Havana/Beans, onions, an avocado. I write the list to go out early to the Tulip Street market, before the sun beats down and the inspectors start scaring away the forklift drivers. As I walk down the hallway toward the stairs, a neighbor catches up to me. “You have an operation down there. There are some men dressed in civilian clothes, two women with backpacks and at least one patrol,” he details. Friday has just become another repressive day.
From the roof I confirm that a police car is parked on Conill Street, but not on the corner, under the leafy tree where they are traditionally placed when they guard my house. The Factor Street dump has grown so much that parking under those branches is already an attack on the nose and a danger to the immune system. A little further on, two uniformed officers remain next to a vehicle with the number 059 painted on the body.
Today I really needed to leave the house. Garbage has accumulated in the apartment due to long power outages that paralyze the elevator. There is no salad left to eat and a friend had promised to copy me a current affairs documentary onto a USB drive. But in Cuba, having an agenda and trying to accomplish a minimum of daily tasks is almost impossible. When the day is over and I have managed to complete at least one objective, I feel lucky. Today we will also have to redesign the plans.
“But you have to come get them because they won’t let me leave the building.”
Luckily, we have water in the batteries, but no gas to cook with. I scrub a little and take the opportunity to water the plants. A friend calls me to ask if I have oral rehydration salts. After the virus I suffered, I had some envelopes left that I can give you.
“But you have to come get them because they won’t let me leave the building.”
I don’t have to say anything else. She doesn’t need explanations either. Repression in Cuba is something that everyone knows and an operation around the house of an independent journalist sounds more routine than novelty.
I put three envelopes in a nylon bag and, when my friend rings my cell phone, I go out to the balcony and throw the small package from the 14th floor. I have added a stone to it so that the wind doesn’t blow it too far away. The two police officers are still down there. They look bored.
A neighbor who comes to my door asks me if I want him to bring me something from the market. I give him the list I started writing in the morning. I don’t really know how much money to give you because prices change from one day to the next.
“With one of the new bills you solve everything,” he jokes.
I don’t know anyone who has yet seen those colored papers worth 10,000 and 20,000 pesos.
Yesterday, when I passed by the bank on Marino Street, a retiree told me that they had not yet reached that branch and that, in any case, the maximum they gave per client was 5,000 pesos, so “no one knows who they are going to give the new ones to.” The woman has been trying to get her pension for two weeks and nothing. “The day it was my turn they didn’t have cash and they moved my shift to later, but every time I come there is no electricity.”
There is a smell of garbage throughout the house. I don’t know if it’s the stench rising from the corner or if our own garbage has started to rot after three days without being able to put it down.
How many months of salary for the police officers who guard me down there will fit in a 20,000 peso bill, I ask myself as I try to turn on the stove for the umpteenth time. The gas company says that it has not been able to complete the repairs and that the lack of service is itching and spreading.
There is a smell of garbage throughout the house. I don’t know if it’s the stench rising from the corner or if our own garbage has started to rot after three days without being able to put it down.
The phone rings. She is my friend again. I imagine that now she wants some painkiller or that the rehydration salts have not been enough for her children and her husband, sick with a diarrhea virus. But he doesn’t talk to me about medications.
“The national electrical system is down,” he announces to me with annoyance.
I look out again.
The police patrol continues down there with the two uniformed men.
