No one had told her about Quesada’s death. She had been asleep when I returned in the early hours, and I had driven away before she woke. But she had guessed. We had enjoyed our burst of hope and we had been deceived.
The weekend before, to celebrate, Sylvina had borrowed a beach house in Paracas belonging to one of her tennis partners. A hired boat chugged us to the island where Laura threw crisps at the sea-lions. On the shiny brown sand she danced between the jellyfish. After dinner Sylvina and I made love.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.” In the dark I heard the dislocated bark of the seals. For as long as I could remember my thoughts had condensed on the harassing figure of Ezequiel.
“There were times when I suspected he might not be a he.”
She deserved to be happier than my circumstances had allowed. I would make it up.
“Maybe it’s the moment to leave,” she had whispered in my ear.
We had met in my second term at the Catholic University. I was standing in the canteen after a lecture and she stood one place ahead. Round, elegant spectacles, a brooch at her neck, and white hands seamed with blue veins. I couldn’t take my eyes off those hands, so different in colour to my own. She waved them, exasperated, then noticed that I was looking at her. “Help me. What shall I have to eat?”
Sylvina took another bag from the freezer and put it on the table. “I hope there won’t be a blackout for my party. What was going on last night, anyway?”
“They’ve killed the Interior Minister.”
“Quesada?” She stopped, still holding the plastic bag, its contents obscured by droplets of condensation.
“Yes.”
“So he’s not dead? After all that?”
I put the clock back on the wall. “Does that look right?”
“Christ, I was at school with Quesada’s wife.”
“She’s dead too.”
“What happened, Agustín? Tell me. You might as well tell me.”
I described the events at the Teatro de Paz. It was the kind of play Sylvina might have enjoyed. Patricia, who had lent us the beach house, was on the theatre’s board and occasionally gave Sylvina tickets.
“Lucky she didn’t this time.” Her eyes had watered, but she tried to sound bright.
We talked about her literary evening. She worried the blackout might have ruined the casserole. “How long do you think it can keep?”
“Did you cook it with milk?”
“It’s the one I make with smoked trout.”
“If it has milk, are you supposed to freeze it in the first place?”
“I guess that means I shouldn’t refreeze it.”
“I’m sure it’s all right.”
“Or is it pushing things?”
“If it was me, I’d put everything back in the freezer.”
“But I thought you said it couldn’t be refrozen.”
“Maybe I’m wrong.”
“I also broke the pepper grinder. I can’t get a new one anywhere . . .” She ran to snatch the bag from the cat, and immediately relented.
“She’s eating!”
She seized a spoon, urging on to a saucer more of the half-frozen casserole.
“Look, Agustín. She’s eating!”
She turned and looked at me. There was a spark of pleasure in her eyes and I wondered if she was seeing again what she had seen when I was a stranger?
I stroked the cat, as though I would benefit from the affection. I took Sylvina’s hand, but she drew back. She pointed to the telephone on the trolley. “You haven’t reset the answering machine.”
I rewound the message tape and heard myself apologizing for not coming home. “I’m sorry. I’ll explain later. You’ll understand when I tell you . . .” The voice, high-pitched, aloof, uttering the decayed phrases of conciliation, didn’t sound like my idea of myself. Though I stood only an arm’s length from Sylvina, I seemed to be eavesdropping on some private grief.
She slithered the rest of the bag’s contents into a blue container. “Laura said you had plans to take us to La Posta.”
“She’s keen to go.”
“You can’t. Not now.”
“What shall I do? I did promise.”
“You’ll have to tell her it’s out of the question.”
“Where is Laura?”
She looked at the clock. “I’m collecting her in half an hour.”
“She seems nice, her new bailet teacher.”
“I’m not sure about this sudden interest of Laura’s in modern dance.”
“Can it hurt?”
“I haven’t decided. I don’t want anything to interfere with her chances at the Metropolitan.”
“Isn’t it her birthday soon?” I had been reminded as I fiddled with the clock.
“Next Thursday.”
“How old is she?”
“Twelve, Agustín.”
“What are we getting her?”
“Some ballet shoes, I thought. I’ll also need some money from you to pay back Marco.”
“Sylvina, why do we owe Marco anything?”
“He sent me the book I’ve got to talk about tomorrow.”
Marco was her second cousin, a lawyer I disliked even more than I did Marina, his former wife. I felt bad when I complained about them to Sylvina, but the pair of them appealed to her worst instincts. They had gone to live in Miami soon after we married, and at their farewell dinner Marco had made me intensely angry. Standing by the fireplace in his creamy Nehru suit, he had told me that I ought to get my money out of the country: there was no future in a place where half the population were Indians who couldn’t speak Spanish. I realized that he thought I was like him, and it enraged me. I had drunk rather a lot, and had begun to feel Sylvina was also looking down on me. I lost my temper. We were the ones who should be setting an example, I said. Instead he was fleeing to Miami. I can’t remember what else I said. Too much, probably. It makes me embarrassed to think how self-righteous I must have sounded. I remember the contemptuous look on his face. “So what are you going to do?” he said to me. “Become a fucking policeman, or what?”
