A Quiet Vendetta (59 page)

Raúl was a man of education and literature, and though he had at first begun his business dealing only in fine tobaccos and cigars, it was not long before he started to bring his own books to work in order to have something to occupy his mind. Customers would come, they would show interest in his reading, and soon he started to trade also in these. The store, known only as Brito’s, became a gathering place for the elders of
La Habana Vieja
, and here they would smoke their cigars, buy and sell and read their books, and occupy their hours away from home.

I frequented Brito’s more and more often, until there came a day in June of that year, a day no more than a week after Victor’s ninth birthday, that Raúl asked me if I would be interested in managing the store once he had retired.

‘I am seventy-four next month,’ he said, and he leaned on a stack of battered leatherbound volumes that looked barely able to stand his weight. ‘I will be seventy-four, and as each week passes I wonder if I can manage to make it down here again.’ He smiled, the creases around his eyes causing them to almost disappear into the origami warmth of his face. ‘You are a good man, Ernesto Perez, a man of character, and I believe it would suit you to settle here and make your business.’

I did not give Raúl Brito an answer that day, nor the next. I did not give him an answer until August, and then I told him I would be willing to manage the store, but I believed we should enact a partnership, that the name of the store should stay the same, and I should pay him a partnership fee to buy into the business.

‘Money?’ he said. ‘I did not suggest this because I wanted your money.’ He seemed slightly offended, as if I had made some improper suggestion.

I raised my hand in a conciliatory fashion. ‘I know, Raúl, I know you didn’t, but I am a man of principle and honor, and I feel it would be unjust to enter into this without making some contribution to the venture. I insist that it be this way, regardless of your viewpoint.’

Raúl smiled. He winked. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘If that is the case then we shall employ a lawyer and we shall draw up an agreement, a letter of co-operation if you like, and we shall have it sworn in and made legal.’

I held out my hand and we shook. I would give Raúl Brito ten thousand American dollars, and I would become his partner.

It was then that the difficulties began. My money was well-hidden in my house. I had no bank account, I had no records or registered assets. In organizing the legalities of our partnership I was required to provide a passport or some legal means of identification. These things I did not have, at least nothing current and admissible in a Cuban lawyer’s office, and when the lawyer suggested I solve the problem by registering my name and place of birth at the local police headquarters I was caught like a rabbit in the headlights. I had made an agreement with Raúl to do this, but what was asked of me I could not provide, and no matter the attempts I made to construct this agreement based on a handshake and a word of trust, Raúl insisted that if we were going to do it then we would do it properly. It was, after all, my idea, was it not?

When I failed to appear at the police headquarters, not only on one occasion, but a second time also, the lawyer – a suspicious and invasive man by the name of Jorge Delgado – commented to the local constabulary that there was something unusual about the elderly man who lived in the house on Avenida Belgica. The constabulare, a card-carrying member of the Crusade for the Defence of the Revolution, an organization that was nothing more than the eyes and ears of Castro’s secret police, was interested enough in me to ask details of Claudia Vivó, and she – loyal and reticent in her own way – merely served to awaken his further curiosity.

It was in the second week of September that he came to Brito’s, and there he found me seated near the window, smoking a cigar and reading a magazine.

‘Mr Perez,’ he said quietly, and sat beside me at the narrow table.

I looked at him, and everything within me told me I was in for some difficulty.

‘My name is Luis Hernández. I am the constabulare for this sector.’

I held out my hand. ‘I am pleased to meet you, sir,’ I said.

Hernández did not shake my hand and I withdrew it slowly.

‘I understand that you have been here in Cuba for some months?’

‘Yes, I have . . . myself and my son Victor.’

‘And how old is your son, Mr Perez?’

I smiled. ‘He is nine years old.’

‘And I understand he is tutored by Claudia Vivó?’

‘He is, yes.’

‘I have spoken with her and she tells me he is a very bright boy indeed.’

