The page she withdrew from it and carefully handed to Carlos was yellowing and brittle and, handling it like a diamond nestling in his palm, he passed it to Elia.
“Bingo!” she said, her smile cracking through the cold. “A US entry visa… issued to Maria Rosa Diaz and dated… yes, just a few months before Isabel was born. Perfect.”
Maria Rosa innocently looked up at Elia with an even more eager-to-please smile, though these days she had no teeth at all, distastefully prompting Elia to recall the trailer park manager’s sleazy pet name for her.
“Can we just do this?” complained Reynolds, pushing forward. Three mangy dogs were nuzzling at his sharp-creased chinos and he wanted to get out of here before the mutts confused him with a lamppost. He surveyed the area and wrinkled his nose, indifferent as to whether he offended anyone, and his eyes settled on the hundreds of empty bottles piled up against a wall of Maria Rosa’s shack. “She’s a drunk,” he boiled toward Elia. “I’m interviewing a soak? Puh-lease.”
“She not have one drink today,” Carlos interrupted. “I promise her ten bolivianos extra if she stay sober for you.”
“That’s what? About $1.40?” said Elia, peeling the money off her clip.
Carlos quickly wrapped his hand over Elia’s, “No show money,” he whispered. “No safe, here. Money you got in your hand is enough for food for many families for one month.”
“Listen, Elia, do we really have to do the whole dinner shtick?”
Carlos cut in. “Is arranged, Señor Reynolds. Everyone make big preparations.” For another five bolivianos, Carlos had got Maria Rosa’s neighbours, whose hovel shared a rotting plywood wall with hers, to shift their chicken coops and pig swill to make enough space for the dinner, the cameras and the gas-bottle portable heaters he had hired, which were being fired up as they argued. He pointed Reynolds to a small hole dug in the ground with clods of earth piled next to it. “Is oven,” he smiled, with more than a hint of local pride.
Reynolds noticed small, uneven dark lumps scattered around the hole, preferring not to think about the pigs he’d seen wandering around. He shrugged and headed back to the minivan to rehearse his intro. “Isabel Diaz,” he said aloud, not caring who heard him, “couldn’t be president because of a father she’d never met. But what of her mother, a woman she hasn’t seen since she ran away from home at fifteen? I’m Shannon Reynolds for FOX. I’m in El Alto, Bolivia… a thousand feet above La Paz, the world’s highest capital city. As you can see,” and this is where the camera would sympathetically pan, “it’s also one of the poorest. Tonight, I’ve been invited to a watia, a traditional Andean Indian dinner cooked in the ground, like a Hawaiian luau, and my hostess is… Maria Rosa Diaz, the long lost mother of Isabel Diaz, former US presidential candidate and soon, likely to be elected Speaker of the House. It’s freezing here in El Alto, but what you’ll discover tonight will make your blood boil. Stay tuned.”
THE cameras rolled. Isabel’s mother knelt in the dirt, the oven hole dug freshly in front of her. She selected the hardest clods and pressed them into the base to form the foundation, and then more for the sides. She huffed herself up onto her sandaled feet and walked purposely over to the nearby open fire where, knees bent, she lifted a smoking metal bucket filled with hot flat stones and brought it back to the hole, almost stumbling under its weight. Once again on her knees and this time with tongs, she placed the hot stones inside the makeshift oven, one by one. She piled yet more of the clods of dirt around the mouth of the hole, stacking them up until the structure resembled a dome. The small holes she left here and there were for ventilation, according to Carlos, and the stalks of chaniua she slipped in through them were for fuel.
When the oven was glowing red hot inside, Maria Rosa removed the stones with the tongs and replaced them with food: potatoes, raw leaf-wrapped alpaca, corn cakes and bananas. She covered it over with more leaves and sand and dirt, wiped her hands on her apron and heaved herself back onto her feet, all the while chattering away to Carlos in a language none of the others understood.
“One hour till ready,” he said.
The cameras stopped filming.
“And we do what exactly during this hour?” asked Reynolds. “Sit on Mrs Gummy Bear’s porch sipping mint juleps and watch the sun set over the horizon?” He swung around disgusted and almost tripped over the horde of open-mouthed children who’d come and sat silently behind them.
