CARLOS ACOSTA

No Way Home

Copyright

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This Harper Perennial edition published 2008

First published in Great Britain by Harper Press in 2007

Copyright © Carlos Acosta 2007

Original translation into English © Kate Eaton 2007

Carlos Acosta asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technologial constraints in operation at the time of publciation

Source ISBN: 9780007250776

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007287437

Version: 2017-05-03

From the reviews of No Way Home:

‘The dazzling Carlos Acosta is the Cuban Billy Elliot. In his extraordinary memoir, the crippling physical effort of becoming a ballet dancer, the slog, the agony of injuries, the rivalries and bitchiness are vividly evoked. His fascinating recollections suggest Acosta is a tormented genius’

Daily Mail

‘From the atmospheric depiction of his poor childhood in Havana to his domination of the world of dance, this is a truly inspiring tale’

Sunday Telegraph

‘The life of the ballet dancer Carlos Acosta has all the hallmarks of a bestseller. Acosta’s voice is instantly likeable, and you follow his discovery of the trappings of the west and his quest to make his name at the Royal Ballet with a mixture of wonder, respect and, crucially, affection’

Financial Times

‘A superb book’

Daily Express

‘Acosta writes vividly about these poor but happy years, bringing the streets of Los Pinos to life’

Dancing Times

‘Warm and funny’

Economist

Contents

Title Page Copyright Review Part One: 1973–1988 Chapter One: My Family Chapter Two: The Photograph Chapter Three: Beginning Chapter Four: The First Grand Plié Chapter Five: Plagued By Uncertainty Chapter Six: With Hate In My Heart Chapter Seven: A Prisoner Chapter Eight: Pinar Del Río Part Two: 1989–1993 Chapter Nine: Take Off Chapter Ten: The Grand Prix De Lausanne Chapter Eleven: History Repeats Itself Chapter Twelve: Chery’s Decision Chapter Thirteen: London At Eighteen Chapter Fourteen: A Year Without Dancing Chapter Fifteen: Beginning Again Chapter Sixteen: Madrid Part Three: 1993–2003 Chapter Seventeen: Fears And Insecurities Chapter Eighteen: Chapter Nineteen: The World Will Be Mine Chapter Twenty: Goodbye Houston Chapter Twenty-One: The Lady And The Three Musketeers Chapter Twenty-Two: A Moment Of Happiness Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher

PART ONE

1973–1988

CHAPTER ONE

My Family

I grew up in Los Pinos, a neighbourhood in the suburbs of Havana, a combination of city and country where asphalt streets and wooden houses vividly contrast with the vegetation that fills every available space and lends the landscape infinite varieties of green. Los Pinos was famous for La Finca, a leafy area of fruit trees and red earth covering some five square kilometres, extending as far as the Quinta Canaria Convent to the east, the district of La Güinera to the north and Vieja Linda to the west. Legend had it that La Finca was inhabited by spirits who turned themselves into owls and hooted not only at night-time but also during daylight hours.

To reach La Finca you had to climb a hill past the Russian lorry repair shop and carry on until you got to Cundo’s place. Cundo was the best known salesman in the neighbourhood. His house was essentially a small cooperative which sold sugar cane, coconuts, fresh goat’s milk, mangos and tobacco. A few metres on were the fibreboard caves – half-finished abandoned houses, their floors lined with pieces of cardboard, with grass and weeds growing high around them. This spot was commonly known as the Place of Infidelity. After crossing the first of several streams, where you could fish for prawns, there were natural caves draped with green creepers and huge malanga plants known as elephants’ ears. From there you could no longer see the lorry repair shop, nor Cundo’s house. The tall royal palms and the avocado and mamey bushes blocked out the sun, making the air dank and humid. The terrain became increasingly irregular. Hills would suddenly loom up that were awkward to climb. You had to part the undergrowth with a garabato, a hooked stick usually made from a tree branch, then help yourself along by grabbing on to tree trunks. The atmosphere was full of enchantment as the spirits-turned-owls hooted out their sorrows and songs all around you.

After scaling the biggest hill you came to a rocky, sandy plateau. This was the only place that was not shaded by trees and people would dry themselves off there after bathing in the pool, which was an abandoned reservoir about four metres long and three metres deep, filled with filthy, contaminated water. At the bottom there were channels and holes full of broken beer bottles and empty cans. Many people got ill after swimming in that water, one or two drowned. Parents used to forbid their children from going there, warning that they would get worms, or they would threaten us, ‘If you go into the forest, the owls will eat you.’ Nevertheless, whenever we were out of the house, we could always be found in those pestilential waters, or standing on the sandy plateau, looking out towards the distant streams in the west, the tobacco crops and the fields of cows.

Most of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood were workers, country people, hawkers and street-traders. Carriages pulled by horses took adults and children alike for a ride for a fee of one peseta, and people used wooden handcarts to carry their food. The noise of those rudimentary vehicles echoed through the streets, mingling with the cries of the scissor-sharpener, the mattress- stretcher and the fruit-seller.

Each house had a ration book. Foodstuffs that were rationed, such as grain, oil, salt and sugar, came into the grocery store once a month. It was the same with meat at the butcher’s, fish at the fishmonger’s and milk products at the dairy. We would queue from early in the morning, and at nine, when the grocery opened, there would be a giant snaking line of handcarts and people holding sacks, bags, jars and casserole dishes. Similar queues would form to buy bread, and the three toys that each house was allocated by the government every year. Everybody waited their turn patiently, telling each other their problems and sharing the latest neighbourhood gossip. People would play dominoes, drink rum and dance salsa together. You lived as part of a community and were grateful for the achievements of the Revolution, even though you might secretly listen to the rock music that was synonymous with imperialism.

