The Beggar's Opera

by Peggy Blair

  She smiled at him again and he realized she was a prostitute. One of the thousands of Cuban jineteras who looked for foreigners to ease their impoverished lives for a few hours or a few nights. He would have preferred someone attracted to him, not his wallet. But tonight, just this once, he might settle.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” he said. He tried to smile at her, to let her see his ruined face, in case she changed her mind.

  She didn’t avert her eyes. Instead, she caught his with a look of frank interest. She said softly, when he turned away, “I am sorry. I did not mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

  She spoke with a breathy, seductive tone that hinted at the opposite. That she hoped for discomfort; that what she really wanted was to knock him off his seat and mount him right there on the floor. His mouth felt suddenly dry. He reached for another drink.

  She moved her stool a little closer, played with her glass, ran her fingernail around the top. She glanced at him from time to time with a demure smile. Her body language said there was no rush.

  “Can you look after my bag for me while I go to the ladies’ room?”

  “Of course,” he agreed. He watched her sashay to the washroom at the back of the bar. She left her striped tote behind, planted on her seat like a flag of discovery, so the women in the bar would know he was taken.

  Men’s eyes followed her. Even the Hemingways on the wall seemed to trace her slim body with their eyes as she moved fluidly out of sight.

  A South Asian man sporting a straw hat pulled up a stool on Ellis’s other side. It was the only empty stool left in the small bar. The man was dark, thickly furred. Hair poked out of his collar.

  “Where are you from?” asked the man. He leaned against the bar, facing the washrooms at the back where the woman had disappeared.

  “Canada.”

  “I’m from London. England, that is. Great place, isn’t it, Cuba?”

  Ellis nodded.

  “Been here long?” the man asked, as Fidel placed a mojito in front of him.

  “About a week.”

  “Yeah? Where are you from in Canada?”

  “Ottawa.”

  “That’s the capital, right?”

  “Yes.” Ellis took another gulp, then put his glass down. Something about the man put him off. He answered tersely, giving nothing up freely.

  “Cold.” The man pretended to shiver. “Eskimos. Snow and ice. I’ve never been there. What do you do in Canada?”

  “Police work.”

  “Really,” the man said, clearly interested. “So you’re a copper. You look like one, now that I think about it. What kind of work do you do?”

  “Sex crimes at the moment. And child abuse.”

  “Ah,” he said. “That must be interesting for you. Busy, is it?” “Very,” Ellis agreed. But it crossed his mind that not many people would describe his line of work as “interesting.”

  “I work in the modelling business.”

  The man turned around to face the mirror. They watched the woman’s reflection as she languidly made her way back to the front of the bar. “Where are you staying?” the man asked as she approached.

  “The Parque Ciudad Hotel.”

  “Ah,” the man said. “Beautiful place. Do you like it?”

  “The staff is extremely accommodating.”

  “There’s a new wing they finished recently. Very nice, I hear.”

  “Yes. That’s where my room is.”

  The woman slid back on her stool and put her hand on Ellis’s shoulder while she stabilized herself. He thought he saw her eyes flicker to the South Asian man and narrow, but he wasn’t sure. Her expression lasted only a moment.

  “You are very strong,” she said to Ellis, but he thought for some reason that the comment was directed to the other man.

  The dark man held her eyes as she slipped her arm through Ellis’s and slid closer. Fidel brought the stranger another drink.

  “My turn to go,” said Ellis. “I’ll be back shortly,” he promised, but he felt uneasy leaving her alone.

  As Ellis walked back from the men’s room, he could see the two of them in the wide mirror. The dark man leaned over Ellis’s stool and put his face in front of the woman’s. Ellis saw him draw his finger across his throat and mouth something to her. She squirmed on her seat. When Ellis sat down, he saw she was trembling. What the fuck?

  “Do you know this man?” he asked. He tried to imagine what the man had said to scare her so badly. She too quickly shook her head and he didn’t believe her. He turned to confront the man. “Maybe you want to leave the lady alone, pal,” he said, almost snarling.

