Norte

by Edmundo Paz Soldán

  “I won’t leave you again.”

  “Oh seriously?” the orderly responded.

  “In a manner of speaking. I’m going back to Helsinki. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  It was time to say their goodbyes. The professor told the orderly he would be taking Martín’s drawings with him. The orderly nodded.

  “So that’s how it works, huh?”

  “They aren’t for me, it’s to make people aware of Martín’s art. I’m proud to say that the Guggenheim has accepted ten of his drawings. I sent his work to them years ago. They wanted to organize a show that contrasts the work of established artists and someone like Martín. They begged off in the end, probably thought the idea was too provocative. It’s hard to get the big museums to pay attention. But I shouldn’t complain, it’s really amazing that they’ve accepted ten of his drawings now. Right, Martín?”

  Martín nodded.

  The professor left.

  That night Martín didn’t eat his dinner. He didn’t want to take a bath, either. He just lay in bed, looked at the stains on the walls for hours and hours. His chest hurt; it was a deep ache, as if someone were branding his muscles with a hot iron. Like the blood wasn’t circulating properly, had backed up and stopped its flow. Now it was squeezing up into his heart, trying to rip it out of his chest.

  He finally fell asleep as dawn broke.

  Martín spent the nights watching shadows fidget outside the pavilion window, the silhouettes of tree branches shivering in the wind. When the orderlies did their three a.m. rounds, he would close his eyes and pretend to be asleep, and then open them again as soon as they were gone. Random fragments of them lingered afterward, heads without bodies, long legs floating around the bed. The room echoed with sounds from elsewhere, laments of someone on the verge of death, a hacking fit, manic bursts of laughter.

  He got along well with others but hadn’t made any real friends. In pottery class people chatted at him, but he never answered them back. He worked outside on the grounds, happy to take in the fresh air, but ignored any efforts by other patients to communicate. They invited him to play games, watch television or a movie, but he was never interested. Every once in a while he’d watch some cartoons. The mouse and the duck and the squirrels. The drawings moved like they were magic.

  He rubbed his face. He smoothed the thin mustache he would not allow them to shave off. He masturbated and tried not to make any noise, ashamed, knowing his soiled sheets and pajamas would give him away.

  He thought about María Santa Ana and wondered if she was still riding with those other men, crossing the range of mountains by town, defending señor gobierno, the wind tickling her cheeks. He wondered how his children had managed being at home on their own. They were responsible girls; surely they’d got by just fine. Wasn’t sure about Candelario, he’d never met the boy.

  Even so, he was gripped with remorse. Should he have gone with his nephew? Why had he been so stubborn, why didn’t he want to go home? What was he so afraid of? Discovering the truth about whether María Santa Ana had stopped loving him and run off with other men? So what if that’s what really happened? Didn’t he have the strength to get back on his feet? Had staying here been worth it?

  The professor didn’t visit anymore. And that boy in pottery class he’d been friendly with died. How had it happened?

  His throat hurt when he inhaled. The doctors showed him pictures of his lungs. They said things in English, why did they insist on speaking that language? They wanted him to fret. Whenever he heard those weird sounds and words all strung together, he felt like stuffing cotton balls in his ears. What were they saying? He guessed right enough though: something wasn’t good.

  Uuuuuuuaaaaaa.

  He had to get better so he could see the professor again.

  Shadows stole across the windows. Was it a train? He closed his eyes. He tried to fall asleep.

  One morning he complained of the pain in his chest and spat blood. They rushed him to the infirmary. A doctor checked his vitals, looking concerned, and said “Tests, tests.” They wheeled him to another room. They came and went, buzzing all around, arguing with each other over what steps to take. One of them, a redheaded orderly who spoke a little Spanish, tried to explain and then said something that sounded like “emergency procedure.” They gave him a paper to sign. Martín wrote an X and smiled at them. It was a fake smile, though: the ache in his chest was choking him.

