by Helen Young
Luke walked into the grounds of Osorio’s villa. The man didn’t follow; none of them did. The gate was closed, he heard the bolt slice back across its middle, more shrill laughter and then just silence. He was alone again.
The house sat in darkness. As though nobody’s home, Luke thought. He set out slowly down the gravel drive, cutting inwards onto the clipped grass where he might continue undetected. If what Camilo said was true, he was getting closer to Felisa now. He remembered the fireworks at the party when the jewel-studded night had held them all captive. He looked up at a sky as tawny and unwelcoming as Osorio’s hacienda beneath it. He was close to the house now. He planned to knock; if no one came out, he’d go in uninvited. Then he heard a dog whimper. He remembered the woodshed behind the house. It was the last place he wanted to go. Luke heard voices inside the house. He wasn’t sure what to do now and hadn’t thought of what to say yet. The men on the gate knew he was here and it would only be a matter of time before Osorio, if he hadn’t fled already, would too. The dog whimpered again and the voices got louder. Luke crept around the side of the house, away from the men and towards the sound. The back of the building seemed darker, as though it were a different sky overhead. Luke blinked, seeing first the low hut and thankfully the dog too, connected to it by the chain.
‘Neron,’ he whispered, remembering its name.
The dog looked up and growled, low and deep. Luke walked wide of him, as before; the chain could only reach so far. Neron ignored him, turning his attention back to the thing he held between his paws. What was it? There was no one on this side of the house, just him and the dog. Luke found a long stick, as the man had done last time, and approached. When he got closer, Neron looked up and released a growl that seemed to mock the first, as if to say: I remember you, I remember how you fled last time. Luke held the stick out in front, between him and the dog. He approached the animal.
‘What have you got there?’
Luke looked down. The dog was nursing something like an empty sack. Neron did nothing. He was afraid of the stick and had learned to obey it. He caught the material up in his paws, turning it over, and Luke saw then what he hadn’t before. It was finer than rough hessian. There were buttons, pockets and a collar. It was a man’s coat. The dog picked it up in his jaws, stretched and padded off. He cast one final look at Luke before retreating to the shadows of the hut. Luke’s attention was drawn from the low building to the trees beyond, caught now in a fierce wind. There was something suspended there, turning like a half-felled branch. He dropped the stick and went forward.
It was a man’s body. Karl.
‘Neron is such a beast.’
Luke turned to find Osorio, his face milky white, coming out of the darkness towards him.
Luke swallowed. He felt sick. ‘I’m not sure dogs climb trees.’
‘No,’ Osorio conceded, looking up. ‘Come, Luke, let me explain.’
At the front of the house, Luke recognised the three men from the gate.
‘You have a habit of getting lost,’ Osorio said.
Inside the hacienda, he led Luke through to a formal sitting room. There was a lit fire in the grate.
‘Please,’ Osorio said, offering him a seat.
Luke took it. He looked out of the window. Christ, Karl. The men kept watch on the porch.
‘Getting lost in Bogotá too, I hear.’
‘What? Who told you that?’ He had to get his breathing under control. ‘Was it your nephew?’
Osorio looked at him. ‘Actually, it’s written all over your face.’ He lit a cigar and offered one to Luke.
‘No, thank you.’
‘You’re wondering about Señor Draper?’ Osorio sat down. ‘I could say the rioting, the mob, came here.’
‘But you would be lying.’
‘Perhaps. You know he was a greedy man. He tried to blackmail me.’
‘It’s true then, what Karl told me.’
‘That surprises me, Luke, because Camilo says you don’t know anything.’
Better to say no more, Luke thought. He needed to get to Felisa. ‘Is he here? Your nephew? I’d like to see my friend.’
Osorio sat back and exhaled, setting a wall of tobacco smoke between them. ‘You and he are friends, aren’t you?’
‘Is he here or isn’t he?’
‘But then this girl, this pretty face, came between you.’
Luke rose.
