The Heart Tastes Bitter

by Victor del Arbol

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said, stepping out into his path and pressing a hand into his chest.

  Ian gave him a perplexed look. Not one of surprise, or fear, or doubt. Perplexed, as if the hand on his chest were a bug, an insect that had just fallen from the roof and landed on his sweatshirt.

  ‘I’m Aroha’s father. I’ve seen the tape. And you’re going to tell me where my daughter is right now.’

  From up close the kid’s expression was glassy. Vague and unreadable.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  He didn’t move a muscle — not even a twitch — his features betrayed nothing. Nothing but a quick blink from the raindrops in his eyebrows and lashes.

  Arthur took a deep breath. Breathe. Breathe, he told himself. Stay in control, or you’ll lose everything. If Ian had ever had a heart, it was now dead and buried. That’s what he saw in the boy’s eyes, after he turned to the street and then looked back at Arthur.

  ‘I don’t know anyone named Aroha.’

  Arthur clenched his knuckles, full of rage. He wrapped his hands around the kid’s neck and slammed him into the store’s shutters. The impact sent the water that had been pooling on the awning crashing down on them.

  ‘I’ll kill you here and now if you don’t tell me where she is, you little fucker.’

  Ian looked totally undaunted. He gazed into Arthur’s eyes. And then Arthur felt the cold metal of a small .22-calibre pistol against his neck. He heard Ian cock it right beside his ear.

  ‘Let. Me. Go. Now,’ the kid said, still unruffled.

  Arthur released the pressure on Ian’s neck but still kept hold of him. Ian himself stepped back, turning his head side to side like a boxer, before slipping the weapon back into the pocket of his sweatshirt.

  ‘Did you think you were going to catch me off guard? You’ve been following me for days. Asking about me, my mother, my father. You even took one of my girls to the cops. No skin off my back, though; she’s already run away again — came running back to me like they all do. Like your daughter did.’

  ‘I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch. I will.’

  Ian began to laugh. It was an innocent laugh, clean and pure as a baby being baptised.

  ‘Maybe she’s already dead and buried. And you’d never find her body. You’d have no place to mourn her death. Or maybe she’s still alive and wondering which is better, life with you or what I offer her. You’d have to live with that.’

  ‘I’ll rip that smile off your face. I know how to make it last, and make it hurt.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ian acknowledged. His gaze was cold and distant, like the reflection of a frozen river. And then he sauntered off as if nothing had happened, as if he and a random passer-by had just accidentally bumped into one another.

  Arthur stood there on the sidewalk watching Ian’s back, his camouflage sweatshirt, the leather bag strapped diagonally across it. He watched him blend into the crowd like everybody else, anonymous, as though his backstory was of no interest to anyone. When Arthur finally reacted, Ian had already disappeared and he was drenched. Rain was falling on his red hair, now a muddy brown, bouncing off his head into a thousand tiny droplets. People regarded him as though he were insane.

  He began to walk very slowly, as if he’d been given some sort of paralysis-inducing drug that had numbed his legs. As if he were walking in a thick, foggy dream. He got into his car and for several minutes watched the rain beat down on his misty front windshield. Under his seat was a flask, a gift from his employees for his fortieth birthday. He hadn’t touched a drop of liquor in fourteen years. He thought he’d never want it. But now there it was, loaded like a pistol, under his seat, waiting for him.

  He took a long swig, drinking until he had to stop for a breath and his throat began to burn. He coughed, accidentally spitting a little alcohol onto his clothes.

  He wished he were dead. Or maybe that wasn’t it exactly. At that minute, leaning back against the seat, being alive seemed like a lot of work. He wondered what to do, what to tell Andrea, what to tell the police. He wondered why his whole life had turned to shit, just like that. He was a coward, that much was clear. A coward who didn’t accept responsibility for his actions. That’s the way it had always been. He’d always decided what to do, who to love, how to live, and with whom. He’d ruined his chance to be a poet, screwed up his marriage, and now he’d lost his daughter. Aroha hated him for everything he’d done to her mother, and to her.

