1000 WORDS

A typical conversation with a Cuban man, translated from the Spanish, goes something like this:

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“You like bicycles.”

“Yes.”

“You are alone.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“So…. you don’t have a husband?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to live in peace…”

Silence.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Don’t you like Cubans?

“I’m not really interested in discussing this with you. I think this a subject for close friends – not total strangers – to discuss.”

Silence.

“So…. you’re not married?”

Sigh.

“No. I’m not married.”

This conversation, given its circular nature, can go on indefinitely.

I dream up various alternative responses – I am a widow, perhaps, and my deceased husband was a keen cyclist so I am cycling the world in his memory or I am deeply religious and have dedicated my life to cycling the world for god – but, unfortunately, dissembling doesn’t come easily to me and so I always come out with the truth.

I try to suggest other topics of conversation but it is hopeless.

It is true that I have also had this conversation in other countries put it is not pursued with same single minded insistence that it is in Cuba and in other places a wave of my faux wedding band can suffice to avoid it completely.