Havana Red

by Leonardo Padura

  “Are you mad, Major?”

  “This is no madness, Conde. For starters, foreign currency trafficking, bribes and cooked investigations. For seconds, extortion and smuggling. And they’ve got loads of proof. What do you reckon now?”

  Lieutenant Mario Conde felt in his pocket for a cigarette and, though his fingers touched the packet, he couldn’t take it out. His friend, Captain Contreras, one of the best policemen he’d known. No, he thought, it can’t be.

  “This is shit those guys want to smear him with,” he said, still resisting the idea.

  “He did the shit and smeared me as well. It’s his fault they’re investigating even my hair . . . Wait, let me calm down.” But he didn’t shut up, only changed his tone: ever more exhausted and bitter. “He fucked it, Conde, fucked it, and there’s no excuse . . . This morning the Chief Attorney put out the arrest warrant and they went after Contreras. That’s how things stand . . . I think you know me: I trusted Captain Contreras, like I trust you, and got my fingers burnt for him, in fact up to my shoulder, and twice I stopped them investigating him, and put my rank, my position, even my rocks on this table to prevent them even suspecting him . . . But they were right all along, Conde, and I wasn’t. Now I have to explain why I put my trust in Contreras. Do you know what that means? It’s the end for me . . .”

  “I’m off home, Boss,” replied the Count, as he half turned round.

  “You just stay there, you’re not going anywhere. You finish your case. What the hell’s up with you? Aren’t you a policeman? Behave like a man, and then like police. Understood?”

  The Count finally managed to extract the cigarette, light it and taste shit. He decided to sit down, as infinite exhaustion invaded his muscles and mind. The Boss was still the man he admired and respected, and didn’t deserve him acting like a child. Would they screw the Major as well? No, I don’t want even to imagine that, he thought.

  “And since you’re so interested in Maruchi’s final destination, listen to this: she too worked for Internal Investigations and was the agent they planted here to trigger off this investigation, from that bastard desk out there, in front of my office door. How do you like that bit of news?”

  “It’s squalid and moving,” he opted to say and nodded: another mask had dropped. “Well, Boss, let’s finish this off: how shall we resolve the case? Should I bring him in and kick Faustino up the backside till he tells us his thousand and one nights, or do you have to call in someone and review all this?”

  The Major eyed covetously the remnants of cigar in the envelopes. Then he looked in his desk drawer and took out another of those short, sinewy items he’d been smoking over the last few days.

  “I’ve got to make a call, Mario. This is a bombshell, and you know it. This will resonate as far as Geneva when Arayán doesn’t go to that conference on human rights . . . Yes, this country has gone mad. Look, they’re now making cigars in Holguín and putting a Select label on them . . . A plague on Fatman Contreras’s mother . . .”

  The only thing Lieutenant Mario Conde would regret as investigator in charge of the Homicide Department at Headquarters would be not seeing Faustino Arayán’s face the moment they arrested him, on the charge of murdering his son, and sentenced him, long before his trial, to lose all his perks and trips, all his immaculate affairs and dazzling guayaberas, an embassy close to heaven and his exquisite cigars, a mansion in Miramar with two cars in the garage, the taste of caviar and whisky – and I like whisky and can never drink any – his powerful friendships and the servant who, much to his chagrin, washed his clothes and always inspected them to gather more evidence on his sly sexual adventures which had become shakier and shakier, the same servant who on this occasion hadn’t done her housework properly and had decided to keep to one side those trousers stained with river-mud from which hung two threads of red silk rotted by damp and years of censorship . . . The Count wondered whether they’d put him in a prison for common prisoners. Surely not. He was Faustino Arayán and, much to the Count’s disgust, they wouldn’t shut him inside a jail with murderers of every kind and type, capable of forcing him to clean out their cells and their sexual backwardness, making his arse as pink as a bunch of carnations without even paying him two copper pesos. Apart from that, he was glad he’d concluded the investigation and could return to his isle of melancholy and longing for coffee which never came, to think about Polly and the next story he was going to write, about Skinny’s birthday in four days’ time, to observe the disorder reigning at home and to think how it might always have turned out differently: even Fatman Contreras might have turned out differently. What would happen to the Boss? he wondered, and refused even to contemplate the response he could imagine.

