Havana Black Read online

  Like another hurricane, the name of Gerardo Gómez de la Peña stirred Mario Conde’s Ocean of Sunken Nostalgia. He still remembered him, in his cool, light blue guayabera and pale pink trousers, made from soft but strong material, descending with elegantly microscopic precision to his shoes: that unforgettable pair of shoes. The Count closed his eyes and saw them again: moccasins that were comfortable just to look at, a mahogany shading furiously to brown, hand-stitched edging and the lightest of soles, origins beyond dispute: they just had to be Italian. That afternoon Gerardo Gómez de la Peña entered the university theatre, and his feet entered the Count’s desires for ever: those were the shoes he wanted, he concluded, dismissing the thought, as he contemplated his stiff, heavy Russian boots, (like the heads of our Russian brothers, they would say), which they had to wear to school every day given the terrifying emptiness of their shoe cupboard. His father had died a year earlier and the family was totally broke. The idea he should abandon university and look for a job was not a possibility but an urgent necessity, and now Mario Conde wondered whether those shoes he saw walk by him – still a subject of dreams; he’d never owned anything remotely similar – weren’t the reason he became a policeman, who needed to make some money as quickly as possible and give his Russian boots, more suited to walking the steppes, tundra or taiga, to some less proletarian colleagues.

  Gómez de la Peña climbed to the podium, followed by the Dean of the Faculty and the Secretary-General of the Youth. The super-minister was the protagonist of the evening, since from the peaks of his historicoeconomic responsibilities he was apparently the wondrous genius charged with giving material form to all the island’s productive miracles: to take the socialist economy to its final, magnificent conclusions till – through these conclusions and that economy – the country was transformed into a land free of underdevelopment, monoculture, unemployment, shortages, social differences and even potholes in its roads, euphemistic gaps in its gastronomy or waiting lists at bus stations.

  And the alchemist of Planning, the prophet of prosperity expounded on that promised land to an audience that was literally captive: anyone who didn’t attend would have a black mark inserted on his record, the course directors had made clear, and the Count wasn’t that sorry to hear for almost two hours about the future realities he would enjoy, after a maximum of two five-year plans, because, according to the comrade minister’s speech, it was a fact that comrade Mario Conde would very soon possess all the shoes he needed, was it not?

  Twelve years later history had demonstrated there wasn’t the remotest possibility that any of those promises would be kept, and not even several tons of faith and preferential trade would have been enough to spark the miraculous salvation. So that is why Gerardo Gómez de la Peña now wore pyjamas and beach sandals that displayed his thin, misshapen, irredeemably ugly toes. The power of shoes, thought the Count, and only then did he look at the smile on the man’s face as he saw the two policemen arrive. Of the abundant but greying hair that he remembered, the Count now saw only unkempt fringes, which had been allowed to grow to incredible lengths and then combed from above his left ear to cover his smooth pate and fall over his right ear before descending to the nape of his neck, as if that act of hairy trickery prevented its owner from being merely a bald man who accepted his state in a stoic, dignified way. The pink face of yesteryear had turned into a very ancient, poorly preserved parchment, rent with cracks and crevices: ten years of political, social and nutritional marginalization had been enough to age that fallen angel, mutated from one day to the next into the devil behind economic imitation and commercial surrender that had devastated any planned growth in the productive spheres, by introducing Australian techniques for cutting sugar cane, Czech bottling into the breweries and Siberian methods into agriculture, among the many horrors one still recalled but which people never now mentioned. The thunderous dismissal of Gómez de la Peña had resonated for a couple of weeks because the entire blame for the predictable catastrophe had fallen on that cold, hated technocrat’s head: all in all the economic bonanza had never been planned for present generations, who were required only to demonstrate inexhaustible austerity and a continually renewed, almost Christian spirit of sacrifice. Besides, it was a nonsense to copy foreign models, with the constant sun and heat of the island, wasn’t it? We should work looking only to the future and independently, was the conclusion of the summary sentence that took Gerardo Gómez de la Peña out of circulation and decreed the end of any possibility that a fellow like Mario Conde could ever wear a pair of shoes like the ones he’d seen on that unforgettable night: brown, supple, Italian . . .

