by Roy Kesey
- Right. And your accent is good but not perfectly Peruvian, and they were all very drunk, so they thought you were from Chile.
- That does not make much sense.
- When everyone is drunk, not much sense is needed.
We walk for a time, sweat, walk and sweat, come finally to Neuquén and Armando slows. For a moment I believe that he is going to ask again about beer or poetry, and I am not sure how to answer in either case. He points to an apartment above the restaurant, says that he lives there, shakes our hands and my back begins to ache.
Armando will likely later ask Reynaldo for whatever information interests him, and just now this thought irritates me though it certainly should not. Reynaldo tries the motorcycle, and after a moment it starts. He revs the engine to the extent possible, and looks at me.
- Are you sure it is not yet time to give up?
- Of course not.
- You’re going to end up killing someone who doesn’t deserve it.
I say that I am sorry about how the match turned out. He stares at me, at last shrugs, says that he will visit the shoe store man, pass along my apologies. I thank him. He says that if what happened causes me any trouble at the university, I should call him to testify that I was simply drunk and angry, that it was all a small misunderstanding. I promise that I will. He waves and rides off.
Home. Again tonight the streetlight outside my door shines too brightly. I open the door and there is no writhing but still, all that light. Back out onto the street and I take up a rock and on my very first throw there is a shower of sparks and the light goes dim, a sort of miracle.
Inside, and Casualidad is asleep on the sofa. I wake her, and she asks if Peru won. I tell her, and she nods, stands, rubs her face. I go to Mariángel’s room, to her crib, and as always even asleep she rolls away from the stench of beer and smoke and sweat. I go to my room, pull off my shirt, find the picture of Sarita Colonia in the pocket. I hang it from the corner of my headboard. Something must be done.
12.
WE ARE ALL HERE, ALL OF US. The tombs are open and the bodies laid out as if in state. We wait. Then though there is no signal we all begin feeding, our faces soon wet with blood and bile, each of us tearing at the ribcage of the body we have chosen. The rule is that one can feed only on those one has lost but I am breaking the rule, have chosen a stranger, eat deeper in and pull back, my hair caked with gore, look at her face and something has changed, not a stranger but Pilar and I cannot stop eating, plunge back in, rip at her intestines, at the ragged fringe of skin around the hole in her abdomen, her blood black in the candlelight, and the others in their hundreds now crowd around me—the rest of the dead have been eaten. I try to fight them off but their great dark wings beat me down, and there is light and the sound of wind keening through a thousand wingtips.
13.
I STAND BEFORE THE LANGUAGE CENTER PHOTOCOPIER. Three of my colleagues are in line behind me. It is almost seven in the evening and we should all be headed home, but these three never leave the office until they have finished preparing for the following day.
I load the copier with a ream of heavy paper in varied colors. I ask the machine for one hundred copies of my flyer, delete the number and ask for two hundred. There is a disheartened release of breath behind me, but I do not turn to see who made the noise. I press the green button. The bar of light slides slowly from one side to the other and quickly back.
The smell of ink densens the air around us. At eighty copies there is more sighing, and again at a hundred and forty. I wait, will my colleagues to criticize me for misappropriating resources, but they never do. As far as I know they have never even told Arantxa, or perhaps they have and she does not care, or does not care enough.
The bar of light slides across a final time. The machine quiets. I take up the flyers, bend for my briefcase and wince: the bruise across my back is not yet gone. I tuck the flyers away, lift the lid and remove the original. It is somewhat wrinkled, but the information it holds is still valid, and its photograph of Pilar—our first trip to the beach at Yacila—this photograph is perfect and holds her perfectly.
I should thank my colleagues for their patience but do not, walk straight out and down the path and across the parking lot. Long thin clouds, red and orange, the sky’s ribcage. Along the white building. The falling light makes the evening feel cooler than it is and there is movement in the branches that intertwine above me, a bending of twigs, a shifting of shadow in the leaves and I jump to one side.
