Leonardo Padura - Havana Blue

She glanced back at Manolo and then straight at her old school friend.

“What’s wrong with you, Mario? Why all these questions? You know nobody works like crazy just for the fun of it. Everybody is after something and… in this place if you can get steak, you don’t settle for rice and eggs.”

“Sure, to him that God gave…”

He searched for his pen but then left it where it was.

“All right, all right, forget it.”

“No, I can’t. If you had to travel in your work, wouldn’t you travel and buy things for your wife and son?” she asked, seeking Manolo’s approval. The sergeant barely raised his shoulders, was still holding his cup of coffee.

“Nil return on both counts: I don’t travel abroad and don’t have a wife and child.”

“But you are envious, aren’t you?” she responded quietly, looking back at the ferns. He knew he’d touched Tamara on a raw nerve. For years she’d tried to be like everybody else, but her background had won out and she always seemed different: her perfumes were never the cheap scents others used; she was allergic and could only use a few brands of male eau-decologne; her weekend party outfits seemed like those her friends wore but were made from Indian cotton; she knew when and how to cough, sneeze and yawn in public and was the only one who immediately understood the lyrics of Led Zeppelin or Rare Earth songs. He placed the ashtray on the sofa and looked for another cigarette. It was the last one in the packet and, as ever, he was alarmed by the quantity he’d smoked but told himself it wasn’t true, he wasn’t at all envious.

“I guess so,” he demurred as he lit up and realized he hadn’t the energy to argue with her. “But that’s what I least envy about Rafael, I can tell you,” he smiled knowingly at Manolo: “May St Peter bless these things.”

She’d shut her eyes, and he wondered if she could have understood the level of envy he was experiencing. She’d come nearer, and he could smell her to his heart’s content, and then she gripped one of his hands.

“Forgive me, Mario,” she pleaded. “I’m very on edge with all this mess. You must understand that,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “So you want a guest list?”

“Comrade, comrade,” Sergeant Manuel Palacios finally piped up, raising his hand as if asking for permission to speak from the back of the class and not daring to look the Count in the eye. “I know how you must be feeling, but you must try to help us.”

“I thought that was what I was doing.”

“Of course. But I don’t know your husband… Before New Year’s Day, did you notice anything strange? Did he act at all oddly?”

She lifted a hand and caressed her neck for a moment, as if very lovingly.

“Rafael was always rather odd. His character was like that, extremely volatile. He was easily upset. If I did notice anything untoward, I’d say he seemed uneasy on the thirtieth. He told me he was very tired after all the end-of-year accounting but he was almost elated on the thirty-first, and I think he enjoyed the party. But work always worried him.”

“And he didn’t say anything or do anything that struck you as odd?” Manolo continued to avoid the lieutenant’s gaze.

“I really don’t think so. Besides, on the thirty-first he went to have lunch with his mother and spent almost all day with her.”

“I’m sorry, Manolo,” interjected the Count, who’d observed how the sergeant was rubbing his hands, warming to the task: he could go on questioning her for an hour. “Tamara, I’d like you to try to think of anything he might have done recently that may relate to what’s happened. Anything could be important. Things he wouldn’t usually say or do, if he spoke to someone you didn’t know, whatever… And it’s also important to get that list ready. Do you intend going out today?”

“No, why?”

“Nothing in particular, just so I know where you are. When I finish at headquarters I may pass by to pick the list up and we can talk more. It’s not a problem. It’s on my way.”

“All right, I’ll be expecting you and will get the list done, don’t worry,” she said, tussling yet again with her wayward lock.

“Look,” he replied, tearing a page from his pad. “If anything crops up, you can get me on these numbers.”

“All right, of course,” she replied taking the paper, and her smile was radiant. “Hey, Mario, you’re thinning out on top. Don’t tell me you’re going bald?”

He smiled, stood up and walked over to the door. Turned the door handle and let Manolo through first. Now he was opposite Tamara, looking her in the eye.

“Yes, I’m going bald into the bargain,” he said, adding: “Tamara, don’t worry for my sake. I’ve got a job to do and you must understand that, I suppose?”

“Yes, of course, Mario.”

“Then, apart from you, tell me who would benefit from Rafael’s death?”

She seemed surprised but then smiled. Forgot her lively lock and said: “What kind of psychologist were you going to be, Mario? I could bene… a sound system and the Lada downstairs?”

“I really don’t know,” he admitted and lifted a hand to wave goodbye. “I never get it right with you.” And he left the house he’d not entered for fifteen years knowing he’d been hurt. He preferred not to see her waving farewell from her doorway. Walked to the road and crossed over without looking at the traffic.

“Walking warms you up,” he declared as he settled down in the car, and he could not not look towards the house and see the farewell wave from that woman standing on her doorstep by the side of an aggressive concrete shrub.

“That egg’s asking for a pinch of salt.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Take care, Conde, take care.”

“What do you mean, Manolo? You going to tell me off?”

“Me tell you off? No, Conde, you’re getting on, and you’ve been in the force too long to know what you should and should not do. But I have my doubts about her.”

“Go on, then, what’s getting at you? Tell me.”

“I’m not sure, but I really can’t fathom her. She’s too poised for me. Even for you… So poised, put yourself in her place, husband missing, probably dead or up to his neck…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Didn’t you think she was a bit like, what the hell do I care?”

“And you reckon she’s implicated?”

“Bloody hell, when the mule says it can’t…”

“Come on, don’t speak in riddles if you want me to get you…”

“All right, forget the riddles. I’ll be as clear as daylight. You know, Conde, anyone watching you can see you slavering at the mouth when you look at that woman, and one look at her and you know she knows as well. That wouldn’t be a problem if there weren’t the slight matter of a husband… right? And as I said, something stinks.”

“You think she knows something?”

“Could be. I’m not sure, but take care, guy. OK?”

“OK, Sergeant.”

As he said “sergeant” he stretched out his hand and ordered him to stop the car.

“Near there,” he asked when he spotted a patrol car by the kerb and two policemen picking a man up. He knew only too well what was happening and showed the two police his ID out of the car window. “What happened?”

“He was drunk and flat out there,” one of the policemen explained, pointing to the entrance to the San Juan Bosco church. “We’re taking him in to cool off at the station,” he went on, almost dropping the man.

“Fine, help him out,” said the Count, saluting and telling Manolo to drive on. It wasn’t cold, but the Count felt his hair stand on end. Drunks who’d lost their way upset him as much as street dogs, and unconsciously he ran two fingers through his hair to check out Tamara’s comment. Can it be true I’m also going bald? And when the car stopped by the Coca-Cola traffic light he took a peek at himself in the rear-view mirror. He probably was.