Read Havana Bay for Free Online

other people, their mess for other people to clean up. He could always start over, devote himself to a worthy cause, allow himself to heal. The trouble was that he didn't want the memory to fade. While he still remembered her, her breath in her sleep, the warmth of her back, the way she would turn to him in the morning, while he was still insane enough to think he would wake up beside her, or hear her in the next room or see her on the street, now was the time. If it inconvenienced other people, well, he apologized.
    From his jacket he took the sterile syringe he had stolen in the embalming room. He'd stolen it on impulse, with no conscious plan, or as if some other part of his brain was seizing opportunities and setting an agenda that he was only learning about as it went. Everyone was well aware that Cuba was hard-pressed for medical supplies and here he was stealing. He broke the bag and laid the contents—a 50-cc embalming syringe and needle—on the table. The needle itself was a 10-cm shaft. He screwed it into the syringe and drew the plunger to fill the chamber with air. His chair had uneven legs, and he had to sit just so in order not to wobble. He pushed the coat and shirt sleeves up his left forearm and slapped the inside of the elbow to raise the vein. It would take about a minute after air was intro duced into the bloodstream for the heart to stop. Only a minute, not the five minutes Irina was condemned to live out. There had to be enough air, no mere chain of bubbles but a goodly worm of air because the heart would churn and churn before it gave up. The shutters rattled and swung in. A perfectionist, he rose to push them back, resumed his place at the table. He rubbed the coat a last time on his cheek, the cashmere soft as cat's fur, then pushed the sleeve out of the way, stung his arm again and, as the green cord snapped to attention, eased in the needle deep. Blood budded in the chamber.
    Over the pounding steps of his heart he heard some one knocking on the door.
    "Renko!" Rufo called.
    The plunger had yet to be pushed in, and what Arkady did not want was to make someone hear him drop. What he'd die of was like a deep-sea diver's   bends, and convulsions made considerable noise. Like a diver hiding under the surface, he waited for the visitor to go away. When the knocks only became more insist ent he shouted, "Go away."
    "Open the door, please."
    "Go away."
    "Let me in. Please, it's important."
    Arkady drew out the needle, tied a handkerchief around his arm, let his sleeve fall and dropped the syringe into the pocket of his overcoat before he went to the door and opened it a crack.
    "You're early."
    "Remember, we talked about cigars." Rufo managed to squeeze his way in, a foot, a leg, an arm at a time. He had changed into a one-piece jogging outfit and carried a box of pale wood sealed with an imposing design of interlocking swords.» Montecristos. Handmade from the finest tobacco leaf in the world. You know, for a cigar smoker this is like the Holy Grail."
    "I don't smoke cigars."
    "Then sell them. In Miami you could sell this box for one thousand dollars. In Moscow , maybe more. For you, one hundred dollars."
    "I'm not interested and I don't have one hundred dollars."
    "Fifty dollars. Usually I wouldn't let them go for so little, but..." Rufo spread his hands like a millionaire temporarily out of change.
    "I'm just not interested."
    "Okay, okay." Rufo was disappointed but amenable.» You know, when I was here before, I think I left my cigarette lighter. Did you see it?"
    Arkady felt as if he were trying to leap from a plane and people kept dragging him back. There was no lighter in the living room. Arkady searched the bath room and bedroom, no lighter. When he returned to the front, Rufo was digging through the paper bag of Pribluda's effects.
    "There's no lighter there."
    "I wanted to make sure you had everything." Rufo held up the lighter.» Found it."
    "Good-bye, Rufo."
    "A great pleasure. I'll be back