scarce today will accompany newfound freedom. Tomorrow, the Malecon, so beautiful every night full of its idle lovers, will empty, conquered by every abundance, every entertainment. Tomorrow, dreams of freedom will be nothing more than dreams of acquisition. Tomorrow, there will be new propaganda. No more Revolution to cherish, but new illusions, brands to worship, credit to carry, careers to embrace. Tomorrow, less music and fewer dreams, but other sorrows, other poverties.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 23:15:53 +0000
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