REYNOLDS and Maria Rosa ate seated on a brightly striped rug. It clashed with her shawl, but Elia let it go since everything clashed here.
So far as the cameras observed, all that warmed the diners was the heat radiating from the watia hole. “Alpaca. Mmm,” Reynolds winked to the lens, “I never thought a sweater could taste so good.” The flare in his nostrils was almost convincing, but Elia and the rest of the crew winced anyway, and she knew she’d cut it.
“Señora Diaz,” he said after wiping his mouth. “You had a daughter when you were in America. Where was she born and what was her name?” He’d already learned from their off-camera rehearsal that if he spoke slowly, Maria Rosa would hear him.
“Her name… Isabel Rosa Diaz. Beautiful name, si?”
“And where was she born?”
“Ah, you ask me before… She born in New Jersey… in Newark. We live there first when we come to America—was cheap rent, but big troubles so we move.”
“Tell me about Isabel.”
Everything Maria Rosa recounted about Isabel and her early life had the ring of truth about it. Without giving Reynolds the details, she confirmed her daughter had run away from her at fifteen, when they were living at the Cactus Flower Trailer Park in New Mexico. After twenty minutes of what Reynolds would later describe as filler drivel, most of which would be edited out, he jumped in for the kill. “Your husband, what was his name?”
“Hernandez Luis Rodriguez Diaz.”
“And what was his job?”
“He has big job. He work for Chile, for gobierno… the government, si? He is embajador… ambassador… diplomat. I meet him here. No… there,” she said, pointing down the mountain to La Paz, “and we marry there. Celebración grande. Very grande. And ’nother one in Chile too, for him family. I very pretty girl,” she said, dropping her eyes as a petite smile curled her lips.
“When your husband sent you to America, did he know you were pregnant?”
“Si, is why he send me… because bebé is coming.”
“Because you’d be safer?”
“No, was…” She paused, trying to find the right words. “…was menos peligroso—less dangerous, yes?—after we leave from here.”
“But that’s not what you told your daughter, is it?”
“¿Qué?”
He repeated the question slowly.
“I no want her to feel abandon by her father. So I tell her lie. I lie to her about many things; to protect her feelings. I pretend to her my husband is very pretty, but he short and fat… like Maria Rosa now,” she cackled, the camera exposed briefly to the breathtaking spectacle of her toothless mouth.
“Is this a picture of your husband?” He passed Maria Rosa the grainy print Elia had given him. It was taken from the 1968 newsreel when the Chilean diplomat met LBJ.
“Si, mi marido,” she sneered, spitting a large gob of yellow out of her mouth onto the paper.
Reynolds was ecstatic. Only a star interviewer could extract such passion, and the camera was getting it all.
“I don’t understand, Señora Diaz. Why spit on him?” Come on. Do it again, he hoped. Tear it up. Burst into tears. He glanced up to see the second camera was framing her face but was pulling back the zoom enough to get her hands too. Marcus, the chief cameraman, was a professional.
“Because he throw me away,” she said, her flabby arms suddenly gesturing so extravagantly she almost knocked the pitcher of water over. “I pregnant and he send me to America for get rid of me. Bye-bye me. And bye-bye bebé. He say, Lloqsiy wasiymanta pantasqan qanwanqa karani.”
“In Quechuan language means: Get out of my house, I make mistake with you.”
Elia could sense Reynolds’ next question; it was as though a hangman’s trapdoor was dropping open in the pit of her stomach. She saw Marcus preparing for it too, tightening his zoom in on Maria Rosa for a full-screen face shot.
“But why would he say such bad things to you?” asked Reynolds.
“Because his amigos tell him he is cabrón…”
“¿Cabrón?”
Her hands flew to either side of her head, her forefingers pointing upwards like horns. “Cabrón … because bebé is not his.”
“Hernandez Diaz… he was not Isabel’s father?”
“He is husband, si. But no father. He go crazy with me. He tell me get out, but I say, ¿Y la guagua?… and what of bebé? He say to me, he shout, I remember clear, ¡No estoy ni ahí! ¡Vete al carajo! I no care! Go to hell! Hernandez he say more very bad things to me.”
