Human Solutions

by Avi Silberstein

  “You’ve got enough money to get you somewhere?” I asked. We were standing beside the car, outside of his friend’s house. “Just until things blow over.”

  Tibor nodded. “I’ll go to the bank tomorrow morning and then straight to the airport and on a plane to—”

  I held up a hand to interrupt him. “It’s better if I don’t know where.”

  “You saved my life,” Tibor said. “ Thank you.” He opened his arms and pulled me into a hug.

  “We did it all of us together,” I said, gesturing towards the car.

  “Now, go get that boy home to his mother,” Tibor said.

  It was dinnertime when we arrived at Elena’s apartment, and we were all ready to stretch our legs. We piled out of the car and into the lobby. Claudio waved at the doorman, and he let us in. Claudio’s excitement was infectious, and I found myself full of an anticipation and eagerness that was probably not unrelated to Elena.

  When Elena opened the door and found her son standing there, she let out a gasp. She swept Claudio up into her arms and kissed the top of his head.

  “My baby,” she said, her voice breaking.

  When Elena finally let go, her face was streaked with tears. She looked up and came over to embrace me. I was waiting for an airport hug, but what I got was less than that—something like a ten-year high school-reunion hug.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she said. I could feel her wet cheeks through my shirt.

  Elena pulled away and went over to hug Julio and Rodolfo. She ushered us into the apartment.

  “We’ve interrupted your dinner,” Julio said, gesturing at the table.

  “Oh,” Elena said. She blushed, and, just as I noticed that the table was set for two, there was a flush from the bathroom, and the door swung open. A man walked out, and Claudio hurried over to him. The man let out an exclamation—he picked up Claudio and hugged him tightly.

  “That’s Claudio’s father,” Elena said. She wouldn’t look at me, and I felt very tired all of a sudden.

  “Eduardo,” the man said, coming over to vigorously shake all of our hands. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “We’ve both been so heartbroken,” Elena said, looking at Julio. “Eduardo’s been such a great help, and it seems that we’re going to make another go at it. For Claudio’s sake.”

  It would take hardly any work to break them up. I had a student who would play the perfect temptress, or one who could play a love child—there was any number of Manipulations I could run.

  “Javier taught me how to act,” Claudio said to his mother.

  I looked down at the boy, and I realized that I wanted to be nothing like Uncle Peter, nothing like General Pinochet.

  “How can I repay you for this?” Elena said.

  “There’s no need,” I said.

  “Please,” Elena said. “You’ve given us our son back.”

  I looked at Julio and at Rodolfo. I looked at Eduardo, and he nodded eagerly, expectantly. But I had nothing more to say. I had reconstituted a family, brought them together—as an airport does. They were going to be happy, and I was going to be happy for them.

  Julio cleared his throat. “It’s been a long day,” he said.

  Claudio and I said our goodbyes, and he went off to the kitchen with his father. Elena walked us to the door. Julio pulled Rodolfo ahead, to wait for the elevator.

  “Thank you for understanding,” Elena said. She couldn’t look at me, which was just as well, because I couldn’t look at her, either.

  “I’m standing here,” Elena said, “trying to think of how I can cheer you up.”

  “I don’t—”

  She hugged me—tightly—the way people do at Departures. “This is all I can think of,” she said.

  I wanted to thank her, but I didn’t trust my voice. Instead, I hugged her back and thought about her son, who had, indeed, turned out to be a fine actor.

  In the car, Julio put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I need to sleep,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  I felt the same as I had when I got the call from the police about the car accident—like I wanted to snip away at every single tie that bound me to anyone. Julio, snip. Rodolfo, snip. My sister, snip.

  “We can run a Manipulation and have them broken up in two weeks’ time,” Rodolfo said.

  Julio took a hand off the steering wheel to slap Rodolfo’s shoulder.

  “What?” Rodolfo said.

  “I’m taking you home, Javier” Julio said. “But Rodolfo and I are buying you lunch tomorrow.”

  I stared straight ahead.

  “A celebratory lunch!” Julio said, emphatically.

  I wanted to do what I did after the car accident. I wanted to sequester myself at home again. To unplug the phone and let the mail pile up. To build towers out of greasy take-out boxes.

