Havana Red

by Leonardo Padura

  He got up and took the typewriter case out from under his bed. He opened it and looked at the ribbon, half covered in rot and good intentions, and went in search of paper. He felt he’d seen a transvestite and that the light of revelation had reached his mind, alarmed by so much thinking. He put the first sheet in the carriage and wrote: “While he waited, José Antonio Morales’s eyes followed the extravagant flight of that pigeon.” He needed a title, but would look for it later, he reckoned, because his fingertips felt the immediacy of a revelation. He sank his fingers into the keyboard and went on: “He observed how the bird gained height . . .”

  It was a perfectly performed act of magic: the rain stopped, the wind swept the clouds towards other precipices and the blazing sun of seven in the evening returned to close the curtain of day. But the smell of rain seemed to have filtered into the city’s skin for the night, removing petrol fumes, ammonia from dry urine, ambiguous smells from packed-out pizzerias and even the perfume from the woman walking in front of the Count, perhaps to the very same destination. If only.

  Euphoria overflowing because of the eight typed sheets he carried in the back pocket of his trousers, the Count forgot his rush to reach the poetry reading and concentrated, while crossing the Capitolio’s ravaged gardens, on completing an exhaustive visual survey. He tried to keep up with the prodigious pace of a no less prodigious woman who enjoyed the confluence of all the benefits of cross-breeding: her long blond hair, swooning it was so lank, fell on the mountable buttocks of a black houri, an arse of strictly African proportions, finely flexed rotundities descending two compact thighs to wild animal ankles. Her face – an even greater shock for the Count – didn’t betray her allconquering rearguard: ripe papaya lips dominated by elusively spare, definitively devious Asiatic eyes which, by the theatre where his pursuit and optical frisking ended, looked at the Count in a moment of oriental arrogance and ditched him without right of appeal. The right bitch knows she’s hot and is flaunting it. She’s so hot I could kill her, the Count told himself, pleased to quote himself, as he climbed the imposing stairs where at other times all the city’s money, wrapped in silk gowns, linen suits, fox and ermine, went up and down from the nation’s most exclusive drawing rooms, unthinkable in that torrid town where, nevertheless, it was possible to think anything.

  He found the lecture theatre on the second floor and peered in; the poetry reading was apparently over and the poet, from behind an exhaustingly huge table, where his papers, spectacles and half glass of water lay, communed with the faithful who’d responded to his lyrical summons. Eligio Riego was in his seventies and his tepid, lethargic voice had a modulated rhythm that belonged to poetry rather than old age or exhaustion.

  From the margins the Count furtively observed him in inquisitive, emotional mode: he knew that many people thought the gentle man with the dusty absentminded guayabera was one of the most important poets the island had ever given birth to, and that, in his movement through poetry and time, he had bequeathed a unique view of the strange, awkward country they inhabited. The poetic grandeur, invisible to many, hidden behind a physique nobody would ever have pursued admiringly through the streets of Havana, had, however, an essential, permanent value because of the enviable range of its power, made only from the magic substance of words.

  Now, as he sucked on his blackened pipe, like an anxious smoker with emphysema, Eligio Riego’s small eyes ranged over his audience, and he allowed himself a smile, before continuing: “We Catholics are too serious when it comes to the divine. We lack the vital, primitive happiness of the Greeks, Yorubas or Hindus who dialogue with their Gods and sit them at their table. I’ve always thought it wrong, for example, to ignore the humour that exists in the Holy Scriptures, to scorn the holy smile that God gave and communicated to us, and forget how Jesus’s first great miracle was to convert wine into water . . . A very clear sign from on high.”

  “And what about devils, Eligio?” asked a know-all in the front row.

