by P. C. James
“How did he come to be here?” Pauline asked.
Maria came out of her anguished trance and said, “I don’t know. The company try so hard to screen out bad people. He told everyone he was a refugee and he got through. Then, there he was in front of me, laughing at my terror on seeing him again.”
“Convince me what you say is true. Tell me what happened.”
Maria frowned. “Very well,” she said. “Many years ago, a couple in our small village took in a boy whose parents had been killed by Government soldiers, or at least that’s what they told us. This boy, his name was not Jose, though that’s the name he was going by when he arrived on this ship, was about a year older than me, maybe thirteen or fourteen. His behavior wasn’t friendly and his adopted parents said it was because of what he’d seen and what happened to his parents. That seemed sensible to me and made me want to help. I wasn’t the only one. Most of the children in the village tried to play with him and have him play with us but he was always angry so people began to avoid him.
“Then we got older. I got what you call a ‘crush’ on him. He was good looking and that moody sullen look was alluring. My parents forbade me to meet with him so I would sneak out to see him. He wasn’t any better as a boyfriend than as a friend. Then one day he hit me. You won’t believe it but even that didn’t put me off, at least not right away.
“But it got worse and I told my parents. They were furious; you can imagine. My father talked to his adoptive parents and he was ordered to keep away from me. And I was ordered to keep away from him, though by now I understood why my parents said he wasn’t bad, he was evil and I didn’t need to be commanded to avoid him. I was terrified of him even then.” Maria paused and then asked, “Do you believe in evil, Señorita?”
Pauline nodded. “I certainly do,” she said. “I’ve seen too much of it to believe otherwise. There’s a little of it in all of us. And a lot of it in a few of us.”
“People today say there’s no such thing,” Maria said. “I hear them on the radio and TV, but there is. In a safe country, you forget. You imagine evil isn’t there but it is. It’s only waiting for the moment to strike. I can’t forget, nor can I forgive.”
“Go on,” Pauline said.
Maria frowned. “It gets very unpleasant now,” she said.
“What happened to Jose was unpleasant too,” Pauline replied.
“One day, when I was in my final few weeks of school, he disappeared. Just vanished. I have to be honest; I was happy. There were whispers that some of the men had run him out of our village. I didn’t care. I just hoped he would never come back.” She paused, her eyes focused on a place far away and her expression filled with pain.
After a moment, Maria continued, “Then he came back. One morning, very early, a gang of men with guns appeared out of the surrounding trees and he was among them. They said they were Sendero Luminoso – The Shining Path. They were Communists and they were going to make everything better for the people. But it seemed we weren’t the people whose lives were to be made better. They’re murderous monsters is all I know, like all of their kind.”
“So, I’ve heard,” Pauline said.
“I promise you haven’t heard the full truth,” Maria said. “They herded everyone into the center of the village and shot the village mayor and his wife without any warning or explanation. We children were kept apart, the boys separated from the girls. They told the adults we would be killed if they didn’t give a donation to the movement.”
“Women were sent to bring back all their family’s money, jewelry and valuables and place it in the square. It was then I saw Jose. He was watching me and his expression was ugly. I’ve never seen such an expression, or at least I hadn’t until that day. I saw lots then. When he was sure I was watching him, he pulled my father out of the group and shot him point-blank in the face. I screamed and ran to my father. He grabbed me and held me until my mother returned with our few valuables. Then he shot her too.”
“There was uproar and some men tried to attack the revolutionaries but they were all shot. I don’t think one survived. I don’t know because I was dragged away by Jose and you can imagine what happened to our friends and neighbors. If you can’t, know that the men were executed and the women raped, even children.”
“My dear,” Freda said, and stepped forward to comfort Maria but Maria stepped away.
“No,” she said, “There was worse to come. Keep your comfort for yourselves, these people may well win one day and even you will not be safe.”
“Go on,” Pauline said.
“After he could do no more, he called others. They too were spent at this point, having had their way with all the village girls and even, they said, some boys, but at Jose’s instructions, they violated me with anything to hand. They thought it was funny. How they laughed. You, Señora, are a nurse. I will show you my scars if that will convince you.”
“Then what happened?” Pauline asked, her face expressionless, her voice calm and neutral.
“They grew tired and left me, expecting me to die of my wounds,” Maria said, “and I was certainly desiring death, the pain was so intense, but I crawled and eventually ran. All I wanted was to be away from the village. I saw other women were running as well, all hoping to be away before the guns were turned on them.”
“I hardly dared to look back because I feared they would see me and give chase. I learned later they were too busy stoning to death women and girls who hadn’t tried to escape. But then my whole focus had to be on the forest ahead and the uneven ground below my feet. Once I slipped on a pool of blood and almost fell onto the body of our neighbor, Ernesto. He must have been working with his animals when the guerillas first arrived.
“The forest and safety seemed so far and I invented markers to drive myself on. They wouldn’t follow me once I passed that wall, I told myself. And when that wall was passed, I invented a new marker. He definitely wouldn’t follow past that broken-down truck. Then another marker; he wouldn’t follow me beyond that rock. I remember thinking, beyond that rock he wouldn’t even see me. Then I remember nothing.”
