FILM by Derek Palacio
In 1993 a film director in Havana set out to produce a documentary exploring the country’s passage into the Special Period in Time of Peace. He wanted to see how people had changed along with the politics, how they were suffering the economic depression and adjusting to the post-Soviet era. He was a young film director, which meant his layout for the documentary—a series of interviews with various citizens backdropped by shots of the city in upheaval—was not entirely novel. But he hoped the voices, if he edited their monologues well enough and if he could discern a structure to the disparate narratives, would carry the piece. He also had no money, meaning he could do little else other than tape interviews and mix them together. He did, however, have some connections from a previous job as assistant editor on a romantic comedy set in Mantanzas, so his cast, ultimately, was somewhat impressive. On his list were politicians and doctors, migrant laborers and Santeria priests, auto shop owners and waitresses, tour guides of El Morro and even a few visual artists approved by the Ministry of Culture. There was also a female lawyer working for the largest bufete colectivo in Havana, a third baseman for the Industriales, and the matriarch of the Cuban National Ballet, Cecilia Castillo, a dancer approaching her mid-fifties who had performed in Havana since she was a prima ballerina during the early days of revolution.
TRANSCRIPT
CECILIA CASTILLO
PRIMA BALLERINA–NATIONAL BALLET
PRO ARTE MUSIC HALL
DECEMBER 2, 1993
10:17:32
CASTILLO: There is the issue with the lighting, which is not new but more frequent now. I can’t tell if it’s the wiring or district-wide brownouts. Presently, the ushers carry flashlights and show people to their seats in the dark. I am mostly afraid that we’ll run out of D batteries at some point. The spotlight is fading as well, and though I think we’ll be able to procure another, it slows the schedule. We cannot ask for things from the government before we need them. Someone suggested breaking open the roof and installing skylights, but we’ve already scheduled more afternoon shows and they’re not as popular. People have to work. But I doubt this will affect us more than it already has. The patrons adjust the same as we do. We’ve not had plumbing for years save the single bathroom near the studios, and no one seems to mind that they have to come to the ballet without having eaten first. The last toilet went dry in the mid-eighties and the audience has been more sober since.
[PAUSE]
CASTILLO: The austerity has helped to a certain degree. There’s no falling asleep when you’re hungry, and from what I can tell the Cuban response has been to sit up, to watch more closely, to take what’s offered. It reminds me of the sixties when the national ballet was brand new, when we were just beginning. It was unheard of at the time, a national ballet of Cuba.
During the first interview a young man accompanied the former prima ballerina into the studio space at the Pro Arte Music Hall. He was blonde and had a European nose, and he waited at the back of the room in which they filmed along with the crew and the other interviewees for that day. The director, in a small moment of insight, allowed the participants to hear the sessions before them. He thought it might spice up the recordings, the thoughts of one Cuban echoing inside the brain of another. He’d expected, rightfully, that some would speak better and say more interesting things than others. Perhaps if they heard a smart answer to one of his prompts, it might inspire them, might root out more than facts and smallish anecdotes. He’d even told the waiting subjects, this time the lawyer, the baseball player, and two shop owners, to call out if they had any questions. The director decided it would be interesting if the questions came not only from his mouth but the mouth of other Cubans. There might be some tension in the film and one of the mysteries would be, who is asking that question? No one, however, interrupted the prima ballerina. She was too stately, and the director chided himself for not seeing this ahead of time.
Those waiting to speak did, however, chat amongst themselves, and the lawyer and baseball player, side by side in a pair of folding chairs, gossiped about the blonde European who’d escorted Cecilia Castillo into the room. To the lawyer it seemed obvious that the ballerina was nearly blind and the young man was her seeing-eye dog. The European, the lawyer said, watched the older woman like a German shepherd, and he’d taken her all the way to the seat in front of the camera. There, he arranged her like a doll in front of the lens. The baseball player said he was certain the woman, even with her age, still danced. He’d read about her in the papers. He recalled that just a few years back she’d danced in America for the first time since the seventies. The lawyer pointed out that the ballerina’s nose pointed nearly upward when she spoke, right at the glaring bulb atop the director’s camera. She was, according to the lawyer, drawn to the light and maybe not entirely blind just yet. Maybe the ballerina could still distinguish between dark and bright.
