Havana Gold (4 page)

He went back into the living room and sat down as far away as possible from the chalk figure. He opened the report the Boss had given him and, as he read, told himself that it was sometimes worthwhile being a policeman.

Who was this Lissette Núñez Delgado?

 

Lissette Núñez Delgado would have been twenty-five in December, in that year of 1989. She had been born in Havana in 1964, when the Count was nine, wore orthopaedic shoes and was in his full childhood glory as a street urchin, one who'd never imagined for a single minute – and never would for the next fifteen years – that he'd become a policeman and have occasion to investigate the death of that girl born in a modern flat in the district of Santos Suárez. The young woman graduated two years ago with a chemistry degree from the Havana Higher Institute for Teaching and, contrary to what one might expect in that era of vacancies in the rural schools of the island's interior, was immediately allocated to the Pre-University High School in La Víbora – the very same where the Count studied between 1972 and 1975 and made friends with Skinny Carlos. The fact she was a teacher at the Víbora Pre-Uni could count against her: almost everything related to that
place aroused the Count's fond nostalgia or implacable rejection. Lissette's father had died three years ago and her mother, who'd divorced him in 1970, lived in Casino Deportivo, in the house belonging to her second husband, a high-ranking civil servant in the Ministry of Education – a position that explained why the young girl hadn't done her social service outside Havana. Her mother, a journalist on the magazine
Rebel Youth
, was more or less renowned thanks to her opportune articles, that ranged from fashion and cooking to attempts to convince her readers, through examples from everyday life, of her ethical and political muscle, and of the fact she was an ideological role model. Her image was bolstered by frequent television appearances, when she held forth on hairstyles, make-up and home decoration, “because beauty and happiness are possible”, she would say. Quite coincidentally, Conde had always reacted to this woman Caridad Delgado as if she were a kick in the gut: she seemed hollow and tasteless, a fruit sucked dry. As for her deceased father he had been a lifelong bureaucrat: from glass factories to costume-jewellery companies, via meat plants, the Coppelia ice-creamery and a bus terminal, which brought on a massive heart attack.

Lissette had been a member of the Youth from the age of sixteen and her ideological record sheet seemed pristine: not a single caution or minor sanction. How come she never had a slip of memory, never made a
slight error of judgement or swore at anybody? She'd been a leading cadre in the Pioneers, the School and University Student Federations, and although the report mentioned nothing specific she must have participated fully in the activities programmed by these organizations. She earned 198 pesos a month because she was still in the so-called period of Social Service, paid twenty in rent, was docked eighteen a month for the refrigerator voted to her in a mass meeting and must have spent around thirty on lunch, afternoon snack and transport to Pre-Uni. Were 130 pesos enough to assemble that wardrobe? Recent fingerprints from five people had been found at her place, not including hers, but none was on file. Her third-floor neighbour was the only one who'd said anything at all useful: he heard music and rhythmic dancing the night of her death, 19 March 1989. End of report.

The photo of Lissette accompanying the report didn't look very up-to-date: it had gone dark round the edges and the face of the young girl caught there forever didn't look very attractive, despite the fact her eyes were deep set and sultry, with thick eyebrows that might have given her one of those so-called enigmatic looks. If I'd have known you . . . Standing up, leaning against the balcony rail again, the Count watched the sun rise determinedly to its zenith; he saw a woman struggling against the wind to hang out her washing on a flat roof; he saw a young
boy in school uniform climbing up wooden stairs to a roof where he opened the door of a pigeon loft and released several racing pigeons – they disappeared into the distance, beating their liberated wings against stormy gusts; and saw, on a third floor, on the other side of the street, a scene that kept him on edge for a few minutes, stunned by the shock of those who peep at private acts. Next to a window, open to the Lenten winds, a man in his forties and a possibly slightly younger woman were arguing. Although their shouts vanished in the wind, the Count saw the threats from fists and nails grow as the two bodies edged closer towards each other, on fire, ready to explode. Conde felt caught by that escalating tragedy reaching silently out to him: he saw her hair flap like a flag unfurled by the wind, while his face reddened with every gust. It's that accursed wind, he muttered, as the woman went over to the window and closed the shutters forcing the peeping tom to imagine the finale. While the Count was thinking the man was surely in the right – she was acting like a wild animal – he saw a car lurch crazily round the corner, its rubber-burning tyres screeching to a halt in front of the building where Lissette Núñez Delgado lived. The car-door opened and a lanky, ill-built Sergeant Manuel Palacios stepped out, his work-colleague yet again: Sergeant Palacios gave a smile of satisfaction when he looked up and discovered Conde could now include that display of Formula One
driving in a Lada 1600 among the many things he had seen.

