Havana Fever Read online

  Dear love: I will say farewell for a time. I won’t write until I have news from you or have my hands on the truth. And no matter if that truth, as the voices persecuting me say, is my worst punishment. Because I cannot stand you despising me and blaming me for a crime I have not committed. But rest assured that I will go on loving you as now, even more deeply, ever more longing for you to return . . .

  Your Nena

  23 January

  Dear Love:

  A few days ago I swore not to write again, at least not until I had news from you, or could tell you what we are desperate to know. I was so disappointed by your silence and blinded by my own situation and the accursed voices speaking to me in the night, intent on driving me crazy, that I forgot the importance of this date: happy birthday, my love!

  As soon as I remembered your birthday I decided I should celebrate it, even without you. Sadly, because it will be like a party without a host, where I will be privileged to be the main guest, the only one in fact, because your children are ever busier and more remote, swept up in the whirlwind of changes being brought in from day to day. Then I made a mistake, another mistake. Exhilarated by feelings of joy, I went to the library and looked for that cookbook you were so fond of, do you remember?, the one you often used to select the dishes you suggested for our meals at home. As I leafed through, I remembered how you liked ox-tongue in sherry, cod in parsley sauce following Juanito Saizarbitoria’s Basque recipe, those Creolestyle prawns that were so tasty, or the stuffed turkey à la Rosa María that in recent years you preferred as the main dish for Christmas Eve dinner (forgetting, naturally, all those jams you thought a Yankee aberration . . .) How surprised I was as I flicked over a few pages looking for the recipe for your favourite dish (kidneys in red wine) to come face to face with a photo of the dead woman and the news that she had given up singing. Can you imagine what I felt? No, you cannot. Can you imagine how much I hated her, how pleased I was by her death? Yes, I am sure you can, because your silence tells me daily, ever more insistently, you think I provoked her death, though you know I would be unable to contemplate any such thing.

  That was when my party ended. My solitary celebrations fell flat and I was strengthened in my conviction that my life will only regain meaning if I succeed in discovering the truth you demand to exonerate me from those unfounded accusations. And I will find a way to that truth, because I love you always,

  Your Nena

  The smell of recently watered soil, the morning scent of flowers, the blue sky untainted by a single cloud and the mockingbird’s song from a fruit-laden avocado tree represented for Mario Conde extraordinary evidence of life, gifts of nature without which life was impossible. What if one had to pass through this world without the chance to enjoy those simple miracles? – if one awoke each dawn to a magma of ugliness and filth, trapped in quicksands dragging you into theft, violence, the daily sauve-qui-peut and most diverse forms of moral and physical prostitution? And does the mockingbird really trill alike for everyone, the same melody and harmonies? Mario Conde looked at his apparently clean hands, and then back up at the yard, certain that, despite the shortages and frustrations over the years, he could still think himself a fortunate human being, because neither he nor his nearest and dearest had ever been forced to cross the final frontiers of debasement in the struggle to survive.

  The aroma of coffee hit home and, anticipating its delicious taste, he lifted a cigarette to his lips, preparing to perform the fusion of those two wonderful sensations so lambasted by medical hype. But the grief and doubt clawing at his brain almost stifled his smile when Pigeon, tray in hand, offered him a china cup threaded with gold.

  “Go on then, how’d you get on?” he asked after drinking the infusion and lighting up.

  “I started with Pancho Carmona, as always. While I was at it, I sold him fifteen books, at a much better price than we were expecting. I’ll settle with you in a tick.” As promised, Pigeon went on to tell him the results of his investigations which had thrown up a negative, if revealing result: nobody in the old book trade knew of the tall black man, with a lame right foot and an evangelical gift of the gab, who’d appeared in such untimely fashion at the Ferrero’s.

  “That man has some features you can’t change,” the Count thought aloud: “he’s tall and black. But lameness can be faked and so can a particular way of speaking.”

  “I swear I’d never have thought of that,” Yoyi had to admit.

  “So you’re not the brain-box you think you are . . . And the other thing you can’t change is familiarity or unfamiliarity with the book trade. If that man homed in on six specific books it’s because he’s familiar . . .”

  “Like the blind musicologist . . . Do you know what Pancho told me? They’re selling the book Rafael Giró chose, the first edition of the book by Borges, dedicated to one Victoria Ocampo, for twenty thousand dollars in a bookshop in Boston . . . So the item you swapped for that poxy record is worth a fortune . . . So you’re not the brain-box you think you are either, man.”