In the eighties, nearly all the families in my neighbourhood received the minimum wage of about 70 pesos a month, with the exception of a few who earned a little more or a little less. The contrast between families was not really visible. Nobody had washing machines or dishwashers and the few households with television sets would watch them in black and white. Most people got their information from the radio. Electrical appliances from the fifties still survived thanks to people’s inventiveness. It was very common to find an American-made refrigerator or cooker functioning with Russian parts. The inside of every house reflected the country’s recent history.

Even though it was a poor neighbourhood, everyone had their pride. Every Sunday voluntary work groups were organized, where people would cut lawns, paint houses, sweep pavements and collect litter to compete with the other blocks in the area. A delegation organized by the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution would pass through block by block examining everything, from the lawns to the houses, even the lampposts, and the next day everybody would know which block had won. There were also el Plan de la Calle, ‘Street Plan’, competitions, which were big community parties that included singing and dancing contests, sack-races and hundred- metre running races. People sold home-made refreshments like ice- lollipops, meringues, meat and potato croquettes and soft drinks to the hundreds of people who came to the parties from the nearby neighbourhoods. The smell of ripe fruit that was characteristic of our neighbourhood was so strong that it impregnated the very fabric of our clothes and cancelled out all other odours. The inhabitants of Los Pinos smelt of guava in April, of custard apple in May and of mango in June. It was the aroma of those people, combined with the humility that poverty brings, that made Los Pinos a magical place.

It was in that little town, surrounded by music, dominoes, rum, the smell of fruit and the hooting of owls, that I spent my childhood. Most of the houses on my block were made of wood, but ours was a strange edifice consisting of six apartments divided by a staircase. Our apartment was in the upper part of this two-storey building. When I was a little boy, it seemed enormous, but it was really a miserable hovel without running water, either because of a problem with the plumbing or by some greater design of God, which meant that we had to carry that precious liquid, bucket by careful bucketful, up and down the many stairs. It was a narrow house, with rustic furniture and cracks in the walls where families of voracious termites lived. Shining empty beer cans added colour to the interior decoration, as did the black doll that represented one of the goddesses of the Yoruba pantheon, and the vase of sunflowers, usually wilted, that sat on one side of the shelf among photographs of relatives, faded by time, and a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a feature commonly seen in humble homes like ours.

In one corner of the living room, my father, Pedro Acosta, hid his shrine, which comprised a pot of long nails, the kind that are used to secure railway lines; a small bow and arrow; miniature tools made of iron; a stone with shells stuck onto it to represent the eyes and mouth of a face; and a long-stemmed iron cup with a cockerel on top of it, which must never be allowed to fall over, or something terrible would happen. My father was a zealous devotee of Santería and he lost no opportunity to venerate the African gods with offerings and prayers, even though in those days in Cuba it was a sin against the state to have religious beliefs. Nothing and nobody could come between him and his devotions. Every so often he would leave a buffet at the disposal of the saints: juicy guavas, bananas ripening to yellow perfection, little cakes and sweets. At times like these, we asked ourselves if he had gone mad. We very rarely had enough to eat; the rice had to be eked out in order to last the month, as did all the other rationed foodstuffs, but the saints were provided with all that luxury despite the shortages. It was terrible profligacy. One day, unable to resist temptation, I shooed away my pet rabbits, Negrito and Canela, who were investigating the shrine, and ate everything: the guavas, the sweets, the piece of cake, even the ants that regularly fed on my father’s offerings. When my father found out what I had done, he could only just resist the temptation to crack my head open.

My mother did not agree with him feeding food to his saints. She said it was a waste. But it did seem to work, because whenever things were getting bad, as if by magic, my father would be sent on a trip to the centre of the country and would earn enough money to buy our entire food ration for the month.

My father drove a lorry transporting fruit, breaking his back for a monthly salary that was barely enough to feed us. Most of his journeys were inter-provincial, which meant that he was often absent for weeks, even months. We got used to living on very little. Every fortnight, my mother would go to the countryside taking our soap and toothpaste rations to exchange for beans and other provisions from the country dwellers. Sometimes she managed to get hold of some clothes for my sisters or a pair of shoes for me. On rare occasions, my father would turn up with some tinned fruit, and we would eat it with such desperation that we woke up with stomachache. Once I came home from school and was greeted by the unfamiliar smell of roasting meat. I rushed into the kitchen only to find my rabbits, Negrito and Canela, cooking in a pan. I ran out into the living room and cried and cried until I gave myself a terrible headache. It had been a long time since we had tasted any meat, however, so my mother made me have some. That would be the last time I would ever eat rabbit in my life.

Without being conscious of it, we learnt through our parents’ example that the only way to achieve something in life was through hard work. We knew that the reason we never celebrated birthday parties or other special occasions was because of the lack of money. We accepted without question the peso that each of us received as a birthday present to pay the entrance to the local cinema. We played with wooden pistols, with chivichanas (rough wooden scooters) and other contraptions that my old man used to dream up in moments of inspiration. When the clothes that we wore could not take any more repairs, we walked around with our butts hanging out.

My father was an impatient man with little time for children’s games. At home, he always had to have the last word. I remember him playing with me only once, when he taught me how to ride my sister Berta’s old bike. It was an awesome machine with huge wheels like a figure of eight and I was terrified of it, but I was even more terrified of my father, who sat me on the bike, gave me a push and then let me go. I crashed into the first lamppost I encountered and went home crying with a bump on my head. My mother screamed at my father, telling him that he was an insensitive brute and that I was never going near that damn bicycle again. He calmly retorted that it was the only way to make me lose my fear. The following morning he seated me on that heap of junk once more and I promptly smashed into the lamppost again. After numerous bumps on the head, I finally managed to do what my father wanted, though, far from losing my fear, I developed a genuine terror of the bicycle that I never overcame.

