The Names of the Dead

by Wignall, Kevin

  “When my father decided to go to The Hague, he told me a general must always take responsibility for the actions of his men.”

  “I guess so.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Who?”

  “The little girl you killed?”

  He thought about it for a second. “I don’t know.”

  Had he ever known? It was over ten years ago, and he’d been twenty-six or twenty-seven, swept up in the whole business of being in the field in a complex region. It seemed hard to believe that he’d never seen the girl’s name in a news report, as he’d seen Oscar Breut’s and Garrett Fitzpatrick’s, but if he’d ever known it, he’d forgotten it now.

  Twenty-Three

  It wasn’t until they were on the approach into Lisbon that Wes thought to ask about where they’d be staying. Mia had, naturally, booked a hotel before leaving Seville, taking rooms in a grand palace on the main avenue in the middle of the city.

  As he was checking in, Wes took the envelope Patrice had given him and showed it to the concierge.

  “Can you tell me if this address is far from here?”

  The concierge studied it and shook his head. “No, it’s near the bridge. I’ll be able to show you on the map and you can take a taxi.”

  “We can drive,” said Mia.

  “Yes, but then you must find somewhere to park. Better to take a taxi, and maybe then you walk a little. And the LX Factory is close by.” Neither of them responded to that and he looked at the address again and said, “But I think this is a store, so it might be closed? You know, on Saturday, many stores close at lunchtime.”

  Wes had lost track of days this week just as surely as he’d lost track of weeks and months during his spell in prison. If the store was closed today it would also be closed tomorrow.

  “Okay, thanks. Maybe we can go across to check it out anyway.”

  “It’s worth a try. And if it’s closed you can visit the LX Factory so it’s not a wasted journey.”

  They went off to their rooms, and by the time Wes got back downstairs he noticed Mia sitting on one of the many sofas in the middle of the grand atrium that made up the lobby. She was studying her phone but looked up as he got there.

  “LX Factory is a real factory! But artists and other people took it over and opened stores and galleries and restaurants. We should go, if your friend’s store is closed.”

  “Sure. You ready?”

  She nodded and stood. “In the morning, I go to church. You can come if you like.”

  “No, I’ll leave that to you.”

  They headed out and picked up a taxi. It only took ten minutes to cross town, but in the heat and with the hilly terrain of the city it would have been a trying walk.

  The neighborhood the taxi took them to was either bohemian or down at heel, or maybe both. The cobbled streets were full of ramshackle buildings with graffiti on the doors and the lower walls, plants growing out of the gutters, ornate iron balconies that looked in danger of breaking free. Most of the buildings looked shut-up, but lines of washing hanging here and there between windows spoke of the families within.

  The store itself was closed. It appeared to sell T-shirts and baseball caps, but there was no sign of life, and no bell to ring. Twenty yards away a young black guy was sitting on a plastic crate outside a doorway, maybe waiting for someone, maybe just waiting.

  Wes walked up to him, showed him the envelope and said, “You know these people?”

  He let his eyes drift languidly over the address, looked up at Wes, and shook his head. He was lying, but that was hardly surprising now that Wes thought of it. Everyone in the area probably knew that the T-shirt store was a front for something else, so they were hardly likely to share information about the proprietor with two strange white people who turned up out of nowhere speaking English.

  Wes walked away before saying, “We’ll have to wait until Monday.”

  “It’s that way.” She pointed, and he realized she was talking about the LX Factory.

  They set off walking, merging over the last hundred yards or so with other tourists. Wes had seen districts like this in a few different cities around the world, the air of an artists’ collective about the place. It was strange to note that Mia, who usually seemed so alien, looked right at home among the people working and socializing here, whereas Wes didn’t even blend in that well with the tourists walking wide-eyed around the former factory buildings.

  Near the end of their circuit, Mia stopped and stared at a Mexican restaurant, painted with skulls and other Day of the Dead imagery.

