As far as I know, Lina saw life through Alcides’s eyes, and the only thing she refused was classes from a singing teacher he’d insisted on hiring for her; she wanted to sing from her soul, and if someone taught her, she said, they’d damage the desire she’d had naturally from childhood and that had saved her from going crazy. And I think she was right. She needed a microphone, not classes. On stage she was a fantastic act, I’d never seen or heard anything like her – and I’d seen plenty in my lifetime – she turned everything into magic. Even today, after all these years, I shut my eyes and see her holding the microphone, throwing her hair back that fell like a mantle over her beautiful eyes, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, and I can hear her sing those songs that came straight from her soul… Poor girl…
Violeta was a happy woman, the happiest woman in the world while her dream lasted. It sounds like a radio soap, but that’s how it was. And she was still happy when 1959 came and everything suddenly changed: for Lansky and Alcides, for Louis and me, and for the girls who worked for the agency. Because the country changed… The rebels won the war and Batista left Cuba, which was what everybody wanted. Although people only spoke about Revolution to begin with, some people were already mentioning the word communism and Lansky was the first to grasp what might happen: he immediately started to pack his bags. Louis also thought it would be better to be on the other side of the sea and he persuaded Alcides to take whatever he could out of Cuba and forget about politics now his moment had come and gone. Initially Alcides refused, but within a few months, deeply upset, he saw Louis and Lansky were right. Even so, when he decided to leave he did so thinking he’d be back in a few months, a few years at most, and only took the money he’d already taken out and what was most important to him: his children and his wife-to-be, Violeta del Río.
I wasn’t very surprised when Violeta accepted Alcides’s suggestion that she should stop singing and go the States. She was probably persuaded by Alcides’s promise that they’d be able to marry and lead a normal life where nobody knew them. Or maybe he convinced her by saying she’d be able to take up singing later on. Or perhaps she agreed because she thought the most important thing was to safeguard her relationship with a man who idolized her and whom she loved deeply. Whatever the reason, Violeta announced she was retiring from the stage at the end of 1959 and Alcides began to prepare his departure from Cuba, trying to salvage what he could, although he lost an enormous amount of money when they started to take over sugar plantations and nationalize American companies in which he held shares.
Violeta and I saw lots of each other over those months. Lansky had returned to Cuba for the last time in March or April 1959, shut his business ventures down and returned to the States. Obviously, one of the ventures that died the death was the escort agency, so I was soon unemployed, with lots of time on my hands and money in the bank. Louis, for his part, promised he’d still come to Cuba whenever he could, but it was clear he couldn’t take me to New Orleans because that’s where his wife and children were, a life where I didn’t fit. Anyway I wasn’t too concerned by all that: several girls wanted to carry on working with me and I told myself: this revolution may be a big deal, but if one line of business will never close, it’s whoring. So, while this or that did or didn’t happen, I had lots of time to decide what to do. You know, sometimes you do fucking stupid things, however clever you are…
Poor Violeta was desperate to leave. After she’d announced her retirement she was adrift here and just wanted out, but Alcides kept delaying his departure, waiting to see if something might change so he wouldn’t be forced to leave and lose so much. Six or seven months went by, and everything suddenly got hectic when the government declared it was nationalizing American businesses in Cuba… The following day Violeta told me about their travel plans. They were off within a month, and now it was for real, because the next Sunday Alcides was intending a crucial step: he was going to take her home and introduce her formally to his children, who were now adolescents, and tell them of his decision to marry her.
Never for one moment did I think that that afternoon I was talking to my friend Catalina Basterrechea, Lina Beautiful Eyes for the last time… Apart from the political complications, which she didn’t understand, there wasn’t a cloud on her horizon; on the contrary, it was all light and promises of bliss. What fucking shit, right? I’ve wondered a thousand times why they didn’t just say to hell with all this and leave Cuba two or three months earlier, happy, in love, with the best of their lives ahead of them…
I found out what happened the following Monday, when I went to Violeta’s flat to see how she’d got on in what we’d dubbed her opening night in the big world of the Montes de Ocas. When I got there, I was surprised to see strange things going on and found myself face to face with Nemesia Moré, Alcides’s secretary. She received me as if I were a total stranger and asked me to leave immediately. “Who the fuck do you think you are? This is my friend’s house,” I started to reply, and the bitch blurted out, as hard as nails: “Your friend’s dead and you’re not welcome here…” I was in a state of shock and barely managed to ask her what had happened. “She’s committed suicide,” she said, and told me: “Don’t ring Mr Alcides, he’s very upset and it would be best to leave him in peace.”
As Alcides Montes de Oca was still Alcides Montes de Oca in Cuba, and had kept Lina’s private life out of the public eye, there was only a brief mention of her suicide in a couple of newspapers and the whole matter was shelved. I was desperate to find out what had happened, but the people in the know sealed their lips. Eventually, thanks to a lad I knew who lived near my place and was in the police I did find out a bit more: Lina had used cyanide to commit suicide. But why? Why kill herself when she was at her happiest? Because she’d given up singing? That was impossible, it must have been hard, but she did so of her own free will. Because she had to leave Cuba? No, she wanted to leave, was leaving with her man and the promise of marriage… The only explanation was that something had gone wrong between her and Alcides. I couldn’t imagine what that might be, if he was now preparing to take her on publicly as his new wife.
I was desperate and started following Alcides. I needed to speak to him, to know what he knew, and find out why Lina had dared do something so terrible. I called several times but he’d never come to the phone, I sent him messages via a couple of friends but he didn’t reply and in the end I started trailing him. One day I saw him leave home, in his Chrysler, driven by his chauffeur and I followed him in my car as far as Old Havana where I saw him enter the Western Union offices and followed him in. When he saw me next to him, he barely seemed surprised, but looked grim. I thought for a moment that he was going to cry. He’d delivered a few messages, picked up others and we left. As he was opening his car door, he said: “Lina broke my heart. I was going to give her everything, why did she have to do that?”
Without a second glance, he got into his car, which turned the corner and disappeared from sight. It was the last time I saw Alcides Montes de Oca and the last time I tried to find out why the girl we all thought so happy ended it all, as if she were living out one of those boleros she so liked to sing.