My father never spoke much about his past. I learnt only recently that my grandfather died when my father, Pedro, was six, and his mother was the daughter of slaves who had been born on the sugar mill belonging to the Acostas, a well-known Spanish landowning family from the town of San Juan y Martínez in Pinar del Río. From them came the surname that, after my grandfather died, would later be passed on to the rest of my family. When he was nine my father started to sell newspapers, hawking the latest news around the streets of Pinar del Río. After the death of his father, he had no alternative but to grow up prematurely in order to help his mother and his younger brother. As an adolescent he worked in the docks as a stevedore, loading bags of sugar. By the time his voice broke, his experience was already that of a man twice his age.

My father was born in 1918. His youth was marked by the great inequalities of race and class that existed at that time, when the poor man had to swallow his pride and collect the crumbs that the rich man swept from his table. It was during those days of his youth that my father saw ballet for the first time, in a silent film. The cinema was reserved exclusively for whites, but Pedro managed to sneak in. He did not know what the peculiar dance was, but the ballerinas immediately spoke to his senses as they spun round like Japanese parasols, elegant, delicate and light. My father lost himself in that unfamiliar world, but all too soon the usher arrived to remind him that he was poor and black, and to kick him out into the street. From that moment on, the ballet had captured him for ever.

In our house, my father slept on mats which he threw down onto the floor of the tiny living room in the space between the wicker armchairs and the ancient sideboard that groaned under the weight of the old American-made, always-broken television, and the Siboney brand Russian radio. On moonless nights his black skin was camouflaged by the darkness, and you had to follow his cigarette as it floated in the air in order to find him. My parents had already divorced and shared the house out of convenience. Neither of them had anywhere else to go. Mamá slept with me in the single bed that was jammed up against the wall that divided the bedroom from the living room, whilst my sisters slept in the double bed on the sagging mattress with sharp springs that poked through the lining. You had to memorize exactly where those springs jutted through in order to avoid getting snagged. Sometimes I had to sleep in the big bed and the springs would catch my right thigh and ankle and my back. My sisters, Marilín and Berta, knew the position of each and every spring, but I always had trouble remembering where to find them. When, years later, my father brought home a rustic pine bunk bed he had found, it became almost impossible to move in the bedroom, everything was so crammed that you could only walk through in single file. My father moved to the lower bunk bed, Berta to the top, and I moved to the double bed with my sister Marilín, though I never got used to sleeping without my mother’s blonde hair spreading over my face.

Unlike my father, when my mother started to talk about her childhood we could not stop her. We knew that her father’s family had arrived from Spain in the 1920s and had settled in Almendares, a middle-class district of Havana. My grandfather Carlos Quesada, a tall fair man with green eyes, had lent his name to my baptism. Grandfather grew up with few traces of his European roots. He soon identified himself with the cause of the Cuban poor, with those who did not have opportunities, forgetting all about his own status. Not unnaturally this was seen as a great misfortune by his parents, who were horrified that he cared nothing for his social standing. How had they failed? Why had destiny played them such a bad hand? They tried to make Carlos change his opinions, but all in vain. My great-grandparents died in the 1950s within a month of each other, both still relatively young. My mother would never agree with me, but I think they died of grief.

After a long romance, Grandfather Carlos married Grandmother Georgina, an olive-skinned lady with a strong constitution, a broad nose and legs of steel. They had three daughters to add to the daughter that my grandmother already had from a previous marriage. The oldest of their three children together they named María. This girl, who would one day become my mother, exuded vitality from every pore. She lost her virginity to a local boy at seventeen and was soon obliged to put her childhood games away, for less than nine months later, on the 25 December 1965, she gave birth to my half-sister Berta. This prompted disagreements with my mother’s half-sister, nicknamed ‘La Nin˜a’, who, being married and with three children of her own, considered herself to be head of the household. There was not room for them all in the house, she said. My mother and her sisters, Aunt Mireya and Aunt Lucia, and baby Berta had to move into the garage at the back of the house. Grandmother Georgina, who was intimidated by La Niña’s husband, did little to stop the move. Grandfather Carlos objected, but his words held little weight. He had already been diagnosed with the cancer that would make him disappear.

Berta had dark brown hair, a slim nose and green eyes like Grandfather Carlos. Her father hardly bothered with her when his relationship with my mother was over. When Berta was one and a half and already starting to show signs of a strong character, she carelessly threw a ball into the street and a black man kindly retrieved it for her. My mother thanked him and the man rewarded her with a wide, warm smile that revealed two gold crowns nestling amongst his upper teeth. It was the start of a new love affair. At first, my mother and the man who would become my father saw each other secretly – after all, he was nearly thirty years older than her, had been married several times, and had eight children already. Soon, though, the romance became public knowledge. The family, the neighbours, the whole world condemned María, railing, ‘What are you thinking of? Have you gone mad? Honestly! Setting your sights on a black man!’ In the late sixties, the man joined a government fruit and coffee planting initiative called Cordon Round Havana. After a year of work he came back looking for his love bearing the key to a house in his hand. In that house that same black man would one day give shelter to all those who had opposed the relationship: my grandmother and my aunts, the whole lot of them.