I nodded. ‘He is a bright boy, yes.’

‘And his mother?’

‘His mother is no longer alive.’

Hernández shook his head. ‘I am sorry. She has been dead a long time?’

‘In March of this year.’

‘And she died here in Cuba?’

‘No, she did not die in Cuba.’

Hernández was silent. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

‘In America. She died in America.’

‘Aah,’ he said, as if suddenly understanding something significant. ‘And may I ask how she died, Mr Perez?’

‘An automobile accident, she and my daughter, Victor’s sister.’

‘And her name?’

‘Angelina,’ I said reticently. I knew what was happening. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Hernández was soliciting all the information he could with the appearance of concerned interest.

‘Such a tragic thing, Mr Perez . . . my condolences.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and turned back to my magazine.

‘And I understand that you have now come here to stay in Cuba?’

‘Perhaps, I am not sure. After the death of my wife I wanted to be away from America for a while. Such a thing is very difficult to come to terms with, and I felt it would be better for my son to be away from any reminders.’

‘Of course,’ Hernández said. ‘If it were me I am sure I would feel much the same way.’

I turned and looked out of the window. I could feel beads of sweat breaking beneath my hairline.

‘And you came in with a visitor’s visa or as a Cuban national?’ Hernández asked.

‘As a national,’ I said. ‘My father was born here in Cuba and I possess Cuban national status as a hereditary right.’

‘Indeed you would, sir,’ he said. ‘Indeed you would.’ He looked at me askance, and then he leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. ‘I have one question,’ he said, and he smiled like a man setting a trap for something he knew was defenseless.

I looked back at him and attempted to show nothing of any meaning in my expression.

‘I understand that you are looking at the possibility of engaging in this business with Raúl Brito?’

‘We had discussed such a thing,’ I replied.

‘But the details of the agreement have not been worked out?’

I shook my head.

‘It is not something you wish to do? You have changed your mind perhaps?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I have not yet made time to attend to the paperwork.’

Hernández nodded his head. ‘So I understand. I happened to be speaking with the lawyer assigned to this matter, a Mr Jorge Delgado, and he told me you have failed to make both of the appointments he has arranged with Mr Brito and yourself to conclude the documentation.’

‘That is correct,’ I said. ‘I have been very busy with my son’s schooling.’

‘But you are not so busy now,’ he replied, and once again he smiled his reptilian smile and looked at me through slitted eyes.

‘I am not,’ I said, for there was nothing I could say in my defense.

‘Then I think it would be a good idea, if only for Mr Brito’s peace of mind, that we conclude this matter this afternoon. I think it would be fair, in order to further prevent any inconvenience for both him and Mr Delgado, that we go to your house now, collect your identification papers, and sign these partnership agreements.’

I smiled. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I think that would be an excellent idea.’

Hernández rose immediately. He looked very pleased with himself. I gathered my coat, threw it around my shoulders, and with a sense of ease and lack of concern I showed Hernández to the door and followed him out into the street.

We conversed as we walked, of nothing consequential – the weather, the shameful lack of care shown to some of Havana’s more historic and beautiful buildings – and it was little more than fifteen minutes before we reached Avenida Belgica and the house I had rented.

The thoughts that passed through my mind were those thoughts one always encountered solely in hindsight. I had considered entering Cuba under an assumed name even as I left America, but I was so caught up in the necessity to leave that country, so unwilling to engage in any formal investigation of the murder of my wife and daughter, I had fled as I was. Of course I possessed a Cuban passport, and it was in my birth name, but that passport had been purchased for seven hundred and fifty dollars some years before from a skilled counterfeiter. In America I had carried no social security number, no formal identification, and the customs and immigration people at the Havana docks had no more than glanced at my documents as I entered. Leaving would have been different, a far more difficult enterprise altogether, as I knew from experience with my father so many years before. The passport I would show Hernández would be identified as a forgery under scrutiny, and that was a road I did not wish to travel.

