Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue

“You’re right,” the Count replied, getting to his feet. He walked over and stood by his friend. “But what the hell can we do, Captain? These things happen…”

“But there are people walking around who can’t even imagine that they do, Lieutenant,” he interrupted the advice the Count was offering and looked back out of the window. “I went to the boy’s funeral this morning, and I realized I’m too old to be still doing this. Fuck, you know, they’re killing kids to steal their bicycles… It’s beyond me.”

“Can I give you some advice, Maestro?”

Jorrín acquiesced. The Count knew that the day old Jorrín took his uniform off, he’d embark on an irreversible decline that would end in death, but he also knew he was right and imagined himself, twenty years on, looking for the murderers of a young kid and told himself it was all too much.

“I can think of only one thing to say, and I think it’s what you’d have said to me if I were in your situation. First find the boy’s killers and then consider whether you want to retire,” he pronounced before he walked towards the door, tugged at the door handle and added, “Whoever forced us to be policemen?” and headed down the corridor to the lift, infected by the maestro’s anguish. He looked at his watch and was alarmed to see it was already two-thirty. He felt he’d journeyed through the longest of mornings when minutes were languid and hours slow and difficult to defeat; his eyes saw a watch by Dalí. He went into the Boss’s office and asked Maruchi if he could see him when the intercom alarm went off. The young woman said: “wait”, waved her hand and pressed the red button. A rusty tin voice, turned into a stutter by the intercom, asked whether Lieutenant Mario the Count was around or where’d he got to as he’d not yet put in an appearance. Maruchi looked at him, changed her tone and said: “I’ve got him right here” and changed key again.

“Well, tell him he’s got a call, from Tamara Valdemira. Should I transfer it?”

“Tell her yes, otherwise she’ll bite my head off,” said the Count, walking over to the grey phone.

“Transfer the call, Anita,” Maruchi requested and cut off, adding, “I think the Count has an interest in the case.”

The lieutenant put his hand on the receiver, and it rang. He was looking at the Boss’s chief secretary when the telephone rang loudly for a second time, and he didn’t lift up the receiver.

“I’m a bag of nerves,” he confessed to the young woman, who shrugged her shoulders, what do you expect me to do? And he waited for the third ring to finish. Then picked it up: “Yes, it’s me,” and Maruchi just stared at him.

“Mario, that you? It’s Tamara.”

“Yes, tell me, what’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure, something silly, but it might be of interest.”

“I thought Rafael had turned up… Go on.”

“No, I was just looking in the library and saw Rafael’s telephone book, it was there by the extension and, I don’t know, maybe I’m being really silly.”

“Get to the point, woman,” he begged and looked back at Maruchi: you’re all the same, his sigh suggested.

“Nothing really, kid, the book was open at the letter Z.”

“Hey, you’re not going to tell me that Rafael is Zorro and that’s why he’s disappeared?”

She stayed silent for a moment.

“You can’t hold back, can you?”

He smiled and replied: “Sometimes I can… Come on then, what’s Z got to offer?”

“Just that there are two names: Zaida and Zoila, each with a number.”

“And who might they be?” he asked, clearly interested.

“Zaida is Rafael’s secretary. I don’t know about the other one.”

“Are you jealous?”

“What do you think? I reckon I’m a little on the old side for reactions of that kind.”

“You’re never too old… Did he usually leave that book there?”

“No, that’s why I called. He always had it in his case, and his case is in its usual place, by the bookcase at the back.”

“Go on, give me the two numbers,” he said, and his eyes requested Maruchi note them down. “Zaida, 327304, that’s El Vedado. And Zoila 223171, that’s Playa. Uh-huh,” he said, reading Maruchi’s jottings. “So you’ve no idea who this Zoila might be?”

“No, I really don’t.”

“How’s the list going?”

“Going. That’s why I was in the library… You know, Mario, I’m more worried now.”

“OK, Tamara, let me investigate these numbers, and I’ll call by. All right?”

“All right, Mario, I’ll be expecting you.”

“Uh-huh. See you.”