Reynolds solemnly looked up to the lens, “As you’ve just heard, while Isabel Diaz’s mother was indeed married to a Chilean diplomat, that man was not Isabel Diaz’s biological father.” He turned back to Maria Rosa. “Maria Rosa, tell me… who was Isabel’s real father?”
“Jardinero. Can you believe…” she said, stretching her arms wide to take in their destitute surroundings, “I once has gardener work for me?”
“The embassy gardener?” asked Reynolds, feigning shock since he already knew the answer from their run-through.
“Si. He nice to me. But my husband go red. He say, tú eres más falso que una pirata boliviano—you are faker than a Boliviano pirate. He say that to me! Him… a Chile dog!” She spat into the dirt, just missing the rug. “He throw me papers and little bit money and he say ¡Vaya! Go! Get to America. ¡Vete al carajo!”
Elia’s lips, dry from the cold, had split badly from grinning so much, but she couldn’t care less. And nobody, not even Reynolds, was noticing the smells any more.
Eventually, Maria Rosa turned the questioning back on Reynolds, “Why you has interesting in Maria Rosa?” She’d asked this earlier, during the prep, but they had fended her off. Elia wanted her to hear the answer for the first time with the cameras shooting.
“It’s your daughter, Maria Rosa. She was recently running for President of the United States.”
“¿Mi Isabel?” Maria Rosa’s eyes glazed over, then she smiled weakly, sadly, and for a moment she fell silent.
Elia imagined that all kinds of memories and what-could-have-beens were flooding Maria Rosa’s head, details she’d long forgotten, or wanted to.
“Señor Reynolds,” she said eventually, a tear running down her cheek, “Isabel want to be presidente since very little girl.”
“America wanted it too, Maria Rosa.”
REYNOLDS was already in the minivan, lounging smugly across a double seat, his legs spread as wide as his self-satisfied smile. The crew were packing their gear into the vehicle, but Elia stayed back with Carlos as he gave Maria Rosa the money he’d promised, in an envelope. Only then, did she hop in and tell the driver to head straight for the airport. She and Marcus already knew the satellite uplink in La Paz was hopeless, so editing the material would have to wait till they got back to LA. Reynolds seconded the motion, not because he cared about technical details, he just wanted out of this godforsaken hole. His work was over.
Within minutes of their departure, all the paceños who’d been squeezing into the cracks between the shanties so they could ogle the bizarre event had scattered back to their own squalid homes.
Two dark figures, their teeth glinting in the watia afterglow, sprung from the shadows. Maria Rosa saw them immediately. She’d been expecting them and greedily extended her hand for her second envelope of the night. She wasn’t completely stupid, she thought, and now she knew the background for the first time she would ask these people for even more money than they’d promised. She’d met them twice now, the first time a few weeks ago, just before Elia had got her tip-off.
Maria Rosa ushered the woman inside the hovel. Diana’s face was dark, her red cap peak pulled low over her eyes, and she was sombre as she handed the woman the fat wad. She placed her hand on Maria Rosa’s shoulder and pressed her fingers in on the bone, “Maria Rosa, you must promise our secret will die with us both.”
“Si,” the bent old woman nodded, the pain in her shoulder and the mention of death hinting that now might not actually be the best time to renegotiate.
Diana smiled and slapped the old woman hard on the back. Maria Rosa felt a sharp pin-prick jab between her shoulder blades and was about to say something when Diana slipped out through the curtain and left. Maria Rosa watched the mysterious woman pass by the hot watia hole and drop something into it, rousing a brief flare to the dying fire. Even if she’d seen it closer up, Maria Rosa would’ve had no idea what a Clip’n’Drip was. She turned back inside and shrugged, a nerve pinching the same painful spot in her back, unaware that in two hours’ time it would never trouble her again; and nor would anything else.
52
THE INTERVIEW ISABEL Diaz agreed to give to Shannon Reynolds had nothing to do with Reynolds and everything to do with Mr Devine, Elia’s boss. Devine had been good to her over the years. It didn’t hurt either that he too was a Catholic.
