Grab a Snake by the Tail

by Leonardo Padura

“And do I appear anywhere in that reordering?”

  Tamara smiled again, but immediately resumed the grave tone she’d adopted at the start of the conversation.

  “I’ll be frank: right now I don’t know. I’m still too mixed up, and rushing into anything might be dangerous for us both. Rafael fucked me up a lot, and I don’t want more scars. Besides, you’re …”

  Conde was nonplussed by that sentence that hung in mid-air.

  “A policeman?”

  “You’re very complicated …” she said finally.

  “In what way?”

  “In every way, including the worst: you fall in love … and that influences a relationship. And obviously I wouldn’t want you to be hurt by any rushed decision …”

  Conde lit another cigarette and gazed at the lawn he’d first stepped on twenty years ago, the day when twins Aymara and Tamara had held their fifteenth birthday party, accompanied by music played by the one and only Los Gnomos, the most in-demand, legendary band in La Víbora at the time. He decided he was in such poor shape that a romp with Tamara, which might bring fresh bruises, wasn’t going to change his physical or mental state all that much. Providing there was a romp, of course. No, he’d never understand women: either they were all perverse or mad or deliberately made things difficult in the worst possible way (sometimes without falling in love). As far as he was concerned, things were astonishingly simple: first we romp, then we think. However, as he knew only too well, implacable Tamara was in charge, and in his desperate state his only option was to trot out his ironic gentleman’s repartee.

  “Fine. Don’t feel hassled. Tomorrow morning will do …”

  Tamara just had to smile.

  “You don’t have any choice.”

  “No. And it’s not going to get any better … So why did you want to see me?”

  “Just to see you. So you’d know I’m around … Isn’t that enough?”

  “That’s almost too much. It’s a real honour you bestowed on me,” he reacted, unable to restrain himself yet again. She drove him crazy to the point of foolhardiness.

  “Know what?” Tamara asked after an uncomfortable silence. “In Italy I met a friend of my brother-in-law, a Spaniard, and I won’t deny that I liked him and he liked me …” Conde felt that sucker punch and gasped. “Then I started to think about what my life might be like with him, living in Barcelona, entering his world and that of his friends, stories, people, memories that had nothing in common with my stories or memories … and I couldn’t see myself there. I know my life isn’t going to be easy here. First there was Dad’s death; then all the business over Rafael … I’ll now have to depend on my work, and things are very much on the brink in Cuba. What’s happening in the Soviet Union and all that area is no joking matter: I think they’ve opened a door they’ll never be able to shut. They’re throwing shit at the fan and the fallout will splatter even here. These may be difficult times for everyone. But I feel I belong here: to this country, I mean. It’s my life, more than anything else. You know how a life is many, many things, not just a house like this or a job or status and privileges … it’s also the things that make you who you are and not someone else. And the person I am, I am here, not in Milan or Barcelona …”

  “But your sister —”

  “We are twins, we’re a lot alike, but we aren’t the same person. Aymara has a different lifestyle. Different to the one I know … She says I’m the family fool. And I expect she’s right.”

  Conde dared. He stretched out his right hand and grabbed Tamara’s left.

  “I’m sorry if I said something idiotic … I’m very happy you’ve come back. But the truth is, I missed you far too much … Take whatever time you need to think, really … I don’t know how, but I’ll be waiting for you. It’s my speciality: I spend my life thinking, although what I think rarely resolves anything, and I’ve been waiting for twenty years,” he said, standing up. “Now I’d better go, I’ve urgent business to see to … My work, you know … I’m looking for somebody who killed a chino.”

  Tamara came back to earth with a bump and reacted with astonishment.

  “A chino has been killed?”

  “Yes, though you might find it hard to believe, chinos do get targeted … And when it happens, they even die. Even though they’ve been practising t’ai chi for a hundred years …”

  “If you say so,” she replied, smiling.

  “I’ll drop by soon, but call me whenever,” he said, ending the conversation by leaning in towards Tamara and planting a kiss on her cheek. A kiss from a desperate friend investigating the death of a chino.

