He went back into the living room and looked out from the balcony. That fourth floor in Santos Suárez had a privileged view of a city which from that height looked especially decrepit, dirty, unapproachable and hostile. He noticed several pigeon lofts on the flat roofs and a few dogs sunbathing in the sun and wind and identified jerry-built additions to the rooftops, stuck like fish-scales to rooms that now housed entire families; he contemplated water tanks open to the dust and rain, rubbish abandoned in dangerous places, and breathed out when he saw opposite a small roof garden made out of milk churns that had been sawn in half and planted with shrubs and flowers. It was then he realized that Skinny’s house was to his right, just over a mile away behind clumps of trees that blocked his view, and, round the corner, Karina’s – and he again reminded himself it was Thursday already.
He went back into the living room and sat down as far away as possible from the chalk figure. He opened the report the Boss had given him and, as he read, told himself that it was sometimes worthwhile being a policeman.
Who was this Lissette Núñez Delgado?
Lissette Núñez Delgado would have been twenty-five in December, in that year of 1989. She had been born in Havana in 1964, when the Count was nine, wore orthopaedic shoes and was in his full childhood glory as a street urchin, one who’d never imagined for a single minute – and never would for the next fifteen years – that he’d become a policeman and have occasion to investigate the death of that girl born in a modern flat in the district of Santos Suárez. The young woman graduated two years ago with a chemistry degree from the Havana Higher Institute for Teaching and, contrary to what one might expect in that era of vacancies in the rural schools of the island’s interior, was immediately allocated to the Pre-University High School in La Víbora – the very same where the Count studied between 1972 and 1975 and made friends with Skinny Carlos. The fact she was a teacher at the Víbora Pre-Uni could count against her: almost everything related to that place aroused the Count’s fond nostalgia or implacable rejection. Lissette’s father had died three years ago and her mother, who’d divorced him in 1970, lived in Casino Deportivo, in the house belonging to her second husband, a high-ranking civil servant in the Ministry of Education – a position that explained why the young girl hadn’t done her social service outside Havana. Her mother, a journalist on the magazine Rebel Youth, was more or less renowned thanks to her opportune articles, that ranged from fashion and cooking to attempts to convince her readers, through examples from everyday life, of her ethical and political muscle, and of the fact she was an ideological role model. Her image was bolstered by frequent television appearances, when she held forth on hairstyles, make-up and home decoration, “because beauty and happiness are possible”, she would say. Quite coincidentally, Conde had always reacted to this woman Caridad Delgado as if she were a kick in the gut: she seemed hollow and tasteless, a fruit sucked dry. As for her deceased father he had been a lifelong bureaucrat: from glass factories to costume-jewellery companies, via meat plants, the Coppelia ice-creamery and a bus terminal, which brought on a massive heart attack.
Lissette had been a member of the Youth from the age of sixteen and her ideological record sheet seemed pristine: not a single caution or minor sanction. How come she never had a slip of memory, never made a slight error of judgement or swore at anybody? She’d been a leading cadre in the Pioneers, the School and University Student Federations, and although the report mentioned nothing specific she must have participated fully in the activities programmed by these organizations. She earned 198 pesos a month because she was still in the so-called period of Social Service, paid twenty in rent, was docked eighteen a month for the refrigerator voted to her in a mass meeting and must have spent around thirty on lunch, afternoon snack and transport to Pre-Uni. Were 130 pesos enough to assemble that wardrobe? Recent fingerprints from five people had been found at her place, not including hers, but none was on file. Her third-floor neighbour was the only one who’d said anything at all usefuclass="underline" he heard music and rhythmic dancing the night of her death, 19 March 1989. End of report.
