Читать книгу No Way Home: A Cuban Dancer’s Story - Carlos Acosta - Страница 14

About six months after I started ballet school I came home one Wednesday evening to hear wailing coming from our apartment. As I hurried up the stairs, the wailing grew louder.

‘It’s me, Yuli,’ I called.

My father opened the door. My sisters were sitting in the living room with tears in their eyes that they hurriedly brushed away. I assumed that my father had been telling them off for not doing their homework. It had been a while since I had done mine, so I moved nervously in the direction of the kitchen to look for my mother.

‘Yuli, wait,’ said Papá.

Oh hell, now it is my turn, I thought to myself, breathing deeply and crossing my fingers.

‘Your mother’s been taken to hospital.’

Then there was total silence in the living room. I did not understand. I looked at the faces of my sisters as they began to cry again, then I looked my father in the eye.

‘What do you mean taken to hospital?’

‘She’s had a stroke.’

My father’s words seemed to be coming from a great distance. I ran to the kitchen in a panic, searching for my mother. I checked the patio and the bathroom, nobody there. I returned to the living room.

‘What’s a stroke?’ I asked, covering my mouth with my hands.

‘It’s a brain haemorrhage.’

‘A what?’

‘Bleeding inside her brain.’

My mother had been doing her housework, washing the floor, dusting. She liked to keep the place spotless. She even cleaned the old man’s shrine, getting rid of the flies and other insects attracted by the half-rotting fruit that the stone and iron idols left untouched. She stopped for a moment to go to the bathroom and a vein exploded in her head. She lost consciousness almost immediately, but not before emitting a few loud screams. My father was working, as always, driving his lorry. Marilín and I were at school, but, by some great fortune, Berta was not at class that day. If she had not been at home my mother would have died there and then, in that tiny bathroom beside the water tank. As it was, Berta shouted for help, the neighbours came running, someone called an ambulance, which arrived fifteen minutes later and my mother was carried carefully out of the apartment and driven away.

‘What’s going to happen?’ I cried, terrified, slumping down on one of the wicker armchairs. ‘Tell me, what’s going to happen!’

‘There’s no way of knowing,’ my father said, gravely. His expression was very serious. I could tell he was making a huge effort to appear calm, but he was not quite succeeding.

‘We’ll have to wait and see how she does after the operation.’

‘But, Papi, what if she doesn’t …?’

‘We’re not going to solve anything by worrying,’ he said, like an order.

Nobody spoke. I lowered my head and, bewildered and afraid, went to the bedroom. My sisters did the same.

My father brought me some food and put water to heat on the stove for my bath.

‘What’s going to happen now?’ I whispered to my sisters, but their faces only reflected the same question back at me.

I ate and bathed. My father turned out the light. We went to bed.

In the darkness, I stared longingly at the outline of the bed I had shared with my mother for so many years. I had never felt so empty. It was as if my heart had been split in two. I remembered her smile, every detail of her face, how she used to hide herself sometimes in one corner of the patio and ask the moon to keep us healthy and well.

‘Papito, I can’t sleep,’ I whispered, sitting up in bed.

His cigarette, which was floating restlessly, remained suspended for a moment in the middle of the living room until, slowly, he came towards me and sat down by my side.

‘Do you remember the time we took you to the beach at Santa María?’ he asked.

This response confused me.

‘What’s that got to do with Mamá?’ I asked him.

But he took no notice and continued.

‘It was the hottest summer we’d had in a long time. They used to organize activities like that at my work, once a year, as an incentive. All my workmates were there, the new ones as well as the old: Almides, Guardiminio, Dolly, forty people in all. There were so many casserole dishes filled with rice and black beans, chicken, pork and fried plantains that we set a new record, we ate enough that day to last us the whole month. You used to like singing that song about the prince and the beggar, remember?

‘At the end of the road I heard this song

From an old countryman as he ambled along …

‘I remember watching you. It was like watching my own self as a boy. I used to like singing too, but I did not have a father, and we never got the chance to go to the beach with dishes filled with beans and roasted pork. It was good to see all of you enjoying the things that I had never had and I gave thanks to heaven that day. Do you remember that we lost you? We all started to search and it was Bertica who found you, sitting under a pine tree, singing that song.

