Havana Gold (14 page)

The cold water and persistent wind, less hot on the coast, the tireless waves and sun already descending on a corner of the horizon, had perhaps kept the faithful away, and the Count didn't find the colony of drop-outs he'd expected on that inhospitable rocky beach, as peripheral and forlorn as its usual clientele. Two couples went on making love in the sea at the wrong temperature and rhythm, and a group of youths skinny as stray dogs chatted next to some shrubs.

“They must be drop-outs, right, Conde?” Manolo asked when the lieutenant came out of the sea and returned to the rock.

“I expect so. It's not a good day for a swim. Better if you come to philosophize.”

“Drop-outs are no philosophers, Conde, don't try that one.”

“In their own way, they are, Manolo. They don't want to change the world, but try to change life, and they start with themselves. They couldn't care less about anything,
or almost anything, and that's the philosophy they try to transfer into praxis. I swear by my mother it sounds like a philosophical system.”

“Tell that to the drop-outs. Hey, aren't drop-outs just hippies?”

“Yes, but a postmodern variety.”

Manolo gave the chief his shoes back and sat down next to him, looking out to the sea.

“What did you expect to find here, Conde?”

“I've really no idea, Manolo. Perhaps a reason to smoke pot or snort a line of coke and feel that life is on a headier level. When I sit down like this and look at the sea, I sometimes think I'm living the wrong life, that it's one big nightmare, and I'm about to wake up but can't open my eyes. A load of shit, right? I'd really like to talk to these drop-outs, though I know they won't tell me anything new.”

“Shall we give it a go?”

The Count looked at the youths on the coast and the couples still clasped together in the water. He tried to dry his feet on his hands and moved his fingers as if he were blowing a trumpet or a saxophone. He decided to stuff his socks in a pocket and put on his shoes.

“Off we go then.”

They got up and took the best route through the rocks to get to the group talking and smoking under the high shrubs. There were four men and two women, all very
young, scruffy-haired and half-starved, with a touch of grace in their eyes. Like all members of a sect they felt sectarian, because they knew they were the chosen few, or at least thought they did. Chosen by whom and why? Another philosophical issue, thought the Count, who came to a halt less than a metre away from the group.

“Can you give me a light?”

The youths, who tried to ignore the presence of the two intruders, looked at them and the one with the longest hair held out a box of matches. The Count made two abortive attempts, finally lit up and returned the matches to their owner.

“Would you like a cigarette?” he followed up, and the long-haired guy smiled.

“Told you so, didn't I?” And he looked at his companions. “The police always try the same trick.”

The Count looked at his cigarette as if he'd found it particularly satisfying, and took another puff.

“So you don't want one? Thanks for the matches. How did you tell we are police?”

One of the girls, her chest as flat as the pampas and with desperately long legs, looked up at Conde and put a finger to her nose.

“It's a smell we're familiar with. We've trained our sense of smell . . .” And she smiled, convinced of her wit.

“What do you want?” enquired Long Hair, in his putative role as tribal chieftain.

The Count smiled and felt strangely at ease.

“To talk to you,” he replied and sat down very close to the paladin. “You're drop-outs, aren't you?”

Long Hair smiled. It was clear that he knew all the likely questions forthcoming from the policemen that pestered them now and then.

“I'll make a suggestion, Mr Policeman. As you've no reason to put us inside and as we don't like talking to police as a rule, we'll answer any three questions you care to ask, and then you can clear off. Agreed?”

The Count's group spirit stirred inside him: he could also be sectarian and as a policeman he wasn't used to accepting conditions when it came to putting questions he would blast out if necessary to extract all the answers he required. It wasn't for nothing he was a policeman and that his tribe was the one with the force and even legal sanction to repress. But he held back.

“Agreed,” the Count concurred.

“Yes, we are drop-outs,” stated Long Hair. “Second question.”

“Why are you drop-outs?”

