Jorge Milanes’s Diary

“Look compadre, I know you from somewhere. I don’t remember from where, but I’m in a big jam,” I explained. “My friends need fifty pesos to pay the airport tax. They didn’t know they had to pay it, but if they don’t, they’ll miss their flight.”

At eleven at night, it was raining outside, and the humidity was pretty high. We could hear a dog’s howl, which by its intensity you could tell it needed help.

“It’s incomparable!” comments a 40-year-old blond woman with green eyes and glowingly white skin. Leaning against the Malecon wall, she’s impressed by the city’s architecture as she takes photos of the area’s buildings. Her husband -with the hands behind him, wearing shorts and a cap- slowly ventures closer to a group of men working on the Malecon.

My work is particularly interesting. I’m in charge of the strategic design, execution and review of literary promotion on the radio, as well as book presentations and gatherings, poetry readings, tributes to writers, competitions between radio listeners and other literary activities.

She got out of the car, hugged me, and in a firm voice said, “I’m here!” I couldn’t react. My mother, who was watching the reencounter from the porch, realized who it was.

Today it was my turn to clean the house, my brother’s turn to cook, my stepfather’s turn to go to market and my mother’s turn to rest, since the poor woman spends all week at these same chores while we are all at work.

My grandparents recounted to my parents that for centuries, after the Spanish arrived in Cuba, peddling and hawking goods in town squares was considered something quite common.

His bike was old, like mine which I’ve had since the nineties when the difficulties of the epoch made this form of transportation absolutely necessary. But he distinguished himself with different stunts on his and he kept asking me what I thought of them.

These are not the usual kind of parties, but spiritual gatherings, part of the Santería religion. Santería is an offshoot of the religions that the black slaves from Nigeria brought to Cuba with them in the 19th century, which later blended with the Catholic religion.

Yesterday, during my Sunday walk, I ran into José Eduardo, one of my childhood friends, in the cafeteria that’s across the street from the Tower. He had put on weight. When he saw me, he looked amazed; he had imagined that I too had left Cojimar.