  Two captains, dressed in plainclothes, had arrived around midday and the Count explained the details of the case and handed over the paltry incriminating evidence: three gutted cigars, a medallion with the engraved figure of the Universal Man, two yellow coins and a page with a couple of chapters from the Bible which revealed to mankind the divine essence of Joseph the carpenter’s putative son and the nature of his huge sacrifice in the Kingdom of This World. He then pointed them in the direction of the laboratory, where they were still analysing the silk threads and mud from the river Almendares. The officers congratulated him on the speed and efficiency with which he’d brought the investigation to a conclusion and assured him they’d revisit his temporary suspension, because Cuba needed people like him. And explained – although you don’t need these explanations, you’re a policeman and know about these things – it was a case surrounded by special circumstances and required special treatment. The Count agreed, and they couldn’t imagine that, opening the door and going into the corridor, he only regretted not seeing Faustino Arayán’s face when they severed the ties of the mask which had finally become his face. Would he cry? Beg for forgiveness? Would he kneel down, stoop petulantly? Yes, he’d like to be there to witness the scene, the downfall of a man capable of judging and condemning, classifying, casting out and crushing people and lives like pesky flies in line with his rigid political and moral criteria. Human rights? Screw him, he finally regretted, yet again, he would miss out on that final performance after labouring so much time on the job . . . And then he thought there were additional regrets: he would like to know what Alexis had said to his father, what words provoked his homicidal anger, and also to know what was going on in Alexis Arayán’s mind when he donned the unbecoming gown of Electra Garrigó, on that suicidal night when he went out to manufacture his death, though he knew the truth had been lost, had departed for ever with the fears, hates and life of that part-time transvestite. And he’d also like to know – and naturally regretted not knowing – why such terrible events happened in the world where his trade obliged him to get enveloped, as in a tragic mantle . . . And Fatman Contreras? A corrupt policeman, who used his position, uniform and badge to screw everyone else? No, he still said, refusing to accept what apparently could no longer be denied.

  When he went out into the car park at Headquarters, the Count felt all the heat in the city descend on him, as must happen when you cross the black waters of the Styx, before the sulphurous doors of a world from which there was no return.

  “Did you take María Antonia back?” he asked Manuel Palacios, as he got in the car.

  “Yes, she told me to take her to Miramar. She wanted to collect up her things. She says she’ll go to her brother’s tonight.”

  “At least she’ll see the unmasking. I hope she enjoys it . . . Take me home, I need to sleep. Perchance to dream,” he quoted, lit a cigarette and spat into the street. “What a load of shit, right?”

  “Yes, Conde, and what shit . . . Hey, does it seem stupid if I ask you to forgive me for the silly things I said the other day?”

  The sweat woke him up, his skin as slimy as an eel. He looked for the red figures on his electronic clock and found a blank screen. The fan had also stopped turning. But how can the power go at this time of day, he pro
tested, when he finally found his wristwatch and saw it was barely four o’clock. Penetrating the thickness of his curtains, the reflection from the sun drifted rudely into his room, like a favour imposed which he couldn’t refuse. He’d intended waking when it was dark. He got up and went after the mortal remains of the coffee he’d made that morning. As he drank, he looked through the window at the perspectives for his most immediate future and for the first time in several months they seemed vaguely promising. He smoked quietly and, when he was about to take a shower, the telephone rang.

  “It’s me, Mario.”

  “Yes, Major, what’s the matter?”

  “The man’s here, he’s confessed already.”

  “And how did he perform?”

  “Well, he says it must have been a moment of madness, that he never planned to do it, and puts all the blame on Alexis. He says he left the Hotel Riviera, where he had an appointment with an Italian deputy who is a personal friend, and bumped into a woman at the side of his car. He says he didn’t recognize her to begin with, but looked at her because there was something odd about her, then realized it was Alexis.” Major Rangel’s intentionally monotone voice continued the story while Conde’s mind, already racing on ahead, visualized one scene after another, to the tragic dénouement: the character of the tall man, who’d been faceless till that morning, now wore the face of a Faustino Arayán shocked to see his son, dressed as a woman, waiting for him by the exit from a hotel.

  “What are you doing here in that woman’s clothing?”