  “I’ve always said I’ve got a diploma and various postgrad certificates in shit stupidity. And yesterday I got my masters and tomorrow I’m up for my doctorate.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  With a fresh cigarette between his lips and holding a second cup of coffee, Conde gave his business partner a short report on his walk in the valley of shadows, carefully leaving out his at best dubious escapades and confirmation of his father’s murky loves.

  “Didn’t you know what that barrio was like?” smiled Pigeon as soon as he’d finished. “You only scratched the surface. There’s worse underneath. I swear.”

  “I can imagine . . . You know what? I reckon this city is changing too quickly and I’ve lost my grip. Pretty soon I’ll have to start taking a damned map with me . . . Well, I’m off to Police Headquarters. I want to find out if they’ve got anywhere. We could do with knowing if that mysterious black guy’s fingerprints are on file and they know who he is. I’ll also see if they can help me find something on Lotus Flower. I’ve got to think how to persuade Manolo to give up that information . . .”

  “And what do I do?” enquired Yoyi, stroking the prow of his sternum.

  “I’ll ring and let you know whether I get anything on the black guy. If not, do what you did yesterday, but bear in mind the suspect is probably not lame and doesn’t talk like a preacher.”

  “More of the same, man?” the young man protested.

  “C’est la vie, Yoyi.”

  ‘Yes, but we’re up shit creek what with not being able to get more of the Ferreros’ books and wasting two days on this wild goose chase. Time is money, remember, and I’ve got business to attend to.”

  “But remember we’ve also got a corpse hanging over our heads . . . And as you know well enough, the police don’t like people like you who make money they don’t have any control over. They’d love to pin this murder on you—”

  “A murder I didn’t commit! That’s obvious enough, man! I’m clean and finding the one who did him in is their problem, not mine. They get paid to do that and I fight for my bread on the street. But if you fancy playing the detective and wandering around in pursuit of an old whore and a singer of boleros, that’s your call. I’m opting out of this drama, I swear.”

  Conde gazed anew at the yard, at its flowers, tried to hear the mockingbird’s song and waited for the inevitable rebuff.

  “Don’t you see, Yoyi? The sooner we find Dionisio Ferrero’s killer, the sooner we get our hands on the rest of the books . . . and I’m going to offer you a deal. Look: if six books that have already disappeared were probably very valuable, it makes no odds if another five, six, seven go . . . We’ll buy the six you want . . .”

  “The ones I want?” The expression on Yoyi’s face changed.

  “The ones you want,” reiterated the Count.

  “Like the Book of Sugar Mills or the Gothenburg Bible if a copy turns up?”

  “The ones you want,” repe
ated the Count.

  “Don’t worry, man, I’ll find that black guy. I swear I will,” and Yoyi kissed the cross he’d made with his fingers.

  Elsa Contreras Villafaña, alias Lotus Flower, alias the Blonde, ceased being of interest to the police in the year 1965, when she underwent revolutionary regeneration from brothel-mongering to heading a shift in a seamstresses’ workshop in El Cerro, and declared her abode to be 195, Apodaca, in Old Havana. Her police file, recovered by the new authorities created in 1959, had recorded its first entry in 1948, when she was put on file for practising prostitution in areas not authorized for such activities. Then, up to 1954, Elsa Contreras Villafaña, now known as Lotus Flower to the habitués of the Shanghai Theatre, was arrested twice on counts of causing a public outrage, once for a knife attack and once for possessing drugs – marijuana – and did a short spell inside the women’s prison in Havana. However, from 1954 the woman apparently opted for an honest life, since no fresh criminal acts appeared on her police record. She resurfaced in 1962, when she was again arrested for procuring and pimping in a bar in the port of Nuevitas, in Camagüey, as the result of an uproar prompted by a peculiar attack launched by a local pimp and hard man, who bit off part of a breast that belonged to one of the whores from her knocking-shop. As a result, Elsa was confined to a reeducation centre for eight months, at the end of which she began a new life as a seamstress in a workshop, where a year later she was given the position of head of shift.

