Havana Black

by Leonardo Padura

  “But the silk-cotton tree, the baobab and the laurel will resist. They might lose the odd branch, but they will resist,” commented the old man, indifferent to the Count’s thoughts, and his voice lilted joyously. He even smiled, and his teeth stayed exposed to the elements, until the curtain of his lip fell.

  “I expect it’s because they are sacred trees, isn’t it?”

  “No, I don’t believe any of that . . . They will resist because they’re stronger and that’s another of Nature’s laws. The wiliest and the strongest survive. The rest go to the dogs, Lieutenant.”

  “Take it easy, Manolo,” begged the Count, though he had no intention of looking out of the window.

  If the hurricane came, many of those building would cease to exist, like old Forcade’s music-loving trees, and his day’s charge of emotions already seemed on the high side.

  “I’m just upset, Conde.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m upset because you’re leaving the police.”

  “Well, I’ve got a cure for that: jerk yourself off twice, stand on your head and take a diazepam with a lime infusion and you’ll see how relaxed you get.”

  “Fuck off, you always come out with the same shit,” his colleague protested, as he drove round the corner and parked the car in front of Major Antonio Rangel’s house.

  While Manolo disconnected the aerial, the Count contemplated that idyllic image: in the foreground a bonfire was burning, dry leaves that had certainly been cut because of the imminent tempest, and, further back, up a ladder, a man nailing down wooden panels over the windows at the front of the house. And the Count wondered: if he’d still been the chief, who the fuck would have done this? because the Major would have been at Headquarters, giving orders, supervising, listening to cases and tying up all the loose ends so the final knot fell right into his hands.

  “Can I be of help?”

  “Quiet, Mario, look where the hell I am,” said Rangel, from his ladder, not turning round to look at his visitors and abandoning his domestic chore, almost pleased with what he’d done. “Let’s go inside. I’ll finish this later.”

  “Ana Luisa will kill you,” the Count warned, and at last the Major smiled.

  It was perhaps the first time his teeth had been visible out of sheer glee. Maybe in his mere five days out of the police, awesome Major Rangel had recovered a capacity that had seemed lost for ever.

  “Well, you know, I’m really happy with everything I’ve done at home today. And as the store advanced us oil because of the hurricane, we’re having fried yucca for lunch . . . Come on, let’s go in,” he said, as he let them through into the library. “Sit down.”

  The Count and Manolo sat in the armchairs and the Boss opened up his small humidor, which was packed to bursting with cigars.

  “Go on, pick one. Careful, they’re Davidoff Cinco Mil Gran Corona.”

  “Now you really have gone mad,” declared the Count, who in ten years had only ever extracted one Davidoff from the Boss: his meanness as a cigar-smoker climbed its most selfish peak with Davidoff Cinco Mils.

  “But there’s more,” Rangel assured him, as he opened up a desk drawer and brought out the unthinkable: the shine on the black label of that Johnny Walker went way beyond the Count’s expectations and all of Major Rangel’s traditions. The Boss set three glasses on the table, put ice in each, and poured out three generous helpings of amber liquid. He gave a glass to each guest, raised his own, and said: “Congratulations, Mario Conde.”

  The Count looked at him and told himself yet again how lucky he had been to work with a man like that.

  “Thanks, Boss,” and they chinked glasses, drank, and lit their cigars, so the library ceiling was soon covered with that blue perfumed cloud that only a trio of Davidoff Cinco Mil could form when enjoyed in the company of a vintage whisky.

  The Count’s second gulp emptied his glass and he asked for more fuel.

  “But that’s the last you’ll get from me today. You know, my daughter sent me this bottle from Vienna and I’m not going to polish it off in this session with you . . . Well, how did the letter strike you?” Rangel asked incisively, allowing himself another smile that surpassed all his usual limits. Alhough this time it wasn’t possible to see his teeth.

  “You almost made me weep.”

  “Molina seems a good fellow. It was his idea.”

  “But you put the words to it. Why did you write that when you’d never said anything like it to me?”

