Havana Bay

The officer who had taken the keys from Osorio returned. At the other table, after Bias had measured the skull vertically and across the brow, he spread a handkerchief and diligently scrubbed the teeth with a toothbrush. Arkady handed Rufo a dental chart he had brought from Moscow (an investigator's precaution), and the driver trotted the envelope down to Bias, who systematically matched the skull's brightened grin to the chart's numbered circles. When he was done he conferred with Captain Arcos, who grunted with satisfaction and summoned Arkady down to the theater floor.

Rufo interpreted.» The Russian citizen Sergei Segeevich Pribluda arrived in Havana eleven months ago as an attache to the Russian embassy. We knew, of course, that he was a colonel in the KGB. Excuse me, the new Federal Security Service, the SVR.'

'Same thing,' Arkady said.

The captain-and in his wake, Rufo-went on.» A week ago the embassy informed us that Pribluda was missing. We did not expect them to invite a senior investigator from the Moscow prosecutor's office. Perhaps a family member, nothing more.'

Arkady had talked to Pribluda's son, who had refused to come to Havana. He managed a pizzeria, a major responsibility.

Rufo went on.» Fortunately, the captain says, the identification performed today before your eyes is simple and conclusive. The captain says that a key found in the effects was taken to the apartment of the missing man where it unlocked the door. From an examination of the body recovered from the bay, Dr. Bias estimates that it is a Caucasoid male approximately fifty to sixty years of age, one hundred sixty-five centimeters in height, ninety kilos in weight, in every regard the same as the missing man. Moreover, the dental chart of the Russian citizen Pribluda you yourself brought shows one lower molar filled. That molar in the recovered jaw is a steel tooth which, in the opinion of Dr. Bias, according to the captain, is typical Russian dental work. Do you agree?'

'From what I saw, yes.'

'Dr. Bias says he finds no wounds or broken bones, no signs of violence or foul play. Your friend died of natural causes, perhaps a stroke or aneurysm or heart attack, it would be almost impossible to determine which for a body in this condition. The doctor hopes he did not suffer long.'

'That's kind of him.' Although the doctor appeared more smug than sympathetic.

'The captain, for his part, asks if you accept the observations of this autopsy?'

'I'd like to think about it.'

'Well, you accept the conclusion that the body recovered is that of the Russian citizen Pribluda?'

Arkady turned to the examining table. What had been a bloated cadaver was now split and gutted. Of course, there had been no face or eyes to identify anyway, and finger bones never did yield prints, but someone had lived in that ruined body.

'I think an inner tube in the bay is a strange place to find a Russian citizen.'

'The captain says they all think that.'

'Then there will be an investigation?'

Rufo said, 'It depends.'

'On what?'

'On many factors.'

'Such as?'

'The captain says your friend was a spy. What he was doing when he died was not innocent. The captain can predict your embassy will ask us to do nothing. We are the ones who could make an international incident of this, but frankly it is not worth the effort. We will investigate in our own time, in our own way, although in this Special Period the Cuban people cannot afford to waste resources on people who have revealed themselves to be our enemy. Now do you understand what I mean?' Rufo paused while Arcos took a second to compose himself.» The captain says an investigation depends on many factors. The position of our friends at the Russian embassy must be taken into account before premature steps are taken. The only issue we have here is an identification of a foreign national who has died on Cuban territory. Do you accept it is the Russian citizen Sergei Pribluda?'

'It could be,' Arkady said.

Dr. Bias sighed, Luna took a deep breath and Detective Osorio weighed the keys in her palm. Arkady couldn't help feeling like a difficult actor.» It probably is, but I can't say conclusively that this body is Pribluda. There's no face, no prints and I doubt very much that you will be able to type the blood. All you have is a dental chart and one steel tooth. He could be another Russian. Or one of thousands of Cubans who went to Russia. Or a Cuban who had a tooth pulled by a Cuban dentist who trained in Russia. Probably you're right, but that's not enough. You opened Pribluda's door with a key. Did you look inside?'

Dr. Bias asked in precisely snipped Russian, 'Did you bring any other identification from Moscow?'

'Just this. Pribluda sent it a month ago.' Arkady dug out of his passport case a snapshot of three men standing on a beach and squinting at the camera. One man was so black he could have been carved from jet. He held up a glistening rainbow of a fish for the admiration of two whites, a shorter man with a compensating tower of steel- wool hair and, partially obscured by the others, Pribluda. Behind them was water, a tip of beach, palms.

Bias studied the photograph and read the scribble on the back.» Havana Yacht Club.'

'There is such a yacht club?' Arkady asked.

'There was such a club before the Revolution,' Bias said.» I think your friend was making a joke.'

Rufo said, 'Cubans love grandiose titles. A 'drinking society' can be friends in a bar.'

'The others don't look Russian to me. You can make copies of the picture and circulate them.'

The picture went around to Arcos, who put it back into Arkady's hands as if it were toxic. Rufo said, 'The captain says your friend was a spy, that spies come to bad ends, as they deserve. This is typically Russian, pretending to help and then stabbing Cuba in the back. The Russian embassy sends out its spy and, when he's missing, asks us to find him. When we find him, you refuse to identify him. Instead of cooperating, you demand an investigation, as if you were still the master and Cuba was the puppet. Since that is no longer the case, you can take your picture back to Moscow. The whole world knows of the Russian betrayal of the Cuban people and, well, he says some more in that vein.'

Arkady gathered as much. The captain looked ready to spit.

Rufo gave Arkady a push.» I think it's time to go.'

Detective Osorio, who had been quietly following the conversation, suddenly revealed fluent Russian.» Was there a letter with the picture?'

'Only a postcard saying hello,' Arkady said.» I threw it away.'

'Idiota' Osorio said, which nobody bothered to translate.

'It's lucky you're going home, you don't have many friends here,' Rufo said.» The embassy said to put you in an apartment until the plane.'

They drove by three-story stone town houses transformed by the Revolution into a far more colorful backdrop of ruin and decay, marble colonnades refaced with whatever color was available-green, ultramarine, chartreuse. Not just ordinary green, either, but a vibrant spectrum: sea, lime, palm and verdigris. Houses were as blue as powdered turquoise, pools of water, peeling sky, the upper levels enlivened by balconies of ornate ironwork embellished by canary cages, florid roosters, hanging bicycles. Even dowdy Russian cars wore a wide variety of paint, and if their clothes were drab most of the people had the slow grace and color of big cats. They paused at tables offering guava paste, pastries, tubers and fruits. One girl shaving ices was streaked red and green with syrup, another girl sold sweetmeats from a cheesecloth tent. A locksmith rode a bicycle that powered a key grinder; he wore goggles for the sparks and shavings flying around him as he pedaled in place. The music of a radio hanging in the crook of a pushcart's umbrella floated in the air.

'Is this the way to the airport?' Arkady asked.

'The flight is tomorrow. Usually there's only one Aeroflot flight a week during the winter, so they don't want you to miss it.' Rufo rolled the window down.» Phew, I smell worse than fish.'

'Autopsies stay with you.' Arkady had left his overcoat outside the operating theater and separated the coat now from the paper bag holding Pribluda's effects.» If Dr. Bias and Detective Osorio speak Russian, why were you along?'

'There was a time when it was forbidden to speak English. Now Russian is taboo. Anyway, the embassy wanted someone along when you were with the police, but someone not Russian. You know, I never knew anyone