  Nonetheless, the dethroned leader had clung to some of a super-minister’s old privileges: the house in Nuevo Vedado, for example, which the Count pledged to pay more attention to, for it really warranted it, with its structure of asymmetric blocks, brick walls, multicoloured windows, the unusual spaces designed by fifties futurists who found one of their most fertile terrains in that upper-middle-class stronghold, far from the rabble that had landed in the heart of Vedado. Indeed, wondered the Count, who might have originally owned that mansion?

  The policemen explained the reason for their visit and the execrated Gómez de la Peña replied that he already knew about Miguel Forcade’s death and invited them to come into what he called the reception-cum-living room. A sofa and four whitewashed, welcoming willow chairs were arranged around a similarly coloured table made of the same material, and on the wall where the sofa rested, the Count was struck by the magnificent reproduction of a work possibly by Cézanne that, apart from the plants, was the room’s only adornment: a street spread over the canvas – that didn’t seem Parisian but from a small coastal or provincial town – lined with trees caressed by an insistent wind, bowing their heads, their leaves dissolving into a round palette of autumnal greens and twilight ochres, which, thanks to a recondite magic, spread their own light, cleverly extracted from the blend of invisible breeze and leaves about to be swept away by the wind into a blue surround of sky, striped by brushstrokes of magenta.

  “Do you like it, Lieutenant?” Gómez de la Peña whispered, when he saw the attention the policeman was devoting to the painting.

  “I generally like Cézanne and the impressionists, although I didn’t know this work. Is it a Cézanne?”

  “No, it isn’t a Cézanne . . . It’s an early Matisse, but very few people know it because it’s not in a single catalogue in the world.”

  “And where’s the original?”

  Gómez de la Peña passed his hand through the long strands of hair covering his head.

  “Everybody asks the same question . . .” and he smiled, as the pause lengthened and he moved his arm as if looking for the direction in which the canvas lay. “This is the original,” he declared emphatically, pointing at the painting.

  Now it was Mario Conde’s turn to smile: that stigmatized old sinner had also preserved his sense of humour.

  “Don’t laugh, Lieutenant. That is the original,” insisted Gómez de la Peña. “Take a closer look if you like . . . but if you’re not a specialist, you must take my word . . . It is a Matisse.”

  The Count looked at his host, gnawed by doubt. Could it be a real Matisse? As far as he knew, there wasn’t a single picture on the island by that painter, one of the most highly valued in the world, and he thought it absurd to find a work of his, an impressionist one into the bargain, on the wall of a private house. If it were original, it must be worth a real fortune: one million, two million, three . . .? he wondered, as he closed in on the painting and enjoyed its thick pasted texture, the flat, vigorous colours, able to create that magic effect of generating light, while in one corner he found the master’s clumsy, valuable signature, discreet and disturbing, with no date, and unable to restrain the policeman within he told himself it would be good to find out how that wonder had come to rest in the reception-cum-living room of fallen angel Gerardo Gómez de la Peña.