  He lay on the gurney for a long time before they finally made him undress and put on a gown. They wheeled him to yet another room. He wanted to ask about his drawings. If he could go and get one to keep him company. But he kept his mouth shut. They gave him an injection. He wished he could send a letter to his daughters. He’d draw them a picture of the building, the room with the windows where he spent most of his time, the patio and the garden.

  His eyelids felt heavy. That wasn’t a bad thing, because now everything would just disappear, all the machines and cables, the clamps and needles, the collection of scissors he glimpsed apprehensively on metal tables that the nurses and orderlies were carrying to and fro. This time was different, though, it wasn’t him who was forcing his eyes shut. Now they wanted to close of their own accord.

  He wanted to ask María Santa Ana if she still loved him. If so, he was willing to forgive her for having been with other men while he was away. She could even go on living in the mountains with her horse and her gun. But she’d have to accept that she belonged only to him, that’s for sure. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  He felt like getting up and writing a few words in Spanish on the wall of the building. Oh, they wouldn’t like that one little bit, nosiree. No they would not. He’d write: “Today it’s going to rain. Today. It. Is. Going. To. Rain.”

  His strength was failing; he couldn’t get up from the stretcher.

  Where’s the professor? Oh. He was his one true friend. But how could they be friends if they’d never actually been able to speak to each other? Well, no matter, he was his only company, that’s for sure. And the boy who died too, but it wasn’t the same thing. No, no, no. The professor was good. He’d be back someday, he’d try to take him out of the building and Martín would find a way to make him understand that this is his home and he can’t imagine living anywhere else.

  His muscles relaxed. His mouth felt thick and cottony, he couldn’t open it. His legs were tingling, now his hands. “Today it’s going . . .”

  It was a nice feeling, not moving. As if his whole body were swaddled in a tight blanket.

  He closed his eyes.

  He never opened them again.

  2

  Rodeo, 1999

  Renata was on her way out of the pharmacy when Sergeant Fernandez approached her, accompanied by the FBI agent and two Mexican police officers. She knew what he wanted: that morning at La Indolora she had seen a photograph of Jesús on the first page of the local newspaper and read the article. She didn’t believe a single line, it was all based on groundless speculation, and yet it shocked her to see Jesús associated with a series of crimes that were so heinous. Could that be why he was so panicked? What had him running scared? Her boss knew what was up—he may have recognized Jesús’s photo—and had told her she should take the day off. She had gone home, but being in the house alone made her feel miserable: the photos of the football players reminded her of Jesús. The house was gloomy, so she removed the newspaper from the windows and opened the curtains. After he’d beat her up like that, she realized there was a lot about Jesús she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to judge him too harshly; all men make mistakes, and she had hoped that Jesús would eventually apologize to her. She’d returned to work after lunch.

  One of the police officers flashed his credentials and asked if they could speak in private. They followed her home. Renata went to the patio and unleashed Tobías, who ran into the living room and piddled on the kitchen door. She gave him a plastic bone to keep him quiet while the sergeant admired how tidy the kitc
hen was, the dishes so neatly stacked, the scrubbed refrigerator, the bright light filtering through the windows. It wasn’t the type of serial killer’s home one is accustomed to seeing in the movies, psychopaths are generally single and not interested in building a plausible domestic life. The movies exaggerate real life, but there’s an underlying truth: the only serial killer he had dealt with so far in his career—and his role had been merely that of a curious subordinate—was named Torrance and there wasn’t a single piece of furniture in his entire house. He had slept on a mattress thrown on the floor and spent the whole day in the basement, where he had built a cell for his victims and kept a collection of home-crafted torture instruments.

  Renata sat facing them on the couch in the living room, clutching a Kleenex and making an effort not to cry. Fernandez observed the decoration on the walls.

  “Your husband’s a little peculiar.” He tried to get a conversation going. “Doesn’t go in for football much now, does he?”

