Havana Blue

by Leonardo Padura

  “Who would have thought you’d ever join the police?”

  “Nobody, I reckon.”

  “This guy was a right character,” she told Manolo and looked back at him. “You were never named as an exemplary pupil because you wouldn’t join in the right activities and always bunked off the last classes to go and listen to episodes of Guaytabó. I still remember that.”

  “But I got good marks.”

  She couldn’t repress a smile. The flow of memories between them jumped over the bad moments, erased by time, and only touched down on happy days, memorable events or incidents that had improved with hindsight. She even looked more beautiful: that can’t be true.

  “You don’t write these days, Mario?”

  “No, not anymore. But one day,” he responded uneasily. “And what’s become of your sister?”

  “Aymara’s in Milan. She went for five years with her husband, who’s a representative for Cuban Export. Her new husband, you know?”

  “No, I didn’t know, but good for her.”

  “Tell me, Mario, whatever happened to Rabbit? I’ve never seen him since.”

  “Nothing much, you know he finished teacher-training but managed to get out of education. He’s at the Institute for History still thinking about what would have happened if they hadn’t killed Maceo or the English had stayed in Havana and other historical tragedies he likes to invent.”

  “And how’s Carlos these days?”

  She said Carlos, and he wanted to disappear down her cleavage. Skinny Carlos used to reckon Tamara and Aymara had big dark nipples, look at their lips, he’d say, they’re like a black’s and, according to his theory, nipples and lips were directly related in colour and size. They’d often tried to test out his theory in the case of Tamara by waiting for her to bend down to pick up a pencil and by watching her in PE classes, although she was always one to wear bras. But not today?

  “He’s fine,” he lied. “And what about yourself?”

  She took the cup from his hands and put it on the glass table, next to an artistic wedding shot in which the smiling Tamara and Rafael, in their wedding outfits, happily embraced and looked at each other in an oval mirror. He was thinking she ought to say fine, but she didn’t dare: her husband had disappeared, might be dead and she was distressed but the fact was she looked great, when she finally declared: “I’m very worried, Mario. I’ve got this feeling, I’m not sure . . .”

  “What feeling?”

  She shook her head, and that lock of hair danced irreverently over her forehead. She was nervous, rubbed her hand, and her usually tranquil eyes seemed stressed.

  “Something’s amiss,” she said, looking into the silent house. “This is all too strange; something must be going on, right? Hey, Mario, you can smoke if you like,” and she got him a pristine ashtray from the shelf under the glass coffee table. Murano, a purple-blue glass flecked with silver. He lit his cigarette and thought what a sin it would be to sully that ashtray.

  “Don’t you smoke?” she asked Manolo, and the sergeant smiled.

  “No, thank you.”

  “It’s incredible, Tamara,” said the Count smiling. “I’ve not been inside this house for fifteen years, and it hasn’t changed a bit. Do you remember when I broke that flower vase? I think it was bone china, wasn’t it?”

  “A Sargadelos.” She leaned back on the sofa and tried to tame the lock of hair riding her forehead. Memories will be the death of you as well, my dear, thought the Count, and he wanted to feel the way he felt when their whole group gathered to study in the library of that house straight out of the films. There were always cold drinks, often sweets, air conditioning and dreams they shared between the bookshelves: Skinny, Rabbit, Cuqui, Dulcita, the Count, would all have a house like that one day, when we are doctors, engineers, historians, economists, writers, all those things they were going to be and didn’t all become. He couldn’t stand any more memories and said: “I’ve read the statement you gave at the station. Tell me more.”

  “I don’t know, it was like this,” she started after thinking for a moment and crossing her legs, then her arms; she was still so elastic, he noted. “We got back from the party, I went to bed first and was half asleep when I heard him get in, and I asked him if he was OK. He’d drunk a lot at the party. When I got up, there was no sign of Rafael. I didn’t really start to get worried till the afternoon, because he’d sometimes go out and not say where he was going, but he had no work on that day.”

