When he woke again she was gone. It was dawn. He slaked his thirst at the sink, his legs weak, a podgy colt staggering out into the yard’s early light. Lola was wearing an apron. There was a table set out in the front of the porch with a cast-iron hand-operated mill clamped to one end. Lola dropped in handfuls of toasted cacao seeds, turning the handle. The rifled screw cracked and demolished them against a circular plate. Its rim oozed rich chocolate paste into a container below.
“Epalé! Cariño!” she said, “How do you feel?”
“I feel like my stomach is trying to process a square shit – why are you laughing?”
“Let me see, let me see,” Aldo pushed past him in the doorway, examining his face.
“Turn around, turn around,” ordered the old man, shuffling across the yard. Christmas turned round. “Verga!” The old man started laughing too. Christmas went to check himself in the bathroom mirror. His moustache was gone.
“The devil take you, woman!” he thundered, stomping back outside, “You’ve shaved off my – my – my –”
“Harry—”
“Butcher! Delilah!”
“What’s he saying?” asked Aldo.
“He’s very happy.”
Christmas frantically exercised his naked lip. “How dare you!”
Lola wiped her hands of chocolate, grabbed his face and kissed him. “You look much better, Papi. Much younger.”
“Younger?”
“Try this.”
“What is it?”
“Rum with cacao.”
“But dammit, woman, there’s a principle here and that principle is, ‘Thou shalt not bloody shave a man’s whiskers when—’”
“But you look much more handsome.”
“That’s not the issue! Do I?”
“Much. Drink that.”
“You can’t just assault me and then wind me round your little finger just by saying – oh, that’s good. That is good. That is very good indeed.” The taste made his eyes water; dark oils, forest butters, hidden wells of rum.
“Now you do this and I’ll cook you breakfast.” She put the apron on him and went inside.
“Helpless,” Christmas muttered to himself. “Putty in her hands.”
There had been a storm during the night and all the talk was of the damage done. After breakfast Lola and Harry walked round to see metal roofs torn open or tossed out into the street. Some trees were down, fencing blown over.
People in red T-shirts and red caps were taking measurements and discussing repairs with the villagers. They were from PDVSA, the state petrol company, and they had come to rebuild the roofs and survey the village to see what else it needed.
“See?” said Lola, pushing him. “This is Chávez. The storm was yesterday and they come today to help us.”
There was also a policeman, who observed the foreigner with distaste. He was a short man with a pronounced double chin who considered it his professional duty to harass gringos. Overseeing the PDVSA officials was a rather boring job, so it was with great relish that he stepped in Christmas’ path and folded his arms.
“Who are you? Why are you here? What is your name?” Christmas squinted at this new event.
“I am Christmas,” he answered in English, “thy boon companion,” and delivered the policeman a courtly bow. The policeman asserted his authority with a single word: “Pasaporte.”
“Leave him alone,” said Lola.
“Where are you staying?”
“With me.” Lola squared up to the policeman. She looked him up and down. He wasn’t from San Cristóbal.
“Do you have a licence to run a posada?”
“He is not my guest. He is ... my lover!”
“This gringo?”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t like Venezuelan men?”
“Me? Yes – why, do you?”
“Where is his passport? Where is your passport, gringo?”
“Why don’t you leave us alone? It’s festival time!” The policeman cast a look out to sea.
“If your gringo lover cannot produce his passport, I will arrest him.”
When they rounded the bay Slade heard the deep thump of reggaeton. He saw the quayside and jetty thick with revellers. His vision was pulsating. He took off his sunglasses, cleaned them, put them back on. The other passengers started waving. He stood up and scanned for a white man. Crackheads and children waited on the jetty with wheelbarrows to carry luggage and supplies. Slade stepped off the boat and up the concrete steps into a plague of offers. He kept his eyes on the village. It was five in the afternoon.
Slade took out the photograph. A shout went up and a crowd formed. “Amigo?” they asked him. Slade tapped his chest.
“Me. Amigo. Where? Where is he? This man?” The crowd assigned him a small boy. Slade, his rucksack slung over his shoulder, followed the child off the jetty and into San Cristóbal. Music pounded the village with his heartbeat. Unbearable smells flew into his nose. Everything had an echo.
Slade scanned every doorway, every face. Gangs of people cheered and toasted him as he walked past. The little boy shouted things and Slade understood the words gringo and amigo. People patted him on the back and offered him rum. Slade walked through a football match. He walked past a great mass of dancers. He followed the boy down a quieter street, then through some bushes to a stream strewn with rubbish. They followed the stream for a while until they came out through a grove of cambur and into Lola’s yard.
“He’s here? In here?”
“This woman’s—” the boy replied, and he made an obscene gesture with his fingers. The boy ran inside. Slade followed. He was sweating.
Lola wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “You friend of Harry?” Slade felt for his knife.
“Where is he?”
“He back soon.” Lola looked at the clock. It was quarter past five. She said something to the boy and he ran out. Slade looked at her tits.
“So you’re his girlfriend?”
“Yes,” she shrugged, smiling, “I guess.” Slade dropped his rucksack.
“Good.”
