Havana Red

by Leonardo Padura

  When you work for twenty-eight years as a bus driver you master, almost unthinkingly, all the tricks necessary to survive in the job: the lies you can tell the inspector when he catches you running several minutes ahead of time; the way to respond to irritable passengers, knowing when you can take the offensive or when you need to apologize or even pretend you didn’t hear the insult, how to ask for a coffee at some point on the route without having to join the queue: or begin a relationship with someone, according to your own sex, age and interests.

  José Antonio saw her under the sign for the stop, carrying her folder, next to three other passengers. He stopped the bus ten yards before reaching the group and forced them to walk towards him. She was the last to get in and, when she went to put her money in, no doubt annoyed by him braking before the stop, he said: “I think we’re going to have to change buses.” If he’d said something concrete like: “The brakes are in a bad state,” or, “There was a pothole,” or something like that, the conversation would have taken off, if she’d been a very talkative person. But the riddle he’d set was unassailable. She stopped next to him, supported herself on a vertical bar and asked: “Why?” As he explained that the front right wheel brakes weren’t working properly, he asked her for her folder so he could place it on the bus rack and finally discovered she was an English teacher in an elementary secondary school in Luyanó and that day she started her classes on the second shift at 8.55, and the bus left her there at 8. 42, giving her just enough time to arrive and get to her classroom, and if he switched buses . . .

  The rest of September and the whole of October, she got on his bus on a Tuesday; he asked her for her folder, and they chatted thirteen minutes, which enabled him to find out she was Isabel María Fajardo, thirty-three years old, divorced, childless, and had been a teacher for some time, and considered herself a boring individual. What’s more, she gave him her address, and the third Tuesday in October invited him to drop by some day for a coffee. I’m always there after six, she said.

  Although he’d thought of going to a psychiatrist, José Antonio discarded the idea straight away: he wasn’t in the least mad, and his decision to kill Isabel María wasn’t even a sentence he’d personally adopted, but a mandate he’d received. The only problem was that he thought himself a complete atheist, with no expectations of a life beyond. What most worried him, nevertheless, was grasping why it had to be Isabel María and nobody else. Really, if it was necessary to kill someone, he could perhaps choose someone better, a person he hated or disliked, or someone infirm who’d even be grateful for his act of mercy or, better still, someone harmful to society whom society would be overjoyed to see executed by a voluntary, anonymous avenger. He knew several undesirables of that kind. So why her? After seven Tuesdays and approximately ninety-one minutes of conversation that woman hadn’t managed to arouse any special feeling in him: hatred, love, desire, repulsion, anything to justify the need (the mandate?) to kill her. Like him, she was one of those millions of anodyne beings peopling the earth, who lived in the country, right now, spent their days honourably, without excessive euphoria or ill-feeling, not in major dispute with society or the times, without well-defined political ideas or ambitious individual projects. She worked, ate, slept, suffered slightly from loneliness but wasn’t visibly tormented and, as she’d already confessed, loved spending hours listening to classical or popular music. Why? Perhaps that was it, he thought: because she represented nothing . . . But did he know that before meeting her?

  What was even stranger, he told himself when he thought how he must kill her, is that he was in no hurry to do so, nor did he have a clear plan, and he was almost on the point of persuading himself it wouldn’t be a murder premeditated or with malice aforethought, but a fatal accident while he drove his bus. But then he realized that wasn’t right: he would kill her, with his own hands, some day, perhaps soon.

  José Antonio was a good reader of the newspaper: every day he’d read for more than an hour, and dwell on each piece of news or comment, so he wouldn’t forget: so many things happened in the world every day, his memory recall barely lasted twenty-four hours before it gave way to fresh news and events. That Thursday afternoon he read a very interesting item on Aids and the scant immediate hopes of finding an antidote, despite the efforts of thousands of scientists throughout the world. He thought: if God existed, this would be a divine punishment. But if he doesn’t exist, why do such things happen in the world? He wasn’t usually so thoughtful, and concluded that wherever the plague came from, it was a punishment against love. He liked the idea so much that, while taking a shower, he mentioned it to his wife and later told her, “I’m going to take a spin Aunt Angelina’s way,” knowing full well he was going to drink the coffee Isabel María had offered him on the last two Tuesdays.