My sister Marilín was born on 25 July 1969. Berta was three and a half years old and had been living in Los Pinos since she was two. Marilín is what is called in Cuba, ‘mulata criolla’, a perfect mixture of black and white. As a child, she had a wide smile with teeth that looked as though they had been carefully chiselled by an artist, slanting eyes like my mother’s, dry hair like my father’s and an athletic body with silky skin. Berta wanted to carry her around the whole time and comb her hair as if Marilín was a toy that could talk and laugh.

My grandmother and my aunts occasionally visited our house, especially my aunt Mireya who often came to take Berta to the beach at Varadero. Marilín could never understand why she could not go too. Aunt Mireya would tell her that there was not enough room for everyone as she climbed into her boyfriend’s car and drove away, leaving Marilín crying. This gave Marilín an inferiority complex that she would never really manage to shake off. My mother always told her that my aunt Mireya loved both her nieces equally and that they were like roses that were beautiful but different.

‘Then why is my rose the one that has to stay behind?’ my sister would ask tearfully, and my mother would reply that Marilín herself was the rose and that next time it would be her turn to go to the beach at Varadero.

But the next time Mireya would say, ‘Let’s go, Bertica. Sorry, Marilín, there’s not enough room for everyone.’

And Marilín would be left behind in tears once again.

I was the last one to arrive, born on 2 June 1973. My father said that I was born at night and my mother said it was in the daytime, so I have never known the exact hour of my birth. My mother had to have a caesarean because I was coming out feet first. According to my father I swallowed some of the amniotic fluid and nearly died because the nurse took so long to attend to me, finally paying attention only after my father threatened her with a pistol, shouting, ‘If you don’t put him on a drip right now, I’ll kill you!’ The nurse, trembling with fear, inserted the drip via my nostrils.

‘And that’s why your nose is like it is,’ my father always told me.

‘He got his wide nose from you, not from the damn drip,’ my mother would reply, rolling her eyes and assuring me that the incident with the gun was just a story my father had made up.

Aunt Lucia, unlike Aunt Mireya, treated us all equally. Perhaps that is why we loved her more, or maybe it was her sweet, retiring nature. She did not visit us frequently, but when she did she would hold us and play with us all without discrimination. Sometimes, when my father was working, they would all visit us at once: Lucia with her tiny baby Jennie, Mireya with her husband Frank and her daughter, Corairis, and Granny. Everyone would sit in the wicker armchairs and on the hard chairs from around the dining-room table. Mireya would take Berta onto her knees and Marilín and I would be left sitting on the floor. Without saying anything, Lucia would pass little Jennie to my mother and would beckon to Marilín and me to go and sit on her lap, which we would do, taking one of her knees each. Apart from my mother, she was the only one who held us.

I was seven years old when they all came to live with us. It was towards the end of 1980 and Cuba had opened its borders to anyone who wanted to leave. My mother kept trying to persuade my father that my grandmother, two aunts and cousin Corairis (Mireya and Frank had split up, and Lucia’s little baby was staying with her father) should come to live with us while they awaited the arrival of their exit permits for Venezuela, where relatives would help them make their way to Miami. But every time my mother mentioned the matter, my father would swallow hard, clench his iron fists inside his pockets and mutter, ‘I don’t know if I can.’ Eventually, though, he relaxed his hands, calloused from so much clenching, and managed to stifle his displeasure.

Papá moved back to the living room and I returned to the single bed with my mother so that Aunt Mireya, Granny and Corairis could have the double bed. Marilín moved into the bottom bunk with Berta so Aunt Lucia could have her bed, although this arrangement did not last long. Gentle, loving Lucia developed schizophrenia and was admitted to hospital, where, two weeks later, she took her own life. She was twenty-six years old. Soon after, the paperwork that was needed to apply for a visa arrived from our Venezuelan relatives, who, in light of the tragedy, had agreed to host everyone, including my mother and my beloved white sister, Berta. Everyone, except the blacks. My mother and sister decided to stay with Marilín, my father and me, but it was very painful for my mother to be separated from the rest of her family in this way.

I understood very little of life and much less of what was happening in the house, but I remember the day that my mother seemed to change into a different person, the moment she said farewell to her mother on the balcony of our apartment in Los Pinos.

My mother had not eaten for days, so anxious was she about the approach of the Friday when they all would part. She knew the day would arrive whatever happened, but she was still hoping for a miracle.

‘I don’t know what you’re going to do, María, but I’m leaving. This is your last opportunity!’ Aunt Mireya said to her.

It was unlikely that they would ever see each other again. For all any of them knew, Granny would die in exile and my mother would not be at her side to hold her hand and wipe the sweat from her brow when Death arrived to carry off her body and her love for ever.

On the other hand, my mother had us, her children, a different kind of love. What could she do? It was an impossible situation and she lost either way.

‘Mireya, why don’t you think again?’ she pleaded with her sister. ‘You don’t know what’s waiting for you there … Mami is too old for all these changes, you’ll be better off here.’

‘What … Better off here? No way! You can stay if you want to, María. I’m taking Mami.’

And she did.

The whole of the neighbourhood witnessed the parting. A car was waiting opposite the door of our downstairs neighbour Candida’s house. The dogs stood still, watching, as did the families of Cristobál and Delia, along with Milli, Chinchán and Kenia from over the way and Diana and El Chino; they were all there. Many sat on the street corners, on the walls and on the edges of the pavements. Ramona, the religious neighbour on the right, was sitting in her rocking chair, as were Omar and his family, the neighbours on the left. My mother came out onto the balcony with her arms around my grandmother’s neck, resting her head against my grandmother’s cheek, trying to show a brave face. She did not manage it. Her fear was so palpable that even the dogs could smell it.

We were waiting below next to the car. My father had already stowed the suitcases away. He had his right arm draped across Marilín’s shoulders and her arm in turn was draped across mine. I was holding Berta, my white sister, by the hand.

