Alberto Aguilera can make a cigarette disappear, seeming to pass it through his body, distracting you with eager eyes and a light patter in Cuban Spanish.
Then he says: "If you hear of any work, please let me know."
Right now, Mr. Aguilera needs more than magic in his life. He's one of 17 Cuban prisoners accepted by Canada as political exiles earlier this year, and he's trying to figure out what comes next.
In Havana, President Fidel Castro is still in power, back from a swing around the Caribbean. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has moved on to other things.
In Toronto, the 17 Cubans and their families are settled in inexpensive apartments, confronting strange food and language, and trying to get their lives on course, knowing they have few skills easily adaptable to this country.
At least one love affair has bloomed among the group. Husbands and
wives are getting to know each other once again.
But one couple, who married days before coming to Canada, appear to have
split up.
Money is scarce for everyone. Health problems left over from prison days are hampering several of the exiles. One ex-prisoner has had a still-unresolved brush with the law.
And the exiles are torn over how hard to pursue the dissident cause that led most of them to jail in the first place.
Some long for what one called the "effervescent" climate in Miami, centre of Cuban-exile activity in the United States. Others are also coming to realize that Canada isn't exactly action central for the anti-Castro movement.
"The fact they came here as political prisoners doesn't mean they have to have a political life here," said Alfredo Jordan, a former Cuban army officer who came to Canada 16 years ago and has been helping the exiles with odd jobs and contacts. "If they want a political life they should stay in Cuba, or go to Miami where they have the numbers and the money."
Cuba freed about 100 political prisoners after the Pope's visit in January, but it wouldn't release Mr. Aguilera and the others unless they went into exile. Of the 19 on offer, Canada rejected five as unfit for immigration, then persuaded Cuba to release three more, for a total of 17. They arrived in Toronto in April and May.
Talking to them, a visitor notes high spirits and a sense of humour, but also a bristling, cantankerous quality. It may be what Ismael Sambra, the Cuban writer exiled to Canada last year, means when he says, "we have it in our blood; Cubans are rebels."
It may be that some of them are the uncompromising types the Cuban government wanted to get rid of, the squeaky wheels who'd start a hunger strike at the drop of a hat.
Or it may simply be that in Mr. Castro's Cuba, these are the kind of non-conformists who tend to end up in jail.
Mr. Aguilera, 35, dominates a room, and he has pronounced views. No Miami for him, for example: "Why would I take the risk of going to a country I don't know when there's one here that's offered me everything?"
Anyway, life at the moment is sweet. By his side was Daylil Robert, the 20-year-old stepdaughter of another ex-prisoner, Luis Alberto Ferrandiz. The couple met in the Havana airport, waiting for the plane to Toronto, with Mr. Aguilera just hours out of jail. They shared some good times in the immigrant hostel where they stayed at first, and took an apartment together a few weeks later.
"Right up until the last minute I didn't want to come," Ms. Robert said. "It was a different country. I spoke no English. But I came because my mother and my brothers came. And," she said, smiling at her companion, "I have no regrets."
As refugees, the Cubans get stipends of about $600 a month and free English classes for a year; they're allowed to make a little extra money doing odd jobs without penalty. Most know their skills may be hard to market. Mr. Aguilera was a mechanical draftsman; Ms. Robert was trained to assemble and repair obsolete Soviet-built machinery.
They were interviewed while visiting another ex-prisoner, Raul Ayarde, who said it was hard to make long-term plans, but he was willing to clean floors or do other menial work until he could find something better. "It all depends on me, and not on anyone else. If things don't work out, it'll be my fault."
Like the rest of the Cubans, Mr. Ayarde thought Toronto's basement apartments resembled nothing so much as another prison cell. So he lives on the 29th floor of a vast high-rise. The corridors are bleak, but the bachelor apartment is clean and bright, with a living room that easily holds a double bed, well-stuffed sofa and chair.
In a flat several floors below, the atmosphere was more subdued. This was the home of Marcos Hernandez, a former radio navigator with Cuba's fishing fleet, who served eight years of a 20-year sentence after being charged with stealing equipment to aid the anti-Castro cause.
At the dining table, his 20-year-old daughter Yonaikel was poring over papers. A former architecture student, she was trying to estimate the amount of construction material needed for improvements that her father is helping Mr. Jordan make to his shoe store.
Another ex-prisoner, Victor Infante Estrada, was visiting, and said frankly that he aims to wind up in Miami. He was attracted by the politics, he said, -- and is scared of the prospect of winter in Toronto. "I really appreciate Canada's gesture, but it wasn't what I wanted."
Worries of a different sort have beset Edilberto del Toro and his wife Edelmira. They got settled quickly, and were showered with clothing and household items by parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic church, where Spanish-language services are held. Someone had even given them an old car, which Mr. del Toro, who'd been a bus driver and mechanic in Cuba, was looking forward to fixing up.
At their daughter's 15th birthday party, their apartment filled up with guests, mostly church friends hailing from Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.
Four days later, the family was thrown into turmoil. Following a complaint from a woman about an incident alleged to have taken place a month earlier, Mr. del Toro had been arrested and charged with committing an indecent act.
"I'm off to Cuba," he said sardonically after being released on his own recognizance. "How can this happen to someone who hasn't done anything?" He says he can't understand how the charge arose, it's a case of mistaken identity and he was elsewhere at the time of the alleged incident. His next court appearance is set for September.
Visiting the del Toros recently was Armando Alonso. He has an ex-wife and daughter in Miami, but said he planned to stay in Canada to be with his girlfriend, a recently arrived Bosnian engineer who was also staying in the hostel where the Cubans were first housed.
René Portelles lives a few floors up, but he hasn't been as fortunate. Mr. Portelles, 35, and his 18-year-old wife, Yania Diaz Ramos, have been living apart since shortly after arriving in Canada. They met in prison, where her father was also incarcerated, and were married only a few days before leaving Cuba.
Mr. Portelles said the marriage was genuine, but the difference in the couple's ages and education levels was causing problems. Also, he said, he was annoyed when hours after they got off the plane from Havana, an immigration aid worker began explaining to his wife the rights enjoyed by women in Canada. (Efforts to talk to Ms. Diaz were unsuccessful.)
Closer to downtown Toronto, in a tiny second-floor apartment, 60-year-old Rosalina Gonzalez is recovering from an operation in which both her ovaries were removed. She walks with difficulty and has few visitors.
The apartment costs $420 a month and the telephone another $23, which leaves her with about $150 for food, transportation and everything else.
"Sometimes I sit here and it seems I'm still in Cuba," she said. "When that happens, I open the door and go for a walk around the block, and then I forget about home."
Eleven years ago, Ms. Gonzalez took part in a failed attempt to hijack a domestic Cuban airliner. Her son had hatched the scheme as a way of getting his mother out of Cuba after authorities denied her an exit visa. He was killed; she and an accomplice received 30-year prison terms. She's one of three Cubans who were denied refugee status by Canada because of their involvement in violent acts, but admitted to Canada on humanitarian grounds.
She has no photograph of her son, but she dreamed about him one recent night. "He was here," she said, "and there was no water, so he was bringing it in tanks."
Health problems are also hampering 54-year-old Pedro Marcelino de la Rosa, who is only now being treated for a lung and kidney ailment he contracted during six years in prison. He and his wife Esperanza Atencio, 43, were jailed after they and several others tried to steal a motor launch and sail it to Miami.
Mr. de la Rosa musters indignation when he talks about Cuban jails, which he says are nothing more than a breeding ground for crime. But he holds out no hope for exile politics to change things in Cuba. "We need acts of God," he said.