Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue

The deputy minister looked towards the partition and shifted a foot rather nervously. The Count then scented the indiscreet aroma of good coffee and thanked him in advance.

“Well, Comrades,” Fernández-Lorea finally asserted, Solomon-like, still rocking away, “the truth is I don’t know what help I can be. It’s true what you say about nobody ever going missing in Cuba, and yet the slightest thing gets lost. It even adds a little piquancy, don’t you agree? Perhaps what you’re after is my opinion of Morín, and I can give you that, no problem. I think Rafael is the best young manager on our board, which is responsible for supplying raw materials to industry and negotiating the foreign sales of some of our products. I first met Rafael just under two years ago, when I was moved from foreign affairs to the ministry, and to be quite candid, as soon as I saw him in action I had no doubt that one day he would occupy my post, and I,” he lowered his voice to a tone more in keeping with a meeting of three and began to speak confidentially, “I would be grateful to him for that, because I wasn’t born to do these things. The post I now hold now came by chance rather than choice, I can be quite candid on that front, because I prefer the peace and quiet of an office preparing market studies to the daily whirlwind of a ministry, that gets more difficult to stomach by the day, and the more things happen in the socialist camp the worse it will get, and we don’t know how it will all end. Besides, it requires a use of diplomatic procedures that have never been my forte.”

The deputy minister gently rubbed his hands together, and Lieutenant Mario Conde felt embarrassed and almost disappointed, because Alberto Fernández-Lorea sounded genuine, despite his pompous turn of phrase. After all, he thought, there have to be people who don’t want to be like Rafael.

“I’m very afraid of failure and doubly so of looking ridiculous,” the man went on after taking another look at the screen, “and I don’t know whether I have the ability to cope with the responsibility I have and wouldn’t like to finish up a cast-off. On the other hand, that young man’s work capacity is extraordinary, and his career is at its best point ever. What do I mean? That Rafael Morín was quite first-rate in what he did and had something I lack: he was ambitious, and I am using that word in its best sense.”

The coffee finally emerged from the kitchen. It arrived in three cups on a glass tray that also carried two glasses of water. Behind it walked a woman. “Good afternoon,” she said just before entering the living room. She too was on her way to fifty and in a hurry to arrive and looked fully the part: wrinkles fanned out aggressively from around her eyes, and her neck drooped flabbily. She was an exhausted woman reflecting none of her husband’s warm sporting sheen.

“My wife, Laura,” the deputy minister introduced her. They greeted her, and he wanted to be more precise: “Mario Conde and…”

“Sergeant Manuel Palacios,” Manolo came to his rescue.

The woman offered them their coffee, and only the Count took two sips to clean his palate. It was strong bitter coffee, and the lieutenant repeated his thanks.

“It’s a blend of Brazilian which I got as a present and coffee from the corner store. That way it lasts longer, and I think this mixture makes it taste better, don’t you? Because at the end of the day a coffee’s quality depends not just on its purity, but also on a taste that has been created over the years. A few months ago, in Prague, I was invited to drink Turkish coffee vaunted the best in the world yet I found it difficulty to finish the cup. And as a coffee-drinker I even drink the stuff brewed opposite the Coppelia,” she added as they nodded in agreement.

The Count savoured his coffee and thought Manolo must be feeling what Fernández-Lorea experienced in Prague: he preferred his coffee very sweet and very weak, the Oriente province style his mother still favoured.

“And you said he was ambitious?”

“Yes, and I added that I meant that in the best sense of the word, Lieutenant. At least in my opinion,” he said, taking a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Would you like one?”

“Thanks,” said the Count as he accepted a cigarette. So he’s a smoker as well, he thought. “And what do you know about Rafael Morín’s private life outside of work?”

“Really very little, Lieutenant. I have enough to cope with at work without worrying overly about that side of things, which I’ve never considered important, I’m sorry.”

“But you were friends,” interjected Manolo, who couldn’t stand any more of this, the Count thought, watching him perch like a skinny cat about to attack.

“To an extent we were. We’d meet in lots of places for work reasons and got on well as colleagues. But we’d hardly known each other two years, and it was a workbased relationship, as I explained to the lieutenant.”

“And on the thirty-first?” the sergeant continued. “Did you notice anything strange? Did you know he’d run into a problem with Dapena, the Spanish businessman?”

“I knew about the Dapena incident and thought it long dead and buried. I don’t know what you can have heard. And on the thirty-first he was his usual self, talking about work, joking or dancing. It’s the second time we’ve seen the Old Year out here, a group of us get together and get a pig from Pinar del Río, and I roast it on the next-door neighbours’ spit. You can imagine, my father was a head chef and something rubbed off. I think I’m an accomplished pig-roaster.”

“So he didn’t seem anxious about anything?”

“Not that I could see. He didn’t drink much either; he said he was feeling queasy.”

“And he didn’t have any problems at the enterprise, something that could force him to go into hiding?”

The deputy minister looked at the Count, perhaps trying to see what lurked behind such a question. His eyes shone more brightly, as if he’d seen a red light flashing. He took his time answering.

“Well, there are many kinds of problem, but for someone like Rafael Morín to decide to go into hiding, there’s only one kind. To my knowledge, there’s only one kind of problem, but anyway Major Rangel asked me for permission to investigate the enterprise, and you’ll start tomorrow, I believe.” He opened his arms, and Manolo nodded.

“I hope it isn’t that sort of problem, because it could be terrible, but the enquiry will have the last word on that count, so don’t ask me to put my hands in the fire now. Rafael Morín still continues to be an excellent comrade, and I’ll think the contrary only when I’m told, or better, shown the contrary. Let’s wait on that.”

“One last question, Comrade,” the Count now interjected to avoid another salvo from Manolo. He sensed the deputy minister’s alarm was all too palpable for it to be mere speculation. Perhaps Fernández-Lorea had anticipated something, perhaps even knew something. “We don’t wish to take up any more of your time, particularly on a Sunday. What funds were at Rafael Morín’s disposal to make purchases abroad? I mean for handing presents around, apart from the ones he took home.”

Fernández-Lorea expressed classic astonishment: he raised his eyebrows and then shifted one foot, as if expecting another round of coffee. However, his voice boomed at thrice the level for a public meeting.

“Funds, Lieutenant, of the kind you describe: none whatsoever. He travelled on expenses as a company director and with money for marketing purposes, depending on the type of deal he went to sign or the new market he was going to explore. Our enterprise had in that sense a degree of leeway, for it was often a matter of buying a very specific product, often manufactured in the US, for example, and it couldn’t do that via traditional channels, but through third parties, as we sometimes did in Panama, just to cite one example. And you know, almost everywhere in the world business is done by wining and dining, and you have to give presents, and the embassy or whatever commercial office is put at our disposal doesn’t always have a car available… He handled that money, sometimes a substantial amount, and although we are very careful, because the books are checked periodically, statements of account and expenditure on expenses drawn up and two audits a year, the accounts aren’t often as exact as we’d like, for many reasons, and that’s where trust is the key factor. And he was trustworthy, according to all the reports I got. On the other hand, Lieutenant, many businessmen we work with hand out presents as a matter of course when a good contract is signed. I myself was given a BMW in Bilbao only two months ago, and my Lada was in the repair shop… Well, and as the comrades who work at this level are always trustworthy, if it’s not too large, if it’s something quite personal, the comrade keeps whatever it is.”