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Rafael Ferro Salas
PINAR DEL RÍO, February (www.cubanet.org) - "He should be put in
prison for life, it's what he deserves for being a counterrevolutionary!"
The woman shouted the phrase with all the hate in the world in her voice.
They took the man away in the police car. A woman begged in vain with the
police.
"The mother is to blame for the son's behavior. She's a
counterrevolutionary, too. She should be in prison with her son!" the woman
shouted again so everyone gathered there could hear her. She enjoyed unleashing
her hate against the old woman and the man who was led away under arrest.
In a while the street was deserted. The woman entered her house, drying her
tears with an old handkerchief. That night some friends of her imprisoned son
came to visit her. They tried to encourage her by giving her hope. The visitors
shared the same ideas as the elderly lady's son.
"That woman shouted those things because she is a privileged person of
the government. Her husband is a government official. Her shouts were part of
her hypocritical commitment with the government."
The others supported by silence what the one who had spoken said. When they
left, the woman remained in the living room looking at a photo of her son
hanging on a wall. She appeared hopeful, trusting, perhaps, in time.
Three years later there was another arrest in the same neighborhod. The
police took away a boy. They had carried out a big raid with many searches in
the area.
A network of drug dealers was uncovered.
From her doorway, the elderly lady saw how they took the young man away. It
seemed to her that everything repeated itself, like the time when they took her
son away. She also saw a woman go out after the police, crying and pleading with
the uniformed officers.
A man arrived slowly to where the woman was and said almost in her ear: "Life
is full of traps, my dear lady. Some years ago that woman backed the arrest of
your son. Now they're taking her son away under arrest for being a drug addict.
That pains me. Your son was imprisoned for defending his ideals. The son of that
woman has nothing to defend."
The woman smiled sadly and answered with a voice that seemed as a caress: "It's
a shame, on that occasion she forgot she is a mother, too. Maybe she felt
untouchable from her position, but my God!, sons are sons and life is as you
say: it has its traps."
Versión original
en español
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