  But what would Anita have to say about that? She would tell me to pick up a cookbook and stop ordering take-out, for one. She would remind me that I was not alone—that there were people out there who, for one reason or another, were determined to be a part of my life. And that I should let them help me—because there are things you can do with help that you just can’t do without.

  I thought then that I might go to lunch with Julio and Rodolfo—maybe to that nice Peruvian restaurant. We would start with an order of ceviche, and as Julio and Rodolfo argued over who was going to win that night’s soccer match, I would notice a woman eating alone at the table next to ours. She would be engrossed in a thick book, and I would look down at her hands. They would be cracked and dirty.

  “Don’t look at my hands,” she would say.

  I would look up, startled.

  “I’m embarrassed,” she would say. “They’re like that from working in the garden.”

  I would twist my chair around to face her. “You have a garden?”

  “Oh yes,” she would say. “Vegetables mostly, but I also have a few fruit trees—apricot and pear.”

  We would chat for a few moments. Her name would be Clara, and she would be a teacher. She would pay her bill and then reach over and give me a piece of paper with her phone number. I would call her the very next day. I would play it clean—no Manipulations, no “giving her a good day,” no making her wait in my waiting room.

  “So?” Rodolfo said. “Lunch?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to that Peruvian place,” I said.

  Julio thumped the steering wheel. “Consider it done!”

  EPILOGUE

  I leaked the story of torture and child abuse at the Colony to several prominent newspapers upon my return to Santiago. Not a single one had the courage to publish a story that might result in repercussions from General Pinochet. Once General Pinochet stepped down from power, however—after a referendum in 1989—the media and the government were no longer forced to turn a blind eye towards Uncle Peter and the Colony.

  The police began investigating a series of allegations that had emerged from a number of sources over the years, and I went to the police station and gave several hours of video-taped testimony. A warrant was issued by a prominent judge in Santiago, seeking to arrest Uncle Peter on charges of torture and child abuse. One morning, a team of police officers stormed through the gates. They searched high and low for Uncle Peter, but he was nowhere to be found. The interrogation room was discovered, and the few men who had made it out alive testified about the heinous acts of violence that had occurred there. The police continued to raid the Colony—more than thirty times over the next several years, but they could never find Uncle Peter.

  Then, two major events sent everything into a tumble. The first occurred in March of 2005. A Chilean reporter had diligently interviewed dozens of colonists until she found some who were willing to cooperate—and one had told her that Uncle Peter made frequent trips to Argentina. The reporter followed a trail of evidence that led her to a small home in an exclusive gated community not far from Buenos Aires. She contacted the local autho
rities, who immediately sent a SWAT team. They swarmed the house and found Uncle Peter lying on a bed in the smallest room in the house. He looked drawn and sickly. Shortly after his arrest, he was extradited to Chile, where he was convicted of child molestation and a series of other charges ranging from tax evasion to murder. He was 86 years old.

  Shortly thereafter, in 2006, only months after Uncle Peter’s sentencing, General Pinochet suffered a heart attack (not his first) and subsequently died of congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema. He had narrowly avoided being convicted of a slew of charges on numerous occasions, and the country issued a collective sigh of relief when newspaper headlines proclaimed his death.

  As for me, I met my Clara. Her name wasn’t Clara—it was Lucía—and we didn’t meet while eating lunch at the Peruvian restaurant but during the intermission of a play. We were in line for refreshments, and I struck up a conversation. Two of my students were in the play, I said, hoping to impress her. It turned out Lucía was the playwright. The lights flickered on and off, and we returned to our seats. I found her after the curtain call and invited her over for tea the next day to continue our conversation. We had carrot muffins—the carrots I had grown in my small backyard. With raisins.

  Last week, Lucía went up north for a week to visit an ailing aunt, and I took the opportunity to visit the Colony—not that it was a Colony anymore, but simply a small town. I drove down the winding road, past the spot where Julio and Rodolfo had waited for me. I could see that the fence around the Colony had been torn down, but, otherwise, much of it seemed to be just as I had remembered it. I walked over to where the dining hall had been—a sign above the door read “La Cocina de Anita.” I stepped inside the busy restaurant and a familiar-looking young woman offered to seat me. I studied her face carefully.

  “Maca?” I said, finally.

  She looked around. “How do you know my name?”

  “It’s me—Javier. You directed my play.”

