Silent Island

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Silent Island Page 20

by Pablo Poveda


  I hit him again. He screamed. I had broken his nose, and he bled more profusely.

  “Stop,” shouted Rojo. “You’re going to kill him!”

  I was covered in blood from different sources. Dry blood that hardened and got darker, sticking to my skin, fresh blood from the police officer splattered on my limbs. I was a monster, a fucking monster.

  I hit him again. The police officer lay on the floor, without emitting the slightest noise.

  Rojo got up and snatched the crow bar from me before I hit the policeman one last time.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked enraged. “Look what you’ve done!”

  “I had no alternative,” he said, serene. “That was the only way out. Come on, we must find the rest.”

  “Is he alive?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Rojo kicked the man on the floor. “He seems unconscious but might be pretending.”

  I picked up the taser gun from the floor, pointed it to the man’s genitals, and discharged it on his privates. The man resuscitated with his eyes wide open, shouting his lungs out and begging for mercy. I roasted his balls; he deserved it.

  “You’re lucky you’re still alive, son of a bitch,” I said and spat on his face. He lost consciousness. We picked up two of the monkey masks from the floor. We undressed the three men, put on the chauffeur’s clothes and the dead police officer’s, and wiped the blood off of our bodies with the clothes of the one who remained alive.

  “I don’t know what awaits us on the other side,” Rojo said, standing in front of the door. “Up to this point, our only concern is to make it out of this alive.”

  “Understood.”

  “Do as you must. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

  I did not understand what he meant but nodded like an obeying puppy.

  The door was open, and in the distance, I could hear the waves in the ocean breaking against the rocks and music from the town.

  Rojo pushed the door, and we adventured into the island.

  17

  Darkness, tombstones, and graves orderly arranged in rows, barely separated by a few centimeters, filled the space around us. We left the warehouse and oriented ourselves with the glare of a moon that lit up the way for us. There was nobody there; nothing could be heard, not even the murmur of animals. The music, proper of a carnival or town party, came from the other side of the island, where the houses were.

  “What is this?” Rojo wondered. “What are we doing here?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Let’s go toward the music.”

  We got out of there and followed a dirt path, often tripping with the rocks that stood in our way, listening to the ocean nearby, and speculating why we were there. I was afraid. I felt the fear in my body, the same way I felt the humidity chilling to the bone. The night breeze, devoid of any sun warmth, slapped my face, stained and dirty, and my hair ruffled, stuck, and stiff. The blood that covered my skin became crusty and scratchy and stung my body. Rojo was going through the same. He did not say anything. He would rather keep it to himself, but both of us were suffering it.

  “I’ll rinse this off,” he said. “Fuck, I can’t stand it anymore.”

  Near an abandoned watchtower, we climbed down a rocky path that led to a cove of rocks and dry algae. We stripped ourselves naked in the dark. Rojo ran into the water and shrieked.

  “Fuck!” he complained. “It’s freezing!”

  “What did you expect?” I asked with irony and followed him. I felt the water in my feet, then in my knees. It was indeed so cold that it felt like thousands of needles stinging in my skin. “My balls.”

  We rinsed the dry blood with the saltwater of the ocean. The injuries caused by the beatings awoke with nearly unbearable pain. When we got out of the water, the air felt colder. We shivered like two chicks who have barely come out of the shell. Rojo picked up his shirt and dried himself with it. He carried a spare shirt he had taken from one of those thugs. He passed it to me.

  “It’s better than nothing,” he said. “We’d better get dressed. We’ll catch pneumonia.”

  Almost totally clean, I admit I felt much better. Relieved. I felt as though I had gotten rid of an enormous burden — more emotional than physical — that now floated adrift in the vastness of the ocean. Still wet, I got dressed again. The damp fabric adhered to my skin like a piece of rolling paper. We climbed the slope again and resumed our walk to the docks. We arrived in an area full of closed restaurants, a tourist beach, the docks, and small boats that were marooned by the shore. The music blasted much louder and welcomed us to join the celebration in the town.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I asked Rojo before crossing a stone arch that functioned as threshold to the town.

  “None,” he replied.

  We heard people speaking, conversations, laughter, and utterances of joy.

  “This must be the town’s fair,” I deduced. “This doesn’t strike me as a ritual.”

  Almost totally clean, I admit I felt much better. Relieved. I felt as Rojo looked at me. He scratched a speck of dry blood off his hand. There was no way to pretend everything was alright after what we had just gone through. We had just left a storehouse with two dead bodies and an unconscious man lying on the floor. Two men that he had killed next to two tanks full of blood, out of which we had come out. Two men who had left the celebration — God knows when — wearing monkey masks.

  “Make sure your gun is loaded.”

  * * *

  We walked in the dark, covering our faces behind the masks, looking at the entrances of the houses. The first fright was seeing a couple wearing masks. They were young and drunk. Rojo signaled them to me, but they did not look dangerous. The young man kissed the girl and took off her mask; they walked through some entrance. He mumbled something about eating, and she responded that she would not be making breakfast for him.

