MILITARY SERVICE

Once my college education had been completed, I immediately joined the Polish Forces as my father had suggested to Alegria two years earlier. The rigour of the basic training seemed like a piece of cake compared to what he had put me through during my formative years with him. Hazing, which was a necessary part of the first years of any recruit, probably put me off certain things for a while, but didn't feel traumatic or humiliating for me. What more do we have to lose when we have already lost everything either by default or inadvertently?

The routine of military life quickly brought me the assurance of a tomorrow I had never experienced before. Obeying orders saved me from thinking too much and making my own choices. The camaraderie gave me the illusion of belonging. My father had decided well: military service suited me like a glove.

My olive skin, whose complexion looked even lighter since my return to Europe, didn't get me into any particular trouble as long as I was following the order of things pre-established by society like everyone in everyday life. To my Polish comrades, I was Borys the man with many languages ​​and strange facial features. My blue eyes reassured them, my curly light-brown hair and my olive skin intrigued them, but they posed no threat.

For women, young and older, I posed as an exotic bird perched on its branch, there only to give them the pleasure of contemplating it, or with a little audacity, even of touching it, hearing it sing. This experience probably marked me the most during my first years back in Europe as a young man. In Cuba, I was just a quadroon among many others with some privileges and status, but without any mystery. After all, weren't we all the bastards of history lost in the seas of the Caribbean, all of us more or less branded by the hierarchy of skin colours and skin complexions? During those moments, when these white women looked at me like an object of fantasy, I missed Feliz terribly, and with the memory of her, my guilt returned also. She never replied to my letters or answered my phone calls since I had left, and I couldn't blame her. I had made my choice.

Very early on, my language skills opened for me in the Forces doors that my school education alone, even with my professional training, wouldn't have given me access to. I travelled a lot, and I learnt how to pilot. I performed successfully: brilliant, obedient, and empty, the ideal perfect weapon. All that you had to do was put the ammunition in, target, then shoot.