The Cuban writer novels about two mirages of freedom in the island’s recent history in the ninth episode of the Mario Conde police series
“With six murders, it’s my most Havana and criminal novel.” For example, Leonardo Padura (Havana, 66 years old) presents ‘Decent People’ (Tusquets), the ninth part of the police officer Mario Conde. They are two novels in one about two crucial episodes in the history of Cuba, two mirages of freedom that were experienced at the beginning and the end of the 20th century and in which a Cuba quickly disappeared without chains was observed. “Cuba and Cubans are tired of their future being stolen,” says the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for Letters writer, journalist and screenwriter, who has no intention of leaving his ailing island.
“Being nice is impractical in Cuba. To survive, you have to do things that, without being illegal, are discussed with the strict ethics of decency,” Padura said, explaining the title. His investigator, Mario Conde, ex-police officer, ex-seller of old books, remembering and pessimistic, “was always decent.” “I needed that decency to examine the darkest; it couldn’t be fragile,” says the creator.
He regrets that in Cuba, as in the rest of the world, “the bastards are getting space and becoming more and more.” Also that the world is “a place of ultra-competition” and that politics is downgraded. “She’s perverted. There are, as always, political bastards, criminals, dictators and tyrants. But today the shame is gone and those politicians are trying to cheat us like we’re idiots,” he laments.
Padura novel “two great frustrations” through two investigations. One takes place in 1910, when Havana, intervened by the US government, wanted to be the Nice of the Caribbean. It revolves around the life of wealthy pimp Alberto Yarini, whose story the count himself plans to fictionalize. At age 24, Yarini was the most acclaimed pimp in Havana’s “tolerance zone,” but he gained power as a representative of the House and as a candidate for deputy mayor.
In the other plot, Conde investigates the mutilation and murder of a former Castro censor who harassed, retaliated and destroyed the careers of writers and artists such as José Lezama Lima or Virgilio Piñera, and made a fortune selling the paintings he stole.
In 2016, Cuba was a party, as Hemingway would say. In full thaw, Barack Obama visited the island, the first American president since 1928. There was a historic concert by the Rolling Stones and a Chanel parade. The Kardashians, Rihanna, the ‘Fast & Furious’ cast, who shot part of one of their episodes on the island, also toured Havana.
But soon the dream disappeared and the totalitarian nightmare and its shortcomings returned. “It was another parenthesis in our history,” Padura illustrates. «Today, Cuba is again lacking in everything: food, medicine, energy… Sometimes you have to queue for six hours in the sun looking for something to eat, and nothing guarantees you will find it. Buying tobacco is an odyssey. Blackouts of at least four hours a day are constant. Inflation is brutal and the harvest is one of the worst in history, lower than in World War I,” he sums up.
“There are migration crises that are not counted. More than 150,000 highly educated young Cubans have fled via visa-free Nicaragua to cross Mexico, reach the Rio Grande and enter the United States. Those who leave and those who stay have been robbed of their future,” he repeats.
Despite so many difficulties, Padura does not want to leave Cuba. He has a Spanish passport, issued by a naturalization certificate, and is comfortable with one foot on each side of the Atlantic. “I want to be close to the reality that fuels my books,” he says. “I’m happy with one foot here and one there. First I was a Cuban writer who published in Spain and now I am a writer from Tusquets who is also Cuban,” he boasts. “Every time I come to Europe, I come back with three suitcases full of cheese, ham, olive oil and medicines. For the family, for my 95-year-old mother and for my 86-year-old mother-in-law, it is as if the Three Wise Men have arrived,” he added with a smile.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