 

It can't be true, he muttered. His nostalgia couldn't still be at the old levels. From the perspective of 1989, it now acted like a cloying, scented sensation that was soothingly authentic and embraced him with the decanted passion of vintage loves. Conde had prepared himself for an attack of aggressive nostalgia that would call him to account and claim back the interest that had mounted up over the years, but the prolonged wait had served to smooth all of memory's rough edges, to leave only that peaceful feeling of belonging to a place and a time veiled by a rose-tinted selectivity that wisely and nobly preferred to evoke moments beyond rancour, hatred and sadness. Yes, I can resist, he thought, gazing at the square columns that supported the lofty entrance to La Víbora's old Secondary Education School – later transformed into the Pre-Uni that would be the refuge, for three years, of the dreams and hopes of that hidden generation that longed to be so much that never was. The shadow from the ancient
majaguas
with their red and yellow flowers climbed the short stairway, blotting out the midday sun, even protecting the bust of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes who wasn't what he used to be either: the classic figure from the old days, head, neck and shoulders cast in bronze, edged in green by repeated downpours,
had been replaced by an ultra-modern image seemingly buried in a big block of badly set concrete. It can't be true, he repeated, because he desperately wanted it to be an illusion, wanted life to be a rehearsal you could improve on before the final performance: Skinny Carlos, when he was very skinny with two healthy legs that walked, ran and jumped through that entrance and down those steps with the joy of the righteous, while his friend the Count stared at all the girls who wouldn't be his girlfriends however deeply he desired them; Andrés who suffered (as only he could) the pain of love; and Rabbit, as parsimonious as ever, who intended to change the world by refashioning history from a precise moment – which might be the victory of the Arabs in Poitiers, of Moctezuma over Cortés or, simply, the English staying on in Havana after taking the city in 1762 . . . Their childhood had died a death between those columns, in those classrooms, behind those stairs and on that square illogically dubbed “red” when it was black, simply black, like everything else stained by the soot and grease from the nearby bus stop. Although they'd only learned a few mathematical equations and stubbornly invariable laws of physics, they'd become adults as they grasped the meaning of betrayal and evil, saw climbers climb and a few sincere souls experience frustration, fell passionately in love, got drunk on joy and sorrow, and discovered, above all, their absolute need for what goes by the name
of friendship for want of a better . . . No, it's not untrue. It was worth experiencing the distress of that unexpectedly benign nostalgia, if only as a tribute to friendship, he convinced himself, as he walked between the columns and listened to Manolo explain to the caretaker on the door that they wanted to see the headmaster.

The caretaker looked at Conde and Conde looked at the caretaker and, for a second, the policeman felt he'd been caught in the act. An elegant man with stylish hair, well into his sixties, his bright eyes sparkled at the lieutenant with an I-know-him-from-somewhere look. Perhaps if Manolo hadn't introduced him as a policeman, the caretaker might have asked if he wasn't the little bastard who used to escape his clutches every day at twelve-fifteen by jumping over the wall in the PE yard.