  “I’m just having a drink,” the dark man responded. “Making conversation with the lady. If that’s what you want to call her.”

  But his rudeness to the woman made Ellis suddenly angry again. He tensed up, ready to fight. He and Steve Sloan would have drawn lots to see which one of them would get to beat the shit out of an asshole like this one.

  He lowered his voice and said menacingly: “Listen, pal. You stay the fuck away from her, okay? Tonight, she’s with me. Got it?”

  “Like I said, I just came in for a drink,” the man replied. He threw some bills on the bar. “Here, I’ve got your tab covered. No hard feelings, right mate? Just a little misunderstanding. I’m leaving. No need to be upset.”

  “Good plan,” Ellis said sarcastically.

  The man threw back his drink and slipped off his stool. He had been sitting on Ellis’s jacket, which made Ellis like him even less.

  “Thank you,” said the woman, clearly relieved by the man’s departure. “That was awkward. There are many men in Cuba who do not appreciate women like me.”

  “I find that hard to believe. He was just jealous. Forget about it.”

  Ellis drained his glass, tilting his head back, letting the sweet brown liquid slide down his throat. Aged rum. Nirvana.

  For the first time in months, Steve and Hillary slipped away.

  SEVEN

  The woman put her hand over Ellis’s and squeezed it a little. She was seducing him and he was surprised to find himself responding. He hadn’t felt attractive for a long time. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink, neat. He poured one for her, too, as they chatted. She was articulate and charming. She told him she was in the tourist business. She winked at him, knowing he knew exactly what she was and didn’t care.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a police officer. In Canada.” He told her that he had just started a new job in the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Unit. That he had been on leave before then, because of his injuries.

  “Because of these?” she said and touched the place on his lip where the thick scar puckered.

  “Yes. That was part of it.” He liked that she didn’t ask questions about them. “Do my scars frighten you?”

  “No, not at all,” she said “They make your face more interesting. They give it character.”

  “I’ve heard that before. But I never believed it.” He tried to grin, his mouth lopsided in the mirror.

  “I understand scars, believe me. I did not mean to offend you earlier by staring.” She put a gentle hand on his face, ran her fingers lightly across the scar that ran from his forehead to his upper lip. He pulled her hand away and she took his fingers, ran her tongue lightly over them. He became aroused.

  He reached for the bottle again, more to distract himself than anything else, but it was empty.

  “Here,” she said, and pushed her drink towards him. “Finish mine. Please, I haven’t touched it. Are you here on your own?”

  “I am now,” he said. “My wife went home today. Early.”

  He drained the drink, held the empty glass. He looked at the back of his hand, the knuckles scarred from years of breaking up other people’s fights. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of his shirt. The ceiling tiles swirled above.

  Man, I am really getting drunk.

  “Too bad,” said the wom
an. “Is that why you wanted company?”

  He felt her warm hand on his leg. She ran one finger slowly along his thigh. “No one should be alone in such a beautiful city as Havana. You do not want to be alone, do you? We should find somewhere to go.”

  He didn’t answer right away. He considered whether he wanted to spend the night with a woman and forget his real life for a few hours.

  For a moment, the notion of AIDS crossed his mind. Then his wife’s face came into focus. He shoved that mental image away. Hillary was gone. They were finally done with each other. He was alone in Old Havana, and no, he didn’t want to be. What the hell. Why not? Fuck Steve.

  “Some company would be nice,” he decided, still apprehensive. “But wait a minute, okay? I have to go to the men’s room first.” He wanted to find a condom machine. He hadn’t used a condom in years; wondered how it would feel.

  He stumbled off the seat. The ceiling tiles slipped with him and the walls were curved now. He held on to the backs of chairs, then the wall, as he weaved down the narrow hallway to the washrooms at the back of the bar. His shirt clung to his back. The bar had become unbearably hot.

  Ellis pushed open the door and walked over to the sink, where he caught sight of his damaged face in the mirror. He splashed some water on the back of his neck. He put his hands on the sink to steady himself as the walls slowly revolved around him like a children’s carousel. There was a condom machine, but it was empty.