I’d never thought about it before that minute, but that’s exactly what I did. Laura was born in July. In August I was accepted by the Police Academy of San Luis, and things were never the same.
The knowledge that I owed money to Marco spurred me to tackle Sylvina about our financial circumstances. I was about to say something, but her mind was exercised by her literary evening, now only twenty-four hours away.
“You will be here to help, Agustín? You won’t wriggle out of it.”
I counted out the notes for Marco. “No, darling.”
The prospect of having to talk for fifteen minutes about the novel Marco had sent had unnerved Sylvina for several days. At Paracas, lying on the beach, she had explained the plot aloud to clarify her thoughts. “It’s about a cowboy who’s also a photographer and he’s always bringing light into these women’s lives. Marco saw the guy who wrote it on a television show. Apparently he’s really interesting, and he sings as well. Marco’s sure the women down here would love him. I just hope Marina doesn’t find out where I got the idea.”
Over the weekend she had shown me passages from the book. I didn’t care for it.
“I think this is trashy.”
“Well, Marco doesn’t. He thinks it’s good.”
She lodged the blue container in the fridge. “I don’t care a damn what Ezequiel does, you’ve got to be here.”
Poor Sylvina. Nothing went right for her, no matter how hard she tried. When he chose his next victim, Ezequiel can’t have known that among the casualties would be my wife’s literary dinner.
On that day I would complete my investigation at the Teatro de Paz.
None of the theatre staff had seen the performance. Blackout had been a low-budget production and the players – students, it was thought – had insisted on operating the lights and curtains. They had left behind no trace s
ave for a cassette, discovered under a chair, of Frank Sinatra’s album Point of No Return.
“I . . . I was grateful for the business.” Sixtyish, moustached, polite, the manager was the sort who likes to greet his audience as they leave. He sat on his hands wearing a formal satin jacket which he refused to take off, apprehensive about his future. Nobody would want to be part of an audience where you risked being dragged on stage to have your head blown off.
He knew nothing of the cast. The one person he did remember was the director. He had been in his late thirties, of average height and build, with his hair concealed under a soft black cap somewhat like a beret – “but not a beret”. He had spoken courteously in the accent of the capital, with a discernible whistle when pronouncing certain words – although which words exactly the manager couldn’t remember. At first he described him as clean-shaven; later he would not be confident even of that. The man had rented the theatre for a fortnight, paying cash, with the option of extending the period should Blackout prove the success he sincerely believed it would be. Madame Offenbach’s production of The Nutcracker was two months away. Rather than have his theatre lie empty the manager had accepted payment in the name of a student theatrical group from the Catholic University.
I don’t need to tell you, no such group existed.
I never found out why Quesada let himself be lured that night to the Teatro de Paz. True, he had a liking for theatre, but even so – Blackout? You see, Ezequiel can’t have orchestrated his death without feeling confident he would be in the audience. Free tickets had been sent to five other government ministers and eight ambassadors; later, another of the envelopes was found unopened in a pile of correspondence addressed to the President. The publicity material, fortunately, attracted nobody but the Minister of the Interior. One can imagine the devastation had Ezequiel decided to stage, say, My Fair Lady.
I had the envelopes analysed for fingerprints, but the technicians failed to come up with a match. I also submitted the handwriting on Ezequiel’s poster to a graphologist. Her findings reached me late in the afternoon and told me nothing I didn’t suspect. The low slope of the letters combined with thick, clublike finals indicated a cold character ruled by the head. It was the hand of a male; clannish, methodical, authoritarian, and determined to succeed in spite of every obstacle. The lassoo loops suggested a lover of music. From the short downstrokes she judged that the author suffered from an illness or physical weakness.
The analysis concluded: “This is a person who is successful in what he does, but who derives little pleasure from life.”
Sylvina had a sweltering day for her dinner. At five-thirty I telephoned to say I was on my way.
“What happens if there’s a blackout?” she said.
“There won’t be.”
“It’s so hot.”
“Borrow a fan, then.”
“Who from?”
“The people upstairs, they’ll lend you one.”
“I can’t. I complained to them this morning about blocking the garage.”
“How’s the casserole?”
Twice at breakfast she had opened the fridge, run her nose over the lid and sniffed.
“It should be all right. Although I did ring Marina to check. She says the amount of time is much longer than you’re meant to keep something cooked with milk. I didn’t tell her it was what we were having tonight.”
“Have you worked out what you’re going to say?”
“I’ve written two pages. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
I had suggested she practise her speech in front of the mirror, without looking at what she had written.
“You will be home, Agustín?”
“I’m leaving now.”
Knowing the centre would be congested, I headed through Rimac. There was more traffic than I expected, but that was all right. She didn’t expect her guests until seven. I would arrive in time to insert the leaves into the dining-room table, remove the two armchairs to the bedroom, and act as a supporting presence. I would devote myself to making Sylvina happy, and afterwards . . .
The mobile rang inside my jacket pocket. I pulled the car over on to a slipway. The transmission was half drowned in static.