A gentle buzz reached them from the classrooms and the inside playground was empty. The Count decided conclusively that this place, where he'd now returned after an absence of fifteen years, wasn't the one he had left. Perhaps his memory did retain the unmistakeable smell of chalk dust and the alcoholic aroma of stencils, but not that reality intent on confusing him by distorting every dimension: what he thought would be small turned out to be too big, as if it had burgeoned in the intervening years, and what he thought would be huge turned out to be insignificant or non-existent, since it perhaps existed only in his most emotional memories. They walked
through the secretariat to the headmaster's office, and he found it impossible not to remember the day when he'd followed the same route to hear himself accused of writing idealist stories which defended religion. Fuck the lot of you, he'd almost shouted, when a young woman came out of the headmaster's office and asked them why they'd come.

“We would like to speak to the headmaster. Our visit is related to the case of the teacher Lissette Núñez Delgado.”

 

“It's often said that teaching is an art, and there's a lot of literature and fine words written about education. But the truth is that the philosophy of teaching is one thing, while exercising it every day, year in year out, is quite another. I do apologize. I can't even offer you a cup of coffee. Or tea. But please do sit down. What people don't say is that you must be rather mad to teach. Do you know what it's like to manage a Pre-Uni high school? Better you don't, for it's just that, madness. I don't know what's happening but young people are less and less interested in really learning. Do you know how long I've been in this trade? Twenty-six years, my dear colleagues, twenty-six: I started as a schoolmaster, and now I've been a head for fifteen and I think it only goes from bad to worse. Something's not working properly, and if the truth be told, young people now are quite different. It's
as if the world was suddenly going too fast. Yes, it must be something like that. They say it's a symptom of postmodern society. So we too can be called postmodern in this heat and our jam-packed buses? The fact is I leave here with a headache every day. I don't mind the fact they're obsessed with their hair, shoes and clothes, or that they all want to be shafting like crazy at the age of fifteen if you'll excuse my French, because that's all quite predictable, isn't it? But at least they could care a little bit about their schooling. Every year we expel a number who have all but dropped out of society and, according to their lights, drop-outs don't study, work or make demands: they only want to be left in peace, you know, to be left in peace to make love not war. Just like the good old Sixties, you see? . . . But what most upsets me is that if you get hold of a twelfth grader now, with only three months to go to graduation, and ask him what he's going to study, he won't know, and if he does, he won't know why. They're eternally adrift . . . But do excuse my harangue. Luckily, you aren't from the Ministry of Education, are you? Yesterday morning we were paid a visit and told about dear comrade Lissette. I really find it hard to believe. It's hard to get your head round the fact that a young person who you'd see looking healthy and cheerful every day is now dead. Yes, she started here with the tenth grade, and, to tell the truth, neither I nor her head of department had any complaints: she
did everything demanded of her and did it well. I think she's one of the few young people to come to us with a real vocation to be a teacher. She liked her work and was always coming up with ideas to motivate her pupils. She could just as easily go camping with them as help them revise at night, or she'd do PE with her group, because she played volleyball very well and I think her pupils really liked her. I have always been of the opinion that there should be a degree of distance between teachers and pupils, and that distance is created by respect, not by fear or age: respect for knowledge and responsibility. But I also think each teacher has his or her approach and if she felt all right always being with her pupils and results in class were good, who was I to object? Last year her three classes all passed chemistry, with an average of ninety per cent, and not everybody can manage that, I told myself: if they're the results she gets, then let her get on with it! That might sound like Machiavelli but it's not Machiavellian. I did talk to her one day about the over-familiarity, but she just said she felt better that way and we never brought it up again. It's a pity this has happened, and yesterday we had attendance problems in the afternoon because very many pupils went to the vigil and cemetery, but we decided to turn a blind eye to their absence . . . And as an individual? I'm not sure. I didn't know that side of her so well. She'd a boyfriend who'd come to pick her up on his motorbike, but that
was last year, although at the vigil Mrs Dagmar said she'd seen him waiting outside for her for three days. You know, Dagmar can tell you about her, she was her head of department and I think her best friend at Pre-Uni, but she's not in today as she's been really hit by what happened to Lissette . . . Yes, that's true, she dressed very well, but I'd understood her stepfather and mother frequently go abroad and it is quite natural they'd bring her a few things back, isn't it? Just remember she was also very young, this same generation . . . What a great pity, and she being so pretty . . .”