  He began to walk back to the woman, running his hand along the wall to keep upright. He bumped into a man in the hall, knocking him a little to the left. The man scowled, brought his ugly, scarred face close to Ellis’s. Ellis recoiled, until he realized he’d stumbled into a mirror.

  I’m plastered, he thought. He managed to get back to his stool without offending anyone else. His jacket was on the floor. He picked it up, but almost fell as he bent over. He straightened up unsteadily.

  “My, you are drunk, aren’t you?” the woman said, laughing. “I had better get you into bed. Where are you staying?”

  “The Parque Ciudad,” he said, surprised he wasn’t slurring, but then the drunks he arrested for impaired driving never thought they slurred their words either. “Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes, of course I do, lover.” She put her mouth close to his ear and whispered softly, “You understand, Señor, I never kiss. It is nothing personal.”

  He pulled on his jacket; the air was cooler outside. He staggered, had to concentrate to keep his balance. She gripped his arm tightly, used her hip to keep him upright. The cobblestones were uneven under his feet. His mouth tasted bitter, his tongue too thick to speak easily anymore. Every now and then, he stumbled, but she caught him. She was stronger than she looked.

  He heard the sounds of mariachi bands, trumpets, guitars, and maracas. The music seemed distorted, loud. There was even a bagpipe. He tried to speak, to comment on the fact that there was a Scottish bagpipe in Cuba, of all places, but his brain and mouth were no longer connected. He laughed, but no sound came out.

  Firecrackers popped in the distance. He winced at the noise, watched the colours fall from the sky in trails like the jet streams of the Canadian Snowbirds. He couldn’t remember ever being this loaded.

  He realized he didn’t know her name. If she’d told him, he’d forgotten. It seemed better somehow not to ask. He was embarrassed that they were about to make love and he couldn’t remember her name. He wasn’t sure where they were going, but that didn’t seem to matter either. What is her name?

  He didn’t know how long they walked, the woman holding much of his weight, encouraging him, laughing lightly, easing him along the path until his hotel emerged from the darkness.

  EIGHT

  Inspector Ricardo Ramirez planned to sleep in late on Christmas Day, make love to his wife and play with his children. Maybe listen to his Christmas gift from Francesca, a CD of the terrific Cuban soprano Lucy Provedo.

  He did not expect to spend the morning investigating the death of a small boy pulled from the ocean like a fish. Or the afternoon watching Hector Apiro practically straddle the child’s battered body.

  Like most Cubans, Ramirez and his family had stayed up late on Christmas Eve. His apartment was the only one able to hold all nine of his extended family on the night of such a major celebration without serious risk of collapse. For years, Fidel Castro had banned Christmas because it interfered with the sugar cane harvest. But Castro changed his mind just before the Pope’s visit some years before, and so Christmas was once again legal, even if religion was officially discouraged.

  After the children went outside to play, the adults relaxed with music, beer, and rum. Then they all walked to Revolution Square along with hundreds of thousands of other Cubans for the midnight mass. As church bells rang, a huge television screen displayed the Pope’s address. Despite Cuba’s official atheism, most Cubans believed in Catholicism a little, just in case. In Cuba, Catholicism was a hedge.

  They walked back to their apartment, dropping relatives off along the way. Ramirez lay awake now, listening to his wife’s soft snores, thinking how much he already missed her.

  He kissed her hair before he finally fell asleep. Slept restlessly, fitfully, until 6 A.M., when the phone rang and startled him. Beside him, Francesca stirred. “I hear bells ringing, Ricardo. But it is too early for church.”

  “It’s just the phone, cariño,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep. I will answer it.”

  He got up and knocked his head against a bell. Francesca had decorated the apartment with metal Christmas bells and homemade stars that hung from everything, even the overhead lights. Ramirez ducked to avoid losing an eye.

