The seminar lasted two hours, and was so fruitful that Lucia was given a standing ovation. Richard was impressed not only by her eloquence but because to him she looked very attractive in her black dress and silver necklace, and with the pink highlights in her hair. She had the cheekbones and energy of a Tatar, and he remembered her as she’d looked years earlier, with a reddish mass of hair and tight jeans. Even though she had changed, he thought she was still striking, and had he not feared being misinterpreted, he would have told her so. He congratulated himself on having invited her to his department. He knew she had been through difficult years: an illness, a divorce, and heaven knew what else. It occurred to him to ask her to teach Chilean politics for a year at the university as it might serve as a diversion for her, but it would be even more useful for the students. Some of them were colossally ignorant, arriving at college without being able to place Chile on a map, and most likely unable to situate their own country in the world. They thought the United States was the world.
Richard would have liked Lucia to stay longer than two semesters, but it was hard to come up with the funds: the university administration was as slow in making decisions as the Vatican. When he had sent her the contract, he’d offered to rent her the basement apartment, which was unoccupied at the time. He imagined Lucia would be delighted to have somewhere so sought-after in the heart of Brooklyn, close to public transport and at such a reasonable rent, but when she saw it, she could scarcely conceal her disappointment. What a difficult woman, thought Richard. They had started off on the wrong foot, but since then things had improved between them.
He was convinced he had been both generous and understanding toward her. He had even accepted the eventual presence of the dog, which according to her would be only temporary, but which had already lasted more than two months. Although pets were forbidden in the rental agreement, he had turned a blind eye to this Chihuahua that barked like a German shepherd and terrified the mailman and neighbors. He knew nothing about dogs but could see that Marcelo was very odd, with bulging toad’s eyes that seemed not to fit in their sockets and a tongue that lolled out because of all the missing teeth. The tartan wool cape the dog wore did nothing to improve his appearance. According to Lucia, Marcelo had turned up on her doorstep one night, close to death and without an identity collar. “Who could possibly be so cruel as to throw him out?” she said to Richard with a pleading look. That was the first time Richard had noticed Lucia’s eyes. They were as black as olives, with thick eyelashes and fine laughter lines around them—cat eyes, although that was an irrelevant detail. What she looked like did not matter. To retain his privacy, ever since he had purchased the house he had followed the rule of avoiding all familiarity with his tenants, and he had no intention of making an exception for her.
RICHARD CALCULATED THAT IT WAS STILL too early to phone his father, although the old man woke at dawn and waited impatiently for his call. On Sundays they always had lunch together at a restaurant his father chose, because if it depended on Richard they would always have gone to the same place. “At least this time I’ll have something different to tell you, Dad,” murmured Richard, realizing how interested his father would be to hear about Evelyn Ortega, since he was always concerned about immigrants and refugees.
Joseph Bowmaster, by now very elderly but still completely lucid, had been an actor. He was born in Germany to a Jewish family with a tradition as antiquarians and art collectors that could be traced back as far as the Renaissance. They were refined, cultured people, but the fortune they had amassed was lost during the First World War. In the second half of the thirties, when Hitler appeared unstoppable, his parents sent Joseph to France on the pretext that he was making a close study of the Impressionists, but in fact to get him away from the imminent Nazi danger. They meanwhile made plans to emigrate illegally to Palestine, at that time controlled by Great Britain. To placate the Arabs, the British limited the immigration of Jews to the territory, but nothing could stop the most desperate.
Joseph stayed on in France but devoted himself to the theater rather than studying art. He had a natural talent for acting and for languages. As well as German, he was fluent in French and set himself to studying English. He was so successful that he could soon imitate several accents, from Cockney to BBC pronunciation. In 1940, when the Nazis invaded France and occupied Paris, he managed to escape to Spain, and from there to Portugal. For the rest of his life he would remember the kindness of those people who, at great risk to themselves, helped him in this odyssey. Richard grew up listening to the story of his father’s wartime escape, and with the idea etched on his mind that to help the persecuted is an inescapable duty. As soon as he was old enough, his father took him to France to visit two families that had kept him hidden from the Nazis, and to Spain to thank those who helped him survive and to cross into Portugal.
By 1940, Lisbon had become the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of European Jews desperate to obtain documents to reach the United States, South America, or Palestine. While awaiting his opportunity, Joseph stayed in the old quarter of the city, a maze of narrow streets and mysterious houses, in a boardinghouse fragrant with jasmine and oranges. There he fell in love with Cloe, the owner’s daughter, who was three years older than him, a post office employee by day and a fado singer by night. She was a dark beauty with a tragic expression befitting the sad songs she sang. Joseph lacked the courage to tell his parents he was in love with a Gentile, until they emigrated together, first to London, where they lived for two years, and then New York. By this time war was raging furiously in Europe, and Joseph’s parents, precariously settled in Palestine, had no objection to their new daughter-in-law. All that was important was for their son to be safe from the genocide the Germans were perpetrating.
