——— I was at some campus in the south of England. I was there to do a lecture with slides on the art of the Americas. I started out with a monologue by Guillermo Cabrera-Infante and a slide, A Bride for the Gods by Wilfredo Lam. Some Argentinians mistakenly callt him Puerto Rican under their breath. Cabrera-Infante chuckled about that and motioned for me to keep on with my lecture. Since I was actually doing a lecture-demonstration I had a huge number of very complicated costume changes. Then, something is lost here. I have a blank.
      When I come back for the second half after intermission, a crowd of white thugs, soccer fans, neoNazis, who knows the affiliation, bursts through the auditorium doors. I grab Sierra and we run. We swim to an island not far from Santiago de Cuba. Once I reach shore I am breathless, exhausted, and I cannot believe I’ve lost Sierra in transit, somehow.
      Yet Guillermo has this little boy I’ve never seen before, safe and sound, a stranger’s child, hiding with us.
      I keep looking for Sierra.
      The white hoodlums catch up with us. There is a gigantic tsunami building behind us, at least five meters. We keep running. It is very foggy and cold.
      Miguelito Algarin who’d been mingling with the thugs to see what was actually on their minds comes over to the rocks, boulders, where we are hiding. Guillermo and Miguelito embrace. They know each other awready. Miguelito takes a look at this child we’re protecting and says nothing. The two decide to take a Jeep and go look for Sierra. They take the little boy baby, too. I mean, they take the boy baby with them.
      Guillermo comes back in the Jeep without Miguelito, the baby, or Sierra. He tells me the baby boy was really some guy’s baby by some woman he knew while he was in prison. Guillermo was in prison with him and vaguely remembers her from infrequent conjugal visits. Guillermo had gotten out the joint first and raised the baby on his own until he saw the fella and gave him his baby back. They all go away. I can hear Sierra’s voice through the pounding surf. Then, I wake up crying.

——— Why is Sierra crying out, Liliane?

——— She’s lost. She wants her mother…. That’s why she’s crying.

——— And that’s why you’re crying, too.

——— No. no. That’s not true. My mother wanted me, but Daddy forbid her from me. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t.

——— But, Lili, only one baby can’t be located. The other baby is delivered directly to his father’s arms.

——— But that was a boy. That was a boy.

——— A baby boy, Lili. A tiny child whose parent was in prison, not much different from where your mother thought she was in her marriage.