  She was too smart and sensitive not to realise what kind of guy her father was. A coward. And she couldn’t stand it. That’s why she ran away, that’s why she got into trouble, flunked school — to punish him, to make him feel some of the pain he inflicted on others. He’d learned his lesson, he truly had. That’s what he now told himself, letting out a nervous sob. He wanted to tell her. Sit her down and ask her forgiveness. Forgive me, daughter. Please come home.

  The sky exploded with a deafening thunderclap. Arthur started his engine and the windshield wipers began sweeping back and forth. And then, right then, he saw Ian on the other side of the street, standing beside a bridal boutique, waiting for the light to change. He saw him through a small clear spot in the steamy windshield, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. Had his defroster taken a little longer to start working, had he not turned on his wipers at exactly the right time, he’d have missed him. But there he was, dead ahead. And destiny was calling.

  His thinking was clouded, he was drunk. That’s what Diana had told him to say when he called her a few hours later from the local police station where he’d been detained. ‘Don’t make a statement until the lawyers get there; I’ll take care of everything.’

  Diana always took care of everything, she did it fourteen years ago and she’d done it countless times since, whenever alcohol got him into trouble. She cleaned up the shit he left in his wake.

  Guzmán walked around the desk and stood before a bookshelf full of commercial law tomes. Hands on his back, he glanced along the shelves. He was buying time, gathering information, formulating questions.

  ‘It worked out well for you. Manslaughter charge, blood alcohol level as an attenuating circumstance. Diana’s a smart lady. Four to five years instead of fifteen — not bad. But you made a stupid move. You let your self-interest and ego get the best of you, let an unflappable snot-nosed kid get the best of you, and when you did, you closed the only open door you had — the only way to find your daughter.’

  ‘That wasn’t the only door. There was still the third man, the shirtless one.’

  ‘Dámaso, of course. He told me about the film club he and Olsen belonged to. Thanks to Olsen, he got Sir Ian Mackenzie, the famous director, to give a few esteemed talks, which his promising young son often attended. A few months before Aroha disappeared, Ian Mackenzie stopped attending the club’s meetings. His commitments were going to take him to Australia to direct a new film. By then, Olsen was a regular at his house. Before he went abroad, the boy’s father went to see Dámaso, in secret. He explained that, as a child, his son had been diagnosed with some sort of mental illness. He didn’t go into details, didn’t tell him what kind of disorder it was. But he mentioned, with concern, that he’d been on neuroleptic meds since he was thirteen, had spent time in several clinics — always very hush-hush — in Switzerland and England. Though he was lazy by nature, for some reason he showed great enthusiasm for anything relating to the world of cinema. Obsessed over it, in fact — and that was a good thing, as far as his father was concerned. It kept him busy and away from all his father’s business concerns. So his father had asked the old man to introduce his son to the club’s more private group, and to keep an eye on him. And Dámaso did. Just as he’d been asked.’

  Guzmán remained pensive, tapping his lips with an index finger.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it? His father wanted to protect his son and ended up tossing him straight into the
lion’s den without realising. Whoever’s up there writing the screenplay of our lives has a very twisted sense of humour.

  ‘After a few months, Ian junior discovered what Olsen and the old man were doing. It didn’t take long for him to find out that the film club was actually just a cover-up for something much darker. But he didn’t threaten to go to the police, or to shut him down. No. Instead, he actually demanded that they let him participate! He wanted to ‘experiment’ — that was the word he used. Shortly after that, he turned up with Aroha.

  ‘They seemed pretty tight, if you get my meaning. At first, Olsen and the old man didn’t think much of it. The girl seemed just like the rest of them. Ian was a good-looking kid and had the ability to get young hookers — drug addicts, girls living rough — to do whatever he wanted to keep him happy. But Aroha was special. She was educated, sophisticated but irreverent. It was obvious she was in love with Ian. And it was also becoming clear to everyone that she’d been experimenting with drugs and was starting to take things too far. Dámaso didn’t give it much thought until he saw her picture in the paper and realised whose daughter she was, and that she had disappeared. He freaked out and immediately called Olsen. They had a big problem on their hands.’

