Masterpiece

In the city center, a man looked at himself in the soft light of a small, flower-shaped lamp that gave a weak glow over his room and the mirror on the sideboard.The mirror showed a few wrinkles that showed how much time had passed.

He took some water in his hands, which had been ready for him.
He used a damp towel on his face, making his skin look bright and covering the lines that showed his age.In front of the mirror, his clear eyes made him look like a zombie just coming back from the dead.Next to him, a stack of psychology books filled the old, neoclassical bookcase that made the room feel damp and dark.

After cleaning himself, he pulled back his chair, like someone who had been working all night.
He turned his head to where he had left his things and a figure appeared from the dark hallway.

"I brought your package," said the man who was sitting.
"It was all easy." A little beer, some pills, and a woman were all it took.

"And the woman?" a deep but strong voice came from the older man's mouth.

"Don't worry, she won't be able to say anything."

"Show me what you brought."

"Here you are," said the visitor, pulling out three photos from his pocket.

He looked at the photos.
One of them was the most important.A document with certain clues, kept for over a century, that held the key to the city's most secret mystery, the secret he had always told his son David about.That photo represented everything his family had fought for.The risks, the deaths, the enemies, and the pain could be soothed by the image he held in his hands, the first clue that could start a new search.

"Turn on the light, bring me a pencil and paper," he told his son.
His gray hair reflected in the mirror looked like the nest of a bird that had long wanted to leave.His clean, well-kept clothes showed his family's heritage.

He put on his glasses, which gave him a look of knowledge, the very look his son called him master.
He placed the magnifying glass on the photo.A satisfied gesture showed his own contentment.He wrote several lines on the paper as if solving a hidden code in the photo.Then he realized his son was still behind him and said,

"Contact Daniel right now," he instructed, looking at the other photos.
In one, the city's triumphal arch stood tall and proud; he knew it was unique in the country, and so was connected to what his family had been searching for over the past century.The other was a portrait of their main enemy, the ghost that had always haunted them.He remembered his father's problems and his grandfather's stories about their complicated relationship with the city's founder and other colonists.The small man, born in Bordeaux in 1766, came to Cuba as a lieutenant colonel of infantry attached to the Havana general staff.In 1819, he proposed to the island's captain general, Don José Cienfuegos, and the intendant, Alejandro Ramírez, the founding of a colony in Jagua Bay as part of the island's policy of whitening, driven by fear of what had happened in Haiti.His project was approved without delay.

The room's dampness and dark light let the teacher remember, in one scene, the distant past, the past of his ancestors, who came through Batabanó, part of the waves of men and women who came from the mainland and lived on the banks of the Saladito River in their simple houses made of palm fronds and thatch until the problems began because of the lies, mysteries, and tricks of the founder and a group of settlers who met as a fraternity.