The photo of Lissette accompanying the report didn’t look very up-to-date: it had gone dark round the edges and the face of the young girl caught there forever didn’t look very attractive, despite the fact her eyes were deep set and sultry, with thick eyebrows that might have given her one of those so-called enigmatic looks. If I’d have known you… Standing up, leaning against the balcony rail again, the Count watched the sun rise determinedly to its zenith; he saw a woman struggling against the wind to hang out her washing on a flat roof; he saw a young boy in school uniform climbing up wooden stairs to a roof where he opened the door of a pigeon loft and released several racing pigeons – they disappeared into the distance, beating their liberated wings against stormy gusts; and saw, on a third floor, on the other side of the street, a scene that kept him on edge for a few minutes, stunned by the shock of those who peep at private acts. Next to a window, open to the Lenten winds, a man in his forties and a possibly slightly younger woman were arguing. Although their shouts vanished in the wind, the Count saw the threats from fists and nails grow as the two bodies edged closer towards each other, on fire, ready to explode. Conde felt caught by that escalating tragedy reaching silently out to him: he saw her hair flap like a flag unfurled by the wind, while his face reddened with every gust. It’s that accursed wind, he muttered, as the woman went over to the window and closed the shutters forcing the peeping tom to imagine the finale. While the Count was thinking the man was surely in the right – she was acting like a wild animal – he saw a car lurch crazily round the corner, its rubber-burning tyres screeching to a halt in front of the building where Lissette Núñez Delgado lived. The car-door opened and a lanky, ill-built Sergeant Manuel Palacios stepped out, his work-colleague yet again: Sergeant Palacios gave a smile of satisfaction when he looked up and discovered Conde could now include that display of Formula One driving in a Lada 1600 among the many things he had seen.
It can’t be true, he muttered. His nostalgia couldn’t still be at the old levels. From the perspective of 1989, it now acted like a cloying, scented sensation that was soothingly authentic and embraced him with the decanted passion of vintage loves. Conde had prepared himself for an attack of aggressive nostalgia that would call him to account and claim back the interest that had mounted up over the years, but the prolonged wait had served to smooth all of memory’s rough edges, to leave only that peaceful feeling of belonging to a place and a time veiled by a rose-tinted selectivity that wisely and nobly preferred to evoke moments beyond rancour, hatred and sadness. Yes, I can resist, he thought, gazing at the square columns that supported the lofty entrance to La Víbora’s old Secondary Education School – later transformed into the Pre-Uni that would be the refuge, for three years, of the dreams and hopes of that hidden generation that longed to be so much that never was. The shadow from the ancient majaguas with their red and yellow flowers climbed the short stairway, blotting out the midday sun, even protecting the bust of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes who wasn’t what he used to be either: the classic figure from the old days, head, neck and shoulders cast in bronze, edged in green by repeated downpours, had been replaced by an ultra-modern image seemingly buried in a big block of badly set concrete. It can’t be true, he repeated, because he desperately wanted it to be an illusion, wanted life to be a rehearsal you could improve on before the final performance: Skinny Carlos, when he was very skinny with two healthy legs that walked, ran and jumped through that entrance and down those steps with the joy of the righteous, while his friend the Count stared at all the girls who wouldn’t be his girlfriends however deeply he desired them; Andrés who suffered (as only he could) the pain of love; and Rabbit, as parsimonious as ever, who intended to change the world by refashioning history from a precise moment – which might be the victory of the Arabs in Poitiers, of Moctezuma over Cortés or, simply, the English staying on in Havana after taking the city in 1762… Their childhood had died a death between those columns, in those classrooms, behind those stairs and on that square illogically dubbed “red” when it was black, simply black, like everything else stained by the soot and grease from the nearby bus stop. Although they’d only learned a few mathematical equations and stubbornly invariable laws of physics, they’d become adults as they grasped the meaning of betrayal and evil, saw climbers climb and a few sincere souls experience frustration, fell passionately in love, got drunk on joy and sorrow, and discovered, above all, their absolute need for what goes by the name of friendship for want of a better… No, it’s not untrue. It was worth experiencing the distress of that unexpectedly benign nostalgia, if only as a tribute to friendship, he convinced himself, as he walked between the columns and listened to Manolo explain to the caretaker on the door that they wanted to see the headmaster.