  “There’s something fishy here,” commented the Count, and Sergeant Atilio Esteváñez, under orders from Captain Palacios to supervise the Count’s searches, looked at him intrigued. To persuade his ex-colleague who was reluctant to open up the doors to the police files to him – “You’re no longer police,” Manolo had insisted, “You know the superiors don’t like this kind of thing” – Conde had resorted to his subtlest arts of persuasion and to the obvious fact that finding out extra things about Elsa Contreras would in no way obstruct the official murder investigation. Manolo reluctantly agreed, repeating that he didn’t like what he was doing, and only on condition that Sergeant Estévañez continued to supervise his searches.

  The information he then found confirmed the police silence initiated in 1954, indicating that Lotus Flower must have made a qualitative leap around the time enabling her to immunize herself against – at least visible – harassment, that was the fate of defenceless street walkers who were always at the mercy of pimps and police alike. To make that leap, coveted by the hundreds of whores swarming through the streets of fifties Havana, she’d have needed a special boost, more so – according to Silvano Quintero – if the business she would soon head dealt in exclusive escorts and not bog-standard brothels in the barrios of Pajarito and Colón. And that kind of trade, in the Cuba of the time, usually had one visible face, the famous Madame known as Marina, who lorded it over twenty whorehouses, and an owner concealed in the shadows of his new respectability: the Jewish Meyer Lansky.

  Driven by a hunch, Conde asked the sergeant to track down the file on Alcides Montes de Oca, and wasn’t too surprised by the negative response he received: nobody with that name appeared on the police books. He wondered if it might be useful to check the Lansky dossier, but decided it would be a wasted effort, because the Jew didn’t appear in Cuba as the legal owner of very many concerns, which he put in the care of his Cuban acolytes or rogues recently imported from the United States, where they were no longer smiled upon.

  They telephoned the Office for the Registration of Addresses and requested the names of the occupants of the house at Apodaca 195, and the reply couldn’t have been more final: the building had collapsed during a storm in 1971, and its occupants moved to temporary accommodation. But nobody by the name of Elsa Contreras Villafaña figured on the list of those who received compensation as a result of the demolition. His curiosity aroused, Estévañez, called the identification department at the Central Office for Identity Cards and Population Registration, and requested information on the woman. They gave her permanent address as being Apodaca, 195, flat 6, according to data obtained in 1972.

  Conde smiled at the shocked expression on the face of Sergeant Estévañez who couldn’t explain how Elsa Contreras had managed to perpetrate such a blatant deception. How could she have fooled the police and Registry for Addresses and Consumers, who constantly collaborated in respect of deaths, house-moves or any other physical shift made by the island’s eleven million Cuban residents easily monitored by the beds they slept in and the food they received? For the Count this gave the mystery a more disturbing dimension: why had she done it?

  “We must find out if she is dead first of all,” said the Count. “Have you any men available to check cemetery records?”

  “Every single cemetery?” asked the terrified sergeant.

  ‘At least those in Havana. Two men could sort that in a day.’

  “Let me see what I can do,” agreed Estévañez, “but I still don’t see how one thing relates to the other.”

  “Nor do I, but there may be a connection with the Catalina who was known as Violeta del Rio, and she’s the person I’m really interested in . . . And what did you find out about this mysterious black guy?” the Count now enquired. Estévanez shook his head: “I can’t say . . .”

  “Hey, it’s not that important. I only wanted to know whether you’d identified him.”

  The sergeant grumbled, too loudly.

  “The prints found in the library aren’t on file.”

  “And what did the autopsy reveal about Dionisio Ferrero?”

  “He was killed around 1 a.m. There are no other signs of violence, nothing on his nails, so he was caught by surprise and killed by a single blow.”

  “And what about the books missing from that last bookcase?”

  “They walked the same day as they killed Dionisio. The only other thing we know is that Amalia can’t find the knife that Dionisio used in the garden. We think that may be the murder weapon . . .”

  “Too many mysteries all told,” whispered the Count. “It’s like it’s a put-up job.”

  “Just what Captain Palacios says. He thinks it was all set up by someone who knows only too well how to make life difficult for detectives.”

  Conde smiled, imagining what Manolo might be imagining.

  “When you see your captain, remind him on my behalf that what’s most hidden is always visible. And also tell him from me not to be such an asshole. If he starts hiding things from me, you can bet he’s only making it harder for himself to get to the bottom of this heap of shit.”

