by Jose Latour
In the first minute of video number three, as a couple kissed and began to undress while sitting on a sofa, the captain frowned, froze the scene, then rewound, and replayed it. After watching the whole twenty-two minutes, he went back to the initial scene. Finally, unable to suppress his satisfaction, he went to Pena’s office and explained what he’d discovered. His boss went to the projection room and watched the tape’s first minute.
An hour later the major, the captain, and Lieutenant Yunisleidis Aguirre, a buxom twenty-nine-year-old lawyer, reached Señora Roselia’s home. Trujillo rang the doorbell. In her black faux-leather handbag the policewoman carried video cassette number three, a mini-DV Handycam, and a tape recorder.
“Captain!” There was no smile, no pretence. Fear shone in Roselia’s eyes.
“Good afternoon, comrade. Allow me to introduce Major Pena and Lieutenant Aguirre.”
“Pleased to meet you, Major, Lieutenant. But, Captain, I already told you all I know. And I’m preparing supper.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but we must show you something.”
“Show me?”
“Yes, may we come in? It won’t take long.”
Impressed, and looking it, Pena and Aguirre eased themselves onto the sofa and their eyes roved about the living room. Roselia and Trujillo slid into opposite armchairs. The restaurateur, seized by panic, fidgeted with the rings on her fingers. “Well, what is it you want to show me?”
“Can I use your VCR, comrade?”
Suddenly Roselia grew pale. “My … my VCR?” she stammered.
“That one over there.”
“It’s … broken.”
“We have one in the car that’s in perfect condition. Should we bring it in?”
Roselia sighed deeply. She knew precisely what was about to happen. They had found the porn films; all three where her living room and master bedroom could be easily identified. For three fucking hundred dollars she would go to jail. What was the use in delaying the inevitable? “No, go ahead,” she said.
Lieutenant Aguirre produced the video cassette and fed it into the VCR. She pressed Play. “Pause,” Trujillo ordered after forty seconds. Roselia was staring at the floor.
“Citizen Roselia Rodriguez,” the captain said. “Watch the screen.”
Roselia registered the citizen and knew she was in serious trouble. She flinched and lifted her eyes to the set.
“That living room is this living room, Citizen Roselia.”
All she could do was nod.
“In a minute or so the couple kissing there engage in sexual intercourse in a very nice bedroom, probably one in this house. Do you want to watch the whole video?”
Roselia shook her head.
“That video, Citizen Rodríguez, is pornographic material. Now, according to Article 302.1 of the Cuban Penal Code, you can be sentenced to five years in prison for permitting the use of your place of residence for shooting it.”
“Five years?” a wide-eyed Roselia asked.
“No less than two and no more than five, if the tribunal finds you guilty. And with this evidence, citizen, you will be.”
“Oh, Blessed Virgin, protect me!”
“I should warn you that in a little while Lieutenant Aguirre” – he pointed to the policewoman – “will videotape this living room and the bedroom too, so should anyone think of moving the furniture or changing the decor after we leave, it’ll be a waste of time.”
Aguirre produced the Handycam.
Roselia seemed terrified. “I … didn’t know … I … am too old to go to jail.”
“The tribunal may be lenient if you co-operate with the police.”
“The dwarf talked me into it.”
“Who?”
“Pablo Miranda.”
“Just a second. Lieutenant, start rolling.”
The policewoman raised the camera, closed her left eye, focused through the viewfinder, then nodded to Trujillo.
“So, now, Citizen Roselia Rodríguez, who filmed pornographic videos in your house?”
Seventeen days later, at five past ten in the morning, a thinner and unusually subdued Carmelo Fonseca explained to all Turintrade employees that he had been transferred to a new position in a state-owned firm. Then he introduced his replacement, a white-haired, serious-looking black woman who briefly stated that, for the moment, business would be conducted as usual and asked for the full co-operation of her new staff. Fonseca left the office flanked by the same two guys in civilian clothes who had escorted him in and whom no one in the office had seen before. It is standard procedure to keep the staff from knowing that the boss fucked up badly. And the standard procedure has a standard result: a week later the staff knows what the boss did wrong and the whole thing becomes the talk of the town.
