Spirit (46 page)

She wondered when she would ever learn, and of course the truth was that she
had
learned, but failed to act on it. She was free to leave Havana whenever she wanted to. She had no children; she had no family now that her father had died. But she had grown used to being Rosita. The wolf-whistling that followed her all the way along the Paseo was all the acclamation she required, and she didn't mind the men she called ‘clients' half as much as she pretended. Most of them were shy and courteous, with voluminous pee-spotted undershorts and bad breath. Some of them were rough and drunk, and left her cheeks with stubble burns. But on the whole they invaded very little of her total body-space, only her mouth and her vagina, a few cubic centimetres which she rented out to pay for her food, and her apartment, and her Ford (which was waiting for a replacement gearbox), and the rest she kept for herself. When anybody asked her about prostitution, she always said, ‘Men sell their whole bodies and brains to banks and insurance companies, all day, every working day, for a lifetime. I give my body for twenty minutes only, then I can do what I like, go for a walk, have a drink, meet my friends. Who is the prostitute, tell me?'

They drove to the Super Bar in Captain Figueredo's Buick but they drove like people in a dream. The buildings and trees that unravelled past them seemed more like a painted frieze than actual scenery. The sidewalks were crowded with the usual pimps and dirty-postcard sellers, yet they all appeared to be frozen in time. The sky was bronze and threatening, and a strange four-engined seaplane churned through clouds with propellers like eggbeaters.

The day was so humid that the Buick's windows were steamed up on the outside. Captain Figueredo laid his hand on Rosita's thigh, and said, ‘There are not many things in this life which give me succour, Rosita.'

‘No,' she replied. ‘And I won't, not again, if you don't start to take showers.'

‘I am a pig, I know it,' he said, gloomily.

They parked outside the Super Bar and Captain Figueredo gave a ten-year-old boy a nickel to watch his car. Inside the bar it was dark and smelled of stale cigars and disinfectant. A tall black man with a pointed head was polishing glasses behind the bar. Three men in black shirts were sitting around a table, their chairs tilted back. Another man was sitting on his own beside a tank of tropical fish.

Rosita had hung around the Super Bar for years. Yet this afternoon it was more than the Super Bar, it was a sitting-room, too, with phantom sofas and ghostly chairs, and people who walked from side to side like rippling sheets of cellophane. The barman called, ‘Rosita!' but she ignored him, and walked directly across to the fishtank.

The young man on the bars tool crushed out his cigarette and smiled. He didn't look at Rosita, however – he looked over her shoulder at Captain Figueredo. ‘Well, Bronco . . . I was wondering when you'd come looking for me.'

Captain Figueredo leaned against the bar and wedged the
fingers of both hands together. ‘Bronco,' he repeated, and nodded, and smiled. ‘Thank you for telling me.'

‘You didn't know who you were?' asked the young man, in mock astonishment.

‘I suspected, but I wasn't sure.'

The young man turned to Rosita. ‘And you?' he queried. ‘Do
you
know who you are?'

Rosita's mind flickered on and off like a silent movie. She could see Laura. She could see Eusebio. It was daylight in Scottsdale. At the same time, she could see Raul Palma, and the darkened interior of the Super Bar. She could hear mamba music and people laughing.

‘It's confusing, for the living,' said Raul. ‘They don't know who they are. Ficititious, or real. For the dead, of course, it's very much easier.'

Captain Figueredo said, ‘You have to stop bothering me, Billy. You have to go your own way, and leave me alone.'

Raul blinked at him. ‘You're my brother. How can I leave you alone?'

‘I have to live my own life. I have to make my own mistakes. If I suffer, too bad. If I write a new book and the critics hate it, well, I'll just have to sulk, and do better next time.'

Raul said, ‘I don't want them to hurt you, Bronco. They can and they will, no matter what you write.'

‘So what do I do? Spend the rest of my life driving to the Scottsdale pharmacy, to pick up placebos for Vita? Stare out of the window at Eusebio weeding his greens? You're not protecting me, Billy, you're killing me!'

‘You want a drink,
senor?
' asked the black man behind the counter.

‘Whiskey, straight up,' said Captain Figueredo, without looking at him.

‘What about the lady,
senor?
'

‘I don't see any lady.'

