Havana Fever by Leonardo Padura Read Free Book Online

be at his friend’s side in life and death, and tried to find the resources and motivation to accelerate as happily as possible, the onset of his longed for liberation, through the slow but sure method of poisoning his bloodstream and lining his arteries with the fat, nicotine and alcohol Carlos ingested in huge amounts.
    “What were you going on about just now, Conde?” Skinny asked.
    “Didn’t you hear? That’s why you look so out of it . . . I was telling you to sharpen up your incisors; we’re dining out on the town tonight. I’ve booked a table at Contreras’s paladar . . .”
    “You gone mad?” Carlos looked at him, smiling sheepishly, as if he’d misunderstood yet another of his friend’s bad jokes.
    “I earned five hundred pesos today at a stroke. And get this: tomorrow I’ll earn double, triple, quadruple and the day after even more . . . I’m going to be filthy rich, so Yoyi says.”
    “You’re a big liar, that’s what you are,” Josefina retorted. “What are you up to now? Who’s ever heard of old books being worth that much?”
    “Jose, get your glad rags on, we’ll get a cab . . . Fuck, I mean it! I’m rolling in it . . .” the Count insisted, tapping the top of his trouser pocket.
    “Mum, there’s no point trying to argue with this lunatic. Go and spruce yourself up and bring me a shirt,” said Carlos. “I could eat a horse. Anyway, we only live once, so let’s . . .”
    “Too true, and, man, am I in the money!” Conde purred, standing up to help Josefina to her feet, who went into the house chuntering to herself.
    “Skinny, how old’s your mum?”
    “I don’t know . . . Gone seventy, not eighty yet.”
    “She’s really getting old on us,” lamented the Count, returning to his chair.
    “Change the subject,” insisted Carlos. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked, pointing to the envelope the Count was still gripping.
    “Oh, it’s a present for your mother. A book of recipes. They say it’s the best ever published in Cuba. She can’t open it until we’re sat at a table groaning with food, otherwise you’d die of hunger just reading the first recipe . . . That’s why we’re off to Contreras’s paladar .”
    “Contreras?” Carlos replied thoughtfully. “The fat guy who used to be a policeman?”
    “The one and only . . . They gave him six years, he served two, and when he came out he became an entrepreneur. That guy was so streetwise, he must be loaded by now.”
    “Conde, have you noticed how many people who used to be in the police or armed forces now do business on the side?”
    “A whole heap of them. C’est la vie . Almost all of them have sorted out their little escape routes . . . Though today I bumped into a retired army major about to drop dead from hunger . . . You know, the one who sold me the books,” and he added enthusiastically: “Skinny, you’ve got no idea. I’ve found a real gold mine. They’ve got books you can’t put a price to . . . Look at this one: it’s a little treasure, illustrated by Massaguer to boot. We’re off to eat in a minute, so just listen to this.”
    Conde risked opening it at the first page and, trying to find the best angle to benefit from the light in the yard and the best distance for his rampant farsightedness, he read out aloud: “ My Pleasure? An indispensable . . . culinary guide. Under the auspices of the Godmothers of the San Martín and Costales Wards in the General Calixto García University Hospital . . . What do you reckon? It’s a book of delicious recipes, written from the guilty consciences of the Cuban bourgeoisie . . . It’s full of impossible recipes . . .”
    “I reckon it’s a tad subversive,” Carlos chimed in.
    “If not terrorist.”
    The Count casually began to leaf through the book and read aloud, the names of some of the recipes, never going into enough detail to set off the gastric juices, but showing his friend the illustrations by Conrado Massaguer. Presently, between pages 561 and