Havana Blue

were very, very happy, and Rabbit was very, very envious: I would at last get into print. Issue zero also carried two poems by Lamey – power rules OK – and one by Lamey’s girlfriend – power etc. – a story by Pancho, the black queer, a critique by Adita of the play performed by the school drama group, another story by Carmita and an editorial penned by Olguita our teacher to introduce issue zero of La Viborena, the magazine of the Jose Marti literary workshop, at Rene O Reine High School. So exciting!

Our little mag was to have ten pages, and Lamey got two reams of paper; we’d have a hundred copies, and Olguita spoke to the school office about the typing and copying side, and I dreamed every night I could see La Viborena and believe that I was really a writer. To make sure it was ready, we spent one night collating and stapling pages, and the following day we stood outside the school entrance distributing it to people, Lamey didn’t roll up his sleeves and looked like a waiter, and Olguita our teacher watched us from the steps and was proud and happy the last time I saw her laugh.

The following day the school secretary summoned us, classroom by classroom, to a meeting at two pm in the headmaster’s office. We were writers and so naive as to expect to receive diplomas as well as plaudits and other moral encouragement for that magazine that was so innovative when the headmaster told us to sit down; already seated there were the head of the Spanish department, who’d never come to the workshop, the secretary for the youth and Rafael Morin, who was gasping as if he’d had a mild attack of asthma.

The headmaster, who after twelve months and the Water-Pre scandal would no longer be in post, made a meal of it: what was the meaning of the magazine’s motto: “Communism will be a sun-sized aspirin”? So socialism was a headache, was it? What was dear comrade Adita’s intention when she critiqued the play about political prisoners in Chile, to rubbish the theatre group’s efforts and the play’s message? Why were all the poems in the magazine love poems with not a single one dedicated to the work of the Revolution, to the life of a martyr or to the fatherland? Why was comrade Conde’s story on a religious theme and why did he avoid taking up a position against the church and its reactionary dogmas? And above all, he continued – we felt as if we were all drunk by this point – and he stood opposite skinny Carmita, you could see her shaking, and they all nodded sagely, why did you publish a story with the by-line comrade Carmen Sendan on the theme of a girl who commits suicide for reasons of love? (He said “theme” not “subject”). Is that the image we should be presenting of Cuban youth today? Is that the example we should be putting forward rather than one exalting purity, selflessness, a spirit of sacrifice to inspire new generations…? All hell had been let loose.

Olguita our teacher stood up, a bright red, allow me to interrupt you, comrade headmaster, she said looking at her head of department who avoided her venomous glance and started cleaning her nails and at the headmaster who stared back at her, because I have something to say on all this: and she said lots of things, that it wasn’t ethical for her to find out about the subject of the meeting without prior notice (she said “subject” and not “theme”), that she was totally opposed to an approach which smacked of the Inquisition, that she couldn’t understand how there could be such a lack of understanding of the efforts and initiatives of these students, that only a bunch of political troglodytes could interpret the writing in the magazine in that way and, as I see there can be no dialogue, given these Stalinist accusations of which my comrade head of department clearly approves, please sign my resignation papers as I can’t continue here, even though there are sensitive, good and worthy students like the ones here, and she pointed at us and walked out of the headmaster’s office, and I’ll never forget how bright red she went; she was crying, and it was as if she were no longer pockmarked and had become the most beautiful woman in the world.