‘At the end of the road I heard this song

From an old countryman as he ambled along

He was singing of freedom, of friendship and faith

Of the prince and the beggar …

‘Sleep … my little prince … sleep …’ And those were the last words that I heard.

* * *

I woke up the next morning to find that my father had already left for work. I washed myself and, as my mother was not there, I made my own milky coffee. When the time came for my kiss goodbye I felt horribly sad and sat down for a moment, with thoughts of my mother swirling through my brain. Then I picked up my rucksack and went down the steps. Alexis and Alexander did not talk to me during the journey; they knew what had happened and left me alone with my melancholy. They demonstrated their sympathy with a couple of little pats on the back and that was that. I did not speak. I felt completely disconnected from the outside world.

At school, as Nancy dictated the lessons with her customary gentleness, everything echoed in my ears as though it were 200 metres away. Her voice seemed to come from miles away and her image was blurred. I was in another dimension. I could not make out what my classmates sitting nearest me were saying either. Maybe they were answering Nancy’s questions or maybe they were just chatting; perhaps they were being playful, or perhaps they were laughing at me. All I could hear were sounds I could not decipher.

When class was over Nancy dismissed everyone else and asked me to remain behind.

‘What’s the matter, Junior? Are you unwell?’

She looked me straight in the eye and I lowered my head sadly. Then suddenly, I could not bear it any more and I clung to her. Tears streamed down my face. She did not ask any more questions. She stroked my head and told me that everything would turn out fine. The pain and incomprehension seething inside me kept bubbling up and spilling out onto her blouse. I poured my heart out to Nancy until, exhausted, I stopped babbling and she lifted my chin up, dried the tears from my eyes, gave me a kiss that was filled with tenderness. She led me outside, explaining, in the way that one does to a child of nine, that sometimes everything turns dark and the sky is covered with grey clouds but that, after the storm, the sun always shines and everything becomes bright again. I smiled and, feeling slightly more positive, caught up with my classmates.

* * *

The next day my mother was allowed to have visitors. We arrived very early at the Hospital of Neurology. The cool breeze from the air conditioning was mixed with the sour smells of all those pharmacological products typical of hospitals, and seemed to taste of anxiety and pain. Outside, the weather provided an appropriate backdrop to this dismal scene – thunder, lightning and fat raindrops falling from leaden skies.

I searched the faces on the ward. None of them looked like Mamá. The nurse signalled to us, and we moved forward cautiously, not wanting to disturb the silence. There, in cubicle four, stretched out on a solid iron bedstead, lay my mother. Her fragile body rested on a thick mattress, covered by a cream-coloured sheet. We were only a metre from the bed when Papá stopped us and told us not to come any closer, but it was too late. We had already seen what was left of our mother.

They had completely shaved her head in order to operate to remove a blood clot. During the surgery, she had lost her left temporal bone. The gap in her temple made her look much older. How is it possible for a woman of thirty-five to look like a woman of sixty? It was not Mamá. It was a horrible vision of old age.

My sisters began to weep inconsolably, gasping with despair, while I stood silently by, watching. My mind clouded over with questions. Why had Mamá, out of all the people in the world, been chosen by God for this fate? Why, I asked Him, did He never explain the reasons behind His actions? Was there something I did not know? What lesson was to be learnt? I wanted to sob and scream, but I did not cry. I just stood, motionless, detached, as if I was a stranger observing the scene unfolding before me.

I watched a grey-haired old man approach this unrecognizable woman – a nurse held him back and told him that the woman was still very weak and must rest. I saw two adolescent girls weeping in despair and I saw the grey-haired man holding them both close to his chest. For a moment, it seemed to me that they were all crying, but I could not be sure. I moved a little closer and witnessed something that I shall never forget – I saw tears rolling down my father’s face and dripping onto the granite floor. I could not believe that my father was crying. He looked at me like a child lost in the woods, then he turned to look up at the sky through the big glass window.

