he felt was rancour and frustration, and it wasn’t fair: Carlos was already fucked up enough without downing him further with his sado-maso-police depressions… In short, the outlook was bleak until, on opening his refrigerator, he had a pleasant surprise: he saw entwined there, like friendly worms, spaghetti he’d left in a dish several days ago, red-flecked by tomato and dotted with dark specks of a mince presumably of animal origin.
While the pasta was heating up in the bain-marie, the Count got under the shower and let the cold water run over his head, cleansing him of his outer filth. He soaped himself thoroughly and as he vigorously washed his penis felt a temptation called Tamara that he repressed with a policeman’s rage. “If I jerk off, I’ll die”, was his rational conclusion, and he allowed the cold water to dampen the rising motion triggered unawares by the physical needs he’d postponed too long. The painful memory of his adventure with the twin always provoked a similar effect. But now that Skinny had summoned her to his birthday party, the imminence of the encounter meant the woman was enthroned as the unchallenged queen of the Count’s erotic memory, and he wondered rhetorically how long he would remain in love with her.
Body still wet and towel wrapped round his waist, he went into the kitchen and turned off the flame. As he finished drying his hair, he switched on the television, which was broadcasting the late-night news. The expansive impact upwards and downwards of the investigations against police corruption was repeated and given scope in the report, gravely intoned by the newscaster, who spoke of necessary punishments, exemplary measures, unacceptable attitudes and moral, historical and ideological purity. But what nobody knew was how such radical surgery, now extending into high ministerial reaches, would end, although the prospect of escaping unharmed the necessary purge, announced in the report, relieved the lieutenant’s contrite soul, and he pondered hopefully on the short time left to him before his final liberation: a mere twenty hours… As the Count had decided, he refused to continue assessing the possible reasons for Miguel Forcade’s death and concentrated on the special weather report the Official Weatherman was solemnly reading:
“At eight o’clock, only a few minutes ago, satellite reports located Felix here – ” and he pointed his marker at a crazy white whirl in the middle of the Caribbean – “at eighty-two degrees longitude north and twenty-one point four latitude west, that is, some fifty miles north of Grand Cayman and almost one hundred and fifty miles south of the eastern tip of Juventud Island. It is estimated that this strong tropical hurricane, the most violent in recent years, will continue to progress in a northerly direction, at some ten miles an hour, meaning it represents an immediate threat to the island’s western provinces, in particular to Havana and Matanzas, where it might hit between early and late Thursday morning, bringing torrential rain and winds of more than one hundred and ten miles an hour, and occasional gusts of one hundred and fifty an hour, which may even be stronger in areas close to the centre of the hurricane,” he added before handing over to the Colonel from Civil Defence, who enumerated the precautions to take before the seemingly inevitable arrival of cyclone Felix, which, as the Count had predicted and concluded, had to come. And he felt scared.
Just as the country was preparing to resist the onslaught of this meteorological phenomenon, a harassed Count downed his dish of spaghetti resurrected by the sudden change in temperature to which they had been subjected at the ripe age of six days after they’d first been cooked. But the fuckers taste good, he thought, chewing the pasta and merely regretting that the island’s hellish, cyclonic climate didn’t allow vines to grow and wines to be manufactured: because a red wine, unrefrigerated, would have lifted heavenwards those juicy mouthfuls fit for a Neapolitan cardinal, promoted up the culinary-church hierarchy by a policeman’s hunger on the eve of his retirement. A pity he couldn’t add fried yucca, and he smiled mischievously at the dilemma confronting Major Rangel, a wretchedly monogamous, dethroned king reduced to imbibing infusions.
The empty plate went to sleep it off in the sink next to the other plates, glasses and dishes piled there, betwixt grease and apathy. Without wetting his fingers, the Count rescued from the summit of deferred filth the container for grinding coffee and, after cleaning his teeth, he placed his Italian coffee pot on the stove and waited for it to percolate. His melancholy gaze reviewed the selection of dead bottles demonstrating in one corner of the kitchen, and when he heard the first gasps from the coffee pot he had his brightest idea of the night: he poured into one glass the residues of various rums – all cheap – sloshing around in the remote bottoms of those bottles, and managed to gather almost a tot of rum in a glass that welcomed the remains thus milked. Palpably happy, the Count ground the coffee and returned it to the pot, then poured a long measure on to the combination of rums, thus creating, in a unique solution, the communion of two tastes so necessary to his life: and took with him the honey dew that even tasted good as he went to dial Skinny Carlos.
“It’s me, you dog,” he said, when he heard his friend’s voice.
“So, wild man,” came the reply. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Cracked the case yet?”
“Yes and no, it’s going both ways… Come to think of it, today I found out my thoughts are transparent and communicable.”
“Well I’m happy for your thoughts. Now tell them to remember tomorrow.”
“Course I remember… The bastard is I’m broke and can’t buy anything.”
“Forget it: it’s your birthday… So come by early on. The old girl says better not eat during the day, because she’s going to cook a lot.”
“She’s mad, she’ll get put away… Hey, I called you for two reasons… Don’t know about you but I’m really worried about Andres. There’s something up with that bastard, I’ve never seen him so aggressive.”
“Yeah, he’s as queer as a coot. I spoke to his mother and she says he’s odd with her as well. Something not quite right with our prince of Denmark. What was the other thing?”
“Oh, I’d like your opinion; you’re an intelligent man, would you believe anything from a woman who dyes her hair?”
“What colour?”
“Blonde.”
“Not a word.”
“Why?”
“Because blondes who aren’t blondes are whores or liars. Or both at once, which is when they’re best…”
“Yes, you’re right. Hey, thanks for the advice. Tell your mother I’ll fast in her honour.”
“I’ll tell her. But don’t get caught up, and come early, my friend.”
“You bet… See you tomorrow, my friend.”
The Count gulped down his melange of coffee and rum and felt that, although he was tired and sleepy, he should strike a few keys on his decrepit Underwood: he needed to lance a painful boil and say something he didn’t dare to express verbally to Skinny Carlos and perhaps the story of friendship, pain and war he’d been concocting in his head for several weeks was finally ready to see the light, tonight of all nights. His spirit now carried a high enough dose of love and squalor to commit it to paper and, without more ado, he put the typewriter on the dining table and read the last of the pages he’d left on the platen on the distant morning of the previous day.
Almost without thinking the Count put his fingers on the worn keys and felt as if his hands were thinking for him, while the letters etched themselves on the fresh paper in the platen.