One night, Roselia had confessed to the police, a shit-faced Pablo Miranda told her in strictest confidence that Turintrade’s manager was the brains behind the porn scam. The old woman was taken into custody and Pena reported her allegation to the chief of the DTI, who in turn briefed the chief of the National Police. Pena and Trujillo were instructed to keep investigating the murder of Pablo Miranda and leave the Fonseca affair in more capable hands.
Since Carmelo Fonseca was a former army colonel, the Ministry of the Interior made a report to the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Military Counter-Intelligence appointed a special investigator to head a three-man team. One week after Roselia’s confession, the team sat down with Fonseca for a talk. For one and a half hours he vehemently denied any wrongdoing, but under skillful questioning the ex-colonel began to contradict himself.
The chief interrogator asked him how he had been able to fork out more than $5,000 for the fifteen-year-old VW in perfect condition that he had given his lover, Anita Owen, the attractive secretary. An examination of Turintrade’s accounts had revealed no embezzlement, so where did the money come from, Citizen Fonseca? The money had been given to him in cash by Marco Ferrero as bonuses, he declared. Oh really? And how much did these bonuses amount to, Citizen Fonseca? The sweating general manager argued that he didn’t keep track.
“Well, what do you know?” the chief interrogator said testily. “But it must’ve been a lot. You paid $35,000 for a new home, then spent around $5,000 more renovating it. And please, enlighten us: how much have you invested in your son and daughter’s education abroad? Why did Ferrero give you so much money? What special tasks did you perform for him that the Cuban government couldn’t know about? Did you betray the trust the Revolution had in you, Citizen Fonseca? Were you spying for a foreign power, citizen?”
That did it. Facing charges that could entail a death sentence, Fonseca confessed that three years earlier, while ogling a nude dancer in a strip club on Milan’s Via Manzoni, Ferrero had said there was a huge market for pornographic videos in Europe and he, Ferrero, was willing to pay $3,000 for each twenty-minute video showing good-looking, racially diverse Cubans performing all kinds of sexual acts. Fonseca recruited and instructed Pablo Miranda, who in turn hired a cameraman, a light tech, and an editor. Pablo also located the talent and rented the transportation. Including Pablo’s cut, the cost of each video was $1,000. Forty-three tapes had been filmed and sold to Ferrero in thirty-two months, netting Fonseca $86,000.
The prisoner hotly denied any participation in the murder of Pablo Miranda, but his bite impression was taken and sent to the LCC anyway. When Captain Trujillo learned there was no match, he lost hope. He knew it was a long shot, Fonseca didn’t look like a murderer to him, but he longed to close the case.
“So, where do we go from here?” Trujillo asked Pena, as they sat in the major’s office the evening they were told of Fonseca’s confession.
Pena scratched his head. Five of Pablo’s accomplices in the video scam, fingered by Fonseca, had been arrested, questioned, and fingerprinted. Their bite impressions had been taken too. They had nothing to do with the murder.
“It’s murder, Trujillo, so we keep trying,” was the best Pena could come up wit
h. “Maybe you should check the general’s angle. See if a relative or friend of the man he killed did it.”
Trujillo straightened up, ready to give his views on such a hypothesis, but Pena went on: “I know it’s a long shot. But what else can you do?” The question inspired a fresh idea. “Maybe the guy who ratted on Fonseca will call you again, give you a fresh tip.”
“Nah, he already said what he knew and got what he wanted. He was after Fonseca, doesn’t give a damn about Pablo, doesn’t know who killed him, if you ask me. He probably works at Turintrade or some other firm. Maybe he snitched on Fonseca because he lusts after his secretary.”
Pena shrugged. Trujillo massaged his temples before speaking again. “One thing bothers me, though,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“This guy, Fonseca, he’s not stupid.”
“So?”
“So how come he thought he could get away with it?”
“Fonseca is not our concern, Captain.”
“I know, I know. I’m just shooting the fucking breeze with you, okay?”
“Okay, shoot.”