  “Look, young man, the existence of devils attests to the existence of God, and vice versa. They need each other as Good needs Evil to exist. And that’s why evil is also everywhere: in hell, on earth, inside and outside. Moreover, if we follow the tradition of the Talmud, the angels appeared on the second day of creation. Hence Lucifer, the most beautiful of all these angels, has existed from that early date, do you see? Then the fall of Lucifer and his dissident band took place, and so I’ve heard, the devil has been characterized ever since by the fact that every third time he blinks, he blinks upwards, he cannot walk backwards or blow his nose; he never sleeps and is impatient, ambitious and never creates a shadow; his favourite food is flies, but he eats other things, which are always highly spiced, though he has an aversion to salt . . . But what most interests me about devils is their real artistic prowess: they say the malign one is an excellent musician and prefers stringed instruments. I always remember as an example how Juan Horozco y Covarrubias in his Treatise on True and False Prophecy, published in Segovia in 1588, states that he possesses proof of the devil’s artistic vocation. In his book the father recounts how he saw Lucifer, after the latter had taken on the body of a rather thick village girl, compose some beautiful profane verse and, as they say now, put them to music, so they could be sung to the accompaniment of a lute which, with a woman’s hands and arms, he played ‘like the most expert in the world’. Now, young man, I’m more interested in demons on earth than in hell, like Max Beerbohm, the English novelist who wrote Zuleika Dobson, that fascinating story of the planet’s most beautiful woman, who caused a love-sickness able to provoke the suicide en masse of all Oxford students in love with her devilish charms and, as one gleans from the novel’s final pages, also loved by those in Cambridge, where she was bound. It is one of the most diabolical stories I’ve read . . .” Eligio was emphatic, with his eyes receding when the Count opted to guarantee peace and quiet for his conversation with the poet and went out to reserve a table at the Louvre Café. Do you have any vintage rum? Yes, and Gold Medal. No, two vintage rums, without ice. No, not now, I’ll be back, keep the table, he warned the waiter, and went out to find Eligio Riego who, pipe in hand, was chatting at the exit from the lecture theatre to a young woman apparently melting under the heat from his words. Could he be the devil himself? I’ve no option but to interrupt, old friend, the Count told himself, and accosted him thus: “Forgive me, maestro . . . I’m your friend Rangel’s friend.”