  Guzmán stopped talking and gave Arthur a marble stare. Arthur returned it with a questioning look.

  ‘What did they do to my daughter?’

  ‘Dámaso doesn’t know. Believe me, if he did he’d have spilled the beans. But I’m starting to have a hunch as to who sent you that tape. Maybe you should start pulling a few more strings.’

  ‘Enough bullshit. I want to know where Aroha is! What did they do to her?’

  Guzmán turned his hand over and examined it like a pet, an ugly little dog you end up becoming quite fond of. He didn’t seem to hear Arthur.

  ‘Take a look at this. A good look. This used to be a hand, a good hand. Now it’s just a tangle of flesh, useless chunks of dermis, epidermis, atrophied nerve endings, and damaged joints.’ Arthur glanced at the shapeless mass without interest. ‘They can make incredibly advanced implants and prosthetics nowadays, using a new material that fits perfectly into the space left by the missing digits. It’s a very effective surgical procedure, but also very expensive, and guess what that means? If I want to get a fake dick and a hand to touch it with, I will have to get something cheaper, something lower quality, and that upsets me. It upsets me not to have a hand as perfect as yours, a penis that’s even minimally functional, you know? You’re the lucky ones, all you guys who smile at the world with your perfect teeth. But here’s the thing. All your trappings — the paintings, the extravagances, the perfect teeth — they’re all just disguises you use to hide behind. It all comes in the blink of an eye, but it can be taken away in the blink of an eye too. And that cycle can be repeated ad infinitum, as often as the gods so choose.’

  ‘Why don’t you just fucking come out and say whatever it is you have to say?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, but you’re not listening. What I’m saying is, this tape changes everything. If the cops were to find it, it would prove you murdered Ian.’ Guzmán spoke calmly, watching through the veil of his half-closed eyes as Arthur trembled pathetically, betraying his fear. ‘If you tell me the truth, we might be able to reach an agreement, you and me, and no one else would have to know.’

  ‘What do you want? More money? Bring Aroha back to me and I’ll give you anything you want. Anything.’

  Guzmán smiled.

  ‘Of course you will, Arthur. Of course.’

  16

  They shouldn’t have been there. It was dangerous and they both knew it. But their desire to be alone together was such that it made them reckless. The murky light from a bare bulb underscored the squalor of their alleyway refuge. Like a pencil underlining the dripping pipes and greasy puddles, the grime and squalor to be found behind Chang’s restaurant.

  Mei was staring vacantly into space. No one could be unmoved by those eyes; indeed, they had been his undoing.

  ‘I never thought it would be like this,’ she whispered.

  ‘What would?’ Mr Who asked, tucking back a lock of her hair that had fallen loose from the scarf covering her head. Mei worked in Chang’s clandestine processing plant, packaging fast food. The old man didn’t give them insurance, made them sleep on mattresses on the floor right next to the packing machinery, and paid them no salary, yet he still made Mei cover her beautiful dark hair with a hairnet and scarf. The world could be a sick place.

  ‘Everything,’ she said, looking down at her hands, which were grazed and raw from the plastic and preservatives. She raised her almond-shaped eyes to him and smiled timidly. Mei had a small mouth and thin lips. It occurred to Mr Who the first time he saw her, that hers was a mouth made to sing sad songs. When Mei had stowed away in a container on a cargo ship headed to a port in Spain, she spent the entire journey consoling the dozens of people who — like her — hid, cowering, some having chosen that route and others having been forced into it. She told them that Spain was a beautiful place where the air was clean and the people were always smiling. The fairy tale calmed many fears; people will believe anything if they need to, and everyone — including her — wanted her words to be true.