The two spoke until it was the lawyer’s turn to be interviewed, but when she finished she did not leave. She asked the film crew for a cup of coffee, and while a production assistant went to a nearby bodega, the lawyer watched the baseball player’s session. She was older than the baseball player by a decade, yet when he was done she asked him to dinner a few nights from then. He agreed. They were both surprised at themselves.
Do you worry, the lawyer asked, that something will happen to your body one of these days?
Like going blind? the baseball player said.
No, something more specific to your sport, the lawyer said. I suppose if Castillo still dances, the eyes aren’t that necessary. Though I don’t know how she can tell if she’s doing things wrong.
It must be terrible, the baseball player said. I imagine blindness is worse for her than paralysis.
How?
The baseball player said, Everything else seems intact. Her form is sound and her legs are strong, but she can’t see a damn thing. It’s not as though she can’t dance, just that she can’t see where she should be dancing.
I couldn’t do my job without my eyes, the lawyer said.
Neither could I, the baseball player said. The ballerina might be more fortunate than we are.
The lawyer asked, Will you answer my question?
I worry about car crashes and things falling out of the sky, the baseball player said. I already know which body parts will fail me. My right elbow because third to first is a long, hard toss, and my lower back because I chop at the ball more than I swing at it. I’m more concerned with a sudden loss than the long-term decay. I can already feel the future.
During early playback, the young director found the lighting at the Pro Arte music hall nearly perfect. He requested more time in the same room for his remaining interviews. There was some trouble with the scheduling, but the director contacted the prima ballerina directly, and she quelled the dispute. The director also noticed that the interviews on the day with the prima ballerina were the best. Those that came after the dancer, the baseball player, the lawyer, the shop keepers, were especially verbose. They spoke without pausing and the director didn’t have to prod them along. The subjects went on long tangents and discussed pasts and histories that seemed unrelated to his original questions but somehow made sense in the larger scope of the film. There’s some real shit here, the young director thought, and though he didn’t fully understand what that shit was, he made a point to ask back all the same people for another round of interviews. At the outset he’d told everyone he might request follow-ups, so this would not be a surprise. He then thought, in a moment that ignored his meager funding, that he might travel to the work places of his subjects as well: a Cuban baseball game, a day in court, a small purchase at a local vendor, an afternoon show onstage under dim light . . . But he started running the figures in his head and had no idea how to pay for the extra film, the extra van they would need, the extended rentals on the lighting and audio tech, the extra pay for travelling the light crew, the filming licenses, another set of notebooks, etc. It would be too much.
TRANSCRIPT
RAMONA SOFÍA BAUDIN
ABOGADA–BUFETE VELASQUEZ
PRO ARTE MUSIC HALL
JANUARY 4, 1994
14:32:09
BAUDIN: We’re frantic now. The amount of paperwork necessary to open an economy up to private enterprise is staggering. I used to only handle basic contract law, but now people with any sort of business law in their background have been put to the task of documenting the big shift. That’s the office term for it.
[PAUSE]
BAUDIN: On the bright side, I am making more money than I have ever made before. I go out to dinner twice a week now. It’s exorbitant and I know this is simply the starting boom, that likely in a year this steady flow of work – we get paid by the case, the more you file, the more you make – will ebb. But the foreigners, the Europeans and Central Americans, they’d like to be in on the ground floor at least. They say the tide is swinging towards capitalism. We are like China, they say, and eventually the government will follow suit with the economy. The whole place is going to expand beyond itself according to them.
[PAUSE]
BAUDIN: I don’t know what to believe, though I don’t think a swinging tide is the right metaphor. Tides always swing back the other way, and so that’s not what people mean. Nor do I think we are like China or China will do what they say it will do. I suppose that means I am a pessimist and I believe it will swing backwards in the end. I know I won’t be eating out twice a week this time next year – that seems impossible in the long run. Also, there’s foreign money in the mix right now. The American dollar has been legal since August, and I see it everywhere. So even though I am taking home more money, it will probably be worth even less in the long run. No one will want my pesetas if George Washington is circulating the island. I think it’s how I rationalize my eating out. One more drink, one more plate of roast duck because now is the time to have it. I only know of two French restaurants in the city, and up until a month ago I had been to neither. At both they now know my name. In the middle of the week I have opportunities for wearing dresses. I know it’s uncouth, but I ask men out. I don’t want to wait and be seen or wait to be approached. I want to enjoy this moment, which means I have to take certain liberties.