  “So you didn’t get too big-headed . . . any more than you were already. Because I can tell you one thing, Mario Conde, before you get drunk and start saying ridiculous things. I suffered a lot in my life as a policeman and putting up with you was one of my worst trials. You can’t imagine how much I wanted to kill you whenever you did something stupid or turned up at Headquarters looking like you do today or disappeared for a couple of days because you were drunk . . . I could have kicked you out a hundred times, and I think I could have even had you shot because you were so irresponsible, undisciplined and badly behaved. But I decided it was best to tolerate you as you are, because you also showed me something you don’t find every day: that you are a man and a friend, and you know what that means, whatever the place or situation. And I liked having that kind of friend.”

  The Count thought this declaration of love way over the top. He never imagined that imposing man, excessively conscientious in his work, and monogamous to boot, might distinguish him only for those qualities he thought he saw in him . . . Could it be true he was like that? he wondered and gulped down more whisky, to try to become a little more credulous.

  “And I’ll tell you something else . . .” The Boss returned to his theme, but the Count gestured to him to stop.

  “Don’t go on, or I’ll have to kiss you.”

  “You see . . .? I was on the same wavelength . . . What I meant was I’m pleased you’re leaving the force. If you want, I’ll talk to a friend of mine and get you work in a circus.”

  “That’s not a bad idea. I’d already thought of it: the police clown. I’ve always thought that sounded good, you know. Or do you prefer the clowning policeman . . .?”

  “Don’t fuck around, Conde. What I was about to say was quite simple: it’s better you leave the police before it’s too late. Before you end up a cynic, insensitive, or a fellow who reacts the same to the sight of a dead body as a cold drink. If you really want to write, get on with it, but don’t ever say again you don’t have time. Do it now, right away, and forget everything else.”

  “Well, we’re well and truly fucked there, Boss. I can only forget everything when I’m pickled in alcohol.”

  “Don’t forget anything then, but get on with your life. You’ve still got time.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do, but the rest is down to you. So, what do you make of this tobacco then?”

  “The best in the world.”

  “Almost, almost, because now the Davidoffs are Dominican, made with tobacco from Cibao. My friend Freddy Ginebra sent me these . . . And the whisky?”

  “The best I’ve drunk all day.”

  “That’s certainly true.”

  “And is it also true you’re not going to pour me another drop?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Why do you need so much? You’ve got more than half a bottle left.”

  “Yes, but it’s mine. How else do you think I can wait for the hurricane?”

  It was only when the Boss congratulated him that the Count again grasped the chilling certainty that his age had changed. The precise time of the mutation, one forty-five in the afternoon, had gone by in the middle of his hurried investigations, and the hours passed without his feeling anything special, not even physically. Nevertheless, the evidence that his liberation was nigh seemed more visible after he’d had that hunch that led him to the truth. Poor Adrian Riverón, he thought yet again, trying desperately to forget the story of a murderous bat romantically preserved, as he
opened the door to his wardrobe, by now bathed, shaved and perfumed, and realized he had nothing new to wear on his birthday. Even in the harshest of times, when the ration book for industrial products barely allotted each Cuban male one pair of trousers, two shirts and a pair of shoes a year, his mother had always sorted things so he had some new item of clothing to wear on the momentous occasion of his birthday. But recently the Count had denied that tradition and the paucity of options offered by his wardrobe was the most striking evidence of the long period of neglect his clothing had suffered at his hands. There on the floor, curled up like an old dog feeling the cold, were the jeans he preferred to all his other trousers, and the Count lamented yet again that the dark mud where the Buddha slept had stained them so dramatically that they were desperate to visit the public laundry before embarking on new battles.

