Havana Blue

by Leonardo Padura

  “No, such things are out of the question as far as Rafael is concerned. I’m sure he’s had an accident or something else untoward has happened,” the deputy minister commented and apologized theatrically for his interjection. “Do please go on.”

  “At this stage,” the Count continued and then looked at his colleague, “there are only two possibilities: one that so far seems very unlikely, which is that Rafael has gone into hiding because of something we’re unaware of. And the other is that he has been murdered, for something we’re also unaware of, but experience tells us it could be anything, the most banal motive. In any case the night before he disappeared he came here with his wife to say farewell to the Old Year and perhaps your party holds the clue that will take us to Rafael. That’s why we’re here.”

  The deputy minister looked towards the partition and shifted a foot rather nervously. The Count then scented the indiscreet aroma of good coffee and thanked him in advance.

  “Well, Comrades,” Fernández-Lorea finally asserted, Solomon-like, still rocking away, “the truth is I don’t know what help I can be. It’s true what you say about nobody ever going missing in Cuba, and yet the slightest thing gets lost. It even adds a little piquancy, don’t you agree? Perhaps what you’re after is my opinion of Morín, and I can give you that, no problem. I think Rafael is the best young manager on our board, which is responsible for supplying raw materials to industry and negotiating the foreign sales of some of our products. I first met Rafael just under two years ago, when I was moved from foreign affairs to the ministry, and to be quite candid, as soon as I saw him in action I had no doubt that one day he would occupy my post, and I,” he lowered his voice to a tone more in keeping with a meeting of three and began to speak confidentially, “I would be grateful to him for that, because I wasn’t born to do these things. The post I now hold now came by chance rather than choice, I can be quite candid on that front, because I prefer the peace and quiet of an office preparing market studies to the daily whirlwind of a ministry, that gets more difficult to stomach by the day, and the more things happen in the socialist camp the worse it will get, and we don’t know how it will all end. Besides, it requires a use of diplomatic procedures that have never been my forte.”

  The deputy minister gently rubbed his hands together, and Lieutenant Mario Conde felt embarrassed and almost disappointed, because Alberto Fernández-Lorea sounded genuine, despite his pompous turn of phrase. After all, he thought, there have to be people who don’t want to be like Rafael.

  “I’m very afraid of failure and doubly so of looking ridiculous,” the man went on after taking another look at the screen, “and I don’t know whether I have the ability to cope with the responsibility I have and wouldn’t like to finish up a cast-off. On the other hand, that young man’s work capacity is extraordinary, and his career is at its best point ever. What do I mean? That Rafael Morín was quite first-rate in what he did and had something I lack: he was ambitious, and I am using that word in its best sense.”

  The coffee finally emerged from the kitchen. It arrived in three cups on a glass tray that also carried two glasses of water. Behind it walked a woman. “Good afternoon,” she said just before entering the living room. She too was on her way to fifty and in a hurry to arrive and looked fully the part: wrinkles fanned out aggressively from around her eyes, and her neck drooped flabbily. She was an exhausted woman reflecting none of her husband’s warm sporting sheen.

  “My wife, Laura,” the deputy minister introduced her. They greeted her, and he wanted to be more precise: “Mario Conde and . . .”

  “Sergeant Manuel Palacios,” Manolo came to his rescue.

  The woman offered them their coffee, and only the Count took two sips to clean his palate. It was strong bitter coffee, and the lieutenant repeated his thanks.

  “It’s a blend of Brazilian which I got as a present and coffee from the corner store. That way it lasts longer, and I think this mixture makes it taste better, don’t you? Because at the end of the day a coffee’s quality depends not just on its purity, but also on a taste that has been created over the years. A few months ago, in Prague, I was invited to drink Turkish coffee vaunted the best in the world yet I found it difficulty to finish the cup. And as a coffee-drinker I even drink the stuff brewed opposite the Coppelia,” she added as they nodded in agreement.