‘Whiskey for me, too,' said Rosita. ‘Whiskey with a twist.'

Raul turned around on his bars tool and looked at her with one eye closed. ‘I don't know why you came along,' he told her.

‘I came along because Bronco's my friend. He needs you to leave him alone.'

‘You don't think he needs my protection?'

‘That's the last thing he needs. He's a writer. He has to take risks. Every time a writer starts a new book, it's like throwing himself off a cliff. If he kills himself, well, that's just bad luck. But it's the risk that makes writing important. If you protect him, he won't be able to write, and if he can't write, you'll be killing him just as surely as you were killed, when you came off that motorcycle and hit that tree.'

‘Do you know what?' said Raul, with the slowest of smiles. ‘You're so damned wrong. You want my brother to write because you're his publisher, and you know you're going to sell a whole lot of copies. Doesn't matter if it's crap, which it will be. Doesn't matter if it never matches up to
Bitter Fruit
. Doesn't matter if Bronco's brought low, and humiliated, and gutted by the critics, and winds up shooting himself. God, you're so interested in profit, you don't see it, do you? He'd be far better living out the rest of his life with Vita, no matter how dull his life might seem to be, than writing his stupid bombastic book, and opening himself up, so that all of the buzzards and jackals can tear at his flesh. I want him to
live
, Lizzie . . . you don't know how precious life is, till you've lost it.'

Captain Figueredo said, ‘You've been asked nicely, Billy. I love you. I
loved
you. But leave me alone.'

Raul swallowed the last of his whiskey. ‘I'm sorry, Bronco. Even big brothers don't always know what's best for them.'

Rosita went up to him and draped her arm around his shoulders. ‘Supposing I make it worth your while?'

Raul looked her up and down. ‘You? What could you ever do for me, except give me the clap?'

‘Supposing I help you . . . you and the others who hate Batista?'

‘Supposing you go back to bed with your sweaty chief of police?'

At that moment, another voice demanded, ‘
Johnson? What are you doing?

Rosita could see somebody standing just behind Raul's barstool, the dim apparition of a woman. It was Vita; because they had never really left Bronco's house; they were here, in the Super Bar; and yet they weren't.

Captain Figueredo tipped his drink down his throat, and banged down the shot-glass, and asked for a refill. The black man obliged.

‘
Johnson
!' the voice repeated. ‘
You're leaning on the sofa, will you stop it, and slop drinking, too, you know what you're like when you drink before lunch?'

Rosita said, ‘Raul, this is really important. You have to allow Bronco to live his own life. If he's hurting, he'll seek you out, you know that. But you can't protect him from his own experience. You can't.'

‘
Johnson
!' the voice shrilled out.

Captain Figueredo drew his Colt .38 out of his belt, raised it, and cocked it. ‘
Arriba las manos
,' he told Raul.

Raul didn't make the slightest effort to raise his hands. ‘You're joking,' he said, steadily. ‘What am I supposed to have done? Subvert the government? Consort with seditionaries? Drink too much whiskey? Run guns, hobnob with tarts?'

‘
Johnson, put that thing down! You know I don't like those things in the house?

Shadows shifted, lights moved and dimmed and moved again.

‘Raul – he's serious,' said Rosita. But then she took hold of Captain Figueredo's arm and said, ‘Jesus, don't. This is not the way.'

‘You see?' mocked Raul, spreading his arms wide. ‘Even Rosita thinks you're got it wrong! The poxiest tart in Havana!'

Captain Figueredo pointed his revolver directly at Raul's heart and pulled the trigger. Raul's white shirt burst into a fury of blood and tissue, and he was knocked back off his barstool and crashed against the fishtank. Glass shattered, water and fish gushed all over him.

Rosita sat with her hand over her mouth, too shocked and deafened to speak. The black man behind the bar said, ‘
O Gloria Patri
.' Raul lay sideways on the carpet, not moving, totally dead, while parrot-fish twitched and gasped all around him, and a thin stream of rancid fish-water poured into his ear.

‘Jesus, what have you done?' Rosita mouthed; but she wasn't really Rosita, she was Elizabeth. The Super Bar shrank and faded – it almost
fled
, as if it were being hurried away by stage technicians. Suddenly everything was bright and ordinary, and they were standing in Bronco's living-room in Scottsdale, with the morning sunlight dancing behind the blinds.