  As it really was a notable occasion, the Count decided to wear that night the trousers to the only suit he had possessed in his adult life, the one he’d bought for that ever more distant occurrence, his marriage to Maritza, seven years ago. Even though they stank because of the long rest to which they had been subjected, he preferred to believe it wasn’t too bad, and he thwacked them several times, hoping to improve their odiferous state. He never once thought of submitting them to the iron in order to remove the wrinkles they’d acquired from the hanger. He pulled on his trousers in front of the mirror to make sure they weren’t that awful: other people wore trousers with creases and pleats, and if he adjusted the waist no one would notice that the garment’s original owner weighed a good fifteen pounds more than their almost stick-like present-day wearer. It was much easier to select the rest of his apparel: he took out the only shirt hanging up, preserved in dusty splendour by the fact he’d never liked it, and reclaimed his everyday shoes, rendered opaque by the film of limescale left by the water he’d used to wipe off the mud stains. You are elegance itself, just look at your profile, Mario Conde, he encouraged himself, contemplating his figure in the mirror: a desirable thirty-six year-old bachelor, ex-policeman, pre-alcoholic, pseudo-writer, practically skeletal and post-romantic, incipiently bald, ulcerous and depressed, and in the final stages of chronic melancholia, insomnia and coffee stocks, ready to share his body, fortune and intellect with any woman, white, black, mulatta, Chinese or non-Muslim Arab, able to cook, wash, iron and, three times a week, accept his tender labours of love.

  He lit a cigarette, allowed himself a second dose of cologne and went into the street to confront warm, wet gusts of wind, black heralds of Felix the Ravager, who was already throwing out advance warnings of a predictable destruction of the city. The blacked-out streetlights on the Calzada, bolted and barred doors of houses, the emptiness of the streets swept by the gusts and the drizzle accompanied him to the bus stop, where his heart was almost broken by the sight of a dirty woolly dog dozing on a pile of rubbish, under one of the benches, and fortunately unaware of the approaching tempest. The Count looked at the dog and, for some reason or other, whistled. The animal lifted its head and peered at the man out of a sleepy, hungry haze. “Tell me, Rubbish,” he said, and the animal wagged its tail, as if that were its only real name. “You don’t know a hurricane’s on its way, do you, Rubbish?” he went on, as the dog got up and took two steps towards that speaking being, still wagging its tail. “And it’s a fucking evil hurricane,” he went on, and the animal padded a little nearer. Its eyes were round, like shiny, sweet nuts, and its hair, matted with dirt, fell over its face, as if once combed into a fringe. The Count smiled when the dog stopped in front of him and touched his leg with its warm snout and he couldn’t contain himself any longer: he ran his hand over the animal’s dirty head, repeating his defining epithet: “Rubbish, what can you tell me about your life?” he enquired, thinking perhaps that the animal had been driven from its home by cruel, slightly mad owners, the kind that prefer to kick out their dog rather than relieve it of a couple of lice. Grateful for this gesture of affection, the animal moved its head and licked the man’s hand and the former policeman felt that wet warmth demolish all his feeble anti-streetdog defences. It was an irrational, irrevocable relapse, which forced him to say: “OK, come with me,” and he began to retrace the three blocks separating him from home, with Rubbish as his travelling companion. When they arrived, the Count opened the door and the dog went in as if he’d lived there all his life and he suspected Rubbish must have been having a good laugh. Almost afraid he’d made a mistake, the Count searched his refrigerator and was pleased to find a dark-coloured fish, age unknown, hibernating there, which he put in a casserole with leftover rice and placed over the flame. The smell of food gave a new rhythm to the tail of Rubbish, who even barked twice at the Count, urging him on. “What, are you hurt?” he asked and stroked his head again, until he saw steam rise from the saucepan and switched off the flame. The Count used a fork and knife plucked from the depths of the sink to chop up the fish as best he could and scrape out the rice stuck to the sides of the saucepan.” OK, Rubbish, I apologize for not laying a clean tablecloth, but this is an emergency,” he warned, and took the saucepan out to the terrace and poured the meal into a tin he’d thrown out. “Hey, watch out for bones, and blow first, because it’s hot.” The dog was so patently happy its tail seemed as though it might drop off and, between mouthfuls, it looked up at the extraterrestrial being that had saved it from starvation, the rain and loneliness. While the dog chewed its food, Mario Conde looked for an old rag under the clothes sink and put it next to the door to the terrace, where the animal would be well protected from rain and wind. When Rubbish finished giving a shine to the tin, he pointed to the rag and the animal obeyed: licking its whiskers, the dog turned round three times on the rag before stretching out and crossing its front legs. “Look,” the Count explained slowly: “I’ve got to go out. Stay here if you like. But if you want to go out into the street again, use that passageway. Do whatever you want. I can tell you we don’t always have food here, that if you stay I’ll have to give you a bath, that I spend the day out in the street and am sometimes lonelier than you, but as I’ve not had a dog for many a year, perhaps I’ll take to doggishness again with you . . . What do you reckon, Rubbish? Well, I’m off. Do whatever you want, and long live freedom!” He concluded his speech and shut the door, with Rubbish’s sincere thanks expressed in the look that accompanied him till man and animal lost sight of each other. “I’m raving mad,” was the Count’s self-diagnosis, and he left the building at a run, as it was almost eight thirty and he hadn’t drunk anything for two hours: on that day when he celebrated his thirty-sixth birthday, became a dog-owner again and gave up being a policeman.