  Maca’s face lit up. She gave me a hug and held me at arm’s length to look at me. Then there was an exclamation from the kitchen, and Anita came hurrying out.

  “I was sure I’d never see you again,” she said, hugging me. “Look at you.”

  She walked me over to a table by the window. “Now, you have a seat, and I’m going to make you something special,” she said. Maca brought over a pair of menus.

  “No menus,” Anita said.

  Maca returned a few minutes later. She brought with her a pitcher of water and a basket of warm, crusty bread. I filled myself up on bread but still found room to put away a green salad, a bowl of spicy seafood chowder, and a hefty slice of apple strudel.

  “I have to ask,” I said to Maca when she came to clear our plates, “did the colonists like the play?”

  Maca put her stack of plates down on the table. She put a hand on her hip–and, for an instant, I could picture her in that exact same posture, as a child.

  “They didn’t get all of it,” she said, finally. “I’m not sure I did, either. But they gave us a standing ovation. Everyone was so excited. They were all looking for you, but you were gone.”

  Anita came by to ask me if the food was to my liking. I reassured her that I would be returning to her restaurant as soon as I could. By this point, I was the only patron left, and I invited Anita and Maca to sit with me.

  “What happened after I left?” I asked Anita.

  “Uncle Peter told us that you and the goat man had been expelled from the Colony—that he had personally driven you to the seediest, darkest corner of Santiago and pushed you out of the car.”

  I told Anita and Maca what had really happened. In turn, they told me about how things had changed at the Colony after I left. There was a heightened sense of fear and anxiety after General Pinochet was voted out of power. Uncle Peter was away more and more often, and he appointed a Council of Elders to help him run the Colony. Then, one day, he was simply gone. No good-bye, no announcements from the Council of Elders—he was just there one day and gone the next. The Council refused to comment on his absence and tried to maintain the same iron grip that Uncle Peter had, but it was no use.

  “We were not as afraid of them as we were of him,” Maca said.

  Their power continued to dwindle as the police raided the Colony more and more frequently. Shortly after Uncle Peter died, the Council of Elders disbanded, and the police tore down the fence that surrounded the Colony. Many Colonists fled instantly—others decided to stick around and try to create a serviceable town.

  “The fields were all laid out, after all,” Anita said. “The buildings were built, and the fruit trees were mature. There was no reason to walk away from all the hard work that had gone into this place.”

  With some help from the Chilean government, the Colony became incorporated as a town. They thought long and hard as to what to name it—finally, they decided on Río Pilón–the name of the river I had tumbled into as Santa Claus.

  “They’ve brought in psychologists and doctors and social workers and God knows what else,” Maca said. “To fix us. Anita and I are fine, but some of the others are not.”

  I nodded. I avoided asking about Ernesto—I was afraid of the answer I would get. The door to the restaurant swung open, and a young couple walked in. Maca excused herself, and Anita stood up.

  “Come back soon, okay?” she said, hugging me tightly. I remembered the morning that I had cried in her arms.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  I left the restaurant and slowly walked down the street. I looked up and saw that the library had been painted a different colour and the sign altered to indicate that it was a public library, but the building was otherwise unchanged. I went inside, and a young man came eagerly around to the front of his desk to shake our hands.

  “You must be new to town,” he said. “Or you’re visiting?”

  “I’m looking for Ernesto,” I said.

  The young man looked down. “Ernesto’s the one who taught me how to be a librarian,” he said. “Ever since I was a little boy, I remember coming into the library to listen to him tell us stories.”

  I was afraid to ask the young man anything, so I let him continue.

  “When I was old enough,” he said, “Ernesto brought me in to learn how to be a librarian.”

  “You’re the librarian now.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the young man. “Ernesto passed away last year.”

  A part of me folded up into smaller and smaller squares, until it was gone.

  “If you’d like to visit his grave,” the young man said, “it’s in the cemetery.”

  I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak any more—not for some time. I began walking. The dirt road became grass, and I made my way up the gentle slopes of the cemetery. My feet remembered their way to Angela’s grave. It was a little more overgrown but otherwise the same as it was the day Ernesto and I had walked here. I read the inscription on it: “Our ship … ” I thought of them boarding a ship in Seville. The grave beside Angela’s—the one that was empty last time I was here—was now filled. It read, “Ernesto Cardozo 1910–2004.”

  And then, below that: “… has sailed.”