At a bar near the Malecón, Baudin said to the baseball player, I went and saw her dance.
When?
Just the other day, she said. It was a small production, and the show was only running the week. No costumes really. The whole ensemble was costumed in beige leotards, and the show was brief. More like a rehearsal than anything.
So the old woman danced? the baseball player asked. Was she any good?
She’s hardly old, Baudin said. Is everyone beyond their late twenties old to you? Am I an old crone?
He laughed.
She danced wonderfully. It was incredibly slow, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe the slow movements more difficult than the faster ones. There were times the dancing came to a stop completely, and the feat was how well she held herself up. It was like watching choreographed yoga.
She’s older, the baseball player said. Her muscles are better equipped for keeping still.
She never looked tired, Baudin said.
I don’t mean that as criticism. A catcher can hold his squat for longer and with less energy in his third year than in his first. I can take a nap at third base on the balls of my feet. The jittery movements are for the younger players – the wild catches and the flashing glove and the quick wrists. The slow play is for the rest of us. Our muscles know how to sit, and we make up for our age with our routines. No one can probably do what that woman can. I imagine she doesn’t jump as high anymore, but probably no one knows how to hold a pose like she does.
You sound like a mechanic when you talk about the body, she said.
A pitfall of working out too much.
A shame, she said, and she touched his arm. He put his hand in hers.
He said, If you saw her dance and she was wonderful, then I take it she isn’t going blind.
Baudin thought for a moment and said, I don’t know. I can’t remember whether or not I noticed anything. Or, if I did notice something, that it could be attributed to blindness. If I had to pick one way or the other, I’d say no, she isn’t actually going blind.
The young director made some phone calls, mostly to friends, regarding money. He was fairly blunt in his requests, and he stated exactly how much he was after. Some friends found his directness rude but gave him money anyway. Across the line he sounded relentless, and the manner in which he spoke had an air of finality to it, as though the donations had already been pledged and he was simply calling to collect. Some of his many friends were friends with each other, and when they met together but without the director present, they all came to the same conclusion: their artistic friend believed he was on to something, and he was pulling in all his favors. He was hedging his bets on this film, and if it were a disaster in the end, it would ruin him. He would move in with one of the friends and sleep on the couch. He would give up film forever. Together they hoped against the tragic possibility.
TRANSCRIPT
CECILIA CASTILLO
PRIMA BALLERINA–NATIONAL BALLET
PRO ARTE MUSIC HALL
JANUARY 19, 1994
11:32:37
CASTILLO: I am saying my goodbyes to Soviet friends and students. They tell me they’re Russians, and when I ask, again?, they say, all along. In either case they’re leaving Cuba one by one. We’ve had a separate dinner for each person, but they’ve been strung so close together that the entire experience now feels like one very long funeral. I learned to dance from a Muscovite, so it seems as though we’re pulling the roots out from our ballet. One tends to worry about the young in a situation like this. Many of the students are losing teachers during the crucial years of their education. I’m thinking now of Bruno who’s waiting quietly for me at the back of the room. He is still learning to leap, but the man teaching him is headed home to the Mariinsky. We haven’t cultivated as many teachers as we probably should have over the years. There’s a gap right now, and you worry the whole thing might collapse down into it if we’re not careful. My heart goes out to Bruno.
TRANSCRIPT
GERMÁN SOTO
JUGADOR DE BÉISBOL–HAVANA INDUSTRIALES
JANUARY 19, 1994
PRO ART MUSIC HALL
16:18:59
SOTO: Personally, I don’t know anyone who’s left. So far all of them have been from other teams. And also, you have to be really good to defect. You have to know, or at least I think you have to, that someone in the U.S. wants to sign you. We’re told it will get worse. The pay has been shrinking for some time now, and we’ve not been kept in the dark about what to expect. But I have a hard time imagining a worse situation. Most everyone works in the off-season, and so what will be different? I’ll work more? The pay is so low already I think they’d risk losing all the talent. We can live off our salaries during the season. Any less and you’re asking guys to play and work at the same time. No more time for team practice. No hours at the batting cage or on the field. No more room for development. Honestly, I think there is a line that they won’t cross. As empty as the pockets are, we still have a name abroad. We still produce exceptional throwers and hitters. If players stop playing well, the name will suffer, and that’s more important than anything. They’ll let the stadiums rot first. They’ll stop putting in new sod. We’ll go back to wooden bases and wooden bats. We’ll have twenty balls per game instead of forty. Umping will become a volunteer job with the state. We’ll wear old uniforms. What I’m saying is there’s a lot to lose before we give up our name. But I’ll keep playing, and I think most others will.
