Yesterday I came from Santa Clara in a new Chinese Yutong bus with air
conditioning. The wait and the trip could have been perfect, but sadly
the institutions, companies and services in this country, even though
they invest thousand and thousands of dollars, can't avoid shocking you
in their tortured state agony.
At one in the morning I arrived at Santa Clara station, and as I had no
return ticket (it is impossible to buy one in Havana), I put my name on
the waiting list for the first bus, at six. The waiting list means that
when the bus comes, they call those with no tickets in the order of
arrival, and they fill the available seats.
The waiting room was almost empty, some children slept on their mothers'
laps and others bobbed their heads in extremely uncomfortable plastic
seats; you have to wonder if the designer felt a dark and twisted hatred
for humanity. I was surprised that you could smoke, and even sleep on
the floor, but as there were children I smoked outside and I didn't
settle myself on the floor as it seemed inhumane. I put my purse in the
chair beside me and lay down, it wasn't a bed but after an hour in a
terminal support for your head is like entering paradise. Unfortunately
the earthly paradise is only for the privileged, the agent came into the
room and woke me up:
- You can't rest on the chair next to you.
- Why?
- It's the rule, if the inspector comes he'll scold me.
- This law is a bit fascist, madam. Did you know that one of the
tortures the STASI used was to not let the prisoners sleep? And you can
sleep on the floor. This doesn't bother the inspector?
- Also you can't put your purse on the chair next to you, you are
occupying a space that is for people.
- If someone comes I'll move it, but it's vacant, I don't think it will
happen.
- You have to vacate it, it's Mistreating Social Property.
- Excuse me but you must understand that this is not Mistreating Social
Property, that's absurd. I'm sorry, I'm not moving it.
I was biting my tongue to keep from laughing what with the Mistreatment
of Social Property. I knew it was going to cost me dear to argue with a
state bureaucrat. With these people things can get very serious, they
earn a pittance for a salary but have absolute power over five square
meters and they apply it with the same irreverence, force and abuse of
power that they have seen those with "Absolute Highest Power" apply to
them, a kind of revenge I suppose.
She got hysterical and started to shout, telling me that I could not do
what I wanted, that the director could not stand that kind of attitude,
that who did I think I was and that for my crime they weren't going to
dock her pay because she'd kill me first.
- Excuse me? If I leave my purse here they'll dock your pay? The minute
they start that I'll move it.
- Nobody is going to take my money. You remove that purse because it is
Mistreatment of Social Property or else I'm going to kick you out of here!
Still trying not to laugh, I began to feel a little sorry for this woman
who now doesn't even care about the purse, only about launching her
firepower at me. I looked around and saw that people were beginning to
smile. Nor can I deny that the slap of an agent in her diarrhea-brown
uniform in a bus station at three in the morning is the saddest thing in
the world. I tried to calm her down:
- Look, I've moved my bag, you can relax.
- Listen you, if I see you mistreating social property or sleeping I'm
going to call the police and I myself will drag you by the hair to the
patrol car.
- Look, you already woke me up and clearly I'm not going back to sleep,
the bag has been removed because I don't want you to lose your pay, but
on the other hand don't threaten me, I'm not afraid of you or the
police. And, when you call the station let me know, I want to hear you
say that you need a cop car at three in the morning for a girl who put
her purse on the chair next to her, it's a crime without parallel in
human history, I'd be delighted to hear the response you get from the
officer on duty.
She left but she was beside herself, still yelling a while around the
place, at one point she neared the window and scolded me:
- What happened is that I want you to travel, that's why I let you be.
I had to work hard to control myself and not tell her, "I too moved the
purse to help you, we're even," but I was afraid she'd have a stroke
that very instant. The rest of the morning she spent keeping any eye on
me, waking up a few more who were sleeping on their chairs and managed
that, by 5:30, half people in the station were rolling around on the
floor disdainfully while the more scrupulous smoked quietly in their seats.
At six they started calling the waiting list. Speaking in favor of the
Santa Clara terminal I have to say that it has electric light. The one
in Havana, however, in the two days I passed through it (going and
coming back), was suffering a widespread blackout which, for example,
kept me from being able to see the toilet bowl in the bathroom, which
was in the basement.
At six-thirty the bus pulled out, my seat unfortunately had a broken
lever and I couldn't recline, and even though there were other vacant
seats, the driver wouldn't let me change. In a minute I fell asleep.
In my dream I started feeling a stranger sniffing my feet and hands,
accompanied by an unbearable heat. I opened my eyes to see that it was
day, the bus was stopped in the sun, everything was closed, and a police
dog looking for drugs was sticking his head everywhere. It took me two
minutes to realize it wasn't a nightmare.
A snitch had called the Columbus police station, in Matanzas, to warn
than on our wretched bus some unlucky person had had the terrible idea
to move beef. We couldn't get off, but I didn't understand why we
couldn't breathe either. I don't know anything about cars, but it seems
to me a little strange that because a vehicle is stationary the air
conditioning goes off; though neither would I want to feel obliged to
assume such a high dose of sadism on the part of the driver and the police.
They pulled the luggage out of the baggage compartment so the animal
could stick his snout in without obstacles. It seemed like we were in a
Mexican movie and they were going to find 100 pounds of pure heroin in
the glove compartment. Suddenly the dog reacted, having found what
seemed to be the object his search: MEAT. A boy in a white cap was
temporarily determined to be the prime suspect (he was the owner of the
suitcase), they got off the bus and the dog gave it an intense
once-over, sniffing it.
Bad luck for the police, oxygen for us and frustration for the hound:
the discovered meat turned out to be pork. Ciro inevitably whistled for
all the travelers, "Who was the snitch… eh?", the boy laughed nervously,
the people were looking with big eyes and drops of sweat on their
foreheads, I was going back to sleep while thinking that between my real
life and my dreams, the absurd is not so out of sync.
Octavo Cerco / English: Santa Clara-Havana (1) (18 September 2009)
http://octavocercoen.blogspot.com/2009/09/santa-clara-havana-1.html
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