Havana Blue (11 page)

“It had logs and everything. It's pretty, isn't it?”

“Sorry to sound rude . . . Given it never snows in Cuba, pray what is the point?”

She smiled sadly.

“It was the cover to a safe. I found that out when I was twenty. Daddy was a real character. An eccentric.”

He put the tongs down and sat in the other armchair next to Tamara. The library's only source of light was from a small Art Nouveau lamp on a bronze stand embellished by small bunches of deep purple grapes, and she was bathed in an amber light that endowed her face with a warm humanity. She wore a tracksuit as deep blue as the
Espasa-Calpe
, and her clumsy ballerina body seemed to relish that garment which sheathed and shaped her.

“Rafael had the extension installed some seven or eight years ago.
He
couldn't live without the telephone.”

He digested Rafael's decision and felt his shoulders sag, exhausted by an overlong day when he'd only heard talk of Rafael Morín. So many people had talked to him that he'd now begun to wonder whether he'd really known him or whether he was a circus freak with a thousand faces, all linked by a family air, but quite distinctive. He'd have preferred to speak about other things, would have felt good telling her he'd sung “Strawberry Fields” all the way to her house. He was in the mood to make that kind of confidence or to tell her he thought she'd only got better and better, tastier and tastier, but finally decided she might think such confessions a touch cheap and vulgar.

“I never heard about your father's death. I'd have gone to the funeral,” he said finally, because the old diplomat's presence was tangible in that room.

“Not to worry,” she said, swaying her head, which sufficed to stir her lock of hair and make it flop over her forehead. “It was a tremendous shock, you can't imagine. It was hard accepting Daddy had died, you know?”

He nodded and wanted to smoke. Death always brought on a desire for a smoke. He found an earthenware ashtray on the desk and was happy it wasn't Murano glass or a Moser or a Sargadelos, hand engraved from Doctor Valdemira's collection. In the meantime, she'd stood up and walked over to the mini-bar built into one of the library bookcases.

“I'll join you for a drink. I think we both need one,” she pouted as she poured liquid from an almost square bottle into two tall glasses. “I don't know about you,
but I like it neat, without ice. Ice only cuts a good Scotch whisky down to size.”

“It's Ballantine's, isn't it?”

“Yes, a special reserve Rafael had,” she said, giving him his glass. “Good health and good luck.”

“Health for you and pesetas for the safe, because you have beauty in good supply,” he replied, savouring the whisky and feeling its warmth run down over his tongue, throat, empty stomach, and he began to perk up.

“Who is Zoila, Mario?”

He opened his jacket and took a second sip.

“Was he carrying on with other women?”

“I'm not sure, but the truth is I was less and less interested in following Rafael's tracks and have no idea what he did with his life.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Rafael was hardly ever at home. He was always in meetings or travelling, and I wasn't interested in keeping track of him, but now I want to know. Who is Zoila?”

“We don't know yet. She's not been home for several days. We're investigating her.”

“And do you really think that Rafael is . . .?” and she seemed really shocked.

He was at a loss and felt uneasy. Her look demanded an answer.

“I don't know, Tamara, that's why I asked you about his womanising. You're the one who should be telling me.”

She sipped her drink and then tried – unsuccessfully – to smile.

“I'm really at a loss, you know. All this is like a bad joke and sometimes I think no, it's not a nightmare, no, Rafael is on his travels again, that nothing is
happening, nothing will happen, and any minute he will walk through that door,” she said, and he couldn't stop himself: he looked at the door. “I need security, Mario, I can't live with insecurity, do you understand?”

She asked the question, and of course, it was easy to understand her security, he thought, as he watched her take another sip and felt the warm flow of whisky and lowered the zip on his coat to a frankly dangerous level: he wanted to look, tried to concentrate on his drink but couldn't and looked because he felt an erection coming on. Why might that be? He tried to explain the mystery: people didn't swoon when they saw Tamara walk down the street yet he stopped breathing, had never been able to see off the desire that woman provoked. So now he crossed his legs in order to submit his urges to the obligatory application of the universal law of gravity. Down, boy.

“I don't think Rafael was, I really don't. Perhaps he bedded a woman from time to time? Look, quite frankly, I don't really know, but I expect he did. You love doing that kind of thing, don't you? But I don't think he'd dare to go into hiding with a woman. I think I know him too well to imagine him trying that.”

“I agree. I don't think he would,” he insisted, quite convinced; he wasn't going to leave all this in the air, and Zoilita wasn't the Duchess of Windsor. Some things I don't know but I am sure of that much, he thought.

“And what else have you discovered?”

“That Dapena the Spaniard went crazy when he saw you.”

Her eyes opened. How can she open them so wide, he wondered, and then she raised her voice, sounded upset, annoyed, not what you call poised.

“Who told you?”

“Maciques.”

“What a gossip . . . And they go on about women.”