Laura caught hold of Elizabeth's arm. ‘Lizzie – are you all right?' she cried out. She practically screamed it. ‘What happened? What happened? What did he do?
Don't look
!'

But it was already too late. Elizabeth looked down and there was Vita, sprawled awkwardly on the Papago rug, one knee lifted, the other twisted, one hand pathetically raised. Eusebio was kneeling next to her, trying to unbutton her dress, which was sopping with blood, and more blood pumping with every heartbeat.

Bronco was standing beside the sofa in his overtight Naval uniform, his arm outstretched, his revolver still smoking. His eyes were wide with disbelief. Elizabeth stared at him, and he stared back, and for one split second she was still Rosita and he was still Captain Figueredo.

‘Ambulance,' said Eusebio, but nobody moved, because
they were all too stunned. ‘
Ambulance
!' he repeated, and Laura walked stiffly back to the study and picked up the phone.

Bronco dropped the revolver on the sofa and approached Vita in a slow circling movement, his hands half-lifted in despair. ‘Vita,' he said.

Elizabeth said, ‘Bronco – you didn't do it on purpose. I was there, you were shooting at Raul.'

‘And who's going to believe me?' Bronco flared up. ‘Who's going to believe that I was Captain Figueredo?'

Eusebio eased Vita's head onto the rug, and looked up at Bronco, and said, ‘Dead. There's nothing you can do.'

‘I was shooting at Billy,' said Bronco, miserably. ‘I wasn't shooting at Vita, I was shooting at Billy.'

‘It's unfortunate,' said Eusebio, but without any trace of forgiveness in his voice. Vita had been good to him. Vita had given him extra cans of food for his family, and baby-clothes, and, once, a pocket-watch.

‘I was shooting at Billy, Eusebio! As far as I was concerned, Vita wasn't even
there
!'

‘Yes,' said Eusebio. ‘But she was there. Objects can go from the dream-world to the spirit-world, and into the real world, too. This object was small, and it was travelling very fast, and with bad intent. There was nothing to stop it but your love for your wife.'

Bronco looked down at Vita, his mouth puckered, his eyes crowded with tears. ‘I didn't mean to,' he said. ‘I really didn't mean to. I was shooting at Billy, not her.'

Eusebio stood up, and shoved his hand through his stiff, wiry hair. ‘You can kill imaginary people just as dead as real people. Your Billy will never trouble you no more.'

He went to the study, and came back carrying
Nights In Havana
. ‘Read it now,' he said. ‘Read how your brother dies.'

While they waited for the ambulance, Elizabeth went to her
room and read the last few pages
of Nights In Havana
. Bronco was kneeling next to Vita's body, abstractedly fingering her hair. Laura was waiting by the front window, for the first sign of a flashing light.

‘ “
You see!” said Raul, spreading his arms wide. “Even Rosita thinks you've got it wrong! The poxiest tart in Havana.
!”

‘
Captain Figueredo pointed his revolver directly at Raul's heart and pulled the trigger.
'

Elizabeth looked up, at the rabbit-fur glove that was lying on her desk, and she was filled with the coldest sense of dread.

 

 

Bronco was arrested for shooting Vita, but released on $50,000 bail posted by Charles Keraghter, his publisher. He was still shocked and stricken with guilt, but when she left him, Elizabeth had already seen a straightening of his back, and a calculating look in his eye, like a man who wants to get back to work. For the first time, he talked about his new novel as if he could actually
see
it, as if it were alive, and all that he needed to do now was to type it out.

‘Do you think that Billy's gone for good?' she had asked him.

‘He's gone all right. I can sense it.'

‘You meant to shoot him all along, didn't you?'

Bronco had nodded. ‘I knew that he wouldn't be persuaded: Billy never was. But it makes me feel all the more remorseful about Vita. Whatever she was, she didn't deserve that.'

They embraced, and Elizabeth had felt in his embrace the certain knowledge that if time and chance had been kinder to them, they would have been lovers. ‘Call me,' she urged him. ‘Call me whenever you've finished a new chapter. Call me whenever you
haven't
finished a new chapter.'