are working themselves to death. Those who were atheist over here become religious and never miss a mass. Those who were militant communists become even more militant anti-communists, and when they can’t hide what they were, they shout it from the rooftops, parade their renunciation like a trophy, fully aware of the consequences, you know? There are even people who left here cursing the place, and who are even more fucked in Miami and so they decide it’s their business to say dialogue would be best and that it should all be sorted through talk. Besides, something similar is happening there to what happened here with the image of Miami: the people there are beginning to turn Cuba into a myth, to imagine it as a desire, rather than remembering it as it was, and they live in a halfway house, going nowhere: they can’t decide whether to forget Cuba or be new people in a new country, and finally they’re neither one thing nor the other, like me, because after living there for eight years I don’t know where I want to be or what I want to be… It’s a national tragedy. Miami is nothing and Cuba is a dream that never existed… The truth is I don’t know why I’m telling you about my life, about Miguel and Fermin. Perhaps because I think I can trust you. Or probably because I’m afraid and know that the worst of all this is that I must go back and Miguel won’t be there to help me to live that peculiar life he forced on me. Do you still think it’s strange that I curse the day we decided to return to this blessed isle for ten days?”
After seven failed attempts, the dialling tone offered by the eighth public telephone he tried was like heavenly music to the Count’s ears. At his wits’ end he put his last coin in the slot and dialled Manolo’s number and the ringing reaching him from infinity seemed a just reward for his labours.
“It’s me, Manolo. Listen carefully, let’s hope the line doesn’t go dead.”
“Sing on, Conde.”
“Something very strange happened…”
“You’ve seen a ghost?”
“Shut up and listen, I’ve used my last coin: I spoke to Miriam and she told me half her life-story. I need you to get weaving as early as possible tomorrow and sort two things as quickly as possible: get the Immigration people to act so she can’t leave for three or four days for whatever reason, but not let on that we’re keeping her here. Get the people on the airline she travelled with to say there are no seats, no flights, that there’s no petrol for the planes, whatever, but give her no inkling we’re the ones forcing her to stay, get it? Because I need her to keep talking… The other thing you should do is look out information on her brother, Fermin Bodes Alvarez. From what Miriam told me, I reckon the man may know what Miguel Forcade was after in Cuba, because I’m now sure he was after something he couldn’t take with him in ’78 and that’s why they killed him. Got all that?”
“Fuck, Conde, I’m not some retard. What should I do then?”
“Pick me up at the Boss’s. I’m off to talk to him. I’ll wait there.”
And Mario Conde hung up, with a sigh of relief, as the cannon fire signalling it was nine p.m. reached him from far off. Time to close the gates to protect the city from pirates, and the policeman looked at his watch, which was slow, as if he were one to worry about precision, and his eyes returned to the figure of Miriam retreating up the Rampa, for the first time freely contemplating her from the rear, buttocks so perfect from the new perspective, compelling, firm, abundant flesh, like a magnet trailing in its wake the premonitions and desires of the Count, abandoned on the shore, a declaration full of doubt ringing in his ears: “I don’t know what I’ll do with my life,” she’d said before taking off and now he thought he should have said: “Walk up the Rampa to heaven, and I’ll go with you,” but he hadn’t and what he now saw at his feet was the dirty Calzada de Infanta, along which his bus was approaching, like a dark, rabid animal, impregnated with all the smells, anger and desires stirring in the city. “All aboard,” he shouted at himself, as he ran to hang off a door.
“Just as well you got here.”
“Why? You in need of a policeman?”
“Are you in a bloody mood?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Skinny Carlos smiled from his wheelchair and lit the cigarette between his lips.
“And how should I take that, wild man?”
“With all the shit, like I do… I feel fucked, hungry, sleepy, I’ve got to go on being a policeman and I have no luck with women. I mean, I don’t have anything I should have, what more do you want?”
“For you to stop acting tragic and remember that the day after tomorrow is your birthday and that we must organize something.”
“You sure, Skinny?”
“About what, Conde?”
“That we have to do something.”
“You don’t want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do… You only hit thirty-six once in your life, you know.”
“And eighteen, forty-nine and sixty-two. But hardly ever eighty-two.”
“That’s what I say. That’s why I spoke to the gang and everybody’ll be here on Wednesday. Andres, Rabbit, even Miki… and I just have to let Red Candito know, though he’ll probably not come.”
“How come?”
“What do you mean, wild man? Didn’t you know Candito’s turned Adventist, Baptist or some such balls?”
Mario Conde was shocked beyond belief.
“You’re kidding. Since when?”
“That was what I was told. That he’s left the clandestine beer shop, that he’s no longer doing the business and spends his days proclaiming Jehovah as his saviour.”
“I don’t believe it,” retorted the Count. “He was always half a mystic, but to go Adventist, or Pentecostal…? Hey, but I’ve got to see this and anyway I need to talk to him. Ring Andres and see whether he’ll take us to Red’s place and I’ll eat what Jose kept for me.”
When the Count entered the kitchen, the last strains of the final theme tune of the nine o’clock soap reached him from the living room. He found the meal Josefina had left for him just in case, under a plate on top of the cooker. She’d poured black beans on a mound of white rice and tucked a fried chicken leg away in one corner.
“The salad’s in the refrigerator,” he heard behind him, and the Count took a moment to turn round.
The loyalty shown by Skinny and his mother always disarmed him; it was so simple, elemental yet rocksolid. He had a place in that house he’d never had anywhere else, not even in his own home when his parents were alive, and the experience of belonging there softened him to the point that, on nights like tonight, when he felt heartily exhausted, disillusioned, rancorous, worried, destitute and full of angst, he was on the verge of tears, so when he turned round he opted to say: “So that animal in there scoffed all the chips as usual?”
“I told him to keep some for you, but he said he was sure you wouldn’t come…”
“If you weren’t here, I’d say he was a son of a… but better not, I suppose.”
“That’s up to you two,” said Josefina, smiling her usual smile.
The Count put his plates on the table and looked at her.
“Sit down for a minute, Jose.”
She obeyed and sighed plaintively.
“What’s the matter? You tired?”
“Yes, I get more tired by the day.”
“Hey, Jose, let me tell you something: your son’s had the idea of celebrating my birthday here.”
Josefina smiled again, now really enjoying herself.
“Is that what he told you? I’ll soon start thinking he’s that son of an individual you were about to mention. Because the idea was mine.”
“But are you crazy, sweetheart? Don’t you know what it will be like with all your son’s drunken friends here?”
“Yours as well… It will be all right. I’ve already got the things I need for the meal.”
“And where did you find the money?”
“Don’t worry about that, it’s all sorted.”
“And what are you going to cook?”
“It’s a surprise.”
