They spent the next three hours watching TV. Or listening to TV, in Alejo’s case. The afternoon news began by the time a nurse brought a late lunch of white rice and chicken. Alejo fumbled with his fork at his plate, then froze and snatched the remote off his lap, stabbing buttons to turn up the volume.
“Look!” he ordered, straining to hear the blaring voice of a female announcer. Wara turned her eyes to the small TV and nearly spit out a mouthful of sticky rice at the sight.
It was a building on Cochabamba’s Prado avenue, and it was burning. Alejo was leaning towards the television, knuckles squeezing the life out of the remote.
“…at around 12:30 today,” the announcer was saying. “There have been reports of an explosion, followed by these images of fiery destruction you are now seeing at the Hotel Diplomat.” The screen cut to the picture of burning building again, towering over the busy Prado avenue, flames licking the clouds. Boiling black smoke poured towards heaven. Wara gaped at the TV, not able to believe that the sleek hotel she had passed hundreds of times was now this burning wreck.
Noah’s parents had stayed there, but were scheduled to leave the night following the funeral. Wara felt sure they hadn’t stuck around a single minute longer than necessary.
On the news they said it was an explosion. She cut her eyes over to Alejo, whose lips had condensed into a grim, pale line. The female announcer was back again, in a low-cut mauve suit coat and braided gold earrings that hung to her shoulders. Smoky eyeliner made her eyes pop from a flawlessly tan face with salmon-colored cheeks.
“Many of the hotel guests,” she continued gravely, “were able to escape the building through stairs at the back, and the hotel bar and restaurant seems to be the hardest hit. While we will have to wait for a final count, there is sure to be a great number of lives lost in this tragedy. Initial estimates for the death toll are between sixty and seventy.”
Wara’s stomach clenched and she saw the silver fire again, spinning over her head as the bus hurdled down the ravine, taking Noah with it. She staggered to her feet, bumping the lunch tray and sending cool tea splashing over the rice.
I’ve got to get out of here, she thought in a daze. Even the bus station was sounding preferable now than staying here and watching this. The news reporter was receiving a note from an off-screen hand and continuing in all her mauve, low-cut glory. She drew back and frowned at the small note, then raised dark eyes to the camera.
“We are just receiving word that we have confirmation of the identities of two of the men who were killed in the Hotel Diplomat this afternoon. Their names will be released later, but we do know they are a deputy minister in Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Israeli ambassador to the United States.”
Wara’s eyelids fluttered as Alejo muttered under his breath. He did not sound happy. But the news story wasn’t over yet.
“The Israeli men had come to Bolivia for negotiations with the government to reopen diplomatic relations. Bolivia and Israel have had no diplomatic relations since 2008, when President Evo Morales cut off relations over the actions of Israel in the Gaza Strip during the 2008-2009 war. Israel has stated that the nature of the explosion at the Hotel Diplomat is believed to be consistent with that of a suicide bomber,” the young news reporter faltered a moment, and then looked at the camera, puzzled, “and that a team of experts from Tel Aviv will be sent to examine the remains of the scene, to arrive at their own conclusions about what happened here in this very tragic situation.”
Alejo’s face was drawn and severe. He knew about this, didn’t he? Who else would do something like this?
“Did you…did you do this?” she stammered, eyes searching his even though she knew he couldn’t see her.
“I know nothing about this,” he stated each word slowly and clearly. But it was obvious that something about the bombing had him upset.
Wara lowered herself back onto her bed shakily. She yanked the blanket over her head and curled up in the bed, trying to block out the sounds of the news reports about flames and death.
29
turquoise
THE BUS STATION WAS PACKED, a writhing mass of bodies and battered suitcases. Wara filed outside through the appropriate gate, trying not to hyperventilate at the sight of the red double-decker bus she was supposed to board.
Steady, she reminded herself. This isn’t the same bus. This is your ticket to the Martirs.
She climbed up the bus steps and easily found seat 22B, weak-kneed with relief that it was nowhere near where she and Noah had sat on the bus from Coroico. Wara smoothed her finger over Noah’s ring, then leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes.
