Sunday, July 17, 2011

Testimony: The Failed Attempts to Make Me an Agent – I / Angel Santiesteban

Testimony: The Failed Attempts to Make Me an Agent – I / Angel Santiesteban
Angel Santiesteban, Translator: Unstated

Knowing how to say no when the opportunity presents itself, no matter
the surprise, the gain, or the subsequent costs of the negative, is what
differentiates us from prostitutes.

My rejection of the regime came to me from an early age, I knew it was
the wrong road and that with the Communist System the Cuban people would
never enjoy the full and dignified life they deserve after a half
century of the Republic.

How can I forget the calls in the University made to Amir Valle when in
the middle of classes they interrupted the professors to take them out
of the classroom and threaten them for what they said or failed to say.
Or the beating given to the writer Jorge Luis Arzola in Jatibonico for
attending the Literary Workshop and then, in the middle of the night,
they took dragged him out of his cell and beat him again. Arzola had so
many differences and grudges with the system that made them irreconcilable.

In 1994 I was a little-known writer; I was arrested and taken to the
cells of State Security headquarters at Villa Marista, suspected of
throwing Molotov cocktails in different places in the city. Three days
and nights of interrogation made me faint. It was a dream that produced
blackouts, moments of unconsciousness interrupted by shouts, threats,
and shoving that I couldn't even repulse or offer them some offense and
remember that I had rights, that I was alive. Within a week I felt that
death would be a pleasure.

Then, all of a sudden, they offered to let me "cooperate": I only had to
tell them who had thrown the Molotov Cocktails, "just that," they told
me. I don't remember if I shrugged my shoulders, shook my head, or
simply, in my catatonic state, they assumed my positive response. At
midnight I was put out on the streets, the houses were spinning and the
lights tormented me, people were looking at me like I was a drunk, but
that's to the excitement of being able to see my family, I made it home.

Several days later a plain-clothed official was walking through my
neighborhood looking for me to learn some data I could give him, but he
didn't manage to find me. I had hidden in the suburb of Güinera. I hid
there two months. And they waited. To their way of thinking I had failed
them. They understood they wouldn't manage to get me to give in, nor to
make me understand that I would be "protected" at their side, so they
moved on to Plan B.

They used every variation on me that, in the end being human, at times I
asked myself if I should have collaborated; but I immediately rejected
such stupidity. I never would. I knew my mother would rise from the dead
to vomit in disgust. My sister would change her name. And my friends and
detractors would refuse to greet me, because there is nothing more
despicable than a traitor.

July 15 2011

http://translatingcuba.com/?p=10863

No comments:

Post a Comment