[PAUSE]
SOTO: We, the ones who do stay, will actually benefit, very briefly, from this exodus. I was maybe the ninth best third baseman in the league a month ago, and now I am in the top five. I am suddenly one of the best five-hitters in the game even though my average hasn’t moved up a single point. I’m hitting the same low ground balls I was hitting in December, and yet I’m now somehow brand new, a hot prospect all over again. As long as I hold steady and barring a car accident, I’ll be in contention for the batting trophy at the end of the season. I don’t think that I necessarily deserve any of this, but I also know that it’s not really up to me. I play, and what happens around me happens. If the standard falls and I make out, then fine. I’ve been on the other end more often than not, and so it doesn’t make sense to fight against this particular tide.
In late January Soto’s play began to slide, and by the middle of February he was in a slump. For seven games straight he batted one for five, and eventually the manager dropped his spot in the lineup. The two and four hitters had gotten hot, and the team couldn’t afford to leave men on the bases. This was about the time that Baudin began attending games, which was not something they’d ever discussed. They’d only ever met in bars. At first she bought seats in the outfield, a bit embarrassed to sit next to the young wives and girlfriends and point out which jugador was hers, but when Soto began to regularly strike out, she moved closer to the infield. Eventually she bought tickets to seats he could see from third base. She put on makeup for the games, but when Soto looked her way, she avoided eye contact. Afterwards, they would meet at a French bistro and then go to Soto’s smallish apartment to fuck. Baudin asked him if she was a distraction at games, and Soto said no, of course not. He said he was forgetful when he played, and that she wasn’t wearing the same makeup the first time they met. She looked like a familiar face in the crowd, but her face at the ballpark was not the same face as the one he had in his mind when he thought of her. She asked him, Why are you playing so poorly? Soto did not have an answer.
TRANSCRIPT
RAMONA SOFÍA BAUDIN
ABOGADA–BUFETE VELASQUEZ
LA OFICINA DE BUFETE VELASQUEZ
FEBRUARY 25, 1994
09:02:29
BAUDIN: We’ll share desks from now on. The bufete is anticipating a larger than average crop of new attorneys in the next month. You see how each desk has at least two chairs rolled underneath. I’ll work with two new lawyers, maybe three. It used to be that we were only ever assigned one new lawyer per quarter, but that’s impossible now. The word around the floor is that we’ve lost some contacts with the government. The new money coming in has shifted power and a few other bufetes are trying to outpace us. They’re arguing that the work needs to be delegated more evenly across the firms. I don’t know what to do with that information, nor do I know how to explain that to new lawyers. I’m not sure they even need to know these things or if it’s helpful to know the larger mechanisms.
[PAUSE]
BAUDIN: From my experience, new lawyers, especially young men, take such information as insider knowledge, something to be used. But really, knowing those things isn’t helpful, and I sometimes think the rumors trickle from the top down as a way to motivate us. Of course we all operate under the ONBC, but caseloads fluctuate from firm to firm. The better your work, the more complex your cases, the fewer you’re given. It’s a matter of pride, and I think that might be the greatest success of the state-run system. Although, if things begin to change here, fundamentally I mean, and in regard to what we do, what cases we’re offered, then my experience won’t mean much. I’ll know as little about this new world as the juniors. The hierarchies of knowledge will be gone, and we’ll all be as wise as the next person.
[PAUSE]
BAUDIN: I’m just imagining that right now, and it makes me feel like a young woman again, which is a strange feeling when you’ve been working for years and you’ve got it figured out, when you’re exceptionally good at your job but what you do—which you take for who you are—is about to shift, even incrementally, in another direction. It was exciting at first, the new work, the new laws, but I suppose it comes with certain risks as well.