“Because it's what we like. Everyone's free to be whatever he wants, baseball player, cosmonaut, drop-out or police. We like being drop-outs and living as we think fit. It's no crime till the contrary is proved, true or not? We don't bother anyone, don't take anything from anyone, and don't like anyone forcing us to do
anything. That's democratic, don't you reckon? You've got one left.”

The Count looked longingly at the bottle of rum shoehorned into a hollow in the rock. This oracle of passive democracy was going to beat him cleanly at his own game, and he saw why Long Hair was the natural leader of that crew.

“I'd like an answer from her,” and he pointed at the titless streak who smiled, flattered by this police interest that gave her a protagonist's role. “Is that agreed?”

“It's agreed,” agreed Long Hair, practising his selfproclaimed democratic policies.

“What do you expect from life?” he asked, throwing his fag end seawards.

Swept up by the wind, his cigarette performed a high parabola and boomeranged back to the rocks, as if to show escape was impossible. The Count scrutinized the woman he'd questioned as she thought up a reply: if she's intelligent, the Count told himself, she will attempt to philosophize. Perhaps she'll say life is something you find though you never lost it, at a time and place that are arbitrary, with parents, relatives and even neighbours that are forced upon you. Life's one big mistake, and the saddest thing she could say, thought the Count, is that nobody can change it. At most, separate it out from everything, disconnect it from family, society and time as far as you can, and that's why they were drop-outs, you know?

“Should one expect anything from life?” the skinny bint said finally looking at her leader. “We expect nothing from life.” And her reply struck her as so intelligent that she showed her friends the palm of her hand, like a victorious athlete, ready to receive the salutations the others granted with a smile. “Just live it and end of story,” she added taking another look at the inquisitive intruder.

The Count glanced at Manolo who was standing very close to him and held out a hand so that his colleague could help him up. Back on his feet he looked down on the group. It's too hot in this country for philosophy to take seed, he told himself, as he shook his hands sticky with sand and salt water.

“That's a lie as well,” said the lieutenant before looking out to the sea. “You can't even do that, although it's good to try. But you suffer when it doesn't work. Thanks for the light.” He waved a hand towards the group and patted Manolo on the back. As they walked away from the coast, the Count thought for a second that he felt cold. Mysteries of the sea and life always left him cold.

 

He too lived in an old rambling house in La Víbora, with a high roof and large windows behind grilles that started at ground level and disappeared into the higher regions. Through the open door you could see a long, dark, cool passageway, ideal for the middle of the day,
that led to a tree-filled yard. The Count had to step inside to reach the door knocker which he rapped a couple of times. He went back to the porch and waited. A girl around ten years old, tense like a ballerina interrupted mid-dance, emerged from the first room to inspect the visitor.

“Is José Luis in?” asked the lieutenant and the girl, without saying a word, turned round and pirouetted back inside. Three minutes passed, and the Count was about to give the knocker another rap, when he saw the fragile figure of José Luis approaching down the corridor. The Count primed a welcoming smile.

“How are you, José Luis? Do you remember me, from the lavatory at Pre-Uni?”

The youth wiped his hand across his naked chest where too many ribs stood out. Perhaps he was hesitating before deciding to admit he remembered.

“Yes, of course. How can I help?”

The Count took out a packet of cigarettes and offered the youth one.

“I need to talk to you. It's a long time since I had any friends in that place and I think you could probably help me.”

“Help in what way?”

He's as suspicious as a cat. He's the kind who knows what he wants or at least what he doesn't want, thought Conde.

“You're a lot like my best friend at Pre-Uni. We called him Skinny Carlos, I think he was even skinnier than you are. But he's not skinny anymore.”

José Luis stepped out and into the porch.

“What is it you want to know?”

“Can we talk here?” asked the Count, pointing to the low wall separating the porch from the garden.

José nodded and the policeman was the first to sit down.

“I'll be frank and I want you be frank with me as well,” the Count suggested, deliberately not looking at him to avoid any response at this stage. “I've spoken to several people about Lissette, your teacher. You and some people spoke very well of her; others said she was on the wild side. I don't know if you know how she was killed: they strangled her when she was drunk after beating her and having sex with her. Someone also smoked marijuana that night at her place.”

