Havana Blue by Leonardo Padura

firing it up and wallowing in smoke, but smoking it properly, for each cigar is unique and offers you every ounce of goodness it has. When I’m smoking like this and doing other things, it’s a waste of a six-inch Davidoff 5000 Gran Corona, which deserves to be smoked slowly and thoughtfully or simply when one can sit down to smoke and chat for an hour, which is the ideal lifespan of a cigar. The one I lit this morning was a disaster: first because mornings have never been the best time for a cigar of such quality and second because I didn’t pay it proper attention and mistreated it, and however much I tried later on, I couldn’t make amends, and it was as if I were smoking an amateur roll, it really was. I can’t understand why you prefer to smoke two packets of cigarettes a day rather than one Havana. That transforms you. And I don’t mean it has to be a Davidoff 5000 or another good Corona, a Romeo y Julieta Cedros N° 2, for example, a Montecristo N° 3 or a Rey del Mundo of whatever size but a good dark-skinned cigar that pulls gently and burns evenly: that’s what one calls living, Mario, or the nearest one ever gets. Kipling said a woman is but a woman, but a good puro , as they call them in Europe, is much more. I can tell you the fellow was absolutely right, because I may not know much about women, but I know lots about Havanas. One is a fiesta for the senses, a riot of pleasure, my boy: it revives the sight, awakens taste, rekindles touch and creates the lovely taste that goes so well with an after-dinner cup of coffee. And is even music to the ears. Listen to it moving between my fingers and almost moaning as if prey to desire. Do you hear that? Then come the accompanying pleasures: seeing half an inch of
ash mount up or removing the band when you’ve smoked the first third. Isn’t that living? Don’t look at me like that. I’m being perfectly serious, more than you might think. Smoking is a true pleasure, particularly if you know how. What you do is a vice, a cheap experience, and that’s why you get frustrated and despair. Get this straight, Mario: this is a case like any other and you are going to solve it. But don’t let the past prejudice you, right? Look, to help you over the hump, I’m going to make an exception. Well, you know I never give cigars to anyone, but I’m going to give you a Davidoff 5000 as a present. I will now tell Maruchi to bring you a coffee and you’ll light up, the way I told you, and you can tell me what it’s like. You’d have to be a real son of a bitch if this doesn’t bring you back to life. Maruchi.”
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    â€œ Saturday 30 – 12 – 88
    â€œArmed Robbery. Retail company Guanabacoa district. Guard seriously injured. Culprits arrested. Closed.
    â€œAttempted murder. La Lisa district. Culprit arrested: José Antonio Évora. Victim: culprit’s wife. In a bad state. Statement: admits responsibility. Motive: jealousy. Closed.
    â€œArmed robbery, Parque de los Chivos, La Víbora, October Tenth District. Victims: José María Fleites and Ohilda Rodríguez. Culprit: Arsenio Cicero Sancristóbal. Arrested 1 – 1 – 89. Closed.
    â€œMurder. Victim: Aureliana Martínez Martínez. Resident at 21, N°1056, e/A and B, Vedado, Plaza District. Motive: unknown. Open.
    â€œDisappearance: Disappearance of Wilfredo Cancio Isla. Case open: possibly drug trafficking. Missing man found in a boarded up house. Accused of breaking into
the property. Arrested pending investigation possible drug connections.
    â€œArmed robbery . . .”
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    He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. The conversation with Jorrín had sharpened the hypersensitivity he’d not lost in all those years on the job and which helped him imagine each case individually. And that list of pointless crimes filled three computer printouts, and he reflected how