  She looked for so long that in the end Wes said, “You wanna go in and eat?”

  That broke the spell. She shook her head and started walking again, and she kept walking right through the gate and along the street until she noticed a taxi for hire. He didn’t know what had disturbed her, but she didn’t say anything about it on the ride back, and didn’t mention the LX Factory again.

  Apart from going to church early the following morning, Mia didn’t show much desire to leave the hotel again either, and he wondered if that, too, was a response to the macabre paintings outside the Mexican restaurant. Instead, they spent both afternoons sitting on the modernist white terraces of the sky bar looking out over the city and down to the port. They ate in the rooftop restaurant and then returned to the sky bar, which became livelier still after nightfall.

  This was a hipster crowd, though more upmarket than the one they’d encountered at the factory. And once again, he was struck by the fact that Mia looked as if she belonged, like she might be an artist or a musician or a fashion designer. Wes knew that he was the one who didn’t fit in so easily—he guessed people would be more likely to assume he was Mia’s bodyguard than her boyfriend.

  It was a pleasant way to spend a couple of days, and Wes knew it would be confusing Sam Garvey and everyone else. By now they might have worked out that he’d been in Granada and Seville, and they’d be expecting him to turn up in Madrid and getting more nervous with each day that he failed to show. If that had been the only element to consider he’d have been quietly satisfied, but it wasn’t.

  On Sunday afternoon as they sat looking out over the city and a dazzling blue sky, a family group came out onto one of the terraces below them, including a woman carrying a small boy. Wes didn’t have much experience with children and could only guess that the little boy was around the same age as Ethan.

  He became instantly agitated, wanting to go back to the T-shirt store right then, even though he knew it was pointless. And he had to tell himself that Ethan was fine. Rachel had put a lot of thought into hiding him away somewhere, and it would have been with people she could trust. Wherever he was, Ethan wasn’t waiting to be rescued, to be saved by his unknown father, and yet still Wes could not quieten his unease, or dispel the notion that he was wasting crucial time as he sat there.

  Twenty-Four

  It was mid-morning on Monday when they took a taxi back to the T-shirt store. The young black guy was still sitting on his plastic crate a few doors along, looking like he hadn’t moved. Three teens were standing outside the store, smoking, laughing, and joking with each other but falling silent as Wes and Mia got out of the car.

  They were partly blocking the door, and one of them looked insolently at Wes but seemed to have second thoughts and shuffled aside as Wes approached. The store didn’t look open, but when he pushed the door it yielded and set a bell ringing.

  A woman came out of a back room and smiled, speaking to them in Portuguese.

  “Hi.” He held the envelope up. “We’re looking for Michel.”

  She nodded but the smile fell away. She called over her shoulder into the back room, a name Wes didn’t quite catch, and then strolled over and sat behind the counter.

  A young black guy sauntered out, filling the doorframe. He was wearing a T-shirt with a close-up of a snarling Rottweiler on it, the material taut where it was stretched over his muscles—Wes couldn’t remember ever
seeing anyone with bigger biceps than this guy.

  Wes said, “You speak English?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t look friendly and didn’t seem inclined to leave the doorway into the back room.

  “Are you Michel?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I have a letter, for Michel, from a friend.”

  Wes held it up for him to see. The guy said something in Portuguese to the woman and she came out from behind the counter, took the letter from Wes, and then handed it over. Wes wasn’t sure if it was a power play or if he didn’t want to leave that doorway—maybe he was just a minder for Michel.

  He pointed at Wes now and said, “You, wait there.” He smiled, mocking. “Buy some T-shirts.”

  Once he’d left them, Wes turned to Mia, who was looking expectant and confused.

  “He wants us to buy T-shirts?”

  “No, he was joking.” Mia didn’t look convinced. “It wasn’t a very good joke. He was trying to show that he’s big and he’s not afraid of me, that I should be afraid of him, all that crazy macho stuff.”

