Jay's MYSTERY THRILLER MARATHON Post - Leonardo Padura's The Transparency of Time - The Love and Squalor of Mario C

   I have read my share of Detective Mario Conde, the protagonist of Cuban author Leonardo Padura’s novel Transparency of Time.  I first discovered him in the Netflix telenovela Las cuatro estaciones – The Four Seasons.  I watched all the episodes in Spanish before I bought the Padura novels they are based upon.  Mario C. is a not-so-glamorous Havana homocide detective.  When I say “not-so-glamorous” I mean he doesn’t look like he’s making enough money to put up a good front. As a reader, I'm worried about Poor Mario C.  He seems PASSIVE - like he's accepted his fate, a Cuban life of hanging on by a thread.  He knows he's never going to get anywhere.  All his dreams for NAUGHT.

In the series of novels I have read, he doesn’t think he is paid the respect he deserves, and consequently, he has stopped paying attention to what people think of him a long, long time ago.   This is Cuba in the eighties.  In the telenovela, he may be close to forty years old.  His hair is long and his face is invariably unshaved.  He always seemed to wear the same clothes to work.  A long-sleeved flannel work shirt and blue jeans.  In this way, he’s a different kind of cop than I read about in most detective thrillers. 

I admire him because he’s a dedicated and talented cop, but I also notice he is not-so-happy, NO!  He’s sensitive and introspective.  He is always wondering how he ever became a cop in the first place.  He just doesn’t seem to fit in. Because he was always good in school, he had  dreams of becoming a writer.  Now he’s surrounded by street-hardened people who have touched more dead bodies than books.  Many of them are corrupted by Cuban politics. Mario’s cases are exciting and important, but at the same time, he’s got a lot going on inside.  He’s not married.  He has no famlly to speak of. Worst of all, his only friends are disappearing from his life.  They are leaving the island one-by-one.  Mario feels SO ALONE.  Soon there will be nothing left of his Cuba.

In this novel Transparency of Time, he has reached the age of sixty.  Time is running out for Mario C.  He’s no longer on the police force.  He’s old and feeble and he’s scrambling to make ends meet with odd jobs. In this story, a schoolyard friend appears out of nowhere to request his help to retrieve stolen property.  Mario C doesn’t  really trust this guy, but he’s desperate for money.   This leads to more self-doubt and self-contempt.  He begins DRINKING HEAVILY.  Arguing with his FRIENDS and LOVERS.   Nothing in his personal or professional life has got him anywhere, and in Cuba, nothing much is going to change.  He knows that. From one chapter to the next, you don’t know what will come first.  Will he shoot a murder suspect?  Or will he put his own gun in his mouth?

I'm not writing a book report here; The story of Transparency is complicated as it is convuluted.  This is how the story goes: His old friend from high school that shows up on his doorstep is really not, or has never been, a friend at all.  This guy, Bobby, was suspected of being a homosexual in college, and in Cuba, that's enough to be kicked out of the university, shunned by your friends, and worse.  Bobby must be seeking out Mario, for back then when they were young, Mario  was the only one to show any degree of tolerance for his sexuality.  Moreover, he knows Mario became a detective, and now he needs him to retrieve a religious, family artificact stolen from him by an ex-lover. But in truth, Mario didn't really like Bobby THEN, so he doesn't really like Bobby NOW.  The thing is that Bobby has a lot of money that he's willing to pay for Mario's services, and Mario is in no condition to turn it down. The thought of working for a friend brings down Mario down another notch.  He feels both insulted an guilty. 

But, Mario is sucked in by Bobby's story.  The artifact that Bobby wants to recover has been kept in the family for hundreds of years.  It's a statue of a Black Madonna. That's right.  Like a Virgin Guadalupe, but BLACK.  And the Black Madonna is holding a WHITE BABY.  Bobby says the statue is of important sentimental value, but his desperation to get it back speaks to it's economic value.  Mario recognizes that the rarity of the statue can bring in a near fortune on the international black market for stolen art.  He doesn't like the fact that Bobby is lying to his face, but he loves the story behind the Madonna.  I told you Mario C. is a smart guy of great intellectual curiosity.  He gets caught up in the history of the Black Madonna.  It involves Religious Persection, the War for the Holy Land, the Spanish Civil War, Rape, Murder...  Bobby shares a story of his own grandfather fleeing on a ship out of Portugal  headed for Cuba - with only the shirt on his back and the Madonna in a sack.  His grandfather's story involves the Knights of the Templar who once fought to the death to protect the Madonna.  Mario can't help feeling that he is participating in a Search for a Holy Grail.

I could break it down, but here is the important part, in my mind, is the "breakdown" of Mario Conde at age SIXTY.   I like Mario C.  He is a tough guy and a big reader.  He’s a good cop, but his real ambition in life is  to become a writer.  All his life he has dreamed of writing stories about his beloved Cuba.  He has plenty of stories to tell – about family,  murder, corruption, art and baseball – but he doesn’t have anyone who cares to listen. At age 60, he is lonely and disillusioned.  He drinks like a fish.  In five to six Mario C novels I have read, when people ask him what type of stories does he write, he tells them “Escualido y conmovedor.”  Moving and Squalid. It’s like an ongoing gag. People are phony,  No one cares. 

Here is why I’m writing today:  I thought it odd that a character would repeat the same phrase over and over again, especially coming from a writer as poetic and talented as Leon Padura. I mean, it was getting tiresome.  So I googled up the words – “Moving and Squalid” – and I discovered something very similar in a book of short stories by J.D. Salinger.  The best story in the  collection is titled “For Esme with Love and Squalor.”  When I say “best,” I mean the best short story I have ever read.  It’s about a young WWII soldier on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Esme is a young girl who tries to placate the young man, but she has never seen what he has seen, so how could she possible understand what he feels. Spoiler Alert: the story doesn’t end  well. 

At the end of Transparency, I won’t tell you the exact circumstances, but  Mario C takes a bullet that nearly ends his life.  Let’s just say he stayed on the case to the very end.   In the hospital, he is in danger of hemorraging but the doctor tells him he will survive  - under one condition – that he not touch to any alcohol…   This is like Mario C’s ninth novel.  Everyone who has read him can surmise what is going to happen next.  Mario just doesn’t care to listen to any one or care anymore.  He’s lost his friends.  He’s lost his job.  He’s told Bobby to disappear from his life, never to return.  Of course, he starts drinking. In a way, Mario C resembles the country he loves so dearly.  At age sixty he sees no future. He's wrapped up in a past that he will never see again.  He knows finding the Black Madonna is not going to help.  Clearly both the writer and the detective in Mario would connect with the characters in a J.D. Salinger work.  They are all lonely and broken.