Arthur considered this piece of news, but seemed unruffled. Ibrahim looked as though the news made no difference to him.
‘I appreciate the courtesy, warden. But I have a feeling that’s not the only reason you asked me to come.’ Arthur shrugged. ‘I don’t exactly think I’m the apple of your eye, and I’m surprised at your concern.’
Ordóñez scrutinised Arthur’s face and saw not fear but simply exhaustion — the constant tension was wearing him down, like a soldier in the trenches, bombs landing and bullets flying overhead, waiting for the order to charge the enemy.
‘Indeed, there is something else. I saw the photos of the accident, the day you ran over the Armenian’s daughter and the boy. You probably don’t know this, but there’s a traffic camera at that intersection, on the front of a clothing store. The local police use it to fine pedestrians, and drivers who don’t give pedestrians right of way at the crosswalk. Strange, but during the whole course of your hearing no one actually showed the images from that camera, which could have shed light on a few murky issues. You see, as I said, the camera isn’t in fact focused on vehicular traffic but on pedestrians.’
‘I don’t see where you’re going with this, warden. It was an accident; I served my time and was granted a pardon. Now you want to investigate? Maybe you chose the wrong profession.’
Ordóñez paid no attention. He reached down to the floor for his briefcase and opened it on his lap.
‘This is the sequence captured by the camera, just before and after the accident,’ he said, setting half-a-dozen somewhat blurry stills down on the table.
Nothing that had not already been shown in court could be seen in the pictures. The first pictures showed Ian and Rebeca, along with other people, waiting to cross the crosswalk. Then there was one that showed the hood of Arthur’s car emerging, a tumult of people, the girl being flung to the right and the boy being dragged by the car until he was pinned against a building front.
‘Take a good look at these three,’ Ordóñez said, pushing the rest to one side. Right here you can see Ian looking straight ahead, and at his side — though it’s hard to tell since there are other heads covering him — is Rebeca. In the next one, Ian’s turning to the girl, speaking to her. She’s making an abrupt movement, as though trying to get rid of something. Take a good look. Ian’s grabbing onto her arm, holding her tightly, and she’s trying to wrench free. And in the third one, taken just before your car becomes visible, Rebeca is trying to get away, moving backward, and Ian’s grabbing her by the hair. I suspect they knew each other, Ian and the girl. They weren’t there by chance, and if we can trust what the photos seem to imply, she was certainly there against her will.’
‘What does any of that have to do with me?’
‘I was able to verify that Rebeca went to school that morning, as usual. Her mother dropped her off without noticing anything strange, but mid-morning someone came to pick her up and took her out of school. According to the janitor, it was a family member, though that was never proven. In fact, when the girl’s mother was informed of her death, she said that it was impossible, claimed her daughter was at school several blocks away from the accident. Rebeca never should have been there. We might suppose, and it would just be supposition, that the unidentified person who passed himself off as Rebeca’s family member was in fact Ian. And if that were true, why did he pick her up from school? Where was he planning to take her? What was he planning to do with her?’
Arthur had adopted a poker face.
‘I still don’t see what this has to do with me.’
‘There’s something here that doesn’t add up, too many coincidences. I know about your daughter’s disappearance, Arthur, and here’s what I think: that there’s a connection between that, Ian’s death and these pictures. Justice Gutiérrez is a good friend of mine and I’m going to tell him my hunches, and ask him to pull some strings so that the whole case gets reopened. There’s something big here, something much bigger than we realised. I know it. And if I’m right, then the facts will prove that you didn’t kill Ian by accident, that it was premeditated murder. And then your pardon won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. I wanted to warn you first, in case you had anything you wanted to say. If you know anything about Ian’s past, this is the time to let me know.’
Ordóñez’s stainless steel watch twinkled in the light of the chandeliers.
‘Your twenty minutes are up, warden. If you don’t want to be rude to your friend the magistrate, you’d better be off.’
Ordóñez looked at his watch and frowned.
