by Joe Gannon
They didn’t hear the rocket. Just felt the explosion when it took half the roof down. The second one went straight into the floor. The concussion sent them flying. It’s thought by those who’ve never been in one that an explosion makes you feel like you’re coming apart. But Ajax knew it was the opposite. The first thing an explosion does is suck the air out of a room and out of your lungs for a fraction of a second. So the first sensation of detonation is suffocation. That’s what Ajax felt as he went flying across the room—that he would suffocate.
But he was on his feet in the next second.
“In the sewer!”
The three of them dashed for the grate. Gladys got there first, yanked it off, and was down it before the grate hit the floor. Ajax stuffed Ernesto down it like a rabbit into a hat and dropped straight in.
“Go! Go! Go!”
“La pistola!”
“Forget it, we gotta move!”
“It’s Nora’s. She’ll kill me!”
Ernesto was back up the ladder before Ajax could even move. He started up when that deep bass grind let rip. The 20mm cannon shells peppered the floor above, shaking concrete loose in the sewer. Four long bursts and it stopped, flew off, and left them mostly in silence.
“Ernesto!”
Ajax climbed back up into the ruined warehouse. It seemed there was not a two-foot square without at least one cannon hole in it. Ernesto stood in one of them, shaking like he would break into pieces. A deep gouge was between his feet, his legs were powdered in concrete dust up to his crotch. But he had Nora’s pistol. Ajax went to him, and lifted the cheap scapular around his neck.
“Boy, you have a powerful patron.”
The kid tried to speak, but the only sound he made was his teeth chattering like a bag of bones.
Ajax scooped him up in his arms and carried him away.
He and Gladys made their way back to where they’d come into the sewer. The shoe-shine boy’d gone off to find his unit. When they got to the grate, Ajax saw a gunship directly above them. With each burst hundreds of black aluminum casings fell. They were the links that held the bullets in their long belts. The shells struck home far away, but these links fell straight down out of the gunship’s belly, like black rain from a cloud. They even bounced off the ground and danced like raindrops, cascading down into the sewer and onto his head.
When the gunship moved on he and Gladys climbed out of the sewer. But not out of the shit. The air was heavy with the reek of cordite. Nora’s battle was blocks away but the smell of it followed them as they made their way back toward the cathedral. They stopped at a broken water main to clean the sewer off their shoes if not their skins. The plaza around the church was now almost empty of soldiers. They melted into the crowd as quickly as they could and copped a squat on the stairs. Gladys let out a sigh so long she sounded like a balloon.
“You alright?”
“Yes, fucking yes. Stop asking all the time.”
He smiled. She was alright.
“Gladys, I think that was young Peck, in the confessional.”
“You saw him?”
“No. I thought. But … Shit!” He remembered. “He knew my name, called me Martin Garcia.”
“Who knows us as that?”
“Jasmine, Max, Michaelson at the embassy…”
“Teal.”
Ajax snorted. “But Reynaldo? And whoever Reynaldo works for.”
“I thought he worked for Teal.”
“Teal’s an idiot. He might be president someday, but he doesn’t run someone like Reynaldo.” Ajax stood, in sudden need of straightening out the kinks. He stretched out as high as his hands could reach, and then bent at the waist to touch his toes. He felt three pops in his spine as the vertebrae realigned. He patted his calf where the Needle was still strapped, and stood upright.
“Something’s not right, Gladys. But I don’t know what. Like an unseen hand hiding something.” He shook his head, there was a disconnect between his mind and instinct.
Gladys stood up. “So what’s next?”
“We go see the padres at the university.”
“Now?”
“What time is it?”
She checked her watch. “Jesus, it’s only ten thirty.”
“Yeah, and of the same day no less.”
“Why there? It’s on the other side of town.”
“How many times we hear the word ‘priest’ today? If that was young Peck he pretended to be a priest. Ernesto said a priest paid him. Jasmine knows the priests. Peck knows them. Priest. Priest. Priest. Let’s go see the priests.”