In March, the young director found himself spending more time at the Estadio Latinoamericano than at the Pro Arte Music Hall. In the director’s estimation, the former had proven a more dynamic backdrop to his narratives than the latter. The dim lighting of the Pro Arte, without a doubt, dramatized the single-person shots, adding, via shadows and black backgrounds, a kind of weight to their words. However, the rehearsals and short sets he’d filmed there, the scenes where dancers actually danced, were often pretty but flat. They had the gray appearance of French films from the early fifties. By contrast, the stadium was always bathed in light. The sun beat down on the players and the stands. Some of the benches were bleached out and in need of new paint. Some of the uniforms began to look a little dingy, as if they’d been washed without soap. The aluminum bats, which caught the light every now and then and flooded the camera with sun, were scuffed to a dull luster. Decay, thought the film director, is the word, not dynamic.
The director’s friends began to worry. His film was taking much longer to produce than they’d originally thought. When they saw him or met for drinks, he told them he was barely into the material yet. He thought he needed one or two or three more months of interviews. He told them he was getting closer to whatever was beneath the topmost layer of celluloid. The film beneath the film, he called it. They chastised him, said he was spending too much time on this one project. They were also worried about their money, fearing the director, because he clearly loved this documentary so much, would never finish it. He would keep shooting, and they would never see a peseta returned. At one point the director told them to stop by his house and see what he’d done already. Only three friends showed, and he played for them ten minutes worth of stadium footage. The friends watched in silence, and even though the short series had no overarching narrative, no sound even, they had to admit that it was the director’s best work yet.
TRANSCRIPT
GERMÁN SOTO
JUGADOR DE BÉISBOL–HAVANA INDUSTRIALES
ESTADIO LATINOAMERICANO
MARCH 11, 1994
12:30:01
SOTO: I’m lucky in that we’re winning. It would be a different situation if my play was contagious. But right now I’m the only zero on the score sheet, though at third I’m still playing mostly well—a few errors, but only late in the game when the score’s already gotten away from the other team. But people are polite and most don’t say anything. They feel bad for you. There are some guys who swear by slumps. They say that with playoffs coming, a good team always suffers one sliding player. The player becomes a sort of well and everyone’s bad play, all the dumb moves and decisions you can make in a game, flow into him. He strikes out after four pitches, he gets caught leading off first, he lets a shot through his legs, you say it. We won the championship two years ago, but I can’t remember if we had someone shitting the bed at the time or not. We won, so if there was someone not keeping up, it didn’t matter. We all forgot. I’ve been going home more often than not after games now, I think, in an attempt to forget. When you’re hot, you go out at night and you extend the game. You and some buddies hit a bar or you meet your girl and even though she was at the game and saw everything, you spend the night telling her what it felt like to hit that double or snag that bullet drive chasing the foul line. There’s a lot less to talk about when you’re cold. If you’ve got a woman, she tells you you’re acting up, that this isn’t who she started dating. You agree with her and hope she’s right. You hope the real you will wake up in bed any day now next to her and start playing better ball. She may or may not understand this. She might think, this isn’t the reason I got with you in the first place, an athlete who used to do unpredictable things on the field. She may or may not think you’ve grown bored with her. Really, you’re bored with yourself. You can’t imagine a more boring life, which is yours, which is twenty-five more games to play.
The young director was editing footage from the Pro Arte Music Hall when it became obvious to him that the prima ballerina was nearly blind. He ran a series of short routines he had filmed, and in each segment Cecilia Castillo followed, with unfailing accuracy, the path of the main spotlight. The director immediately called to mind some terrible metaphors: the moth to the flame, geese to a southerly sun, lovers to eyes. He placed a call to the dance studios and asked to speak with Castillo.
TRANSCRIPT
CECILIA CASTILLO
PRIMA BALLERINA–NATIONAL BALLET
PRO ARTE MUSIC HALL
MARCH 21, 1994
13:41:23
CASTILLO: The spotlight is for solos, but only the newer ones. I’ve taken some liberties with my age and decided against too many new routines. I know enough that a year could pass without my dancing the same steps. The steps are counted also; I just have to know my starting position, of which there are six onstage. I can see them all in my mind. The music is always in time, and therefore so is my counting. I could move across the stage for hours, alone, and not have any problems. When I do, my partners catch me. They know where to touch my elbow or back to let me know that I’ve strayed. If you dance at the Pro Arte you know all this. It’s no secret, but we also don’t advertise my failing eyes.