  “You finally got here, wild man. Well, what’s your verdict on life?” Skinny greeted him from his wheelchair. The Count saw anxiety ride across the face of his best friend, who was peering out of the front door scrutinizing the horizon for a sight of the birthday boy who was so late. “I called your place twice but no sign of you.”

  “Fact was I was buying a dog,” replied the Count as he crossed Josefina’s garden, planted with picualas, malangas, violets and white vicarias, ideal for all eye illnesses, and he promised himself that he too would have a musical dialogue one of these evenings. Would these picualas like la Aragón’s cha-cha-cha or would they prefer a ballad by The Mamas and the Papas?

  “Buying . . .? A dog . . .? Mario, don’t give me any more of that shit and give me a hug. Congratulations, my brother,” said Skinny, who’d not been skinny for some time, and spread his tentacles out in order to squeeze a skeletal Mario Conde.

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “Come on then, your fans are waiting inside.”

  “Wait a minute, Skinny, let me ask you a question, and give it me straight: if I write about you, about me, and about the guys in there, and mention a few fucking things, will you get angry with me?”

  “What sort of fucking things?”

  “I’m not sure . . . Like you were left handicapped by the war you went to fight, for example.
”

  Skinny Carlos glanced at his legs and smiled when he returned his friend’s look. “That’s not the worst fucking thing, Mario. The worst came after: thinking what might have been if this hadn’t happened . . . But it happened, and don’t fucking go on about it anymore, I’m not in the mood today. You write whatever comes to you, but make sure you do it well. Come on, let’s go inside.”

  With the experience of years, the Count stood behind the wheelchair and turned it round to go back in the house. They went down a passageway, already hearing the Beatles music with which the Count’s friends were beginning to stir their nostalgia, and entered the dining room, where the last of the faithful on earth were waiting. Josefina was the first to congratulate him and kissed him on the forehead, Rabbit copied in his best style, and gave way to a hug from Andrés, a precise, strong handshake from Candito, a kiss on the almost childlike cheek of Niuris – the girlfriend Rabbit was sporting that day – a competitive slap on the back from Baby-Face Miki and a liquid look from Tamara the twin, whom the Count kissed with a restraint that expressed his fear at the closeness of her skin, always prone to alarm him down to the last male hormone in his body.

  “How come the miracle? What made you come?” the Count asked, looking into the woman’s moist almond eyes.

  “Could I not come? Carlos called me and told me to be here and I . . .”

  “Of course you could, Tamara. Thanks.”

  “All right, enough of that,” shouted Skinny, giving the Count a glass. “If you want lovey-dovey, get off to the park.”

  “Hey, matchmaker, quit the joking,” retorted the Count threateningly, aiming a finger between his eyebrows. “Or are you never going to grow up?”