  “I can see you like th
e painting, Lieutenant, but you still doubt it’s genuine. And if you know something about art, it makes sense you should be suspicious, because this is the only Matisse that exists in Cuba. Everyone who knows something about art reacts similarly when seeing it for the first time: and that’s precisely why I decided to put it there, so people would see it, be suspicious, then be convinced and finally astonished I am the owner of such beauty . . . But first let me tell you that the painting is rather unique. As far as I’ve been able to find out, Matisse painted it around 1904, before his famous fauve period, which one can already glimpse here: can you not see the freedom of colour, those pure tones, the strong line that gives such expressive power . . .? In a word, it is an alarming clarion call from a genius’s bugle, hanging on that humble wall. Of course, the fact that I have the canvas there makes me feel important, and I’m not ashamed to say so. Although I’m nothing now and no one publishes or reads my books on political economy, lots of people still remember me and I’ve kept a few friends in high places. Consequently, whenever someone visits I bring them in here, and if they know something about art, they’ll ask the same question as you, and I always respond the same way: yes, that is the original . . . and I enjoy seeing them water at the mouth. For almost twenty years I kept it in my bedroom, and almost no one saw it, because I thought it would be showing off to exhibit a Matisse in the living room of a leader like me, with a historical mission, you know? And besides I wanted to avoid tempting thieves and ideological purists, two equally appalling breeds. Do you how much money’s hanging on my wall? Certainly at least three and a half million dollars . . . But I prefer to see the looks of astonishment than to hide the painting in my bedroom or to sell it and keep the money in a Swiss bank, because it would also be a crime, according to the laws of this country, to have such money, isn’t that so? Of course, it is a bother to have the work exhibited there: every day you have to unhook it and put it away and one is always scared some madman will come in broad daylight with a pistol and do his utmost to get hold of it. Though I decided to assume that risk, so others could feel what you feel . . . It is a minor, aesthetic revenge on oblivion and the ingratitude of society. But what will be of most interest to you is that Miguel Forcade is the man responsible for the oil painting being there. Yes, you heard me correctly. The problem is that Miguel was always a fairly uncultured man, even more so when he was twenty-five and worked in the Department for Expropriated Property. I remember how he only valued the paintings that looked antique and had classical landscapes or characters. Just imagine, one day he almost went mad because he found Las Meninas in a house in Vedado . . . Poor fellow. Well, at the time I was working for the National Institute for Urban Reform and was responsible for allocating the houses abandoned by the gusanos heading north. My institute would get involved after Miguel’s department had done its duty. They confiscated any things of any value, sent them to a variety of destinations, and afterwards we would decide what to do with the houses: whether they should be offices, student residences, or for a specific individual, or if they should be given to several families to divide up. But the day that Matisse and I met up, they’d fallen behind with their work and when I arrived the people working for Expropriated Property were still there. I can remember how it was barely a month after the Bay of Pigs in May ’61, and those wretched bourgeois were fleeing the Red Peril in droves, and abandoning riches accumulated over several lifetimes . . . But it was a big coincidence, I can tell you, for I almost never participated in the selection of houses. The problem was we urgently needed several places for scholarship students from Oriente who were going to be concentrated in Miramar. That’s why I was in the area and arrived unannounced in that house containing real artistic treasures. You know, as far as I can remember, there was a Goya, a Murillo, several minor impressionist works and this Matisse. But the people working with Miguel, who were even less cultured than he, decided this work had no artistic merit and had most certainly been painted by the son of the household, for the lad was a late-developing tropical landscape artist who imitated the Masters with the perfectionist candour of all eternal imitators. And as I told them I liked the painting they registered it there and then as confiscated property and sold it to me for five hundred pesos . . . Inside I’ve got the ownership documents, if you want to see them, as well as the certificates of authenticity signed by specialists from New York and Paris, which were pinned to the back of the painting. That was how three million dollars came to rest in this humble abode. What do you make of that . . .? Now I’ll tell you how it was that very same Miguel Forcade who did me a favour that day in 1961, who got me the flat when he stayed in Spain in ’78. Because after he left the Expropriated Property department, they sent him to study economics in the Soviet Union, and he returned in ’68 with brilliant grades. He was then connected to the Department for Planning and the Economy, and when they appointed me as head, in’75 I asked him to work for me and he became my right-hand man. I can tell you that if he was a complete ignoramus as regards modern French painting, he was almost a genius as an economist, so much so I was often afraid that he might usurp my place. But one fine day, totally unexpectedly, Miguel Forcade defected and disappeared in Spain before finally making the leap to the United States. That led to a round of investigations, as you can imagine, and although they never found anything to incriminate him or cause for his defection, various irregularities came to light in the department that forced me to give the fullest explanations I’ve ever given in my life . . . The hornets’ nest was disturbed and when economic plans started to fail because of the cadres’ lack of discipline and the country’s lack of a work culture, it was decided a head should roll and none better than mine . . . thus was I left without a single hair.”