26
Their trek to the University of Central America, Gladys felt, was long, dangerous, and strangely monotonous, like riding a tortoise through a minefield—each step might be your last, but after a while it was just Get the fuck on with it!
She and Ajax had made their way from the cathedral back to Estela’s car, walking each block right down the middle of the street, their white table napkins waving, and offering about as much protection, Gladys felt, as a prayer in a plague ward.
She’d begun to wonder if Ajax was her white flag, her table napkin—offering more of a psychological shield than a refuge from actual arrows. His stunt at the cathedral had been reckless. That he’d pulled it off did not reassure her as much as his impulse to do it worried her. It was the Miami coyote all over again, but one branch higher on the crazy tree.
When they’d reached the car she’d insisted on driving, a need to be a little bit more in control. Ajax had surrendered the keys, but would not be drawn on his motives for confronting the Atlactl soldiers.
Now they were two hours into what was a fifteen-minute drive during peacetime. It was an odd experience, to say the least. They moved slowly, the cautious tortoise, windows down, listening for the sound of gunfire, flinching when they heard it. On some blocks people were out—sitting amidst rubble or tamping down fires in one spot that had been hit. On other blocks people just stood in the street, talking, waiting. Occasionally a squad of soldiers, government or rebel, would scurry like iguanas on a hot zinc roof across the street and disappear down an alley or over a wall. Gunfire would erupt, or not. It was, Gladys thought, like being a minor character lost in a performance—the major players would dash on and off the stage, but the main action was always elsewhere. They could locate the battle only by sound—the rapid popping of small arms and machine guns overlaid at times with the deeper bass grinding of the helicopter gunships.
They passed through three army checkpoints—each time Max’s calling cards got them through with no more than a caution about the “terroristas” up ahead. But so far the Farabundos had not shown themselves, except off stage.
They journeyed like this—stop, start, halt, wait, bail out, get back in, and all over again—always rolling southwest until they got to Colonia Sultana. But the closer they got to the UCA, the more sporadic the sounds of war got, until they petered out except as far echoes. The university was bordered by several broad avenues in a leafy lower-middle-class section of town.
They circled around the neighborhood once, looking for an approach, but most of the main streets leading to the campus were blocked by the army—the UCA, merely as a university, was considered a natural ally of the FMLN. In truth it was, which was why, Gladys reckoned, the rebels let it be and the government locked it down.
They rolled by the main entrance, crowded with soldiers and armored vehicles with .50 caliber machine guns. Gladys tapped the brakes.
“Want to try the front door?”
“No! Go, go, go.”
She drove on. “What?”
“Look in the mirror, clock the civilians.”
She did. Four, maybe five men. Sunglasses, leather jackets with big bulges. Paramilitaries.
“Got ’em. Where do they learn to dress like that?”
“Miami Vice?”
“Death squad Charlies?”
“Gotta be. Turn right here.”
She swung around the corner.<
br />
“Pull over here.”
Gladys parked at the base of a hill on Albert Einstein Avenue. She watched Ajax stare out the windshield while slowly rubbing his thumb and forefinger.
“What?” she asked, to break the silence.
Ajax turned his palms up. “Creepy feeling. The army’s up to its throat in Farabundos. But if Krill has told anyone about us, it’d be them, the escuadrones. All the checkpoints we’ve been through today, we never saw one paramilitary. This place is crawling with them.”
“The one place all day there’s not much combat.”
“Yeah, but they’re not cowards; well, they are. They’re the tail that wags the dog. That’s why our ORDEN cards got us through the army checkpoints. Anyone questions us here, show the passports. We’re frightened, hopelessly lost Americans trying to get to the embassy.”
* * *
They got out and walked a few blocks. Ajax checked the streets for an approach. They stopped at what was more a long alley than a street. The sidewalks were lined with a couple dozen comedores—a small charcoal barbecue under a bit of plastic roofing. Pork and chicken grilling, tamales. The kind of joint that made Gladys want a Handi Wipe. She was surprised so many people were out, so many cooking. But as the micro-restaurants were all attached to the cooks’ homes, it was just a matter of opening your back door and blowing on the coals. The alley was full of soldiers and even civilians.
