“I generally like Cezanne and the impressionists, although I didn’t know this work. Is it a Cezanne?”
“No, it isn’t a Cezanne… 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?”
Gomez de la Pena 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 Gomez de la Pena. “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 Gomez de la Pena.
“I can see you like the 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 Gomez de la Pena 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?”
Gomez de la Pena 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.”