  “Nothing. I was waiting for you to take me home. Toña told me you’d be here. Can you drive me or does it make you very embarrassed to see me like this?”

  Alexis doesn’t get a reply, but his father gets into his car and opens the far side door. Annoyed, Faustino lights one of the Montecristos he’s carrying in a pocket and the inside of the car is flooded with smoke that disappears as soon as the car sets off.

  “And what will you do at home in that dress? Have you gone mad? Doesn’t it upset you walking the streets like that? Where’ve you been dressed up like that?”

  “I got dressed in the hotel bathroom and I’m not upset at all . . . Today I felt my life would change. I saw a light, which gave me an order: do what you must do and go to see your father.”

  “You are mad.”

  “I couldn’t be more lucid.”

  “Tell me what you want for God’s sake and don’t fuck around any more.”

  “Let’s go into the Woods, where we can speak more calmly.”

  Once again Faustino thought his son had gone mad, that he was provoking him and that perhaps it was better to resolve everything before they reached home. He turns left and the car goes down to the Havana Woods, where at that time of night a breeze contrasts with the heat in the rest of the city.

  “Let’s go towards the river. I want to see the river.”

  “Fine, fine. Well, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

  And Alexis told him he hated him, had only contempt for him, that he was an opportunist and hypocrite, and suddenly launched an attack on his face. Faustino dropped his cigar and pushed Alexis, who fell to his knees on the grass, but only to spring back up and attack him, and Faustino, not realizing what he was doing, went into action with the swathe of silk he’d taken from the waist of that equivocal, enraged woman who in turn was putting him in a rage, attacking him, making him mad, and by the time he realized what he was doing, Alexis had collapsed, his lungs without oxygen . . . What do you reckon?”

  “Sounds pretty good, but you missed out half the story. Alexis said something else, which is what drove him mad: he threatened to do or reveal something, whatever . . . And I think that’s why he paid him with two coins.”

  “You’re inventing now, Conde.”

  “I’m inventing nothing, Boss. Alexis had already called him an opportunist, a hypocrite and hateful person a thousand times. They must find out what Alexis knew that might be very dangerous for his father . . . Alexis told him because he knew he’d react like that. Let them dig out the whole story and they’ll see some horrible things crawl out, or my name’s not Mario Conde. But they’ve got to put the screws on, Boss, like with any criminal.”

  “I can imagine . . .”

  “And what about the coins?”

  “He says he was very scared and suddenly thought of that to put people off track, so they’d think it was a homosexual scrap.”

  “What a bastard! And what does he say about the medallion?”

  “He says he thought maybe nobody would identify Alexis, and that’s why he took it. But he forgot he might be carrying his identity card.”

  “Yes, I didn’t think that a woman carrying his identity card was very elegant either. So we’re both agreed on that. I’m sorry for my part.”

  “He says he put the medallion in the trinket-box that same evening . . . Now all he does is to put all the blame on Alexis and say he doesn’t know how it all happened. You know what it’s like.”

  “Yes, Boss, I know what it’s like, but don’t forget one thing: that guy’s a bastard with real pedigree and comes with a guarantee . . . You must have a really twisted mind to think about taking a medallion from a strangled man who is your own son in order to try to save your own skin and then put two coins up his arse for good measure. And why does he reckon he didn’t throw him in the river?”

  “He says a motorbike drove by and he took fright. That was when he removed the medallion.”

  “Well, the guy’s sick . . . Hey, Boss, don’t start feeling sorry for him . . .”

  “No, don’t be like that, Mario, everything will be done by the book.”

  The Major’s voice now sounded mellow and peaceful, and the Count thought it was better that way: everything should be mellow and peaceful, and he decided he’d start lifting the red ghost of Alexis Arayán from his shoulders.

  “Well, good luck to you and him . . . Boss, how about giving me a week’s holidays?”

  “What’s up? Don’t tell me you want to do some writing?”

  “No, of course not. That’s history. I’m just exhausted and fed up. What about you?”

  The silence floated down the line more than it usually did with Major Rangel.

  “I’m fed up, Conde. And disappointed . . . I think I’m going to hang up the sword. But forget it. Take a week and, if you can, start writing. Learn to help yourself and quit the self-pity . . . Come back next Monday. If I need you I’ll call you before, OK?”

