Havana Blue

by Leonardo Padura

  “What are you scared of, Tamara?”

  “Scared of?” she asked looking back at him. “Nothing. What about you, Mario?”

  He felt the whisky’s dry heat on his tongue and thought he should take his jacket off.

  “I’m scared of everything, every little thing. That maybe Rafael’s dead or maybe he’s not and that he’ll turn up and everything will get back to normal. That the years are passing me by, putting an end to any likelihood I’ll ever fulfil my dreams. That Skinny will die and I’ll be left alone and will feel even guiltier. That tobacco will be the death of me. That I don’t do my job properly. That I’ll be really lonely, incredibly lonely . . . That I might fall in love with you, Rafael’s wife, you who live in such a clean perfect world and whom I’ve wanted all my life,” he said and looked at Flora, so pristine and remote, and felt now he’d started he couldn’t stop.

  The precise day his life changed, Mario Conde was wondering how destinies are forged. A few days before he had read Thornton Wilder’s novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and thought how he too could have been one of the seven individuals that destiny led to converge on the old bridge of the Vice-Regency of Peru at that precise moment, among millions of precise moments when its weary supports decided wearily to give way. The seven fell into the abyss, and he was obsessed by the image of seven individuals flying above the condors, and the strictly police investigation through which another individual sought out reasons for the impossible convergence of those men and women who’d never before coincided anywhere on earth and had now gathered to die on the bridge of San Luis Rey. He’d gone to the Psychology Faculty offices to tell them he was leaving the university and wasn’t yet thinking about Destiny, when the deputy dean saw him and asked if he was resolved to abandon his studies, and he said he was, that he had no choice. She asked him to wait a moment and went out, and he waited fifteen minutes and a man came and introduced himself as Captain Rafael Acosta, who started off asking him what’s your problem, my lad, and he thought what have I done to warrant an interrogation? It’s down to money, comrade; I need work right now. So why don’t you make an effort? the captain asked and he was even more at a loss. I need to work, he repeated, and I really don’t like the degree course, and they started talking and he started to be less afraid when Captain Acosta suggested he entered the Academy, because he’d come out an officer and would get a wage from month one. I’m not a party member, he’d said. Doesn’t matter, we know who you are. I’ve never been a leader, he’d said, I’m very laid back, and I love the Beatles, he thought, and again it didn’t matter. He’d never thought of becoming a policeman or anything of the sort, what on earth use will I be? You’ll find out later, persisted Captain Rafael Acosta, the important thing was to join, afterwards he could even study at university in the evenings, this degree or whichever you want to, and you’ll have time to think about it, and didn’t give it another thought: he said yes. Was that Destiny? he’d wondered ever since because he’d never imagined becoming a policeman, let alone a good policeman, as he’d been told he was, you need common sense, lots of common sense, a colleague explained, and they never assigned him to the Re-education Section, as he’d requested when he finished at the Academy, but to the General Information Department, classifying cases, modus operandi, different types of criminals, until he shut himself up in the computer room with an old file, read and reread papers and data, racked his brains till his head ached and forged a striking metaphor by joining two disconnected distant leads that had been rattling around loose in a murder case that had been under investigation for four years. Was that Destiny? he wondered now and remembered with pleasure his first stint in Criminal Investigations, when he didn’t have to bother about uniform and could wear jeans and even grew a beard and moustache after working the Boss round, and felt he was foraying into the world to right wrongs and was full of optimism. Those days of euphoria now seemed distant and had soon given way to routine, for that is what being a policeman is, they’d enlighten him, common sense plus routine, as he’d later tell new recruits, repeating Jorrín’s patter, knowing how to make a start every day, even though you didn’t want to start again and again. If it hadn’t been for Destiny, he’d never have discovered the case waiting to be solved by him alone, because he wouldn’t have said yes to Captain Acosta; because his father wouldn’t have died before he’d finished his degree; because they’d have given him literature and not psychology when he finished at high school; because he wouldn’t have enjoyed those books by Hemingway when he caught chickenpox late when he should have got it years earlier with all the other kids on the block; because he’d liked to have been a pilot, and they wouldn’t have expelled him from military school for launching a verbal and physical attack on a colleague who’d mercilessly mocked his desire to fly, and so on ad nauseam, because perhaps he’d never have been born or, Great Granddad Teodoro, the first of the Condes, wouldn’t have thieved or ever have landed up in Cuba. That was why he was a policeman and Destiny had placed him in Rafael Morín’s life and in yours, Tamara, a life so remote from yours, it was difficult to think they’d once thought they were equals. But life changes, like everything else, and he was no longer crazy and irresponsible, only as neurotic as ever, incurable, sad, lonely and sentimental, without wife or children perhaps forever, knowing his best friend might die, that nothing could be done for him, and carrying that pistol that weighed on his belt and which he’d only once fired away from the practiceground, in fact, almost sure he’d miss his target, because he couldn’t shoot anyone, yet he did shoot and was on target. But he could remember how on that precise day that changed his life he’d asked himself what is this thing called Destiny and got a single response: say yes or say no. If you can . . . I did have a choice, Tamara.

