One man’s prison

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 13:08:00 +0000

The window blinds of Osvaldo Payá's front parlor are shut on greater Havana. In this metropolis of shared noise and open-door dinners, depriving pedestrians of a peek inside is not the norm. But Payá has reason to pull back from Calle Peñon, a dingy, potholed street in El Cerro, a close-in suburb southwest of Havana's center. Payá, Cuba's leading dissident, has been harassed by neighbors and security police alike, and the word graffitied on his house years ago established Payá's place in the neighborhood: "Traitor."

Despite the sealed blinds, the 4 p.m. din of Habaneros in midcommute fills Payá's parlor. Payá himself has just biked home from work on his Chinese-made one-speed, and his jet-black hair is still slick from the shower. At age 54, he maintains two careers. By day, like any upstanding adherent of the revolution, Payá repairs medical equipment at a nearby hospital. He does his other work here in this cloistered residence, alone. He used to have colleagues in his fight against the Castro regime, but all that remains of his original team of dissidents are the photographs that hang from a white plaster sculpture in a corner of the parlor. All his friends are in prison.

Salon.com > Colleen Kinder

One man’s prison