The Odyssey That Is Cuba
HAVANA TIMES — I have always had mixed feelings about Cuba and it is worth clarifying that I am someone accustomed to living with that constant duality.
I have almost never been able to surrender to the comfort of seeing the “glass half full.” Within me coexist the joy of a glass nearly full and the anguish of water that is halfway gone. Together. Inseparable.
But being born in Cuba makes it irrelevant whether your mind works one way or another. As long as I lived there, I could only see it from the bottom of the glass. I was drowning, and it made no difference whether it was filled to the brim or only halfway. The only certainty I had was that I was suffocating. The only thing that could change was how long it would take before I turned blue from lack of oxygen.
The worst part was that, for many years, I was not even aware of that certainty, and simply imagining separating from my family, living in a completely unfamiliar world, terrified me to the point that I did not even dare think that I had to leave the country.
I was about to say, leave “my” country. But it is not my country. And I did not leave it either. You cannot abandon something—or someone—that has already abandoned you.
I belong to that golden generation of Cubans born in the 1970s. In some ways, we are different. We grew up believing we were truly important to the adults around us, to the system. We were destined to become heroes. In the 1980s, Cuba was an island full of little Odysseus who would live a thousand adventures, gain countless lessons, and ultimately fulfill our glorious destiny: creating a truly perfect and egalitarian society, where we would finally embrace our Penelope—the steadfast, unconditional love awaiting us.
And we failed the very first test: the post Soviet “Special Period”. Thousands of us fled during those dark years of the 1990s. Rafts filled with warriors, ready to confront the most terrifying sea monsters. The course had changed. We were no longer seeking the love and embrace of Penelope. We were chasing the song of the Sirens. At least that is how our Antihates, Fidel Castro, described it. According to him, nearly our entire generation had succumbed to excessive and inhumane consumerism that is capitalism.
During that decade, I owned only two pairs of shoes, a necklace made of red seeds, my first love (very lesbian and a little toxic), my first published book, and my first (and so far only) suicide attempt. Oh—and a great deal of fear. I did not know it was fear, but it slept quietly beside me every night, scratching at the walls of my dreams the way mice scratch at concrete from inside the walls, trying to escape. So I did not join the thousands of balseros (rafters) who fled from Antiphates, the devourer of men.
Our mythical king did not need to tear bodies apart with his own hands and teeth. There was no need for blood because he, like people say rats do, blew gently while biting into the souls of Cubans.
The idea that rats blow while they bite is a myth. Fidel Castro devouring the souls of Cubans is not. Nor is it a myth that, as he consumed us, a cool breeze flowed from his mouth in the form of soothing words and mesmerizing stories. Those he could not persuade, he paralyzed.
As the years passed, that hypnotic breath gradually lost its power to convince, but not its power to paralyze. Most people, stripped of their souls, wandered through the streets and the countryside, no longer believing what they heard or read, yet unable to rebel.
Then one day I met Circe, the sorceress, who revealed to me the way to escape. I did not hesitate for a second. She gave me back half of my soul, and in exchange I left her something very precious: my ability to believe in those who, like me, were born on that island. How can you believe in people who possess only half a heart, half a soul? People like me.