Author: Irina Pino

I’ve been meaning to write an article about Reina for some time now. Yes, I like to write about her in this relaxed, informal way, without the bombastic surnames and honorary titles and awards. I want to evoke her simply as a woman, as the human being she is.

Slanting eyes, swarthy complexion, large breasts, wide hips, long hair down to her shapely behind – this is a more or less accurate description of the woman from Santiago de Cuba who has been living in my building for some months now. She didn’t move in by herself – the whole affair smells of a relationship with a foreigner.

I asked a friend who works in Cuban television to copy me some music videos and movies. I am always on the lookout for new things. When I had a look at the folder in my computer, I saw a film titled Ex-Drummer. I started to watch it, out of curiosity, and every scene was more disgusting than the last.

The alarm goes off at a quarter past six. I get up and fix breakfast. Then starts the battle of getting my son out of bed and sending him off to school. When I finally manage to wake him up, I help him get ready for his classes. After he’s left, I sit down in front of the computer and write for an hour or two.

Some Saturdays or Sundays, when I have a little bit of money and want to dance to some rock music, I get ready to go out. First, I choose a simple outfit (jeans, a blouse and a pair of comfortable sneakers). I pick up my purse and daub some perfume on my chest.

A close relative of mine who studied at a religious school in Cuba (Los Hermanos Maristas) was telling me there was a priest at the school who would pat him on the head and sometimes even kiss him on the cheek. This made me think about the issue of religion.

Dying at the age of forty, when the sap of experience leads to a new blossoming in our lives, is too unfair. The death of John Lennon isn’t a trivial or even logical incident. It was a devastating event that has always stayed with me. I recall hearing the news over the radio, late into the night.

It caught us by complete surprise in the 90s, and no one expected it to last the many years it did. Even today we continue to be haunted by those infernal years, as though we were unable to find a way out of the crisis. One need only mention it to conjure up those dark memories.

Woody Allen once said that “the heart is a very flexible organ”, and I agree with him in every sense. A colleague at Havana Times gave me a compilation of essays on free love by 19th and 20th century thinkers, put together by Osvaldo Baigorria.