It is only squirrels. They sprint down a trunk, up another, are gone. I step back onto the path, walk faster and faster and out. Past the mural, past the hotel. To the gas station entrance and here I begin: I load my new staple gun, take out a stack of flyers, staple a blue one to the closest telephone pole.
To the corner, and left along the Panamericana, five dust-sick blocks of it. At last the Fourth Bridge. Up onto the bridgehead for a quick look at the riverbed. Back south along the street, stapling again.
For months I used only tape but the flyers fell too quickly. Woody Woodpecker gave me this new idea. I have brought tape as well for windows and other hard or brittle surfaces, but working with this gun, the good jolt up my arm as each staple is driven in, it matters more to me than I would have suspected.
At first hanging flyers took hours. Then I learned the secret of not looking at the photograph any more. Even so it is the least fruitful aspect of the search, is in fact unfruitful or worse. The only telephone calls I have received were from persons hoping I would pay them in advance for information they alleged to possess. When I said that I would happily pay after verifying some portion of the information—half, ten percent, a single fact—they would hang up and not call back.
There was one exception to this, a young man who agreed to meet me in person. His information was deeply detailed and likewise fraudulent. His fingers have perhaps healed by now.
It is not impossible, however, or does not seem so, that someone might someday look at the photograph, might read the description, might recall having seen Pilar on that night in that taxi. This person might remember more of the license plate than I do, or remember the driver as someone they knew or know. And so I continue in concentric circles of decreasing size: walk and staple, walk and tape, yellow and orange and green and blue, pole window payphone wall.
Perhaps it does not make much difference but I am glad to be doing this at night. I like to think of people coming out of their houses early tomorrow morning, these flyers and their colors waiting. I reach up, tape one to a stop sign, and behind me someone speaks:
- Wait, he says.
I bring my arms down. This voice—it is the voice of the taxista. The precise timbre and tone, the slight nasality and slighter rasp.
- Look at me, he says.
I turn quickly and lunge and catch myself: the man is farther away than I had thought, is a fat policeman, is reaching for his pistol. I raise my hands, apologize, say that I am only putting up flyers. His hand stays at his belt. I point at the stop sign.
- Flyers for what?
- My wife. She was killed a year ago.
I hand him one. He reads it, nods. I wait for him to tell me the rules I already know, that I am not allowed to hang them on stop signs or telephone poles, may hang them only on private property, must first ask the owner for permission in each instance, and when he does I will step to him and from a distance of four or five inches I will speak of the rights of the bereaved, will ask why my wife’s case was abandoned, will tell him of the man who murdered her, of what it will be like to catch that man, of pliers, tinsnips, of sandpaper and salt.
Instead the policeman wishes me luck, turns and walks away. I staple a flyer to the tamarind in front of which he stood, and continue my walk: around, around, the circles ever smaller. Finally I tape my last copy to the window of a knickknack shop.
According to my reflection, my hair and beard are as long and unkempt as the day I arrived in Piura four years ago. My cloth
es sweat-drenched. The dust of the bus ride down from Guayaquil. Piura, its station and thieves; Arantxa hiring me, yes, but also asking for me to be cleaner. I did not mind this. I had no reason to mind. Eugenia gave me directions to a near guesthouse and on the way I bought cheap versions of appropriate clothing. I showered, and asked the owner where best to get my hair cut, my beard trimmed. He said that there were five salons on the Óvalo Grau, and that the hairdressers were all large butterflies, by which I later learned he meant homosexuals. He also said that I should avoid the centermost salon as its owner was toad-like, by which I later learned he meant devious.
I chose the southernmost salon. The one unoccupied hairdresser led me to a chair at the back. He draped the plastic apron across me and things went well for a time. He was working on a sideburn when the largest bee I had ever seen flew in and began circling near the ceiling.
The hairdresser did not seem to notice though the bee was the size of a walnut, hairy and shiny black. I shifted beneath the plastic and watched. The bee bumped around in the corner, perhaps confused by the mirrors that met there. The hairdresser left to look for some implement not ready to hand, and the bee dove for my face, entangled itself in my beard.