54
Though terrified by the overtaking, there was something magical about swooshing from curve to curve on the back of a motorbike, moisture leaking sideways from his eyes as if he were crying in space. Yet his enjoyment of the ride was only momentary. Christmas was heading back to Judith and Bridget’s. He didn’t expect they would be pleased to see him.
Christmas told the policeman that his passport was in Rio Caribe. After a long argument, he was given until the end of the day to produce it. Should he disappear, he was assured, the consequences for Lola would be severe.
Gabriel, one of his fisherman friends, offered to take him there on the back of a motorbike that he kept in Guiria. Christmas had no choice. If he was arrested, only money could free him, and he had no money. It was still early in the morning.
“If I leave now,” he told Lola, kissing her, “I should be back by four – five at the latest.”
With Bridget’s wallet in his pocket, they took Gabriel’s high-speed boat and were in Guiria by ten o’clock. They crossed the peninsula on a Yamaha. Christmas’ mind raced with scenarios. If Judith and Bridget still thought he was Harry Strong he veered towards elaborate lies, stories of misfortune – kidnap? – no – ridiculous – it was best to confess everything, to unmask himself, ask for the passport and weather yet another of life’s ugly confrontations. He simply had to get through it, however furious they were.
Cacti raised their stumps in supplication. Boys cut bundles of grass for donkey feed. Perhaps he’d be lucky – perhaps they’d be out. He could break in, nip upstairs, grab his passport from behind the wardrobe and disappear.
They zoomed through Rio Caribe. It was midday. Christmas’ arms ached from holding onto the rear grill. They arrived at the turning to Judith’s and, just in case he might witness something that was difficult to explain, he told Gabriel to wait there on the side of the road. Christmas began
to climb the winding drive.
As he reached the top, nervous and panting, Christmas saw Judith’s car. He hesitated. He ran his fingers over the chain around his neck. Up on two legs, man! he ordered himself. In you go. Just got to take it on the chin.
He advanced towards the house. There was something different about the garden. He moved further round. It was untended. The grass had been allowed to grow long. It was hot but the sprinklers weren’t on. There were weeds in the flowerbeds.
Christmas went closer to the house and looked in through the window. The shelves were empty. There were packing boxes everywhere. He continued along the wall until he got to the kitchen. There were black smoke stains around the window. He cupped his hands and peered in. There had been a fire.
“Hello?” he said. “Hello?” He walked right the way around the house, looking in, seeing more boxes, empty walls, furniture stacked up. “Judith? Bridget?”
He turned a corner and saw a black girl, nine or ten years old. She was barefoot, wearing an oversized jacket and covering her mouth with her hand.
“Judith? Bridget?” he asked her. “The English women? Where are they? Are they home? Are they moving out?” She didn’t say anything. He moved towards her but she ran off into the trees.
Christmas had come right the way around the house. He knocked on the front door. Nothing. His heart leapt at the possibility of getting his passport before they appeared. He tried the door. Locked. What about the kitchen door? He went back into the garden to check and there was Judith, wandering back from the ocean.
She saw him. She stopped. Then she bent down to inspect some pink orchids.
“Judith,” he called but she didn’t respond. He walked over to her, saying her name, but she didn’t move. When he was in front of her, she stood up and walked past him as if he wasn’t there. She looked terrible, pale and aged, her hair unwashed. I’ve broken her heart, thought Christmas.
“I know I ran off,” he said, standing behind her now as she pulled down the blossom of a tree towards her, “and I’m not the person you thought I was but – and I know you will find this very hard to believe – there is an explanation for all of it and, well, I really don’t know where to begin with this most profound of apologies—”
“I’m saying goodbye to my garden,” she said quietly, turning to face him. “Do you know what he said?”
“Who?”
“He said, ‘So he’s a friend of yours.’”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“‘So he’s a friend of yours.’ Those were his exact words.”
“Whose?”
“Before he raped her. That’s what he said. Right before he raped Bridget.”
Christmas took in the words, and as he began to comprehend them, his hands moved up to his face.
“He came here looking for you,” she continued. “He came to our house and he raped my daughter, there, in my kitchen, on my birthday, while I was upstairs crying about you.” Judith looked him over as he reacted.
“She’s in London now,” she said after a long silence, “She’s only just started talking again. She’s in a place where they help people who have been through ... She’s got her own room.” Christmas tried to speak. He failed. “I have come back to shut the house. Who is he?” Christmas felt as if he were watching all this from afar, as if it were being told to another him. “Who is he?” she said again. Her eyes were blank.
“William Slade, he’s – Judith, I—”
“No,” she said. “Don’t.”
They stood apart from each other for a few moments.
“You have come back for your passport,” she said. “I just found it. It’s inside, on the kitchen table. There’s a pad and pen there, on the windowsill. Write down his name and everything for the police and then just get out, whatever you are, just go away.” Judith turned back towards the ocean. He watched her go. He watched her until she disappeared, then he went into the house. His hands were in his hair. His hands were on his face.