‘Keep the photos; I’ve got copies. Maybe when the Armenian finds you, you’ll be more forthcoming with him than you were with me.’ He stood and gave Ibrahim a curious look. ‘And as for you, I don’t know what your role is in all this, but if you’re not implicated, I’d be thinking about getting myself another job if I were you — unless you want the shit that this is going to kick up to stick to you, too.’
Once they were alone, Arthur turned back to the photos and examined them carefully, no longer feigning the look of indifference he’d shown in the presence of Ordóñez. His eyes darkened. He was shocked, and his mouth twisted.
‘What’s going on?’ Ibrahim asked. He wasn’t upset, just wanted to be kept abreast of the situation. He had no intention of being sent back to jail, not know. ‘What does all that mean, all that stuff Ordóñez just said?’
It took Arthur a minute to come round. And when he did, his eyes darted back and forth erratically.
‘Ordóñez is just speculating,’ he said, sounding unconvinced. ‘He hates me — I’m like a fish that slipped through his fingers. He’s convinced I’m guilty and he wants me to pay my dues.’
Ibrahim looked at one of the photos Arthur was holding.
‘Did you kill that kid on purpose?’
It took Arthur a few moments to respond. And when he did, it wasn’t with words. His oily, evasive look was almost transparent, and that was enough.
After a sharp intake of breath, Ibrahim exhaled slowly through his nose.
‘You’ve been lying to me all this time. You told me it was an unfortunate accident. You said it over and over.’
‘I couldn’t tell a soul … If you’d seen what that bastard did to Aroha …’
Ibrahim scratched the scar on his face. From time to time it stung, as if the wound had reopened. Now was one of those times. If a man betrays you once, he’ll do it twice, three times, as often as he can. Traitors have no honour, no moral code, no respect. That’s why they have to be rooted out; they’re like a malignant tumor, bringing fear, weakness, and lies. That was what his father had written, before he was killed, and every night his older brother had read him that letter, those very words, holding a flashlight under the sheet. We cannot be friends with those who consider us innately inferior. A dog is not man’s best friend, only his best and most faithful slave. That’s how Europeans see us — as dogs — and that’s what they expect from us. Not friendship, or collaboration, or loyalty. Just blind obedience and the gratitude of a servant who’s been tossed a few crumbs. That’s why we must fight them to the death.
‘Does all this have something to do with the fire at the antique dealer’s? I saw the picture in the paper. The man accused is the same guy you hired to find Aroha.’
‘Guzmán didn’t kill that old man.’
‘Then who did? Why is it you’re always in the middle of everything?’
Arthur shook his head, exasperated. His red mane of hair was like fire when the sun hit it.
Ibrahim closed his eyes. He was back in Algeria, on the outskirts of Algiers, in a public square. There was a large crowd gathered around some sort of ruckus, and people were hooting and shouting their heads off. It was early 1963. Elbowing his way through the crowd, scurrying beneath people’s legs, and crotches that stank of sweat and dried urine, Ibrahim made it almost to the fron
t. Three men were being flogged. They were tied, shirtless, to whipping posts. All three were ex-soldiers from the French auxiliary forces, born in Algeria, and had borne arms in the service of France. And then France had scuttled off with her tail between her legs, abandoning them to their fate, as they did to thousands of others who were being massacred all across the country.
The poor wretches were no longer even moaning, despite their savage punishment. There comes a time when any protestation, any begging for clemency, is useless. Their backs were literally flayed, skin falling from their bodies like onionskin paper with each lash of the cane. Someone in the crowd took out a machete and carved into their bare flesh the word vassals. Everyone applauded when the ‘artist’ raised his arms aloft, machete in hand as blood ran down his forearms, as if it had been stroke of genius. Ibrahim did not laugh. His stomach roiled and he vomited, to the glee of those present. But they didn’t know that the poorly stitched and still seeping wound across his face had been made by someone with a very similar machete. A paratrooper’s machete, used to scar brothers in faith.