  One of Mario Conde’s most recurrent fantasies was that a bar existed in Havana where they knew his favourite tipple. Conde could walk into that bar – naturally somewhere cool and shadowy, with clean glasses and tumblers, like a bar ought to be – at any hour of the day or night and, once he’d perched on a stool and leaned his elbows on a corner of the bar – which was made of dark, elegant, highly polished wood – the barman would come over, and after a brief, almost familiar exchange of greetings, he would pour his drink, without Conde having to place an order. In that ideal place (with ceiling fans and high stools and an old freezer with multiple doors), a place that man’s soul was clamouring for at that precise moment, they knew Conde preferred three-year-old rum, made in the old Bacardí distillery in Santiago de Cuba, which he liked to drink in a tall glass, with a few drops of lemon juice and a small ice cube. (“The usual”, the barman would say, as he served him.) All very simple and formal, but at the same time natural: like the rum he drank. Of course, in that bar they also knew that when Conde was drinking alone, it was because he wanted to think, not because he was a fucked-up lonely alcoholic in the middle of a romantic crisis or something else, an animal racked by despair.

  But, like so many other dreams, it was impossible to translate that simple bar to the hostile, worn-down objective reality of the city where he’d been born and had lived ever since and where he’d continue to live in the new century, as he pondered on his police incursion into Chinatown, and, to make matters worse, was still searching for solutions to his relationship with Tamara and for that bar where they would serve him his tipple automatically.

  However, what really riled the policeman to the point of fury in 1989 was that generally, even when he had to order his drink, it was never the same bar, let alone the same barman, because everything on that island had to flow dialectically from negation to negation, perhaps seeking absolute nothingness via that route, nor was it possible ever to find the same drink in each bar: there wasn’t ice, or lemon, or they hadn’t received rum from Santiago for months, and – the final straw for the detective lieutenant – that day they had no rum, or any other intoxicating liquor.

  After a long day of Chinese revelations and the beginning of a long period of waiting, that night Mario Conde needed, like never before (that’s a turn of phrase: no need to exaggerate, less so when rum was at issue), that bar to exist, his very own, so he could cleanse his tsin, with swig after swig of pure alcohol, of the infinite impurities he must have accumulated after a long stretch of inappropriate activity. He suddenly thought how his tsin was like the dirty head of a video recorder that requires a good clean, necessarily using alcohol, to once again emit pristine images and sounds. And although the concept of disinfecting his tsin was a new idea, the certainty that rum allowed him to do almost everything he wanted in life – to briefly escape his daily tedium, to feel free of inhibitions and guilt, to let his consciousness fly to a state where oblivion was possible and time ceased to exist – was by now a tried-and-tested habit he liked to abuse with welcome frequency.

  “There’s no bar and no rum, but I’ll clean my tsin, even if it’s with petrol … Not water, because that’s corrosive …”

  Three closed bars, two where they only sold cigarettes, and markets where the rum – even a choice of brands – was closeted behind the high, still totally prohibitive barrier of the dollar bill, led Conde to a
dive in La Víbora where Jacinto the Magician, a retired industrial chemist, strove to distil alcohol from the most unlikely ingredients. Conde (always concealing his police affiliations) had to knock on two doors, pass three wrought-iron grilles and invoke the name of his friend Red Candito, the alchemist’s partner, for Jacinto the Magician to take him to his well-stocked shelves in a small zinc and wood room in his backyard.

  “Hey, kid, what tickles your fancy?” asked the Magician while he poked a finger up his nose hunting for seemingly elusive snot.

  “I’ve a choice?” asked an astonished Conde, breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of likely liquor.

  “I’ve got Fire Ball at thirty pesos, Coffee Cream at fifteen, and Drop Your Panties at twenty-five … Oh, and passion-fruit wine at eight a bottle.”

  Conde felt a stabbing pain in his liver and dismay in his saliva glands but, despite those objections from his organs, he decided to jump down the well of despair.

  “What’s the chemical make-up of your concoctions?”