She had left Alejo sitting morosely on the hospital bed. He had refused to say anything else about the Hotel Diplomat, but the way his jaw was set announced that the news wasn’t good.
From somewhere inside Wara’s pocket, her cell phone rang. Startled, she dug around and managed to pull out the small, cheap phone Alejo had bought her at the Hostal Salta.
Nazaret, calling to see what time I’ll be arriving, she assumed. I’m sure they’ll come to meet me.
“Hello?” But it wasn’t Wara’s friend’s voice that answered on the other end.
“Wara?” The voice was male.
Alejo? The only other person who has my number.
Sigh.
“Wara! Where are you?” His voice sounded urgent. Her heart sank. Was something wrong? Could “they” be after her again?
“I’m in the bus.” She covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. “We’re about to leave.”
“Wara, I, uh….” Alejo’s voice faltered, and for a second Wara thought he might cry. Then he said what she never expected: “I can see. God made me see again.”
Wara nearly dropped the phone, astonished. Fumbling for words, she finally managed, “You mean your vision came back? The doctor said it might. That’s… great.”
“No, no it didn’t just come back. Wara, God did this.” Alejo’s voice was racing, and his sentences all ran together. “A woman, an old Quechua woman, came here an hour ago, to pray for me. She said she knows you, and you told her to pray for me.”
“Doña Filomena!” Heat spread down the base of Wara’s neck.
“Yes! Well she came to pray for me, in Quechua. And then I blinked, Wara—just the blink of an eye. I opened my eyes, and there in front of me was this wrinkled old Quechua lady in a pollera, praying her heart out for me. I could see it all! I could see her, the hospital room with the blue curtains---I can see again, Wara.”
Wara gawked at the cheap gray phone in disbelief. She heard a loud bang beneath her as the baggage compartment door was slammed shut. Any minute now, the long bus would be pulling out of the station and Wara would be headed to Lima. “Wow,” she muttered, but Alejo didn’t even seem to hear her. His voice was still shaking, and he was obviously elated.
“The other day, when I woke up, I saw something,” he said. “Someone. He told me that he was sending two people for us, and we should go with them.”
Yeah, I remember that. I thought you were crazy.
“He talked to me about you, too, Wara.” Alejo hesitated, surely knowing that his chances of convincing Wara of this were very slim. “There’s something God’s going to show us. Please come back.”
This was Alejo Martir talking. She didn’t really like him, and she didn’t really trust him. But he was claiming to have had a vision from God, that two people were coming to show Alejo and Wara something. And he had a miraculous healing to back it up.
“But I can’t just…I need to go to Lima.” The excuse sounded weak in Wara’s ears.
“We’ll go to Lima. Or you can go without me, Wara.” Alejo was insistent. “Just please come back here now. Go tomorrow. Please.”
Wara felt a quiver as the bus began to back up, inching its way out of its narrow parking slot, curving backwards. A crazy urgency filled her chest and she stood up, nearly smashing her head on the ceiling.
God is
calling for you. God is there, with Alejo. He gave him back his sight. And He wants you to go.
“I’m coming back,” Wara said into the phone, then closed it tightly. She staggered down the aisle, ignoring the curious glances of the other seated passengers. There was just one thought ransacking her brain the whole time, speeding her heart into overdrive.
Who is coming?
Wara exited the silver elevator on Alejo’s floor at Univalle, tiptoeing across the polished tiles. The nurses’ station was silent and empty; a phone rang insistently on the desk, but no one ran to answer it. She inhaled raggedly and pushed open the heavy wooden door to the room she had left just a few hours before.
Wara immediately noticed that Doña Filomena was gone, but two strangers clustered around the hospital bed. One was a tall, lanky guy with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, buzzed sandy brown hair, and a hooked nose. At the other side of the bed stood an attractive lady, older than Wara, with two short black braids and fair skin. They were both dressed in cheap clothes and black rubber flip flops with a healthy coating of dry mud. As Wara drew up next to them, the woman was pulling off the last of Alejo’s bloodied bandages.