After some time, my mother slowly opened her eyes. She looked all around her, up and down, from side to side, unaware of our presence. Her gaze alighted on something. It seemed that she had noticed us at last. My sisters waved to her, the old man too. I remained still. There was not the slightest trace of an expression on her face; no sign of recognition, as if nothing that she saw was familiar to her. She lay so still it looked like she was not even breathing the stale air that circulated round the ward. Horrified, Marilín began to shout incoherently – loud, manic cries giving vent to her anguish. The nurse led her away quickly to calm her down. Berta continued sobbing, covering her mouth with her hands; her face was swollen and her green eyes had turned a greyish red. My father hugged her, trying to comfort her, and stroked her head. I shot them a sideways glance, confused, grief surging in my chest.

An hour had gone by and still God had not spoken. He looked on in silence as He always does. I thought that maybe my father could give me an answer that made sense. I looked into his eyes but they were quite dry now, and he had adopted his customary expression of unequivocal hardness. He was not lost any more, there was no sign of that child in his face. He was in control again. He took Berta and me by the hands and led us outside.

I turned for one last glance at my mother, to engrave her image on my mind. She remained unmoving, with her eyes open, expressionless and pale.

‘Everything’s going to turn out fine,’ said Papá.

But I was tormented by uncertainty.

I left the hospital without shedding a single tear.

In the following weeks, our lives became more difficult.

My father tried to cook without having the faintest idea how. He left long thick hairs on the pork, which made us want to run out and throw it to the dogs; he boiled the rice until it resembled a paste that might have been useful for building walls; the beans were watery and hard enough to break a tooth. But we dared not complain. We took deep breaths and swallowed the entire culinary experiment almost through apathy.

Our only preoccupation was the question none of us were allowed to ask out loud.

Would Mamá get better?

We could not imagine life without her and our sadness seemed to permeate the air of the apartment. My sisters cried every day. I always tried to hold out, but the image of her that was etched on my mind would tighten its sinister grip and then I would dissolve into tears.

We tried to carry on: the old man cooking and working, my sisters going to class, and me getting up at five in the morning to attend ballet school. Even when I made it there on time, however, I found it almost impossible to concentrate – all I could think about was Mamá.

One day, Lupe announced that we were going to learn a new step and so, with both hands on the barre, she showed us how to execute the assemblé. She explained how the step began from fifth position, you did a plié, one leg came out, scraping the floor, then you jumped and landed back on two legs again. She said that this step could also be performed en dedans, which meant that you would start with the front leg and move it backwards, but that today we would just do it en dehors, which meant starting with the back leg and moving it forwards. We spread ourselves out, leaving sufficient space to move without hitting the person next to us. I placed myself just in front of the iron bracket that held the barre up without noticing that the barre was loose. On Lupe’s command we jumped. The barre fell to the ground with an enormous crash and the iron bracket hit me on the neck leaving a large gash. It happened so quickly that I did not even have time to cry. Within three seconds the flesh was livid and blood was oozing out.

Everybody screamed. My classmates around me all had the expression people wear after there has been an accident with lots of blood – a mixture of ghoulishness and curiosity. They covered their mouths with their hands, but kept their eyes open, not wanting to miss even the slightest detail. The blood kept flowing, completely saturating my T-shirt. Lupe took me to reception, and from there I was taken to a nearby emergency clinic. On the way there, I wished I could be admitted to the same hospital as my mother. We would be able to look after each other. I would visit her every day and make sure that the nurses were tending carefully to the wound in her head so it did not get infected. I would feed her mouthfuls of food and wash her face with a damp cloth. But halfway through my daydream I began to worry that maybe she would not recognize me – she would open her eyes and they would roam around the room without stopping – and then I prayed that my wish would not be granted after all.

At the clinic, they gave me a tetanus injection and disinfected the wound with alcohol. Fortunately it was not too deep and would not need stitches. Stitches terrify me. The smell of medicine terrified me too. It brought back the image of my mother in her hospital bed and I was very frightened. Everything in my life seemed to be going wrong. First, my parents force me to do something I hate and stop me from becoming a sportsman; then my mother goes and has a brain haemorrhage; and then I gash open my neck and nearly bleed to death …

The doctor interrupted my morbid thoughts and told me that everything would be fine and that I should rest for two weeks. He repeated the word rest several times and explained to me that it meant staying in the house, in bed and not going outside. He kept on repeating it to me very slowly as if I had learning difficulties.

