Leonardo Padura - Havana Gold

“But Rangel…” Contreras tried to interject only to be interrupted in turn by the Boss.

“Contreras, you can tell the Committee what you think. I couldn’t care less. The Count did something to his credit and I congratulated him and I’ll put it on his file. Besides that’s why he’s paid. But he played it wrong and fouled up. That’s clear enough. The three of you can go. Back here at nine, Conde,” he said and slowly flopped into his chair. He pressed his white intercom button and asked: “Maruchi, bring me a glass of water and an aspirin.”

The Count, Contreras and Cicerón went out into the hall and the lieutenant whispered to his secretary: “Give him an analgesic. He didn’t ask for one because I was there,” and walked out.

“Manolo, I’d like to ask you a favour.”

“I love you asking favours of me, Conde.”

“That’s why I do it: draw up the report to give to the Boss in the morning. I want out of here,” he said, and opened his hands out to signal the space that was attacking him. The cubicle seemed more than ever like a hot, narrow incubator where he’d burst out of his shell. The feeling that he was at the end of a line and the prospect of having to confront the investigation pointed up by Major Rangel left him in a limbo he’d no purchase on, in which every move was out of his control. He collected together the last papers that were still on his desk and put them in a file.

“Hey, Conde, it can’t be so bad, can it?”

“No, it can’t be, can it?” he replied, by way of saying something, as he handed the file to his subordinate.

“Don’t let them get you down, pal. You know you won’t have problems. Cicerón told me as much. I know what you’re thinking, Conde: everybody at headquarters is talking about the dirt we’ve raked up in this case and people are taking bets on which big fish will be wriggling in the net… And Fabricio is known to be an incompetent arsehole, even the cat says so. Besides the major is your best friend and you know it,” Manolo argued, trying to soothe an evidently troubled Conde. Although they were two very dissimilar characters, the months they’d been working together had created a mutual dependence they both enjoyed as an extension of their own abilities and desires. Sergeant Manuel Palacios found it hard to believe that tomorrow he’d no longer be working for Lieutenant Mario Conde and would answer to orders from another officer. He wanted the Count to fight back. “Don’t worry about the report, I’ll write it, but take that look off your face.”

The Count smiled: lifted his hands to his chin and began to remove a mask that refused to budge.

“Drop it, Manolo. It’s not just this. It’s everything. I’m fed up, at the age of thirty-five, and don’t know what I’m going to do or what the fuck I want to do. I try to do things right and always end up putting my foot in it: it’s my fate, as a babalao once told me. I’ve got the curse of the slug: it all looks beautiful ahead but I leave a trail of slime behind. It’s that simple. Look, this is for you,” he said and handed him a folded sheet of paper he’d tucked into his shirt pocket.

“What’s that?”

“An epic-heroic poem I wrote to marijuana. Put it with the report.”

“Now you have landed yourself in it, pal.”

The Count felt the need to go over to the window and look out – for the last time? – at a landscape that he’d dubbed his favourite, but he thought it wasn’t a good moment to say farewell to that piece of the city and that life. He shook the sergeant’s hand and shook it vigorously.

“See you, Manolo.”

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

“No, don’t worry, overloaded buses have grown on me recently.”

He didn’t feel in the mood to pursue climatic enquiries when he came out into the main lobby at headquarters, but was stirred up by the sunlight insinuating itself through the high windows at the front, and the Count, wanting to assert boundaries and states of mind, looked for his sunglasses. The Lenten wind blew no longer; perhaps it had exhausted its reserves for this year, and a glorious March afternoon greeted him with a clear sky and the perfect brilliance of a postcard spring for tourists fleeing the cold. It was really an ideal afternoon to be by the seaside, close to that house of wood and tiles the Count had occasionally dreamed of owning. He would have spent the morning writing – naturally, a simple, moving tale of love and friendship – and now, with his lines baited up and in the sea, he’d wait for fate to put a fine fish on his hook for tonight’s dinner. A woman bronzed by a torrid sun was reading the pages he’d written that day on a nearby rock that jutted out to sea like an outstretched hand. He’d make love with her in the shower when night fell, with the smell of the fish in the oven wafting through the space in that recurrent dream. Perhaps at night, while he read a novel by Hemingway or one of Salinger’s immaculate stories, she’d play her saxophone, and bring a sad sound to that blissful scene.

The Polish Fiat was crouching next to the kerb, and the Count noticed its four tyres at rest, full of air. The house door was still shut and the Count walked towards it across the small garden of marpacíficos and crotons that had been stripped of their leaves by so many windy days. The iron knocker, wrought like the tongue of an astigmatic lion, raised a deep roar that ran terrified into the house. He took his sunglasses off, settled his revolver against the waistband of his jeans, hoping against hope she had some good excuses. Any good excuse, because he was ready to accept any and ask no questions. At this stage in life he’d learned – practising it in the most objective reality – that to stand excessively on your dignity only brings more hurt: he preferred to demur, forgive, and even promise to forget to obtain the minimal space he required. Why hadn’t he let Fabricio’s petulance pass him by? He sometimes thought this mean-spirited, but he knew he’d finally acquiesce.

Karina opened the door and didn’t look surprised. She even tried to smile and opened a breech he didn’t dare cross. She was in the shorts she had worn on the day they had first met and a man’s sleeveless shirt that the Count found very titillating. Its armholes slackened to reveal the precise spot where her bosom swelled into a mountain of breast. She’d just washed her hair that fell soft, dark and damp over her shoulders. He was too fond of this woman.

“Come in, I was expecting you,” she said, moving to one side. She closed the door and pointed him to one of the wicker chairs set out where the passage leading to the back of the house opened out.

“Are you by yourself?”

“Yes, I just arrived. How’s your case going?”

“I think that’s fine: I discovered an eighteen-year-old youth who smoked marijuana and killed a twenty-four-year-old girl who also took drugs and had several boyfriends.”

“How awful!”

“Not that bad, I’ve had much worse. What happened to you yesterday?” he finally asked, looking her in the eye. She was on duty. Lots of work. Had to go into hospital. Was taken inside; blame a policeman. Any excuse, for fuck’s sake.

“Nothing much,” she replied. “I had a phone call.”

The Count tried to understand: only one. But understood nothing.

“I don’t get you. We’d agreed…”

“My husband rang,” she replied and the Count thought he’d not understood again. The word “husband” sounded simply ridiculous and out of place in that conversation. A husband? Karina’s husband?

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“That my husband gets back tonight. He’s a doctor. He’s been in Nicaragua. His contract has been ended and he’s coming back early. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mario. He rang me yesterday morning.”