“What is it?”
“Sir, can you hear me?” Sucre.
“I’m here. Go ahead.”
“It’s Prado.”
“Oh, God.” Admiral Prado, the Defence Minister, had been one of the other officials who had received free tickets for Blackout.
“Two girls. They’ve shot him.”
I stopped the car. “Where?”
“La Molina, outside his house.”
This morning I had been on the telephone to Prado’s office. “No restaurants. No beaches. Not even a church.”
“I don’t believe Almirante Prado is a church-going man,” said the secretary.
Yet even with the Defence Minister on his guard, Ezequiel had been able to strike.
A girl no older than Laura had killed the Admiral on this hot afternoon. There had been little to distinguish her from the thousands of schoolgirls who spilled into the streets after class. The Admiral and his driver, about to leave home for the Assembly, would have sat in the car, watching the bullet-proof security gate slowly rising and the young legs juddering into view. The attention of both men would have been tantalized by the blue canvas shoes growing into the white ankle socks, the sun-burnt calves into bare knees, the thighs spreading into the neat hems of a brown and yellow summer dress just like my daughter’s. Perhaps the driver kept his whistle to himself. Perhaps the Admiral whistled. His corpse would have the exhausted face of a womanizer.
She stood in view. They would have noticed her white headband. Two other girls joined her on the drive, blocking the path.
The driver hooted. Indifferently, they stood aside. The girl in the white headband rummaged in her satchel, tilting it towards the rear window, as if searching for a crayon.
The driver spotted the aimed satchels and delved inside his jacket.
The Admiral, his smiling face flattened to the glass, was shot twice in the neck. According to the Admiral’s maid, who had run to the window at the first two shots, there was then a single explosion. In fact three more bullets were fired.
Two rounds struck the driver. The car jerked forward and stalled in the road. The third hit the Admiral’s assassin, who fell to the pavement, her jaw blown away.
Somehow the two unwounded schoolgirls managed to tug Prado and his driver from the car and lift their injured companion inside. The maid saw the dark blue Mercedes driving southwards.
I turned my car round and headed for the house in La Molina. Five minutes later Sucre rang back. A teacher had contacted police headquarters.
“There’s a car abandoned near her school in Lurigancho. It sounds like the Mercedes.”
It was. I found it sideways in a ditch on the edge of the road to the airport, two wheels in the air. A tracery of blood covered the windscreen, and more dampened the back and front seats. Flies buzzed between the sticky surfaces. In the heat, the blood had begun to smell.
A hundred yards from the car a group of children volleyed an orange ball over a rope strung between lampposts. It was growing dark, but the ball remained bright, as if drawing to itself the fading light. I left my car beside the Mercedes and walked over.
The children – five girls, five boys – continued thumping their ball, not looking at me. I waited until the ball came near, then caught it.
“That car,” I said to the girl who ran up. “Who drove it?”
She squinted at the Mercedes.
“Never seen it before, chief.” A boy with a peaked Coca Cola cap sauntered over with the other boys. They looked from the car to me, hands on hips, panting.
I ignored them, and I asked the girl, “How long have you been playing here?” She drew an arm across her nose, sniffing.
I walked between the boys to a little girl at the back.
“You? How long have you been
here?”
Her black hair was matted with sand where she had fallen.
“Ten minutes,” she whispered. They had started late. It was too hot to play earlier.
“You saw nothing?”
She shook her head, concentrating on her toe as it scraped a meaningless doodle in the dust.
Kneeling before her, I’m thinking I ought not to be here. Sylvina expects me at home. Six-thirty. Her friends would be arriving soon.
“What’s the score?”
At this, the girl smiled. “Three-one. To us.”
“They would have come this way – the people from the car.” I bounced the ball. The boy with the peaked cap made a grab for it, but I was too quick.
In houses around us the lights snapped on. A shadow moved, drawing my attention to a girl I hadn’t noticed. She bent over, transfixed by a patch of ground at her feet. I walked along the shadow towards her.
“What have you seen, little one?” I squatted on my haunches beside her, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t have to, because as soon as I touched a fingertip to the dark spot on the sand I realized it was blood.
I ran back to the car to radio Sucre for help.
“Here’s another!”
I replaced the mike and saw in the distance the boys gathering in a huddle. They strode back across the pitch in a group, led by Coca-Cola Cap.
“Chief, what will you pay us for every drop of blood we find?”
“If we find what I’m looking for, I’ll give you something.”
“No.”
My men wouldn’t arrive for another ten minutes. There wasn’t time to barter. “One peso.”
Two boys nudged each other.
“Five,” Coca-Cola Cap insisted.
“Two.” I wouldn’t be able to claim it on expenses.
He looked at me, weighing up my offer, old eyes in a young face.
“Three.”
“OK, three.”
His lips came together in an awful smile. He half-turned and, inserting into that smile a dirty forefinger and thumb, he whistled.
I watched his acolytes haring up the bank. The girls didn’t follow. They remained on the pitch, picking up their jackets, reluctant to take part.
The Dancer Upstairs Page 10