  “Pour me another,” he asked, taking another look. She’d listened to him while drinking her whisky, and her eyes glazed over. She poured two more shots before admitting: “I’m afraid too”, and it was almost a sigh that rose from the depths of that armchair. She’d left her troublesome lock over her eyes, as if she’d got used to living with it, to seeing it before she saw anything else in the world.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Of feeling empty inside. Of ending up on my back talking about cotton and silk, of not living my life, of thinking I have everything because I’m used to having everything and there are things I think I can’t live without. I’m afraid of everything and don’t even understand myself anymore, and I could quite easily want Rafael to be here, so everything could stay easy and orderly, as wish he might never reappear so I can strike out on my own, without Rafael, Daddy, Mima, my son even . . . And it’s nothing new, Mario, I’ve felt like this for some time.”

  “Let me tell you something. I just remembered what Sandín the gypsy’s aunt said when she read your palm. Do you remember?”

  “Of course I do, I’ve never forgotten: ‘You’ll have everything and nothing.’ Could that have been on my palm ever since? Was that my destiny, as you say?”

  “I don’t know, because she got me all wrong: she said I’d travel a long way and die young. She mistook me for Skinny Carlos, or possibly not, perhaps we’re the ones who got it wrong . . . Tamara, do you have it in you to kill your husband?”

  She took a long sip, then stood up.

  “Why do we have to be so complicated, my sorry policeman?” she asked as she stood in front of him. “Every woman at some stage wants to kill her husband; that much you must know. But in the end few do. Least of all big cowardly me, Mario,” she announced before taking a step forward.

  He gripped his drink, held it against his stomach, tried not to touch her thighs. He felt his hands shaking, and breathing became a difficult conscious act.

  “You never before dared tell me you liked me. Why now?”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Forever. Don’t belittle the female intellect, Mario.”

  He leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

  “I think
I’d have dared if Rafael hadn’t beat me to it seventeen years ago. After that I couldn’t. You can’t imagine how much I loved you, the number of times I dreamed of you, the things I imagined us doing together. But none of this makes any sense now.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “Because we drift further apart by the day, Tamara.”

  She shook her head, took another step forward and touched his knees.

  “And what if I said I’d like to go to bed with you right now?”

  “I’d think it was just another one of your whims, that you’re used to getting what you want. Why do this to me?” he asked because he couldn’t fight it, his chest throbbing, his mouth dry and his glass about to slip from his wet palms.

  “Didn’t you want me to say that? Wasn’t that what you wanted me to say? Are you always going to be afraid?”

  “I think so.”

  “But we will go to bed because I know you still want me and that you won’t say no.”

  He looked at her and put his glass on the floor. He felt she wasn’t the same woman, she’d changed, was a woman in heat, had that smell. And he thought now was his chance to say no.

  “And if I say no?”

  “You’ll have had yet another chance to create your own destiny, by saying yes or no. You like decisions, don’t you?” she asked, taking the final step possible, the one placing her right between his legs. Her smell was irresistible, and he knew she was more desirable than ever. He could see her nipples under her pullover, threatening, inflamed by cold and desire, no doubt as dark as her lips, and caught a glimpse of himself, at the age of thirty-four, on the rim of the pan, nourishing his most ancient of frustrations with saliva and without passion. He then stood in the intimate space she’d left him to take his decision and looked at the inevitable lock of hair, her moistening eyes, and knew he should say no forever, I can’t do it, I don’t want to do it, I can’t, I shouldn’t. He felt a stupid emptiness between his legs, and that was another form of fear. But always fighting against Destiny was futile.

  They didn’t touch each other as they walked towards the hall and went upstairs to the rooms on the second floor. She went first and opened a door, and they entered more palpable shadows around a bed perfectly draped in a brown overlay. He didn’t know if he was or wasn’t in her room, his ability to think had evaporated and when she pulled her pullover over her head and he finally saw the breasts he’d been dreaming of for the last seventeen years, he did think they were more beautiful than he’d ever imagined, that he could never have said no. But as much as he desired her, he wanted Rafael Morín to pop up at that precise moment, just to see that perpetual smile wiped from his face.

  He smoked and tried to count the lights on the chandelier. He knew he’d killed another dream but must accept the consequences. Inaccessible Tamara, the more beautiful of the twins, now slept the sleep of a carefree lover, and her round heavy buttocks brushed against the Count’s hips. I don’t want to think, he told himself, I can’t spend my life thinking, when the telephone rang, and she gave a start on the bed.

  She clumsily tried to slip into her long pullover and finally made it to the passage where the telephone was still ringing. She came back to the bedroom: “Hurry. It’s for you.” She seemed confused and anxious.

  He wrapped a towel round his midriff and went out. Tamara followed him to the door and watched him talk.

  “Yes, who is it?” he asked, then listened for more than a minute before adding: “Send a car and I’ll come straightaway.”

  He hung up and glanced at her. Went over to her, wanted to kiss her but first had to tussle with her wayward lock.

