by Tom Epperson
The room is silent now, except for the trickling water. Roberto’s aware that Franz, after hearing his story about what he found in the outhouse, doesn’t know what else to say. Franz is very generous in a general way, he gives away a lot of money to people in need and his various causes, but Roberto knows he has an aversion to being burdened with other people’s problems. He is not generous with his heart. Roberto takes him off the hook and changes the subject.
“How are your farmers doing?”
Franz’s face brightens. “They’re doing wonderfully. They love the new methods. They’re beginning to understand that if you’re kind to the soil that doesn’t mean you won’t make money. It’s quite the contrary.”
Franz is conducting a sort of experiment on his farm in San Tomé. He’s divided it into plots of land he’s turned over to local farmers, on condition they use the latest organic techniques he’s gleaned from endless hours spent searching through technical journals and the Internet. He monitors their work closely, requiring monthly reports. At the end of ten years each farmer will receive title to his plot of land, provided Franz is satisfied with what he’s done. Daniel calls the farmers Franz’s “lab rats.”
“I wish you had time to come to San Tomé before you left,” says Franz. “It’s changed so much since the last time you were there. I have to admit, things are going so well it’s making me a little nervous.”
“You’re afraid it’s going to be destroyed because it works?”
“Yes, exactly.”
There’s a timid knock at the door.
“Come in,” calls Franz.
The door opens. Abril peers in. She stands there speechless.
“What do you want, Abril?”
“Siegfried wants to know if he can show Roberto his new video game.”
“What game is that?”
“The one with shooting and monsters.”
“Why didn’t Siegfried come and ask Roberto himself?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell Siegfried Roberto and I are talking, and Roberto can see it later.”
“Okay.”
Abril keeps standing in the doorway, looking around at Franz’s study. She doesn’t see it very often. No one—wife, kids, employees—is allowed in here without Franz’s permission. Roberto can tell it’s a place of wonder for her, like a mysterious cave where a wizard lives. Suddenly she smiles brightly, showing a missing front tooth.
“Bye, Papa!”
“Bye, Abril.”
She closes the door softly.
“Where were we?” says Franz.
“We were talking about the farmers . . . their future.”
Franz shakes his head. Touches the glass of wine to his lips and drinks a drop or two. “Anything new in this country is considered ‘dangerous’ and ‘subversive.’ Murder the farmers and burn the fields, that’s our answer to the new. How can progress even be possible here?”
“Maybe it’s not possible. Maybe the future will be like the past.”
“I’ve been rereading Resurrection by Tolstoy, have you ever read it?”
Roberto shakes his head.
“It’s fascinating. It’s a total top-to-bottom indictment of Russian society in the 1890s: the government, the church, the military, the rich, the poor. It’s about the greed, the corruption, the phoniness, the hypocrisy. It’s astonishing how much that time in that country is like this country right now. It makes you wonder why human beings can’t ever seem to get it right.”
Roberto gazes at the goldfish, only half listening as Franz continues to go on about Tolstoy. He got a degree in philosophy at the university, and Roberto thinks he probably would have been happier as a college professor like Andrés than working in the family business. He disapproves of the products they make and would never allow one of their delicious chocolates to pass between his own fastidious lips.
The goldfish make Roberto think of Diana Langenberg. He wonders what she’s doing now. Petting her dog with the yearning human eyes? Listening to her assistant Hermés play the ukulele? Through his shirt, he touches the St. Jude’s medal she gave him. He may not believe it protects him but he likes feeling it there. Occasionally when you get a gift, it’s not as if you’re receiving something new but it’s as if something lost has been restored to you and you know you will keep it to the end of your days.
And then something odd happens. It’s like a gust of cold wind blows right through his bones. He looks around to see if a door or window has been opened but none have. The flames of all the candles remain upright, unwavering. And then it is like the wind dies away.
He looks at Franz. He doesn’t seem to have noticed anything. He’s still talking, talking, though not any more about Tolstoy evidently, he can go on for hours when he’s like this.
“‘O monks,’ said the Buddha,” says Franz, “‘know that all things are on fire.’ Every atom of each one of us is on fire, Roberto, with passion, anger, and delusion. How can we possibly save ourselves?”
* * *
Roberto waves at two guards with shotguns, who wave back and open the gates. He heads toward home. He feels an agreeable buzz from Franz’s wine. He listens to music, and thinks about what’s left to do.
Lunch tomorrow with his father. And at some point he needs to stop off at Andrés’s apartment and say good-bye to him and his wife. He’s called and emailed and texted Daniel but hasn’t got a response. No surprise. Typical of Daniel. He’ll doubtless resurface before Roberto leaves. He thought Daniel could drive him to the airport. He needs to hook up with Iván tomorrow, have him sign the lease and give him a check and Roberto will give him the keys. The packing’s practically finished. He still has to do something with the car. And then Wednesday the airport, and soaring away on silver wings.
He checks his voice mail. Lieutenant Matallana left a message about two hours ago. He sounds excited. “I’m returning your call, Roberto, but I also have something to tell you. It could be a real break for us. Please call me on my cellphone as soon as you get this.”