  “Will they help?”

  “I guess it depends what Patrice wrote in the letter.”

  He heard movement and turned back to the door. The guy was there again, without the letter, and with a completely transformed demeanor.

  “Hey man, sorry about being cagey and all. You know, we have to be careful. You’re Wes, right?”

  “Yeah, and this is my friend Mia.”

  “Cool. I’m Rocco. Michel says to come on through. Can I get you a drink or anything?”

  “We’re good, thanks.”

  Rocco nodded, offered a real if slightly humble smile, and gestured for them to follow. They walked along a corridor stacked with boxes of stock, then through into an office that was equally cluttered. A man was sitting behind a desk, talking on the phone, but smiling and waving them in, gesturing to the chairs facing him.

  He ended the call, then beamed and reached over to shake Wes’s hand.

  “So good to meet you, Wes. Any friend of Patrice is most welcome here. I’m Michel.” He turned toward Mia, hand still outstretched.

  “This is Mia. She doesn’t like to be touched.”

  “But of course.”

  Mia added matter-of-factly, “It’s not because you’re black.”

  Michel laughed and Wes turned to her and said, “He knows that.”

  But Michel said, “Not always true, Wes. I can see your friend is kind, but some people, they see only the color of your skin.” Wes nodded, accepting the point. “Now, before we talk, what can I do for you?”

  Wes took the list from his pocket and handed it across the desk. Michel opened it and looked.

  “Just magazines, no hardware?”

  Clearly there was no concern on Michel’s part about being under surveillance.

  “No, just ammunition.”

  “And the lock-picking, just manual or electronic too?”

  “If you have electronic, I’ll take it.”

  “I have the best.” He held out the list and Rocco took it from him and left the room. “Now, how is Patrice?”

  “He’s well. It’s a nice modern prison. He paints, he reads his bible, keeps fit. I think he’s happy.”

  “He has a big heart. A good man.” Michel shrugged, as if acknowledging that not everyone would agree with that description. “We’ll have a big party on the day of his release.”

  “How do you know him, Michel?”

  “I was in God’s Own Army too. Very junior, so for me came rehabilitation, not prison.”

  Michel was overweight and looked older than Patrice, at least in his forties, but Wes wondered now if he was actually younger. But then, it had been clear from the few stories Patrice had shared that his position within God’s Own Army hadn’t been earned through seniority.

  “And why did you come here? Why not France?”

  Michel raised his arms and smiled. “Why would you not come here? It’s beautiful, no?” But then he shrugged a little. “We did many bad things, and in France, there are survivors. So . . .”

  Wes nodded, understanding. It was better for people like Michel to live far away from the people who might recognize him in the street, point, accuse him of barbarity and the kind of crimes most people did not want to think about.

  A bell sounded faintly in the distance, and then light running footsteps coming closer before a small boy burst into the office, knocking on the door only as he was already through it.

  Michel laughed and spoke rapidly to the boy, possibly in Portuguese though Wes couldn’t be sure. The boy nodded and spoke back, still trying to catch his breath.

  Michel looked at Wes now. “You go with him. He’ll take you to see a friend of Patrice. You know, we all miss him. We’ll have such a party on the day of his release.” He nodded to himself. “Yes, you go with the boy. His name is Cristiano, like the football player! And when you come back, everything will be ready.”

  The boy was already back at the door, bursting with energy, urging them to follow. Wes and Mia went with him, out of the shop and turning up a nearby street. He kept running ahead, then waiting, calling them on.

  And then as they turned another corner, Wes caught the unmistakable scent of orange blossom and immediately thought of Rachel. The memory of her made him wish he’d never seen that postcard.

  During his time in prison he’d long accepted that he would never see her again, never speak with her again. It had taken the news of her death to show that up as the lie he’d been telling himself. The sense of loss had been growing steadily since, to the point where now he felt her absence painfully. He could smell orange blossom, just as she had in Seville, and there was a terrible emptiness in not being able to share that with her.