  “No, Rafael hasn’t turned up,” he said, and they started on a long peaceful kiss, tongues gleefully intertwining, saliva mingling, lips beginning to hurt. It was their best kiss, and he said: “I’ve got to go to headquarters. They’ve found Zoila. I’ll call you if anything involving Rafael crops up.”

  Zoila Amarán Izquierdo watched them enter the cubicle. Her eyes hovered between indifference and suspicion, while Mario Conde savoured her lusty femininity. The young woman’s skin wore a healthy animal sheen; and her mouth, her face’s most striking feature, was fleshy, shamelessly attractive. She was a self-confident twenty-three-year-old: the Count anticipated it wouldn’t be easy. That girl was streetwise and then some: she’d been hardened through contact with all kinds, and one of her sources of pride was that she could say I don’t owe anybody anything, and I’ve a fine set of what it takes, as she must have been called on to demonstrate more than once. She liked the good life and wasn’t worried about flirting with the illegal to get it, because, apart from having what it takes, she had a sharp enough brain to avoid crossing boundaries that were too dangerous. No, it wouldn’t be easy, he warned himself after taking one look and concluding she was one of those women who are so beautiful you felt like kissing the ground they walked.

  “This is Zoila Amarán Izquierdo, Comrade Lieutenant,” said Manolo, and he walked over to the woman who stayed seated in the middle of the cubicle. “Our colleague spotted her returning home in a taxi and asked her to come to headquarters for questioning.”

  “We only want to ask you a few things, Zoila. You’re not under arrest, and we want you to help us, OK?” explained the Count as he headed towards the door, seeking out an angle from which she’d have to twist round to see him.

  “Why?” she asked keeping still, and her voice was equally beautiful, clear and resonant.

  The Count signalled to Manolo to start.

  “Where were you on the thirty-first?”

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  “I’d like you to, but it’s not compulsory. Where were you, Zoila?”

  “Round and about, with a friend. This is a free sovereign country, they tell me?”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, in Cienfuegos, a house belonging to a friend of his.”

  “And the name of those friends?”

  “What’s this all about, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Please, Zoila, name names. The quicker we get this over with, the quicker you leave.”

  “Norberto Codina and Ambrosio Fornés, I think, all right? Can I go now?”

  “That’s fine, but there’s still . . . Wasn’t there another friend by the name of Rafael, Rafael Morín?”

  “I’ve already been asked that, and I said I don’t know who he is. Why should I?”

  “Isn’t he a friend of yours?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Where does your Cienfuegos friend live?”

  “Around the corner from the theatre, I don’t know the name of the street.”

  “Are you sure you don’t remember Rafael Morín?”

  “Hey, what is all this about? Look, I’ll clam up if you like and that will be the end of that.”

  “All right, just as you like. You clam up, but we can keep you shut up here, awaiting investigation, on suspicion of kidnapping and murder and . . .”

  “What is all this about?”

  “It’s an investigation, Zoila, you know? What’s the name of the friend who went to Cienfuegos with you?”

  “Norberto Codina, I told you.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “On Línea and N.”

  “Does he have a phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “What number?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Ring to find out if it’s true you were with him.”

  “Hey, the guy’s married.”

  “Give me his number, we’re the souls of discretion.”

  “Please, comrades. It’s 325307.”

  “Give him a call, Lieutenant.”

  The Count went over to the phone on the filing cabinet and asked for a line.

  “Look at this photo, Zoila,” Manolo continued and handed her a copy of the Rafael Morín photo they were circulating.

  “Yes, well, what has happened . . .?” she asked, trying to catch the Count
’s whispered exchanges with Manolo.

  “Don’t you recognize him?”

  “Yes, I went out with him a few times. Some three months ago.”

  “And you don’t know his name?”

  “René.”

  “René?”

  “René Maciques, why?”

  The Count hung up and walked over to his desk.

  “Zoila, are you sure that’s his name?” the lieutenant asked, and the girl looked at him with the slightest hint of a smile.

  “Yes, I am entirely sure.”

  “She was with Norberto Codina,” stated the Count before returning to the door.

  “You see. I told you so.”

  “Where did you meet René?”

  Zoila Amarán Izquierdo signalled her total incomprehension. It was clear she understood nothing but was scared of something, and now she really did smile.

  “In the street, he picked me up.”

  “And why did he call you on the thirty-first, if not the first?”

  “Who? René?”

  “René Maciques?”

  “I don’t know, I’d not seen him for ages.”

  “For how long?”

  “I’m not sure, October time?”

  “What did you know about him?”

  “Well, very little, that he was married, that he travelled abroad and when we stayed in hotels he always booked the rooms.”

  “Which hotels?”

  “You can imagine. The Riviera, the Mar Azul, that kind of hotel.”

  “What did he say his line of work is?”

  “Was it foreign affairs? Or foreign trade, something like that?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  “Well, I think it’s foreign affairs.”

  “Did he have lots of money?”

  “How else do you think you pay at the Riviera?”

  “Watch what you’re saying, Zoila. Give me an answer.”

  “Of course he had lots. But as I told you we only went out a few times.”

  “Didn’t you meet up again?”

  “No.”