  “What do you think of my story?” asked Gómez de la Peña when his wife left the room, after she’d poured their coffees.

  “More of the usual,” responded the Count, looking for the precise, meaningful adjective that would seem inoffensive to the man who might lead him to Miguel Forcade’s past, which is where he tried to move him on to. “And why did Miguel come to see you after what he had done to you?”

  “As far as was possible, Miguel and I were friends. Perhaps you know that friendship doesn’t prosper when power is at stake: anyone could be a regicide and Miguel had all the qualifications to become my successor. But even so I trusted him, in as much as you could trust anyone, obviously. And now we were both nobodies he came to see how I was and apologize to me for what he’d done.”

  “Is that all?” persisted Manolo, making himself comfortable on the edge of his chair.

  “I think so . . . Unless he wanted to see what the life of a deposed leader was like . . . That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Did he by any chance tell you why he’d stayed in Spain?”

  Gómez de la Peña smiled wanly and shook his head.

  “I didn’t ask him directly, but we did have a good chat . . . And he said nothing in particular: only that he’d anticipated what would happen three years later, and knew the development programmes weren’t going to work . . . In short, a display of prophetic gifts I found unconvincing.”

  “And didn’t he say why he’d returned to Cuba?” continued the sergeant, not deigning to look at his boss.

  “He just told me his father was ill. He was very old. I even thought he’d died.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Was there any reason not to, Sergeant?”

  “Perhaps, as you knew him well . . . And didn’t he say where he was heading once he left here?”

  “He left at about seven, or just after, because it was already dusk. He said he wanted to see a relative of his, but didn’t mention who. But he did say it was very important to him.”

  “He said it was important to him?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he did.”

  “Did he say he was afraid of returning to Cuba?”

  “He said something of the sort. But I tried to reassure him. After all,
a thousand others have done what he did . . . Lately it’s almost become a fashion, hasn’t it? And he had no cases pending or anything similar. As far as I know, he didn’t take anything with him.”

  “Not even one of those objects he expropriated in the ’60s and which could fetch as many dollars as that painting?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware. But I didn’t check his suitcase at the airport, though chance would have me accompany him that day.”

  “And do you remember if anyone in Customs checked it?”

  Gómez de la Peña looked at the ceiling before answering.

  “Forgive me, Sergeant, but I’m moved by your naïveté . . . As a leader, Miguel Forcade left through the diplomatic channel.”

  Manolo elegantly assumed his moving innocence and continued. “So no one checked anything and he could have taken out whatever he wanted.”

  “Forgive me, Manolo,” interjected the Count, troubled by his subordinate’s naïveté and by his own for thinking a mere copy of a Matisse could be on that privileged wall in that equally privileged residence, permanently enjoyed by a logically privileged civil servant, who in some safe spot in the house must also possess, in his own name, the documents crediting him as the owner of the building. “Tell me, Gerardo, but please tell me the truth: did you give Miguel Forcade the house where he used to live?”

  The old dethroned minister restrained his smile, but didn’t banish it from his face entirely: “That’s what you’d expect, I suppose?”

  “Yes, in the same way you assigned yourself this house.”

  “True enough,” admitted Gómez de la Peña. “Just as it’s true I assigned all the houses abandoned by the gusanos for several years, in Miramar, in Siboney, in Vedado, in the Casino Deportivo, and so on and so forth . . . It was our turn, after all. The judgement of history, a reward for our sacrifice and struggle, the time of the dispossessed, you remember?”