There were several moments of screaming and jumping and thrashing. Finally I got my arms free and swatted the bee squarely. It bounced off the ground and was airborne again but just barely, and then was gone, out the door, unseen by any of the hairdressers or other clients, all of whom were now staring at me.
I told them that everything was fine, that there had been a sheep caught in my beard, but it hadn’t stung me. They began to laugh. I told them the truth: that it had been a very large sheep. I held my fingers two inches apart to show them. It was not easy for the other clients to stay in their seats, they were laughing so hard. I smiled to show that I too found the situation humorous. I sat back down and waited for the hairdresser to continue.
The issue with bee and sheep is nothing like the issue with spring, is closer to the case of womanizer and Batman, and there is movement inside the knickknack shop. I cup my hands over my eyes, peer through my reflection. Something shifts toward me, a vague face, then nothing.
I turn away, should have saved a dozen copies back, would take them as before to the market though there is no clear reason to do so, no reason to think Pilar ever made it that far. The police interviewed all of the fruit vendors at the beginning of the investigation, but none of them recognized Pilar’s picture or the partial license plate. None remembered seeing anything untoward the night she was taken. I spoke with each vendor in later months and received the same answers and now a horn, a car swerving toward me and away, gone around the corner.
Back home, and Casualidad carries Mariángel from one room to the next, and Mariángel whimpers against her shoulder. Eight days ago I came home for lunch and found Casualidad struggling to dust the top of the refrigerator. I asked where Mariángel was, and there were sounds from elsewhere: splashing, gurgling. We found Mariángel upside down and drowning in the toilet. I pulled her out unhurt but surprised. Casualidad toweled her dry and I shouted and we agreed that the bathroom door would be opened only when necessary and always immediately closed. There was nothing for a few days but then bloody pus came from one of Mariángel’s ears and it is always the ear, always, unless it is the stomach or something else. I administered drops, held her as she cried all night. The next night also was very long, and the next, but last night we slept well, the infection seemingly receded.
Casualidad hands her to me, says that we are nearly out of drops, that she will bring more in the morning. She gathers her things and goes. I carry Mariángel to the bathroom, find the drops. The bottle is not nearly but wholly empty.
I start to bundle Mariángel for the walk to the nearest pharmacy, but her whimper, it seems not the same as before, not quite as loud or sharp, more spoiled than in pain. For a time we walk and walk, patio to bedroom and back. I sing Carole King and it does not help and no this is not a time for singing. I walk and whisper, and Mariángel quiets, smiles, whispers back.
We go to my bedroom, play games with pocket change, amuse ourselves with the shifting sounds and patterns. This suffices for a time. Then she teaches me to beat on the mattress with my fists to make the coins dance.
When all the coins have fallen behind the bed I propose milk but she is not thirsty; I propose sleep but she will not close her eyes. At her suggestion we move to the floor. She opens the closet and goes inside, puts each foot into each shoe in turn. She loses herself in the hangered shirts and trousers, turns and ruffles them, laughs, a forest of clothing between us.
She pulls at the hangers, pushes her way out. She takes me by the sleeve and leads me back to the bed but will not yet let me lift her. Instead she reaches, grabs the image of Sarita Colonia in both hands, pulls until the string breaks. She chews on the corner of the plasticized card, reaches one arm around my neck, chews harder. I take her up and again we walk. I hear her gnawing there close to my ear, the click of her teeth on the card, and she slumps.
I wait, certain that she is only pretending. I walk to her crib, and she does not move. I lay her down and yes: asleep, breathing deeply. Mosquito netting, fan, curtains. I pull Sarita from her hands, back out of the bedroom.
It is very late. I sit on the couch, hold the remote control but do not turn the television on. The image of Sarita is undamaged. No tearing, no holes, no indentations or marks of any kind. I set down the remote, walk to my bedroom. I reknot the string and hang the image again from my headboard. I work a sentence back and forth in my mind until it is sufficiently concise: that Sarita find the taxista, and break him. Let lips do what hands do, Sarita, and I do not pray as such but hold the sentence gently in my mind.