Only then did he look the youth in the eye. The Count felt he'd made an impact.

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“What you and your friends thought about Lissette.”

The youth smiled. He threw his half-smoked cigarette in the direction of the garden and returned to his rib count.

“What we thought? Is that what you're after? Look, pal, I'm seventeen, but I wasn't born yesterday. You want me
to tell you what I think and put myself in the shit? That's a fool's game, if you'll forgive the expression. I've got a year and a bit left at Pre-Uni and I want to end on a high, you know? That's why I repeat that she was a good teacher and that she helped us a lot.”

“You're pushing your luck, José Luis. Just remember one thing: I'm a policeman and I don't like people spending all day prevaricating with me. I think I like you, but don't get the wrong side of me because I can be real hard. Why did you answer me that day in the lavatories?”

The boy swung a leg nervously. Like the Skinny of old.

“Because you asked. And I told you what anyone could have said.”

“Are you afraid?” asked the Count looking him in the eye.

“Common sense. I told you I wasn't born yesterday. Don't complicate life for me.”

“All of a sudden nobody wants complications. Why don't you dare?”

“What's in it for me if I dare?”

The Count shook his head. If he was a cynic, as Candito had said, then what was this kid?

“I really had high hopes you'd help me. Perhaps because you're like my friend Skinny from when I was at Pre-Uni. Why are you acting like this?”

The youth looked serious and now shook his leg more quickly, stroking himself again around his sternum that divided his chest like a keel.

“Because it's the only way to act. I'll tell you something. When I was in sixth grade my school was inspected. A dad had said that our teacher hit us and they were investigating to see if it was true. They wanted someone apart from that dad and his boy to say it was true. Because it was true: that teacher was the worst bastard you can imagine. He belted us for pleasure. He used to walk in between the rows of desks and if he saw you with one foot on the desk in front, for example, he'd kick you in the leg with those boots of his . . . And, of course, nobody said anything. Everybody was scared. But I did: I said he abused us and kicked us, slapped us round the head, pulled our ears when we didn't know something and thwacked more than one face with his register. He did it to me. Naturally, the teacher got the boot, justice was done, and another new teacher came. A really nice guy. He didn't hit or hurt us . . . At the end of the year two people in the class didn't pass: the boy who first kicked up a fuss and myself. What do you reckon?”

The Count remembered himself in Pre-Uni: so what would he have done? Would he speak to that unknown policeman he had no reason to trust, beyond the simple notion that he wanted justice to be done? And what if that was how justice was done? He took out his packet of cigarettes again and gave one to skinny José Luis.

“Don't worry, son. Look, here's my number, at home, and if anything comes to mind, give me a ring. This is more serious than a slap round the head or an ear-pull. Remember that . . . Otherwise, I think you're right to be scared. But the fear's of your making. I hope you pass without any problems,” he said and held the lit match out to José Luis's cigarette, but didn't light his: his mouth tasted unmistakeably of shit.

 

“Hey, Jose, I need your help.”

As usual, the front door was open to the wind, the light and visitors, and Josefina was spending Saturday afternoon in front of the television screen. Her taste in television – like her son's in music – covered a range that included every possibility: whatever films they showed, even Soviet war films and martial arts films from Hong Kong; then soaps, soaps galore, whether Brazilian, Mexican, or Cuban, and whatever the theme, romance, slavery, working-class struggle or high society drama. Then, music, the news, adventures and puppets. To clock up more television she even swallowed Nitza Villapol's cookery programmes, for the pleasure of finding fault when she spotted missing ingredients or pointless extras in some of the expert's recipes. She was now watching the week's repeats of Brazilian soap and that's why the Count dared interrupt her. The woman listened to the cry for help from the
Count who'd sat next to her, and concluded: “Just what my father used to say: when a white man looks for a black you bet it's to fuck him up. So what's wrong, my love?”