Inside he saw his passport on the kitchen table. He put it in his pocket and, finding Bridget’s wallet there, he took it out and put it down on the windowsill. It fell open. There was the photograph of Judith and Bridget, their arms round each other, creased, behind plastic. He scribbled down Slade’s name and Diana’s name and her telephone number and he left the house, heading down the drive until the hacienda was no longer visible and his knees gave way and he sat down in the dirt. He ground his fists together against his forehead and made a tight, low sound. Bridget …
How had Slade found Judith’s? Easy. Of course it was easy! He’d just asked someone, anyone in Rio Caribe where the fat gringo was staying. How could he not have foreseen that? Why hadn’t he come back here and protected them? Why hadn’t he just let himself get caught – his mind rolled: if Slade could track him to Judith’s, he could track him to San Cristóbal.
Lola.
55
Gabriel had no phone. They borrowed one from a man selling bananas on the roadside.
“What’s her number?”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Gabriel. “Don’t you?”
“No! Give me someone else’s number then – anyone’s!”
“I told you, brother. I don’t have a phone. I don’t know no numbers.”
When they arrived at the jetty in Guiria, Christmas leapt from the bike before it had stopped and he ran amongst the men there, asking them if they had seen a gringo get on any of the boats to San Cristóbal? They said they had. What did he look like? One man hunched his shoulders and blew out his cheeks.
They jumped into Gabriel’s boat and zoomed out across the sea. Christmas, unable to sit still, looked out over the waves, fidgeting with the chain as the boat hurdled the spume and birds flew overhead. Gabriel asked him many times what was wrong but Christmas could hardly speak, only able to repeat that Lola was in danger. He bit his knuckles, swearing continuously. The journey was endless.
When, at last, the boat thudded around the headland and San Cristóbal came into view, Christmas got to his feet, clambering to the front.
He vaulted the gap onto the concrete steps before the line had been thrown and ran into the festival, Gabriel close beside him.
Something terrible had happened.
People, their eyes wide in shock, were running up to him, gabbling, throwing their arms towards the house.
He was down the street. Over the stream. Through the cambur.
Christmas broke out into the clearing.
A crowd in front of the house.
He pushed through into the doorway. Pictures lay broken, furniture pushed into awkward angles. Smashed pots littered the kitchen floor, plates and pans scattered everywhere.
Emily’s book, torn to pieces, and by the door to Lola’s room – a hatchet covered in blood.
“Lola—” he cried, dashing out into the yard where he could see more people: the policeman, the old lady, and more neighbours standing around something on the floor.
Christmas pulled away the shoulders and looked down.
Once Slade had put his rucksack down he began to wander around the room, sizing it up as if he were to buy it. Lola knew right away that his intentions were bad.
“Christmas!” he called out. He saw Christmas’ jacket hanging on the nail. “This is his,” he said, searching it. “Stole my mother’s money.” He found the Montejo book. “Where is he?”
She didn’t answer. Slade was grinning. He ripped the book in half, then tore out fistfuls of pages and threw them into the air. Slade took out the knife. He pointed it at her, watching the fear widen her face.
He came closer. He stopped.
He looked down and said something to the floor.
Just by looking at his face, those mirrored sunglasses, Lola knew he was insane. She saw this moment as something she had seen many times before: sudden, unpredictable – a moment of violence. It would end as quickly as it started, with only the outcome undecided. But she, Lola Rosa, had decided.
/> No one came into her house and threatened her with a knife. Not the biggest gangster in Caracas. Not God himself.
As this man talked to whatever evil spirit was by his feet, Lola took a step backwards into the kitchen and wrapped her hand around a heavy carving knife sticking out of its wooden stand.
“Mama guevo!” she cried, lunging at him, swinging the knife down in a great arc. Slade had only time to raise his right forearm in defence, the blade slicing into it, chipping bone.
He screamed. His right hand dropped the knife. He drove his left fist into Lola’s face. She fell backwards, letting go of her weapon while Slade glanced at his arm – blood – but Lola was coming at him again, with her whole body this time, charging him against the chairs and the television.
They hit the wall.
Slade kneed her in the stomach. She grabbed his face, screaming, gripping his eye and cheek, digging in her long nails.
He punched her again in the head but the blow didn’t shift her and she hung onto him as they swung and crashed forward, bouncing and rolling off the walls, dislodging pictures and ornaments, staggering back into the kitchen, Lola squeezing him close so he couldn’t hit her. They slammed against kitchen shelves, glasses and pans clattering and smashing on the floor as she sank her teeth into his neck and bit down like a wolf. Slade let out the howl.
He grabbed her hair, wrenching her off him, and he elbowed her in the face. Her grip loosened.
He pinned her to the wall by her throat, breathing heavily.
He ripped at her T-shirt, exposing her breasts. She was concussed. He spun her round, bent her over the sideboard, and ripped down the velour tracksuit bottoms she was wearing. He looked down at her backside. She was moaning, semi-conscious. His blood was dripping on her buttocks.
The little boy that had shown Slade to the house was sitting under a tree, unwrapping a sweet. It was a present from the old man for delivering a message: they had a new guest and Lola wanted him to come home. The old man patted him on the head, bidding goodbye to his friends and shuffled off down the path.
A Bright Moon for Fools Page 26