Whatever You’re Going to Do, Do It Soon

Erasmo Calzadilla

I’m afraid because of the things I write in Havana Times.  I’m convinced they won’t torture me, at least not like was done by Batista or the Latin American dictatorships.  They won’t pull out my fingernails, run electric current through my body, shoot me on the side of a road or drop me into the sea from an airplane, but I fear losing my job.  I’ve worked at the University of Havana since I was fired from another university, INSTEC.

It’s not finding myself without a wage that scares me.  Nor do I worry too much about being dissociated from teaching; contact with students is great, but I can find other roads.

What keeps me on edge is the fear of going through the rough moment in which they call you in, judge you and kick you out.  I’ve not gotten used to that.

To make it more theatrical, so the lesson serves as example, they often put on a show before other colleagues, who at that moment drop their jaws in the shock of discovering how seditious you really were and that they hadn’t realized it.  I cannot hide that they’ve also instilled certain values in me, such as shame, and ridding myself of these is more difficult than I had thought.

I understand that behind such a fear is insecurity.  Maybe it doesn’t sound good, but that’s the way it is.  But what am I going to do about it?  I write with pleasure for Havana Times, no one or nothing forces me to, but another part of me is not sure… father follows me, burdening me with his demands.

Every time I run into someone who I suspect will be the person to call me into the administration’s office, I look in their eyes, I study them.  I later play back their small talk in my mind and become uneasy if they were evasive or seemed to be concealing something… I’m not happy with having such worries, but I have them.

Sometimes I hope they just end up calling me in, to get this over with for once and for all. Certainly, said one commentator, such a behavior is characteristic of a boy…but does anyone have any remedy?