by Jorge Franco
Dengue was as tired of being cooped up as I was, so as soon as Fernanda went out, I’d hop in the backseat and head out with him to patrol Medellín. I went to visit Henríquez, Posada, and many others, but the only person who was happy to see me was Pedro, the Dictator.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend too?” Dengue asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
I didn’t have a girlfriend and didn’t want one. Dengue hinted that if I wanted women, he could take me to the best ones in town.
“You must be full up from tamping down your urges for months,” he said.
It was true, but this was no time for hookers. Especially not the kind Dengue slept with. I settled for going to visit Pedro, who’d greet me with a hug, and invite him to climb into the SUV and drive around with us. We used to buy aguardiente and sit in the back drinking, gossiping, looking out through the windows at Medellín falling apart around us.
Dengue made sure to keep tabs on Fernanda so we always got back before her. She never caught me or realized I was coming home drunk. I’d retreat to my room, and she didn’t find it at all unusual. Poor kids, she’d say, they’re so depressed. Dengue told me that Julio did the same thing, but he always dropped my brother off at his girlfriend’s house. As far as I knew, Julio didn’t have a girlfriend, but I didn’t ask and didn’t care.
A few weeks later, Dengue refused to take me anywhere. He told me he couldn’t, offering no explanation, but I knew what was going on: he was demanding I hold up my end of the bargain and persuade Fernanda to let him rejoin the search for Libardo. So I tried.
“Ma,” I said, “Dengue really loves Dad and he’s been looking into things, and, well, I was thinking . . .”
She removed the glasses she was wearing to read a document, and that gesture alone told me I shouldn’t say anything else. “What are you doing talking to a crook like Dengue?” she asked, shaking her head.
“He works for us.”
“Yes, because when your father comes home, Dengue has to be here, but if it were up to me . . .” She went back to reading and, without looking at me, added, “Libardo has to find everything just as he left it.”
“Do you really think he’ll come back?”
“Of course,” she said, lost in the document again.
The days became denser and slower; every passing hour was stickier than the last. Without realizing it, our schedule shifted. We spent more time awake at night and got up late every morning. During the few hours I managed to sleep, I would dream about Libardo. Strange dreams, as dreams always are. Fernanda and Julio dreamed about him too, but we didn’t share. One of us would just say, I dreamed about him last night. That was all. Given our day-to-day reality, there was no need to make things even more complicated. Fernanda decided to increase our dose of bromazepam. We went from taking half a pill a day to a whole one, so we’d sleep better, she said. She’d already increased her own dose a while back.
We stopped talking to one another. Fernanda spent her days shut up in Libardo’s study, looking at papers with her “lawyers.” I would do schoolwork sporadically and watch TV, but mostly I just stared at the ceiling. Late at night we’d exchange a few sentences; Julio and I would try to get Fernanda to catch us up on what was happening. She would say the same thing as always—everything’s going to be O.K., boys, God willing. In other words, she was waiting for a miracle.
This was confirmed one afternoon when Fernanda came home with a man who was quite different from all the others. He was short and ugly. She introduced him and said, “Keep doing what you’re doing. Iván’s going to be around, working alone.”
There had been so many strangers in the house that it didn’t strike me as weird that a new one would be prowling around—that is, until we saw him waving a torch that was giving off black smoke, ringing a bell with his other hand, and reciting prayers in some unfamiliar language. Suffocated by the smoke, the maids, the bodyguards, and my brother and I went out into the backyard for some air. Julio whispered to me, Ma’s crazy, and she told all of us, “Go back inside. Iván needs to be alone in the backyard.”
We watched him walk around, swinging a pendulum, until he stopped and crouched down. He started digging with a trowel, kneeling on the grass. Pretty soon he signaled Fernanda over. He showed her something, and she raised her hands to her mouth. Julio and I went out to see what Iván had found: a burial, a tiny bundle full of old coins and hair. I asked if the hair was Libardo’s. Probably he said. And what are those coins?, Julio asked. Somebody wants to do you a lot of harm, Iván said. They already have, I said, and Fernanda shot me a furious look. Then she asked, “What now?”
“Now we burn this so Don Libardo will come back soon,” he said, picking up the little packet.
The house filled with a nauseating odor, and the ceilings were stained by the smoke from the torch. For days, ashes kept falling. But I have to admit that the holy smoke and the burning of the charm were successful, though much later than we’d been promised. Libardo did come back, even if he was dead and it was twelve long years after Iván’s visit.
47
I’ll be right out, Fernanda yells from her room, and Julio and I wait for her in the living room, which is crammed with boxes that haven’t been unpacked. From the previous house, she brought a loveseat and the armchair that had been in Libardo’s study. There’s also a TV, a telephone, and the laptop she uses to talk to me, and a jumble of things that seem not to have found their places. Right next to that is a small dining set. We hear clacking footsteps, and Julio and I look at each other. Fernanda appears in a tight-fitting blue dress and high heels.
“Where is he?” she asks, surprised. “You didn’t leave him at your grandmother’s place.”