  But Heaven’s gates did not open for her.

  In spite of everything, Mei thought she had no right to complain. She worked twenty hours a day, eating and going to the bathroom there in the secret factory. And she’d never be able to pay the debt she owed Chang and the men who had brought her to Europe. She didn’t want to worry Mr Who, but she suspected that she might soon be transferred to another city. She’d heard people talking about a place on the southern coast, in Andalucía, where Chang and his associates were setting up brothels. They’d already moved the youngest and prettiest girls, and although nobody knew exactly where, they all had a pretty good idea.

  And yet still, she couldn’t complain. Her mother used to say that she was the strongest of all her siblings, the oldest and the only one she could trust. When it all comes crumbling down, she used to say, you’ll still be standing — the pillar of the household. She was born under the sign of Ma, the horse. As a little girl she’d always been joyful and optimistic, always confronted problems head-on, with enthusiasm, and that made her popular with the neighbours. Though she no longer felt the keen urge to travel and have a life of adventure, to meet people and prove her worth, she managed to instill a degree of hope in the girls she was locked up with. She had to be strong when others were weak. A proverb from her native land said, The sick are always healed, unless destiny is against them. And she believed in destiny, always and forever, no matter what. The kind of destiny you make for yourself.

  Besides, she had him, Mr Who; he was Mei’s destiny. Maybe it was true what old people said, that you fall in love with your eyes and keep love with routine, but she didn’t want to believe it. Old people were hard and intransigent — their defeats made them that way — but Mei never got tired of contemplating the face that was now just a few centimetres from hers. Before he came along, Mei didn’t believe in the future; she thought only about the next step, the next order, the next minute. But a year later, she liked listening to him promise he was going to get her out of that prison, that he was going to save up money to buy them new passports so they could go back to China and start a new life together, start a family, maybe even start a business. Mr Who had a plan, he always had a plan, and it was easy to believe in his dreams. And even if they were just dreams, he was sincere.

  Mr Who worked toward that goal every single day, asking her to sing him songs, to tell him about her country, and her people. He wanted to put down roots, to learn everything there was to know about being Chinese — which she was and he aspired to be. Mei indulged him without pointing out the contradiction in her having landed in Spain in search of paradise, of a future that she now saw had never existed. It was exactly the same paradise Mr
Who was inventing and would end up discovering was just an illusion in China. But his dreams were something they both shared, more and more, and she was in need of a little hope. A lie is not always the lack of truth — sometimes it’s about clinging to the part of reality you most need in order to keep from going under. So Mei fuelled Who’s fantasies of China, and in exchange she chose to believe that this incredibly beautiful, strangely dressed young man — as sweet and sensitive as a little boy — would be able to wrench her from Chang’s talons.

  That night Mei had decided to go a step further in her dreamy recklessness. In the early evening, old man Chang had burst into the sweatshop and told them to run. It happened every once in awhile. The police would make raids in search of illegal workers, but Chang must have been bribing someone, because he always seemed to know in advance. Fifty or so women on the floor scrambled out, and only the half-a-dozen whose papers were in order remained. A few hours later it would all be back to normal. But, this time, the cops seemed to be taking it all quite seriously. They searched the workshop exhaustively, discovered buckets full of excrement, rolled-up mattresses tucked under worktables, and half-eaten food that had been abandoned mid-meal. The police took Chang in to interrogate him. In all likelihood, his lawyers wouldn’t take long to get him out and he’d soon be back — but in the meantime, Mei could enjoy a few hours of freedom with Mr Who.

  ‘We could run away, right now,’ he said, so anxious that it was clear not even he actually believed it was an option. Not yet anyway. Mei put a finger to his lips. Her fingernail was jagged on one side, the polish chipped. It was rough to the touch and gave off an odour that no amount of water had been able to remove. But it was her finger, and, to him, it felt like a silk ribbon stroking his lips as softly as the laces on his mother’s ballet slippers.