  He knocked on the door and waited, thinking about how he felt: I’m not nervous, not anxious, I don’t know whether I shall kill her today, he’d just told himself when she opened up. She was still thin, unmade-up, yet more dressed up than usual; her hair was damp, just washed, and she didn’t seem too surprised to be inviting him in. She wore a dressing gown that was quite modest, and melancholy music was coming from some part of the house, the kind José Antonio could never have identified, and she’d later inform him: “It’s Mozart’s Requiem.” They went to the kitchen, because he said he’d come to drink the coffee she’d promised. She prepared the coffee pot, and they sat at the table. It was a clean, well-lit place, where José Antonio felt at ease, as if he’d been there before. As he savoured his coffee, he knew that he didn’t know what would happen in the minutes to follow. Would he try to make love to her? Would he leave when he’d drunk his coffee? Would he even tell her he was going to kill her? Then he looked her in the eye: Isabel María also looked at him, an adult woman’s look, ready for anything, and he heard her say: “Did you come so you could go to bed with me?” And he said: “Yes.”

  Isabel María was naked under the dressing gown and, when they dropped on the bed, she climbed on top of him, put his penis in, and her vagina started to ride the length of his member, as if she knew that position allowed José Antonio’s spine, mistreated by years of driving, to rest flat on the mattress. It was a good session, well synchronized, satisfying for both.

  Then she said: “From the first time I saw you, two weeks before we started talking, I knew we would make love. I don’t know where the idea came from, or why. But I knew you were going to talk to me and that one day you’d come here for a coffee . . . It was all very strange because when I looked at you I didn’t see too much I liked and besides, I thought I was still in love with Fabián, the headmaster. But it was like a very strong presentiment, like an imperative, a mandate, what do I know,” she said, and kissed him on the lips, the nipples, his paunchy belly and purple-headed member. “And now you’re here. What most worried me,” she continued, “was why it had to be you . . .” “I experienced something similar,” he confessed, and felt the need to drink more coffee. “I’ll go get some more coffee,” he said.

  He abandoned the bed, and before leaving to go to the kitchen, looked at Isabel María’s nakedness for a minute; two small breasts, two red, sore nipples and a little triangle of quite lank, uncombed dark hair. He poured himself some coffee, lit a cigarette, and went back to the bedroom smoking and carrying a knife. He sank it into her chest, under her left breast, and she barely flinched. Why? he wondered again, before putting his cigarette out in the ashtray next to the bed and deciding he should dress her so they didn’t find her naked. Then, as he moved Isabel María’s pillow, he felt the cold weight of the knife she had hidden there, perhaps to fulfil her own mandate. Just then José Antonio remembered he had to get a move on, for his wife hated eating without him.

  Mario Conde, 9 August 1989

  “You bastard, now you need a title . . .”

  “Forget that. Just tell me what you made of the story?”

  “A real scream.”

  “Is that all?”

/>   “Well, squalid.”

  “And moving?”

  “As well.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Terribly.”

  “But terribly good or terribly bad?”

  “Good, you idiot, good. Let me give you a hug, you pansy. Fuck, you’ve finally got back to writing.”

  The Count bent over the wheelchair between the open arms of Skinny Carlos and let himself be squeezed against his friend’s greasy, sweaty chest. Knowing he could write and that what he’d written appealed to Skinny Carlos was a combination too explosive for the Count’s emotions and he felt he was about to cry, not only for his own sake, but for a future that was impossible to imagine without a man who’d been his best-only friend for over twenty years, whose goodness, intelligence, optimism and desire to live life had been rewarded by a bullet in the back, shot from some still unknown rifle, hidden behind a dune in the Namibian desert.

  “Congratulations, you bastard. But bring me a photocopy tomorrow or never look me in the face again. I know you, you’ll wake up one day saying it’s a load of shit and tear it up.”

  “It’s a deal, pal.”

  “Hey, but this is cause for celebration, right? Take the twenty pesos in the drawer. Add ten of your own and buy two bottles of that Legendario they’ve put out in the bar in Santa Catalina today.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes, one each, right?”

  “God, how horrible!” said the Count.

  “Hey, what horrible god? My lovely lad, all this consorting with queers doesn’t do you much good, just listen to you.”

  “Yes, something sticks. A sparrow’s butt, for instance.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “No, later. I’m going to fetch the two bottles. Stay right there, OK?”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I’ll read the story to the old girl and, if she likes it, expect to eat well.”

  “And if not?”

  “Rice and tortilla.”

  Josefina blew her nose on her handkerchief, and said: “Ay, the poor girl, my boy, being killed like that just for fun. The things you think of. And that poor bus driver . . . But I was moved, and this son of mine says it’s the best Cuban story in the world, and if that’s what he says, well, I got a bit inspired and started to think what kind of meal I could get for you so you don’t drink your rum on an empty stomach, and what I did was real silly, the first thing I thought of, though I reckon it will taste real good: turkey stuffed with rice and black beans.”

  “A turkey?”

  “Stuffed?”