  “Where do you say the party was held?”

  “At the house of the deputy minister that Rafael’s enterprise is responsible to. In Miramar, near the tourist shop on Fifth and Forty-Second.

  “Who were the guests?”

  “Let me think for a minute.” She needed time and fiddled with her errant lock once more. “The owners of the house, Alberto and his wife, naturally. That’s Alberto Fernández,” she added as the Count pulled a small notebook from this back trouser pocket. “So you still carry a notebook in your back pocket?”

  “Same old defects,” he replied, shaking his head, for he couldn’t imagine anyone remembering an old habit of his that he’d almost forgotten. What else should I be remembering, he wondered, and Tamara smiled, and he thought yet again what a burden memories are and that perhaps he ought not to be there; if he’d let on to the Boss, perhaps he’d have sent someone else, and then he thought he’d better ask to be taken off the job, that he shouldn’t be there searching for a man he didn’t want to find and conversing with the man’s wife, that woman whose every nostalgic outburst aroused his desire. But replied: “I never liked carrying a satchel.”

  “Do you remember the day you had a fight in the playground with Isidrito from Managua?”

  “I can still feel the pain. That joker really hit me.” And he smiled at Manolo, who was brilliantly playing his cameo role as a peripheral spectator.

  “And why did you thump each other, Mario?”

  “You know, we started arguing about baseball, about who was best, Andrés, Biajaca and the people from my barrio or the guys from Managua, until I lost it and told him that anyone born outside my barrio was a son of a bitch. And, naturally, the joker went for me.”

  “Mario, I reckon if Carlos hadn’t intervened, Isidrito would have killed you.”

  “And a good policeman would have been lost forever,” he smiled, deciding to put his notepad away. “Look, just make me a list of the guests and tell me where everybody works and if you’ve got some way of contacting them. All those you remember. And were other important people there apart from the deputy minister?

  “Sure, the minister was there, but he left early, at around eleven, because he had an engagement elsewhere.”

  “And did he talk to Rafael?”

  “They said hello to each other but that was all. To each other, I mean.”

  “Uh-huh. And did he talk to anyone by himself?”

  She thought for a moment. Almost closed her eyes and he looked away. He preferred playing with the ash on his cigarette and finally crushed the butt-end. He was at a loss what to do with the ashtray and was afraid to revisit the story of the Sargadelos vase. But he couldn’t avoid Tamara’s smell: she smelled clean and tanned, of lavender and wet earth and above all of woman.

  “I think he spoke to Maciques, his office manager. They spend their lives talking of work; and at parties I have to put up with Maciques’s wife; if only you could see her, she’s taller than a flagpole . . . Well, you should hear her. The other day she discovered cotton is better than polyester, and now she says she just loves silk . . .”

  “I can imagine what she’s like. And who else did he talk to?”

  “Well, Rafael was out on the balcony a good while, and when he came back in Dapena was just arriving, a Spaniard who’s always doing business in Cuba.”

  “Hold on,” he asked and looked for his notepad. “A Spaniard?”

  “Well, a Galician actually. His full name is José Manuel Dapena. Some of the business he d
oes involves Rafael’s enterprise but particularly the Foreign Trade department.”

  “And you say they talked?”

  “Well, I saw them both come in from the balcony. I don’t know if there was anybody else.”

  “Tamara,” he said and started playing with the catch on his pen, creating a monotonous tick-tack, “what are these parties like?”

  “What parties?” She seemed surprised and at a loss.

  “What are these parties like that you go to with ministers, deputy ministers and foreign businessmen?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mario; like any other party. People talk, dance, drink. I’m not sure what you’re after. Keep your pen still please,” she begged, and he knew she was upset.

  “And don’t people get drunk, swear and piss off the balconies?”

  “I’m in no mood to play games, Mario, please.” And she pressed her eyelids, although she didn’t look tired. When she took her fingers away, her eyes shone even more brightly.

  “I’m sorry,” he replied and returned his pen to his shirt pocket. “Tell me about Rafael.”