“And what happened between you and the Spaniard, Tamara?”

“Nothing. It was a misunderstanding. So is that all you've found out?” And she took another sip.

He rested his chin on the palm of his hand and got another whiff of her. He was starting to feel so good it was frightening.

“Right, not so very much. I think we've spent the day going round in circles. This job is trickier than you can imagine.”

“No, I can, and particularly since I'm one of the suspects.”

“I never said that, Tamara, you know I didn't. Technically you're a suspect because you're the person closest to him. You last had news of him, and God knows how many reasons you have or might have to want to get Rafael off your back. I told you this is an investigation and might be quite upsetting.”

She finished her drink and put the glass down next to the light that was illuminating her.

“Mario, don't you think that's a silly thing to say to me?”

“And why did you always call me Mario and not the Count like everybody else in the class?”

“And why change the subject? I'm really worried you can think such things about me.”

“How else can I put it to you? You know, do you think it's one big party spending your life like this? That's it a hoot working with murderers, thieves, fraudsters and rapists and that you're always going to think the best of people and be as nice as pie?”

She forced her lips into a brief smile while her hand
tried to tidy away the disrespectful twisted lock that insisted on darkening her forehead.

“The Count, right? Tell me, why did you join the police? So you could grouch and whinge all day long?”

He smiled: he couldn't stop himself. It was the question he'd most been asked in his years as a detective and the second time of asking that day. He thought she deserved an answer.

“That's an easy one. There are two reasons why I am a policeman: one I don't know, and the other has to do with destiny which has led me this way.”

“And the one you know?” she insisted, and he felt the woman's expectations rise and was sorry to disappoint her.

“It's quite simple, Tamara, and will probably make you laugh, but it's true: because I don't like bastards going unpunished.”

“How very self-righteous of you,” she replied after considering all that lay behind his answer and picking up her glass. “But you're a sorry policeman, and that's not the same as a sad policeman . . . Would you like another?”

He studied the bottom of his glass and hesitated. He liked the distinctive taste of Scotch whisky and would always be ready to fight to the death for a bottle of Ballantine's, and he felt so good, next to her, surrounded by those wise library shadows, and she looked so ravishing. And answered:

“No, that's OK, I've not had breakfast yet.”

“Do you want something to eat?”

“I do and need it bad, but thanks all the same, I've got a date,” he almost lamented. “They're expecting me at Skinny's.”

“As thick as thieves as ever,” she smiled.

“Hey, I didn't ask after your son,” he said as he stood up.

“Just imagine, with this palaver . . . No, around midday I told Mima to take him to his Aunt Teruca's, over in Santa Fe, at least till Monday or till we know something. I think he'd find this upsetting . . . Mario, what on earth has happened to Rafael?” And she now stood up and folded her arms over her chest, as if the spirit of the whisky had suddenly abandoned her and she felt very cold.

“If only we knew, Tamara. But get used to the idea: whatever it is, it's nasty. Can you give me the list of guests at the party?”

She didn't react, as if she'd not heard him, and then unfolded her arms.

“Here it is,” she replied, looking for a piece of paper under a magazine. “I put down all the ones I remember, I don't think I missed anyone out.”

He took the sheet and walked over to the lamp. He slowly read the names, surnames and positions held by the guests.

“There's nobody like me there, is there?” he asked and then looked at her. “No sorry policeman?”

She folded her arms back over her chest and stared into the fireplace, as if asking it to do the impossible and bring forth heat.

“I realized this morning how much you've changed, Mario. Why are you so bitter? Why speak of yourself self-pityingly, as if everyone else was a bastard, and you were the purest and the poorest?”

He took her abuse and felt he'd got it all wrong about her; she was still an intelligent woman. He felt weak and vulnerable and needed to sit down, drink another whisky and talk and talk. But he was afraid to.

“I don't know, Tamara. Let's talk about it some other time.”

“I think you're trying to run away.”

“A policeman never runs away, he simply ups and takes his happiness with him.”

“There's no cure, then.”

“And no getting better.”

“Well, please tell me if you do find anything,” she said as they walked down the passage. She still had her arms folded, and Mario Conde, after winking at the ruddy exuberant Flora framed and hanging on the best wall in the room, wondered how Tamara Valdemira could possibly spend her time in a house that was so empty. Looking at herself in the mirror?