We froze there, until Carmita started crying, and Lamey looked at the tribunal standing in judgement over us when Rafael stood up, smiled, smirked and sidled over to the headmaster, comrade headmaster, he said, after this nasty incident, I think it right I should speak to the students, because they’re all excellent comrades and I think they must understand what you have just told them. Take yourself, Carmita, he said, and he put a hand on the skinny girl’s shoulder, I’m sure you never thought through the consequences of your idealist story, but we must be on our guard, you must agree. I believe the best thing you can do now is to show how you can produce a magazine that reflects the needs of the times, in which we can emphasize purity, selflessness, the spirit of sacrifice to inspire the new generations (sic), right, Carmita? And poor Carmita said yes and nodded, not knowing she was saying yes forever, that Rafael was right, and even I wondered whether he was, but I couldn’t forget Olguita our teacher and what they’d said about my story, and Lamey got up, please, he said, any complaints about him should be made to his rank-and-file committee and he walked out as well. It cost him a year’s curtailment of rights and the worst possible reputation; he’s always been an awkward, sarcastic, arrogant type, he’s got even more bigheaded after the publication of those paltry poems, pronounced the head of department as she watched him leave. I wanted to die on the spot as I’ve never wanted to since, I was afraid, I was speechless, I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, I’d only written about what I felt and what had happened to me when I was a kid, that I preferred playing baseball on the street corner to going to Mass, and luckily I kept back five copies of La Viborena, which never made it to issue number one, that was going to be about democracy, because Olguita our teacher, who was so nice and so beautiful, thought we should create that issue by taking a vote on the best we could reap from our rich literary harvest.

“You had a bite to eat?” Manolo nodded, gently rubbing his stomach, and the Count thought it wasn’t a good idea to carry on without eating. “Look, I need you to go on the computer and get a list of all the investigations started in Havana over the last five days and which…”

“Every single one?” asked Manolo, sitting opposite the Count ready to challenge his orders. He stared at his face, and the pupil in his left eye began to shift till it almost disappeared behind the bridge of his nose.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that… Can I finish what I was saying?” asked the lieutenant, who rested his chin on his hands, contemplating his subordinate with resignation and wondering yet again whether Manolo was squint- eyed.

“Go on, then,” the other demurred, sharing in his boss’s resignation. He turned to look out the window, and his left eye slowly returned to its normal position.

“Look, you see, to get a grip on this we need to know if it’s related to anything, to whatever. That’s why I want you to get to the computer data and your brilliant brain to select whatever might be connected to Rafael Morin’s disappearance. Something might turn up, you know?”

“I get it, blind man’s bluff.”

“Manolo, stop being so fucking awkward. It needs doing. Off you go. I’ll see you in an hour.”

“You’ll see me in an hour. In an hour? Hey, you’re sending me packing on my hoss and you’ve not even told me what the sheriff said…”

“Not much at all. I spoke to the head of security at Foreign Trade, and it seems the Spaniard is purer than the holy mother virgin. Fond of whores and mean with them, but he sang the usual refrain: he’s a friend of Cuba, has done good business with us, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“And are you going to talk to him?”

“You know I’d like to, don’t you? But I don’t think the Boss will give us a plane to go as far as Key Largo. The guy went there on the morning of the first. Apparently everyone left on the morning of the first.”

“I think we should see him, after what Maciques said…”

“He won’t be back till Monday, so we’ll have to wait. OK, I’ll be back within the hour, my friend.”

Manolo stood up and yawned, opening his mouth as wide as he could, moaning plaintively.

“I get so sleepy after lunch.”

“Hey, you realize what I’ve got to do now?” the Count pursued his interrogation, only pausing to walk over to the sergeant. “I’ve got to see the Boss and tell him we’re clueless… You want to change places?”

Manolo smiled and beat a quick retreat.

“No, that’s down to you, it’s why you earn fifty pesos more than me. You said in an hour’s time, didn’t you?” He accepted his lot and left the cubicle without waiting for the uh-huh of the lieutenant’s farewell.

The Count watched him shut the door, then yawned. He thought how at that time of day he should be sleeping a long siesta, curled up under his sheets, after stuffing Jose’s meal or going to the cinema; he loved to relax in matinee shadows and watch very squalid moving films, like The French Lieutenant’s Woman, People Like Us or Scola’s We Loved So Much. There’s no justice, he muttered, and picked up the folder and his battered notebook. If he’d believed in God, he would have commended his soul to God before going to the Boss empty-handed.

He left his cubicle and walked along the corridor to the staircase. A light was on in the last office on the