  He pulled on his underwear and walked to the kitchen. He stubbed his bare toe on a chair as he stepped around the stranger waiting for him in the doorway. Coño, he cursed silently, and hopped on his other foot until the pain subsided.

  The dead man shrugged apologetically. He held his hat with both hands. A middle-aged man with light brown, weathered skin. Unlike his other hallucinations, Ramirez was quite sure he’d never seen him before. He wasn’t a victim in any of Ramirez’s files.

  Ramirez grabbed the phone to stop the relentless ringing and fumbled as he put what he thought was the receiver to his ear. Still sleepy, he wondered why he didn’t hear anything except a distant buzzing. He finally managed to get it turned around the right way.

  The dead man hovered nearby. It seemed rude to leave him waiting indefinitely. “My day off,” Ramirez whispered, his hand over the mouthpiece.

  The man looked disappointed but showed himself out.

  An honest mistake, thought Ramirez. Christmas Day, unlike Christmas Eve, was a working day in Cuba. For the first time in years, however, Ramirez had the day off.

  “Yes?” he said, careful to keep his voice down, but he knew who it was and guessed that his record for working Christmas Days would remain unbroken.

  He heard the voice of the morning dispatcher. “Inspector Ramirez? I am terribly sorry to wake you, but a boy’s body has been found in the ocean across from the medical towers on the Malecón. It looks suspicious. Dr. Apiro is at the scene.”

  “Tell me what you know so far.” Ramirez scrambled to find a pen and some paper.

  Ramirez’s office processed only some twenty homicides a year, in a city of over two million inhabitants. Child abuse was not uncommon, if under-reported. But the murder of a child was extremely rare; years since his section investigated one.

  His black notebook was in his pants, in the bedroom, on the floor. Ramirez did not want to wake Francesca again by re-entering their bedroom and rummaging around or there would be another murder for someone else to investigate.

  He found one of his small daughter’s drawings and began to scribble notes on the back. It would have to do.

  “A fisherman, Carlos Rivero, discovered the body around twenty minutes ago. He was setting up his bait cans when he saw something floating in the water. He screamed for help.
Another fisherman ran over and they lifted the body over the seawall. That is when they realized the boy was dead. It took a few minutes for Señor Rivero to find a policeman because of the holiday last night.”

  It wouldn’t take long to overcome that problem, thought Ramirez. There would soon be dozens of policemen at the scene.

  They swarmed to any incident as quickly as cockroaches fled from light. But according to Dispatch, the patrolman who arrived first acquitted himself well.

  Officer Fernando Espinoza confirmed that the boy was dead, then made a note of the time of his arrival and took statements from witnesses while memories were fresh. Espinoza looked for signs of violence on the body, which he carefully recorded in his notebook. Only then did he search the small body. He found a wallet hidden in the boy’s underwear. It held a Canadian passport and a badge.

  The dispatcher gave Ramirez the name and birthdate of the man in the passport: Michael Taylor Ellis, born August 29, 1969. And according to the badge, Señor Ellis was a detective with the Rideau Regional Police in Ontario, Canada.

  “Drowned?”

  “Dr. Apiro says blunt force trauma.”

  It was Espinoza’s first homicide, but it appeared that he had used uncommon sense. Instead of disturbing the scene further, he asked Dispatch to contact Ramirez for further instructions.

  “Which is why I had to wake you up on your day off,” the dispatcher explained. “Again, my sincere apologies, Inspector Ramirez.”

  “You did the right thing, Sophia. I was afraid I would end up working today. I have learned over time that what I most fear often happens. Radio that young officer back and patch him through, will you? And by the way, Feliz Navidad.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” Sophia said, and then less certainly, given the circumstances, “I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas as well.”

  Ramirez was undressed and scruffy with a light morning beard, but he was waking up rapidly. His plans for Christmas Day were shattered. There had been enough left of the chicken from last night’s dinner to invite his relatives back for a second time tonight. The dinner on Christmas Eve was the first meal with meat that he’d tasted in months. The disturbing nature of this call made it unlikely he would enjoy two.