  The Count tired of banging on Juan the African’s door and quickly concluded he’d scarpered from callejón Alambique with net earnings of thirteen hundred pesos and a sarcastic smile of satisfaction on his yellowy teeth. The risks implicit in the situation, that sooner or later the identity of that supposed cousin of his ex would get out, must have persuaded the African that his best option was to extract money from the former policeman – revenge is sweet – placate his creditors and disappear from the barrio or hide in its deepest catacombs.

  To help weigh up his options, the Count walked the shaky planks again and reached the bright light and less fetid air on the roof terrace. The African’s absence put him in a delicate situation, because it was more than likely that, before vanishing into thin air, his old informant had explained, in the appropriate quarters, how he’d acted under pressure from a policeman. If that were the case, the Count was completely exposed, in real physical danger, transformed into a pale-face in Apache territory, with all the connotations such intrusions brought. Leaning back on one of the water tanks, where the African had smoked his joint the previous evening, the Count decided the most rational option would be to leave the barrio immediately. He wouldn’t be very welcome in Michael Jordan’s beer shop or Veneno’s chop shop, and it now seemed obvious that his stroll through the barrio and chats on various street corners might have been part of the African’s plan to show him to all those who ought to reg
ister him in their mental files, in a more subtle, no less efficient way than the police grilling his former colleagues had subjected him to. If his speculations were at all on target, that venture had shut off any avenue to the possible whereabouts of the volatile Lotus Flower, and right now he couldn’t see any practical way to make a breakthrough. His investigative foray had just set him up to be blatantly doublecrossed.

  “You fucking idiot . . .”

  A cigarette on his lips, the Count smiled, laughing at himself and his incredible naivety that had included an invitation to beers and a lobster and beefsteak lunch. He gazed up at the cloudless sky and felt oppressed by the relentless midday sun: he’d been left empty-handed, devoid of hope, and even more burdened by the mysteries harassing him. He coughed, cleared his throat and spat to his right. He puffed twice on his butt and dropped it down the air vent next to him and only then recalled it was the African’s little hidey hole. Kneeling down, taking care not to burn himself on his still-glowing cigarette butt, he put his arm down the cast-iron pipe and felt in a bend a smooth surface his touch recognized as a piece of plastic. A two-finger pincer-like movement enabled him to extract a small transparent envelope containing a poorly rolled joint and a scrap of paper, where round, unsteady writing, allergic to apostrophes and commas, informed him: Her names Carmen and she lives in the tenement at Factoria 58. Leave what you owe me and lets call it a day. Fella you don’t know what you missed and I boned the mulatta on behalf of us both. Watch it.

  Almost elated by the African’s demonstration of ethics which restored his faith in the human race, the Count put his lighter on top of the note. A breach had been opened and a feeling of joy restored to his body. With no second thoughts he placed the remaining 700 pesos in the envelope as payment for information received. He shut the envelope and, as he was about to put it back in its hidey hole, realized that the presence of the joint was no coincidence either: it seemed like a gift or invitation from the African, intent on reducing the distance between an ex-cop and an ex-convict. Intrigued, Conde extracted the spliff and returned the plastic bag to its place. He took another look around and checked that he was completely alone. Did he dare? He then remembered his demeaning experience in the knocking-shop the night before, and muttered that some of his wholesome values were obviously being eroded if he’d got as far as the bedroom of a real whore on set rates. And now an open invitation to try out the wonders of marijuana pulsated there, another real temptation. What the fuck’s got into me? He wondered whether it wouldn’t be best to take the joint home and decide what to do with it in the privacy of his own home, though he was dissuaded by the risk entailed in walking the streets of that barrio with drugs on his person, particularly when he was under investigation for murder. As he went to put his hand in the vent and return the marijuana, he recalled his conversation with Yoyi on the subject of his one hundred per cent virginity in narcotics, and hesitantly put his lighter’s flame to the end of the joint between his lips. He inhaled and held the sweet, light smoke from the mythical Indian cannabis leaf in his lungs. A force greater than any desire immediately rebounded across his brain, blocking off all other options and leaving him with no choice but to crush his smoke on the tiles of the terrace roof, frenziedly rubbing it into the scorched clay with his shoe. A sense of relief spread through his body and, giving himself no time to think, he stood up, determined to cross the barrio and find the answers only a reformed prostitute, in flight from her past, could supply.