The Cuban Five - The bird and the prisoner

From:    "Political Prisoner News" <ppnews@freedomarchives.org>
Date:    Sun, November 29, 2009

The bird and the prisoner

This is How it All Began -
<http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2009/11/17/historia-gerardo-hernandez-prision-ave-pajaro/>Espanol

By Alicia Jrapko

Translation: Machetera

Once upon a time, a bird made friends with a
prisoner.  Both were incarcerated in the United
States and both were unjustly imprisoned for
defending Cuba from terrorist activity.

This is how the story began.  On June 4, 2009,
the same day as his birthday, Gerardo Hernandez
heard about this creature.  He found out about it
through a prisoner whose last name was Lira, who
worked in the prison factory.  Lira and a guard
were cleaning the roof with a pressure hose and
without meaning to or perhaps without knowing,
they destroyed a nest that contained three
chicks.  Two of them died instantly but one
remained alive.  They were so tiny that they
didn't even have any feathers.  It's possible
that they had just barely hatched.

The guard was visibly moved, and feeling
responsible, allowed Lira to bring the chick
secretly inside the prison to try to save
it.  The prisoner arrived with the chick in the
palm of his hand and not knowing what to do with
it, began to ask the other prisoners what to
do.  Someone suggested: Ask Cuba [the nickname
the prisoners had given Gerardo]; he likes
animals and surely he will know what to
do."  That's how Gerardo came to be summoned, and
he came to the cell where they kept the bird.

Gerardo's first reaction was to whistle,
imitating what he imagined the chick's mother
would have done.  He moved his fingers as though
they were little wings.  Miraculously, the little
bird opened its beak.  Gerardo began to give it
breadcrumbs and later, dipped his fingers in
water and let the drops fall softly into the little bird's beak.

Gerardo didn't want to take the bird to his cell,
but every day he went to feed it.  The problem
was that at the beginning, the bird didn't want
to take food from anyone except Gerardo.  One day
it occurred to Gerardo to offer the chick a few
slivers of fish, and afterwards the rascal didn't
want breadcrumbs any more.  His feathers began to
grow and so Gerardo taught it to eat on its
own.  He put the bits of food in the palm of his
hand and the little bird came fearlessly.

However, the prisoners were worried.  If an
inspection were to happen, the little bird would
be a problem.  Since he was already quite a bit
bigger, they let him loose in the patio so that
he might fly free.  The bird flew a little while
and then returned to Gerardo's shoulder.  Every
time he tried to fly with the other birds, they
rejected him with little pecks.  Little by little he gained confidence.

Gerardo went alone to the wing where his cell
was, but when he returned to the patio, the bird also returned to see him.

Once there were many prisoners in the
patio.  Someone told Gerardo that the bird was
perched on the concertina wire surrounding the
prison.  Gerardo whistled, and in front of all
the prisoners, the little bird appeared out of
nowhere and landed on his
shoulder.  Incredible.  Everyone talked about
it.The little bird was named Cardinal, because
Gerardo had painted its tail feathers with a red
marker to distinguish him from all the rest. The
ink affected the bird a bit.  It lost its tail
feathers but only for a little while.  Later they
grew back, in their natural color.  However, the name remained: Cardinal.

On a different occasion another prisoner found
the little bird in the patio with its beak
stretched open.  It was very hot, and the bird
was thirsty.  Gerardo gave it water.  He hid the
bird under his hat in order to go inside without
the bird being seen.  Of course the guards
realized he had something odd on his head.
"What's under the hat?" they asked, and Gerardo
answered, "Nothing." Cardinal answered as well,
whistling like crazy.  "Don't tell me you're
training him to take messages to Fidel," said one of the guards, laughing.

The story didn't end there.  Gerardo brought the
bird to his cell and made a nest for him to stay
there with him.  He played with him, letting him
rest on his shoulder, or on his head.  When
Gerardo was writing, the bird came to play and
Gerardo would pet him gently, to calm him.  So
Cardinal would run along his back, where he'd be
out of reach. Sometimes he curled up inside
Gerardo's collar and slept there.  Or he pecked
at his friend's ear and when Gerardo moved his head, he'd go for the other
ear.