As Roberto calls him, he feels a tingle of anticipation. What luck it is for Roberto that he is the one handling the case. Not one cop in a thousand in this city would be pursuing it like him.
“Hello,” says a voice. It doesn’t sound like Matallana.
“May I speak to Lieutenant Matallana?”
“Who is this?”
“Who is this?”
“Sergeant Salcedo, police department. Your name please.”
The voice is cold and abrupt; Roberto doesn’t like the voice.
“José Rodriguez,” he says.
“What is the purpose of your call?”
“It’s a personal matter. Now will you please put him on?”
“That would be impossible.”
“Why?”
“He’s dead.”
“What?”
“The lieutenant is dead. I’m standing by his body.”
“How?”
“He’s been shot. Now tell me. Why did you want to talk to him?”
But Roberto can’t speak. He can hardly breathe.
“Rodriguez?” says Salcedo.
He slows down. He pulls his car over to the side of the road.
“Rodriguez? Rodriguez? Rodriguez!”
Five days until the day Roberto is to die
Beto is sitting behind his desk in the lobby, tapping at his smartphone with his thumbs. He jumps up and smiles when he sees Roberto and wishes him good morning.
“Good morning, Beto. Let me ask you a question.”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you need a car?”
“A car?”
“You don’t have one, do you? Don’t you ride the bus?”
“Yes sir. Back and forth from La Vega.” A neighborhood to the south.
“I’m leaving tomorrow, and I won’t be needing my car anymore. I thought that maybe you’d like to have it.”
Beto stares at Roberto, wondering if he’s heard him right.
<
br /> “Your car? The Kia?”
“Yes.”
He swallows nervously, which causes the Adam’s apple in his skinny neck to bob.
“And you want to . . . to give it to me?”
Roberto nods. “I’ll be needing it today, but tomorrow I’ll give you the keys and the title.”
“But why give it to me?”
“Why not you? I’ve put a lot of kilometers on it, but it’s in pretty good shape. Except for the roof.”
“What’s wrong with the roof?”
“Some idiot hit it with a rock yesterday.”
Now Beto smiles. As wide a smile as Robert’s seen in quite some time.
“It’s not a problem. I’ll have it fixed!”
Roberto goes back upstairs to his apartment. Fourteen cardboard boxes and three suitcases sit near the front door, all bearing the Saint Lucia address of Caroline’s parents. A shipping company is supposed to arrive within the hour and pick them up.
He calls Andrés and asks him when he should come by.
“My last class is at two,” says Andrés. “I should be home no later than four. Any time after that.”
“Five?”
“That’s fine.
“How’s Teresa?”
“Well, honestly, Roberto, I’m hoping you’ll be able to cheer her up. Ever since I told her you were leaving, she’s barely had a word to say. You know her, you never know where her mind is going.”
“Teresa is tougher than you think. I think maybe she’s tougher than any of us.”
He hears Andrés sigh. “Okay, Roberto. I’ll see you later.”
Roberto checks his emails. He has one from Gloria Varela, under the subject line: Humberto has found a home! With two retired lesbians (to be clear, they’re retired from their careers, not from being lesbians). Their cat died recently, and they’re delighted to have Humberto. They live just down the street, so I’ll be able to look in on our long-eared friend from time to time and give you a report. So bon voyage, Roberto! It is time for you to leave our happy, sad, wonderful, terrible country. Forget about all the dark things, and enjoy life on your enchanted island.
He googles: “tulcán.”
He looks for news stories in the last week.
Five workers have been killed in a terrorist attack on the Northern Transversal Strip.
President Dávila announced Monday a “humanitarian mission” to Tulcán to protect civilians from the terrorists. “The security situation is deteriorating rapidly,” Dávila said, “which is why I am immediately ordering twenty-eight thousand of our best-trained troops into the province. Our ultimate aims are peace and stability, but make no mistake: the war against terror will continue until terror is uprooted and terminated, regardless of the sacrifices.”
The minister of mines and energy was in Tulcán last week touring a gold mine. “In uncertain economic times such as these, smart investors go to gold,” said the minister. “That’s why the discovery of these new gold fields will prove to be a great boon to all the people of Tulcán.”
He sees the broad brown peasant features of General Horacio Oropeza in a video of an interview conducted by an obsequious TV reporter. “It’s time for Tulcán to finally choose between good and evil, violence and peace, civilization and the law of the jungle,” Oropeza says, looking straight into the camera with his heavy-lidded, indifferent eyes. When the reporter asks him about an offer from the Tulcán Independence Movement, the main opposition group, to negotiate directly with the general to head off what they call an “impending bloodbath,” the suggestion of a smile pulls at the corners of the general’s lips. “The leaders of the TIM are very impressive men. They dress in expensive suits, they are pleasant, and they smile a lot. They speak well, using many big words that I don’t even know the meaning of. So why am I so suspicious? Maybe because of something I learned as a boy growing up on a farm deep in the jungle: though the monkey dresses in silk, it’s still a monkey.”