“This’ll do,” Ajax said, lingering at the mouth of the alley. He took out a cigarette from the pack he’d clipped from the soldier. “Got a light?”
“You smoking again? Things’ll kill you.”
He held out the cigarette, a little too dramatically, she thought.
“Got a light?”
“No.”
“Pretend you’re looking in your purse, we’ll peruse the alley.”
“Oh.” It was a prop. Gladys made a little show of searching for a lighter. “Crowded up there, we can find an emptier street.”
“No, this is better. The comedores push all the pedestrians onto the street, easier to keep an eye out.”
She held up her hands, No lighter. “What’re we looking for?”
Ajax patted his pockets, saw the food vendors and their customers eyeballing the strangers.
“Anyone dressed in civvies, not obviously cooking, eating, or keeping someone company, and is male from sixteen to twenty-eight is suspect. It’s the undercover guys we’ve got to watch out for.”
Ajax drew a book of matches out of a pocket. There they are! And he sparked up the Camel, took a long pull, exhaled, then held the cigarette between thumb and forefinger, and held it in front of him like a Prussian fop would a monocle. “It’s a college, try to blend in.”
Gladys’s eyes rolled so hard it made her head spin. “You think that is a disguise?”
“I’m the old-world professor, try to look like an adoring student, mesmerized by my erudition.”
“I’d rather be your cleaning lady.”
They strolled up the alley, carefully parsing the faces for hostility. The Salvadorans are a handsome people, Ajax thought. More Ladino than Nicaragua, generally lighter skinned. Aquiline was a word you’d use to describe the salvadoreño tipico. They were a lean people, shorter than Nicaraguans, who tended toward pudginess in middle age, the women as well as the men.
The vendors and customers eyed them back. No matter who they might be, this strolling couple was an unknown entity, and therefore dangerous.
Ajax stopped at a couple of places, got some mystery meat on a stick and a little bag of pupusas, the rough corn tortillas stuffed with cheese and meat that was the national dish. Each stop made Ajax and Gladys a little more familiar—pleasantries exchanged, money counted out and change counted back. The small interactions of giving and taking back that closed the distance between them. It was silence that fed fear.
“Gracias, profesor,” one of the vendors said with the coins he dropped into Ajax’s hand.
Gladys grunted her disapproval that he’d actually carried the ruse off. They carried on up the alley. Ajax still scanning the faces, searching for the serpent in this greasy garden. They reached the apex of the hill. It curved steeply to the right and back down toward Einstein Avenue. The sloping driveway up to the left was the entrance to the UCA. As they crested the hill Ajax spotted the viper. But not the one he expected.
Fifty yards ahead, and slightly down the hill, the boy with the long eyelashes stood in the middle of the street. Ajax stopped and turned his back to the ghost.
“What?” Gladys was on full alert.
“Not sure.” He held out his cigarette. “Take the butt, throw it on the ground, and stamp it out, like you’re mad.”
Gladys did just that. Ajax flapped his hands in protest, gestured to the ground. “Now we’re gonna have a little argument over my smoking.” He pointed at the mangled butt. “You look over my shoulder, slightly downhill.”
Gladys took a peek. And blanched.
“Shit.”
“You see it?”
“Monkey Man.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that who you saw?”
“Right. Right.” Ajax took his cigarettes out, pointed once at the ground, and waved a rebuking finger at Gladys. He looked around and caught someone’s eye, shrugged, Women!
“What’s he doing?”
Gladys peeped. “There’s a jeep, a uniform in it. Monkey Man’s folding up a map. Shit, he’s coming this way.”
“Your gun?”
“The car. The Needle?”
“My calf. If he makes us, he’s dead, we bolt to the car, try to make the embassy.”
