Читать книгу No Way Home: A Cuban Dancer’s Story - Carlos Acosta - Страница 11

All I ever thought about was sport. Football was my obsession. I had ambitions to become a great player. For a long time, without my parents knowing, I tried to get into a school that trained future footballers. Sometimes, however, wanting something badly just is not enough. During the training sessions I would kill myself doing sit-ups and press-ups and running round the track. The fruit of all my labours was that I was selected to play in a match. I touched the ball twice during the game and did not make any mistakes so I was proud of how I had done and left the pitch confident that the coach would give me a scholarship. When the next day the coach treated me with indifference, I did not take it too much to heart. The following day it was the same, however, and gradually over the next few weeks I realized I had no prospects in the team: I just was not good enough. From that moment on my hopes of winning a football scholarship started to evaporate in front of my eyes. My dream of becoming the future Pelé crumbled, and though I persevered, every day the coach treated me just a little bit worse, trying to slowly break my spirit until eventually he succeeded.

It was around that time that the break-dancing craze hit Cuba. My sister Marilín was a magnificent dancer and from time to time she would show me some of her moves and take me with her to street parties. After two months, I had learnt how to spin round on my shoulders and even on my head. When Marilín saw me she was speechless.

‘Where did you learn to do that?’ she asked, astonished.

‘Oh just round about …’ I replied, unwilling to go into details.

‘But when did you practise?’ she insisted.

‘In my spare time …’

The truth is that whilst Marilín was at school, I would meet up with a gang of friends in order to practise break-dancing all day long. Bit by bit, we break-dancers started to organize a club in an adjacent neighbourhood called Vieja Linda. There we would close off the streets with rubbish bins to stop cars coming through, and with the music up at full volume we would rehearse new steps in order to compete with other neighbourhoods in Havana. I particularly remember one of these competitions which took place in Parque Lenin, a huge recreation area on the outskirts of the city where at the weekends there would be salsa contests, singing competitions and history or science quizzes for children.

When the break-dancing competition was announced my gang knew it would be an important contest for our reputation and that we could not possibly miss it. So there we were, at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning, with all the tools of our trade: dark glasses, gloves worn like Michael Jackson, big baggy shirts and baseball caps. We carried our ghetto-blasters and chomped away on bits of sticking plaster since there was no chewing gum.

The first prize was a trophy with a picture of Lenin surrounded by the hammer and sickle, the second prize was a bag of sweets and the third a diploma. My friend Opito and I were the only members of the gang eligible to compete because the contest was only open to kids under fourteen. Opito and I had won competitions before, dancing as a pair in Cerro and Monaco and other Havana neighbourhoods. Two nine-year-old boys, one white with ginger hair and one black, was a combination that never failed.

All the big names from the Havana break-dancing scene were there: Papo el Bucanda, Alexander ‘the Toaster’ el Tostao, that kid from the Embil district they nicknamed Michael Jackson, and Miguelito la Peste, ‘Mickey the Stink’, himself.

Everybody chewed their pieces of sticking plaster and wore their baseball caps back to front as Opito and I got ready to do our thing. As soon as we began to dance, I was filled with an indescribable sensation of release. Growing up poor had taught all of us Los Pinos kids never to ask for anything, not to have any expectations, and because of this I was quite a timid boy. But when I danced my shyness fell away and I felt like a different person: confident, attractive and free. Along with the first drops of sweat came the desire to shout my existence to the world, to become everything I dreamt. I danced my heart out for half an hour.

At the end of the contest, I was baptized El Moro de Los Pinos – the Moor of Los Pinos – by the rest of the boys in the gang, and Mickey the Stink himself held out his hand to me and said, with a challenging smile, ‘See you around.’

I still have that trophy of Lenin with his hammer and sickle. Those were my first steps towards the art of dance.

The news reached my father’s ears that I was running around the streets with gangs like a bandit.

‘We have to do something, María, otherwise we’re going to lose the boy,’ he said to my mother, in a fury.

Most of the time their conversations revolved around me: they argued continually over how to sort out my future while I continued break-dancing in Vieja Linda and spending my time at street parties. My father swore that he would thrash me to within an inch of my life, but I did not care. I just went on doing what I liked until one day my father happened to bump into our neighbour Candida on the stairs.

