Conde lifted the arm and then lowered the lid. Something morbid was happening for that voice to stir him to the point of igniting what was an unmistakeably hormonal fire. Can I be falling in love with a voice? he wondered, with the ghost of a woman?, he continued, afraid it might be his first step on the spiral to madness. Refusing the masturbatory solution he frequently had recourse to despite his now unseemly age, Conde opted to stand under the water spurting from his shower and put his trust in its ability to release him from adolescent obsessions and rushes of blood.
His refreshed brain could now review what he’d learnt so far, hoping the encounters planned for the following day with the longlasting Katy Barque and Silvano Quintero the journalist could clear up the doubt most tormenting him: what did become of Violeta del Rio when she abandoned the stage? He’d above all try to find out if the singer’s rich lover had been Mr Alcides Montes de Oca, the last owner and supplier of a stunning library that had put him in such a sweat two days ago. The existence of that press cutting in the entrails of a cookbook would then make sense and begin to explain the possible relationship between those individuals from such distant planets. However, a crucial piece refused to fit the links the Count was making, because Alcides Montes de Oca apparently only took his children with him from Cuba, and Amalia Ferrero was adamant she’d never even heard of the
After shaving, he sprinkled on his best cologne. Right then he was confident the night would turn out as promising as he needed it to be. After checking the irrepressible Rubbish wasn’t in the vicinity, he emptied some leftovers on his tray. He then stepped out into the street, and putting into practice his new status as a moneyed man, hailed a taxi and offered the driver thirty pesos to deviate from his route and take him to Santos Suarez.
Opposite Tamara’s house, Conde said a quick prayer to Lady Luck, since of all the possible places known to him, it was
Tamara opened the door. Her eyes, limpid as ever, like two moist almonds, surveyed the newcomer and lingered on the bunch of flowers. Her sense of smell reacted first.
“You smell of whores. Not of flowers,” she observed, smiling.
“We all smell of whatever we can…”
“And this miracle? Five days, no, a week ago…”
“I’ve been working like crazy to get rich.”
“And?”
“I’ve made it. At least for a week. And a promising future as a businessman looms ahead. One must change with the times, Tamara. You know, it’s not a sin to be a businessman… Quite the contrary in fact. Do you remember that Guillen poem that began ‘I’m sorry for the bourgeois’?…”
“Of course… But what is one supposed to do when one is rich?”
“First one doesn’t travel by bus. Secondly, one gives flowers to people,” he handed the bouquet to Tamara, “and to round the day off one imagines one is Gatsby and puts on a fancy meal for one’s friends, though before doing that one looks out one’s girlfriend and asks her to accompany one.”
“Oh yes? And who is Gatsby’s impossible love?”
She took the flowers. He tried to smile and threw his cigarette butt into the street. He took aim carefully. If his next shot missed it could be fatal.
“The usual culprit, you know? The girl he met in the Pre-Uni in La Vibora in 1972 and…”
She smiled with a brief, unmistakable puff of sweetness, and the Count realized he’d won the match.
“Mario Conde, you’ve one hell of a nerve. Thanks for the flowers… Come in, I was about to put the coffee on. But what’s that perfume you’re wearing?…”
Conde followed her into the kitchen, relishing the rhythm of that first class piece of flesh he watched shimmy under her dressing gown, already imagining what he might soon elicit from that body he’d explored so often over so many years. Tamara’s journey down the dangerous ravine of the forties had been pleasant and harmonious, although she’d helped herself with push ups and abdominal exercises, step-classes and creams destined to give her muscles more tone, her skin more sheen, and the Count appreciated such female cares of which he periodically was the direct beneficiary.
“What’s all this about being rich then,” she asked, putting the coffee on to boil.
“I’ve found a book-mine and am earning real money. It’s that simple. That’s why I asked old Jose to prepare a dream of a meal tonight, whatever the cost… Sometimes, you feel more than just hungry…”
“So you’ve come here for your aperitif?” She turned to see how the coffee was doing.
This tension always devastated the Count, who went for silence coupled with a frontal assault, though he began his attack on the mountainous rearguard: he went up close to Tamara, rammed his pelvis against her buttocks, and started to kiss her neck, sliding his hands from her stomach to her breasts, swinging free under the light material, and found them softer than fifteen years ago, when he’d caressed them for the first time, but still shapely. Conde sensed something preparing to take a rise between his legs, at once wary and bold. He greedily inhaled the smell of clean, female skin, not noticing how his hands, nose, and tongue were after one woman, while his frenzied brain was groping for yet another lost in the mists of yesterday.