“What I mean is: if he’d stashed the money away, kept a low profile, he could’ve denied everything. Could’ve argued that Roselia and Pablo were lying. What gave him away was this stupid spending spree he embarked upon. Why did he make such an obvious mistake?”
“What’s your theory?” asked Pena, seeing it coming. Kid reads my fucking mind. Am I transparent or what?
Trujillo pondered how best to voice his thoughts. “He figured he could get away with it because he knew other people who were buying houses and cars and maybe sending their sons and daughters abroad and nothing had happened to them.”
“That’s pretty wild speculation, Captain.”
“Listen, Chief, Fonseca isn’t stupid. He’s probably a very bright guy. The only explanation I can come up with for his acting so brazenly is he knew other people above him were doing the same thing, or maybe worse.”
“The same thing? More managers making porn films?”
“I don’t mean exactly the same thing. I mean graft, bribery, corruption.”
“So, you think the Ministry of the Interior ought to investigate all Cuban managers in joint ventures?” Pena’s tone was heavy with sarcasm.
Trujillo stared at a blank wall. “Not a bad idea. Weird, inexplicable things are happening in this city, maybe in the whole country. Perhaps some guys who pretend they are true revolutionaries are actually corrupt bastards. That’s not my problem as a police officer, but as a citizen it bothers me.”
Pena lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “If you are right, they will be exposed in due course,” he said between clouds of smoke. “Some are already in jail, others will stop as news of Fonseca’s downfall does the rounds. Impunity is not one of our problems.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Trujillo considered it wiser not to argue. “Let’s hope so, Chief, let’s hope so.”
* National Revolutionary Police
Interlude
Elena Miranda lay in bed, naked, staring at the ceiling. She had had an orgasm a few minutes earlier and this stage of lovemaking always made her hanker after Six. Coincidentally just a letter away from sex, Six had been good throughout, but the guy was unrivalled in those ten to fifteen minutes of waning passion. He kept her in his arms, whispered loving words, kissed her lightly, and she felt as if she were being helped down a steep hillside to a beautiful, quiet valley of dreamless sleep. But Nineteen, it seemed, had everything to learn about the post-orgasmic phase of female sexuality and he snored noisily less than five minutes after ejaculation.
What seemed paradoxical to Elena was that Six had been an undereducated trucker who confessed to not having read a poem since grade school, whereas Nineteen was a cultivated playwright who had penned a much-acclaimed avant-garde play on sexual inadequacies. Which goes to prove, Elena mused, that it’s basically a matter of talent or aptitude, something intrinsic in some people, extrinsic in others. Same as in art. Elena smiled to herself as she watched Six in her mind’s eye. Should somebody ask him who Masters and Johnson were, he’d probably furrow his brow in concentration before guessing “American big leaguers?”
Out of bed, Six had been boisterous and unsociable; whereas Nineteen was restrained and courteous. It looked, however, as if most learned, witty men were nothing to write home about sexually. Nineteen was one of them. He said sad truths in a funny way, things like: “The only truly free people in this country are those who can turn down an invitation to a political rally without giving excuses.” And one that she was still pondering: “The people who rule the world belong to two broad categories: the successful and the unsuccessful. The successful are fully aware of the impossibility of mastering even a tiny fraction of accumulated knowledge, so they recruit experts, delegate, and fret about their fallibility. The unsuccessful consider themselves geniuses, make all the decisions, and worry about their place in history.”
Impressive. But in bed, well, to put it mildly, he was forgettable.
In her teens she had read about the “ideal” man in old, pre-revolutionary issues of women’s magazines that circulated almost clandestinely among students. The eyes of Rock Hudson, the nose of James Dean, the personality of Paul Newman, that kind of crap. Well, she could create a quite acceptable male by choosing the best essential attribute from each of the nineteen men she had gone to bed with. Although there were some who had nothing to offer.
This line of reasoning made her think of Ricardo Lagos and Lucinda Barreras, a married couple with two daughters. They had one of those rock-solid marriages everybody envies. Both had a mischievous sense of humour that made them great fun to party with. And their finale was a riot.
