“He sings like a black. Just listen.”
“You’re kidding. He sings like God.”
“Up on your feet, lads. Man doesn’t live on music alone. Time to eat,” said Josefina from the doorway where she was taking her apron off, and the Count wondered how many more times he’d hear that call from the wild that summoned the three of them to the incredible feast Josefina struggled daily to create. It would be a difficult world without her, he told himself.
“Let’s have the menu, Señora,” the Count demanded, already in place behind the wheelchair.
“Cod Basque-style, boiled rice, a Polish mushroom soup I’ve improved with cabbage, chicken giblets, tomato sauce, fried ripe plantain, and a radish, lettuce and watercress salad.”
“Where do you find all this, Jose?”
“Better not to ask, Condesito. Hey, let me have a drop of that rum. Today I feel happy for some reason or other.”
“This is all for you,” the Count offered her a shot and thought: “Hell, I really love her.”
What you call an empty room, he muttered, breathing in a deep consistent smell of solitude. There’s an empty bed, he thought, scrutinizing the mysterious shapes in the screwed up sheets that nobody bothered to smooth out. He switched the light on, and solitude hit him between the eyes. Rufino was hurtling round his goldfish bowl. Don’t exhaust me, Rufino, he told him and started to undress. Put his jacket on the chair, threw his shirt in the direction of his bed, placed his pistol on his jacket and, after he’d prised off his shoes with his feet, dropped his jeans on the floor.
He walked into the kitchen and poured the last remains of coffee powder he’d found in an envelope into his coffee pot. He washed out his thermos once he’d got rid of the white fetid coffee he’d left there the morning of the previous day that now seemed distant, very distant. The reflection of his face in the pane of glass confirmed his impending baldness yet again, and he opened the window onto the nocturnal peace and quiet in his barrio and thought how this might also be a perfect night to sit under a lamp on the street corner playing a few rounds of dominos, soothed by healthy intakes of gut-rot. Only it was a long time since people had gathered there, on such a night, to play dominos and down cheap liquor. Now we’re not even a shadow of our former selves and will never be the same again, he muttered, wondering when he should call Tamara. Solitude will be the death of me; he sweetened his coffee and poured himself a huge cup of early-morning coffee while lighting up the inevitable cigarette.
He went back to his bedroom and looked at Rufino from his bed. The fighting fish had ground to a halt and also seemed to be looking at him.
“I’ll get you some food tomorrow,” he told him.
He abandoned his empty cup on a night table stained by other abandoned cups and went over to the mountain of books waiting their turn. He slid his finger down their spines, looked for a title or author that attracted him but gave up halfway. He stretched out a hand towards his bookcase and picked out the only book that had never accumulated dust. “May it be very squalid and moving,” he repeated loudly and read the story of the man who knew all the secrets of the banana fish, which is maybe why he killed himself, and fell asleep thinking the story was pure squalor if only because of the quiet brilliance of the suicide.
Mantilla, July 1990 – January 1991
BITTER LEMON PRESS
First published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by Bitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW
www.bitterlemonpress.com
First published in Spanish as Pasado Perfecto by Tusquets Editores, S.A., Barcelona, 2000
Bitter Lemon Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Arts Council of England
© Leonardo Padura Fuentes, 2000
English translation © Peter Bush, 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced in any form or by any means without written
permission of the publisher.
The moral rights of Leonardo Padura and Peter Bush have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN : 978-1-904-73886-2
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Broad Street, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound by
Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading, Berkshire
Havana Blue Page 23
