Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue

“No, thank you.”

“It’s incredible, Tamara,” said the Count smiling. “I’ve not been inside this house for fifteen years, and it hasn’t changed a bit. Do you remember when I broke that flower vase? I think it was bone china, wasn’t it?”

“A Sargadelos.” She leaned back on the sofa and tried to tame the lock of hair riding her forehead. Memories will be the death of you as well, my dear, thought the Count, and he wanted to feel the way he felt when their whole group gathered to study in the library of that house straight out of the films. There were always cold drinks, often sweets, air conditioning and dreams they shared between the bookshelves: Skinny, Rabbit, Cuqui, Dulcita, the Count, would all have a house like that one day, when we are doctors, engineers, historians, economists, writers, all those things they were going to be and didn’t all become. He couldn’t stand any more memories and said: “I’ve read the statement you gave at the station. Tell me more.”

“I don’t know, it was like this,” she started after thinking for a moment and crossing her legs, then her arms; she was still so elastic, he noted. “We got back from the party, I went to bed first and was half asleep when I heard him get in, and I asked him if he was OK. He’d drunk a lot at the party. When I got up, there was no sign of Rafael. I didn’t really start to get worried till the afternoon, because he’d sometimes go out and not say where he was going, but he had no work on that day.”

“Where do you say the party was held?”

“At the house of the deputy minister that Rafael’s enterprise is responsible to. In Miramar, near the tourist shop on Fifth and Forty-Second.

“Who were the guests?”

“Let me think for a minute.” She needed time and fiddled with her errant lock once more. “The owners of the house, Alberto and his wife, naturally. That’s Alberto Fernández,” she added as the Count pulled a small notebook from this back trouser pocket. “So you still carry a notebook in your back pocket?”

“Same old defects,” he replied, shaking his head, for he couldn’t imagine anyone remembering an old habit of his that he’d almost forgotten. What else should I be remembering, he wondered, and Tamara smiled, and he thought yet again what a burden memories are and that perhaps he ought not to be there; if he’d let on to the Boss, perhaps he’d have sent someone else, and then he thought he’d better ask to be taken off the job, that he shouldn’t be there searching for a man he didn’t want to find and conversing with the man’s wife, that woman whose every nostalgic outburst aroused his desire. But replied: “I never liked carrying a satchel.”

“Do you remember the day you had a fight in the playground with Isidrito from Managua?”

“I can still feel the pain. That joker really hit me.” And he smiled at Manolo, who was brilliantly playing his cameo role as a peripheral spectator.

“And why did you thump each other, Mario?”

“You know, we started arguing about baseball, about who was best, Andrés, Biajaca and the people from my barrio or the guys from Managua, until I lost it and told him that anyone born outside my barrio was a son of a bitch. And, naturally, the joker went for me.”

“Mario, I reckon if Carlos hadn’t intervened, Isidrito would have killed you.”

“And a good policeman would have been lost forever,” he smiled, deciding to put his notepad away. “Look, just make me a list of the guests and tell me where everybody works and if you’ve got some way of contacting them. All those you remember. And were other important people there apart from the deputy minister?

“Sure, the minister was there, but he left early, at around eleven, because he had an engagement elsewhere.”

“And did he talk to Rafael?”

“They said hello to each other but that was all. To each other, I mean.”

“Uh-huh. And did he talk to anyone by himself?”

She thought for a moment. Almost closed her eyes and he looked away. He preferred playing with the ash on his cigarette and finally crushed the butt-end. He was at a loss what to do with the ashtray and was afraid to revisit the story of the Sargadelos vase. But he couldn’t avoid Tamara’s smell: she smelled clean and tanned, of lavender and wet earth and above all of woman.

“I think he spoke to Maciques, his office manager. They spend their lives talking of work; and at parties I have to put up with Maciques’s wife; if only you could see her, she’s taller than a flagpole… Well, you should hear her. The other day she discovered cotton is better than polyester, and now she says she just loves silk…”

“I can imagine what she’s like. And who else did he talk to?”

“Well, Rafael was out on the balcony a good while, and when he came back in Dapena was just arriving, a Spaniard who’s always doing business in Cuba.”

“Hold on,” he asked and looked for his notepad. “A Spaniard?”

“Well, a Galician actually. His full name is José Manuel Dapena. Some of the business he does involves Rafael’s enterprise but particularly the Foreign Trade department.”

“And you say they talked?”

“Well, I saw them both come in from the balcony. I don’t know if there was anybody else.”

“Tamara,” he said and started playing with the catch on his pen, creating a monotonous tick-tack, “what are these parties like?”

“What parties?” She seemed surprised and at a loss.

“What are these parties like that you go to with ministers, deputy ministers and foreign businessmen?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mario; like any other party. People talk, dance, drink. I’m not sure what you’re after. Keep your pen still please,” she begged, and he knew she was upset.

“And don’t people get drunk, swear and piss off the balconies?”

“I’m in no mood to play games, Mario, please.” And she pressed her eyelids, although she didn’t look tired. When she took her fingers away, her eyes shone even more brightly.

“I’m sorry,” he replied and returned his pen to his shirt pocket. “Tell me about Rafael.”

She sighed and shook her head at something only she was aware of and glanced towards the picture window that looked over the interior garden. How theatrical, he thought, and following her gaze he could just discern the artificial, slightly darkened colour of the ferns proliferating beyond the Calobar glass.

“You know, I’d have preferred another policeman. I find it hard going with you.”

“So do I with you and Rafael. What’s more, if your husband hadn’t gone missing, I’d be at home reading and free until Monday. Now I just want him to turn up quickly. And you’ve just got to help me, right?”

She made as if to get up, but then sank back into the sofa. Her mouth was now a pencil line, the mouth of someone in disagreement, only softening when she looked at Sergeant Manuel Palacios.

“What can I tell you about Rafael? You know him too… He lives for his work. He didn’t get where he is by only doing what he liked, and the best thing about him is that he enjoys working like a dog. I think he’s a good leader, I really do, and everyone says he is. He’s in great demand and always delivers. He also reckons he is successful. He spends his life travelling abroad, particularly to Spain and Panama, to sort out contracts and purchases, and it seems he’s a good businessman. Can you imagine Rafael as a businessman?”

He couldn’t either and looked at the sound system in the corner of the living room: turntable, double cassette deck, CD, equalizer, amplifier and two no doubt incredibly powerful speakers, and thought how music from there must really sound like music.

“No, I can’t,” he said and asked: “Where did that hi-fi system come from? It’s worth more than a thousand dollars…”