LITMIR.BIZ

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and to warn them repeatedly to take care on the stairs. When they brought my mother out, Ramona, our next-door neighbour, put her hand over her mouth, and many of the other neighbours turned their heads away. Mamá looked like a defenceless dove. Her eyes were closed and she was as pale as she had been in the hospital. Her body shook as the stretcher-bearers made unsteady progress and her head rolled from side to side, as if she wanted to make sure everyone saw the horrific sunken scar her operation had left her with. We made way so the ambulance men could get past. My mother was sleeping. She did not seem to be breathing. My father squeezed my shoulders and kissed my sisters. He seemed more animated than he had in weeks. I looked at the faces of the neighbours who had crowded into the street. Some of them gave me the thumbs-up sign. Only Opito was sitting on the wall at the corner making fun of me, flapping his arms like a bird and mincing round, insinuating that prancing swan was me. It did not matter now. My mother was home. I went into the house and closed the door behind me.

      Little by little things began to improve. My mother recovered some of her colour and the hair on her head started to grow back. When she tried to speak, she mumbled sounds that were mainly incomprehensible, but at least she recognized us. I was just happy to know that she was here, alive.

      Our neighbour Marta helped us to care for Mamá in the mornings so my father could go to work and we could attend school. She was a good and generous woman, an affectionate, gentle, warmhearted soul. In fact everyone in the neighbourhood was good and generous: one big happy family, not just when it came to drinking rum, dancing salsa or playing dominoes, but also in times of hardship and necessity. Delia let us have some eggs, Kenia gave us rice and Candida donated a little cooking fat. There was always someone on hand with a friendly word of advice or a small act of kindness, things that are very important when you are feeling lost.

      Now that things were getting back to normal, I was beginning to get tired of keeping to the straight and narrow and behaving well. Even though I had felt good hearing the applause that greeted my first performance, football was still my passion. I had to find a way to play.

      One day, I got up as usual at five in the morning to go to ballet school, but instead took a different bus to a nearby stadium where I knew the football team from the Arturo Montori School trained every day. There was not a soul about, just the early morning sunshine, the football pitch and me. Occasionally buses passed by, making a racket, or a Chevrolet of the kind that abound in Cuba, where the only original parts remaining are the bodywork and the name – ten cars rolled into one. The noise did not bother me. I was totally immersed in myself, thinking about ballet, looking at the football pitch and comparing this glorious morning with my usual schoolday. Six hours of studying French and piano, the monotony and boredom of standing at the barre … against being here. It was sweet to breathe in the scent of the dew and imagine what my life might have been. There was no hope now of realizing my dreams, but at least I could dream – nobody could ever take that away from me. I stretched myself out in a corner, rested my head on my rucksack and waited for daybreak.

      I was so tired that I did not feel the Caribbean sun on my skin as it rose. I was fast asleep on the concrete floor, heavy as an elephant. When I opened my eyes there were boys out on the pitch, warming up to the rhythm of shouts from the trainer before the start of a game. I leapt to my feet. I counted fourteen boys, all my age. The coach was yelling out questions and they were responding.

      ‘What is the most important thing in football?’

      ‘The warm-up!’

      ‘What does your body need before the game?’

      ‘To warm up!’

      They carried on shouting out as they warmed up their ankles, their knees and their waists. They did squat thrusts. I copied them. The coach noticed me and called me over to join the group, so I did.

      Ten minutes later the game began. We played all morning. For me, it was perfect and I wished that every day could begin like that.

      The match finished at midday and the coach promised me that I could come back whenever I wanted. I was a sweaty, muddy wreck, but I was so happy I did not care. I knew I would have to think of some excuse for my appearance, but I could not go home yet anyway because if I got back too early my parents would realize I had not gone to ballet school.

      I decided to catch a bus out to the woods in La Fortuna, where there was a big fishing lake and lots of fruit trees. My plan was to hang out there for a while and then return home about the same time that I usually got back from ballet.

      Arriving at La Fortuna, I walked towards the woods and climbed over the barbed wire fence. The lake was about a mile from the road, between a mental hospital and an abattoir. I needed a good swim to cool myself down a bit. The path was wet from two days’ rain and the air was humid and full of insects. By now I was very hungry and my guts were making sounds like a cat’s mewling. I spotted several white mango trees just a little way off and ran towards them, barging through the undergrowth, pushing branches out of the way as mud splashed up behind me and splattered my shirt. I was too hungry to notice, my only objective was to eat. Under the first tree two juicy mangos were ready and waiting for me. I ate them, skin and all, without even thinking that an insect or two might have got there first. I must have eaten at least seven ants and three or four centipedes, but at the time I was not bothered, and my stomach was grateful for the minute helpings of protein.

      Although my hunger was sated, I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I could not avoid thinking about what would happen in a few hours’ time. If my father found out what I had been up to, I would get my ears boxed or be whipped with his big buckled belt or the thick cable he kept under the bed to defend himself against intruders, or even be hit with the machete he had once threatened me with. I would have to invent a credible story to avoid suspicion. If not, the guillotine.

      Despite these rankling worries, however, for the first time in a long while I felt happy and free. It was better to enjoy the little time that was left to me. I collected all the mangos that would fit inside my rucksack and continued on towards the lake. I would keep the biggest mango for my mother, save another for my father, and sell the rest so that I could go to the cinema where The Girl with the Dimples was still playing. My father had not given me any money yet to see the film, but with a bit of luck, I would make enough now to see it three times.

      At the water’s edge, I put my shoes and rucksack beneath a chirimoya tree but kept my uniform on to give it a bit of a wash. Splash! Oh, what delicious water! I got out so that I could dive in again, head first this time. A little way to my left, a countryman was collecting a creel full of writhing freshwater fish that glistened in the sunlight. Another man was fishing peacefully from his boat. We were the only three people sharing the birdsong and the damp, softly fragrant breeze, enjoying the beauty of the forest, communing with the fish. It was an idyllic setting for a siesta. I washed my uniform as well as I could and hung it out on a bush to dry, then threw myself down naked onto a pile of dry leaves and fell asleep.

      ‘How come you’re home so early?’ My father’s face loomed in front of me.

      ‘Because I’ve told you already, I don’t want to be a dancer!’

      ‘So you just bunked off because you felt like it?’ His face drew closer to mine.

      ‘That’s right and tomorrow I’m going to join a football school,’ I told him defiantly.

      ‘I’ll give you football, you little son of a bitch!’ He reached behind him and swung the blade. A flash of glinting silver …

      ‘No, not the machete! No! Papito, no!’

      ‘I’m going to hack your head off for disobeying me!’

      I awoke with a start, my heart in my mouth. A bird had shat on my head. I smelt of fresh bird shit. I had no idea how long I had slept. The country folk had gone home. I was alone and the sun was starting to set. I got up to wash my head and I picked up my uniform, which was still damp when I put it on.

      I got out of the bus in Cisneros Betancourt and headed towards Naranjito, my heart hammering in my chest. At every corner I seemed to

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