  “That’s easy: Coffee Cream is basic alcohol filtered through coal and grey paper, to get rid of the bright colour. Frankly, I don’t recommend it, it’s for people who’ve lost it already” – he made a gesture to indicate a screw missing – “but Fire Ball is something else: I distil that, using sugarcane and grapes and a drop of good alcohol, and bread when I can’t get yeast. All very healthy … Ecological, as they say nowadays. Say, have you ever drunk orujo?”

  “Orujo? What the hell is that?”

  “A grape-based liquor they make in Spain.”

  “And have you ever drunk orujo?”

  “Never … Where am I going to find orujo, son? But I’m not a chemist for nothing, right? That’s why I imagine it’s rather similar …”

  “I love your power of imagination. But tell me more about what’s on offer …”

  The Magician looked at Conde, pondered, moved his finger in another attempt to capture that snot, then opted to continue his spiel.

  “Well, Fire Ball is, I suspect, more or less like orujo, and that’s why it’s more expensive … and I make Drop your Panties from spuds and yeast, and it’s red-hot. Drink a bottle of that and you can do anything: from robbing a bank to streetwalking. It’s what most people buy, you can guess why —”

  “I don’t like the sound of it … I’ve got nobody’s panties to strip off … hey, why don’t you remove that snot, wash your hand and give me two bottles of Fire Ball?”

  With his supplies under his arm Conde headed towards Skinny Carlos’s, but on the way he decided to summon Red Candito as well and, from a public phone, called a neighbour’s house he used to leave him messages. Luckily, Candito was home.

  “Red, I’ve got two loaded rifles tucked under my arm,” he announced when his friend came on the line.

  “So what else do you need?”

  “I’m on my way to Carlos’s.”

  “But what else do you need?”

  Conde smiled. “Are you reading my thoughts?”

  “I’m reading fuck all, Conde, I just know you …”

  “All right, I thought you could lend a hand with San Fan Con … As you’re the tribal theologian.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Conde. But I’m on my way …”

  The Brazilian soap had begun and, from the sidewalk, Conde listened to the drama of those characters whose lives with their happy endings brought relief to the bitter day-to-day toil of Skinny Carlos’s mother as she bore the physical and spiritual cross of her son’s disabilities. Not allowing old Josefina to get up or miss any of her television drama, Conde kissed her on the forehead, stroked her hair and left her glued to a screen that emitted its signals in black and white. Though he remembered that at some point they would need a serious conversation about the gastronomic dreams the old lady had recently been experiencing: if she dreamed like she cooked, just listening to her would be one big party.

  Asking for no permission or authorization he walked through the kitchen, and while wolfing down a plate of boiled potatoes garnished with tuna and onion slices, he picked up three glasses in which he put ice and, still chewing on his last mouthful, he went into the room where his friend was looking out of the window and listening to music on his headphones. He must be listening to Creedence, reckoned Conde … Or perhaps Chicago? Without announcing his presence, he opened one of the litre bottles and poured generous slugs of Fire Ball into two of the glasses. He smelled his and immediately felt his respiratory tracts clearing, scorched by the fifty-degree-proof liquor. So this was orujo? Like fuck it was. He held his breath and tried it: as usual, the first sip was bad, but this one was the worst yet. A ball of fire rolled down his larynx, and as it descended must have singed Mario Conde’s tsin, and the tsin tsi fled like enemies of the people transformed into panic-stricken rats in a popular film from the People’s Republic of China.

  “Hell!” he snorted and then tried the alcohol again, which this time went down with less fuss, though with the same intent.

  He took the other glass to Carlos, who was still absorbed in his music. It was terrible to see him always in his wheelchair, looking through the window at the trees in the yard. What on earth can he be thinking about? wondered Conde, gazing at the profile of his old friend, whose anatomy overflowed the arms of the chair he’d been sentenced to for life. Conde surreptitiously placed the demon glass between his friend’s eyes and the infinite. Without saying a word, Skinny smiled, took the glass and gulped down half its contents.

  “Red-hot lava, Conde, what the fuck is it?” He started in his wheelchair and tried to tear off his headphones with a swipe.

  “The Italians call it Fulgore di Treno, the Spanish orujo and the chinos – you know what they’re like – Tsin-cleansing Elixir… What do you reckon?”