He took the sheet of paper the secretary pointed his way and studied it for a moment. Zaida and Zoila sounded like a melancholy Mexican duo of ranchera singers. He should have asked Tamara about the relationship between Rafael and Zaida but hadn’t dared. He jotted down the names and numbers on his notepad and smiled and asked Maruchi: “Hey, baby, do me a favour and give the people downstairs a call and tell them to look out the addresses for these numbers.”

“Anything for you,” replied the young woman, bowing to the inevitable.

“I so love willing women. When I get paid I’ll buy you… And the chief?”

“Go in, he’s waiting for you, as he usually is…” she told him and pressed the black intercom button.

He tapped the door with his knuckles before going in. Major Antonio Rangel sat behind his desk, officiating at a cigar-lighting ceremony. He was subtly angling the flame from his lighter, turning the cigar, and each movement of his fingers created a tranquil puff of blue smoke that floated before his eyes, embracing him in a compact scented cloud. Smoking was a transcendent part of his life, and people familiar with his fetish for a good Havana never interrupted him in the act of lighting a cigar. Whenever possible, they would give him well known brands as presents on the requisite day: a birthday or wedding anniversary, Father’s Day or New Year’s Day, the birth of a grandson or graduation of a son; and Major Rangel was gathering together a proud collector’s cache from which he could select different brands for particular times of day, buttresses to shore up his state of mind and sizes according to the time at his disposal for a smoke. Only when he’d finished lighting his cigar and contemplated with professional satisfaction the perfect crown glowing at the end of his smoke, would he straighten in his chair and address his latest visitor.

“You wanted to see me. Didn’t you?”

“Yes, I didn’t have much choice in the matter, did I? Take a seat.”

“When you’re as stressed as I am and feel you can’t think straight, the best thing is to light a cigar, not firing it up and wallowing in smoke, but smoking it properly, for each cigar is unique and offers you every ounce of goodness it has. When I’m smoking like this and doing other things, it’s a waste of a six-inch Davidoff 5000 Gran Corona, which deserves to be smoked slowly and thoughtfully or simply when one can sit down to smoke and chat for an hour, which is the ideal lifespan of a cigar. The one I lit this morning was a disaster: first because mornings have never been the best time for a cigar of such quality and second because I didn’t pay it proper attention and mistreated it, and however much I tried later on, I couldn’t make amends, and it was as if I were smoking an amateur roll, it really was. I can’t understand why you prefer to smoke two packets of cigarettes a day rather than one Havana. That transforms you. And I don’t mean it has to be a Davidoff 5000 or another good Corona, a Romeo y Julieta Cedros N° 2, for example, a Montecristo N° 3 or a Rey del Mundo of whatever size but a good dark-skinned cigar that pulls gently and burns evenly: that’s what one calls living, Mario, or the nearest one ever gets. Kipling said a woman is but a woman, but a good puro , as they call them in Europe, is much more. I can tell you the fellow was absolutely right, because I may not know much about women, but I know lots about Havanas. One is a fiesta for the senses, a riot of pleasure, my boy: it revives the sight, awakens taste, rekindles touch and creates the lovely taste that goes so well with an after-dinner cup of coffee. And is even music to the ears. Listen to it moving between my fingers and almost moaning as if prey to desire. Do you hear that? Then come the accompanying pleasures: seeing half an inch of ash mount up or removing the band when you’ve smoked the first third. Isn’t that living? Don’t look at me like that. I’m being perfectly serious, more than you might think. Smoking is a true pleasure, particularly if you know how. What you do is a vice, a cheap experience, and that’s why you get frustrated and despair. Get this straight, Mario: this is a case like any other and you are going to solve it. But don’t let the past prejudice you, right? Look, to help you over the hump, I’m going to make an exception. Well, you know I never give cigars to anyone, but I’m going to give you a Davidoff 5000 as a present. I will now tell Maruchi to bring you a coffee and you’ll light up, the way I told you, and you can tell me what it’s like. You’d have to be a real son of a bitch if this doesn’t bring you back to life. Maruchi.”