She was a good woman with a strident voice who was very much involved with the revolutionary process. Her nephew was one of the principal dancers with the Cuban National Ballet and her two oldest sons Alexis and Alexander went to the Alejo Carpentier School of Ballet, which was situated on the corner of L and 19 in the downtown district of Vedado. When my father started telling her about my exploits, Candida had a suggestion.

‘You say he likes dancing? Why don’t you send him to ballet school then?’

My father’s eyes lit up. ‘Ballet!’ he said and for an instant he was transported back to the cinema where for the first time ever his soul had taken flight. His heart started to beat rapidly as it had on that distant day and suddenly there was hope. He did not think twice: he thanked Candida, said goodbye almost before she’d finished her sentence and raced up the twenty or so steps to our apartment at the speed of light to tell my mother about his new idea. They considered each and every possibility, then together they sat down to wait for me.

Even though I was only nine, I can still remember that day very well. I had just got back from one of my usual break-dance practice sessions. As I went up the steps to the apartment I could see that the door was wide open and a weak light illuminated the interior where my parents were preparing to give me, so they said, some very good news.

‘Sit down, we’ve got something to tell you!’

There was something unusual about my father’s tone and I sensed that something strange was going on. His words unsettled me. What could it be about? I sat down nervously.

‘So you like to dance, eh? Well we’re going to enrol you in a ballet school,’ announced the old man.

‘Ballet? What’s that?’ I asked, perplexed.

My father shot a conspiratorial glance towards my mother, who was looking somewhat flustered, and said:

‘Well, um, it’s, um, it’s the dance of the parasol ladies.’

When she heard this definition my mother collapsed into giggles which lifted the tension for a moment.

‘What, that boring thing that they put on the telly?’

‘Yes, that’s it!’

‘But Papi, I’ve told you loads of times that I want to be a sportsman. Anyway, you know that kind of dancing’s just for women.’

‘A sportsman? Don’t make me laugh! If you go on like you are, the only thing you’ll be is a waster! Running around with those gangs, spinning around on your head … One of these days you’re going to break your neck.’

‘But what’s everyone in the neighbourhood going to think? They’ll say I’m gay!’

‘Listen, you’re my son and the son of the tiger shares his father’s stripes. If anyone calls you gay, just smash his face in, then pull down your trousers and show him what you’ve got between your legs.’

‘But Papito, I want to be a footballer!’

‘Your mother and I have made up our minds and that’s that. It’s your future, my boy!’

My father ground his false teeth, his face fixed in that grim expression that told me the conversation was at an end. And so it was. They had decided my career for me. I had to put my dreams of being a footballer to one side and dedicate myself to the dance of the parasol ladies.

‘What now?’ I asked myself. And what was everyone in the neighbourhood going to say when they found out that El Moro had become a ballet dancer?

A week later, Mamá took me to the audition. We had to catch three different buses to get to the ballet school at L and 19. She was chain-smoking, puffing away like a chimney; she had a cigarette in her right hand and was holding on to me with her left. I loathed the smell of tobacco but I kept quiet. I was happy and proud to be travelling with her in her dark glasses, which only served to enhance her beauty. It was certainly more relaxing than going with my old man. During the journey I tried to explain to her that it really was sport that I liked best, and pulled my saddest, most pitiful face. I knew that playing the victim usually worked with my mother, but on this occasion my attempt failed.

There were a lot of people and a lot of cars near the school’s three-storey building, which was still bright and colourful at that time. At the entrance there was a garden with a well-kept lawn and all sorts of plants: ferns, roses and hibiscus. And there was I, unable to fight any more against what now seemed inevitable.

We went in and joined the queue. I looked around me. Most of those there, the men as well as the women, were very well dressed and with a certain air of refinement about them. The gulf between us seemed enormous. People looked at my mother and me with curiosity, trying to work out what the connection was. She was blonde with delicate features, and I was a sort of cappuccino colour. I hated those looks, the ones that seemed to be saying to me subtly, ‘Go away, you don’t belong in this place.’ A haughty-looking man fixed his eyes on me. He did not say a word but the message was clear, ‘You must have made a mistake. This isn’t a centre for Afro-Cuban dance. They teach ballet here, understand? It’s a ballet school.’ I smiled ingenuously at him as a harsh unmelodious voice shouted out: ‘Carlos Junior Acosta Quesada!’