‘Berta, come here!’ said my aunt Mireya.

Berta let go of me and went over to her. My aunt hugged and kissed her then whispered something in her ear and Berta began to cry. My cousin Corairis approached and gave me a hug and a kiss then did the same with my father and with Marilín. Both girls wept. My father and I kept our composure.

My mother had cried out all her tears. She started to come down the stairs, very slowly, leading my grandmother by the arm. When they reached the bottom they embraced again, my mother’s eyes glinting as the full glare of the sun shone onto her damp eyelids. Some of the neighbours had tears in their eyes, even the men. They had probably been through the same thing themselves or were moved by the thought that they might go through it one day.

‘Mami, get a move on, we’ll be late.’

Aunt Mireya shoved the last suitcase into the car and turned to say goodbye to my mother. She hugged her tightly. My mother’s face crumpled. My aunt said they would write, and with that went to hug and kiss my sister Berta. She gave Marilín and me a kiss but no hug, and accorded my father a distant handshake; then she bundled my grandmother and Corairis into the car and slammed the door. The engine revved.

Mamá was left standing in the middle of the street, a shrunken shadow of herself, with swollen eyes and hollow cheeks, watching the car as it drove into the distance. Her gaze did not waver until it finally disappeared, then she turned to stare at her left hand in which she was holding a little blue book: her passport.

The promised letters never arrived.

CHAPTER TWO

The Photograph

I was always called Yuli in the neighbourhood, a name my sister Berta had given me. My father, however, had a different story.

‘Yuli is the spirit of an Indian brave from the tribe of the Sioux Indians in North America, who is with you all the time and whom I talk to every day. That’s how you got your nickname and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’

My mother would sigh heavily and roll her eyes up to the ceiling but she would not say anything.

By the age of seven I was already known on my block as a fruit thief. My scheme was simple and executed with precision. Our building stood on a corner where four streets intersected. Directly opposite was Rene’s house, diagonally opposite was Zoilita’s house and on the other corner there was a wall that was used as a meeting place by the local kids. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I would steal Rene’s mangos, and at weekends I would steal Zoilita’s. Tuesdays and Thursdays were reserved for Yolanda, the neighbour who lived two doors away from my building. We took our operation very seriously because it was only by selling fruit that we could afford the entrance fee to the local cinema or pay for a ride round the block in a horse-drawn carriage. Pedro Julio would ring the doorbell, Tonito would keep lookout to make sure no one was coming from the other direction, and as soon as Rene had gone to open the door, I would squeeze carefully through a hole in the barbed wire fence that surrounded his back yard and throw all the mangos, plums and guavas I could lay my hands on into a sack.

The plan worked like a charm until, one day, Rene nearly caught me.

I was happily stuffing fruit into my sack when I heard Pedro Julio and Tonito shout from the street: ‘Run Yuli! Rene’s coming!’

I quickly threw the sack of fruit into the empty overgrown plot of land on the other side and started to scale the fence, when, to my horror, Rene seized me by one leg.

‘I’ve got you, you little rat, just you wait and see what I’m going to do with you!’

‘Let me go, let me go!’ I shouted kicking my legs.

Rene had never come close to catching me before and I was terrified. Thank God, it had rained the day before and, as a result, I was completely covered in mud from Rene’s waterlogged garden. I slipped from his clutches with one mighty tug of my leg.

‘Listen you little bandit, when I catch you I’ll kill you! I’m going to tell your father.’

He never did manage to catch me though, because nobody knew his garden better than I did.

Having made good our escape, all three of us ambled towards the forest.

‘That was a bit close, Yuli, he almost got you. I think we ought to rob some other people and leave Rene alone,’ said Pedro Julio as we passed the lorry repair shop.

‘You always say that, Pedro Julio! Rene’s too slow, he couldn’t even catch a tortoise,’ I replied.

Tonito stopped in the middle of the street to count how many mangos were in the bag.

‘I think there’s enough here to get all three of us into the cinema. Why don’t we try to sell them to Cundo?’

‘Good idea!’ I said slapping my partner’s hand and we walked towards the salesman’s wooden house.

We opened the gate and shooed away the goats that were blocking our path. Cundo hurried out to meet us immediately.

‘I don’t want to buy anything, go, get out of here!’ said the old man grouchily. It was his usual ruse. As soon as anyone tried to sell him anything, he would grumble and say he was not interested so that he could get a lower price for the goods.

‘Hey Cundo, don’t start that again, it was the same last time with the avocados. If you don’t want the mangos we’ll sell them to Alfredo,’ said Tonito throwing the sack over his shoulder.

‘Take them to Alfredo then, what do I care? Take them and see what he gives you. You lot aren’t the only ones, you know, I’ve got plenty of other people bringing me stuff.’

‘This is your last chance!’ the three of us chorused in unison, and Cundo’s face started to turn red.

‘Okay, okay, I’ll give you a peso for the sack.’

‘No way! Anyone’d give you at least five pesos for that sack, so two pesos or nothing,’ I said holding the sack up in my hands.

‘There’s no doing business with you lot,’ muttered Cundo as he finally agreed to the price.

We took the money, gave him the sack of fruit and continued on towards the pool.

‘Get me some avocados, or plums, anything, whatever you like and bring them here, don’t let Alfredo have them,’ we heard him say as he closed the gate.

On the way to the pool, we passed the fibreboard caves.

‘Hey, Yuli, listen, sounds like there’s someone in there,’ said Tonito.

We took a few tentative steps towards the caves.

‘Tonito, Yuli, keep away! My mother says it’s rude to go near the caves when there are people in them.’