  The Count savoured his coffee and thought Manolo must be feeling what Fernández-Lorea experienced in Prague: he preferred his coffee very sweet and very weak, the Oriente province style his mother still favoured.

  “And you said he was ambitious?”

  “Yes, and I added that I meant that in the best sense of the word, Lieutenant. At least in my opinion,” he said, taking a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Would you like one?”

  “Thanks,” said the Count as he accepted a cigarette. So he’s a smoker as well, he thought. “And what do you know about Rafael Morín’s private life outside of work?”

  “Really very little, Lieutenant. I have enough to cope with at work without worrying overly about that side of things, which I’ve never considered important, I’m sorry.”

  “But you were friends,” interjected Manolo, who couldn’t stand any more of this, the Count thought, watching him perch like a skinny cat about to attack.

  “To an extent we were. We’d meet in lots of places for work reasons and got on well as colleagues. But we’d hardly known each other two years, and it was a workbased relationship, as I explained to the lieutenant.”

  “And on the thirty-first?” the sergeant continued. “Did you notice anything strange? Did you know he’d run into a problem with Dapena, the Spanish businessman?”

  “I knew about the Dapena incident and thought it long dead and buried. I don’t know what you can have heard. And on the thirty-first he was his usual self, talking about work, joking or dancing. It’s the second time we’ve seen the Old Year out here, a group of us get together and get a pig from Pinar del Río, and I roast it on the next-door neighbours’ spit. You can imagine, my father was a head chef and something rubbed off. I think I’m an accomplished pig-roaster.”

  “So he didn’t seem anxious about anything?”

  “Not that I could see. He didn’t drink much either; he said he was feeling queasy.”

  “And he didn’t have any problems at the enterprise, something that could force him to go into hiding?”

  The deputy minister looked at the Count, perhaps trying to see what lurked behind such a question. His eyes shone more brightly, as if he’d seen a red light flashing. He took his time answering.

  “Well, there are many kinds of problem, but for someone like Rafael Morín to decide to go into hiding, there’s only one kind. To my knowledge, there’s only one kind of problem, but anyway Major Rangel asked me for permission to investigate the enterprise, and you’ll start tomorrow, I believe.” He opened his arms, and Manolo nodded.

  “I hope it isn’t that sort of problem, because it could be terrible, but the enquiry will have the last word on that count, so don’t ask me to put my hands in the fire now. Rafael Morín still continues to be an excellent comrade, and I’ll think the contrary only when I’m told, or better, shown the contrary. Let’s wait on that.”

  “One last question, Comrade,” the Count now interjected to avoid another salvo from Manolo. He sensed the deputy minister’s alarm was all too palpable for it to be mere speculation. Perhaps Fernández-Lorea had anticipated something, perhaps even knew something. “We don’t wish to take up any more of your time, particularly on a Sunday. What funds were at Rafael Morín’s disposal to make purchases abroad? I mean for handing presents around, apart from the ones he took home.”

  Fernández-Lorea expressed classic astonishment: he raised his eyebrows and then shifted one foot, as if expecting another round of coffee. However, his voice boomed at thrice the level for a public meeting.

  “Funds, Lieutenant, of the kind you describe: none whatsoever. He travelled on expenses as a c
ompany director and with money for marketing purposes, depending on the type of deal he went to sign or the new market he was going to explore. Our enterprise had in that sense a degree of leeway, for it was often a matter of buying a very specific product, often manufactured in the US, for example, and it couldn’t do that via traditional channels, but through third parties, as we sometimes did in Panama, just to cite one example. And you know, almost everywhere in the world business is done by wining and dining, and you have to give presents, and the embassy or whatever commercial office is put at our disposal doesn’t always have a car available . . . He handled that money, sometimes a substantial amount, and although we are very careful, because the books are checked periodically, statements of account and expenditure on expenses drawn up and two audits a year, the accounts aren’t often as exact as we’d like, for many reasons, and that’s where trust is the key factor. And he was trustworthy, according to all the reports I got. On the other hand, Lieutenant, many businessmen we work with hand out presents as a matter of course when a good contract is signed. I myself was given a BMW in Bilbao only two months ago, and my Lada was in the repair shop . . . Well, and as the comrades who work at this level are always trustworthy, if it’s not too large, if it’s something quite personal, the comrade keeps whatever it is.”

