By: Lis García Arango
He is not sitting in a chair, as in the song by Silvio Rodriguez. Yes I’m standing. He’s not naked, although surrounded by umbrellas.
Each morning, Monday through Saturday, he repeats the routine: arrives, opens his briefcase and sits waiting for customers. His tools are reduced to two old pliers, wire, and a cemetery of redeemable linings of metal rods of all sizes. When no one can resurrect them, he recovers and recycles the bodies of nylon and plastic fibers.
Nobody knows Fidel Diaz Pedroso by name. Everybody in Matanzas calls him the Umbrella Man. He learned the trade from his grandfather Roman, and now, at 54, he doesn’t remember the total of umbrellas that have passed through his hands. For him the only completely certain that he wants to devote the rest of his life to repairing umbrellas.
“There’s nothing like helping people with my own efforts,” Fidel Díaz Pedroso said. He knows in advance what the problem with the umbrella might be by the make, model or country of manufacture; he also automatically guesses the remedy for each.
People look for him from the remotest towns of the province. Often people from Jovellanos Calimete, Los Arabos, located more than 20 kilometers from his workplace, show up.
My umbrella tries him to see it. He, focused, without fear of failure, grabs it and delicately measures it first. Standing, always standing, he moves from one place to another. Both wrestle. Sweat covers his forehead, covering his face hidden between the curly hairs under a faded cap. The drops are mixed with holy necklaces on his neck.
He pushed against the concrete column, wrapped it in a wire on the cover, disarmed it and reassembled. He opens it and closes it. Then again. It is already cured. Fidel Pedroso draws a smile because he just earned the “daily bread”. He just wipes the sweat and already has another customer. He continued without sitting, surrounded by umbrellas.