  “Young man, it’s a fabulous story about the tranvestite murdered wearing Electra Garrigó’s costume. Almost half demoniacal, you know? Like nearly everything involving Alberto Marqués, who’s more shocking than Max Beerbohm . . . Look, young man, he and I have known each other and been friends from the forties, when we used to meet to prepare the issues of the magazine, often in Fat Lezama’s house, and I’ve always thought it was lucky this fellow was there to turn everything into a joke and puncture the atmosphere of poetic solemnity imposed by Lezama. We held poetry to be something entirely serious, transcendent, telluric, as they say now, and for him it was always a way to show off his cleverness, brilliance and talent. Because Alberto is one of the most intelligent men I’ve known, although I’ve always criticized the fact that he could sacrifice everything for a good joke, for the erotic chase, as he calls it, or one of his diabolically evil deeds, naturally. His break with Lezama and the whole magazine group in the fifties was one of his most shockingly evil deeds, but then I also understood him: he needed to be himself and shine alone. He was always like that, a loose cannon searching restlessly, and that was why I lamented the excesses committed against him, when they isolated him completely, just because they wanted to punish his irreverence and artistic rebelliousness. It was intensely sad, young man, and the ten years they delayed before trying to right this wrong was too long for him. But what was most extraordinary about Alberto’s dramatic character flourished in those difficult years: he displayed a dignity that was frankly enviable, and stopped writing and thinking about the theatre
, which was all the more surprising in someone like him who lived for the world’s stages . . . Did I say he is an exhibitionist? . . . Careful with him. Alberto’s a born actor, one of the best actors I’ve ever seen, and he likes to invent his own comedies and tragedies. He exaggerates what he is or explains what he isn’t, so you really don’t know what goes . . . He says it is a form of self-defence. Perhaps this character of his is the reason why our friendship improves at a distance: we prefer to respect rather than engage with each other. I think he may understand me. No, my situation was different: I’ve always been a Catholic, though I’m not a mystic like your transvestite and in no way sanctimonious: as you can see, I drink large quantities of rum, smoke my pipes, and have never been able to deny myself the sometimes desperate contemplation of a girl coming into flower, because I’m convinced there’s no beauty on earth to surpass the heat which comes from youth. In a word, we are children of time and dust, and no poetry can spare us that. Other things perhaps, but the time allotted to each of us, no chance. That’s why I think life should be enjoyed on one’s own terms, provided the enjoyment doesn’t prejudice one’s neighbour, do you see? But there was a phase when it was thought that the vision of the world and life propounded by Catholic writers was inappropriate, that our fidelity was blemished by irrevocable spiritual fidelities and consequently we couldn’t be trusted, apart from being retrograde and philosophically idealist, you know? So we were discreetly sidelined. Nothing like what happened to Alberto and other people. The fact was, social commitment was confused with individual mind-sets and then extremists put us on the list of targets to be dealt with: we were ideologically impure and, for some, pernicious if not reactionary, when the preponderance of matter seemed clearly demonstrated, as they say out there. Someone with a Muscovite mentality thought uniformity was possible in this hot, heterodox country where nothing’s ever been pure, and then they unleashed a wave of hysteria against literature which left several corpses abandoned on the roadside and several walking wounded covered in scars . . . But I left the stage voluntarily: I couldn’t renounce something I’d always believed in (a lovely trait, as Alberto would say) or mistake the circumstantial for the essential. In any case I’d have betrayed myself if I’d let myself be defeated by what was transitory or, worse, if I’d pretended to change, as many people did . . . That’s why I trusted to silence but didn’t stop writing. The Marquess is different, as you’ll know if you’ve had a couple of conversations with him: his extreme sacrifice has the ingredients, many would say, of theatrical tragedy. But, I repeat, don’t be put off by what he says, try to see the truth in what he has done: he resisted all the insults, but stayed here, although only, as he says, to see the final fate of those who harassed him . . . The fact is he calls for the right to revenge, though he’d be incapable of transforming it into physical acts or public outrages. Look, young man, I’d also advise you, if at all possible, not to be misled by the many unpleasant incidents and stories you’ve heard about any of us: writers and artists aren’t as diabolical as is sometimes thought or alleged. Did they never tell you about the wrong-doings and hassles that occur among bank employees or workers in innocent canning factories or dozy members of a diplomatic mission? Don’t such things happen among you policemen? What I mean is that we don’t have an exclusive on back-biting, opportunism and ambition. Like everywhere, Good and Evil blend in each and every one of us. Young man: what more can I say, except to thank you for this vintage rum nobody could classify as diabolical which has warmed our conversation in a place that is so delightful? . . . Perhaps, as a result of some professional defect, you got the wrong person, and expected to hear a different opinion from me, but I profess two unchanging fidelities in my life: friendship and poetry. As long as I live I’ll write poetry, whether it’s published or not, whether it wins a poetry festival or not, whether they give me recognition for it or not. And friendship is a voluntary commitment one enters into, and if one does, it has to be respected: although we don’t agree on many things, Alberto Marqués is my friend and when someone, you or anyone else, asks about him, the first thing I say is that he is my friend, and I think that says it all. Don’t you agree, young man?”

  While he waited, José Antonio Morales’s eyes followed the extravagant flight of that pigeon. He observed how the bird soared dizzily, then tucked in its wings and performed strange pirouettes, as if discovering for the first time the vertiginous sensation of plunging into the void. It soared again, then disappeared behind the building, to return to the patch of sky visible from the corner of the yard where José Antonio awaited the accounts inspector. He thought how in his twenty-eight years as a bus driver he’d never seen pigeons while waiting for the results of the day’s takings and he felt more strongly than ever he would kill that woman.

  José Antonio had till that day behaved like a balanced, responsible person, who’d never thought of killing anyone, at least coldly, with premeditation. Sometimes when he was driving his bus and suffered careless knocks from other drivers, he’d felt so under attack he even imagined he was carrying a sawn-off shotgun, seen in some Sicilian film, and that from his bus window he’d executed the dastardly violator of his rights on the road. But even those summary judgements of imagination had become less frequent over the years, as José Antonio got used to tolerating insouciant drivers whose existence now seemed as commonplace as ants in the sugar or roses on a rose bush. Or could it be he was growing old?

  That was why he was surprised by this sudden command from his consciousness: he would kill that woman, and nothing in the world would stop him. The imperative appeared so clear-cut José Antonio feared it was all a snare set by love at first sight. It couldn’t be anything else, he told himself, as he signed the card for his daily takings and calculated he’d collected 47 pesos 35 cents, which meant 947 people had passed by the bus cashbox, not counting the firm’s employees who’d shown their pass and the inevitable bastards who always performed acts of magic to avoid paying or put in tokens rather than coins. In round figures: a thousand people, and only the face of that woman, someone in her early thirties, pleasant enough, a little on the thin side perhaps, dressed carefully though inelegantly, wearing next to no make-up, had imprinted itself on his memory and, into the bargain, with an order that again seemed irrevocable: namely, to kill her.