  “OK, Boss, look after yourself. And you know, I’ll get you some real good cigars,” he said, as he hung up.

  While he showered, he thought he’d more than enough time to tell the Marquess the last chapter of that sordid story the whole truth about which would never be known. But he owed him that version. He tried to imagine how he’d tell it to the dramatist, and realized that all he was doing was concealing the real anxiety he felt at the prospect of the visit: he’d take his manuscript to the old dramatist. Will he like it? he wondered as he washed, when he got dressed, as he went into the street, and was still wondering when he let the door knocker fall for a third time and waited for the curtains to open on the theatrical world of Alberto Marqués.

  “You’re a surprising man, Mr Friendly Policeman. So much so that I now think you’re a fake policeman. It’s like another form of transvesting, right? The difference being that you’ve stripped off . . . and everything’s out in the open,” said the Marquess, waving the pages of the story like a fan.

  “But . . . what do you think?” implored the Count, shy at his perceived nudity.

  The dramatist smiled but tittered not. That Sunday evening he wore a towelling dressing gown, a degree less decrepit than his silk one, and in order to read he’d opened all the windows in the room and lifted the pages up close to his eyes, and at last the Count managed to construct a precise idea of the set where they’d been meeting recently. It was the image one always forms of an attic or one of those dusty, cobwebby places, ripe for
a horror film, which don’t exist in Cuban houses, even less so in those with such lofty ceilings. As the Marquess read, the Count smoked two cigars and concentrated on creating an inventory of what might be useful from that surrealist accumulation of objects that one never usually saw: apart from the two armchairs where they sat, the lieutenant thought that a very grainy wooden table, a bronze leg which must have sustained an Art Nouveau lamp and a few plates that looked healthy, perhaps even bone china, were just salvageable. The rest reeked of exquisite corpses, without the option of resurrection: they must be the final remains of the autophagy the Marquess had surely practised on his own house.

  “I’ll tell you what I think later. First tell me something. Have you recently read Camus or Sartre?”

  The Count looked for a cigarette.

  “No, I’ve hardly had time to read. Why?”

  “Are you familiar with The Outsider?” The Count nodded and his host smiled again. “Well, your bus driver really reminds me of Mr Meursault in The Outsider . . . That metaphorical possibility is beautiful, isn’t it? French existentialism and Cuban buses bonded by the glare of the sun.” And he smiled again and the Count felt like grabbing him by the neck. The bastard’s making fun of me.

  “So you think it’s silly.”

  “But it doesn’t have a title,” proceeded the Marquess, as if he’d not heard the lament of the Count, who was now shaking his head. “Well, I’ve thought of one, seeing these people are dead before they’ve died physically: ‘Iron in the Soul’. What do you reckon?”

  “I’m not sure, I think I like it.”

  “Well, if you want, I’ll make you a present of it. After all, it’s Sartre’s . . .”

  “Thank you,” the Count had to respond, as he thought it made no sense to ask for his final opinion on the already devalued quality of that story from his soul.

  “It’s funny reading stories like that again . . . In another era you’d certainly have been accused of adopting aesthetic postures of a bourgeois, anti-Marxist character. Just imagine this reading of the story: there’s no logical or dialectical explanation of your characters’ irrational behaviour or their anecdotes; it’s obvious these creatures cannot explain the chaos in human life, while the narrator’s naturalist detail only reinforces the desolation of the man who received, God knows from where, an illumination in his existence. Such an aesthetic could then have been said (as was often said) to be a simple reflection of the spiritual degeneration of the modern bourgeoisie. Besides, your work offers no solutions to the social situations you pinpoint, just to state what’s most obvious: you communicate a sordid image of man in a society like ours . . . How do you like that interpretation? Poor existentialism . . . And what should we do then with those ever so horribly beautiful works by Camus and Sartre and Simone? . . . And poor Scott Fitzgerald and eschatological Henry Miller and the good characters in Carpentier and the dark world of Onetti? Decapitate the history of culture and of man’s uncertainties? . . . But you know what surprised me most: it’s your ability to create a fable. You don’t write like a fledgling, friendly policeman, but like a writer, although I’d have preferred a different ending: she should have killed the bus driver . . . And, tell me, where did you get the idea to write this story? The mystery of creation has always fascinated me.”