A Difficult Cuban Woman

Regina Cano

Clara used to say to me: “I think you know her. You must have met her with that group of actors who were studying.” And with that goes a story that still hurts her.

“She stole my laptop. She took advantage of the trust I gave to the friend of a friend who stayed at my apartment when she was in Cuba and who was her partner back then,” Clara began telling me.

“She must have made a copy of the key.”

“One day when I came back home, the door to the apartment was open. Nothing was missing other than the laptop,” she continued.

“I would have gone to the police but that wouldn’t have helped, because the prints were probably gone and it would have been a long drawn-out process.”

“Fortunately I was able to get another one, but you know difficult it is to get each little thing in this country. Friends outside sent me the one I have now.”

“The worst part was that I lost all my work from more than a year. That was a hell of a blow,” Clara concluded, visibly distraught.

They say there are people who come into this life with a sign that marks all their acts, but they also say that it’s difficult for them to get out of the vicious circles by themselves.

This seems to be the case for that young woman who stole the laptop.

She’s over thirty but no matter how much she rises above her circumstances, they end up crushing her efforts to get out of her situation.

She has been accused of being everything from unstable to a thief, a drug abuser and a manipulator. Right now she’s in jail for the second time. Her mother wonders when she changed and that if this will ever end, because she simply doesn’t know what to do anymore. The woman moaned, “She’s even stolen from the family.”

“The last few times I saw her she had a strange look and was riding around on a motorcycle in the middle of the night through Old Havana and even Vedado.

Anything might be going on with her,” said a neighbor who grew up with her; they’d been playmates and friends from adolescence. “The last thing she did around me was steal my uncle’s bicycle. I don’t trust her anymore. I want her to stay as far away as possible from my people.”

It’s difficult to watch her become ever more isolated, but it’s also difficult to have a close relationship with her.