The woman stopped nodding and looked at the sergeant. Perhaps she thought he looked very young, and she rubbed her long bony hands gently together. The room was damp, and the cold sticky.
“He came at midday on the thirty-first to bring me my New Year present, that perfume over there,” and she pointed to the unmistakable bottle of Chanel N° 5 on the sideboard. “He knew my only weakness was for perfumes and was always giving them to me as presents. For Mother’s Day, for my birthday, for New Year. He used to say he wanted me to smell sweeter than anyone else in the barrio, just imagine. And at night he called my neighbour’s phone to wish me good luck. He was at that party he’d gone to, and it must have been around ten to twelve. He always rang me, from wherever he was, last year he called from Panama, right, I think it was Panama.”
“And did he have lunch with you?” continued Manolo, shifting his skinny rump onto the edge of the armchair. He liked asking the questions and when doing so he’d hunch up, like a cat whose fur was bristling.
“Yes, I made him beans and sausage, the way he liked it, and he said neither his wife nor mother-in-law could cook them the way I did.”
“And how did he strike you? The same as usual?”
“What do you mean, comrade?”
“Nothing in particular, Maria Antonia, did he seem at all nervous, worried or different?”
The old lady looked up at the Virgin and then rubbed her legs, as if trying to relieve pain. Her hands were white, and her nails spotless.
“He was always stressed by problems at work. He said: you won’t believe this, mummy, but I’ve got to spend the afternoon at the office, and he left around two.”
“And did he seem anxious or on edge?”
“Look, comrade, I know my son very well: I gave birth to him and brought him up. He ate the beans and sausage at around one, and then we both washed up and lay on this bed and talked, as we always did. He liked stretching out on this bed, my poor son. He was always tired and sleepy, and his eyes would shut as we spoke.”
“And what time did he leave?”
“At around two. He washed his face and told me he was going to a party that night, that he had lots of work on, and gave me two hundred pesos so you can buy yourself something for New Year’s Eve, he said and he went to clean his teeth and comb his hair and gave me a kiss and left. He was as loving towards me as ever he was.”
“Did he always give you money?”
“Always? No, just occasionally.”
“Did he mention any problems he was having with his wife?”
“He and I never spoke about her. It was a kind of agreement between us.”
“An agreement?” asked Manolo, leaning forward even more on the edge of the armchair. The Count thought: “Where’s he taking this?”
“The fact is I never liked that woman. Not that she’d ever done anything, or that I had anything special against her, but I think she never cared for him as a husband should be cared for. She even had a maid… Forgive me, this is family business, but I think she always looked after Number One.”
“And what did he say when he left?”
“He said he was going to work, as usual, that I should look after myself and sprayed me with the new scent he’d brought me. He was always so kind, and not because he was my son, I swear, just ask any of the old neighbours around here, and they’ll all tell you the same: he turned out much better than anyone could have imagined. This isn’t a good barrio, I can tell you, and I came here when I was still single and I’m still here, where I married, gave birth to Rafael, brought him up by myself in the direst of circumstances and, forgive me, I don’t know what you think, but God and that Virgin over there helped me make a good man of him. They never had to call me from school, and in that drawer you’ll find more than fifty diplomas he won as a student, his engineering degree and certificate for getting top marks in his year. All his own effort. Haven’t I a right to be proud of my son? His destiny turned out so different to mine, or his father’s, who never got to be more than a plumber. I don’t know where my boy got his intelligence from, but when you think how fast he climbed the ladder and how he no longer lived in a rooming house and had a car and travelled to countries I didn’t even know existed and was somebody in this country… My God, what an earth has happened? Who can want to hurt Rafael who never hurt anybody, anybody at all? He’s always been a revolutionary, from when he was a young boy. I remember how he was given responsibility at secondary school and was often president, at high school as well as university, and nobody from the ministry helped him. Nobody was levering him up; he got where he got, by himself, one rung at a time, by working very hard. Just for this to happen. But God can’t punish me like this. My son and I don’t deserve it. What has happened, comrades? Tell me, say something. Who can want to threaten my son? Who can have hurt him? For God’s sake…”
I think it was two or three weeks to the end of classes, then came the exams and after that the second year of high school would start, which is almost like the third, and almost like already being at university, and nobody could bug us about the length of our sideburns or our moustaches or about the virtues of short hair and all that stuff that makes you want to get out of school, however much you like going round with your schoolmates, having a girlfriend from there and so on. That was the worst of all: wanting time to pass quickly. Why should we? And we were lined up in the playground, it was June, the sun was burning our backs, and the headmaster spoke: we would win all the honours in all the competitions, we would be the most outstanding high school in the whole of Havana, in the country, practically in the universe, because we’d been best at working in the countryside, had won the Intercollegiate Games, two prizes in the National Amateurs Festival and ninety percent of us would get to university and nobody would shift us from first place, and we clapped, hurray, hurray, we shouted and thought how wonderful we were, how unbeatable. And the headmaster said there was more good news to come: two comrades had won medals in the National Mathematics Competition, hurray, hurray, more clapping, Comrade Fausto Fleites, hurray, hurray, a gold medal in the category of eleventh grade, and, hurray, hurray, Comrade Rafael Morin, a silver medal in the thirteenth grade category, and Fausto and Rafael climbed onto the platform where all the speeches were being made, real champions, arms aloft in salute, smiling, naturally, they’d showed they were tremendous wavers of the flag, and Tamara kept on applauding after almost everyone else had stopped, even jumped for joy and Skinny asked, hey, pal, is this for show or did our girlfriend there really not know? And right, she just must have known, but she was too, too happy, as if she
“What do you think, my friend?” asked Manolo as he switched on the engine and the Count smoked the final remnants of the cigarette he’d not dared light at Maria Antonia’s.
“Drive to headquarters, we’ve got to talk to the Boss and see whether we can’t interview today the deputy minister responsible for the enterprise,” said the Count as he took one last look down the almost lugubrious passageway to the home which was Rafael Morin’s birthplace. “Why didn’t he find a way to get his mother a house?”
The car proceeded along the Avenue of October Tenth towards Agua Dulce, and Manolo accelerated down the hill.
“Just what I was thinking. Rafael Morin’s lifestyle and that homestead don’t fit.”
“Or are too good a fit, right? Now what we need to know is where he got to on the afternoon of the thirty-first, or find out if he really was at the enterprise and why he told Tamara he’d be here with his mother.”
“You’ll have to catch up with Morin or find a