In New York, Joseph changed his surname to Bowmaster, which sounded English through and through, and thanks to his feigned aristocratic accent found parts in Shakespeare plays for the next forty years. Cloe on the other hand never learned English properly and had no success there with her country’s plaintive fados. However, instead of being plunged into despair by her failure as an artist, she began to study fashion and became the family’s breadwinner, because the amount Joseph earned in the theater never stretched to the end of the month. The divalike woman Joseph had met in Lisbon turned out to possess a great practical sense and a capacity for hard work. She was also unswervingly loyal, devoting herself fully to her husband and Richard, their only child. Richard grew up spoiled like a prince in a modest apartment in the Bronx, shielded from the world by his parents’ love.
Richard turned out to be as good-looking as Joseph, though not as tall and lacking the actor’s extravagant temperament; rather, he was more melancholic, like his mother. Busy with their own lives, his parents loved him without smothering him, treating him with mild neglect, as was common in those days before children became projects. This suited Richard, because they left him in peace with his books, and no one demanded much of him beyond getting good marks at school, behaving properly, and being considerate. He spent more time with his father than with his mother, because Joseph had a flexible schedule, whereas Cloe was a partner in a women’s clothing store and habitually stayed there sewing until late at night. Joseph took his son with him on his errands of mercy, as Cloe called them. They went to hand out food and clothing donated by the churches and synagogues to the poorest families in the Bronx, both Jewish and Christian. “You never ask people in need who they are or where they’ve come from, Richard. We’re all the same in misfortune,” Joseph would preach to his son. Twenty years later he proved this by confronting the police on the streets of New York to defend undocumented immigrants who had been rounded up in raids.
Whenever he recalled his happy childhood, Richard asked himself why he had not lived up to what he was taught as a child, following the example he was given, and instead failed as both a husband and a father.
During the night, with his defenses lowered
, his demons had come and clawed at him. Years before, he had tried to keep them in a sealed compartment of his memory, but eventually gave this up because his angels disappeared along with them. Later, he learned to cherish even his most painful memories: without them it would have been as if he had never been young, or loved, or a father. If the price he had to pay for this was more suffering, then so be it. Sometimes the demons won the fight against the angels, and the result was a paralyzing migraine, which was also part of the price. He carried with him the heavy debt of the mistakes he had made, a debt he had shared with no one. But now, in the winter of 2016, circumstances were finally forcing him to open his heart. The slow exorcism of his past began on that night sprawled on the floor between two women and a ridiculous dog, while outside a snowy Brooklyn slept.
“COME ON, LADIES, WAKE UP!” he cried, clapping his hands.
Lucia opened her eyes. It also took her a while to figure out where she was.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Time to get going.”
“It’s still dark! Coffee first. I can’t think without caffeine. It’s like the North Pole in here, Richard. For the love of God, turn the heating up, don’t be so stingy. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Use the one on the second floor.”
Lucia got up in several stages, first on all fours, back bent, then with her hands on the floor and her backside in the air, as she had learned in yoga. Finally she stood up.
“I used to be able to do push-ups. Now if I stretch I get a cramp. Old age stinks,” she muttered on her way to the stairs.
I can see I’m not the only one approaching decrepitude, thought Richard with a hint of satisfaction. Then he went to make coffee and feed the cats, while Evelyn and Marcelo woke up as if they had the whole day in front of them with nothing to do. He stifled his urge to make the girl hurry up, realizing she must be exhausted.
The second-floor bathroom was clean and did not seem to be used much. It was big and old-fashioned, with a claw-foot bathtub and brass faucets. In the mirror, Lucia saw a woman she did not recognize, with puffy eyes, blotchy red skin, and pink-and-white hair that made her look like a clown. The highlights had originally been beet colored, but now they were fading. She took a quick shower, dried herself on her T-shirt because there were no towels, put on her sweater, and combed her fingers through her hair. She needed her toothbrush and her makeup bag. “You can’t go into the world without mascara and lipstick,” she told the mirror. She had always seen vanity as a virtue, except during the months when she had chemotherapy and gave in to defeat until Daniela obliged her to return to life. Every morning she found the time to do herself up, even if she was going to stay at home and not see anyone. She would prepare herself for the day, applying her makeup and choosing her clothes like someone donning armor: it was her way of presenting herself, full of confidence, to the world. She loved brushes, rouge, lotions, colors, powders, materials, textures. She was unable to do without her makeup, her computer, her cell phone, and a dog. The computer was her work tool; the cell phone connected her to the world, especially Daniela; and the need to share her existence with an animal had begun in Vancouver and continued during the years she was married to Carlos. The dog Olivia had died of old age just when she herself got cancer. During that time she had to weep for the death of her mother, her own illness, and the loss of Olivia, her faithful companion. Marcelo was a gift from the gods, the perfect confidant. They talked to one another, and he made her laugh with his ugliness and the inquisitive look in his toad eyes. With this Chihuahua that barked at mice and ghosts, she could release the unbearable tenderness she felt inside but could not show to her daughter for fear of overwhelming her. Usually her grooming ritual was her time of meditation but that morning she could only think of Evelyn Ortega’s story.