‘Sit down. He’s here, arrived a little before you.’ He flicked his hand and one of the men appeared at the door.
‘You should know,’ Osorio said. ‘There’s still time to put everything right. Once things have calmed down, the project can go ahead.’
‘What?’
‘Perhaps it’s not appropriate to suggest it yet.’
‘You’re right, it isn’t. Please have Karl cut down from that tree.’
Luke rose and followed the man deeper into the house. They crossed the inner courtyard. It was unlit and the fountain ran lazily, its liquid black. Luke looked up at the sky, wondering then if it might be the last time he saw it. He shouldn’t have said anything about Karl. Oh God, Karl. He should have kept quiet about the meeting. He was here for Felisa. The man led him through a door in the courtyard’s south side. They went into a modest room with a guard stationed outside a second room beyond this one. It was being used as a cell; there was someone inside. The two men spoke to each other. He thought he heard Camilo’s name.
Why would he be here? Back at the apartment, Camilo had told him to stay put. What if he’d been trying to warn him? He couldn’t get it straight. Was he or wasn’t he with his uncle? Luke faced the two guards, unprepared for what was to follow. He wondered which of the two he might overpower if it came to that. He’d have to unlock the door to the cell. How far might Camilo and he get before the other raised his gun and took aim…
The men were grinning at him like the ones outside had. The inner door was unlocked. It was dark inside the second room. He didn’t want to go inside. Something about the endless gloom, it was the same as before. It had followed him down the years.
‘Camilo?’ he called.
The man holding the door sniggered. There was no answer and no way of knowing what was inside. The man who’d led him there gestured for Luke to enter. He froze. The other guard sent the nozzle of his gun hard into Luke’s back and he arched forward in pain. The butt of the gun came a second time, cracking him across the backs of the legs. He cried out and stumbled forward into the gloom. Inside there was someone, a figure, hunched over on a low pallet in the corner of the room. He turned. The door was bolted shut behind him.
‘Camilo?’
The figure looked up.
‘Hello Luke,’ Felisa said.
He went to her, crouching down in the darkness.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.
Felisa pulled herself upright and flinched in such a way that he knew. He needed to feel nothing – to see past it. Past what was happening, or what had already happened to her. Otherwise they both might disintegrate. He looked back at the door where he imagined the men were. Opposite, set high into the far wall, was a small broken window. She could never have reached it by herself but he might help her up to it. At his side, Felisa shuffled on the pallet. He could tell, even in the dark, that she was trying to be brave. Luke looked away from her, at anything but her outline that seemed to lack definition now. Maybe part of her had already departed through the cracked glass. For him, the worst thing would be to cry out, because he understood that his stupid pity was indulgent – his vanity rising up in defence of hers. If she saw that, it might be true.
‘You’ve been fighting, Luke.’
‘You shouldn’t have run away from me.’
‘Let’s say I won’t, again.’
‘Is Camilo here? Have you seen him?’
She didn’t speak.
‘Felisa?’
‘Look at me, Luke.’
He was afraid to. ‘Was it him?’ he asked, meeting he
r stare.
‘No, but he brought me here,’ she exhaled, seeming to lose what little structure she’d maintained. Felisa sobbed but there was nothing but the numbness for him – that strange, rare feeling that had been suppressed down the years.
‘I will kill him,’ he said.
Nobody came for them and in the darkness it felt like hours passed and they were the last two people living. He wished they were. There was release in that thought. He imagined the guards had all fled, taking the knowledge of what they’d done back to their wives and daughters. Felisa was calm now, her head upon his lap.
‘I went to the square, to find you,’ he said.