  When he got home, José Antonio rehearsed a routine which complemented his routine on the bus: he went down the side passage, towards the terrace, left his seat cushion on a chair and washed his hands, soaping himself up to his elbows, as meticulously as a surgeon. He thought it the only way to get rid of the dangerous dirt from the buses, where everybody gets on, the sick and infirm, the dirty and healthy, the infected and the newly born smelling of eau-de-cologne. He picked up his cushion, whistled as he went through the back door, and met his wife, as always at this time of day, between laundry sink and kitchen. He kissed her on the cheek, was kissed by her, asked whether Tonito had come back from school and greeted the smell of fried onion and garlic, while she asked him how it had gone and he said all right. They ate, talked about the usual – the money that was never enough, the bad state of public transport, the unrelenting heat, the possibility she might go back to work in the factory – then he slept his two hours of siesta. He got up, put on his rubber sandals, drank the coffee his wife had just prepared and sat on the terrace to read the newspaper, and thought about that damned woman once again and tried to forget he would definitely kill her.

  The following morning the woman didn’t appear. José Antonio Morales remembered he’d picked her up on his third round (left garage: 8.16 a.m.) at the stop on San Leonardo and 10 de Octubre (8.29 a.m.). However, he wasn’t relieved or too worried by her absence, for he knew he wouldn’t forget her and was determined to kill her. The woman didn’t show for another six days, until Tuesday – the same day he’d seen her the week before – she appeared, inelegant, without make-up, carrying a folder brimming with books and papers which José Antonio hadn’t seen on their p
revious encounter, and she threw her coin in the box, didn’t even glance at the driver who’d decided he was going to kill her. He looked at her, as he looked at all his passengers, shut the door and drove off, entering the huge, rather dirty thoroughfare of 10 de Octubre, previously dubbed Jesús del Monte.

  That night, as he was watching the television news, José Antonio told himself that the idea he’d met her before, which was why he wanted to kill her, made no sense. In fact, until last Tuesday he’d never seen her, and perhaps he’d have lived his whole life without seeing her if, three weeks earlier, in the last settlement of routes for the second half of the year, he hadn’t taken the unexpected decision – for him, his wife, and the rest of the bus drivers – to change his route 4 for route 68, which began two minutes before his usual shift, and finished three minutes later, at 1.27 p.m. The decision was as spontaneous as it was irrevocable, and José Antonio then sought out explanations: he would earn thirty-two cents a day more, perhaps he was bored by the roads on route 4, the people who travelled on the 68 were slightly different, the minutes spent crossing the Apollo building estate were very pleasant . . . Perhaps on the day of decisions it had been very hot in the meeting-room and he’d felt very uncomfortable with his dirty hands. Or could it be he was growing old? Yes, he was now forty-seven and when he’d begun as a bus driver, just out of military service, he’d been barely nineteen, and all that time he’d been driving on route 4: ever since, every day five drives round Havana for eleven months in succession, driving through the same streets, at the same times, with the same stops and even picking up the same people who came to be his friends over the months and years, and he went to weddings, hospitalizations, some birthday parties and even several burials of his usual passengers, and he’d never thought of killing any of them. Nothing had interfered with the predictable routine and much less with what was logical for such a period: at twenty-one he’d got married, had a son whom he’d given his name, his own mother died peacefully, in her sleep, just after her sixty-second birthday, and they never called on him to fight in Angola, despite the fact that one day in 1975 he’d been summoned and, because of his military aptitudes, been told he belonged to the artillery reserve for unit 2154 and been asked if he was ready to fight as an internationalist soldier wherever the Revolution sent him, and he’d said he was. That night José Antonio slept peacefully, after making love with his wife, in the position they always adopted: she mounted him, put his penis in and her vagina rode the length of his member, José Antonio’s spine, mistreated by years of driving, resting flat on the mattress. The remainder of the week he also slept peacefully, although on Monday night he thought he felt a certain anxiety over the encounter he expected to have the following morning. But he shut his eyes and in four minutes fell, like the extravagant pigeon, into a dizzy sleep.