  “And have there been problems with comrades over this kind of perk?”

  “Yes, regrettably, there have.”

  The Count sensed Fernández-Lorea was speaking of a subject that grew more distasteful with each word and was about to thank him when Manolo piped up.

  “I’m sorry, Comrade Fernández, but I think your information can be a great help to us. For example, who assigned these allowances, marketing expenses and whatever for Rafael Morín?”

  Manolo put the question, and the Count didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or both at once, but when they got out of there he’d find a mule and give it a good kick: Manolo had hit the right button.

  “He generally assigned them himself and was his own boss at the enterprise,” Fernández-Lorea disclosed before getting to his feet.

  “What happened to the previous boss?” Manolo continued. “The one Rafael Morín replaced.”

  “He was removed for more or less that kind of reason, mishandling expenses and internal fraud, but I really can’t believe Rafael is involved in that. At least it’s what I’d prefer to think, because I’d never be able to forgive myself. Do you think that may be why he’s gone missing?”

  “We got him, fuck if we didn’t get him!” Manolo almost shouted as he transmuted joy into speed. They were driving along Fifth Avenue, and the Count rested his hands on the car’s glove compartment.

  “Take it easy, Manolo,” he told the sergeant and waited for the speedometer to creep down to forty-five. “I think we’ll soon find out why Rafael Morín has scarpered.”

  “Hey, and did you notice? Fernández’s a spitting image of Al Pacino.”

  The Count smiled and looked at the leafy promenade down the centre of the avenue.

  “Shit, you’re right. As soon as we got there, I thought I knew him from somewhere: he is just like Al Pacino. Did you see the film where he played a Grand Prix driver?”

  “I can’t recall any particular film at the moment, Conde. Tell me where we’re headed.”

  “Well, right now we’re going to have lunch and then we’ll try to see the enterprise’s accountant. Let’s see whether La China, our Chinese Patricia, can go with us, and she can speak to him. The good side to all this is the fact it’s turning out so bad.”

  Lunch was the reward and big plus for working on Sundays. As they cooked for some twenty people, Sunday lunch used to bring unexpected surprises that bordered on the refinements of a good restaurant. That Sunday they’d prepared chicken rice with the heavy juicy consistency of yellowish perfumed paella. As well as fried ripe plantain and a lettuce and radish salad to accompany an offering that climaxed in a dessert of rice pudding soused in cinnamon. Even the yoghurt was flavoured, and there was a choice: strawberry or pineapple.

  The Count, who’d had a second helping of chicken rice and was smoking his second after-lunch cigarette, looked out of his cubicle window but saw nothing. Rafael was speaking from the podium at school, and he was listening to him, alone in the playground, when Manolo came in, swearing in every direction.

  “Don’t get too excited, Conde, there’s no accountant around at the moment. He left yesterday for the Soviet Union on a training trip.”

  “This is linked to Rafael Morín, I bet you. But not to worry, it can wait till tomorrow. Besides, I don’t expect the accountant would tell us very much. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Let’s go? If the accountant . . .”

  He tried to protest but the Count was already on his way out of his cubicle and heading silently to the parking lot.

  “Go up G in the direction of Boyeros,” the Count ordered as he sat in his seat.

  “And will you tell me where we’re headed?” asked Manolo, unable to fathom the lieutenant’s attitude, though he did recall that first comment he heard about him: “The guy’s mad, but . . .”

  “We’re heading to see García, from the union, but don’t worry, we’ll finish early today. I particularly want you to hear what I imagine García will tell us about the great Morín . . . Then you can go home.”

  They turned down Rancho Boyeros and stopped at the traffic light by the bus terminal.