Once when Gerardo had let Cardinal go, he flew
toward the cafeteria and landed on the plate of a
very large, tough prisoner who was eating a piece
of chicken.  The prisoner caught the bird in his
hands, meaning to strangle him and someone
shouted, "Don"t kill him!  He belongs to
Cuba."  The outcry took the prisoner by
surprise.  He let Cardinal go and asked, surprised, "And who the hell is
Cuba?"

Gerardo was actually very worried.  A certain
guard was not showing any mercy toward the little
bird.  During an inspection, the guard had forced
Gerardo to let Cardinal go, and closed the door
behind him.  The little bird returned later,
completely exhausted.  Gerardo let him rest for a
few days inside his cell.  And then came the
lockdown (solitary confinement as punishment for
all prisoners), and whenever there's a lockdown, there are inspections.

When Gerardo heard that they were checking all
the space between the floor and the door, he
pushed Cardinal outside.  Cardinal flew, within
the wing where Gerardo's cell was located.  When
the guard arrived, he saw the box where Cardinal
lived.  Gerardo said that this was where his
friend lived, of his own free will: "The problem
is that I take him outside and he returns; it's not my fault."

"Look," said the guard, gesturing as though to
say he thought Gerardo was nuts, "if you think
I'm going to believe that bird is going to return…"

Gerardo whistled from his cell and the guard
froze in his tracks as he watched the bird return.

Cardinal had no problem picking out the cell
belonging to his friend, among the huge array of
cells on two floors that looked exactly alike.

Cardinal arrived at Gerardo's cell.  He looked at
him through the bars but couldn't enter (since
this was lockdown).  He waited there nervously,
until Gerardo couldn't stand it any more and
opened the slot where food was delivered, and
Cardinal came in.  A few days later there was
another inspection.  When the guards arrived at
Gerardo's cell, he told them that he had a small
bird, so they wouldn't be scared if the bird
should happen to fly overhead.  He was told that
he had to release it, but since none of them
could catch the bird, they brought Gerardo to the
entrance for the entire wing so that he could let it go himself.

Since they were in lockdown, Gerardo and the
little bird walked down the passageway, escorted
by the guards.  All the other prisoners saw them
through the bars of their cells and began to
shout: "They're taking Cuba and the bird to the
hole!" as they banged their doors in protest.

The guard shouted, "Calm down!  He's not going to
the hole; we're just going to free the bird!"

That was the last time that Gerardo saw
Cardinal.  The lockdown lasted a month while the
wing was completely shut down.  Gerardo couldn't
leave and Cardinal couldn't enter.  The little
bird had been inside this rough high-security
prison since Gerardo's birthday, from June 4th,
and he remained there until July 16th, one day
after the wedding anniversary of Gerardo and his wife, Adriana.

And that's the end of this (true) story.

Alicia Jrapko wrote this story from memory, two
hours after hearing it from Gerardo during a
visit to the maximum security prison in
Victorville, California.  Gerardo later revised
and corrected the text, which Alicia plans to
present to Casa Editora Abril so that it can be
published as a children's story.  Gerardo is
incarcerated under a double life sentence plus 15
years, for unproven charges made against him in a
highly prejudiced trial in Miami.

Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo was born in Havana on
June 4, 1965; the third child of Gerardo
Hernandez Marta­ and Carmen Nordelo Tejera, both
deceased.  He is a graduate of the Raul Roa
Garcia Foreign Services Institute (ISRI).  One
year before graduating, he and his wife Adriana
Perez O'Connor were married.  He is a cartoonist
and graphic artist who has worked in both Cuba
and the United States.  In the mid-1990s, he
served missions in the United States, designed to
protect Cuba from the terrorist actions planned
and executed by counter-revolutionary
organizations located in Miami.  On September 12,
1998, he was arrested along with four other men
and subjected to a trial plagued with
irregularities and prejudice, in Miami.  He was
convicted, without any evidence whatsoever, and
sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years, which
he is serving in a high security prison in Victorville, California.

Machetera is a member of
<http://www.tlaxcala.es/>Tlaxcala, the network of
translators for linguistic diversity. This
translation may be reprinted as long as the
content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

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