She sat up and when she spoke, her voice was no more than a whisper. ‘After the firing on the square, a group of us saw a way into the Capitolio and took it. I’d never been inside before and just wanted to look at it, to be away from the bodies hitting the stone outside – they were just women from the market, still dressed in their aprons, the shoeshines and shop boys – they’d only come for answers. The guard didn’t see it that way. Not once did anyone official come out of the palace. Not the president, not his deputy, not anyone. It drove us crazy. Those who’d followed me inside the building brought the madness with them. That’s what it was – senseless, shameful destruction. They were drunk on grief. You couldn’t reason with them. It wasn’t about getting to Ospina and his government. With their bare hands the people tore everything apart, stamping on tables, snapping legs from chairs, shitting in corners, on anything – the stench of it – while those inside ran for their lives. That’s when I was picked up. Someone official in a suit grabbed me and then added my name to a list. The prison came next – I would have called you but I didn’t know where you were. I could only remember Camilo’s number – the one he’d given me. It all happened so quickly. I called him. He said it would be all right. The next moment I was freed. He said that, Luke, he said it would be all right.’
‘It will be, Felisa.’
‘I don’t know that. The square was full of boys and women mostly, the ones who couldn’t run away. I saw their bodies. I found myself in a car being driven away from them. It was so peculiar. So much destruction and then it was as though nothing had changed, just fields and then here.’
He looked up at the window again. He could put his elbow through it.
‘Is he still here?’
‘Camilo? I don’t know where he is. I don’t think he meant for it to happen. He didn’t know what they’d do.’
‘He came to see me, to the apartment. He took my passport.’
‘Then his uncle won’t let you leave.’
The door opened and they both looked up.
It was one of the guards. Luke rose and put himself between him and Felisa. The man laughed and told her to get up too. They were led though the courtyard and back into the house.
‘I’m here, Luke,’ Felisa said.
He squeezed her hand and realised he was doing it to check she really was. They were taken back into the room at the front of the house. Osorio had risen and now stood beside the fireplace. Camilo was with him.
‘My dear,’ Osorio said, addressing Felisa. ‘Take this.’ He handed her a shawl. ‘It’s one of Señora Osorio’s but she won’t mind, under the circumstances.’
Felisa extended her arm and took it. Camilo, he noticed, wouldn’t look at her.
‘Sit, please.’
Felisa sat down, and Luke beside her.
‘A sad state of affairs,’ Osorio said. ‘This business in town.’
‘I would agree with you there,’ Luke replied.
‘Our beautiful city torn to shreds, our culture up in smoke and our women polluted.’
He looked at Felisa.
‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ she said. ‘Gaitán.’
‘Who?’ Osorio asked, looking at Camilo. ‘Oh yes, the Indian doctor. I was as shocked as anyone to hear of his demise, but I have to say, I feel rather grateful to him. The centre has been cleared without the need for bulldozers.’ He looked at her. ‘Who will take up his cause now? Will you?’
Felisa laughed. ‘I would have thought it was obvious. We already have. Soon, people like you will be extinct.’
‘Camilo, you were right to bring her here,’ Osorio said. ‘She is a communist.’ He turned to Luke. ‘I was surprised to hear you were too.’
‘I’m not, and neither is she. Now let us go.’
‘Luke, come now,’ Osorio said. ‘Camilo here saw you both at the rally in Tres Esquinas.’
‘I see,’ Luke said. ‘How long has your bastard nephew been watching me?’
‘Since the moment you landed,’ Camilo said abruptly, ‘and before, actually.’
‘You have quite a past,’ Osorio said. ‘A former detainee from Europe is likely to attract attention.’
Felisa turned to Luke. ‘I never told them.’
‘You knew?’ Camilo asked her, coming forward. ‘And you still took his side?’
‘Camilo,’ Osorio said, smiling.
‘Bet he left this out,’ Camilo said, taking something from his pocket. It was a letter. ‘Found this in your apartment.’
‘Stop it,’ Luke said, his heartbeat ringing in his ears.
‘She has a right to hear it, Luke, doesn’t she? After you spun us all that beautiful story. What was it your beloved Catherine wrote before she left you?’ Camilo unfolded the sheet and began to read. ‘I could never love a man like you. No, she saw him for the coward he was and left him, as you should have.’
‘She isn’t dead?’ Felisa asked.
‘Pathetic, isn’t it?’
