What Did You Come to Film?

2001, summer (approximate date). Apartment in San Antonio de los Baños. Afternoon (approximate time).

They close the door.

And there, yes, “we talk”.

They kiss.

There is no elegant transition.

One second they are talking; the next they are on top of one another saying «I missed you», a phrase that always sounds ridiculous to him in someone else’s mouth until he says it himself.

Then Tony sighs:

—Oh, God, what would my mother say.

That does make him laugh.

When it is all over they lie naked on the bed. Embracing at first. They speak quietly, as if someone might hear them through the wall, and little by little they forget to be careful. Within half an hour they are two loud Cubans, although one of them was born in Mexico. The room is bare, yellow, without pictures, almost without books. Outside it is raining. Inside it feels good, and that is enough to make them feel that for a few hours it belongs to them.

Tony asks what he is doing in Cuba.

—A documentary.

—About what?

—About you all.

—Ah.

—Such enthusiasm.

He laughs.

He explains. Some yumas have given him and a female friend money to interview twelve young Cubans. He also teaches at the Film School. He still does not know exactly what film they are making, and that is one of the things he does not tell him.

He takes out the digital camera.

He turns it on.

He has not pressed the red button yet.

Tony looks toward the lens.

—Now?

—No.

—Then?

—We are rehearsing.

He asks him a question.

He answers.

Another.

He says little. He smiles, moistens his lips and begins to act out a different film. He lies back, arches his back, plays with the camera even though the camera is not recording yet. Tony knows perfectly well when he is being watched and, above all, knows how to do something with that gaze.

Now he presses the red button.

For the sheer pleasure of it.

He records.

For a few seconds the documentary disappears.

Only Tony being Tony remains.

Outside, time passes. The frogs begin to fall silent. At some house a farmer must be coming home from work. All of this happens while a digital camera records a young man lying in a yellow room.

Then Tony gets dressed.

He looks out the window. There is a field that might be planted with corn. He thinks again that Tony could be a magnificent character for the documentary. In New York they had agreed that one of the twelve had to be gay. Now that decision seems suspiciously administrative to him: they need a farmer, a young woman, a student, a gay man, as if a country could be divided into twelve boxes.

They sit on the bed.

Very formally this time.

He presses the button.

Tony talks about his father, who is in Pinar del Río. He has not seen him since he was fifteen. His mother took care of him. He gets along well with his sister. He talks a little about clients. Not too much.

Then he mentions a friend.

—He was the first one to take me to Coppelia.

—For ice cream?

Tony smiles.

—To “platicar”. I burst out laughing. “Having ice cream”, I learn, moreover, means precisely plying their trade in the language of Havana’s jineteros. 

—And you… ?

He gives an outrageously flirtatious smile. 

—Well, I sell ice cream.

Clearly no one is talking about ice cream anymore. 

Tony goes on talking about selling ice cream at Coppelia, but all at once he is listening to himself.

—Turn that off —he orders. 

He turns it off.

—I do not want it shown.

—It will not be shown.

He covers his face.

Then he settles onto the bed and remains silent.

The camera is between them.

—Do you want me to erase what I recorded?

He looks up.

—Can you?

—Yes.

—Later.

He does not know whether that means he will decide later or that he should erase it later.

Then he does something he does not expect.

He reaches out his hand.

—Give it to me.

He hands him the camera and thinks he is going to erase what he recorded. It seems fair to him, but no. He weighs it. He turns it over. He presses two buttons. A light blinks. He immediately feels comfortable with it, as if he had been waiting for the object to change hands.

He points it at him.

He raises a hand.

—Hey.

Tony smiles.

—Now you.

—Me what.

—Talk.

—About what?

—What did you come to Cuba to film?

—I already told you.

—No. That is the work.

He looks at him from behind the camera.

—What did you come to film?

The question throws him. Clearly he feels better owning the point of view. It gives him an authority that troubles him ethically.

—I want to make a documentary.

—About what?

He does not know why he tells him:

—About the first kiss I gave a boy.

Tony waits.

—I was twelve.

—You?

—Me.

—Ah.

—He was a child too. Chilean. Later he went back to Chile when democracy returned.

Tony holds the camera steady.

Now he is the one looking at the dark spot of the lens.

—I have wanted to film it for a long time —he says sincerely—. At school they nicknamed him The Little Samurai. 

—Why?

He does not know. 

He ought to have an answer. He wants to make a film about it and yet cannot answer the first question.

—Because that is what they called him. Because he sat like a samurai, what do I know. 

Tony lowers the camera a little.

—That does not explain why.

—I know —and he feels ashamed without knowing why.

Tony raises the camera again. Now he is thinking about the kiss. And then about the place, the fear. The feeling that something had happened and no one could know yet.

—I suppose I want to make a film about it because afterward everything became very complicated.

Tony says nothing.

He goes on.

—I want to go back to the moment when it was not yet.

—Was not what?

—Complicated.

Tony smiles.

—That really is difficult.

He is right.