“He’s in the car,” Julio replies.
“Oh, O.K.,” Fernanda says, and sits down next to me on the sofa. “What are you going to do with him?”
“We’ve got to find something for him,” Julio says. “He’s in a bag at the moment.”
Fernanda takes a deep breath, as if trying not to cry. She’s wearing makeup—she’s got eyeliner on, and she fans her eyes with her hand.
“And how is he?” she asks hesitantly. “Did you see him?”
“Yes,” I say.
“He’s not all there,” Julio says.
“Jesus,” Fernanda says, unable to contain her tears.
“If it makes you feel better, there were no signs of violence on what they gave us,” Julio says.
“Don’t tell me any more,” Fernanda pleads. She dabs her eyes and checks her fingers to see if they’re smeared with mascara. She says, “I haven’t been able to arrange the mass yet. Father Diego isn’t answering me, but I already left him a message.”
“I’m leaving tonight,” Julio says.
Fernanda raises her voice: “You’re not going anywhere till we give him the sendoff he deserves.”
“Dad didn’t go to mass,” Julio objects.
“But he was a devout believer,” Fernanda says.
“In whom?” Julio asks. “Or what? The only thing he believed in was money.”
“Stop it,” I say.
They fall silent like chastised children. Fernanda gets up, rummages in a cardboard box, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asks us.
We nod. She says she’s going to make coffee anyway and clacks off to the kitchen. Julio says in a low voice, she’s been in this apartment four years and she’s still got all these taped-up boxes. What’s in them?, I ask. Her things, he says, house stuff. Does she need help?, I ask. She’s got help, Julio says, there’s a lady who comes in three times a week and I’ve offered too. Plus, he adds, she’s in got more boxes out at the farm. Maybe now that I’m here . . . , I say. Fernanda is humming a song in the kitchen, a romantic song from the eighties. What does she do all day?, I ask Julio. Huh, he says, and shrugs. Al
l I know is she’s always asking me for money, he adds. And do you give it to her? As much as I can, he says, I give her a set amount each month, but she claims it’s not enough.
“Are you talking about me?” Fernanda asks.
We don’t hear her footsteps; she appears there like a cat.
“I was telling Julio that while I’m here I can help you unpack these boxes.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” she says, “the problem isn’t unpacking them but where to put what’s in them. Did you see how small the closets are? The kitchen doesn’t even have a pantry.”
“So why don’t you sell all this?” Julio asks. “Why keep it?”
“Darling, there are things in there it’s impossible to get anymore,” Fernanda says, and then asks, “Who wants coffee?”
She doesn’t even wait for a response. She spins around and leaves, like when she used to parade down the catwalks, Miss Medellín 1973.
All these years, all this time, and yet everything’s exactly the same. Or worse. An aging beauty queen, a brother who’s hiding out on a farm that he’s made his little fiefdom, a city that’s repeating its own history, a non-viable country that’s marching backward, and a world full of hate and war. A dead father who refuses to die, a dumbass who falls in love with a stranger on a plane. It all makes me want to throw up, to just stop existing.
But it smells like coffee, and the aroma brings me back. When it comes down to it, London isn’t so bad. I used to have Maggie, and I’ve still got a job waiting for me. A small apartment in a nice neighborhood—the bus passes nearby, the market isn’t too far away, I can walk to Finsbury Park, and on Sunday afternoons I can walk a little farther to see movies at the Everyman in Hampstead. I can fall in love again with an English girl, a Russian, an Indian, or a Serb. If Maggie loved me, somebody else can too. What I need now is to get some sleep. Fernanda can keep drinking her coffee and plan the mass, Julio can refuse and leave, or he can stay and we can sleep side by side the way we sometimes did as kids, Medellín can rot, Colombia can end up being devoured by hate, the world can explode. Fernanda is laughing loudly, alone in the kitchen. Alone? I’m going to sleep; I’ve been awake for more hours than anybody can endure.
“Shall we head out?” Julio asks me.
“Where to?”
“To find something for Dad.”
“Where are we supposed to go for that? What are you looking for?”
Julio shrugs. Fernanda laughs again, and he can’t take it anymore and stands up.
“Let’s get out of here.”
I go to the kitchen to say goodbye to Fernanda and find her with her back to me, talking on the phone. She’s scratching one calf with the tip of her foot. You’re crazy, she tells somebody. She laughs and says again, crazy.
“Ma.”
She turns around, looks at me, opens a cupboard, and takes out three mugs. Larry’s here, she tells the person she’s talking to, I’ve got to go.
“It’s just now finished,” she tells me, meaning the coffee. That aroma.
“What are we going to do with Dad?” I ask. She pours the coffee. “I’m not having any,” I say. “I’m going to lie down a little.”
“What about Julio?”
“He’s going out. What do you think we should put Dad in?”
“We’ve got to give Libardo a Christian burial.”
“You want to bury him?”
For a moment I consider pointing out that Libardo was buried for twelve years.