[PAUSE]
CASTILLO: Admittedly, that is done more for respect of my position than for any particular reason. I had a number of operations growing up, especially in my early twenties. I was bedridden once for six months. Doctors thought back then that retinas could come loose even after surgery. I don’t have to explain this to the other dancers. I just ask them, what would you do? Would you stop dancing? What’s left to talk about is how I will dance. How I look when I move on stage. There are no honey-lips at the ballet. Everyone there is my critic, and I’ve said to them all, say the word and I’ll stop dancing. You see my shoulders hunch or you think my timing is gone, then I’ll go. I trust the young danseurs the most. They not only see me move, but they feel my movements. And we’ve no real loyalties to one another. They didn’t grow up with me and weren’t around when I was a younger star. They’re not awestruck by my past. They can look at me and say, you’re doing it wrong, and I believe them. Then they take my body and put it into place and I practice the correct manner of moving. It’s tedious, and for that I’m grateful, but the beauty of the whole thing is that we don’t speak of it much. It’s been internalized to a certain degree. I know I am stubborn. I don’t need to be told that. But I here I am fifty-two dancing Coppelia, La Sylphide, La Bayadere. Should I apologize? What happens happens.
Baudin was not hungry, so she and Soto met at an outdoor bar instead of a restaurant. He ordered a bottle of wine, but she declined to share and asked for a scotch and soda. Waiting for their drinks, she asked him about his recent games. She’d been busy at work training new hires, and she’d not made the last three.
Soto said, The same.
Baudin nodded and then told Soto about her most recent interview with the director. She said that she’d been a bit short with the man and hadn’t felt much like talking, but had already agreed to sit down in front of the camera one more time. The prima ballerina made another appearance, though Baudin said she and her escort were not so careful this time. They moved more brusquely, as if the jig were up. Which it was, Baudin said. And then she told Soto about the dancer’s confession on camera and the beautiful silence in the room as she spoke.
Baudin said, But I mostly watched the escort.
Soto said, It’s amazing she even spoke.
She mentioned his name again, Bruno, at the start, Baudin said. Bruno looked toward the door the entire time she spoke. He was like a statue until she finished, and then he practically carried her out of the room.
What happened after they left? Soto asked.
The director called my name, she said.
Soto nodded. He asked, Won’t you help me drink this bottle?
Baudin said, I think the escort was more troubled than the woman. Embarrassed is probably the right word, or ashamed of her, the way she sat in front of the camera and made her case. He was looking at her like a crazy old bat. I think one glance at the director and the rest of us and he saw how ridiculous the two of them were side-by-side: an old woman dancing past her prime and a young man too cowardly to tell her it was time to stop.
At that, Baudin took some money out of her purse and placed it on the table.
She said to Soto, I think you’re cheating on me. I think somewhere in the stands there’s another woman watching you while I’m watching you. And now you can’t hit the ball to save your life.
Soto sat up. He said, Don’t be dumb.
Baudin left. Soto stayed and got drunk.
Soto’s slump lasted two more weeks, and then he began hitting again. He began hitting better than before. The Estadio Latinoamericano was selling out as the season wound down, and the Industriales were still in first. His teammates started talking to him again about his play. They asked him out to drinks after the games, and people shouted his name from the stands. He signed autographs. Despite his drought, he was back in contention for the batting title. Whatever had plagued him from January to March had moved on to the other top hitters in the league, and they were struggling now. He had beers every now and then with a couple of the infielders, but in general he still went straight home most nights after his games. He didn’t quite trust himself to keep playing that well. Also, he wanted to see Baudin again, but he was afraid to call her. He didn’t know how to convince her she was wrong, and he assumed she would attribute his recent success either to her absence or to the non-existent other woman in the stands.