  Carlos took another swig and nodded.

  “It’ll get us smashed, but better than nothing, right? Is it a product of the Magician’s distillery?”

  “Right first time,” said Conde, draining his glass. “I bought two litres because I need to think a bit and then obliterate everything. In that order.”

  “If you bought this, it’s because you want to forget even your name …”

  “If only.”

  “What’s up, wild man?”

  “I dropped by Tamara’s.”

  The subject was of interest to Carlos, who finally removed his headphones.

  “And?”

  “It’s too complicated, Skinny. Our Tamara is turning into a philosopher and Red Cross nurse. I’ll tell you, when I’m smashed —”

  “Don’t be such a pansy, Conde, don’t leave me dangling …”

  “You just dangle in there. What I want to talk to you and Candito about is the damned mess I’ve got into, and which another woman is to blame for … Just imagine, I’ve got a dead chino linked to a gambling bank, probably to drugs as well, and most likely witchcraft or Chinese mafia stuff, because they cut a finger off and drew a circle and a cross on his chest …”

  “Sounds tasty,” Carlos admitted, after downing another swig.

  “Sounds shitty,” said a voice behind their backs, and they turned round to see the mulatto Candito walk in; he shook their hands and settled himself down on a corner of Carlos’s bed. “So where did this happen?”

  “In the Barrio Chino.”

  Candito grabbed the glass that was waiting for him, poured himself a good swig of Fire Ball and downed a gulp. The mulatto’s reddish head savoured it, as if he were savouring a great vintage wine, and gave his informed verdict.

  “Hell, the Magician is improving.”

  “Was it worse before?” asked Skinny, as if he thought that was impossible. He took another swig.

  “It’s drinkable, right?” Red Candito took another sip and concluded: “It’s like orujo.”

  Conde and Carlos exchanged glances. Something was very, very bad in the kingdom of Denmark if Candito associated that shit with a remote beverage known as orujo. But Conde decided not to blur the conv
ersation – at least at that early stage, on the first bottle – and waved at Carlos to dampen his curiosity.

  “You see, Skinny? I told you … Orujo,” he said, and chinked his glass against his invalid friend’s.

  Candito smiled slyly and got straight to the point: “So what’s this Chinese tall story all about, Conde?”

  6

  “What’s wrong?”

  The sun shone rudely at 9 a.m., threatening to usher in one hell of a day. A sullen glow rose above the nearby bay and Conde, protected by his dark glasses, felt the shafts of light like burning needles on his eyes. He tried to smile at Candito but couldn’t.

  “You look greenish, Conde.”

  “And what colour do you want me to look, Candito? I’ve a hangover that makes me want to die …”

  “You can’t handle it like you used to, bro … hey, I woke up bright as anything and I drank the same as you.”

  “Come on, the ferry’s here,” said Candito, leading him by the arm like a blind man.

  The old ferry that crossed the bay from Avenida del Puerto to the town of Regla had started to dock and Conde thought it was a bad idea to go sailing with such a chronic hangover. It was a short trip and the sea seemed calm, but he might empty out his guts at the surge from the smallest of waves. Nonetheless, he took a deep breath and boarded.

  The previous night, when at Candito’s request he’d drawn a picture of the signs etched on Pedro Cuang’s chest, Candito had told him to forget San Fan Con and all that Chinese gibberish, since he was on the wrong track or they’d put him on the wrong track: Red was convinced the arrows, circle and four crosses was a sign of Palo Mayombe, witchcraft from the Congo, and that they had cut off the finger to be used in a nganga, a cauldron which took the place of an altar. But if they wanted to be sure what the signs meant and find out about ngangas and palo symbols, Conde would have to visit Marcial Varona, the wisest, most respected ngangulero among all the santeria priests living in Regla, the mecca of Cuban voodoo.

  Looking at a distant spot beyond the whitewashed walls of La Virgen de Regla, the policeman managed to complete the short crossing without the threatened vomit materializing, but when he stepped back on land he suddenly felt nauseous, as if his drunkenness was reactivating.