His hazel eyes flickered towards her as she entered, and she immediately knew he could see her. That crazy grin spread across his lips as he said, “I can see you, Wara.”
She gaped back at him, still not quite believing this. “You can really see. Did you tell Dr. Ortega?”
“Well, I was about to, but then I got some more visitors. I think it’s time for check out.” Alejo’s eyes shone, and Wara stared, speechless. The two people who were making themselves at home in the room seemed as happy about Alejo getting his sight back as he was. The two just stood there, nodding and grinning as if there were nothing strange about a man getting his sight back by the power of God.
Suddenly Wara’s knees buckled. There were two of them?
“There isn’t much time.” The man with the wide shoulders and military haircut clapped Alejo’s shoulder with slender fingers. His eyes drooped slightly, but the corners of his mouth were lifted in a smile. “You must be Wara.”
Wara nodded dumbly, still struck by the fact that there were two of them. These were the messengers Alejo had been told about? Who were these people?
“We would like you and Alejo to come with us,” the strange man was addressing Wara. “There’s someone who would like to talk with you. Alejo told me that both of you are believers in Jesus? Well then, rest easy. The man who wants to see you is a believer as well, your brother. But if you will come, we have to hurry. There isn’t much time.”
The stout woman with the two braids turned towards Wara, and she found herself looking into deep eyes the color of chocolate, rimmed at the edge with a touch of turquoise. “Will you come with us?” Wara noted that her Spanish was accented, as was the man’s. Something she couldn’t place.
Instinctively, Wara’s gaze flew to Alejo. It was because of him that she was standing here in the middle of this craziness. He nodded at her and winked. “O-ok,” she agreed in a daze. “I’ll go.”
The two visitors grinned a little, and the woman motioned towards Alejo. “Quick, come see this!” Wara took a few steps forward and saw that she was pointing to the spot where Alejo’s bandages had been, the wound from the bullet. Wara’s eyes popped to see that where Alejo’s curls were shaved away there was only healthy, mocha-colored skin. No trace of a scar.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen a healing?” the man asked, turning towards Wara with that lazy half-smile. She nodded mutely, and he nodded back at her kindly, as if to say, We all have to start somewhere.
“Alright, then. Time to change,” the woman ordered, guiding Wara forward with one hand on her back “Both of you, in the bathroom. We paid about ten patients to keep the nurses busy, but we should hurry.”
Wara felt very hot, sure sweat was dripping down her backbone under her t-shirt. Into the bathroom?
“You, over here,” Ms. Braids motioned Wara towards one of the bathroom corners. “We’re going to get you into some clothes like ours, so we won’t stand out on our little trip away from here.” Glancing behind her, Wara saw Alejo pulling off his shirt to change in the opposite corner of the bathroom. “Neither of you turn around,” Braids snickered at her. “Face the wall.”
Wara obeyed. At lightening speed, the short woman helped Wara strip out of her old clothes and pull on faded sweat pants, a bulky, worn beige sweater, and black plastic sandals caked in mud. With crisp efficiency, she then bundled Wara’s hair on top of her head under a floppy-brimmed white hat with an attached black braid that tickled Wara’s waist.
“There you go,” Braids said. “No one will recognize you.” Hands gripped Wara’s shoulder and spun her around to face the men. Surreally, Alejo was sporting a greasy baseball hat, ratty dress pants, and the ugliest homemade sweater Wara had ever seen.
He did a double take, then blinked at her a couple times. “You look like Mariana Condori…she used to sell us fruit in the Quillacollo market when I was a little kid,” Alejo said. “I used to have a crush on her.”
“I think it’s the braid.” Wara bit her lip.
“You look like a nice couple of working class folk, headed home after a long day at the market,” the tall guy said. He followed them out of the bathroom, stuffing their discarded clothing into his ripped plastic market bag on the way. “Time to go. Grab anything you need.”