‘Don’t forget, rest means complete rest.’

I could see he thought he was being funny.

He finished cleaning the wound and applied a small dressing. I returned to L and 19 to collect my things. I was not at all sorry to have a break away from the world of ballet. I was tired of getting up at five o’clock every morning and struggling with the buses. My classmates’ parents always collected them, but nobody was ever there to take me home at the end of the day. I wanted to get out of this monotonous existence as soon as possible, which was looking less likely since someone had had the bright idea of telling my father his son had talent. I did not know how I was ever going to convince him to let me stop now, but I decided to have one last try.

With nothing else to do while I recuperated from my injury, I waited, like a lion watching his prey, for the right moment to speak to him.

One afternoon, the old man arrived home early, in an apparently good mood. He was laughing and humming off key the tune to a Benny Moré song that he liked.

Now was my chance. I breathed in deeply, hid my fear with determination and went to meet him.

‘Papito, I need to tell you something.’

‘Go on then, I’m listening.’

My father continued humming the song.

‘I want to be a normal boy, not a dancer.’

The humming ceased.

Benny Moré was abandoned as my father adopted the murderous expression that scared me so much.

Everything happened so quickly that I did not have time to take in the peril of my situation. He grabbed me by one ear, dragged me over to the window and pointed to a group of boys outside in the street.

‘Are they what you call normal?’ he screamed. ‘Those layabouts and delinquents? They’re not normal, and you’re not going to end up like them! I’ll kill you first!’

He let go of me abruptly and walked towards the kitchen muttering that I was intolerable. I stayed frozen where I was, in considerable pain. My father had claws instead of nails and he had stuck them right into me. I was becoming accustomed to a whole lot of new pain. I took a few deep breaths and tried to think about something pleasurable. I needed to forget the pain in my ear. It was just a scratch with red blood seeping from it. Already I was learning that if I thought of myself as a tragic victim of circumstance I would suffer more. I wiped the blood away and told myself, ‘Relax, nothing matters, nothing matters.’

The end of the school year was in sight, and with it my first stage appearance. We had paraded before, but that was only walking. The moment to show that we really knew how to dance was fast approaching. The girls in my class were dieting. All were skinny and scrawny already, but according to them they had to watch their figures. I found this quite convenient because it meant that there was more food for me.

At last, the long-anticipated day arrived. Our first performance was at the National Theatre, a modern building which seated more than two thousand people. I was to perform a quick, energetic Polish dance called the mazurka with Grettel, a light-skinned brunette with almond-shaped honey-coloured eyes. Every time those eyes looked at me, a bolero seemed to echo in the air, but I thought she was far too pretty to bother with someone as rough as me. I often saw her chatting to other boys in the class, boys who were well dressed, with neatly combed hair, and who had more class and better style than me. She and I were completely different. I had no refinement and my hair was never combed. I dropped my consonants and swallowed the ends of words like everyone else in my neighbourhood. Most of the children at the ballet school were brought up in a different way from me. A girl like Grettel was never going to take any notice of a thick-lipped, flat-nosed black kid who lived on the wrong side of town with a lorry driver for a father and an invalid housewife for a mother.

But if she could never be interested in me, at least we were dancing together. There were eight of us performing in pairs, making geometrical patterns on the stage as we danced the mazurka. I stretched out my arm to Grettel, she rested hers on mine. She looked at me and smiled slightly. I looked at her and felt as if I had turned to liquid. We both continued to mark time without missing a beat.

The theatre was pulsating with music, light and colour. It was like a fantastic vision. I suddenly understood the true meaning of the word ‘marvellous’. As the dance drew to a close, a great torrent of applause cascaded round us, and for the first time in my life I felt a sense of purpose. All this hard work meant something. I was playing a role in the great circus we like to call life.

‘Bravooo! Bravooo!’ the audience cheered.

My heart felt as if it were bursting out of my chest. What a sensation! We beamed as we bowed and still the applause continued. We bowed again then retreated upstage. The curtain fell.

I turned to congratulate Grettel and to my huge surprise she stepped towards me and kissed me softly on the cheek.