The set behind Isabel and Reynolds was a poignant blowup of her mother in the doorway of her shanty, with three snotty-nosed, half-dressed urchins clinging to her skirt. “What can I say? It’s history,” Isabel said facing Reynolds on air, and brushing her hair behind an ear. Isabel was trying to emphasise closure, but all it did was show her vulnerability. “But of course I’m disappointed I didn’t know about this before, or my nomination wouldn’t have got scratched.”
“And you’d be President now.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t,” she shrugged. “In any case, Mr Foster was duly elected, he’s been sworn in and, as a nation, we need to move on.”
“And your mother, Madam Speaker? Seeing her again, on TV, in all that squalor… that filth? It must have shocked a wealthy woman like you.”
Isabel snapped to ice so quickly that Elia, who was watching from off to the side, could almost hear her cracking. Elia had personally negotiated the ground rules with Isabel’s staff. Anything about her feelings for her mother was strictly off-limits. She had agreed to the backdrop photo, but that was to be it.
“I have many regrets, Mr Reynolds, but I’m not disposed to sharing them with you. We agreed on that before this interview, as I recall.” Delivering that last sentence through a sweet smile, she destroyed Reynolds’ prospects of ever interviewing another serious political leader again.
After the interview, Devine wandered onto the set and signalled his nicotine-stained finger over at Reynolds. The “face” strutted over to his boss expecting dollops of praise for his last-minute attempt to throw Isabel off-balance but instead, Devine stretched his arm up around Reynolds’ sculpted shoulders, slipped his cigarette out of his mouth, and edged the interviewer off to the side of the studio where they couldn’t be so easily heard.
“Shannon, my boyo,” he said, lowering his voice so even Reynolds had to lean down to hear him, “it’s time you got yourself a brain to work your tongue. If you ever get one, call me; I might think of rehiring you. Security is clearing out your desk.” Devine placed his fist in the small off Reynolds’ back and shoved him forward and, for a change, the mouth was lost for words.
Devine wheeled around to find Elia. She had been watching the two men, wondering what was transpiring but Devine, without a word, pulled Elia’s sleeve over toward Isabel. “Madam Speaker, before I apologise to you for Reynolds’ appalling breach of our agreement, I’d like you to meet Elia Cacoz. She was the brains behind this story and you can be the first to congratulate her on her promotion.”
“Mr Devine…,” was all Elia could get out.
“Ms Cacoz. Well done,” said Isabel, taking her hand. “If only I had you around last year.�
��
“Actually you did,” Elia said, slipping her hand out of Isabel’s warm grip and hanging her head. “I was Mike Mandrake’s researcher and, um, I sort of screwed up. I killed the research too early. I feel so, so responsible.”
“Didn’t you hear what Madam Speaker said during the interview, Elia?” asked Devine, smiling. “It’s history.”
Elia heard, but was not convinced.
Her instinct was right.
53
THE DOOR TO Ed’s study at home was closed but Davey found it unlocked, and snuck it open to peek inside. His father had his back to him, and Davey could see from the green light flashing on the desk that he was talking on his speakerphone. To the boy, the grey phone-dome sitting on a 1930s bleached oak and steel Frank Lloyd Wright desk didn’t look at all incongruous.
Nobody else was there except Ed and, with the drapes open, there was plenty of light for the bit of fun that Davey had planned. The boy slipped inside quietly and pressed the door closed behind him before sliding to the floor. Ed had chosen the same motif for the carpet here as in his office: five-pointed stars, though for the privacy of his home he’d gone for a less understated pattern.
Davey had already programmed the shutter-click on his camera to remain silent so his game would be as hushed to his father as it was to himself, and he started snapping. He began with four shots of the desk.
Eventually Ed swung around and as he did so, seeing Davey, his face compressed into a frown for a second, long enough for Davey to get him in the frame. “I’m on the phone,” he signed, relaxing into a beaming smile and pointing to the console, “Want to say something?” Ed’s face was warm and open. He vainly hoped the boy would speak to him as he’d done for Isabel.
Davey shook his head, instead pointing to his camera, so Ed got the hint and shifted his pose so he looked mean, like a gunslinger sizing up his kill. Davey gave his dad the thumbs-up and clicked away.
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