Leonardo Padura - Havana Fever

Amalia looked at the two men and blinked and blinked. Her voice sounded like an exhausted sigh.

“Will you leave me in peace?”

Conde nodded and accepted their conversation was at an end, convinced more than ever that that house, and in particular the coveted library of the Montes de Ocas, hid the secrets that couldn’t be revealed, that Amalia perhaps thought had been swallowed by her mother’s dementia and the occasionally merciful passage of time.

Yoyi insisted on being present at the conversation with Elsa Contreras – or would it be with Carmen Argüelles? – and the Count thought he had the right: after all, the police still reckoned he was a murder suspect in the present mess the ex-detective was intent on using the past to solve.

“You like the beautiful, expensive things in life, so I can tell you now: you’re not about to see anything pleasant,” said the Count as they drove into the barrio.

“Don’t give me that shit, man, it’s not as if the sight of an ugly old woman is anything out of the ordinary… You know what? I agree with you. The person who killed Dionisio didn’t do it to steal. This isn’t very charitable of me, but I think Amalia knows something, I’d swear to it.”

The Count smiled, when they turned into Factoría.

“No need to swear… I’m going to ask a favour of you now: let me do the talking. Whatever bright thoughts you might have, keep your nose out of it, right?”

“You like being the boss?”

“Yeah, sometimes, man,” replied the Count, when they peered into the yard and found that the place seemed to have recovered its usual rhythm. At the back, the two women from the day before were washing huge piles of clothes, and the Count assumed it was how they earned their living. The music people had chosen blared from doorways, in counterpoint, in open warfare, competing to burst unaccustomed eardrums. One doorstep was home to three men worshipping a bottle of rum on the dirty floor, while a young boy under the stairs was busy washing a pig with water stored in a petrol tank. A black woman, all dressed in parchment white, necklaces dangling from her neck, was smoking a big cigar on the balcony of the upstairs flat, behind a washing line of patched sheets and almost see-through towels. Next to her, a young mulatta, her curly hair fanning out like a peacock’s tail, rubbed her eyes swollen by sleep and scratched under her breasts with mangy pleasure. All the gazes, including the pig’s, followed the steps of these strangers, who, without a word of greeting for anyone, trooped to the back of the lot.

Carmen Argüelles sat in the same chair, in the same position as the previous day, but that morning she had company and Conde presumed this must be the niece who lived with her, as the elderly woman had mentioned. She was fat, coarse, with ballooning breasts and fifty tough years behind her, and was now busily arranging small packets in a bag on the bed.

Conde greeted them and apologized for interrupting; he then introduced his companion and asked Carmen if they could continue their chat.

“I said all I had to say yesterday.”

“But there are other things-”

“What are you after?” blurted out the fat woman.

“This is my niece Matilde,” Carmen confirmed, turning to speak to her. “Don’t worry, you go, or you’ll be late…” and she looked at her visitors. “She sells peanut nougat and this is the best time…”

Conde stayed silent, waiting for Matilde to reply, and glanced at Yoyi to tell him to keep quiet.

“All right then,” Matilde finally said, putting the last packets in the bag and hanging it over her shoulder: “I’ll be back soon.”

When she left, Conde and Yoyi walked into the middle of the room and saw the smile on Carmen’s face.

“I didn’t say anything to Matilde about the money you gave me yesterday. If I tell her, it’ll disappear like that. You know, there’s never…”

“That money was for you,” replied the Count, giving approval of Carmen’s precaution and raising her hopes of another little sum at the end of today’s conversation.

“What else do you want to know?” the elderly woman asked and Conde congratulated himself on the way he’d played it. “I told you all there is to know yesterday…”

“There are two or three things… Did you know the children of Nemesia, Alcides’s secretary?”

“She had two, boy and girl, but I never saw them. They lived in Alcides’s house and, obviously I never got an invite there.”

“What was Alcides and Nemesia’s relationship like?”

“I told you… She saw to his paperwork and the house, particularly after he was widowed. She was a highly intelligent woman, very cultured, but rather harsh on everybody, except Alcides, naturally…”

“And that’s all?” the Count persisted.

“What else do you know then?” Carmen responded, somewhat taken aback.

“Nothing really,” Conde admitted. “I don’t know anything…”

The elderly woman hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment.

“Lina told me that Alcides was the father of Nemesia’s son. They were very young when it happened. The family decided the best thing was to marry Nemesia Moré off to Alcides’s chauffeur, so he’d have his surname. Then the daughter was born, but Alcides swore she wasn’t his, although Lina didn’t believe him. According to her, she was his spitting image. They paid the chauffeur a hundred pesos a month on top of his wage to keep his mouth shut. The strange thing is that the chauffeur disappeared one fine day, as if the earth had swallowed him up, and nothing was heard of him again…”

Conde weighed up Carmen’s words and glanced at Yoyi.

“What do you reckon happened?”

“I can’t imagine, you know, but it was strange, wasn’t it?”

“People don’t vanish like that, particularly when they have a job that pays double the rate… unless Lansky?…” exclaimed the Count, in a flash of inspiration.

“What about Lansky?”

“When did Lansky and Alcides become friends?”

“When Lansky started to come to Cuba in the early thirties. But they started doing business together later, during the war.”

“What kind of business?”

“Alcides’s family was very influential and he knew everybody. Lansky had money he wanted to invest. That was what it was about. When the world war started, Alcides made a fortune importing lard from the United States. Lansky used his connections over there so that Alcides had a monopoly… Luciano helped them. At the time he controlled the port of New York. Alcides paid Lansky back by introducing him to the people in charge over here. The politicians and so on…”

“And what was the line of business they were pursuing in 1958, when they met in Lina’s flat? If Alcides didn’t have the same clout under Batista and Lansky wasn’t exactly popular in the United States…”

“I wouldn’t know about-”

“Oh, yes, you would… It was fifty years ago, Carmen. They’re all dead and can’t get you now. I’m sure it was something important… They shattered a man’s hand because they thought he was trying to find out what they were up to.”

“The journalist?”

“That’s right. What was it?”

“I don’t know, but they were hatching something.”

“As well as hotels and gambling?”

“Yes, as well.”

“Drugs?”

The elderly woman shook her head vigorously.

“Carmen,” said the Count, playing his last card, “it’s probably why they killed your friend Violeta… They staged the suicide, but that fooled no one. Not even the police… Not even you… But Violeta was your friend and you kept your head down…”

The elderly woman looked down at her withered arm. “Is it her arm or her conscience that’s giving her pain?” wondered Conde. When she looked up her expression had changed.