Leonardo Padura - Havana Fever

Conde’s emotional exhaustion got the better of Yoyi’s entrepreneurial energies, and they called it a day at three p.m., after counting out two hundred and eighteen saleable books, some of which could fetch juicy prices, nearly all printed in Cuba, Mexico or Spain between the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth.

“Those go back on the shelves,” the Count told Dionisio, pointing to the most valuable volumes. “We’ll take these. Is that all right by you?”

“I don’t have a problem with any of that. What do we do with the ones you say shouldn’t be sold?” he asked, gazing at the mountain of fantastic books the Count was returning to one corner of the empty shelves.

“You decide… It would make sense to try to sell them to the National Library. They all have a heritage value. The Library doesn’t pay very much, but…”

“But, man, I think…” Pigeon couldn’t repress a reaction his partner quickly nipped in the bud.

“It’s not open to debate, Yoyi,” and he added, for Dionisio’s benefit, “I already told you, you must decide. Most of those books are worth $500, others over a thousand and some several thousand.” He watched the sickly pallor spread over Dionisio’s face and, pre-empting a heart attack, added, “If you like, when we finish today, talk to him,” and he pointed at Yoyi. “But I won’t be part of that deal. My only condition is that, if you’re not going to do a deal with the National Library or a museum, do it with Yoyi. He’ll pay you best. I can assure you of that.”

Excited by these figures, Dionisio Ferrero coughed, sweated, reflected, trembled, hesitated and looked at Yoyi, who welcomed his look with an angelic, understanding smile.

“I knew they could be quite valuable, but really never imagined they might fetch those prices. Naturally, if I’d had any inkling, I’d have…” Dionisio smiled, happy at the dazzling prospect of a better future. “So how much will you give me for the ones you have separated out?”

“We’ll have to do our sums,” Pigeon interjected hastily. “Can you leave us alone for a few minutes so we can tot up?”

“Yes, of course… I’ll go and make some coffee. Some cold water as well?”

When Dionisio went out, the Count looked at his colleague and received the murderous look he anticipated and deserved.

“I’ll kill you one of these days. I swear I will. How the hell can you be such a bastard? And to cap it all you tell him there are books worth over a thousand dollars…”

“I erred on the conservative side, Yoyi. What do you reckon for the thirteen volumes of La Sagra? And the first editions of Las Casas and the Inca Garcilaso? Got any idea what they’d pay out in Miami for the Picturesque Stroll ? . ..”

“That’s piss low, man. It’s not as if you live in Miami or there are any buyers around here who’d pay over a thousand dollars for one of those books.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Well, it ought to be yours as well. You realize that with two or three of those little books you could buy a year’s supply of whisky and not that gut-rotting local brew you buy from Blakamán and the Vikingo.”

“If you want to get plastered, anything will do… Come on, let’s do our sums…”

It took them half an hour to value the books, and that included drinking two coffees. At the Count’s insistence, they agreed a price they deemed satisfactory for all concerned. While Conde sat back on the sofa, Yoyi Pigeon preferred to stand next to the stained-glass windows, like a boxer waiting in the neutral corner for the count to stop or for the go-ahead to resume the fight. The Ferreros flopped down on their armchairs and Conde noticed their pathetic nervous tics, and reflected that hunger and principles, poverty and dignity, scarcity and pride are difficult pairings to reconcile.

“Let’s see then,” he said. “Today we picked out two hundred and eighteen books… Some will sell for a very good price, but we’ll have to work hard to get a good price for others. We’re looking at twelve, fifteen dollars, although it won’t be easy, and others might make two or three… If we go by the thirty percent rule, my colleague and I have decided to offer you a flat price: three dollars a book.”

Amalia and Dionisio glanced at each other. Were they hoping for more? Had they got too fond of the good life? Yoyi Pigeon sensed they were suspicious and, armed with a calculator, walked over.

“Let’s see then… 218 books, at three dollars apiece… makes 654 greenbacks… Six, five five, rounded up. At twenty-six pesos to the dollar…” he paused theatrically, knowing full well it would clear away any doubts, and underscoring the point, he pretended he too was surprised. “Hell! Seventeen thousand pesos! I can tell you, no buyer will give you that much, because selling books has got difficult recently… What’s more: what you’ve got in there will sort your problems for the rest of your lives…”

Conde knew the undernourished legs, stomachs and brains of Amalia and Dionisio Ferrero must be quaking at the sound of such figures, as his own had quaked that afternoon when he’d imagined himself as the happy owner of ten or twelve thousand pesos, which would pay his bills for half a year if properly eked out… They’d only been through a seventh or eighth of the library, too, and his hunch still throbbed, telling him that something extraordinary, something beyond his grasp would happen in that room. Would this deal really leave him a rich man, thanks to the discovery of incunabula whose magnetic pull – in monetary terms – not even he and his moral sense could resist?

“How do you want your money, in pesos or dollars?” Pigeon tried to wrap the deal up. As ever, brother and sister consulted each other visually and the Count spotted a poison in those glances that hadn’t previously shown itself: the poison of ambition.

“Four dollars a book,” spat Dionisio, recovering the verbal power of command he must have deployed in his glory days as a military leader on the battlefield.

Yoyi smiled and looked at the Count, as if to say: “You see? they’re bastards, not poor wretches. Who are you kidding…”

“Half in Cuban pesos and half in dollars,” added Dionisio, fully in control of the situation. “It’s a fair offer and no arguments…”

“OK,” said Yoyi, not daring to contradict him, but showing he was none too happy. “That makes twenty-two thousand six hundred and seventy pesos. I’ll pay you ten thousand now and the remainder and the dollars tomorrow.”

And he held out a hand to the Count who put in it the wad of three thousand he’d given him the previous day and added the money he’d taken from the bumbag hanging under his stomach. He separated out the two bundles and gave them to Dionisio, tapping the notes against his open hand.

“5,000 per wad. Please count them. I still owe you 1,300 pesos and 436 dollars,” he spelt out to the ex-soldier, whose cockiness had evaporated on sight of the banknotes.

While Dionisio concentrated on counting the money, Amalia didn’t know where to point her watery gaze: it kept sliding over the money her brother was sorting into piles of hundreds and then thousands, on the table in the centre of the room. She couldn’t stop herself, lifted a finger to her mouth and began biting the skin around the nail that was shredded beyond the edge of the finger, as a shadow of painful, cannibalistic satisfaction flitted across her face.

“By the way, Amalia,” the Count had been resisting putting the question but decided to take advantage of her moment of ecstasy, “Have you ever heard of Violeta del Río?”

The Count thought Amalia’s expression of bewilderment and incomprehension genuine enough as she reluctantly abandoned her ragged fingernail.