Читать книгу No Way Home: A Cuban Dancer’s Story - Carlos Acosta - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe alarm clock sounded at five o’clock in the morning on 1 September 1982. My father turned on the light, and I had the impression that he had been wide awake all night, pacing up and down like an unquiet soul. Mamá went to heat up the breakfast while my sisters slept on. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and put on the red shorts, white shirt and blue kerchief that are the uniform worn by primary school children throughout Cuba. After drinking my milky coffee, I picked up the rucksack with my exercise books and the new ballet clothes the school had given me. My father gave me a brief, tight hug. I kissed my mother on the cheek. She smiled at me brightly, but her eyes were shining with sympathy. Then I went out to meet our neighbour Candida’s sons, Alexis and Alexander, to begin the long journey into school.
It was strange and exciting to travel into the city to go to school. I had only previously been to the centre of Havana on a couple of occasions when my sister Berta had taken Marilín and me for a special treat to the ice-cream parlour Coppelia. The school was in the very centre of Havana close to all the famous buildings such as the Focsa and the Hotel Capri. Everything was grand and majestic, and the streets were full of traffic and people going to work.
I would be attending two schools. At the first, the Orlando Pantoja, which was three blocks away from L and 19, we would study the usual academic subjects from eight in the morning until noon. The Pantoja consisted of two buildings, one for the pupils from pre-school up to fourth grade and the other for fifth-and sixth-grade students. The buildings were elegant old houses. Before the Revolution, they had been the homes of wealthy families, and one could still imagine their former glory, even though they were now an ugly, institutional green and their paintwork was shabby and peeling.
Two hundred schoolchildren studied there. There were about fifty of us dancers, and the rest were kids from the local area. Some were better off than others, and although this should not have mattered because in Cuba education is free for everyone, I still felt intimidated that first day, as if I did not belong there.
A kid called Ismar and I were the only dancers in the fourth grade. In the other building, there were fifth-and sixth-grade classes just for the dance students. It was much easier for them. I was always getting into fights with my classmates because they called me ‘Alicia Alonso’, ‘poof ’ or ‘fag’. I did not mind fights, I liked the chance to work off my anger from time to time, and it did not take much for me to get into a scrap with somebody or other, however big he happened to be. Soon the kids in my class began to respect me and stopped calling me names, taking it out on Ismar instead. He never answered back, they could call him fag or whatever and it would not get a rise out of him. More than once, I had to come to his rescue because the classroom bullies were pinning him down. Eventually, after being summoned once too often to the head’s office for bad behaviour, they decided to leave us in peace.
Our teacher Nancy was sweetness itself. She was not like the teacher at my previous school, who had beaten me with a thick, metre-long ruler until I was covered in bruises. Nancy was olive-skinned, with a beautiful smile and a strong clear voice like a soprano: Maria Callas working as a teacher. When she attempted to be strict, she could never keep it up for long because she adored children and she loved each of us unconditionally. Even though I was a rebellious child, a truant and a troublemaker who often fell asleep during class, I always respected my teachers, and Nancy most of all. When she told me off, I would hang my head in shame, unable to meet her dark eyes because I knew that she wanted me to do well. She used to laugh when I came up with imaginative excuses to justify my truancy. On one occasion I swore that my mother had given me diazepam instead of aspirin for a fever, and that I had slept for two days; on another, I claimed that I had been kidnapped by neighbourhood bandits. Nancy never shouted at me or threatened me, much less hit me. Instead, she liked my stories. When I had to catch up on schoolwork after my frequent absences, she would stay with me till I was done, helping me to go over the lessons with kindness and patience beyond the call of duty. I was with Nancy throughout fourth grade, taking classes in tenderness and understanding as well as science and the arts. I can only give thanks to God for putting her in my path.
In the afternoon we took our ballet classes at the school in L and 19. There were about twenty new students on the day I started. I was very nervous that first day, and kept as quiet as possible. Ramon, the head teacher, a man some six feet tall with completely white hair, welcomed us all.
‘Dear students, today we see the beginning of the new school year and with it a new page in the Cuban Revolution. You are the foot-soldiers, the men and women of tomorrow, those who will shape the revolutionary future …’
After his long speech, the head of the student group, Lorena Feijó o, shouted out the slogan of Cuban primary school children: ‘Pioneers for communism!’
And we all had to respond in unison: ‘We will be like Che!’
I had my own subtle variation.
‘Pioneers for communism! We will be like Pelé!’
In the hot narrow changing rooms of the school we put on our ballet clothes – leotards, which I hated because they were like girls’ clothes, and were uncomfortable to wear because the back bit pulled up between your buttocks. The boys were given trunks to wear over the top. I thought I looked ridiculous.
We walked to the studio where an attractive woman with a lovely smile waited for us.
‘My name is Lupe Calzadilla,’ she said.
She was firm but fair and loved what she did and above all the results she achieved. She was a born teacher. We arranged ourselves at the barre. Some tall, some short, all skinny except for one pudgy kid called Victor. A boy called Ulises and I were the only blacks in the group.
Lupe showed us the positioning of our arms and legs. She explained to us what a grand plié was and a tendu, then she showed us an exercise.
