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Prison
Journal (I)
Manuel Vázquez Portal, sentenced to 18 years in
prison. Boniato Prison, Santiago de Cuba.
May 31
By morning, I was waiting for my family's visit. It would be the first time
that I could really talk to them. My daughter Tairelsy and my son Gabriel came.
They are beautiful. The truth is I exercised good taste in choosing their
mothers.
Yoly is the real hero. What a great woman! Gabriel brought me photographs of
all the people I love.
Someone by the name of Moisés, from the Department of State Security,
was by the house bothering Yolanda. He threatened to imprison her and to have
Gabriel declared "a son of the fatherland." They would hit a wall.
Yolanda is made of stern stuff. I never wanted to get her mixed up in my beliefs
and my activities, but the government stooges are not going to realize that now
she is only defending her husband from injustice. It's good that the world know.
Tyrants' cruelty has no limits.
The visit was stimulating. And, surprise, by the time I went back to my
cell, I found they had changed the old, torn, dirty mattress for a foam rubber
one. My bones will appreciate it. I didn't sleep well. Too much heat, too many
mosquitoes, too many ideas, too much to remember.
I shared my food, the one my family brought, with Próspero and
Normando. Our morale is high. The common prisoners still show solidarity and the
guards are still respectful.
Tomorrow I'll try to write letters to my brothers Darío and Arturo,
to my friends Ernestico and Oscar Mario, Anita, Betty, and Maité. Writing
letters keeps my love for people alive in the midst of all this misery. The
guards check every letter I send.
June 1
Now that I have photographs, in the mornings I say hello to those I love.
Then I pray and read a passage from the Bible. Then literature. I'm finishing
Personal Matter, by Kenzaburo Oe, an existential novel in the way of Camus about
the fallout of the atomic explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's good, if
sordid.
Thank God, Yoly brought me some books. I have enough to read for at least a
month. Among other things, she brought Yeats' complete works. Too bad I have
nothing by Quevedo.
Today I wore the sexy underpants Yoly brought. It's almost good enough to
perform a strip-tease to the music of Perez Prado's Patricia.
Another advantage to the visit: I can have coffee, (Yoly brought instant) I
can fend off the odors, I can clean my cell, (she brought me a mop) I can write
(she brought me paper) I can eat (she brought plenty of food) I can live (she
brought her love and my children). If it weren't for Castro, I could say I'm
happy.
June 2
I woke up with longing... I remembered my first words in the morning: "Dear,
let me have some coffee." When I realized Yoly wasn't here, I made my own
coffee. I drank it and smoked. I prayed and read a passage about Jesus from the
Bible. I finished Personal Matter. It has a beautiful ending. The love of man
for his succession triumphs. The novel is a good pamphlet about the struggle
against nuclear proliferation.
I refused the prison food. I don't think I'll accept it while my new
supplies last.
They took me out to the yard under the noonday Sun.
Today they photographed us again, and the military doctor examined us. I
still have high blood pressure. We were vaccinated against leptospirosis and
meningoencefalitis. It's about time. Rats are all over and the insects too.
I hope the vaccine doesn't cause any unpleasant reaction. The only thing
left now is for them to sew a number on our butts. We are dangerous indeed!
It rained. The hill I see from my west window looked beautiful in the mist.
I say west window as if I had another one. My cell has only one eye on the
world, and the world ends at that bare hill, where the trees have been cut down
mercilessly.
The electrical storm was worse than the rain. After, there was a drizzle
that refreshed the afternoon. It had been hot.
The morale of us seven political [prisoners] remains high. Nelson and I ran
into each other at the photographs and medical exams, and I was able to embrace
him. With Villareal, Normando, and Juan Carlos, we manage to shout conversations
across the prison yard.
That night, I had a headache. I took Tylenol and didn't fall asleep until
late.
June 3
My arm is sore, it must be the vaccine. It's good to have coffee. Too bad I
don't have hot water, it would taste better. I prayed and read a passage from
the Bible. Later I started rereading Carpentier's short stories.
The day is long, tedious. If only I had a typewriter! Sometimes I become
impatient waiting for the Ministry of the Interior to let me borrow the Sun for
one hour. The yard is a good interlude to the boredom of the small lodgings.
Norges Cervantes, a blind man who's been in prison for more than four years,
roars against the guards. Alberto Díaz Sifonte, a 24-year-old from Morón
who's sentenced to death for his involvment in a jail break in Ciego de Ávila
in which several guards were killed, yells he wants to be taken to the hospital.
The homosexual confined near Normando (he's in cell 2) sings out of tune
trying to imitate Shakira as he bangs on his cell door trying to get the guards
to bring him a pain killer. I have to make an effort to read. How many prisons
in Cuba? How many prisoners?
