“Maria Fernandez,” Javier went on. “I did not kill her.”
Rostnikov said nothing.
“I don’t kill women because they reject me. There are many women who do not reject me, many who do not put needles in their arms and sleep with foreigners.”
Rostnikov grunted and said, “Do you kill women for other reasons?”
“I kill no one, not women, not men, no one,” said Javier over his shoulder.
“Would you not say the same even if you were the killer of Maria Fernandez?” asked Rostnikov.
“If I were the killer of Maria Fernandez, you would not be in this car. I would not be stupid enough to talk to you.”
“You might be smart enough to talk to me because I could not imagine the killer doing so,” said Rostnikov.
“You think like a Russian,” Javier said in exasperation, and then said something in Spanish to the driver, who answered,
“May I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“How old are the houses on this street?”
“The houses on … I don’t know. Maybe two hundred years. What has that to do with the murder of Maria Fernandez?”
“Nothing,” said Rostnikov. “I was curious. Your city has a sad decay. Noble houses that look as if they have been crying for a hundred years. The houses of my city are heavy shoulders against the wind, most of them without distinction or nobility. What the Nazis did not destroy of the past we tore down, with notable exceptions, and built concrete tombs. I like your city. It eases the pain in my leg.”
Javier looked at the Russian silently for a few moments and then said, “Are you making a joke?”
“No,” answered Rostnikov. “Another question?”
Javier nodded.
“Are you married? Do you have children?”
“No, but I will be married in a month if the police don’t put me in jail for killing Maria Fernandez.”
“Last question,” said Rostnikov as they hit a particularly solid bump in the street. “What is the uniform of our driver?”
“He is a Communist Youth leader,” said Javier.
“And he is a
“Yes,” said Javier. “We are everywhere. The Catholics are everywhere, but there are far more of us. Same like in Europe, your country. No religion for thirty, fifty, seventy years and suddenly it comes back. We come back. We hide our gods behind Catholic gods and when the Catholic gods are no longer tolerated we hide our gods in flowerpots. Our religion goes back long in Africa before the thought of Christ. When Castro goes, we will be here. Those who denounce us now will embrace us, African and European alike.”
“I have a son about your age,” said Rostnikov.
“I think we should be talking about the dead rather than the living,” replied Javier.
The car stopped.
“This is the house where Hector Consequo lives,” said Javier. “Hector is the handyman in the apartment where Maria Fernandez died.”
Rostnikov looked out on a dark, narrow street with five-or six-story buildings on either side. The buildings looked neither new nor ancient.
“We are in the Central City,” said Javier, “the part of the city that tourists are driven around. Here there is hell. Come.”
Rostnikov got out of the car and stood in the street. Theirs was the only car in sight.
“George will stay with the car,” said Javier. “If he did not, it would be picked clean the minute we were out of sight.”
As it would be in Moscow, thought Rostnikov.
“Come,” said Javier, moving slowly toward a faded yellow wooden door on the far side of the narrow street.
He pushed the door open and stepped through with Rostnikov behind him. A yellow glow provided the hint of light. The smell of something heavy and sweet was in the air.
In a narrow passageway they stepped over empty jars and bottles. On both sides in little alcoves people sat huddled under light bulbs or behind burlap sheets. A hand reached out, touched Rostnikov’s arm. A man, or what was once a man and was now a wasted cord of bone, said something in Spanish.
“Drugs,” said Javier, removing the man’s hand from Rostnikov’s arm. “He wants money or drugs. They all do. Let’s go.
“There are hundreds of passages like this, thousands,” said Javier. “The government says they do not exist, that there are no drugs. Do you do the same in Russia?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “I must ask you to move more slowly.”
“I’m sorry,” said Javier, “but it is not good to remain here too long. Word is already out that we are here. They probably think we are the police.”
At the end of the passageway, Javier pushed open a door that led to total darkness.
“We must go up,” he said. “The stairs are in need of repair and there is no light, but there is a railing. We go up three flights. At the top will be light.”
Rostnikov groped for the railing, found it, and began to pull himself up. The sick sweet smell was still there, but more and more faint as they rose.
The stairs creaked as Porfiry Petrovich’s foot touched a broken step and felt around it. The sound of Javier’s footsteps came from ahead of him and the pain of climbing was much to bear. After a floor, Rostnikov relied only minimally on his screaming leg. He would have hopped up had the railing he clung to given him a sense that it would support him.
His eyes did not adjust to the stairwell for there was no hint of light, at least not until he neared what must have been the third flight. He found himself on a narrow walkway with windows along one side and a rotting wooden railing on the other facing into the open night.
Javier stood waiting. Another man, a short man with a very black face and hair cropped short, stood at his side.
Rostnikov gritted his teeth from the pain of the climb and steadied himself on the railing. The short man said something quickly in Spanish and leaped forward to remove the Russian’s hand from the wooden railing.
“He says,” said Javier, “that you are too heavy to lean all of your weight. It will break and you will fall and die.”
The short man said something else in Spanish and Javier nodded.
“He says a child died that way last month. The other side of the building. This railing is very old wood and no one repairs it.”
“Señor Consequo does some work at the building where the Carerras live, the building in which Maria Fernandez was murdered. He was there on the night of the murder.”
A young man stepped out of the shadows and stood in front of Rostnikov.
“This is Señor Consequo’s oldest son, José. He will stay out here and let us know if there is trouble. His father is a very respected man in this block and there should be no problems, but times have been very hard.”
They moved past the young man through a door and into a room in which a black woman of no clear age sat in an unsteady wicker chair cradling a girl of about three. In front of them on a rickety table sat a television set on which a movie with the American actor Tony Perkins was playing. The top and bottom of the screen were black and the image was faint and distorted. There was a small bench against one wall, a wooden chair, and a table whose top had been bolted down to a broad wooden base. A refrigerator, pre-Batista, stood against one wall.