  We kept walking down the street until we found the town square, where some musicians played music from the nineties in a gazebo, dressed as Spiderman and Catwoman. The music group was cheesy and cheap, but people did not mind, for the square was full of people who danced clad in their costumes; their only concern being to have a good time with alcohol and companionship.

  The music blasting from the speakers prevented us from hearing anything. At one of the corners of the square was the church of the island and its bell tower. The street led to a walled beach, from where a few rocks could be spotted in the ocean. I walked along with Rojo, and a girl began to dance next to me. Her legs were pretty and well-shaped. Her face was covered in a dog mask. She moved around me, inviting me to dance along with her, but that was not the reason I was there. We walked to the other stone arch that connected the square with the other exits of the island.

  “We’re wasting our time,” said Rojo, visibly upset because of the music. “Think Gabriel, think!”

  He shook me by the shoulder. We had no idea what we were doing, nor who we were supposed to find. Had all that been a joke? It was not possible. Cornelius and Violeta must be there; they could not have just left. I tried to recall to no avail what the men were talking about at the storehouse.

  “They have to be here,” I deduced. “I know they are here. We have to find the damn house.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Rojo replied. “What makes you think they are at a house? We have only a few hours before dawn. The party will have finished by then.”

  “Hold on,” — I saw a column of white smoke behind Rojo and recalled the chauffeur’s last words — “What is that smell?”

  “Someone’s roasting sardines,” he said. “Are you hungry now?”

  “No!” I ran to the arch. Standing on one of the rocks, I saw a fire in the distance. “It’s them, Rojo. There they are.”

  I could see nothing but the glare of the bonfire, a column of white smoke that stood out in the middle of the night and rose to the sky. They had chosen a far enough location to go unnoticed. The smell of roasted sardines would not attract
drunken fishermen who danced to the music of the town’s orchestra.

  We reached the shore and got into the water. The tide provided a hideout while the waves crushed us against the rocks. The taser guns were ruined, just like everything else we carried on us. I climbed in silence and helped Rojo to get up. The wet clothes turned us cumbersome. Again, the chilling sensation that penetrated deep into the bones. I shivered out of cold and fear, impatient to know what was happening, and at the same time, for not being able to prevent it.

  When we had cleared the rocks in the water, we went back onto the beach and crawled among the vegetation; I was able to see the same boat that had brought me there the first time. There it was, marooned, awaiting the arrival of a man who would never return. As we approached, we felt the heat radiated by the pyre. The smoke made it difficult to breathe. Why did they need to make a bonfire? Were they not concerned about the attention they might draw to themselves? It must be part of the ritual, I deduced. Then I saw Violeta’s face. Her hair tied back in a ponytail, and she wielded a gun in her hand. By her feet, a tiger mask crumpled on the floor. She wore Spartan sandals and a black nightgown. She was aiming the gun at someone in front of her, but I could not see them.

  “It’s Violeta,” I whispered at Rojo. “She’s armed.”

  “Shit,” said Rojo behind me. “I had better go around them.”

  “Are you crazy?” I answered. “She’ll kill you.”

  “No,” he replied. “Cause you are going to stop her.”

  “You think too highly of me.”

  I tripped and lost my balance. I tried to hold on to the rock that hid me, but I just managed to make matters worse and staggered several meters forward, falling to Violeta’s feet. The fire burned my face. There were, indeed, charred sardines in the fire. On the other side were Blanca and Cornelius. He was terrified, his hands and feet tied, but his mouth ungagged. Blanca was much thinner than I recalled, her skin was tanned, and she looked sad and void of life. She was the exact opposite of her usual self.

  “Well, well, well. Look what we’ve got here,” exclaimed Violeta, looking down on and aiming at me with the weapon. “You? How did you get here?”

  I looked behind me, but it was dark, and Rojo had probably disappeared.

  “What is he doing here?” Cornelius asked, sitting on the sand.

  “Gabriel?” Blanca uttered. Her voice was broken. “Is that you?”

  “Where is the other?” Violeta interrogated me while aiming her gun.

  “There is no one else,” I replied. “I’m here by myself.”

  She looked at me intently; her eyes radiated hatred. Then she looked at her watch. She raised her gun, aimed at Cornelius, and pulled the trigger.

  A thunder resonated. Cornelius fell to the ground. He was not dead, though; the bullet had merely gone through his shoulder.

  “Fuck!” he yelled. “Bitch!”

  “The next bullet will go straight to your skull,” said Violeta, addressing me. Blanca seemed completely absent from what was happening around her. “I’m afraid your friend won’t have a villain to imprison.”

  “I told you I’m here by myself.” I said, trembling. “But you can stop the bloodshed.”

  From her handbag, she pulled out a silencer. She attached it to the gun muzzle and approached Cornelius. She looked at me.

  “Please don’t!” Cornelius shouted. His expression was that of a newborn or an elderly man facing death. “I’ll give you all the money I collected. I swear! Don’t do it, Violeta!”

  “This will be your cross to bear for the rest of your life,” she said to me a few meters away. “The solution was in your hands, Gabriel.”