He checks in on the Twitter feed of former president Landazábal, and sees that just a few minutes ago he issued this pithy tweet: The terrorists in Tulcán are mosquitoes requiring insecticide.
Okay, Roberto thinks. It’s happening now. The Sri Lanka option in Tulcán.
The Black Jaguars, the paramilitary arm of the Committee for the Defense of the Nation, have a history of working closely with the Army; in fact, their peppy slogan is: “We do things the Army can’t!” They’re led by a shadowy figure with the nom de guerre of Hernán 40, known for his extraordinary cruelty. The situation in Tulcán, where there’s a need for innocent civilians to be brutalized and murdered, seems tailor-made for them. He googles: “tulcán black jaguars.” But nothing turns up.
His cellphone pings three times. He takes a look at the text message that has just come in: see you at usual place 11 w.
* * *
Dreamlike, over the green trees, he floats up the slopes of Mount Cabanacande. He shares the orange cable car with about twenty other people, including a cheerful cluster of teenage Asian girls, probably students on a trip, who are chirping away at one another like birds. The view of the city as he gets higher and higher really is amazing and is why so many tourists flock here, though most of the people who actually live in the shadow of Mount Cabanacande tend to take it for granted and seldom make the trip to its top.
When he steps out of the cable car it’s chilly and windy, and he’s glad he’s wearing his windbreaker. The air is very clear today and the sun is shining and white clouds drift over the broad valley.
He walks up the winding stone path toward the white church. It gleams so brightly in the sun it nearly hurts his eyes. It was built two centuries ago after the original church that had been built two centuries before that was leveled in an earthquake. He walks up the steps of the church and goes inside.
A scattering of people are sitting quietly in the pews and a few tourists are wandering around taking pictures but he doesn’t see Willie. He’s a little early. He sits down in an empty pew.
The city is full of old churches and this one is pretty but nothing exceptional. Behind the altar is a statue of the Fallen Christ. It’s four hundred years old, and was the only thing in the original church spared by the earthquake. Its survival was immediately labeled miraculous; since then, thousands of sick or desperate people have come to the top of the mountain to pray to the statue, and many purported miracles have occurred. The Fallen Christ is lying on his side, propped up on one arm; he’s fallen while carrying the cross up the hill to his crucifixion. The statue is made of bronze but long, stringy, apparently real hair hangs from his head and a purple and gold cloth is wrapped around his middle. He’s bloody and scourged and has an appalled look on his face like the Christ in Manuel’s mother’s house and Roberto thinks how strange it is that a religion would take as its symbol the image of a man being hideously tortured, though it seems to have a kind of appropriateness in a country such as this.
Willie Rivera sits down beside him. He’s a little winded from the walk up from the cable car.
“I’ve got to lose twenty pounds,” he says.
“Thanks for coming.”
He nods. He’s wearing sunglasses. He looks around the church.
“I love coming here. It’s so peaceful. I could sit here forever.”
But he doesn’t come close to sitting there forever, he sits for just another second or two before he sighs and stands up. Roberto walks with him out of the church.
It’s not just the church that’s up here, there’s a whole little world. Beautiful gardens. A fancy French restaurant, and a couple of cheaper places. A brick street lined with shops selling handicrafts and religious junk and snacks and soda. And a colony of polydactyl cats. They’ve been here as long as anybody can remember. There’s a tradition that cats with extra digits on their feet bring good luck, and so they’re pampered and spoiled like Caroline’s cats.
Roberto and Willie stroll along, in the gusty wind, on top of the mountain, under the huge sky.
“How’s Helen’s cold?” asks Roberto.
“Better. So I assume this is about Tulcán.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going there?”
Roberto nods.
“What changed your mind?”
Roberto tells him. About Manuel and his mother and Nydia, and Lieutenant Matallana, and the lieutenant’s murder.
“He was shot down on the street in front of his apartment building. As he got out of his car. No witnesses, of course. He had a wife. Three daughters.”
“Yeah,” says Willie, “I heard something about it on the news. So I wonder what he wanted to tell you.”
“He must have gotten some hard evidence against Toño González or the CPN.”
“Too bad. Sounds like he was one of the good guys.”
He doesn’t sound too sad about it. People die all the time, the good and the bad, in Willie’s world.
They’re walking up the brick street lined with shops. Willie stops at one, and buys a pink apple-flavored soft drink.
“I’m addicted to this shit,” he says. “Helen’s been trying to get me to stop, but it’s no use. I just can’t help myself.” He takes a long drink then says, “So what’s the connection?”
“Between what?”
“Between these four murders, and you going to Tulcán.”
Roberto thinks about it.
“I guess I just can’t let them win. At least not completely. I’m still leaving the country, but I’m going to do something before I do.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’ve booked a flight for tomorrow to Saint Lucia. When I go to the airport, I assume they’ll be following me. Make sure that I leave. Except I won’t be going to Saint Lucia, I’ll fly to Robledo. I’ll get a car there and drive to Tulcán. I’ll spend three days in Tulcán. I know that’s not much, but it’s the best I can do. Then I’ll go back to Robledo and fly to Saint Lucia on Sunday.”