  Twenty-Five

  The boy led them into a narrower street and then through a door into a garden courtyard at the back of a house. Four trees provided dappled shade for the entire courtyard. There were more children, and two women sitting at a large table preparing food. One was older and wearing traditional African dress, the other—presumably the mother of the children—was dressed in Western style.

  They smiled and spoke a greeting, but then a rotund man stepped out of the house, smiling broadly.

  “Please, welcome.” There were more chairs in a small circle closer to the house and he waved his hands toward them. “You are Wes?”

  “Yeah, and this is Mia.”

  The man bowed his head to Mia, as if he sensed her otherness even without being told, then shook Wes warmly by the hand.

  “I am Emmanuel. Please, sit. You are welcome, always.”

  “Emmanuel? Patrice’s friend from his village?”

  “Yes.”

  They sat, but Wes stared at the man, mesmerized. For one thing, he yet again looked older than Patrice, and yet Wes knew they were about the same age. But he’d also assumed that Emmanuel hadn’t survived. He thought back to that story Patrice had told, their baptism of fire. Wes had asked what had become of Emmanuel and Patrice had told him he hadn’t ended up in prison. Wes laughed at his own misunderstanding, at the possibility Patrice had deceived him intentionally.

  “Please excuse. My English is not so good, but Patrice, he is . . . ?”

  “He’s very well. He’s happy.”

  Emmanuel nodded, still smiling, but with tears in his eyes, the only indication of the enormity of the history between him and Patrice.

  A pretty girl of about ten came out of the dark of the house carrying a tray with three glasses of lemonade on it. She approached Mia first.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” said the girl, then moved on to Wes and finally Emmanuel.

  They all sipped at their drinks, cold and sharp and refreshing, and then Wes said, “Are these children all yours, Emmanuel?”

  “No, no. The girl and boy there, they are from Michel. The other three, all mine—Cristiano you already met.” He gestured to the table. “My wife. My wife’s
mother. They prepare food. You will eat with us.”

  Even as Wes made ready to reply, Mia said, “Thank you. Will it be African food?”

  “Oh, some African, some Portuguese.”

  “Thank you.”

  Wes looked at Emmanuel, as happy in his own way as Patrice was, though carrying something darker in those smiling eyes.

  “How did you come here, Emmanuel? Patrice told me about how you were captured by God’s Own Army, but . . . did you come when Michel came?”

  “No, I come a long time before. Michel came because I am here already.” He looked out at the children playing among the trees of the courtyard, then across at his wife and mother-in-law, working quietly. “Patrice was always stronger. In the body, a little, but in the head, very strong. He always protected me. Many times. He became more powerful and he believed because we all believed, but he always kept me close, and when bad things must be done . . . he always protected me. When we were seventeen, already, Patrice became the big leader. And he sent me away. Yes, he sent me away. He believed, but I think already, he began to understand, the things we believed, the things we did, they were not truly God’s way. He wanted me to go away, to live. And I came here. God has blessed me. But Patrice—he was God’s messenger.”

  “We are all God’s messengers.”

  Wes turned to look at Mia, who’d been listening rapt and had spoken with a simple certainty he envied.

  Emmanuel nodded, slightly bewitched by Mia, and said, “Yes, it’s true. We need to be open to the message.”

  Wes looked between the two of them, conscious that he was the only one not hearing any message at all.

  He had to admit to himself, too, that he’d always felt some kind of moral superiority over Patrice and some of the others, General Pavić among them. They had done terrible, barbaric things, whereas even the worst of Wes’s actions had been sanctioned at the highest level by a democratic government.

  Not only was he less sure now of the difference between their crimes, but there was also this other side to it, the love these people here in Lisbon felt for a man who the world viewed, with good reason, as a monster. Who would speak for Wes in such a way? One person, maybe, and she had died for it.