It has always been there, for as long as I can remember. First it was a song. One of those that we listen to in childhood without understanding them yet and that as we grow, they grow with us.
Then see him on stage while he was studying in cold Moscow and envy those who had him at hand on the steps of the University of Havana or in the Mella theater.
Later, following him whenever possible through these and other scenarios, interviewing him once as a journalist… Until, by coincidences of fate, my great friend Nancy Pérez Rey became his wife, and thus I found myself linked to his family circle.
One day, unexpectedly, he asked me to work with him, perhaps leading to the most dizzying and intense stage of my life.
Memories crowd, from the hundreds of concerts that I always enjoyed backstage like the first day despite already knowing by heart not only the songs but also the order in the repertoire, his words, his gestures. It was rediscovering him each time in the faces and voices of his audience who chanted and applauded wildly that kind of spell that happened when he went on stage, the same in Pinar del Río as in Buenos Aires or Milan.
The charm was kept many times before or after, in the dressing room, at home, or on a plane. In so many conversations about the human and the divine in which little by little I got to know the immense singer-songwriter and the exceptional human being better.
I was then able to discover many stories behind their anthological songs. About how some of them had come out with a jerk, even to fill a hole in a record, or a “space with their light”. Of the “loves of his life”, which made him “human and better” and inspired “eternal” themes. Of the “happiness” of others frustrated or shared that also won a top place in their repertoire. Of those that were born from the effervescence of the “glory days” or the peace of “autumn”…
I wondered (and I asked him) how he was able, at the age of 22, to compose songs with the wisdom of someone who has already lived too long. And I saw some of his most recent songs being born, with the freshness of a teenager.
I saw him in moments of euphoria after a successful concert; of fragility before a health mishap that prevented him from singing; desolation at the death of a friend. I saw him be generous and wise, and sometimes stubborn or unfair, like any human being.
I had the illusion of many, to see him sing again with Silvio. And I confess that I tried without result. Until some crossed statements, media manipulation, and malicious misrepresentation by third parties made the abyss impassable.
I saw him suffer for Cuba, I saw his impotence in the face of what he defined as the “internal blockade,” his disappointment at the future of the project to which he dedicated his youth. His sadness for the loss of “what one day was.” He said, and above all sang, at every moment of his life what he felt and thought.
He did not allow himself to be used, nor did he negotiate his principles, neither with those of one extreme nor the other. I saw him turn down lavish gifts, juicy contracts, and convenient perks, if he only smelled that they might imply something in return.
But going on stage created that unique connection with any Cuban. And I also saw him happy when in the Miami Arena thousands sang his songs with the same love as in the Karl Marx.
It is that Pablo was coherence, transparency, dignity and honesty, and above all, Cuban.
He used to not accept tours that involved more than a month off the island. Without his house, his city, his people, she was short of breath.
His health forced him to live far away in recent years. He had to maintain a non-existent treatment in the country, but that lacerated him every day. Perhaps the same thing that was keeping him alive was killing him.
Now he is gone, but it is just a pause, “the brief space in which he is not”, because he remains forever in the millions who had the privilege of having him close, of listening to him, of sharing time and space with him. Eternally, Pablo is Cuba.
#PabloEsCuba