  “A lot of people around here follow American football and baseball.” Renata combed her hair with the fingers of one hand and held Fernandez’s gaze. “Jesús even likes basketball. He says there aren’t enough goals in soccer, and the gringos know that. Better to watch something that ends 40–23 than 0–0.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose you have a point. Sorry if I was being judgmental. Nobody likes that.”

  “I used to date a girl, a platinum blond who liked to dance salsa,” Will Rosas, the FBI agent with Fernandez and the Mexican officers, chimed in. “When I told her I couldn’t dance, she said I was lousy representative of my culture.”

  “So what did you do? Did you break up?”

  “I started taking salsa classes. Didn’t do no good though.”

  Fernandez observed Rosas: his patent leather shoes, a freshly pressed shirt, that tie. Every iota the bureaucrat. He’s awfully young to be doing this, he could be my son, but I guess if he likes it that way . . . He’ll make himself a career, go far, but inside the office and not on the street.

  “Jesús is innocent,” Renata said. “He couldn’t kill a fly, I know him, we been together for years. I read the things the newspaper says, and it’s all pure lies.”

  The sergeant felt sorry for Renata; he noticed the black-and-blue mark on her cheek, and another cliché came to mind: the killer’s neighbors, family, everyone saying who could ever have imagined such a thing, such a polite, good kid, so outgoing, so helpful. He would have loved to live in the nineteenth century, a time when sciences like phrenology and criminal anthropology were taking hold and they thought they could identify a murderer by the shape of his skull or jawline. We still use some of the characteristic expressions from that period—“he has a boxer’s face”—but it’s no longer considered a science. How many problems could be avoided if you could discern just by seeing a neighbor’s face whether they were capable of murder, or could detect a partner’s propensity for telling fibs or cheating on you.

  “Ma’am, I hear you,” the sergeant said. “The newspapers do tend to get ahead of their facts. Your husband is an innocent man until proven guilty. But we do have some evidence that indicates it might be a good idea to talk to him. If we bring him in, you can be sure he’ll have a lawyer. He’ll have the opportunity to defend his case.”

  “If you bring him in—where? Will he be tried here?”

  “That will depend on the Mexican authorities,” Rosas intervened. “We won’t do anything that isn’t in strict accordance with Mexican law.”

  “If we arrest him here,” one of the officers said, “he’ll be tried here. Mexican law will take care of your husband, as long as there’s no extradition request.”

  “I need some kind of proof,” she said. “Proof that Jesús is somehow involved in all of this.”

  The sergeant had come prepared. He opened a briefcase and flipped through a handful of photos until he found what he was looking for. He handed it to Renata. A couple was standing arm in arm in front of their home beside a new car. She was smiling at him.

  “I don’t see what this has to do with Jesús,” Renata said.

  “Look at her earrings,” the sergeant answered. “They’re the same ones you’re wearing right now.”

  He handed her cropped and enlarged photos of the earrings. Renata took hers off and studied them closely. “Might be a coincidence,” she said.

  “And it might not,” Rosas said.

  Renata couldn’t stand it any longer: she moaned and then broke into a sob.

  The photo was a shock, Fernandez thought. He had better take it easy now, not take advantage of her.

  “Jewelry went missing from the victims’ homes,” he said. “We have it all classified. Your husband has given you jewelry, right?”

  Renata nodded, wiping her eyes with the Kleenex.

  “I have nothing to do with this,” she bawled. “I’m innocent. Jesús, Jesús . . . He hit me. Do you see this here?” She touched her bruised cheek.

  Renata hesitated a moment but then got up and went into the bedroom.

  The sergeant’s words had fallen on fertile soil. They confirmed long-held suspicions she’d kept trying to avoid. Why did he disappear for months at a time? What job paid so well that he could buy her so much jewelry? She had been an idiot for not questioning him. Truth was she had simply preferred to look the other way. But he had beaten her viciously. She hadn’t seen that coming.