  She was about to shoot when a stone came out of nowhere, hitting Violeta in the arm.

  “What the fuck?” she uttered. Rojo came into the scene, appearing from the dark, and pounced at her with all his strength. From the town square, fireworks detonated and rose to the sky. Pyrotechnic flowers illuminated the island while Rojo and Violeta struggled on the ground. The gun fell on the sand near Blanca.

  “Don’t!” I shouted at her, but she would not listen. Blanca grabbed the gun and aimed it at Cornelius. “Don’t do it, Blanca!”

  Enraged, she held the gun with both hands.

  Cornelius laughed.

  “You can’t shoot me,” he shouted. “You are nothing but a whore! You don’t have the guts to kill me! You need me!”

  Violeta kicked Rojo in the crotch and got up with her face covered in blood, snatched the gun from Blanca’s hands, and unloaded three bullets in Cornelius’s head.

  His body fell on his back, his eyes turned white, and a crimson puddle sprung from his head.

  “Get on the boat and start the motor!” she ordered Blanca. Rojo was recovering from the pain. “All men are the same. Who wants to be next?”

  “Shoot me, come on!” Rojo said. “I know you want it. You, all of you. You took my wife. You convinced her that I was the poison in our relationship and robbed our baby of his mother. You took her away from me, and since then, I haven’t done anything but look for her... but I’m tired.”

  “She made her own decision,” Violeta answered. “She had her motives.”

  “Kill me,” he repeated. “Shoot me! Come on! You think you are so powerful? Take away this burden from my shoulders. Shoot me!”

  Blanca approached the boat and started the motor.

  Violeta aimed her gun at both of us intermittently.

  “Why, Gabriel?” Violeta addressed me. “What is in it for you? What are you getting from this?”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” I uttered. “You had Estrella killed.”

  “I had no choice,” she responded, proud of herself. “I could not afford to lose Sasha just yet, and Estrella was expendable.”

  “Why Blanca?” I asked. “Why her?”

  “She is just what we need,” she replied. “After her initiation, her broken heart can turn into stone.”

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  The muscles of her hands stiffened.

  “What is rightfully ours,” she said decidedly, aiming the weapon at me. “Freedom. Goodbye, Gabriel.”

  I took a deep breath, my lungs paralyzed, and my muscles tensed. Suddenly, a force took her out of my sight. Blanca had charged at her and thrown her to the floor. Rojo stood up and grabbed her by the neck.

  “Where is my wife?” he shouted, holding her with one hand.

  “Are you alright?” Blanca asked me, looking me in the eye, and offering me her hand. She had saved my life. I stood up and kissed her on the lips. I held her nape, and she surrounded my waist with her lips. We embraced, and I felt the slight tremor of sobbing and helplessness.

  People from the town had noticed what was going on, and someone had called for help on the radio; a police boat approached the island a full throttle.

  Unexpectedly, Violeta was able to perform a lock on Rojo and threw him into the water. His body sank in the middle of a whirlpool of foam and bubbles.

  “Rojo!” I shouted.

  “Halt! Police!” a civil guard shouted from the deck of the incoming boat while he aimed a beam from his lamp. “Don’t move!”

  Violeta grabbed the gun from the floor, introduced the barrel in her mouth, and shot before anyone could stop her. A red explosion came out of her crown. A mix of bone shards, blood, and brains was scattered on the sand like someone had tripped and spilled a bowl of cereal.

  Violeta had taken her life in order to protect her secret. The only thing that mattered.

  Rojo came out of the water, crawling and exhausted.

  The townspeople had begun to arrive.

  The police and paramedics assisted us.

  Everything seemed to be over.

  And we just wanted to get off that island.

  18

  The investigation was closed and filed. The news media took notice of the events, and several national newspapers stood in line to buy the rights to the story. I compiled the materi
al I had found on Blanca’s computer and wrote a first-hand journalistic account for which I pocketed an appetizing amount. Rojo recovered from his wounds at the hospital, but the ones that afflicted him had a cure elsewhere. He took a vacation with his son in the mountains, far from the ocean and everything that related to it.

  On my side, I cleaned the apartment where I used to live and found another one, leaving the memories, and recent events behind, taking only Coltrane with me.

  Blanca returned to Madrid. I was not sure what to do with my life. After having my statement taken and paying the rent, I accompanied her to the train station in Alicante.

  “You can come to visit me whenever you want,” she pointed, sad. “There is a house for you in Madrid that awaits you with open arms... and a friend.”

  I held her chin when I saw a tear rolling down her cheek and looked her in the eye. I kissed her lips, and she corresponded with a long kiss.

  “We can get along,” I said, “you know, as long as we don’t mix business and pleasure.”

  “Take it easy,” she responded. “I’ll be away from this for some time. I don’t think this is for me.”

  “Don’t say that,” I replied. “You’re an exceptional reporter and will go very far.”

  “We’ll see,” she said. “Sometimes, we obsess over with the goal that we forget to remain in touch with the world around us.”

 

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