by Tom Epperson
They walk through the dim light and the loud music. Javier’s wearing a red flannel shirt, green pants that are too short for him, and hiking boots that look as if they’ve gone thousands of miles. He’s tall and lean, with fair skin, thinning hair, and an unkempt beard. He has big lips and buck teeth, and his face manages to be both ugly and appealing.
They sit down at a table.
“Willie says you want to go to Tulcán,” he says.
Roberto nods. “To the Otavalo Valley in particular. Willie says there’s a lot going on there.”
“Willie’s right. I’ve been living there for the last three years. I just got out two days ago.”
“Got out?”
“The Army was looking for me. I was on some list or other.”
“How come?”
“I’m an anthropologist. I’ve been studying the Indians in that area. Particularly the O’wa. The O’wa are seen as an obstacle to ‘progress.’ Which they are. They want to keep the forest just the way it is. I support them in that.” Javier takes a swig of his beer. “Shit, I don’t blame the Army. If I were them, I’d want to kill me too.”
“How do you know Willie?”
“Willie makes it his business to know people like me. He knows more about this fucking country than most people who have lived here their whole lives.”
“You’re Argentinian, right?”
“I am. But don’t hold that against me.”
“I like Argentinians.”
“Really? Most people can’t stand us. They think we’re obnoxious and egotistical. Which I don’t understand at all, because we’re actually the most wonderful people in the world.”
Roberto laughs. “You’re from Buenos Aires?”
“Yes. My father’s a shopping mall developer there, he thinks developing shopping malls is the highest form of human endeavor. Me, I wanted to get as far away from shopping malls as I could, so I went into the jungle. I love it there. I can’t wait to go back.”
“So you’ll be my guide? In Tulcán?”
“Jesus Christ no. Are you kidding me? I barely got out of there alive, they almost caught me three different times. I had to leave everything. All my books, all my fieldwork.” He plucks at his flannel shirt. “The friend I’m staying with gave me this. All I got out with was the clothes on my back. But I think I can set you up with someone. What is it you want to accomplish?”
“Did you know that coltan has been discovered in the Otavalo Valley?”
Javier smiles. “How do you think that Willie found out?”
“I want to report the story of how the Army is terrorizing the people into leaving the valley in order to pave the way for the mining companies. But the problem is, I only have a short time to do this. I have to leave the country by Sunday.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason you had to leave Tulcán.”
“That’s too bad.”
“So you can see I’m not going to have time to fuck around once I get there.”
Javier nods. “You need a definite destination.”
“Let me ask you a question. Have you heard of the Black Jaguars?”
“Yes. They’re there.”
“In Tulcán?”
“In the Otavalo Valley. As of a few days ago, they were operating in the vicinity of a village called Santa Rosa del Opón. They committed an atrocity there.”
“What happened?”
“Not far from the village is a ranch called El Encanto.” The Enchantment. “It was owned by a very wealthy man named Juan Carlos Mejía. He raised dairy cattle and farmed sugarcane.”
“How come he called his ranch El Encanto?”
“Because it really is a place of enchantment. The house looks like this little fairy tale castle set down in the middle of the jungle. There’s fountains and flowers and peacocks and a hedge maze. You feel like you’re in a different time and place. Which you are, in a way. Juan Carlos hated the modern world, and so he made El Encanto. It was his refuge.”
“Was he married? Did he have children?”
“No. He’d gotten married at a young age, but his wife died of yellow fever. Everyone thought he never remarried because he was still in love with her, but that wasn’t it. He was gay, that was his big secret.”
“But you knew it.”
“Yeah, we were pretty good friends. Sometimes I needed a break from the jungle, and I’d go to El Encanto. I’d have a hot bath and a good meal. Juan Carlos would always make me play chess with him, even though I’m terrible at it. He had an antique Italian chess set, the pieces were made of gold and silver. We’d stay up half the night, drinking and smoking weed. He had names for all the individual chess pieces, even the pawns—it was like Sir This and Lady That and Bishop So-and-So. While we played, he’d be making up stories about them. They were really funny and entertaining. I’d tell him he should write them down, put them in a book, but he would always shake his head and laugh me off.”
Javier has been smiling as he remembers Juan Carlos . . . but now he’s quiet for a moment, and the smile goes away.
“A few days ago,” he says, “the Black Jaguars arrived at El Encanto. They rounded up the workers and their families. The lucky ones were shot. Others were killed in other ways. They made Juan Carlos watch all this. Then they took him in the kitchen and stripped off all his clothes and threw him on a table and skinned him alive with a cheese grater.”
“Jesus.”
“When they were finished with him, they started eating his food and drinking his liquor and watching his satellite TV. And they let him walk around the house. He wasn’t going anywhere with no skin. And then, pretty soon, he went outside and curled up under a bush and died.”
“How do you know all this?”
“There were four survivors. Fercho, the cook’s helper, he was hiding in the pantry, and a young boy climbed up in a tree when he saw the Black Jaguars coming, and a woman and her daughter hid in the jungle.”
“Was Juan Carlos a political kind of person?”
“No, not at all.”
