Leonardo Padura - Havana Gold

The headmaster shifted uneasily, as if startled by an alarm bell. He looked round, as if worrying about the privacy of his office.

“But why do you say that, lieutenant? Isn’t what my wife told you enough?” His tone was pitiful, a barely contained anguish, and the Count thought again: no, he was in the right place.

“For the moment let’s just say we believe her, headmaster, and don’t worry. We’re not interested in messing up your marriage and quiet family life, let alone your prestige in this school, after twenty years in post, I can assure you of that. Is it fifteen or twenty?”

“So what do you want, then?” he asked, ignoring the exact figure the Count was after, hands raised like a child expecting to be punished.

“Apart from Pupy and you, what other man was having an affair with Lissette?”

“No, but she…”

“Look, headmaster, please don’t lie to us, because this is a serious matter, and I can’t stand any more lies from you, or anyone else. Can I remind you of a little detail? She went to bed with Pupy so he’d give her presents. Did you ever look in her wardrobe? I imagine you did and you saw how full it was, I expect? Shall I remind you of another little detail? She went to bed with you because that gave her impunity here in Pre-Uni to do what she wanted. And don’t contradict me again, right?”

The headmaster made a weary attempt at a protest, but thought better of it. Seemingly, as he’d said on the last occasion, those policemen knew everything. Everything?

“Look at this photo,” and the Count handed him the card with Orlando San Juan’s image.

“No, I don’t know him. Are you going to tell me he was another of Lissette’s men?”

Of course I’d obviously spoken to Lissette several times about all this. I could understand how a woman like her, so young, so pretty, and revolutionary – well, I think she was a revolutionary – would want to live like that, be with other people in the way she was with me, as if I didn’t count… She was very mixed up. I’m getting on now, what could I give her? It’s clear enough: impunity at work, like Pupy gave her jeans or perfume, OK? True enough, it’s sordid and shameful… I looked at her and couldn’t believe my eyes: she had spirit, enviable amounts of the stuff. Where did she get it from? Maybe her upbringing. Her mother and father were too busy with their own business and tried to compensate the time they couldn’t give her by showering her with clothes and other privileges. She was always by herself and learned to live for herself. And what they bred was a Frankenstein. But the fact is one never learns: I’ve been twenty-six years in this job – not fifteen or twenty – and I know what goes into these dolls, because they start to grow up here. I’ve seen so many! They’re the ones who always say, “Yes, why not?” and are up for whatever and never argue, and everyone says, look at that, what a great attitude – although they don’t then care whether or not they do things, let alone whether they do them well. What stays on the retina is this: they’re flexible, timely, always at the ready, and, naturally, they’ll never argue, think or create problems… And then we too say they are good, blue-eyed boys and girls, plus all the other things people say. That’s what went into Lissette, though she did think and did know what she wanted. And I’m such a shit-bag I even fell in love with her… It’s hardly surprising if the girl made me feel what I’d never ever felt, took me where I’d never been taken before. Of course I was going to fall in love with her, you must understand that… Although I started to find things out that were scary, but as I told myself, this won’t last, let’s live it while I can. Yes, she had an affair with one pupil, if not more, I’m not sure. No, I don’t know who it is, but I’m almost sure it was someone she taught. Course I didn’t dare ask her, after all, what right had I to tell her what to do? I found out about a month ago, when I came across one of those olive-green – military style – backpacks that youths like today, you know the ones I mean? It was next to her bed. I asked, “What’s this, Lissette?” She made nothing of it, said a pupil had left it behind in the classroom, but she was clearly lying, if she’d have found one, she’d have left it with the secretary, wouldn’t she? But I asked no more questions. I didn’t want to. And couldn’t. And the day she was killed, there was a uniform shirt in her bathroom. It was hanging up wet. When I left, it was still there. But I don’t think a young kid can have done what they did to her. I really don’t. I told you they can be apathetic, lazy when it comes to studying, wasters, as they say, but they’d never go that far. But I’ve committed no crime, nobody can sit in judgement on me because of what I did, I fell in love like a young boy, worse, like an old’un, and I’d give my right arm for nothing to have happened to Lissette. You’re policemen, but men as well, you must understand all this?

The Count surveyed the playground where the numbered posts for lining up classes still stood like remnants of an obsolete order. In his time the line at the back was the favourite, the furthest away from the headmaster and his retinue of speechmakers and persecutors of moustaches, sideburns and hair over the ears. Years later, that passion long spent, the Count was still upset by the constant repression they’d suffered simply because they were young and wanted to act as such. Perhaps Skinny, with his redemptive sense of memory, might say of all that, “But, Conde, for hell’s sake, who remembers any of that?” He’d forgotten other things, but couldn’t forgive that perverse assault on what any youngster wanted to do at that age: let his hair grow, feel it rest on his ears, curl round his shirt collar, be able to show it off at Saturday night parties and compete in being way out, as they all said, with the kids who’d left school and wore their hair how they liked… When he got to university and nobody asked him to crop it, the Count adopted remorselessly the hairstyle he still maintained: longish hair all round. But the memory of lining up at 1 p.m. almost made him break out in a sweat.

“Manolo, don’t kick up a fuss in there but I need a list of all Lissette’s male pupils, the ones she had this year and last, and the marks they all got for chemistry. And look out for the name of José Luis Ferrer. Look for all his marks you can find. Got that?”

“Can you repeat that?” asked the sergeant, looking like a rather droopy schoolboy.

“Go to hell, Manolo, and don’t ask for a tonguelashing. You went too far this morning with Cicerón and Fabricio, so just calm down… I’m going to her place again, the shirt’s probably still there and we missed it. When you’re finished here, pick me up, clear?”

“Clear as water, Conde.”

The lieutenant left the foyer in the administration wing without saying goodbye to a defeated, almost pathetic headmaster. He walked down one of the long side corridors and turned to the right and walked to the end. Halfway down one passage he looked out over the parapet and found it had hardly changed: he put one leg over the wall, dropped on to an eave and, as he’d done day after day for a year, scrambled down the wall bars to get into the PE yard. As ever, freedom and the street were but one step away. And the Count ran as if the very fate of the bold Guaytabó was at stake in his mortal struggle against Anatolio, the cunning Turk, or Supanqui, the fearsome Indian. Then he heard someone whistle.

The author of that summons had followed in his footsteps, jumped over the wall, shinned down the bars and now ran over to him.

“I saw you through the window and asked to be allowed to go to the lavatory,” announced José Luis and his rickety, chain-smoker’s chest shook from the effort and his coughing.