not to wake up Tamara. Back on his feet, he turned round and fleetingly observed the sleeping woman, her mouth slightly open, her nightdress rucked up, baring thighs as firm as ever as they climbed to the promising mound of her buttocks. Conde bent over, breathed in and filled his lungs with the smell of hot sheets and sweet saliva, ruffled hair and female vapours from that almost inert body and was surprised by the thought that he’d now crossed every frontier of self-preservation because he unreservedly loved a woman he felt to be his own, with whom he’d exchanged the most intimate secrets. He recalled the almost inaudible splash of Tamara’s tongue in the well of her mouth and the seemingly pitiful purr she’d emit seconds before passing from wakefulness to sleep, and, when she lapsed definitively into unconsciousness, the way her body juddered and alarmed the Count. For her part, she was familiar with and suffered from the night-time snoring of a smoker with one nostril blocked from when a baseball hit him long ago, from the anxiety pursuing him in his deepest dreams, which, so she said, made him assume strange postures like sleeping face down, leaning on his elbows his forehead against the pillow, as if enduring a Muslim form of penitence. The quota of secrets they shared from years of passionate encounters encompassed knowledge of phobias and fears, of things admired and held in contempt, and the vital possession of the most subtle, efficient keys to release the springs of sexual pleasure. The Count recalled how she liked his tongue to lick her clitoris in quick violent movements, letting his saliva run down to her vaginal and anal orifices, as the palms of his hands rubbed her erect nipples and he finally felt the tension in her belly, the changes in her breathing, the build up to the silent eruption of her orgasm. Then he felt his scrotum recede and a lascivious tingle run down his urethra, and pleasurably recalled the arts applied by Tamara to give him maximum enjoyment, licking his nipples, caressing his anal sphincter, revisiting his penis and testicles with her tongue and, opening her legs so that, when he knelt and penetrated her, he could eye her pink fleshy parts wet with saliva and tasty secretions, and watch his honourable member drill the hot insides of a body surrendering wholeheartedly to love and pleasure.
When the Count saw the hard on his imaginings had prompted, he wondered if the years hadn’t transformed them into something more than two lovers: theirs was a well-established blend of knowledge and tolerance that, at some moment, they would have to accept was a definitive bond, but both liked to procrastinate, selfishly defending the last remains of a freedom reduced to the enjoyment of periods of solitude, a solitude that was too pleasurable because it was quickly ended by a short ride from one district of Havana to another, where they always found the life-saving sense of security, solidarity and belonging they gave each other.
When he entered her bathroom, after discarding the idea of masturbation which had been his goal, Conde stood in front of the mirror and told himself he was fed up of looking like a badly packaged mummy; he ripped the bandages from his eyebrow and the back of his ear. The sight of the three stitches on his bruised skin produced a slight queasiness and he looked away, horrified by his own scars.
After a coffee and his first cigarette of the day, he ran over a possible agenda: he decided he’d try to talk to Amalia Ferrero, now that Dionisio’s funeral rites had been performed, and concluded he should go back to Elsa Contreras, the once famous Lotus Flower, now sheltering behind the name and terrifyingly real skin of the ravaged Carmen Arguelles.
Tamara took him by surprise as he was lighting his second cigarette, after a second cup of coffee.
“How do you feel?” she asked, lifting his chin to get a better view of the state of his injuries.
“Like shit, but ready for battle,” he said. “The coffee’s still hot.”
She went to get the coffeepot and Conde, still with the morning hunger provoked by his musings, watched her well-endowed buttocks move under the flimsiest of nightdresses. Unable to hold back, he jettisoned his cigarette, went in hot pursuit, kissed her neck, and put his hands on her buttocks that he opened like the pages of a beautiful book.
“So you woke up with love on your mind?” she smiled.
“Seeing you makes me feel like love,” he replied, rocking her gently against the small table.
“Can I drink my coffee?” she asked.
“Only if I can do other things afterwards…”
“You’re ill.”
“It’s not catching. And we’ve been sleeping together for three days like brother and sister. I can’t stand it any more. It’s your fault I was about to jerk off and break my fast…”
“Mario, I’ve got to go to work.”
“I’ll give you a day’s pay.”
“Like a whore!”
Conde’s memory flashed back. He glimpsed the mercenary mulatta’s lascivious tongue, her pert nipples, and even heard her would-be temptress’s voice. He felt his parts rapidly recede, like a timorous animal running into a cave.
“All right, off you go to work,” he replied, picking up his cigarette that was still smoking and almost smoked out.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed by his reaction.
“Nothing much really, I’m worried,” he whispered and went off to get the telephone. He came back to the kitchen and, as if making his first ever confession, asked: “Haven’t you ever seriously thought we should tie the knot?” and, seeing the startled look on Tamara’s face, added: “Only joking, don’t worry…” and left.
Still surprised by his question, Tamara looked ecstatic, almost not crediting what she’d heard and, telephone in hand, the Count smiled as he heard her say: “Is that what a knock on the head does for you?”
Yoyi Pigeon honked his Chevrolet’s horn insistently and a pensive Count bid farewell to the concrete shapes by Tamara’s house.
“What do you hope to get from the dead man’s sister?” Yoyi asked, after shaking the Count’s hand and shifting the gear lever.
“I’d like the truth, but I’ll settle for any lead…”
“And the old dear in Atares?”
“I want her to fill in the gaps. She didn’t tell me a number of things. And I don’t think it was out of fear. Too many years have gone by…”
“Are we going by ourselves? I’ve not come prepared. I’ve only got the chain and handcuffs…”
“Don’t worry. I don’t think they’ll dare do it again. That’s something I’d like to get to the bottom of… Anyway we’ll take steel bars…”
When they were opposite Amalia Ferrero, Conde once again saw the exhausted, transparent woman he’d met several days ago. The food cure brought by the books seemed eaten away by grief and her sad eyes were hidden from sight by constant blinking. Her fingers were raw, about to bleed, and had suffered from a bout of frantic chewing.
“The police have told me to stop selling books until they finish their investigation,” she said, when she saw her visitors, skipping any polite chitchat.
“We’ve come about something else. Can we talk for a few minutes?”
Amalia’s lids started blinking again, uncontrollably, as she ushered them into the reception room. Conde inspected the closed mirrored doors of the library, and looked in vain for the glass ashtray. What the fuck had one of those two told him about that library? Which one was it? He tried to poke in his memory: the reply wasn’t forthcoming.
“Amalia, I’m really sorry to bother you, but we need your help. The man who came to buy books still hasn’t shown up, although we’ve found other things out and perhaps…”
“What other things?” the woman’s eyes sparked.
“The singer I told you about, Violeta del Rio, was really Catalina Basterrechea. She was Alcides Montes de Oca’s lover.”
“It’s news to me… I didn’t know. Didn’t have the slightest…” she answered emphatically.
“It’s strange you didn’t know. She was going to leave Cuba with Alcides. And if you’d made your mind up, you’d have gone together.”
“But I didn’t know… I didn’t want to leave…”
The Count decided it was time to apply a little pressure.
“Your Mummy knew. She knew everything… She sorted out all the red-tape to bury that woman when she committed suicide.”
“Mummy did whatever Mr Alcides told her to do. I told you: she was his trusted help. But I didn’t know…”
“There was a lot of doubt as to whether Catalina Basterrechea committed suicide or was murdered.”