‘So this is ballet?’ I thought to myself as she made us all stand with our feet turned out like Charlie Chaplin in something that she called first position.
After that we had to do squats, eight down and eight up, then we had to repeat the same exercise standing like frogs, which was what the teacher called second position. I could not see the point of it.
We continued like this for an hour, repeating things that were strange, ridiculous, obscure and meaningless. The more I repeated the boring, monotonous exercises, the more I was convinced that this was not for me. We finished by jumping up and down on the same spot. What a joke! I could not face the thought of having to repeat this tedium the next day and the next and the next, until fate decreed otherwise.
I found myself gazing out of the window. There were some boys playing football on a patch of grass. They were sweaty and shouting and having a great time. I longed to run out and join in the game.
‘Now, stretch your legs!’ said Lupe. She prodded my buttocks to make me clench them. ‘Correct!’
I looked at myself in the mirror. Oh no! I looked more like Chaplin than ever now, posture, legs, everything – only the moustache, the hat and the walking stick were missing.
One hour and fifteen minutes later, we were still there, like performing monkeys at the circus. And to think that I would have to do the same tomorrow and every single day afterwards. It was too much to bear. Then suddenly I heard the most beautiful sound in the world: the bell.
At the break, we ate our lunch at L and 19. The food was very good, at least compared to what I was used to, but there was always somebody ready to complain that they were tired of eating eggs or sardines, or that there should be more chicken. Eggs and sardines did not bother me. I always ate everything with one eye on my plate and the other keeping a lookout in case one of the girls was dieting and there were leftovers. There were always other hungry sharks like me circling round, and I liked to get in first.
After the break we had our first French lesson with a teacher called Soraya, a light-skinned woman of mixed race who was always impeccably dressed. Her silk headscarves, expensive perfumes and immaculate make-up only added to her exotic appeal. She recounted tales of her experiences in Paris, a place of abundance and wonder, where snow fell, trains ran underground and there were no queues. She told us how once, after using a public lavatory, she had spent twenty minutes trying to flush the toilet. ‘Then I looked at the floor and saw a grey button, I pressed it, et voilà!’ We used to laugh at all her stories; we had never heard anything like them before.
For the rest of the afternoon, we had piano lessons with Angela and a class on historical dances with Nuri. We finished at half past six in the evening.
I emerged exhausted and dazed into the hustle and bustle of central Havana. The streets were full of people and traffic and light and noise. I walked past the emblematic buildings of the capital – the Cuba Pavilion, the Capri and the Hotel Nacional, with its tropical groves of coconut palms and its swimming pools, my eyes widening with disbelief and delight at the thought that I was here, alone, at the centre of all this life and luxury. But as I approached the bus-stop it was heaving with people, a seething mass of desperation, suffering and frustration. I glanced from the hotel to the bus queue and back again. They were two different worlds. With a sigh, I joined the crowd at the bus-stop, resigning myself to going back to the real world.
When my last bus finally reached Los Pinos, it was around nine o’clock at night; the odyssey usually took about two and a half hours. A large group of people was gathered outside the shop on the corner and break-dance music was blaring loudly. There was someone dancing in the centre of the circle. I approached warily, concealing myself behind walls and trees. I could see Opito in the distance, dancing without his shirt on. He was doing the routines he and I had always danced together as a pair. The onlookers were clapping and whistling in appreciation. I wanted to go up and join him but instead I got out of there as fast as I could. I was sure that everyone must know by now that my father had made me study ballet and I did not want to suffer any embarrassment.
My father was in. The green Soviet Zil 59, the lorry of the company he worked for, was parked outside.
‘How did you get on?’ he asked me.
‘Fine,’ I said, not wanting to go to bed smarting from a beating after such a long and arduous day.
‘But did you like it?’ he demanded.
‘I prefer football.’
‘To hell with football! Go and get washed, your mother’s heating some water for you.’
And that was all he had to say.
My mother kissed and hugged me and made a fuss of me, wanting me to tell her every detail.
‘Mami, it’s really boring and they make me stand in strange positions.’
‘What do you mean strange?’
‘Like this, like Charlie Chaplin.’ And I showed her.
My sisters started giggling.
‘It’s not funny!’ I shouted at them.
‘That’s enough now, Yuli. Go and get washed, and you girls come and eat, the food’s already on the table.’
After dinner, I collapsed into bed. That night I dreamt that I was playing in a football match and that I had scored the winning goal. Everyone carried me on their shoulders and threw me up high, really high, into the air. They were all proud of me, and even the coach, who only a little while before had killed my hopes, was now pleased to have me in his team. I was ecstatically happy for a few seconds.
Then the alarm went off. It was five o’clock. I had slept so deeply that I had forgotten about the bedsprings and there was a streak of blood on my right thigh. I dried it quickly and got dressed, still half asleep. My sisters were snoring as always. My father had already left in his lorry without saying goodbye.
I remembered my dream. It made me feel happy. I drank my milky coffee, picked up my rucksack, kissed my mother and went out to meet Alexis and Alexander. We walked to the bus-stop and there we were, ready to start the new day.
To hell with dreams!