Evelyn
Guatemala, 2008
On Holy Saturday, March 22, 2008, and six weeks after Gregorio Ortega’s death, it was his brother and sister’s turn. The avengers waited until Concepcion had gone to church to arrange the flowers for Easter Sunday and then burst into the hut in broad daylight. There were four of them, unmistakable because of their tattoos and their brazen attitude. Arriving at Monja Blanca del Valle on two noisy motorbikes, they made themselves instantly conspicuous in a village where everyone either walked or rode bicycles. They stayed inside the hut for only eighteen minutes; that was all they needed. If neighbors saw them, none intervened or were willing to give testimony afterward. The fact that they committed their crime during Holy Week, a sacred time given over to fasting and penance, would be commented on for years as the most unforgivable of sins.
Concepcion Montoya returned to her house around one o’clock, when the sun was beating down and even the cockatoos had fallen silent in their branches. She was not surprised at the silence or the empty streets, because this was siesta time and those who were not resting would be busy with preparations for the procession of the Risen Christ and the high mass Father Benito was to celebrate the next day, wearing his white alb and purple stole rather than the pair of filthy jeans and threadbare embroidered stole woven in Chichicastenango he used the rest of the year. Still dazzled from the bright sunlight out in the street, Concepcion needed a few seconds to adjust her eyes to the darkness inside the hut, and to catch sight of Andres near the door, curled up like a sleeping dog. “What’s wrong with you, my boy?” she managed to ask before seeing the trail of blood staining the earthen floor, and the slash across his throat. A raw cry rose from deep inside her, tearing her apart. She knelt down, calling out to him, “Andres, Andresito,” and then suddenly Evelyn flashed through her mind. She found the girl lying at the far end of the room, her thin body exposed, and with blood on her face, her legs, her torn cotton dress. Concepcion crawled over to her, appealing to God, moaning for him not to take her, to show mercy. She seized her granddaughter by the shoulders and shook her, noticing that one of her arms was dangling at an impossible angle. She searched for any signs of life; unable to find one, she rushed to the door, shouting hoarsely and crying out to the Virgin Mary.
A neighbor was the first to come to her aid, followed by other women. Two of them restrained the crazed grandmother, while others discovered that nothing could be done for Andres, but that Evelyn was still breathing. They sent a boy on a bike to tell the police and tried to revive Evelyn without moving her because of the twisted arm and the blood coming from her mouth and between her legs.
Father Benito arrived in his pickup ahead of the police. He found the hut full of people talking and trying to help in whatever way they could. They had laid Andres’s body on the table, straightening the head and covering the slit throat with a shawl. After cleaning his body with wet cloths they had sent for a fresh shirt to make him look presentable. Meanwhile other women were applying cold compresses to Evelyn and doing their best to comfort Concepcion. The priest understood that it was already too late to preserve the evidence, because it had been handled and trodden on by these well-meaning neighbors, but also that it did not really make any difference, given the police’s lack of concern. It was unlikely that anyone in authority was going to put themselves to any trouble over this poor family. When the priest arrived, the villagers moved apart out of respect and hope, as if the divine powers he represented could undo the tragedy. He only needed to glance at Evelyn to assess her condition. He told the men to put a mattress on his pickup and had the women slide a blanket under her so that four of them could carry her out and place her on the mattress. He ordered Concepcion to go with him, and the others to wait right there for the police, if they ever showed up.
Evelyn’s grandmother and two of the women accompanied Father Benito to the clinic seven miles away that was run by evangelical missionaries. There were always one or two doctors on duty as it served several surrounding villages. Usually a terror at the wheel, Father Benito drove carefully for the first time in his life, because every pothole or bend elicited a groan fro
m Evelyn. When they arrived they carried her into the clinic on the blanket as if it were a hammock and placed her on a stretcher. She was seen by a doctor, Nuria Castell, who as Father Benito later discovered was far from evangelical: she was Catalan and agnostic. Evelyn’s right arm had been torn out of its socket and to judge by all the bruises, she must have had several broken ribs. The X-rays would confirm that, said the doctor. She had also been beaten about the face and suffered a possible concussion. Although she was conscious and had opened her eyes, she muttered only incoherent words. She did not recognize her grandmother or realize where she was.
“What happened to her?” asked the Catalan doctor.
“Her house was attacked. I think she saw how they killed her brother,” Father Benito said.
“They probably forced her brother to watch what they were doing to her before they killed him.”
“Jesus!” shouted the priest, punching the wall with his fist.
“Be careful with my clinic. It’s flimsy and we’ve just had it painted. I’ll examine the child to see what internal injuries she’s suffered,” Nuria Castell told him with a resigned sigh born of experience.
Father Benito called Miriam and this time had to tell her the harsh truth. He asked her to send money for the funeral of another of her children, and to pay a coyote, or people smuggler, who could take Evelyn to the United States. She was in imminent danger, because the gang would try to get rid of her to avoid her identifying the attackers. In a flood of tears and unable to take in this latest tragedy, Miriam explained that to pay for Gregorio’s funeral she had plundered the money she was saving to pay for Andres’s trip to see her when he finished school, as she had promised. She only had a small savings left but would borrow as much as she possibly could for her daughter’s sake.
In the Midst of Winter Page 7