Havana/The day after an electrical collapse everything goes much slower. This Tuesday I spent long minutes trying to stop an electric tricycle on the Calzada del Cerro to take me to the Fraternidad park, but yesterday, with the fall of the National Energy System, the majority of drivers were unable to recharge the batteries of their vehicles. So I have to go on foot. I also go at half speed due to lack of sleep, I drag my feet with the fatigue of an almost sleepless night.
From inside some houses and businesses, along the avenue, a mist comes out due to humidity and spoiled food. This Monday, when many were waiting for the blackout that made them sweat throughout the early morning to end, the feared disconnection of the dilapidated Cuban electrical grid arrived. The one who had kept a piece of chicken waiting for the refrigerator to purr again saw his hopes turn into stinking water escaping from the freezer.
A neighbor says that they were authorized to touch cauldrons. He tells me this with such a convinced tone that, for a moment, I think I missed some important official announcement. But not. The woman claims that Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that it was necessary to take “the pot on the neighbors to the north, who are the ones who have us with this blackout.” The conclusion has been immediate: “Well, we will have to hit harder and every night, so that it can also be heard outside the Island,” the lady concludes mischievously.
“Well, we will have to hit harder and every night, so that it can also be heard outside the Island,” the lady concludes mischievously.
Everyone has their favorite thing to bang around on at night without electricity. A friend has acquired an old pot where his mother, now deceased, roasted coffee beans. “What it sounds best with is a hammer; this looks like a cathedral bell.” In another building in my neighborhood there is a family that even has an orchestra with a very good rhythm. When one begins to hit the frying pan, the others join him in a furious conga of despair.
Further along, a retiree attacks an oxygen cylinder, now empty, that he keeps in the patio of his house. It belonged to his father, who died during the pandemic, just when getting a ball with that vital gas was a life or death race that only a few won. Since then, the man uses the old metal tank to vent his anger. When water does not reach the neighborhood for several days, racatata. If they turn off the electricity for long hours, racatatata. If the price of bread rises again or manufactured gas is cut off, again racatatatatatata. The cylinder responds with a metallic echo that is already part of the soundscape of this area.
At night, flares continue to appear on the horizon that, the next day, turn into columns of smoke. I’ve taken to reading science fiction again. When I see the glow of the mountains of burning garbage in front of my balcony I remember Duskthe famous short story that Isaac Asimov published in 1941. The story describes Kalgash, a planet with six suns where it never gets dark. A total eclipse occurs every 2,049 years; The arrival of darkness causes collective madness and people end up setting everything on fire.
We are all already a little crazy on this Island. My biggest fear has always been losing my sanity. I have never been afraid of spiders, nor the darkness, much less the “restless boys” of the political police. However, getting lost in that world of distorted reflections that is dementia terrifies me. That is why I am very attentive to every sign of delirium and I am especially sensitive to noticing when alienation advances in others. I have, for madness, the sharp nose of those of us who believe we may be deranged.
However, getting lost in that world of distorted reflections that is dementia terrifies me. That’s why I’m very attentive to every sign of delirium.
Yesterday I saw a man at the traffic light on Belascoaín and Reina. He was dressed in rags and was trying to direct traffic because the blackout had left the lights that were supposed to indicate when to go and when to stop out of service. With his arms outstretched, he performed a strange choreography that, if followed to the letter, would have caused the drivers to end up spinning in circles, doing pirouettes and even crashing into each other. Insults were thrown at him from some windows and a teenager who was passing by on a bicycle spat at him without stopping.
I kept walking, but for several blocks I couldn’t get it out of my head. Maybe the man was just crazy. Or perhaps he was trying, in his own way, to impose some order in a country where lucidity was lost long ago. On an island where electricity disappears for days, where food rots in the refrigerators, where the nights are filled with pots and pans being slammed and the mountains of garbage burn as if announcing the end of an era, between sanity and madness there is no longer a clear border.
In DuskAsimov imagined that darkness was enough to unleash madness. We have been living in darkness and nights without being able to sleep for too long. As I turned the corner I looked at the traffic light one last time. The man continued moving his arms with the same conviction. Nobody paid attention to him, but I couldn’t tell if I was seeing a madman… or a prophet.