I went through to studio number three and was instructed to take off the shorts I was wearing. As I stood there in my coffee-coloured swimming trunks, the only ones I owned, a tall woman said to me sweetly, ‘All right then son, lift your leg up.’

Never in my life have I felt such pain. That woman, apparently so gentle, yanked my right leg up with such force that I can still feel the sharp, stabbing agony that ripped through the back of my thigh as she grabbed it, and then shot on into my tendons and abductor muscles. A large woman and three other judges sat jotting down notes on my torment.

‘Okay son, stretch your foot out.’

I did it as well as I could. The four women looked at each other then wrote something down again.

‘Now jump as high as you can,’ one of them ordered me.

I started to jump up and down like a rabbit until they said, ‘Fine, that’s enough.’

My mother remained outside throughout, watching with great attention through the glass. I do not know what was going through her head, if she was proud, confused or simply thought that we had made a mistake in coming.

After they had manipulated me like an automaton on which they were experimenting, they then set me the most difficult test.

‘Right son, now it’s time for you to improvise something for us.’

‘Sorry, to what?’

‘We would like you to dance something for us so that we can see your imagination at work.’

I knew how to break-dance very well. I was not the famous Moro de Los Pinos for nothing. I started to do some moves with my torso and stomach, which always led to whoops and yells of admiration every time that I performed them at street parties. I saw that the teachers were looking at me with their eyes popping out of their heads, and decided to do something to really impress them. I was just about to spin round on my head when all four women rushed towards me shouting, ‘No! No! Don’t do that, you’ll kill yourself!’

They returned me to a more human position, both feet planted firmly on the ground, and the largest lady tried to explain.

‘Look, we just want you to pretend to be a cook, for example, or a huntsman, something like that. Understand?’

She tried to soften her tone, but her voice was still harsh.

They obviously do not know El Moro de Los Pinos! I thought, but I did not say anything, I just smiled as I always did, showing off the strong white teeth I had inherited from my father. I would not be a huntsman or a cook, I would be a footballer! I would be Pelé!

The pianist started to play. I ran and leapt and danced. I do not know what I must have looked like. I am still not exactly sure how you imitate a footballer to the rhythm of classical music.

My mother continued to watch intently through the glass.

When I had finished, they told me to go up to the second floor for a musicality test. We went up fourteen steps and joined another queue. Queues, like Santería, are just a way of life in Cuba. I tried to feel optimistic as we stood there waiting our turn, but the truth is I had never felt so out of my element.

‘Next!’ said a tall woman with short grey hair, who was smoking with as much enthusiasm as my mother. I went in and sat down.

‘Repeat whatever I do, okay?’ she said.

‘Okay,’ I replied.

She started with hand-claps and I repeated them. She stared at me and wrote down her assessments in a blue notebook. She made some noises with her mouth and I repeated them. So there we sat for a while, clapping and making noises like a couple of idiots. It seemed like a big waste of time to me. I was hoping that they would fail me, that they would say to my mother that I was not musical, that I had no flexibility or that my interpretation of a footballer was not the kind of thing they were looking for. That way my father would admit defeat and I could go back happily to my old routine of break-dancing and stealing fruit from the neighbours.

The next day my mother returned home with the results of the audition. We were all on tenterhooks.

‘Come on, María, don’t keep us in suspense any longer,’ urged my father.

‘Just be patient,’ she said, and took out her glasses to read the results.

I crossed my fingers.

‘It says here that you start on the first of September.’

‘I knew it!’ crowed my old man, bringing to his words all the enthusiasm he could muster – an enthusiasm I failed to share. What a disaster!

My sisters shrieked with delight. They did not know the bitterness that I felt on hearing the news. I looked at my father and he returned my look with an indulgent smile. The die had been cast. While everyone was celebrating, I drifted away. I went up onto the roof to look for comfort amongst the pigeons I kept up there as pets. I chose one at random and caressed it to the accompaniment of my choking and stifled sobs. I stayed there and watched the landscape of Los Pinos being swallowed up into the darkness. Happiness reigned in our house, but not for me.