Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue

Andrés, our usual first baseman, refused to have anything to do with the game after he injured himself and couldn’t play for the National Youth Team. They let me take first base, despite being only the eighth batter in the line-up, in front of Arsenio the Moor, who was condemned to be last as he was a fuck-up dressed as a player – or jailbird – in one of those uniforms.

When we came out to warm up it was already dark and they’d switched on the lights, and the Habana High School team ran onto the field, enormous blacks about to slay us alive as they already had other teams, but we were cocksure and shouted at the pre-game huddle, we’re going to beat the skinny liquorice sticks, fuck ’em, said Skinny, and even the Moor and I thought we would. The worst bit was our gear, because the stadium had had a fresh lick of paint, the floodlighting was great and half of the terraces were full of people from Havana and the other from Víbora, and there was a fantastic din, and we wore this disguise that belonged to the days when one played baseball in a bowler hat and gaiters.

And our team had Skinny, Isidrito the Joker – our pitcher for the day – and Pello and me – dubbed Foul, because all I ever hit were foul balls – and almost everyone from our class went to the games, starting with Tamara, who was in charge of the Achievement Committee because participation in activities counted and The Inter-School Games were an activity, and people always preferred a baseball game to the other kind – a museum visit or yawning through a performance of the school choir, for example. And the class invented a chorus they shouted whenever we played: “Violet team, Violet team/go for the brass”, but the opposition went one better and sang: “Violet team, Violet team/the donkey’s prick up your ass”, so the cure was worse than the illness. Anyway, I was thrilled to be in the team, playing under the lights and feeling you could see things from a different angle: because sure it’s not the same watching the players from the terraces as wearing the gear and watching the people on the terraces. It’s something else.

“Balls, gentlemen, balls is what you need to win at this game,” Skinny shouted from the bench when the game was about to start, but it was never just a game for him when it was baseball, and the veins on his neck bulged, he was so skinny. “And we’re more than well-endowed, right?”

And we had to say yes or he might have a fit, and as we were the home club and came out first, the Havana fans started to boo and the Víbora mob cheered, and then I looked towards the terraces and truly saw things differently. I saw Tamara wave a purple handkerchief, and I stopped wanting to play when I spotted the former Student Federation president, next to Tamara, like a police dog. Rafael Morín laughed his usual sparkling, self-satisfied laugh, like the day he told us “I’m Rafael Morín”, looking down at us in his flash check shirt, and us below in gear that made us look like jailbirds.

But even so it was the best game I ever played. That day Isidrito had downed two quarts of undiluted milk, which he said was good for pitching straight and the fact was he was throwing really hard and farting like a lord… And the Joker starting striking out the Havana darkies, and almost nobody got on their base, and if they did, it didn’t matter, because they weren’t scoring. And we were the same, or worse, because Yayo Butter, Havana’s pitcher, was red-hot and struck out seven of us in a row, and the crowd on the terrace went quieter and quieter; the game became really serious, was keeping its big outburst for the last innings, right?

We were zero-zero in the eighth inning, when it was Skinny’s turn to bat, for he was fifth up, and he hit a drive past the shortstop and he got to second. All hell was let loose: people started shouting “Violeta, Violeta”, and Skinny went “Balls, we’ve got balls” till the umpire had a go at him for swearing. And it was all down to that bitch destiny, because Isidrito, who was sixth up and never blew it, made a pig’s ear out of it, was the first out, and Paulino the Bull’s Testicle, who was seventh, rolled it into Yayo’s hands who leisurely stroked it over his balls before throwing it to first base, and Paulino was the second out. Then it was my turn to hit.

I was shitting myself, legs shaking, hands sweating and everybody went dead silent, and even Skinny, who knew me well, didn’t shout at me and I think he reckoned the innings was done for. Then I picked myself up, spat into my hands and rubbed them with earth and remembered I should lift the bat right back, raise my elbow, grip tight when I started my swing, a deep, deep silence, and Yayo Butter pitched it straight, a mean fucking fastball, and I said here we go, lifted my bat back, raised my elbow, gripped tight, shut my eyes and swung. And it was Sodom and Gomorrah: fuck! It was one hell of a hit right down the middle of the field, real hard, like I’d never hit before, and it was like seeing the ball flying in slow motion, flying till it hit the fence right under the scoreboard, and I started to run hell for leather, and it went so far I could go to third, almost enough for a homerun, they screamed, Skinny scored, then ran to third base and scooped me up in his arms, Isidrito who hadn’t spoken to me from the day we’d had that fight, kissed me he was so excited, and the whole team came to hug me, and I deserved it, right? I was over the moon, the fans were going crazy, and I looked to the terraces to see things differently and felt I would die: Tamara and Rafael had left…

In the ninth innings the La Habana lot scored twice and beat us two-one. But it was the best game of my life.

Before he knocked on the door, he glanced at his watch: ten past four. If she’d been having a siesta, she’d be up by now. Perhaps she was watching the Sunday matinee film, he thought, then thought he didn’t exactly know why he’d come or else he knew only too well and didn’t want to give it another thought. Lam’s sham figures rested under the shadow of a ceiba-tree, possibly quite deliberately planted next to the concrete jungle, and the well-pruned hedges and lush hibiscus created the atmosphere of a colourful artificial wood he really liked. In fact, as he had reminded Manolo, it wasn’t a house for policemen, and the pain of nostalgia the place provoked was so intense, his temples and chest felt ready to burst. He was pleased he’d had a couple with Manolo; when and after he’d pressed the bell, he felt calm and relaxed.

The ring of the bell echoed round the huge house, and while waiting he lit a cigarette and adjusted the regulation pistol in his belt, the weight of which he’d never accepted, and finally she opened the door and greeted him with a smile: “Well, if it isn’t the Prince of the City. I watched that film last night and pitied the policeman. Recently all the police I’ve seen have looked sad. Though that guy doesn’t look much like you.” And she stepped back to let him in.

“Lately I don’t feel much like myself,” he retorted as she shut the door, and they headed for the television room. “Do you want to see the rest of the film?”

“No, I saw it three months ago. Rafael brought the video, but as I was bored…” She settled down in a plush armchair that matched his. “I felt drowsy. I slept very badly last night.”

The curtains were closed, and the room got little of the cold light from outside. He searched for an ashtray and finally spotted a metal one, of the lidded variety to hide the ash and cigarette ends. It was annoyingly clean and shiny, and he moved the lid two or three times before enquiring:

“Who cleans this place, Tamara?”

“A lady who’s a friend of Mummy’s. She comes twice a week, why?”

“Nothing really, I just pollute ashtrays.”