  “Yes, and it’s very easy to make. Look, I bought the turkey yesterday and defrosted the fridge today, it was still soft, so I took it out and basted it while it was thawing. I made garlic, pepper, cumin, oregano, bay, basil and parsley leaves into a paste and, naturally, bitter orange and salt, and basted it well inside and out with that paste. Then I threw in plenty of big slices of onion. The best would be to leave it a couple of hours basted, but as I can see you look starved . . . Then, as I’d already got black beans on the boil, I started to prepare a tasty sauce: I took two strips of bacon I cut into small pieces and fried, and put more onion in the fat, but cut tiny, with ground garlic and plenty of chilli, and there you go, I poured the sauce on the beans when they were almost cooked and added a cup of dry wine, so they taste a bit sour, the way you like them, right?”

  “Yes, that’s how I love them.”

  “Me too.”

  “And what else?”

  “Well, I poured in the white rice to make the congrí, a bit more oregano, and for good measure a pinch of salt, and a handful of finely chopped onion. Then I waited for the rice to dry out, before the grains went soft, of course, and switched it off and stuffed the turkey with the congrí, so it cooks inside the bird, right? You know what I didn’t have? Toothpicks to close it up . . . So I used a few stems from the bitter oranges, which are pretty hard . . . Then put it in the oven, so don’t despair, it will soon be ready. Have your drinks in peace, and it will be on the table at nine thirty. And pour me a drop of rum . . . That’s it, just a drop, Condesito, or I’ll get drunk . . .”

  “And how many are going to eat this, Jose?”

  “As the bird was about eight pounds, there’ll be enough for ten or twelve helpings . . . but with you two . . . Well, I hope something will be left for lunch tomorrow. I’ll just go and have a look.”

  “Did you hear that, you bastard? The old dear’s mad.”

  “What I’d like to know is where the fuck she gets it all . . . The only thing she didn’t have were the toothpicks.”

  “Don’t be such a nosy policeman. Pour me some . . . This rum is good for getting a skinful and taking a running jump.” “What’s the matter, Skinny?”

  Carlos downed more rum and didn’t answer.

  “Is it still the business with Dulcita?” the Count asked, and his friend looked at him for a moment.

  “Smell that, the bird’s really cooking,” he said, going off at an opportune tangent. “Hey, do you know what should come after a feast like this? A decent cigar. A Montecristo or something of the sort, right?”

  “Fuck, of course, a Montecristo,” the Count replied, downing his rum in one gulp. “It has to be a Montecristo,” he said, as he finally saw the face he’d sensed in his dream, where a dirty, raging river suddenly precipitated the fall of the mask, a mask made of a thousand lies which had hidden the truth from him. Yes, that had to be the truth!

  Nothing can justify such a crime, was the most sophisticated philosophical conclusion he could reach as he felt the cold water on his back. The vivid memory of the whole bottle of pale Legendario rum still coursed rich and bitter round his mouth, though he was surprised to discover he was hungry and hadn’t much of a headache. How could it be? In the kitchen, after swallowing a couple of analgesics, he looked alarmed as the funnel to his coffee pot swallowed his last stocks of coffee and waited for it to strain and for Sergeant Manuel Palacios to arrive, pulled on his old blue jeans – you’re dead thirsty, he told himself, observing the remains of an evil liverish stain on the cloth at thigh level and on his pockets – and went out on to the porch, as he did every Sunday, to savour a whiff of nostalgia for life in the neighbourhood that was also transvested, metamorphosed, definitively different, where he’d felt happy or miserable, in like doses, on many other Sundays in his life, ever since he’d been conscious of life. The church bells had tolled for no one for many a year, and that invigorating smell of freshly baked bread had never again floated from the nearby bakery, what’s bread made of now, if it doesn’t smell like it used to? But he resisted; despite these absences, it was a simply wonderful day: the previous evening’s heavy downpour had swept away the filth from heaven and earth, and the sun’s brightness triumphed over any darkening doubts. A good day to play baseball (but was there also the will?), the Count thought, and he went back in for his coffee and drank a big cupful, a bitter swill round to clear out the last phantoms of sleep, alcohol and hangover. As he lit his cigarette, he heard the car horn calling him from the street. Shirt unbuttoned, he went out on to the pavement, and as he opened the car door, greeted Sergeant Manuel Palacios.

  “Well, tell me where,” Manuel Palacios mumbled, making it clear he was ready to obey.

  “I’ve fucked up your Sunday?”

  “No, of course not.”

  The Count smiled. That’s all I need, he told himself, thinking he too would have preferred not to work on Sunday and to stay at home, sleeping, reading, or even writing, now he’d started to write again. But he said: “Let’s go to Headquarters, the Boss is there . . . Hey, did you find Salvador?”