  She sighed and shook her head at something only she was aware of and glanced towards the picture window that looked over the interior garden. How theatrical, he thought, and following her gaze he could just discern the artificial, slightly darkened colour of the ferns proliferating beyond the Calobar glass.

  “You know, I’d have preferred another policeman. I find it hard going with you.”

  “So do I with you and Rafael. What’s more, if your husband hadn’t gone missing, I’d be at home reading and free until Monday. Now I just want him to turn up quickly. And you’ve just got to help me, right?”

  She made as if to get up, but then sank back into the sofa. Her mouth was now a pencil line, the mouth of someone in disagreement, only softening when she looked at Sergeant Manuel Palacios.

  “What can I tell you about Rafael? You know him too . . . He lives for his work. He didn’t get where he is by only doing what he liked, and the best thing about him is that he enjoys working like a dog. I think he’s a good leader, I really do, and everyone says he is. He’s in great demand and always delivers. He also reckons he is successful. He spends his life travelling abroad, particularly to Spain and Panama, to sort out contracts and purchases, and it seems he’s a good businessman. Can you imagine Rafael as a businessman?”

  He couldn’t either and looked at the sound system in the corner of the living room: turntable, double cassette deck, CD, equalizer, amplifier and two no doubt incredibly powerful speakers, and thought how music from there must really sound like music.

  “No, I can’t,” he said and asked: “Where did that hi-fi system come from? It’s worth more than a thousand dollars . . .”

  She glanced back at Manolo and then straight at her old school friend.

  “What’s wrong with you, Mario? Why all these questions? You know nobody works like crazy just for the fun of it. Everybody is after something and . . . in this place if you can get steak, you don’t settle for rice and eggs.”

  “Sure, to him that God gave . . .”

  He searched for his pen but then left it where it was.

  “All right, all right, forget it.”

  “No, I can’t. If you had to travel in your work, wouldn’t you travel and buy things for your wife and son?” she asked, seeking Manolo’s approval. The sergeant barely raised his shoulders, was still holding his cup of coffee.

  “Nil return on both counts: I don’t travel abroad and don’t have a wife and child.”

  “But you are envious, aren’t you?” she responded quietly, looking back at the ferns. He knew he’d touched Tamara on a raw nerve. For years she’d tried to be like everybody else, but her background had won out and she always seemed different: her perfumes were never the cheap scents others used; she was allergic and could only use a few brands of male eau-decologne; her weekend party outfits seemed like those her friends wore but were made from Indian cotton; she knew when and how to cough, sneeze and yawn in public and was the only one who immediately understood the lyrics of Led Zeppelin or Rare Earth songs. He placed the ashtray on the sofa and looked for another cigarette. It was the last one in the packet and, as ever, he was alarmed by the quantity he’d smoked but told himself it wasn’t true, he wasn’t at all envious.

  “I guess so,” he demurred as he lit up and realized he hadn’t the energy to argue with her. “But that’s what I least envy about Rafael, I can tell you,” he smiled knowingly at Manolo: “May St Peter bless these things.”

  She’d shut her eyes, and he wondered if she could have understood the level of envy he was experiencing. She’d come nearer, and he could smell her to his heart’s content, and then she gripped one of his hands.

  “Forgive me, Mario,” she pleaded. “I’m very on edge with all this mess. You must understand that,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “So you want a guest list?”

  “Comrade, comrade,” Sergeant Manuel Palacios finally piped up, raising his hand as if asking for permission to speak from the back of the class and not daring to look the Count in the eye. “I know how you must be feeling, but you must try to help us.”

  “I thought that was what I was doing.”

  “Of course. But I don’t know your husband . . . Before New Year’s Day, did you notice anything strange? Did he act at all oddly?”

  She lifted a hand and caressed her neck for a moment, as if very lovingly.

