“And what was the line of business they were pursuing in 1958, when they met in Lina’s flat? If Alcides didn’t have the same clout under Batista and Lansky wasn’t exactly popular in the United States…”
“I wouldn’t know about-”
“Oh, yes, you would… It was fifty years ago, Carmen. They’re all dead and can’t get you now. I’m sure it was something important… They shattered a man’s hand because they thought he was trying to find out what they were up to.”
“The journalist?”
“That’s right. What was it?”
“I don’t know, but they were hatching something.”
“As well as hotels and gambling?”
“Yes, as well.”
“Drugs?”
The elderly woman shook her head vigorously.
“Carmen,” said the Count, playing his last card, “it’s probably why they killed your friend Violeta… They staged the suicide, but that fooled no one. Not even the police… Not even you… But Violeta was your friend and you kept your head down…”
The elderly woman looked down at her withered arm. “Is it her arm or her conscience that’s giving her pain?” wondered Conde. When she looked up her expression had changed.
“No, Alcides wouldn’t have let them. He was a son of a bitch, but he loved Violeta. Nobody killed her because of what she knew…”
“You sure Alcides wasn’t involved in trafficking drugs?”
“Alcides wouldn’t have got into that, and Lansky, who was boss of everything the mafia did here, got a percentage, but wasn’t personally involved. Drugs were Santo Trafficante’s preserve, the son; Lansky was intent on becoming a businessman, and wanted to live without the police on his back, like his friend Luciano, who had a taste of prison, was booted out of the United States and had to leave for Sicily, where his life was worth next to nothing. The Jew cultivated his image in Cuba as if it were sacred and avoided anything that might tarnish it. Besides, with all the plans he had for building hotels and casinos that were going to make millions and millions, all above board, he couldn’t take risks with anything dicey. But he let others get on with it and raked in his commission…”
“So what were they both hatching that was so secret? If all their business was above board…”
“I can’t help you there, though it might have something to do with politics.”
Conde glanced at Yoyi, as if looking for support. Such an idea fell outside all the scenarios they’d dreamt up so far: it lit up the void at the centre of that drama.
“Yes, that’s possible… that’s why they were acting so furtively. But what exactly?”
“They talked a lot about Batista, and never had a kind word for him. They thought he was going to fuck up. Alcides loathed him, and Lansky said he was a shark, a bottomless pit as far as money went, the country was slipping out of his hands and he was going to fuck up their big plans.”
“Right, which is what he did,” the Count thought aloud, adrift in a sea of ideas and possibilities.
“He was intent on winning the war and lost,” commented Yoyi, unable to maintain his enforced silence any longer. “Lansky and Alcides had to leave and lost a fortune… In the end Batista messed it all up for them.”
Conde looked at Yoyi, remembering he was like a tiger out on the street but that he tended to forget he’d been to university and that something must have rubbed off on the way.
“While we’re at it, Carmen,” said Conde, more gently. “Why did you change your name and disappear from the register of addresses?”
The elderly woman looked at the Count and then at Yoyi. She smiled mischievously.
“There are things best left forgotten… Did you realize I met your father?”
Surprised by this change of subject from Carmen, Conde tried to stop her predictable drift.
“My father’s not the subject of this conversation,” he tried to fob her off.
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing to get so upset about… Your father was always going to hear Violeta sing and started to knock it back, until he fell off his chair. I twice saw him being dragged out of the club. He was a coward and never had the courage to approach Violeta. I talked to him two or three times, I felt sorry for him. The poor wretch was like a lovesick puppy… He kept hovering around Violeta until someone told him if he wanted to keep walking on two legs he’d better not show up again when she was singing. I never saw him again after that…”
Conde felt each word score his skin, but decided it wasn’t the moment to let himself be bowled over by discoveries he couldn’t cope with.
“I’m sorry for my father’s sake… But you’ve not told me why you changed your name…”
The elderly woman looked back at her withered arm.
‘Louis Mallet never returned to Cuba. I decided not to leave in 1960, or in 1961… and by the time I saw what was happening here, I was boxed in. My money was all gone and I had to go back to work, but was the wrong side of thirty-five and set up a brothel in Nuevitas, when that was still possible. It went pear-shaped in no time and I was put in a kind of school, to be reformed. They even taught me how to sew. I was still branded a whore though, so I made the best of my one chance to get rid of the label. I started to use my real name and lodged Carmen the seamstress here in Atares, and let Elsa Contreras whore on a few more years, using her reputation as the Lotus Flower of old at the Shanghai in Havana. But being a whore at forty was shit. You had to fuck what came along, for next to nothing, because competition got really fierce: women were emancipated, just like men, and fucked for the fun of it, young girls started jumping into bed with anyone, anywhere, after all, we were all equal so had a right to equal pleasure, right? In the midst of this madness I met a man… a good man… and decided to bury Elsa Contreras for good and keep Lotus Flower in that drawer… By the way, the lad’s not seen the photo,” she went on, as if referring to someone else, who was dead and gone. “Go on, show it to him and leave today’s money under the box, so Matilde doesn’t see it when she comes back… That fat pile of shit scoffs the lot…”
A Comment and Thanks
In creating this book, as always, I’ve had to call on the knowledge and experience of several individuals. I would like to express my gratitude to Daniel Flores the book-seller for his indispensable help: he introduced me to the mysteries and tricks of his trade, guided me on the issue of the pricing of the rarest and most valuable books in Cuba’s bibliography and even prepared an “ideal” library for me, with the books that in his informed opinion had to be there. I was also helped in my research by the kind Naty Revueltas who even lent me some treasures from her own library; my essential friend, Marta Armenteros, from the National Library; the efficient and rigorous Olga Vega, head of the Section of Rare and Valuable Books at the Jose Marti National Library who after many requests allowed me to view and caress the most precious jewels in the treasure under her stewardship; and Dr Carlos Suarez, who introduced me to the world of narcotics and poisons, and their uses and effects.
As always, the advice of my most loyal, self-sacrificing readers was decisive, as they struggled with different versions of the manuscript, above all the absolutely key Vivian Lechuga and kind Alex Fleites, Elena Zayas, Dalia Acosta, Helena Nunez, Jose Maria Rodriguez Coso and Lourdes Gomez. My particular gratitude, as always, to Beatriz de Moura, for her confidence and insightful reading. And my apologies, because she had to put up with readings, depressions and doubts, to my loving wife (although I much prefer to say: to my loving woman) Lucia Lopez Coll, my first reader, for whom I always write, with love and squalor.
Leonardo Padura