14.
IT IS TIME FOR ECUADOR: my visa expires tomorrow. I feed Mariángel her bottle, trace her cheeks, set her on my bed. I pack a few things into my knapsack and Mariángel watches until watching is insufficient, comes to help, rearranges the objects until the pattern they form pleases her. Arrangement and rearrangment are two of her favorite activities.
My trip up the coast to Tumbes and across the border to Machala at times takes five hours each way, and at times takes nine. The exact amount of time required depends on many things: some I do not understand and others I cannot control. The alternate route—north as always to Sullana but then northeast into the foothills and across the Macará River—is faster, more attractive and more interesting. I took it often for visas and research in early years here, but the border crossing at the bridge is open only until six in the evening, closes on and off throughout the day without apparent reason, and I do not want to risk being away any longer than necessary.
Now Casualidad arrives: she will stay with Mariángel for an additional day’s wage. I thank her, kiss Mariángel, take up my knapsack. My daughter reaches for me and I kiss her again. As I pull away she grabs at my hand, catches my ring-finger, tugs at my wedding band. I ask her if she would have me go ringless. I walk to the door and she starts to cry. The humid heat swarms around me and there is an old yellow taxi parked at the curb. The license plate is wrong but it is as though the driver were waiting for me. I have not arranged to be picked up. Casualidad would not have called without my asking, and perhaps not even then.
I step slowly to the curb, and look in through the window on the passenger’s side. The driver is asleep, and his thin dark face is almost familiar.
- It was you, wasn’t it? I say.
The man wakes, rubs his face.
- Mister?he says.
His eyes are muddy green. We come to agreement on a fare to the El Dorado station, and I am silent all the way there. I have ridden with El Dorado many times before. Their buses are not fast or comfortable. Neither are the buses of any other company, and here rather than a single large bus station we have many small ones, each company with its own dark hot room where one goes to buy tickets and wait and wait. El Dorado, the Gilded One. It was a Muisca ritual on
Lake Guatavita: the king-elect borne onto a raft of rushes, incense burning in four braziers on the corners and hundreds more on shore, the king-elect stripped naked, coated with resin and covered in gold dust, ornaments of gold and emeralds stacked at his feet, four subject chiefs on the raft as well and they row him to the center of the lake, pour the treasure into the water as offering and sacrifice, row back to shore where the rest of the tribe sings, dances, and now the king-elect is king.
The Spaniards hear of the ritual, conquer the Muisca but find less gold than they had imagined, and slowly El Dorado becomes not a man but a place. Gonzalo Pizarro has it clear in his mind: a city of gold in a forest of cinnamon trees. He gathers hundreds of Spanish soldiers and thousands of native bearers, chooses his nephew Orellana as one of his lieutenants, and Carvajal is taken on as chaplain, will later write the chronicle that fixes them in history. Pizarro leads southeast out of Quito. Through the Andes, then downriver along the Río Coca, the foothill gorges, water surging fast and cold beside them. Machete and ax, storm and flood, seven months of this slow work. Finally they approach the endless furling green of high jungle, the river now navigable, but half the Spaniards and three quarters of the bearers have died of sickness, snakebite, ambush. Pizarro orders camp built on a bluff, puts his carpenters to work on a boat, a twenty-five foot brigantine to carry the sick, the wounded, the heaviest of gear. They eat the last of their horses and dogs. They finish the boat and a van pulls sharply out of an alley, cuts us off, my driver shouts, curses, sees that the other driver is a friend, laughs and waves.
By Christmas the Spaniards are at risk of starving but their guides say a confluence is near, the Coca and Napo joining, and one day’s travel up the Napo there is food. Orellana offers to take the brigantine and sixty men, says he will be back in twelve days with supplies, and does he know or suspect the truth? His men no longer have the strength to row upriver or cut trails along the shore. He sends messages, and they never arrive: Pizarro has turned back toward Quito, will accuse Orellana of betrayal, and Orellana will be saved only by Carvajal’s record of decisions justified, lands claimed, villages torched.