Havana Gold

“No, it can’t be,” said Skinny, with the intonation of the character he was performing and finally with a smile. “You telepathic?”

The Count walked over to Josefina, kissed her on the forehead and asked emphasizing his innocence, “What did I tell foretell?”

“Can’t you smell it, lad?” the woman asked and then the Count carefully – as if on the edge of a precipice – peered into the top of the pot on the stove.

“No, it’s not true, casseroled tamal!” he shouted and realized his headache had gone and that depression had a cure.

“Yes, my love, but it’s not just any tamal: it’s made from grated maize, that’s much better than if it’s been ground, and I sieved it so there were no bits and added marrow to give it body and it’s also got pork meat, chicken and beef chops.”

“Bloody hell! And look what I’ve got here,” he said, taking a bottle of rum out of its cardboard cone: “threeyear-old Caney, golden and smooth.”

“Well, in that case I think you can consider yourself invited,” Skinny opined, swaying his head from side to side, as if seeking approval from a bevy of guests. “And where did you fish that out from, savage?”

Conde looked at Josefina and put his arm round her shoulders.

“Better not know, because you’re no policeman, are you, Josefina?” and she smiled, and gripped Conde’s chin and tilted his face.

“What did you cop there, Condesito?”

Conde put the bottle down on the table.

“It’s nothing, I fell out with a mop. You know, I stepped…” and he tried to mime the origins of the scratch that Fabricio’s ring had left on his cheek.

“… Hey, savage, you telling the truth?”

“Come on, Skinny, forget it… Do you want rum or don’t you?” he asked looking at the clock. It was about to strike eight. She must be about to ring.

The background music indicated the heartache brought by the Brazilian soap was over for the night, but the Count appealed to the clock: half past nine. He flopped his head back on the pillow, exhausted, and held out his glass when he heard Skinny pouring himself more.

“That’s the end of that,” he announced, as if he was the bearer of bad tidings. “You’ve had a hell of a bad day, haven’t you?”

“And then there’s what the Boss has got in store. And that youngster tomorrow. And the whore who doesn’t ring. What’s she got up to, pal?”

“Hey, stuff the whining, she’ll turn up…”

“It’s all too much, Skinny, too much. I realized that when the Boss told me to leave the youth’s questioning to tomorrow and I agreed. I should have gone after him today, but I wanted to see her. What a fucking disaster.”

The Count sat up and sipped the last drops of rum from the bottom of his glass. As usual, he regretted not buying another bottle: those 750 millilitres didn’t satisfy the hardened veins of that pair of high alcoholic averages. Because he’d already downed half a bottle of rum and his thirst remained unslaked, even keener, and he felt he’d been drinking doubt and despair rather than alcohol. How much more would he have to drink before he could finally look over the edge of the canal and slosh over into a lack of consciousness, the object yet again of his consuming thirst?

“I feel like getting plastered, Skinny,” he said dropping his glass on the mattress. “Plastered like an animal, crawling on all fours and pissing my pants and not thinking about my life ever again. Never ever…”

“Yes, I reckon it’s just what you need,” the other agreed finishing his rum. “And it was good stuff, you know? One of the few rums that can still hold its head up high in this world. You know it’s the real Bacardi?”

“Yeah, I know the story: it’s the best in the world, the only genuine Bacardi they make and so on. Right now I couldn’t give a fuck: any rum will do. I want 90% proof, dry wine, meths, purslane wine, rat poison, anything that will go straight to my head.”

“You’re far gone, aren’t you? I told you the other day: you’re like a bloody lovesick dog. And the woman’s not back from work yet. You tell me if she gives you…”

“Don’t even mention the possibility. I don’t want to think about it. Come on, give me money to make it up. I’ll kick up a fuss until I find a litre somewhere,” he said as he stood up. He looked for the cardboard cone he’d brought and put away the empty bottle.

Josefina was in the living room watching the Write and Read programme. The panellists had to identify a twentieth-century, historical, Latin-American figure, and Cuban into the bargain! An artist, they’d just discovered.

“It must be Pello the Afrokan,” said the Count going over to Josefina. “Did you get it, Jose?”

Josefina shook her head, keeping her eyes glued to the set.

“Ay, my love, I’ve been sitting here for two days. Look who the historic figure was,” she said, pointing her chin at the screen. “Chorizo the clown. That’s an insult to those clever professors who know so much.”

Before leaving, the Count kissed her forehead and said he’d soon be back – with more rum.

He stopped on the corner of the street and hesitated. To his left bars summoned, and to his right Karina’s place. There was only a lorry parked in front of the whole block and he raised his hopes thinking a Polish Fiat might be lurking behind it. He turned right, passed by the girl’s house that was still shut up and saw there was nothing behind the lorry. He walked to the corner, turned half round and walked back past her house. He wanted to go in, ring, ask – I’m a policeman, for fuck’s sake, where’s she got to? – but a last ounce of pride and commonsense repressed his adolescent impulse when he put his hand on the garden gate. He walked on down the street, after rum and oblivion.

“Well, pal, she didn’t ring,” he managed to say with enough strength to raise his arm and drink some more. The second bottle of firewater was also practically dead when the National Anthem blared out to mark the end of the evening’s programmes.

Josefina stood in the doorway, observed the hecatomb and crossed herself mechanically: the two were shirtless, and gripping their glasses tight. Her son, slumped over the arm of his wheelchair, his flabby flesh streaming with sweaty. And the Count, sitting on the floor, back against the bed, suffering the last rattle from a coughing attack. On the ground, an ashtray steaming like a volcano and the corpses of two bottles and the epilogue to another.

“You’re killing yourselves,” she said picking up the bottle of firewater. She fled. Those scenes filled her heart with sadness because she knew she spoke the truth: they were committing suicide, cowardly but surely. And only love and loyalty remained from the times when Skinny and the Count spent their evenings and nights in that same room, listening to music at a superhuman volume and arguing about girls and baseball.

“She didn’t ring. I’m going for fuck’s sake.”

“Are you mad? How can you go in that state?”

“Not dragging my bum across the floor. Walking,” and he made an unlikely effort to revert to the vertical. He failed twice, but succeeded at the third attempt.

“Are you really leaving?”

“Yes, you beast, I’m throwing myself out. I’ll die like a stray dog. Just remember one thing: I fucking love you to death. You’re my brother, friend and you’re my skinny little pal,” he said and, abandoning his glass on the night table, he hugged his pal’s sweaty head and gave his hair a slobbering kiss, while Skinny’s massive hands gripped the arms that hugged him as the kiss turned into a hoarse, sickly sob.

“Hell, brother, don’t cry… Nobody deserves your tears. Castrate Fabricio, kill her, forget Jorrin, but don’t cry, otherwise I’ll cry too.”

“Cry then, you bastard. I can’t stop myself.”

The wind blew from the south, bringing the smell of withered flowers and burnt oil, the effluvia of deaths from yesteryear and yesterday, as cars and buses halted in the cemetery’s main avenue. The funeral car had driven a few yards on to allow the mourners to show off their years of experience and form an improvised, disciplined queue, without numbers or fear of being left empty-handed, ready to follow the coffin to its final resting-place. The queue