‘What are you talking about, Pedro Julio? Stop bugging us.’

Tonito climbed up onto one of the fibreboard sheets and gave me a hand-up. Pedro Julio lagged behind. Just as we were at the cave entrance, a woman started to scream.

‘Oh, oh, what’s this? Oh, oh I’m dying!’

‘They’re killing her, we’ve got to help! Call someone!’ shouted Pedro Julio and ran off, but Tonito and I peered inside, imagining that we would find the screaming woman with a knife to her throat. What we saw totally confused us. There was a naked man on top of her, thrusting his pelvis backwards and forwards. She was moaning and sweating and with every thrust she let out a scream.

‘I’m dying, I’m dying!’

But there was not any blood.

We whistled to let Pedro Julio know that it was not necessary to call anyone.

‘Why was she screaming?’ asked my friend.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied scratching my head.

In the end we concluded that the man must have had a knife hidden between his legs and, shrugging our shoulders in confusion, we continued on our way to the pool.

As soon as we arrived Tonito and I jumped straight into the water, but Pedro Julio hung back looking nervously at the trees.

‘Pedro Julio, what are you waiting for?’ I asked him.

‘My mother says I’m not to swim here. Remember what happened to Pichon.’

‘Pichon said it was the pool, but the thing is he actually already had worms before he swam here,’ said Tonito and the three of us laughed.

Pedro Julio could not be convinced, however, so Tonito and I left him standing on the edge while we played ‘touched’. One of us would dive under water and the other one had to stay on the surface and try to tap him on the head. Time and time again we dived down into the dark and filthy channels of the pool, sometimes swallowing the sludgy water. The wind rocked the trees and their trunks creaked. The owls hooted as always. There were more frogs than ever, which jumped into the water with us.

‘Careful a frog doesn’t pee on you or you’ll go blind,’ said Pedro Julio, then we heard another voice.

‘Blind! I’ll leave you blind with the beating I’m going to give you!’

I stuck my head out of the pool and saw the imposing and unmistakable figure of my father.

‘You little bastard, how many times have I told you I don’t want to see you swimming in that disgusting water?’

My father pulled me out of the pool by my ear and threw me onto the rocks.

‘Wait, Papito, let me explain!’

My father was not in the mood for explanations.

‘Walk before I crack your head open,’ he said as he dragged me through the undergrowth and rocks.

‘Didn’t I tell you to wait in the house? Have you forgotten that today is the day of the photo? I’m going to kill you!

Shit, I thought as I scrambled along, colliding with the branches and sharp twigs sticking out of the bushes and trees, I had forgotten the photo.

We passed the caves and Cundo’s house and started down the hill. The people came out of their houses when they heard my father shouting. My stormy relationship with my father was a source of entertainment in the neighbourhood.

‘Hey Peeeedro … leeeave the boooyyy alooone!’ said Juanito, the drunk, as my father shook and slapped me about.

‘Out of my way Juanito!’ My old man pushed him roughly.

‘Heeeey, dooon’t you staaart picking on meeee. I’m Juaaaanito the druuuunk!’

We left Juanito with his bottle and continued on down the hill. When we arrived at my building, Zoilita, Rene, Yolanda, Candida, all the neighbours were waiting.

‘Finally you’re going to make him pay,’ they all cheered, as if a runaway criminal had just been captured. Rene was looking very satisfied with himself – he had obviously told my parents where to find me. My father walked me straight past them and up the stairs to our apartment. My mother sluiced me down to get the mud off, dressed me in my only pair of trousers, the better of my two pairs of shoes and my one school shirt. My father insisted that I wear a tie.

‘No, Mami, not the tie!’

‘You, shut your mouth!’ said my old man angrily.

‘There’s no need to yell, Pedro, we’ll make it in time,’ my mother said soothingly.

We went down the stairs once more and the neighbours started to applaud again.

‘Finally, they’re going to turn you into a respectable human being,’ said Rene smiling from his doorway.

No sooner were we inside the big wooden house of the neighbourhood photographer, than he got out a device as old as Methuselah, set it up on the cool, tiled floor and told me to sit still. Then he put his head under a cloth attached to the back of the antique apparatus and pressed a button with his right hand.

A week later my mother collected the photo, framed it and placed it in a corner of the sitting room. That was the first photo ever taken of me and it is the only image that exists of me before ballet entered my life.

CHAPTER THREE

Beginning

All I ever thought about was sport. Football was my obsession. I had ambitions to become a great player. For a long time, without my parents knowing, I tried to get into a school that trained future footballers. Sometimes, however, wanting something badly just is not enough. During the training sessions I would kill myself doing sit-ups and press-ups and running round the track. The fruit of all my labours was that I was selected to play in a match. I touched the ball twice during the game and did not make any mistakes so I was proud of how I had done and left the pitch confident that the coach would give me a scholarship. When the next day the coach treated me with indifference, I did not take it too much to heart. The following day it was the same, however, and gradually over the next few weeks I realized I had no prospects in the team: I just was not good enough. From that moment on my hopes of winning a football scholarship started to evaporate in front of my eyes. My dream of becoming the future Pelé crumbled, and though I persevered, every day the coach treated me just a little bit worse, trying to slowly break my spirit until eventually he succeeded.

It was around that time that the break-dancing craze hit Cuba. My sister Marilín was a magnificent dancer and from time to time she would show me some of her moves and take me with her to street parties. After two months, I had learnt how to spin round on my shoulders and even on my head. When Marilín saw me she was speechless.

‘Where did you learn to do that?’ she asked, astonished.

‘Oh just round about …’ I replied, unwilling to go into details.