  “And what do we do if Zoilita appears?”

  “You’ll break the sound barrier and come for me like a shot. I’ll go to see Tamara, I need to talk to her, and then I’ll drop in on a school friend who wants to see me, who lives two blocks from Skinny, and I’ll stay there. You’ll find me at one of these places. What you really must do is speak to China and tell her we have to go to the enterprise early in the morning.”

  “Straight on, right?

  “No, turn into the Plaza de la Revolución. García lives in Cruz del Padre, right by the stadium,” said the Count, and he remembered how the previous night the Industriales had lost the first game in the series with Vegueros, and if they lost again that evening, his conversation tonight with Skinny wouldn’t be a very constructive experience, at least lexically speaking. The sustained rumble issuing from the sports ground was a promise of emotions the Count would have liked to enjoy. But someone has to work on Sunday.

  “You know, comrades, Comrade Morín may have had the odd problem with expenses and the things you’ve mentioned, you know more than I do about that and you may very well be right, but I, Manuel García García, won’t believe it till I see it, and sorry if that sounds like I’m doubting you . . . And it’s not because I’m pigheaded or anything of the sort. I’ve known Rafael, I mean Comrade Morín, for a long time and trust him wholeheartedly, and if I have to call myself to account later on his behalf, then so be it, but what you say is very serious and you have to find some evidence, don’t you? Look, there are people at the enterprise who probably don’t think like me, some say he overcentralized things, that he was a control freak and he did come in for criticism at a mass meeting and he went along with it, because he certainly knew how to be self-critical and he referred to the issue of centralization several times, but the fact was in the long run everything started to pass through his hands again, and I sometimes think that lots of people were happy for him to take all the decisions and also that it was the only way he knew how to manage. But the same individuals who criticized him agreed things always turned out fine on the day and that helped his reputation, which is what I think really matters. We in the union never had problems with him, and I’ve been on the executive from before he joined the enterprise, so you know, I know this union backwards. Besides, in the party cell he once told me our attitude was on the passive side, and I said, but, Comrade Rafael, we’re up-todate with our subs, we meet our quotas for volunteer work, we do all the activities on our programme and address people’s concerns in regular meetings, what else can the union do? Do
n’t you agree, comrades? There haven’t been any problems at the enterprise since three specialists in the foreign currency department caused a stink because they never travelled abroad, that was before I got to be general secretary, you know, some two years ago if my memory serves me correctly. I could see it was about those guys’ ambition to visit capitalist countries, but in a meeting with the party and the union, Comrade Rafael explained how administrative decisions were a matter for the administration and that the administration had its reasons to reach that decision, and shortly after those comrades were transferred to one of the new corporations being set up. And one day Rafael, I mean Comrade Morín, said to me, and he didn’t like fiddles: ‘You know, García, all they wanted to do was travel.’ Yes, he got on wonderfully with every comrade, and it’s true what Zaida told you, he showed concern for everyone: I’m a mere head of services and he gave me a refresher trip to Czechoslovakia, well, not exactly, but he put me forward and spoke a lot on my behalf at the mass meeting. And his influence carried, obviously... Well, we weren’t personal friends, what I mean by a personal friend, you know, he came to my place a couple of times when my mum fell ill and then he mobilized the whole enterprise for the wake and the funeral. And, although I sometimes tell myself he was a bit strange, you never forget that kind of gesture and you have to be grateful, because there’s nothing worse on this planet than being ungrateful. So you must forgive me, I won’t believe it till I see it. Why was he a bit strange? Nothing really, things I thought silly, just manias he had, like making sure he had lots of vegetables to eat and when he was at the enterprise getting his office cleaned twice a day or telling his driver to put tinted glass in his car so nobody would see who’s inside, you know? Really trivial things. Besides, you ask anyone, even the people always criticizing him, they’re all very worried about what’s happened and nobody can explain a thing . . . Comrades, is it true he was killed by people trying to rob him?”