 

 

Skinny Carlos is in the centre of the group. Arms splayed out, head tilting to the right, as if crucified, although at the time he didn't think he'd ever be bearing a cross. He always fixed it so he was in the centre, in order to be the centre, or perhaps we nudged that way to turn him into the group's navel, where he and we could feel good. He could deliver a joke a minute, make a wisecrack about the silliest thing that would drop from anyone else's mouth like a lead balloon and earn a couple of polite smiles. He wore his hair long; I don't how he managed to get through school-gate inspections; he was still very skinny, although we were in thirteenth grade and that day we'd done our university pre-enrolment. For his first choice he'd put civil engineering; he dreamed of building an airport, two bridges, and most of all, creating the design for a contraceptive factory, with distinctive production lines according to size, colour, taste and shape, able to meet all the requirements of the Caribbean, the place on
earth where people screwed the best and the most, for that was his obsession: getting laid. His second choice was industrial engineering. Between Skinny and Rabbit, Dulcita was then Skinny's fiancé, and if Skinny hadn't been crucified, he'd surely have been touching her up and she'd be smiling, for she too liked a touch of porn. Her skirt, with the three white stripes on the hem, was the shortest of the lot, well above the knee: she was the most expert at rolling it up round the waist as soon as she set a foot outside school; her knees were rounded, her thighs compact and long, her legs appeared well-thrown and handmade, and her buttocks – as Skinny would say, using one of his catastrophically poetic similes – were as hard as hunger at five am, and yet all that was balanced out, compensated as it were, he added, by her not having an inch of tit. Dulcita is smiling happily because she's sure she's going for architecture to work with Skinny on his projects, and she'll do the designs. And as second choice, she chose geology, since she was crazy about going into caves, especially with Skinny, to satisfy their joint obsession: a good lay. At the time Dulcita was perfect: she'd kill to help you, a terrific friend, sharp, intelligent and never stopped for anything: she'd bail you out in an exam or soften a girl up for you. She was top mate, a real good gal, and I never understood why she went to the United States. When they told me, I couldn't believe it; she was one of us, what's happened . . .? Rabbit can't avoid displaying his teeth. God knows whether he ever laughed, with those teeth-and-a half you never knew; he too was very skinny and had gone for a history degree as his first choice and for teaching history as a second, and at the time he was quite convinced that if the English hadn't left Havana in 1763, Elvis Presley would probably have
been born in Pinar del Río, or River Pine City, or whatever the hell he'd have said, in those cane-cutter's boots that were his school shoes, for going out every night as well as to Saturday-night parties. He was really thin, because he had no choice in the matter; in his place they chewed cable, not literally, but real cable, the ones Goyo brought from his work as an electrician; he'd say, spaghetti cable, cable and chips, cable croquettes. Tamara looks serious though she always looks best like that: she's more . . . beautiful? The light brown lock of hair hanging languidly and rebelliously over her forehead and her right eye giving her airs of Van Gult's
Honorata
, and there right next to Dulcita, they'd say Dulcita was always better, but Tamara's something else, more than beautiful, nice and tasty, as delicious as the crack of a baseball cleanly hit, hot enough to give Mahomet a hard-on: but, no, you felt like eating her bit by bit, clothes and all, I told Skinny once, even if I'd shit rags for a week. And you also felt like sitting with her on a manicured lawn one afternoon, all alone, and leaning your head back on her bounteous thighs, lighting a cigarette, hearing the birds chirp and enjoying happiness. She'd chosen dentistry as her first choice and medicine as second, and it's a pity to see her looking so serious, as if the future dentist had teeth that would never visit a dentist, and Rabbit would be her first customer, when I get you in my chair, she'd say, I'll do my doctorate trying to get your buckteeth under control. My awful face hasn't changed a bit: I'm on the far right, next to Tamara naturally, as always whenever possible; and look, with my trousers cut round the knee so my mum can turn the leg upside down, with the knee which is broader at the bottom and the bottom which is narrower sewn at the knee, it being the only way to get a spot of flares,
which were the rage then. And gym shoes without socks, both patched over the toes: mine are crooked and always poked a hole through the same place: I'm also smiling, but it's a forced smile, only halfway across the lips, on my starving scary face, with bags under my eyes, and I'm thinking I'm sure I won't get literature, for they've almost shut down literary studies this year, I'm in a good position but it's a lottery and I so much want to get in, and I put down psychology for second choice and not dentistry. That was Tamara's fault, for I can't stand the sight of blood so perhaps history would be a better option like for Rabbit, I don't know, a psychology degree leads to somewhere, but I never knew how to decide. Taking decisions was always torture, and it makes sense that I didn't feel like laughing in that photo we took coming down the steps at high school, on the eve of our final exams that we were all going to pass because in thirteenth grade they don't fail anyone, unless there's another Viboragate scandal and they set special exams in order to fuck us up, as happened to thirteenth grade last year, to Dulcita who's so intelligent but is repeating a year because of all that, but we would pass, for sure. On the back of the photo it says June 1975, we were all still very poor – that is, almost all of us – and very happy. Skinny is skinny. Tamara is more than beautiful, Dulcita is one of us, Rabbit is dreaming of changing history, and I'm on my way to being a writer like Hemingway. The photo has yellowed with age: it got wet one day and one corner is cracked, and when I look at it I get a real guilty conscience because Skinny is skinny no more and Rafael Morín is the invisible presence lurking behind the camera.