Havana Blue by Leonardo Padura Page B

Zenaida?”
    â€œHey, Conde, drop it, that girl’s for other occasions.”
    The lieutenant closed his telephone book and returned it to his desk drawer.
    â€œWomen are always there for other occasions. Yes, get a move on, we’d better go see the Zeds. Get the car out.”
    Saturday night wouldn’t turn out to be at all spectacular. A cold drizzle that would continue into the early hours had begun to fall, and the cold could still be felt in the closed car, and the Count longed for the powerful sun that had accompanied his waking up that morning. The rain had emptied the streets, and a grey pall of apathy shrouded a city that lived for the heat and retreated into itself at the slightest cold or drop of water. The languid tropical winter came and went, even in the space of a single day, and it was difficult to work out the time of year: a shit winter, he muttered as he contemplated the boulevard, darkened
by clumps of trees, swept by a wind from the sea gusting along paper and dead leaves. Nobody dared sit on the benches on the path down the centre of the avenue the Count thought the most beautiful in Havana and that was now the exclusive preserve of a gritty individual zipped into his windbreaker and engaged in his evening jogging. What strength of will. On such an evening he would have taken a book to bed and been asleep by the third page. On such an evening, he recognized, the cold and the rain irritated people who were condemned to stay indoors: the most easygoing wives could transform a husband’s slightest macho thrust into an issue of feminine honour and bring down a flowerpot on his forehead, between steaks, quite remorselessly. Luckily tonight the baseball series would resume after the end-of-year break, but he thought how rain might perhaps lead to the game being called off. His team, the Industriales, which kept him awake worrying at night, were playing in the Latinoamericano Stadium against the Vegueros to decide who would go through to the final championship playoff, because Havana had already qualified. He would have liked the chance to go to the stadium: he needed the group therapy that seemed so much like freedom, where you could say anything, calling the referee’s mother a whore or even your team’s manager a fucking idiot and then depart sad in defeat or euphoric in victory but relaxed, hoarse and raring to go. Recently the Count was scepticism incarnate: he even tried not to go to baseball games because the Industriales played worse and worse, and luck seemed to have forsaken them, and apart from Vargas and Javier Méndez, the rest seemed second-raters, too weak in the leg to really get them into the final, let alone win it. He had forgotten Zaida and Zoila by the time they
drove out on the Malecón. There a briny drizzle met a heavenly shower, and Manolo cursed his fucking luck, thinking he’d damned well have to wash the car before putting it away for the night.
    â€œYou not been to the stadium for a long time, Manolo?”
    â€œWhy fuck on about the stadium, Conde? What’s the point? Look how filthy the car’s got, I’m an idiot, I should have gone down Línea,” he lamented, turning down G in the direction of Fifth Avenue. They stopped in front of a block of flats and got out of the car.
    â€œThe stadium would cure you of such tantrums.”
    Zaida Lima Ramos lived on the sixth floor, in flat 6D, Lieutenant Mario Conde checked the details and, from the hallway, saw Manolo getting drenched as he took down the radio aerial and smiled:
    â€œCrime prevention, Lieutenant. Last month one was lifted right in front of my house,” said Manolo, and they walked towards the lift only to be greeted by a notice that said: BROKEN.
    â€œThat’s a good start,” scowled the Count, heading to the stairs barely lit by a few light bulbs in the exits to some of the floors. As he climbed he breathed through his mouth, panted, and felt his