‘Enough, nephew. Get him a drink.’
Camilo went over to the cabinet.
‘Luke,’ Felisa whispered. ‘I don’t care.’
He sat back down. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t think. That room she’d been kept in, it was so like the darkened space he had known at the farm but before that too, when he’d been arrested. Then, he’d waited an eternity for Catherine to visit. He’d almost lost his mind when the letter arrived saying she was leaving, or rather, had left him long ago and was only getting it down on paper now. That other man had been mentioned. He was an officer in the RAF, some high-level bombing work. She was proud of this man, she’d written. Then the farm, the barn. He’d been left to rot. His leg had never been the same since – a slight limp, that dull ache where it hadn’t been set soon enough. During all that solitude, it was the buildings he thought he’d never build again that kept him going. He was saved by the cityscapes he’d been able to see in the dark, using only his fingers to draw through the air. Soon after the war, he’d come across some service medals in a junk shop. What did it matter who he had been?
‘The fact is,’ Osorio said, taking the glass from Camilo and handing it to Luke himself, ‘you are a brilliant architect.’
Luke raised it to his lips. It cut through all of it, through them. ‘Is that why you wrote the article? To get my attention?’
‘It was nice to see your name in print again, wasn’t it?’ Osorio said. ‘Listen, we’ll take care of the past and make sure the truth never comes out here. When the city has calmed, we still want you to rebuild it.’
‘And if I refuse?’
Osorio looked at Felisa and smiled. ‘Why would you?’
Luke didn’t move. He couldn’t.
‘Let’s give him time to think,’ Osorio said, signalling for the guard waiting in the hall. ‘Take the girl back to her room.’
‘Wait,’ Luke said. ‘Let her go and I’ll do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Anything you want.’
Osorio nodded. ‘See to it that Señorita Mejía is comfortable in one of the bedrooms upstairs.’
Luke stepped forward.
‘You can sleep outside the door, if you like.’ Osorio sighed. ‘And then tomorrow you’ll both be taken back to the city. Next week, we’ll begin the clean-up.’
‘And my passport?’
‘What
passport?’ Camilo said.
The guard stood aside. One of Osorio’s maids took Felisa by the arm and led her upstairs. Luke went after them.
‘Let her go,’ Osorio said, reaching out an arm to stop him. ‘In my experience, women don’t like desperate men.’
38
Osorio insisted that he have another drink with him. After Felisa had gone upstairs, Camilo had looked furious and stormed out. Luke watched from the window as he paced up and down on the front porch.
‘You should settle this with the boy. Make peace. She’s only a girl.’
Luke looked at him. Osorio, he thought, believed what he was saying.
‘We could settle it in the old way, with pistols at dawn,’ Luke said.
‘The old ways,’ Osorio said, shaking his head. ‘Camilo’s mother was fourteen when my brother married her. She was a quiet, timid little thing. Her name was Isabel.’
He poured another drink and passed the bottle to Luke.
‘My brother was a womaniser of the worst kind. He had no time for her. It took two years of silence, of coaxing her out of hiding, before their first child was born. She gave birth to their son in this house during a storm. One of the worst we’d seen. Trees torn up by the roots and sent like spears for miles, animals raised in barns suddenly finding they could fly, you get the idea. That quiet, timid woman made more noise than anything else that night. How she cried! It went on into the morning too. And inside of that hell, that poor child came.’
‘What happened to the mother?’
‘She didn’t survive. Neither did my brother. Not for long after that; a disease of the blood. I raised the child. I denied him nothing.’
Luke looked outside. Camilo, he saw, had stopped pacing and was leaning against the veranda.
‘Go,’ Osorio said. ‘Go and make peace with my boy.’
Luke stepped outside. The night had turned cool. The guards were far off beside the gate again and Camilo hadn’t moved. He looked back up at the house and wondered which bedroom Felisa had been taken to. Behind the glass, Osorio was watching him.
‘What do you want?’ Camilo asked without turning.
‘How could you do it, to her?’