“Why do you think they killed him?”
“Well, they had to kill somebody. That’s what they do. To inspire fear.”
“But why him? And not some other wealthy landowner?”
Javier scratches his scraggly beard as he considers the question.
“It was probably because . . . he was harmless. Because he was sweet, and silly, and gentle. Because he let the children of his workers play in his maze. It probably came from the same sort of impulse that causes a certain kind of man to step on a butterfly.”
Despite the horror of Javier’s story, Roberto feels something inside him that is not unpleasurable. It is like a bright vibration . . . a radiant welling up of possibility. El Encanto, Juan Carlos, the Black Jaguars, the massacre . . . it’s all perfect for his purpose.
“Who can take me to El Encanto?”
“I might have just the guy for you. His name is Chano. He’s an O’wa Indian, half an Indian anyway. He’s a member of the TARV. The Tulcán Armed Revolutionary Vanguard. They’re crazy, those guys. They think negotiating is for women and homosexuals, all they believe in is killing the enemy. Chano’s one of those indestructible types. He’s got scars all over him, and he loves to tell you the story of how he got each one. Last year he got captured by an Army patrol. They were taking him back to their base to be interrogated, but somehow Chano got hold of a knife and cut his guard’s throat and escaped. You’d be in good hands with him.”
“He sounds great. You think he’d do it?”
“I think so. If I can track him down. You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll do my best to make it happen.”
“Thanks, Javier. I really appreciate this.”
“Hey man, glad to be of help.” Javier lifts his bottle of Brava beer. “Good luck in your journey, Roberto. And may you nail those cowardly bastards to the wall.”
“I’ll try,” says Roberto, as
he bumps his bottle of beer against Javier’s. Now Javier shows his big buck teeth in a grin as he looks around the room.
“At the moment, this ridiculous place is exactly my idea of heaven.”
Roberto laughs. “Why?”
“Because I got out of Tulcán. To be in a tight spot and get out of it, there’s no feeling like it—it makes you feel like you’re on the top of the fucking world. But you know what I’m talking about.”
He’s right, Roberto does. He expects to be feeling just that way on Sunday on his flight to Saint Lucia.
The young couple that were sitting at the table are now on the dance floor. They hold each other as they move to the throbbing music. His hand wanders down her back and rubs a buttock. Javier watches approvingly.
“He’ll be fucking her before sundown.”
* * *
It’s been dry for two days but raindrops begin to stipple Roberto’s windshield. He turns on his wipers to fight them. He’s not usually sentimental about inanimate things, but he feels a bit of a pang now as he thinks about parting from his car. It’s been almost like a second home to him. He’s looked at so much of this country through its windshield and windows and seen menace reflected in its mirrors and he’s slept in it and had sex in it and once a bullet turned the rear window into crumbling glass and thudded into the back of his seat as Daniel screamed at him to go faster, go faster. He’s been to every province in the country in this car except the southern jungly ones that are accessible only by boat or plane, plus one other: he has never had occasion to go to Tulcán.
His cellphone rings. It’s Daniel. Finally.
“Daniel, where the hell have you been?”
“Well, right now I’m at the Corral. Eating a gaucho burger. Why don’t you join me?”
“I can’t. I’m on my way to Andrés’s. Can we talk later?”
“Sure, give me a call.”
“No, I mean in person.”
“Okay. Why don’t you just come by my place?”
“Around seven?”
“Sure.” Roberto hears chewing and swallowing noises. “Hey Roberto, when are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Shit. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you haven’t been calling me back, you bastard!”
“Sorry. I’m an asshole. I’ll see you at seven.”
* * *
Andrés answers the door.
“Sorry I’m late,” says Roberto.
“Hey, no problem. Come in.”
Andrés and Teresa live on the fourteenth floor of an apartment building, one below the top. Their apartment has always seemed rather charmless to Roberto, the rooms small and boxy, the furnishings merely functional. It also has a musty smell since they seldom open the windows.
“Want something to drink?” says Andrés.
“No thanks.”
“Sit down.”
Roberto sits down in his usual chair and Andrés sits down in his. He blinks at Roberto benignly through his glasses.
“Been busy?” he says.
“Yeah, I’ve been running around like crazy. But I’ve nearly got everything done.”
“Do you need a ride to the airport?”
“No thanks, I’m taking a taxi.”
Andrés smiles his sad smile. “I’m going to miss you, Roberto.”
“I’m going to miss you too, Andrés.”
The sound of a police siren drifts faintly up from the street.
“How were your classes today?” asks Roberto.
“All right, I suppose. Like usual.”
He plucks at a frayed thread in the arm of his slightly shabby chair.
“What’s the matter?”
“Year after year I say the same boring things to my students. How any of them stay awake till the end of the class, I don’t know. Who am I to teach anyone anything anyway?”
“Oh come on, Andrés, you’re a wonderful teacher. Hey, I forgot to tell you, I read that article you sent me. About the night President Lovera’s mistress stole the horse and rode over the mountains to warn him about the assassination plot and saved his life. I thought it was great.”
Andrés smiles. “You did?”
