Meanwhile, back in Cuba...

By Dolly Mascarenas/Cardenas

The two smallest children, a little white boy and a little black boy, used to share the desk at the front of Yamilin Morales' first-grade class in Cardenas, Cuba. The two have known each other since the age of three, and Hanser, 6, weeps at hearing the name of his friend. He knows his best friend has been "kidnapped," a frightening crime, unheard of in Cuba. He perks up only when his teacher reminds him how happy Elian will be to see how carefully Hanser has watched out for him. For no one has been allowed to take Elian's place. His chair remains unoccupied, a white sign with blue letters declaring: THIS CHAIR IS UNTOUCHABLE. Hanser and his classmates try to talk only of "when Elian comes back."

To the people of Cardenas, that time is long overdue. "The law of the sea is that you provide shelter for a shipwreck and take him home," says Jorge, 75, a fisherman. "More so in the case of a child." And while they await his return, the citizens of Cardenas are afraid that Elian may no longer be himself because he has not had a chance to grieve for his mother, lost at sea during her voyage to Florida. They imagine the voices he heard as the boat went down, the prayers and the screaming and the long loneliness as he floated on the waters in that inner tube. The fear has infected the children. Another friend of Elian's, Anthony, 8, had prepared a letter for Juan Miguel Gonzalez to hand to his son when he got to the U.S., but Anthony asked for it back for a revision. The boy said he had written about all the happy times they shared but had unthinkingly mentioned swimming pools and a nearby park that was filled with lakes. Anthony was afraid Elian would be "sick" upon reading about water.

Fidel Castro has declared that he is worried that the boy may be contaminated by something else: the way he has been paraded about for the press in America. In fact, the international press has chosen to parade around Cardenas as well, sticking mikes and cameras in the face of every possible source and stalking about the small city of 94,000 people. And so, when Elian returns, he will probably be kept in the capital of Havana, together with family, friends and schoolmates, as well as psychiatrists and pediatricians. Alas for Elian and Cardenas, even when he returns, he will not be home.

--By Dolly Mascarenas/Cardenas