When he opened his eyes, Arthur was still there. That could have been you — or your father, or your brother, or your mother. Men with fiery hair and green eyes, who didn’t get out in time. One of the men who was martyred there could have been you, and the one carving your flesh with his father’s machete could have been me.
‘Just tell me one thing. Tell me it was worth it.’
Arthur grabbed his forearm, hard. Ibrahim wanted to throw up, but stifled his gag reflex.
‘Listen, Ibrahim. I am so close to finding Aroha. Closer than I’ve been in four years. I want my daughter back and I’ll do anything to get her — anything. Protect Andrea, that’s your job. I don’t want that degenerate Armenian to even think about laying a finger on her. Leave the rest to me. This will all be over soon.’
This will all be over soon. That was what Ibrahim had said to the nearest of the three men being whipped, back in early 1963. He’d gotten up close and whispered into his ear. But the man couldn’t hear — he was already dead.
Ibrahim continued visiting Andrea and she’d grown accustomed to his presence. He no longer had to invent excuses to go see her, no longer had to pretend Arthur had sent him to keep her company and nourish her hopes that they’d find her daughter.
In the afternoons, they’d take long walks through the woods by the residence. People would see them together, sitting by a fence, chatting away among the cork trees or simply walking through a yellow field, side by side, in silence. Those first walks soon became habit and Andrea looked forward to them with ill-concealed impatience. Ibrahim’s presence had unwittingly broken the monotony of her indolent everyday existence. And so the two of them had had the opportunity to rediscover each other, to reinvent themselves at will.
Ibrahim spoke to her about poetry and Sufi philosophy, about the music that his virtuoso father once played, about how a man like him, fighting tooth and nail just to stay alive, could still, at times, feel close to immortality.
Andrea hung on his every word, although every once in awhile he thought she looked pensive. When Ibrahim tried to steer the conversation toward her past, she gave him a look, and clammed up. But slowly the distance between the smile on her lips and the one in her eyes was melting; the wall she had erected was beginning to crumble.
That morning they went head-to-head in a dialectical battle of the wits, speaking French speckled with Arabic at head-spinning velocity. When they engaged in verbal duels, that was the whole idea, and each of them found the other to be a sharp and entertaining opponent, quick of mind and word. They’d laugh out loud, let fly a sentence or paragraph, and the other would fire back with equal speed. A nurse acted as judge without understanding the rules of the game, so she simply smiled like a fool, gazing back and forth between the two of them.
‘What are you saying to each other?’ she asked Ibrahim.
‘Nothing that hasn’t been said before. It’s a game our teachers had us play when we were in school, outside by the mosque. It was a way to encourage us to learn, a war of words. We quote each other verses. Andrea gives me Rimbaud and I reply in Berber with a Kabyle poem. She throws out Verlaine and I come back with Nouara. She tries to trip me up with Baudelaire and I retaliate with Farid Ferragui. It’s fun.’
Ibrahim had brought Andrea a small gift. It was a little leather bag. In it was a small book with a cowhide cover that contained the verses of over fifty Kabyle poems.
‘My father wrote them when he was young. He was a great poet, in that way some men living desperate lives are.’
If he was expecting a warm, enthusiastic response, he was not going to get it. Andrea gazed at the book of poetry timidly.
‘I’ve almost forgotten how to read Kabyle; I hardly even remember my classical Arabic.’
Ibrahim gave her a wide smile, abysmal teeth on full display.
‘So you’ll dig out your old childhood songs. Poetry is what allows us to preserve serenity, and it’s also what gives us hope that one day the child who once lived inside can still come back to life.’
Andrea stared at Ibrahim in shock, moved by his candid voice, his peaceful look, so out of sync with his strong body and disfigured face. The scar across Ibrahim’s face was a source of strength, but she didn’t dare ask him when or how he’d gotten it.