Officer Sabino brought me the magnetic cards for the phone. Yoly gave him
the money to buy them for me. He told me he still didn't know the date for our
conjugal visit, which we wanted to accelerate due to Gabriel's upcoming
operation.
The day of the visit, May 31, I told Yoly that she and the boy should go to
the United States for the operation. Neither one would agree. They don't want to
go without me. The boy said, "Papi, I'll burn here with you." I held
back the tears.
His eyes had watered when he first saw me, and I made a joke about some dirt
in his eye.
At night, I thought about the methods of the Cuban political police. I had
learned they went around the neighborhood, and by Gabriel's school. Whatever
they learned, won't be any good in the demoralizing show they put on against the
dissidents. I know in my block everybody spoke well about me, and in the boy's
school they found more of the same. How far would they go in the effort to show
the world that government opponents are people of dubious morals and social
misfits?
June 4
It's been two months since the farce in which they sentenced me to 18 years
in prison. The courtroom looked like a TV studio. It's too bad they weren't able
to use the video tapes in their propaganda. The manly attitude of the
independent journalists is not what they wanted to show. I think I messed up
their script.
Someday I'll tell the story of the "trial." It's wasn't even a
fixed trial; it was a military order that they wanted to legitimize through
flunkies who tarnish the name of jurisprudence. Any government that has to stoop
to these tricks is not going well.
I actually felt sorry for the defense attorneys, trying very hard to make
clear their allegiance to the "Revolution" so they wouldn't end up
being tried themselves. It was evident they were more concerned with
establishing they were Revolutionaries than in defending us.
Now I can, like T. S. Eliot, say "April is the cruelest month."
April 4 is a bad day for me. On April 4, my mother gave me 18 knocks on the head
for joining the Young Pioneers [government youth organization] without her
permission. This last April 4, they gave me 18 years for writing without
permission. The first time I was a child, this second I'm an old man. It seems
repression does not work; either that or I'm very stubborn. By now I should be
an anarchist. Instead, I believe in democracy, even though I haven't known it
all my life. Maybe before I die, I'll be able to help establish it in my
country.
I obtained, for the small price of a pack of cigarettes, the list of
prisoners with whom I share the cell block. From it, one can draw some
conclusions.
- Cell 1: Alfredo Rondón Duarte, 29. Murder. Death. Pending.
- Cell 2: Normando Hernández, 33. CR (counter revolutionary).
Independent journalist in real life. 25 years.
- Cell 3: Norges Cervantes Doscal, 36. Murder. Death. Pending. He has been
blind for four years.
- Cell 4: Fernando Núñez Guerrero, 37. Murder. Life.
- Cell 8: Francisco Portuondo Medina, 37. Murder. Death. Pending.
- Cell 13: Lamberto Hernández Plana, 34. 12 years
- Cell 14: Próspero Gaínza, 44. CR. Peaceful government
opponent. 25 years.
- Cell 10: Lorenzo Boll Reliz, 36. Murder. Life.
- Cell 17: Urbano Escalona Borba, 26. 8 years. Infected with HIV.
- Cell 18: Andrés Núñez Ramos, 41. Life.
- Cell 19: Juan Carlos Mores Figuerola, 41. Life.
- Cell 21: Miguel Quirot Gerón, 20. 8 years. Infected with HIV.
- Cell 16: Yanier Osorio Hernández, 26. Life.
- Cell 23: Carlos Luis Díaz Fernández, 33. 8 years for trying
to leave the country illegally.
- Cell 25: Jorge Ochoa Leyva, 37. Murder. Life. Pending.
- Cell 26: René Mustelier Savigne, 32. Murder. Death. Pending.
- Cell 28: Alberto Díaz Pérez, 24. Murder. Death. Pending.
- Cell 31: Manuel Vázquez Portal, 51. CR. 18 years. Independent
journalist in real life.
- Cell 32: Antonio de la Cruz Argote, 37. Strong-arm robbery. Life.
- Cell 36: Ovni Bárzaga Garrido, 29. Murder and strong-arm robbery. 38
years.
Obvious conclusions:
Every one of them, except myself, is younger than Castro's Revolution, that
is to say, a children of the Revolution.
This cell block is for the most dangerous criminals and also serves as death
row.
We are mixed in with AIDS sufferers.
With these people we share an hour in the yard. Every day with a different
one.
Our name for the cell block is Boniatico or little Boniato. It's maximum
security; hands and ankles cuffed at every turn, to go out to the yard, to make
a phone call, to go to the hospital, to take a medicine....
Prison
Journal (I) / Manuel Vazquez Portal
Versión original
en español
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