TRANSCRIPT
GERMÁN SOTO
JUGADOR DE BÉISBOL–HAVANA INDUSTRIALES
ESTADIO LATINOAMERICANO
APRIL 17, 1994
15:56:39
SOTO: I am playing better simply because I’m still playing. It’s the averages. The season is ninety games long. A player knows that each good day will be followed by a shitty one and vice versa. But yes, I was worried. You worry that you’ll play like shit for ninety straight days, and then they’ll cut you when you know the next season you are going to be unbelievable. It might be fair to say that I was depressed or that I couldn’t handle the new situation. I can tell you that at nights I spent at home, I would sit on my couch and imagine a baseball player who played every day for his entire life. I did the math, and after fifty years, that’s 18,250 games. If I am lucky, I’ll play nine hundred, maybe a thousand games. You have to tell yourself after a while that the math wins out, that if you play long enough, no one will remember the bad times and neither will you. Play for twenty years and you might say that’s an accurate reflection of your skill, ability and contribution to the team. But then you live for another forty years and those twenty don’t seem like the sum of anything. We’ve won the last eight out of ten, and I have three hits in each of my last six games. But these numbers will get wiped out over time, even if we win the championship. Even if I win the batting title. I’m saying that I think I could possibly get bored with winning, and I never thought that the case.
[PAUSE]
SOTO: But you can’t say that to your teammates or to the women calling your name from the stands.
The director ran out of money, which meant he had to stop shooting. He spent two months editing the film. In bed at night he swung between joy and sorrow. Sometimes when he considered the ballerina and her failing eyes, he felt as if he’d seen the thing he’d been looking for. At other times he felt as though he’d been distracted, as if it meant nothing for the older woman to dance on stage blind as a bat.
Eventually he submitted the documentary to a few small festivals: one in Havana, one in Santiago, one in Santa Clara, and one in Holguín. The film was accepted everywhere except for Santiago. The Havana showing was last, and the festival there was the largest. Most of the director’s friends went to see it, especially after hearing the praise from the three companions who’d been given a sneak peek. In the capital, the film was shown at one of the nicer city theatres, and a crowd of two hundred could watch the film at once. It played on three separate nights in the same week, and Soto went to see the second showing by himself.
Soto explained to Baudin, The confession comes pretty early on, and it’s followed by a series of shots of her dancing. The shots switch between solos with a spotlight and duets with the escort Bruno. There was another danseur in a couple of clips, but for the most part it was Bruno and his European nose. The ballerina’s monologues are played over the footage. She talks while she dances. It’s like a strange trick, but until the moment she says over the audio that she’s blind, it’s hard to tell. But the moment she says it, you start to notice how wide open her eyes are when she dances. I think sometimes you can even see her lips move, which I assume was her counting. Then I started watching Bruno because I remembered what you’d said about him. He was just as elegant, and it dawned on me, eventually, that yes the ballerina was blind, but also, she and her danseur were in love. You saw him touching her at the elbow to guide her, but there were other parts when he clearly didn’t need to do that, and some of his movements even seemed to slow her down. You said she embarrassed him, but I think he was hurt for her. I think it killed him to watch her confess into that camera.
Baudin said, They’re dancers and actors. Their job is to convince you they’re in love.
Soto said, Go see the film, and he hung up on her.
Baudin did go see the film, the third showing, and afterwards she said to Soto, You’re in love with me.
Yes, Soto said. I didn’t know I was for a long time, but I am.
Are you hoping I feel the same? she asked.
I think we should talk about it, he said. I think we should go to dinner. She agreed.
In Havana, the mild revelation that the matriarch of the Cuban National Ballet danced while nearly blind caused a brief spike in attendance during the summer season at the Pro Arte. With the extra money new toilets and a new spotlight were installed.
The documentary itself was honored with some minor awards in Holguín. Critics described the film as sparse and authentic, but also said that it possessed an odd, optimistic undertone that wasn’t fully explored. Many of the speakers in the film complained about the current economy and circumstances of Cuban life, but there was, as one reviewer put it, a childlike tenor to the documentary, as if the film itself were a young man or woman just awoken in Havana having no memory of childhood or pain.
The director did not disagree, he himself only half-satisfied at the end of every showing. He attended them all, sitting in the last row of the theatre and feeling with greater certainty that the ballerina’s secret wasn’t much of anything. He studied the faces of the other audience members thinking they might notice what he had not. When interviewed, he said he was content with the piece, but he was also happy to be finished with it. He thanked those who’d supported his efforts, especially his friends and the Cuban citizens who’d spoken with him. Following the festivals, the Ministry of Culture reviewed the documentary and called it honest. Consequently, the director was offered more work, and after some time, he was able to pay back his friends.
Derek Palacio has published short stories in Witness Magazine, Story Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, The Kenyon Review, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. He is the author of the novella How to Shake the Other Man (Nouvella Books, 2013) and the novel The Mortifications (Crown Publishing Group, 2016).