‘Love me oh so lovingly, treat me oh so sweetly …’ The bolero played in my head.

I gave a little leap of joy as I went to take off my make-up. I climbed the stairs to the second floor full of that kiss, that gentle kiss, the beginning of my life as a romantic. Even then, it was enough for me just to be in the presence of a girl I liked to start making plans as insubstantial as dreams. The same is true today. My lungs fill with oxygen, everything in my life suddenly seems to sparkle and before I know it I am soaring through the clouds, too high up to see reality. Then I always fall flat on my face and say to myself, ‘There you are, you stupid idiot, you’ve gone and done it again!’

I wiped my make-up off, got dressed and ran down to the lobby to look for the beautiful Grettel, the girl with the almond eyes.

But she was not there. I searched the crowd of people, but all I could see were happy parents showering their children in affection, tenderness and support. One or two of them saw me standing there on my own and smiled at me sympathetically. None of my family had come to watch me. They had to care for my mother. I have never felt so lonely. Leaving the happy crowd behind me, I went outside to the theatre steps.

In the distance, the orange rays of twilight were beginning to turn to deep violet. Opposite, the Square of the Revolution loomed imposingly, with its tall buildings and the vast memorial to José Martí in its centre. I looked in vain for Grettel. Some of my classmates called goodbye to me, waving their hands out of the windows of their parents’ cars, their faces radiating security and jubilation.

There was nothing left for me to do but head for the bus-stop.

The tranquillity of the evening encouraged me to think lucidly. I asked myself why my life was like this, why I had to train myself to live with almost nothing and depend on no one so the pain did not screw me up. Why was no one there to see me dancing, to kiss and congratulate me, and take me off for an ice cream to celebrate my first performance?

I took a deep breath and hung on to one of the rear doors of the 174 bus.

It trundled down Santa Catalina and Diez de Octubre. I liked the polluted wind that caressed my face and blew through my hair. I was comfortable, enjoying myself out there, until a woman piped up, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, move on down please, there’s a boy hanging on to the door!’

They all squeezed up a bit to give me enough space to get on.

‘Are you all right, love?’ the woman asked me.

‘Thanks for destroying my comfort,’ I felt like replying, but instead I just smiled, breathing in the stench of sweaty armpits made worse by the tremendous heat.

When I finally reached my bus-stop, I walked slowly up Cisneros Betancourt towards Naranjito, the street where we lived. It was a moonless night and the absence of light bulbs in the street lamps meant that Los Pinos was in pitch darkness.

As I turned the corner, five figures loomed out of the darkness and blocked my way.

‘Hey, arsehole!’

I knew what was coming. It would not be the first time that the neighbourhood gangs had taunted me.

‘Well, look who’s here!’ sneered my former dancing partner, Opito.

‘Get out of my way, I’m not in the mood,’ I replied.

I already knew the routine. I had been through it all before with other former friends, like Pichón and Tonito.

‘Oooh, careful, the swan is touchy!’ he baited me.

‘Drop it, Opito, I’m not feeling well.’

‘Oh dear, what’s the matter? Is it your mother? I heard they shaved all her hair off. Now you’re a fag with a bald mother.’

I jumped on him, but I only managed to kick him feebly in the knee before another guy, El Milly, grabbed me by one arm while Chinchán caught me by the other. Opito landed me two sharp punches in each eye saying: ‘That’s so you learn to respect men, you fucking faggot!’

They left me there sprawled on the ground and ran away, laughing and joking. It was a while before I managed to get up: I did it slowly, my vision blurred, and had to use my hands and a wall to help me. I had become the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, the designated clown. I thought of my mother in the hospital, expressionless, withered and wilted like a neglected rose, and I did not have the strength left to hold back the tears that ran down my face from swollen eyes that burnt with pain.

Somehow I made my way blindly, feeling my way along the walls, stumbling over every tree and refuse bin until at last I collided with my father’s lorry and knew I had finally arrived home.

I told my father I had fallen over, but he did not believe me and shouted in a fury that he would kill Opito and his gang. My sisters had better comfort to offer. They placed two bags of ice over my eyes and told me the wonderful news that my mother would probably be home the following week. Suddenly, the pain was nothing. Mamá was coming back to us!