“Let me tell you something. I just remembered what Sandín the gypsy’s aunt said when she read your palm. Do you remember?”
“Of course I do, I’ve never forgotten: ‘You’ll have everything and nothing.’ Could that have been on my palm ever since? Was that my destiny, as you say?”
“I don’t know, because she got me all wrong: she said I’d travel a long way and die young. She mistook me for Skinny Carlos, or possibly not, perhaps we’re the ones who got it wrong… Tamara, do you have it in you to kill your husband?”
She took a long sip, then stood up.
“Why do we have to be so complicated, my sorry policeman?” she asked as she stood in front of him. “Every woman at some stage wants to kill her husband; that much you must know. But in the end few do. Least of all big cowardly me, Mario,” she announced before taking a step forward.
He gripped his drink, held it against his stomach, tried not to touch her thighs. He felt his hands shaking, and breathing became a difficult conscious act.
“You never before dared tell me you liked me. Why now?”
“How long have you known?”
“Forever. Don’t belittle the female intellect, Mario.”
He leaned his head back and shut his eyes.
“I think I’d have dared if Rafael hadn’t beat me to it seventeen years ago. After that I couldn’t. You can’t imagine how much I loved you, the number of times I dreamed of you, the things I imagined us doing together. But none of this makes any sense now.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because we drift further apart by the day, Tamara.”
She shook her head, took another step forward and touched his knees.
“And what if I said I’d like to go to bed with you right now?”
“I’d think it was just another one of your whims, that you’re used to getting what you want. Why do this to me?” he asked because he couldn’t fight it, his chest throbbing, his mouth dry and his glass about to slip from his wet palms.
“Didn’t you want me to say that? Wasn’t that what you wanted me to say? Are you always going to be afraid?”
“I think so.”
“But we will go to bed because I know you still want me and that you won’t say no.”
He looked at her and put his glass on the floor. He felt she wasn’t the same woman, she’d changed, was a woman in heat, had that smell. And he thought now was his chance to say no.
“And if I say no?”
“You’ll have had yet another chance to create your own destiny, by saying yes or no. You like decisions, don’t you?” she asked, taking the final step possible, the one placing her right between his legs. Her smell was irresistible, and he knew she was more desirable than ever. He could see her nipples under her pullover, threatening, inflamed by cold and desire, no doubt as dark as her lips, and caught a glimpse of himself, at the age of thirty-four, on the rim of the pan, nourishing his most ancient of frustrations with saliva and without passion. He then stood in the intimate space she’d left him to take his decision and looked at the inevitable lock of hair, her moistening eyes, and knew he should say no forever, I can’t do it, I don’t want to do it, I can’t, I shouldn’t. He felt a stupid emptiness between his legs, and that was another form of fear. But always fighting against Destiny was futile.
They didn’t touch each other as they walked towards the hall and went upstairs to the rooms on the second floor. She went first and opened a door, and they entered more palpable shadows around a bed perfectly draped in a brown overlay. He didn’t know if he was or wasn’t in her room, his ability to think had evaporated and when she pulled her pullover over her head and he finally saw the breasts he’d been dreaming of for the last seventeen years, he did think they were more beautiful than he’d ever imagined, that he could never have said no. But as much as he desired her, he wanted Rafael Morín to pop up at that precise moment, just to see that perpetual smile wiped from his face.
He smoked and tried to count the lights on the chandelier. He knew he’d killed another dream but must accept the consequences. Inaccessible Tamara, the more beautiful of the twins, now slept the sleep of a carefree lover, and her round heavy buttocks brushed against the Count’s hips. I don’t want to think, he told himself, I can’t spend my life thinking, when the telephone rang, and she gave a start on the bed.
She clumsily tried to slip into her long pullover and finally made it to the passage where the telephone was still ringing. She came back to the bedroom: “Hurry. It’s for you.” She seemed confused and anxious.
He wrapped a towel round his midriff and went out. Tamara followed him to the door and watched him talk.
“Yes, who is it?” he asked, then listened for more than a minute before adding: “Send a car and I’ll come straightaway.”
He hung up and glanced at her. Went over to her, wanted to kiss her but first had to tussle with her wayward lock.
“No, Rafael hasn’t turned up,” he said, and they started on a long peaceful kiss, tongues gleefully intertwining, saliva mingling, lips beginning to hurt. It was their best kiss, and he said: “I’ve got to go to headquarters. They’ve found Zoila. I’ll call you if anything involving Rafael crops up.”
Zoila Amarán Izquierdo watched them enter the cubicle. Her eyes hovered between indifference and suspicion, while Mario Conde savoured her lusty femininity. The young woman’s skin wore a healthy animal sheen; and her mouth, her face’s most striking feature, was fleshy, shamelessly attractive. She was a self-confident twenty-three-year-old: the Count anticipated it wouldn’t be easy. That girl was streetwise and then some: she’d been hardened through contact with all kinds, and one of her sources of pride was that she could say I don’t owe anybody anything, and I’ve a fine set of what it takes, as she must have been called on to demonstrate more than once. She liked the good life and wasn’t worried about flirting with the illegal to get it, because, apart from having what it takes, she had a sharp enough brain to avoid crossing boundaries that were too dangerous. No, it wouldn’t be easy, he warned himself after taking one look and concluding she was one of those women who are so beautiful you felt like kissing the ground they walked.
“This is Zoila Amarán Izquierdo, Comrade Lieutenant,” said Manolo, and he walked over to the woman who stayed seated in the middle of the cubicle. “Our colleague spotted her returning home in a taxi and asked her to come to headquarters for questioning.”
“We only want to ask you a few things, Zoila. You’re not under arrest, and we want you to help us, OK?” explained the Count as he headed towards the door, seeking out an angle from which she’d have to twist round to see him.
“Why?” she asked keeping still, and her voice was equally beautiful, clear and resonant.
The Count signalled to Manolo to start.
“Where were you on the thirty-first?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“I’d like you to, but it’s not compulsory. Where were you, Zoila?”
“Round and about, with a friend. This is a free sovereign country, they tell me?”
“Where?”
“Oh, in Cienfuegos, a house belonging to a friend of his.”
“And the name of those friends?”
“What’s this all about, for heaven’s sake?”
“Please, Zoila, name names. The quicker we get this over with, the quicker you leave.”
“Norberto Codina and Ambrosio Fornés, I think, all right? Can I go now?”