  One of the policemen followed her into the bedroom, where she retrieved two metal jewelry boxes. She emptied their contents on the living-room table. She should stay calm, she was doing the right thing: Jesús was no longer that man she had fallen in love with. It was hard to grasp.

  The sergeant pulled a stack of papers from his briefcase.

  “No need,” Renata said. “I believe you. But how could it be true? He was so affectionate this weekend, so relaxed. We had a party at the neighbors’ house and he filmed everything. He played with the kids, danced with everyone, drank too much, that’s for sure, but he was in a really good mood.”

  “It’s not uncommon,” Fernandez said. He tried to put himself in her shoes and imagine what was going on inside her head. The sheer evidence was obliging her to construct a different Jesús in her mind, one who was at once strange and cruel, but also plausible—the signs were all there, all she had to do was fill in the blanks—but she’d want to cling to her old Jesús, the one she’d lived with all this time. She’ll go through this back-and-forth for a while, this struggle between two different images, the new one being forced on her by reality and the old one that she had fashioned with patience and even love.

  “You think? I mean, how could I have lived with a murderer for so long and not realize it?”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty. It’s perfectly normal. We all have secret worlds we keep hidden from other people.”

  Rafael felt bad before he had even finished his sentence. He should know better than to fall into the commonplace, the cheesy declarations. It wasn’t his job to console her, but he felt compelled at least to empathize with her, try to see things through her eyes. It was easier to understand the victims than the killer.

  “But not all of us are murderers!”

  Renata burst into tears again. Rosas approached her and tried to comfort her quietly, using his broken Spanish. One of the Mexican officers got up, feeling awkward, and went over to scrutinize the posters on the wall. Fernandez insisted: “Will you help us, Renata?”

  They waited a few minutes for her to regain composure. Rosas walked over to the sink and came back with a glass of water.

  “I don’t know where he is,” she said, dabbing her eyes, a little more in control. “He never calls once he’s taken off. I know he crosses the border, but that’s all. I should have suspected something was wrong, but he told me he was working legally; he even showed me his green card.”

  “Does he have a relative that he’s particularly close to? A mother or father, a sibling?”

  “He talked about his mom and hi
s sister. He lost touch with his dad when he was a little kid; I guess he took off and never came back . . . I know his mom lives in their hometown and his sister is somewhere up North. In Albuquerque, I think he said. He wanted to go see her, but I don’t know if he ever did. I don’t have her address. I never met her . . . One time I found the photo of a pretty young girl in his wallet. She was a young thing with black hair and green eyes. There was a very affectionate dedication on the back, I thought it must be some childhood sweetheart, like I said, she must have been around twelve or thirteen. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ it read, and ‘You’ll always be in my heart.’ I got jealous and called him on it. He told me not to worry, it was only his sister. I thought it was a little weird but didn’t push it.”

  Albuquerque, the sergeant thought. That’s a lead we’ll have to follow up.

  Walking out the door, Sergeant Fernandez thought about how sorry he was for the woman they were leaving behind. He gave Rosas a pat on the back and said “Good work” before getting into the Mexican officers’ car. He breathed in deeply, as if his lungs wanted to take in all the air there was in the afternoon.

  Air: that was exactly what he needed.

  Back in Landslide, Fernandez got news that two more bodies had been discovered in a mobile home that was parked just a few meters from the train tracks in a town outside Albuquerque. Jim and Lynn Mercer, an elderly man and his daughter, had been stabbed to death, and the woman had been raped postmortem. The proximity to the train tracks and the fact that the killer had lingered at the scene for a good while, raiding the refrigerator and serving himself something to eat and drink, made Fernandez immediately suspect it was the work of the Railroad Killer. The fingerprints corroborated his fears.

  He left his apartment without unpacking his suitcase and took a drive around the city streets. The killer had outsmarted them all yet again: he had crossed the border into his own country, and when everyone thought he would be hiding out in Mexico, he crossed back into the US. It was like the earth swallowed him whole every time, nobody ever saw him. Or was he simply invisible?