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Chapter 22: When I See You again There Will Be No Pain or Forgetting
- Rutgers University Press
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[ 158 ] 22 when i see you again there will be no pain or forgetting Daniel Esquenazi Maya, a retired stevedore, has lived in the same rooftop apartment in Old Havana since 1957. He and his late wife used to rent the apartment, but the owners of the building left following the Revolution, and afterward Daniel, along with the other poor tenants of the building, no longer had to pay anything for their homes. An articulate man who was active in the Jewish community long before others found their way to it, Daniel is one of the most photographed, filmed, and interviewed Jews on the island. And he deserves his fame. His parents were Sephardic Jews from Turkey and he was president of the oldest synagogue in Cuba, the Chevet Ahim, until it shut down. Now he is a daily participant at religious services at Adath Israel where his thunderous voice rises above all others when it is time to intone prayers and chants. That voice has been trained through years of being a tango aficionado. Daniel spends his weekend afternoons singing tango at local cultural clubs in Havana.Tango is his great passion in life. Some of the neighbors, he says, think he’s a madman on the roof singing tango songs. A “polaco,” they call him, though he’s Sephardic and born in Cuba. I must confess that I am guilty of being part of the pack of onlookers who Behar_3P-02.qxd:Behar design 7/30/07 2:22 PM Page 158 [ 159 ] Havana have turned Daniel into a celebrity. When I heard he was a tango aficionado, I asked Daniel to sing tango songs for my movie, Adio Kerida, which he did willingly. He crooned “Mi Buenos Aires querido” (My Beloved Buenos Aires) with the brokenhearted nostalgia of an immigrant, even though he’s never been to Buenos Aires. In fact, he’s never left Cuba. He has more than two hundred records of Carlos Gardel, the great icon of Argentine tango. Enamored of Gardel since his youth, Daniel has turned an entire wall in his apartment into an informal shrine to the famed singer, who died too young in a plane crash at the height of his international popularity . But Daniel is an organized romantic. All the songs in his collection are listed alphabetically in a binder. The titles hint at the moody joys and sorrows of the tango: “Como se canta en Nápoles” (HowThey Sing in Naples); “El mal que me hiciste” (The Harm You Did to Me); “Para quererte así” (To Love You Like This); “Que payaso” (What a Clown). When I interviewed Daniel in 2001, his 1960 record player was still working . He played tangos for me from his collection and they sounded glorious, all their breathy drama still intact. He proudly gave me a Carlos Gardel album to take home as a souvenir. But five years later, when I visit him again at his rooftop apartment, he tells me he can’t listen to his tango records anymore. “My record player broke and there’s isn’t a soul in Cuba who knows how to fix it,” he says. “It’s nobody’s fault. They don’t make record players like this anymore.” Daniel is taking a stoical attitude to his loss, perhaps because he recognizes he’s getting older and material possessions are of less use to him now. I see suddenly how gaunt he has grown, how his hair has thinned, how he struggles to get up the last flight of shaky wooden stairs to his rooftop apartment. “I still enjoy my record collection,” he says. “I remember all the tangos. I can hear them in my head.” Memory has become Daniel’s record player. Memory and imagination. Tango has given him the ability to imagine how exile feels. Tango has given him the ability to put himself in the place of people not at all like him, people who’ve left their homes and are endlessly searching for a way to return. Behar_3P-02.qxd:Behar design 7/30/07 2:22 PM Page 159 [44.203.235.24] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:17 GMT) Mi Buenos Aires querido Cuando yo te vuelva a ver No habrá más pena ni olvido. My beloved Buenos Aires When I see you again There will be no pain or forgetting. I can see Daniel singing this song on his rooftop, even though he’s never known exile, never...