“You women are all the same,” Ricardo suddenly yells at Lucinda, glass in hand, swaying uncertainly, pretending to be drunk. Conversation dies, everybody stares in utter bewilderment. They do this only when they are sure that most people at the party haven’t seen it before, only if someone in the know asks for it, only if no children are present, and not before they are ready to leave.
“You want a guy who’s handsome, well educated, owns a car, an apartment, makes a lot of money, gets a hard-on this big in five seconds flat, comes only after you’ve had multiple orgasms,” he rants. “Of course, he never feels horny if you don’t feel horny. But when you are, he becomes a sex maniac. He cooks, does the dishes, the laundry, the ironing, empties the trash can every night, brings you flowers when you least expect it. He loves you so much that when you confess you were not in a union meeting but in bed with another guy, he forgives and forgets. You’d ask him to fucking breast-feed the baby if it was physiologically possible, for Christ’s sake! What’s the fucking problem with you women? You Cinderella wannabes!”
At this point, even the most naïve partygoer realizes it’s an act. Some are beginning to giggle timidly.
“Oh, really?” Lucinda retorts to everybody’s delight, also pretending to be drunk. “What about you weenie-waggers? Everything we earn goes to support the family, while you contribute 25 per cent or less of the miserable money you make. We women are slaves. Who takes sick kids to the clinic? The slaves. Who cooks? The slaves. Who does the laundry and the cleaning? The slaves. Who spends half their free time standing in line at the fucking store? The slaves. Then, we’re supposed to act understanding and forgiving when on pay day you come home at eleven reeking like a frigging rum distillery. We have to take you to the shower, clean the vomit, reheat your dinner, and serve it to you.”
The audience splits its sides at this.
“On top of that, you want us to be a cross between Salma Hayek and Jennifer Lopez with the morals of a Catholic nun. And when the exhausted slaves go to bed at eleven, the masters – who feel like pussy after watching a film starring Catherine Zeta-Jones – expect us to struggle for fifteen minutes to get up, by any imaginable means, the pathetic, tiny, miserable things the masters proudly
call their whangs!”
People roar with laughter. Lucinda waits for the howling to subside before she delivers the closing lines.
“You know what? Catherine Zeta-Jones would laugh in your face. You wanna know something else? I get wet every time I see Michael Douglas, who looks like he has a real tool. But I realize Michael would laugh in my face too. I also realize I’m fucking stuck with you, so let’s go home and see if maybe tonight I can make you forget this fantasy world you live in.”
And then, stumbling as if clinging to each other for support, they leave the party while people hoot and applaud.
Either way you look at it, seriously or jokingly, Elena concluded for the nth time, five or six millennia of recorded human history prove that sexual relationships are the most difficult of all. It made her angry to realize how she kept returning to the same topic over and over, as if it were life’s greatest mystery. Was she mad? Had she ever really loved a man? She wasn’t sure. While involved with One, Four, and Eleven, she had considered herself in love. In retrospect, she didn’t think so. She had asked a man to marry her only once, while pregnant, not knowing he was already married. Elena wondered whether mutual attraction and feelings, something that had so far eluded her, could make a couple spend a lifetime together. Maybe she had been adored by Three and Nine; they certainly behaved as though they were truly in love, but she didn’t feel the same for either of them. One, Four, and Eleven had been just the opposite.
And she was becoming less demanding with each passing day. Elena turned and glanced at the sleeping man. She had met Nineteen three weeks earlier, the evening he came to her apartment to sound her out about a swap. Tall, around fifty, slender, decent, a way with words. Standing in the doorway, he had introduced himself before revealing that a friend who lived nearby had told him Señora Elena’s brother had recently passed away. Sometimes, he added, after a family member dies, relatives contemplate moving to escape the memories brought back by every room. He needed a bigger apartment and was house-hunting in Miramar because of his daily swim: Elena’s place was four blocks away from the seafront. He said he lived in a nice, two-bedroom apartment in Vedado, and wanted to leave his card in case Señora Elena considered a swap in the near future.