‘But when did you practise?’ she insisted.

‘In my spare time …’

The truth is that whilst Marilín was at school, I would meet up with a gang of friends in order to practise break-dancing all day long. Bit by bit, we break-dancers started to organize a club in an adjacent neighbourhood called Vieja Linda. There we would close off the streets with rubbish bins to stop cars coming through, and with the music up at full volume we would rehearse new steps in order to compete with other neighbourhoods in Havana. I particularly remember one of these competitions which took place in Parque Lenin, a huge recreation area on the outskirts of the city where at the weekends there would be salsa contests, singing competitions and history or science quizzes for children.

When the break-dancing competition was announced my gang knew it would be an important contest for our reputation and that we could not possibly miss it. So there we were, at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning, with all the tools of our trade: dark glasses, gloves worn like Michael Jackson, big baggy shirts and baseball caps. We carried our ghetto-blasters and chomped away on bits of sticking plaster since there was no chewing gum.

The first prize was a trophy with a picture of Lenin surrounded by the hammer and sickle, the second prize was a bag of sweets and the third a diploma. My friend Opito and I were the only members of the gang eligible to compete because the contest was only open to kids under fourteen. Opito and I had won competitions before, dancing as a pair in Cerro and Monaco and other Havana neighbourhoods. Two nine-year-old boys, one white with ginger hair and one black, was a combination that never failed.

All the big names from the Havana break-dancing scene were there: Papo el Bucanda, Alexander ‘the Toaster’ el Tostao, that kid from the Embil district they nicknamed Michael Jackson, and Miguelito la Peste, ‘Mickey the Stink’, himself.

Everybody chewed their pieces of sticking plaster and wore their baseball caps back to front as Opito and I got ready to do our thing. As soon as we began to dance, I was filled with an indescribable sensation of release. Growing up poor had taught all of us Los Pinos kids never to ask for anything, not to have any expectations, and because of this I was quite a timid boy. But when I danced my shyness fell away and I felt like a different person: confident, attractive and free. Along with the first drops of sweat came the desire to shout my existence to the world, to become everything I dreamt. I danced my heart out for half an hour.

At the end of the contest, I was baptized El Moro de Los Pinos – the Moor of Los Pinos – by the rest of the boys in the gang, and Mickey the Stink himself held out his hand to me and said, with a challenging smile, ‘See you around.’

I still have that trophy of Lenin with his hammer and sickle. Those were my first steps towards the art of dance.

The news reached my father’s ears that I was running around the streets with gangs like a bandit.

‘We have to do something, María, otherwise we’re going to lose the boy,’ he said to my mother, in a fury.

Most of the time their conversations revolved around me: they argued continually over how to sort out my future while I continued break-dancing in Vieja Linda and spending my time at street parties. My father swore that he would thrash me to within an inch of my life, but I did not care. I just went on doing what I liked until one day my father happened to bump into our neighbour Candida on the stairs.

She was a good woman with a strident voice who was very much involved with the revolutionary process. Her nephew was one of the principal dancers with the Cuban National Ballet and her two oldest sons Alexis and Alexander went to the Alejo Carpentier School of Ballet, which was situated on the corner of L and 19 in the downtown district of Vedado. When my father started telling her about my exploits, Candida had a suggestion.

‘You say he likes dancing? Why don’t you send him to ballet school then?’

My father’s eyes lit up. ‘Ballet!’ he said and for an instant he was transported back to the cinema where for the first time ever his soul had taken flight. His heart started to beat rapidly as it had on that distant day and suddenly there was hope. He did not think twice: he thanked Candida, said goodbye almost before she’d finished her sentence and raced up the twenty or so steps to our apartment at the speed of light to tell my mother about his new idea. They considered each and every possibility, then together they sat down to wait for me.

Even though I was only nine, I can still remember that day very well. I had just got back from one of my usual break-dance practice sessions. As I went up the steps to the apartment I could see that the door was wide open and a weak light illuminated the interior where my parents were preparing to give me, so they said, some very good news.

‘Sit down, we’ve got something to tell you!’

There was something unusual about my father’s tone and I sensed that something strange was going on. His words unsettled me. What could it be about? I sat down nervously.

‘So you like to dance, eh? Well we’re going to enrol you in a ballet school,’ announced the old man.

‘Ballet? What’s that?’ I asked, perplexed.

My father shot a conspiratorial glance towards my mother, who was looking somewhat flustered, and said:

‘Well, um, it’s, um, it’s the dance of the parasol ladies.’

When she heard this definition my mother collapsed into giggles which lifted the tension for a moment.

‘What, that boring thing that they put on the telly?’

‘Yes, that’s it!’

‘But Papi, I’ve told you loads of times that I want to be a sportsman. Anyway, you know that kind of dancing’s just for women.’

‘A sportsman? Don’t make me laugh! If you go on like you are, the only thing you’ll be is a waster! Running around with those gangs, spinning around on your head … One of these days you’re going to break your neck.’

‘But what’s everyone in the neighbourhood going to think? They’ll say I’m gay!’

‘Listen, you’re my son and the son of the tiger shares his father’s stripes. If anyone calls you gay, just smash his face in, then pull down your trousers and show him what you’ve got between your legs.’

‘But Papito, I want to be a footballer!’

‘Your mother and I have made up our minds and that’s that. It’s your future, my boy!’

My father ground his false teeth, his face fixed in that grim expression that told me the conversation was at an end. And so it was. They had decided my career for me. I had to put my dreams of being a footballer to one side and dedicate myself to the dance of the parasol ladies.

‘What now?’ I asked myself. And what was everyone in the neighbourhood going to say when they found out that El Moro had become a ballet dancer?