“Nobody gets buried in those circumstances,” I tell her. “They get dug up and taken somewhere else. To an ossuary or something, I don’t know, anywhere.”
“But he didn’t have a Christian burial,” she moans, and I start to get irritated with how she keeps saying “Christian burial,” as if she were a priest.
“The most practical thing is to cremate him,” I say.
“Most practical? Are you talking about your father?” she asks me indignantly, then yells, “Julio! Are you having coffee?” Julio walks in and Fernanda says, “Your brother tells me the most practical thing is to cremate Libardo.”
“Ma,” I try to interject.
“Makes no difference to me,” Julio says. “But we’ll have to wait if we want to cremate him because we need a document from the attorney general’s office.”
Fernanda holds out a cup of coffee but Julio refuses it. She offers it to me, and I say no. But that aroma. I take the cup and lift it to my nose.
“Libardo hasn’t been able to rest properly,” Fernanda says. “He deserves for us to give him a Christian burial.”
“Stop saying that, please,” I say.
“Stop saying what?”
“Just say we have to bury him, full stop.”
“But weren’t you just saying we should cremate him?”
This aroma that perfumes my exhaustion. This sleepiness that’s got me so I can barely stand. A mother who calls somebody crazy and laughs. The attorney general’s office that won’t let us cremate Libardo yet. An exasperated brother. A sip of coffee that warms my mouth, that cajoles my tongue and scrambles my neurons. The scorched smell of fireworks coming in through the window, the mountains like a backdrop. If I could die right now, I would.
“They can decide that afterward,” Julio tells us. “I’m going to buy him something before I take off. You coming?” he asks.
I’m only halfway through my coffee. I haven’t yet regained the strength to stand up. There are still a few people out there with the energy to keep setting off fireworks.
Julio looks at Fernanda, and she says firmly, “I can’t, I’ve got an appointment.”
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’ve got a lunch.”
Who’s the makeup and high heels for? Who makes her laugh? Why is she still worshiping Libardo?
“And I’m going to go to Father Diego’s church,” she says.
“You coming, Little Bro?” Julio asks.
If I lie down, I don’t know if I’ll see him again. He’ll go to his farm, and I don’t know if I’ll go visit him. If I want to spend a little more time with my brother, I have no choice but to go with him.
“Let me finish my coffee,” I say.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Fernanda says.
“I’ll wait downstairs,” Julio says.
I sit alone with this aroma and this flavor that remind me of what I never should have been: a human being. And the mountains outside confirm to me the place where I never should have been born. I breathe in the sulfurous air of the city I never should have returned to. I think about the father who, for dignity’s sake, should never have had children, and about a country that should be wiped off the map. A failed species on the earth. A drowsiness. A fatigue.
I toss back the rest of the coffee, leaving the grounds in which fortune-tellers read the future. For the moment, mine will be to look for a container for Libardo’s bones.
I put the mug in the sink next to other dirty dishes. Fernanda has left her cell phone on the counter. This curiosity that killed more than the cat. I pick it up to look at the record of the last call. “Pedro,” it says.
This confusion, this spasm.
48
The cold from up in the mountains collided with the hot, moist air rising from the sea, and the plane started shaking. It was the announcement of their arrival in the New World. What was visible through the windows was no longer blue but rather green and brown. The mountains, the jungles, the plains, the tropical forests, the textures of a gestating continent. And a sky full of clouds in the shapes of monsters and demons so travelers would understand, once and for all, that they were entering a cursed realm.
Charlie hadn’t raised the blind. A little earlier, once she could move her legs again, she’d curled up in her seat and stayed like that, waiting for Larry to return. She no longer
felt the urge to go looking for him. She dozed until she was awakened by the announcement to fasten seatbelts. She was dying of thirst. She looked back, toward the rear of the plane, trying to catch a glimpse of him. In the snarl of her hangover, she tried to find an explanation for why Larry had fled.
Did I say something I shouldn’t have? . . .
She didn’t remember everything they’d talked about or every detail of what she’d done, and apart from having started drinking again, she had no other regrets. But it had always been like this in the past—she’d wake up believing that nothing had happened, when in fact all kinds of things had happened.
She pressed the button to summon a flight attendant. Charlie requested a glass of water with lots of ice. A pang in her upper abdomen reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything. The drinks she was having now were making her feel sick, and churning along with everything else was her sadness over her dead father. She cried as she drank her ice water.
The airplane kept shaking gently, the passengers unfazed. The flight attendants’ bustling suggested that the plane would be landing soon.
They passed out the immigration form, and she took the opportunity to ask for more water. With her feet, she grabbed the purse she’d placed on the floor and dragged it toward her. She hunted through the jumble for a pen and an ibuprofen for her headache, but didn’t find either. She looked at the form, and it seemed to ask too many questions. There wasn’t room for all four of her given names. There’s never room for me, she’d once told a psychiatrist, I don’t even fit on forms, my full name won’t fit on a credit card. I’m not one person, I’m four, she told that psychiatrist, still drunk and burping rum.