Wara didn’t need anything. She jogged after the rest of them, feeling the long fake braid slapping her back. She followed the three others into the hallway, which was still eerily silent. With each step, her cheap plastic sandals squished noisily across the tiles.
At the end of the hallway, a fat metal door blocked their path, secured with two golden padlocks. “Keep your face turned to ten o’clock,” said Broad Shoulders. Wara started, then noticed the security camera in the corner facing the door. Patients in Bolivia weren’t allowed to leave the hospital until the bill was paid in full, a process that could take a full afternoon of paperwork. Wara drew a deep breath and followed the others in approaching the door while facing the opposite corner, away from the camera.
Out of the corner of her eye, Wara saw Braids extract something from her pocket. She jammed it into the lock, wiggled, and the padlock released with a soft pop. The other one yielded to her touch within another thirty seconds, and Broad Shoulders removed the two padlocks and slung them over a bar on the door.
“And now we go out,” he said, and Wara followed him outside into the cool darkness of the Andean night.
“Ok, take the stairs on your seats,” Braids instructed, and Wara sat on the cold concrete steps, eyes wide, imitating the others as they scooted down three flights of stairs hidden from the front hospital patio by the concrete wall. The murmur of conversation and screech of guard whistles rose around them. Wara pressed her lips together, really beginning to wonder why they were scuttling down a side stairway of Univalle as if this were some sort of jailbreak.
“Stop,” Shoulders whispered, and Wara froze in place next to Alejo near the bottom stair. He glanced at her in the darkness, and she saw a flash of red light reflect off his irises, then bounce on the concrete wall opposite the last stair. A siren beeped, then hushed, and Alejo’s eyes narrowed.
A police car? Wara began wondering if she should be worried.
It couldn’t be here for us, right?
“They won’t recognize the four of us together.” Braids turned around, crouching on the stairs. “The police car is parked just around the corner.” She eyed Wara firmly. “We’re just people who came here to visit sick Uncle Marco after a long day of work in the market. We belong here. On three, we all stand up and walk towards the street. Slowly. One, two, three.”
Heart drumming in her chest, Wara tried to rise quietly to her feet and follow Alejo and the two, trying to imagine what someone might possibly be feeling who hadn’t just picked two padlocks and escaped from a Bolivian hospital with two co
mplete strangers.
They rounded to the front of the hospital and past two olive green police vehicles, red lights periodically flashing in the night. No one tried to stop them as they passed through the hospital gate and onto the dimly lit street. The two strangers broke pace next to dented white Toyota Corolla.
“Climb in,” Shoulders said. “You two newbies in the back.”
Wara slid in next to Alejo, disturbed as she suddenly remembered that less than forty-eight hours ago Alejo had been sprawled on the gray blanket, bleeding, in front of this very hospital. It was very weird that he was now outside, leaving, in a car with total strangers.
“So, you can see now,” she eyed him nervously. “But are you sure you’re ok to leave the hospital?”
“I’m absolutely wonderful,” Alejo flashed that white smile that could only remind her of Pastor Martir. “God healed me—did you see? It’s as if I’d never even been shot!”
Wara had seen. She leaned back into the gray vinyl seat, gripping the fraying edges as Shoulders leaped into the driver’s seat and whipped away around the corner, Braids riding shotgun.
Are these real people, or could they actually be angels? Wara’s thoughts were running wild as she stared at both of them in the front seat.
And where are they taking us?
30
blond
THEY DITCHED THE WHITE COROLLA AT A GAS station and continued on motorcycles, the mysterious strangers, Wara, and a guy who an hour ago had been blind. For thirty minutes they rode out of the city, then turned off the main road to follow a rugged path cut through a cornfield. The motorcycles’ headlights cut through the heavy darkness of the cornfield under the stars. Just when Wara was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hang on to Alejo’s back any longer, the wispy tendrils of chaff fell away quickly from their background against a slate blue sky. They had arrived in a clearing, and in the pale moonlight Wara could see a large, two-story house, built completely out of wood.
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