Havana Bay

'No. It's amazing the things I believe in: evolution, gamma rays, vitamins, the poetry of Akhmatova, the speed of light. Most of which I take on faith.'

'What did Pribluda believe in?'

Arkady thought for a moment because he liked the question.» He was hard as a barrel and did a hundred sit- ups every day, but he thought the key to health was garlic, black tea and Bulgarian tobacco. He distrusted redheads and people who were left-handed. He liked long train trips so he could wear pajamas day and night. He never picked a bad mushroom. He still called Lenin 'Ilyich.' He warned you never to say the devil's name because he might come. In the bathhouse he washed first, then steamed, which is more polite. He said vodka was water for the soul.'

Hedy and her new friend walked out of view. Osorio stretched her feet out onto the balcony rail, ostensibly getting comfortable, though there was little comfort in deck chairs. Arkady noticed that the soles of her feet were a delicate pink.

Arkady said, 'I know that Dr. Bias has determined that Pribluda had a heart attack and he has a point about the fishing gear seeming to be intact. But maybe there was more than fishing gear. If you told me Pribluda keeled over trying to run a marathon, I might believe it. Basking in the water, no. Let me ask, how well do you know Dr. Bias? Can you depend on his honesty?'

She took a moment to answer.» Bias is too vain to be wrong. If he says a heart attack, it was a heart attack. Have the body examined in Russia if you want, they'll tell you the same thing.'

'There are other questions that can only be answered here.'

'There will be no investigation,' Osorio said.

'An investigation of Rufo?'

'No.'

'Of Luna?'

'No.'

'Of anything?'

'No.' Her disdain would have flattened a man of any sensitivity.

A black swell moved under the beam of the lighthouse. There were times when he could almost feel the sea reach out to him like a wonderful, dreamless sleep. The balcony faced north toward familiar constellations. The truth was that he didn't believe in an expanding universe anymore; he believed in an imploding universe, a furious rushing together of everything down a celestial drain to a single point of absolute nothing. He sensed Osorio's eyes watching him.

'I have two daughters, Muriel and Marisol,' she said.» Do you have children?'

'No.'

'You're married?'

'No.'

'Married to your work? Dedicated? Che was like that. He was married and had children, but he gave himself to the Revolution.'

'More like divorced from my work. Not like Che, no.'

'Because you have the same ...'

'Same what?'

'Nothing.' After a space, she asked, 'You like Cuban music? Everyone likes Cuban music.'

'It has a certain beat.'

'It has a beat?'

'Primarily.'

There was a longer pause.

'You play chess, then?' Osorio tried.

Arkady lit a cigarette.» No.'

'Sports?'

'No.'

'Cuba invented baseball.'

'What?'

'Cuba invented baseball. The Indians who lived here, the ones Columbus found, they used to play a game here with a ball and a bat.'

'Oh.'

'You never read that?'

'No, what I read in Moscow was that Russia invented baseball. There is an old Russian game with a ball and bat. The article said that Russian emigrants to the United States took the game with them.'

'I'm sure one of us is right.'

'The only difference is that Sergeant Luna used a steel bat.'

'Aluminum.'

'I stand corrected.'

Osorio recrossed her legs. Arkady leaned back to release a long plume of smoke.

'If there were an investigation,' she finally said, 'what would you do?'

'Start with a chronology. Pribluda was seen first at eight in the morning by a neighbor, a dancer. He was seen last by a co-worker at the embassy between four and six in the afternoon. She said he was talking on the street here to a neumdtico, a black man. If I could speak Spanish I'd go up and down the Malecon with this picture until I found everyone who saw him that day.'

'I suppose we can talk to the block CDR.'

'I know who that is.'

'Okay, we'll do that.'

'And take another look where the body was found.' 'But we found it across the bay in Casablanca. You were there.'

'Not in the daylight.'

'This is not an investigation.'

'No, absolutely not.'

'You're not afraid of being attacked again?'

'I'll be with you.'

Her eyes seemed get even darker.» Que idiota.'

That seemed to be her name for him.

Finally, he fell asleep in the chair, although he was aware of her perfume, a faint scent of vanilla that tinged the air like ink in water.

Chapter Eleven

Predawn lent the Malecon an underwater light, as if the sea had covered the city overnight. Arkady and Osorio followed the faint glow of Abuelita having a morning cigar at her windowsill. She invited them into an apartment with walls as worn as old clothes, with layers of color, offered them cafe cubano in dark, heavy glasses and seated them by a statue of the Virgin that had a peacock feather at its back and at its feet a copper crown stuffed with sandalwood and dollars. Arkady felt fine, virtually rejuvenated by the fact that Luna had not returned in the middle of the night with a baseball bat or pick. Detective Osorio was back in her blue uniform and dark mood. Abuelita showed no burns from having juggled live coals the night before. In fact, she had the manner of a young girl only pretending to be old and at once was flirting with Arkady, thanking him for coming to her aid the night before, allowing him to relight her cigar, and although the smoke, the scent and golden hues were disorienting, he managed to explain to her that while there was no official investigation into Pribluda's death, there was curiosity about his life and asked whether she as a vigilant member of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution could describe his routine.

'Boring. Sometimes your friend would be gone for weeks, daw, but when he was here it was always the same. He would leave at seven with his briefcase and come back about seven at night. Except Thursdays. Thursdays he would be back in the middle of the afternoon and out again and back again.