Free Havana Gold by Leonardo Padura Page B

in shitty papers that people clean themselves on in other shitty offices. I’ve two children who want to be doctors just like me, because their mother has put it into their heads that a doctor is ‘somebody’. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, Skinny, or talk to me about life fulfilment, or any of that crap; I’ve never been able to do what I wanted, because there was always something more vital on the agenda, something someone said I ought to do and which I did: study, get married, be a good son and now a good father . . . And the mad things, mistakes and mess-ups you should make in life? Hey, and this isn’t the bottle talking. Look at me . . . No, no woolpulling please, even you lot said I was mad when I fell in love with Cristina, because she was ten years older than me and because she’d had ten or how ever many husbands and because she did crazy things and must be a whore and how could I do such a thing to Adela, from Pre-Uni and such a decent, good natured girl . . . You forgotten? Well, I haven’t, and whenever I remember I think I was a big arsehole because I didn’t jump on a bus and go after Cristina wherever she’d holed up. At least I’d have made one a hell of a mistake for once in my life.”

    â€œToo lucid by far,” interjected the Count. “You’re worse than me.”
    The Count, Skinny and Rabbit looked at Andrés as if the guy talking was somebody else: perfect, intelligent, well-balanced, successful, calm, confident Andrés, the Andrés they’d thought they’d always known and whom, clearly, they’d apparently never known at all.
    â€œYou’re plastered,” said Skinny, as if trying to protect Andrés’ image and even his own.
    â€œSomething’s badly wrong in the kingdom of Denmark,” pronounced Rabbit downing another shot. The clattering of his glass against the table emphasized the silence that had fallen over the dining-room.
    â€œYes, it suits to say I’m drunk,” smiled Andrés, asking for a re-fill. “Then we can all feel at peace thinking life’s not as shitty as the songs of drunks would have us to believe.”
    â€œWhat songs?” piped up Skinny, trying to find a route to a more amenable conversation. Only the Count smiled, sourly.
    â€œAnd today when I left Pre-Uni, I remembered Dulce. Do you remember the day she said she was off, Skinny?”
    Carlos asked for more rum and looked at the Count.
    â€œNo, I don’t,” he whispered. “Come on, more rum, don’t be so stingy.”
    â€œAnd have you never stopped to think what would have happened if Andrés hadn’t done his leg in and had
married Cristina, and if you, Conde, hadn’t joined the police and had become a writer, and if you, Carlos, had finished university and become a civil engineer and had never gone to Angola, and had more than likely married Dulcita? Have you never stopped to think we can’t turn the clock back, that what’s done is done? Have you never stopped to think it’s better not to think? Have you never stopped to think that at this fucking hour of the day we’ll never buy another bottle of rum and that by now Cristina’s breasts must have sagged? No, it’s better not to think any more crap . . . Now give me what’s left in that bottle. And bugger the mother of any of you who ever thinks again.”
    Â 
    â€œNo need to worry, they don’t bite. And I don’t start teaching until this afternoon,” Dagmar said as she tried to smile at him, undecided whether she was embarrassed by her dogs’ welcoming barks and bared teeth or was proud to be the owner of such diligent hounds. The Count found her in her doorway, defying the wind, waiting for him like a bride scouring the horizon for the boat that will bring back her beloved. The two ugly mongrels, eager to show their rapid reactions, soon subdued their ostentatious