I welcomed Hernández to my home graciously. I had prayed that Claudia and Victor would be away, and my prayer was answered. The house was still and quiet. I showed Hernández through to the main room of the house where Victor’s study books were spread across the table, the room where he would sit with his tutor and learn everything he could of the world. I asked Hernández if he wanted a drink, and he accepted.

I walked back through to the kitchen and started to make some coffee. He called out questions through the half-open doorway. How long had I been living in America? What business had I been involved in there? Did I have any other living family here in Cuba? I answered tactfully, diplomatically, but I realized even as I was speaking that it made no difference what I said to him now.

I returned to the room bearing a tray, upon it two cups of fresh coffee. I asked Hernández if he wished for some warm bread, perhaps some cheese with his coffee. He declined politely, took his coffee, and then asked if he could see my papers.

I smiled, and said, ‘Of course, Señor Hernández’, and once again left the room.

When I returned he was sitting quite relaxed in the chair. In his hand he held his coffee cup.

I walked towards him, my forged passport in my hand, and when he reached out to take it from me, as he closed his fingers around it, I lunged forward suddenly and buried a steak knife through his right eye. I jerked the knife upward and then down. He seemed transfixed, his other eye looking at me with such an expression of surprise I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing, and it was almost as if Hernández smiled, as if this was some kind of practical joke, as if I had somehow managed to create the image of his impending death, and then would suddenly retrieve him from his fate. The smile did not last long. A second, perhaps two, and possibly it was nothing more than some involuntary reflexive action taken by the muscles in his face as they fought the intrusion of the blade. Perhaps, and this may be closer to the truth, it was nothing but my own imagination.

Hernández leaned forward as I released the handle of the knife. His hands clawed at his face, almost out of control, and then he rolled forward off the chair onto his knees.

There was little blood, almost none at all, and for this I was grateful. Visions of Carryl Chevron and the wide lake of blood that had pooled out of his body and across a dirty linoleum kitchen floor a thousand years before came back to me. I stepped away. I watched Hernández struggle with the pain, the shock, the agonizing disruption of all bodily functions, and then from his throat came a stuttering feral snarl like some wounded animal in its final death throes. And then he was still. I leaned over his body. With my right hand I pressed against the side of his throat. There was nothing. Constabulare Hernández was dead.

I removed my tie and jacket. I rolled up my sleeves. I dragged his body towards the edge of the rug and then I proceeded to roll him sideways until he centered it. I put my foot on his chest and used both hands to withdraw the knife. The muscles had already tightened around it and it took two or three sharp tugs to remove it. I walked to the kitchen, and with the remainder of the hot coffee I washed the knife thoroughly. I took a bottle of cleansing bleach from the cupboard, half-filled the sink with water, emptied the cleanser into it and then submerged the knife. I walked back to the main room and looked down at the cocooned body that lay there.

I was alert for any sound from the front of the house, of Claudia and Victor returning. I had no idea where they had gone or when they would return. I contemplated the situation I had created. A body does not disappear. A body is a body. One hundred and sixty pounds of deadweight that will stay one hundred and sixty pounds of deadweight until it becomes something else. The house had no furnace, there was no rapid passage to the sea and, unlike Louisiana, there were no nearby everglades where such a body could be submerged and forgotten in moments.

I sat down where Hernández had been seated. The chair was still slightly warm from where he had relaxed. Through the end of the rug I could see the side of his face, the single open eye that seemed to look at me askance. I leaned down and closed it. He still seemed accusatory and suspicious even in death.

‘You should not have been so interested in business that did not concern you,’ I told him, and ‘You should have attended to matters of greater significance and importance than this. This is your penalty for being too concerned with the details of other people’s lives.’ I considered the perfect irony of the situation. After all the things that had been done, after so many lives had been abruptly terminated by my hand, this man had been perhaps closer than anyone to discovering who I was, and all because of some paperwork.