  “Rafael was always rather odd. His character was like that, extremely volatile. He was easily upset. If I did notice anything untoward, I’d say he seemed uneasy on the thirtieth. He told me he was very tired after all the end-of-year accounting but he was almost elated on the thirty-first, and I think he enjoyed the party. But work always worried him.”

  “And he didn’t say anything or do anything that struck you as odd?” Manolo continued to avoid the lieutenant’s gaze.

  “I really don’t think so. Besides, on the thirty-first he went to have lunch with his mother and spent almost all day with her.”

  “I’m sorry, Manolo,” interjected the Count, who’d observed how the sergeant was rubbing his hands, warming to the task: he could go on questioning her for an hour. “Tamara, I’d like you to try to think of anything he might have done recently that may relate to what’s happened. Anything could be important. Things he wouldn’t usually say or do, if he spoke to someone you didn’t know, whatever . . . And it’s also important to get that list ready. Do you intend going out today?”

  “No, why?”

  “Nothing in particular, just so I know where you are. When I finish at headquarters I may pass by to pick the list up and we can talk more. It’s not a problem. It’s on my way.”

  “All right, I’ll be expecting you and will get the list done, don’t worry,” she said, tussling yet again with her wayward lock.

  “Look,” he replied, tearing a page from his pad. “If anything crops up, you can get me on these numbers.”

  “All right, of course,” she replied taking the paper, and her smile was radiant. “Hey, Mario, you’re thinning out on top. Don’t tell me you’re going bald?”

  He smiled, stood up and walked over to the door. Turned the door handle and let Manolo through first. Now he was opposite Tamara, looking her in the eye.

  “Yes, I’m going bald into the bargain,” he said, adding: “Tamara, don’t worry for my sake. I’ve got a job to do and you must understand that, I suppose?”

  “Yes, of course, Mario.”

  “Then, apart from you, tell me who would benefit from Rafael’s death?”

  She seemed surprised but then smiled. Forgot her lively lock and said: “What kind of psychologist were you going to be, Mario? I could bene . . . a sound system and the Lada downstairs?”

  “I really don’t know,” he admitted and lifted a hand to wave goodbye. “I never get it right with you.” And he left the house he’d not entered for fifteen years knowing he’d been hurt. He preferred
not to see her waving farewell from her doorway. Walked to the road and crossed over without looking at the traffic.

  “Walking warms you up,” he declared as he settled down in the car, and he could not not look towards the house and see the farewell wave from that woman standing on her doorstep by the side of an aggressive concrete shrub.

  “That egg’s asking for a pinch of salt.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Take care, Conde, take care.”

  “What do you mean, Manolo? You going to tell me off?”

  “Me tell you off? No, Conde, you’re getting on, and you’ve been in the force too long to know what you should and should not do. But I have my doubts about her.”

  “Go on, then, what’s getting at you? Tell me.”

  “I’m not sure, but I really can’t fathom her. She’s too poised for me. Even for you . . . So poised, put yourself in her place, husband missing, probably dead or up to his neck . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Didn’t you think she was a bit like, what the hell do I care?”

  “And you reckon she’s implicated?”

  “Bloody hell, when the mule says it can’t . . .”

  “Come on, don’t speak in riddles if you want me to get you . . .”

  “All right, forget the riddles. I’ll be as clear as daylight. You know, Conde, anyone watching you can see you slavering at the mouth when you look at that woman, and one look at her and you know she knows as well. That wouldn’t be a problem if there weren’t the slight matter of a husband . . . right? And as I said, something stinks.”

  “You think she knows something?”

  “Could be. I’m not sure, but take care, guy. OK?”

  “OK, Sergeant.”

  As he said “sergeant” he stretched out his hand and ordered him to stop the car.

  “Near there,” he asked when he spotted a patrol car by the kerb and two policemen picking a man up. He knew only too well what was happening and showed the two police his ID out of the car window. “What happened?”

  “He was drunk and flat out there,” one of the policemen explained, pointing to the entrance to the San Juan Bosco church. “We’re taking him in to cool off at the station,” he went on, almost dropping the man.