‘My daughter always refused to learn the language her mother and father spoke when they fell in love. She wanted nothing to do with Algeria, with the past, with history. Sometimes I imagine that when she’s back in my arms and I’m holding her tight, she’ll ask me to teach her those old Kabyle songs, to tell her about the streets of Kabylia, the smells. But then I open my eyes and here I am, and I know I’ll never be able to teach her anything because I’ve forgotten it all myself.’
Ibrahim stroked her hair, almost not daring to touch her. Such tenderness from a hand like his was breathtaking.
‘Children always learn the lessons their mothers try to teach them too late. She’ll come back to you, and you’ll remember everything about your childhood, every step you took, and you’ll relive it for her.’
It was hard not to believe him. Listening to Ibrahim, her conviction that sooner rather than later her daughter would be by her side grew stronger every day. Through Ibrahim’s hope, she gradually returned to an almost lively state of mind. The progress she made was not a straight course, nor was it easy; at night, when he went home and darkness descended, filling everything, she became taciturn, sordid, sad. And in those bleak moments of desperation she tried to fool herself, tell herself that all she wanted was a little peace, a little certainty. She didn’t want to believe that her daughter was dead. The fact that her daughter’s body had not been found in four years had taken her to the brink of madness. And if she had not yet succumbed, if she was still hanging onto sanity by the skin of her teeth, it was because ignorance allowed her to keep that fiction going — the belief that, somewhere, her daughter was still alive.
‘I promise you, one way or another we’re going to find her,’ Ibrahim assured her.
And she held his hand tight and said she believed him. The faith of a mother pining for her daughter.
‘Life is like a gambler, it doesn’t play fair,’ she said. ‘It lays it all out within reach, makes you believe happiness is attainable, and then when you naively decide to lay your bets, it snatches everything away and leaves you unable to get up from the table, forcing you to sit there playing the same hand even after you know you can never win.’
Ibrahim looked upset. He glanced down, unable to meet Andrea’s gaze.
‘My life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would either,’ he confessed with a sudden honesty the depths of which she could not fathom.
‘Who were you, before you became … this?’
Before I became this scar? he asked with his eyes.
He gazed at her tenderly.
This scar is you, was his wordless reply.
He’d walked a long and painful road before ending up in a place he hadn’t expected. But he knew it was here, and no place else, where he belonged. Beside her.
‘I need to ask you a question, Andrea. I need to ask, because a lot of things depend on your answer.’
Andrea gave him an anxious look, full of fear.
‘Do you still love Arthur?’
She sat very still. Then her eyes fluttered as if blinking away a speck of dust, and she pulled away from him.
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it matters. What could possibly matter more?’
Andrea’s nostrils flared as she exhaled.
There was a time when Arthur meant so much to her that each of his slights cut her to the quick. But back then she put up with his infidelities, his mood swings and night terrors as if they were simply the price to be paid in exchange for his affections and his words, which could still evoke entire universes of immeasurable beauty. Andrea would feel his arms enfold her desperately, as if she were the one certain thing in his life, the one indestructible force. And it made her happy, made her feel unique and special. But she no longer felt that. She’d stopped feeling it a long time ago.
Their marriage had inevitably slipped into a comfortable security, a precursor to the death of passion. Suddenly she realised that when they made love — less and less frequently and more and more bureaucratically — Arthur behaved like a stranger in a strange land. His expression was like that of another man, and his sweet nothings, his magic words, no longer rang true. They’d lost their power of enchantment. True love is something mystical, but his words had become rote memorisation, like a priest saying mass.
It was about that time, back before Aroha was born, that she had found out he was in love with a woman named Diana, who ran the Chicago branch of his company. He’d slept with other women before, and kept doing so later as well, but Diana was different: a beautiful black woman, ambitious and worldly. She changed Arthur forever, stripped him of his poetic aspirations and turned him into a man consumed by more immediate desires: cars, money, stocks, influence, power. And Andrea was left with the result of all that — the proxy who kept trying to make her believe he hadn’t changed, a body, but no longer a soul.
The Heart Tastes Bitter Page 39