“Shh.” She put her finger to his lips. Slipped a cigarette out of his pack and lit it for him.
“What are you doing?”
“Playing the infatuated student.” She pecked him on the cheek. “He’s gone. Got into the jeep.”
“Who with?”
She shook her head. “Officer. He got some salutes on the way out.”
Ajax had a look back. The coast was clear, except for one more army checkpoint just inside the entrance to the university. That’s where he saw the ghost. Slowly treading up the hill toward the padres.
Ajax hooked his arm through Gladys’s and they strolled by the soldiers, one of whom nodded, muttered “Profesor.” And they were in.
27
The priests, the Seis Padres, Ajax had come to call them, lived at the top of the hill, in a house behind the campus chapel. The campus was mostly deserted—all the students and most of the faculty had fled. Which made sense, given that the university had in the past been the scene of unspeakable violence and repression. There were a few workers about—gardeners, cleaners, clerks—who had either been trapped there last night, it seemed to Ajax, or stayed for the protection the university might offer.
One such laborer had escorted them to the padres’ house. After his confession, Ajax was not hopeful these priests would be of any more help, and the last thing he wanted was another lecture on the seven deadly sins.
What he found inside was a den of iniquity. Or at least the din of a raucous poker party.
The door was opened by a smiling, middle-aged man who was the living definition of the frumpy professor—only this one was in a bathrobe and the kind of leather slippers that should only be sold with a pipe.
“Who is it?” someone else called from inside.
The frumpy priest looked Ajax and Gladys over, frowned. “Well, it’s not the army, but it’s not dinner either. Pasen.” He stood aside and let them pass.
He led them into what seemed a fraternity get-together on a lazy Saturday afternoon. The rectory was an old elegant building, and the walls of the smoky room were heavy with framed photographs, stuffed bookshelves, and primitive art and pottery, Ajax saw, from each of the five Central American countries. The six Jesuits sat around their dining room table, which was strewn with cards and poker chips, glasses of beer, and ashtrays overflowing with cigar stubs.
They were dressed like frat boys too—from the 1950s. One was in a wife-beater and his boxers, two wore bathrobes that dated from the seventies, one was in black slacks and a white shirt, the other two, with unkempt beards, were in equal states of half-undress.
It was a desultory game too. Two of the Jesuits seemed intent on playing, one strummed a guitar, the fourth had let them in, and the other two—looking like bearded teddy bears—argued with an unseen someone in the kitchen.
“You’re all going to hell!” the someone in the kitchen shouted like a street preacher. Ajax guessed it was their cook.
“Yes, doña Elba,” said one of the beards, “but we can absolve ourselves of our sins.” He turned to the room, made the sign of the cross, “Les absolvo…”
“That’s sacrilege!” Elba pronounced it like an inquisitor.
The priests finally took note of their visitors. They did not, Ajax thought, seem embarrassed at their informal state, nor make any move to become more presentable. Instead they reconnoitered their guests with practiced eyes.
“I am Ignacio Ellacuría,” said the Jesuit who’d let them in. He went around the room. “This is Segundo Montes, Juan Ramon, the other Ignacio, Joaquín López, and Amando.” Each nodded as they were pronounced. Ellacuría turned toward the kitchen, “And that cruel hellion blockaded in the kitchen is doña Elba.”
“This is a den of iniquity,” she shouted. “Get out while you can!”
Father Ellacuría tightened the belt on his bathrobe and motioned for Ajax and Gladys to sit. The priests might have been divided in their loyalty to the game, but they all took their places at the table and studied the strangers. A silence fell over the tableau, but a surprisingly comfortable one.
“I am…”
“Martin Garcia,” said one. “That is Gladys Batista.”
“You’re the cubanos-gringos,” said one of the beards.
“Jasmine told us to expect you,” said the other beard.
“Doña Elba,” said the guitar priest, “we have guests, can you not relent and bring our weary travelers some refreshment? Some Christian charity?”
“No! You are gambling in the House of God!”