“Yeah, it was so exciting, I felt like I was riding over the mountains with her. You really have a way of making historical characters seem like flesh-and-blood people. You should think about writing a novel.”
“Oh, I could never do that,” he says, but Roberto can tell he’s intrigued.
“You know so much about the nineteenth century, there’s so many stories you could tell. And I think there’s a real market for books like that. You should think about it.”
Now he sees a rare spark of hope in Andrés’s eyes.
“Okay,” he says, “I will.”
Andrés likes to write about the safely distant past. He would never write about what’s happening in his country now for fear of what it might bring down on his head.
“I guess you’re excited about seeing Caroline tomorrow,” he says.
Roberto doesn’t answer. He’s been undecided about whether to tell Andrés his plans. Andrés is his oldest friend and he’s always shared things with him, but at the same time he’s the type of person who always expects the worst and why worry him about something that will be resolved in a few days?
“Roberto,” he says, “what’s wrong? Is Caroline all right?”
“Caroline’s fine,” says Roberto, and then he decides to take the plunge. “But I won’t be seeing her until Sunday.”
Andrés sighs twice and shakes his head three times as Roberto tells him what has happened since the last time he saw him.
“I don’t know, Roberto,” he says when Roberto’s done. “I don’t like this. You’re going into the jungle with some lunatic named Chano that you’ve never even met? And for what? You can write the best story in the world but it won’t change what’s going to happen there. I can write the story for you in one sentence: The people in Tulcán are fucked. There. So now you don’t have to go.”
Roberto shrugs. “Look, Andrés. I’m a journalist, it’s my occupation. I need to be where the news is.” And then he says, “Don’t tell Teresa about any of this.”
A look passes between them.
“Of course I won’t,” says Andrés.
“Can I see her now?”
Andrés nods. They stand up. They walk in silence to Teresa’s door. As Andrés pushes it open he says, “Teresa, Roberto’s here.”
She turns her head a little towards Roberto and smiles. “Roberto.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
He walks to her bed and bends down and kisses her on the cheek.
“I lied,” she says. “I’m not fine. I’m sad. And you know why.”
“Roberto has to leave,” says Andrés. “He doesn’t have any other choice.”
She looks up at Roberto gravely. Once she was a very pretty girl, but not much of that remains. Her face is pale and puffy, her hair dry and dull. But her large brown eyes are bright. They’ve always been her best feature.
“Is that true?” Teresa says. “Does he not have any other choice?”
She often refers to Roberto in the third person when talking to him.
“I guess you’ve always got choices,” he says. “But I think I’m doing the right thing. I’m just looking forward to what comes next.”
“Yes,” Teresa says, “Roberto was never much for looking back, was he?”
“That’s true about you,” says Andrés. “You never seem to get stuck in the past. Like so many of us.”
What they are saying is so fraught with meaning that Roberto doesn’t know how to respond.
On the other side of the bed, a middle-aged Indian woman is sitting in a chair, leafing through a fashion magazine; “Stripes Are Back!” it says on the cover. Beyond the woman is a window looking out on the western mountains. A nature show about wildlife in Africa is playing on the muted flat-screen te
levision affixed to the wall in front of the bed. On the bedside table amid a clutter of medications a transparent green frog is spurting water from its mouth into a basin. There’s a hospitalish disinfectant smell in the air, along with a whiff of weed; Teresa’s been smoking a lot of it since her accident.
“Do you want to hear a joke?” she says slyly.
“I’d love to,” says Roberto.
“Why are dogs and men so similar?”
Roberto and Andrés look at each other and shrug.
“Because when you speak to them, they seem to understand.”
Andrés and Roberto laugh.
“That’s very good,” says Andrés. “Where did you hear that?”
“Not telling.”
Teresa has always been very funny; that’s probably what attracted Roberto to her as much as anything. He met her in an elevator in an office building downtown. He was there to interview someone for a story; she worked there at an advertising agency as a graphic designer. She spoke to him first, he no longer remembers exactly what it was she said, she liked his shirt or his shoes or something. Funny how fate works. If he hadn’t stepped into that elevator that day, she wouldn’t be lying in this bed now.
She was his girlfriend for a little over a year, but he was never really in love with her and moved on. He was aware that he was breaking her heart and felt bad about it, but what was he supposed to do?
In the meantime, Andrés had fallen in love with her. He’d never had much luck with women. He was a naturally shy person, and at times was afflicted with such a crippling self-consciousness that he could barely walk across a room if he thought he was being observed, he would move in a kind of controlled stumble as if he had a neurological disease or were a robot whose inventor still hadn’t worked out all the kinks. He’d had only a couple of serious girlfriends in his life and had been devastatingly dumped by both. He was forever getting a crush on some new girl, some sensitive graduate student or buxom waitress who never had any real interest in him. He was around a lot when Roberto and Teresa were together. She liked Andrés enormously, thought he was cute and amusing. Roberto could tell Andrés was falling for her, but he didn’t consider it to be a problem; Teresa, he thought, was just the latest girl-Andrés-wouldnever-get, and pretty soon he would go on to someone else.