FRAGMENTS OF MY CUBAN HEART: WHISPERS
Little by little my friends began to disappear. They never said goodbye, and I cried for each of them leaning on the parakeet cage in my patio where no one could hear me. The parakeets had no trouble keeping secrets. My heart friends Haydecita, Ani and Piti left the country, then Mariana Pichardo, Carmen Salazar, Rosa María Suarez, Lilliam Palomo, Maria Elena Izquierdo, and so many others! One by one they took pieces of my heart with them. No goodbyes were possible because no one trusted anyone. The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution had been established. In EVERY square block of every city and small town, in every province of Cuba, one of Fidel’s sympathizer’s homes was designated to watch every home, every move the neighbors made. They reported any irregularities to the G2,the enforcement arm of the revolutionary government. In this way, the regime gained control at the neighborhood level. People were sent to prison for speaking their minds and many were dying by firing squad on the Paredon; the Wall. Shouts of Paredon! Paredon! Paredon! silenced all reason and hope for justice.
It was in this climate that the Whispers began to take over, for our voices were too loud and could be overheard by anyone...
My father and his friends whispered counter revolutionary plans in the room next to where I slept. My grandmother and aunts whispered their concerns and opinions to each other, afraid of being overheard by our maids and turned in to the Committee. My friends and I whispered about distributing counter revolutionary propaganda, and stealing chemicals from our school's chemistry lab for their older brothers to make bombs.
Then my grandfather died, my father was taken prisoner, my mother had a nervous breakdown and The Whispers took over until one day only the deafening silence of hopelessness remained.
It had come time for me to disappear. Time for me to leave all I knew and loved, leave my house headed for the airport, and climb the steps of a KLM airplane all alone on my way to a new country where the Whispers hadn't taken over yet.
It was in this climate that the Whispers began to take over, for our voices were too loud and could be overheard by anyone...
My father and his friends whispered counter revolutionary plans in the room next to where I slept. My grandmother and aunts whispered their concerns and opinions to each other, afraid of being overheard by our maids and turned in to the Committee. My friends and I whispered about distributing counter revolutionary propaganda, and stealing chemicals from our school's chemistry lab for their older brothers to make bombs.
Then my grandfather died, my father was taken prisoner, my mother had a nervous breakdown and The Whispers took over until one day only the deafening silence of hopelessness remained.
It had come time for me to disappear. Time for me to leave all I knew and loved, leave my house headed for the airport, and climb the steps of a KLM airplane all alone on my way to a new country where the Whispers hadn't taken over yet.