A week later, Mamá took me to the audition. We had to catch three different buses to get to the ballet school at L and 19. She was chain-smoking, puffing away like a chimney; she had a cigarette in her right hand and was holding on to me with her left. I loathed the smell of tobacco but I kept quiet. I was happy and proud to be travelling with her in her dark glasses, which only served to enhance her beauty. It was certainly more relaxing than going with my old man. During the journey I tried to explain to her that it really was sport that I liked best, and pulled my saddest, most pitiful face. I knew that playing the victim usually worked with my mother, but on this occasion my attempt failed.

There were a lot of people and a lot of cars near the school’s three-storey building, which was still bright and colourful at that time. At the entrance there was a garden with a well-kept lawn and all sorts of plants: ferns, roses and hibiscus. And there was I, unable to fight any more against what now seemed inevitable.

We went in and joined the queue. I looked around me. Most of those there, the men as well as the women, were very well dressed and with a certain air of refinement about them. The gulf between us seemed enormous. People looked at my mother and me with curiosity, trying to work out what the connection was. She was blonde with delicate features, and I was a sort of cappuccino colour. I hated those looks, the ones that seemed to be saying to me subtly, ‘Go away, you don’t belong in this place.’ A haughty-looking man fixed his eyes on me. He did not say a word but the message was clear, ‘You must have made a mistake. This isn’t a centre for Afro-Cuban dance. They teach ballet here, understand? It’s a ballet school.’ I smiled ingenuously at him as a harsh unmelodious voice shouted out: ‘Carlos Junior Acosta Quesada!’

I went through to studio number three and was instructed to take off the shorts I was wearing. As I stood there in my coffee-coloured swimming trunks, the only ones I owned, a tall woman said to me sweetly, ‘All right then son, lift your leg up.’

Never in my life have I felt such pain. That woman, apparently so gentle, yanked my right leg up with such force that I can still feel the sharp, stabbing agony that ripped through the back of my thigh as she grabbed it, and then shot on into my tendons and abductor muscles. A large woman and three other judges sat jotting down notes on my torment.

‘Okay son, stretch your foot out.’

I did it as well as I could. The four women looked at each other then wrote something down again.

‘Now jump as high as you can,’ one of them ordered me.

I started to jump up and down like a rabbit until they said, ‘Fine, that’s enough.’

My mother remained outside throughout, watching with great attention through the glass. I do not know what was going through her head, if she was proud, confused or simply thought that we had made a mistake in coming.

After they had manipulated me like an automaton on which they were experimenting, they then set me the most difficult test.

‘Right son, now it’s time for you to improvise something for us.’

‘Sorry, to what?’

‘We would like you to dance something for us so that we can see your imagination at work.’

I knew how to break-dance very well. I was not the famous Moro de Los Pinos for nothing. I started to do some moves with my torso and stomach, which always led to whoops and yells of admiration every time that I performed them at street parties. I saw that the teachers were looking at me with their eyes popping out of their heads, and decided to do something to really impress them. I was just about to spin round on my head when all four women rushed towards me shouting, ‘No! No! Don’t do that, you’ll kill yourself!’

They returned me to a more human position, both feet planted firmly on the ground, and the largest lady tried to explain.

‘Look, we just want you to pretend to be a cook, for example, or a huntsman, something like that. Understand?’

She tried to soften her tone, but her voice was still harsh.

They obviously do not know El Moro de Los Pinos! I thought, but I did not say anything, I just smiled as I always did, showing off the strong white teeth I had inherited from my father. I would not be a huntsman or a cook, I would be a footballer! I would be Pelé!

The pianist started to play. I ran and leapt and danced. I do not know what I must have looked like. I am still not exactly sure how you imitate a footballer to the rhythm of classical music.

My mother continued to watch intently through the glass.

When I had finished, they told me to go up to the second floor for a musicality test. We went up fourteen steps and joined another queue. Queues, like Santería, are just a way of life in Cuba. I tried to feel optimistic as we stood there waiting our turn, but the truth is I had never felt so out of my element.

‘Next!’ said a tall woman with short grey hair, who was smoking with as much enthusiasm as my mother. I went in and sat down.

‘Repeat whatever I do, okay?’ she said.

‘Okay,’ I replied.

She started with hand-claps and I repeated them. She stared at me and wrote down her assessments in a blue notebook. She made some noises with her mouth and I repeated them. So there we sat for a while, clapping and making noises like a couple of idiots. It seemed like a big waste of time to me. I was hoping that they would fail me, that they would say to my mother that I was not musical, that I had no flexibility or that my interpretation of a footballer was not the kind of thing they were looking for. That way my father would admit defeat and I could go back happily to my old routine of break-dancing and stealing fruit from the neighbours.

The next day my mother returned home with the results of the audition. We were all on tenterhooks.

‘Come on, María, don’t keep us in suspense any longer,’ urged my father.

‘Just be patient,’ she said, and took out her glasses to read the results.

I crossed my fingers.

‘It says here that you start on the first of September.’

‘I knew it!’ crowed my old man, bringing to his words all the enthusiasm he could muster – an enthusiasm I failed to share. What a disaster!

My sisters shrieked with delight. They did not know the bitterness that I felt on hearing the news. I looked at my father and he returned my look with an indulgent smile. The die had been cast. While everyone was celebrating, I drifted away. I went up onto the roof to look for comfort amongst the pigeons I kept up there as pets. I chose one at random and caressed it to the accompaniment of my choking and stifled sobs. I stayed there and watched the landscape of Los Pinos being swallowed up into the darkness. Happiness reigned in our house, but not for me.

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