Maria stopped and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Her face set in a furious expression, she continued…
“When I woke, I was being carried. I tried to ask what was happening. Then I woke again and I was in a tent, in a bed, and everything was white. It looked like heaven and sounded like hell, for there were people screaming, crying and moaning around me. I couldn’t understand it. I felt serene, without the pain and fear I’d known. A man in white came and looked at me closely. I should have been ashamed. I wasn’t ashamed. All I could feel was hate for the monsters who’d done this to me and our small community. I hated them.
“I drifted in and out of sleep and I didn’t know what time or day it was. When I was awake, I still felt wonderful, far away from everything and everyone. But it seemed I wasn’t as well as my serenity suggested. One day, the doctor told me I had an infection. I was to be flown to a bigger hospital in the north. I couldn’t really understand why for I felt so happy, but I didn’t mind. I thought being away from there would be good.
“But it wasn’t good. My insides hurt. My head hurt. Being carried to the plane wasn’t comfortable and the buffeting in the plane during the flight was worse. By the time I was carried off and back to a new bed, I couldn’t stop weeping. The following days were a blur. The following weeks, mercifully better. One day the pain in my stomach and groin was bearable, I could walk with help. Soon after I could walk unaided, and not long after that I could hardly remember the pain. Only the scars remained to remind me. That, and the bad dreams.
“My wounds, however, turned out to be in my favor. I was accepted as a refugee to Ecuador and I gratefully accepted. I hoped that I would never again see my country or my fellow citizens for if I did I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t try to kill them. It was a relief when I flew out to my new home in Quito.
“My relief, my pleasure, however, drained away as the days became week
s and then months. I knew no one and work was hard to come by. I had no skills that would pay as well as I needed for the medicines I have to take. All that I could find were cleaning jobs in hotels and they were dreary. Then I saw an advertisement for cleaners on a cruise ship and I applied. Sunshine and warmth were what I craved. Quito’s weather, swinging between biting cold and then draining heat made me feel suicidal. And the pay was better, much better on the ship. A month later, just two weeks ago, I joined the ship at Guayaquil as it prepared to take visitors from Europe and North America to the Galapagos Islands.”
“That’s when it happened?” Pauline said.
Maria nodded.
“There was a staff meeting the day before, where we went over our training lessons. Others on the ship had worked for other cruise lines. I was one of the few new staff and didn’t know anyone so I was alone in the group as we walked down the corridor back to our quarters. We passed through an open area where a group of men in coveralls were talking amongst themselves, seemingly innocent but I suspected they were hanging about to check out the girls.
“Suddenly, I found my sleeve being tugged and I turned to face the man who held it. Even with the beard and moustache, I recognized him instantly. My whole body froze and I couldn’t breathe.
“‘You made it too,’ he said, in a conversational tone like we were friends meeting again after escaping a disaster. ‘We must talk.’
“‘Sadly, so did you, I said. We will not talk or meet. Get away from me.’
“‘Go on deck seven, at the port side smoking area. I’ll meet you there,’ he told me.
“‘I will not meet you anywhere and if you come near me again, I will tell the ship’s security and they will inform the police,” I said. ‘Your only hope for a future outside jail is to leave me alone and leave this ship at the end of the voyage.’
“He let my arm go. ‘I’m a refugee also. My story is as good as yours. Deck seven, I’ll meet you there.’
“I returned to my room. I was shaking so hard I could hardly walk, my mind reeled at the shock. I slumped on the bed and tried to plan. Would security even believe me? Then my dismay turned to rage, and I knew what I was going to do. If he’d left me alone, he would have been safe. He wasn’t going to do that, so I would take my revenge. It was simple justice, in my mind.”
Pauline watched her carefully as she spoke, unhappy at the choice before her. If Maria’s story was true, then it was a just ending to Jose’s violent, cruel life. But was her story true? She should ask Freda to examine Maria but, if her story was true, that would be an additional cruelty practiced upon a woman who had suffered, and continued to suffer, more than anyone should have to. “Nevertheless,” Pauline said, “it is not for private citizens to execute others. You should have alerted the captain and had Jose arrested.”
“Perhaps, if I was someone from another country, another world, who had stumbled upon Jose’s secret, that’s what I would have done. But I am not that neutral observer from another world. I was terrified and at the same time consumed with rage. He still had the chance to leave me alone. That’s all I asked. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it?”
Pauline didn’t reply.
Maria continued, “I took a steak knife from the crew’s dining room and met him on deck seven, as he’d demanded but not the place he’d chosen. I waited in a dark corner, this dark corner, where no one would see him with me. I didn’t want anyone to think I would be with such a creature. And I had a plan.
“Maybe my choice of a dark corner was a mistake. Maybe it led him to think I was giving in to him. I don’t know. He grabbed my arms and pulled me to him. I thrust the knife point under his chin. He stepped back. The gate swayed and moved and he toppled. He let go of me and tried to grab the railings, but he was too slow. He seemed to hang in the air forever, his behind resting on the wobbly rail, and then slowly, too slowly to my eyes, slid off and down.” She paused, her expression filled with horror and her eyes focused far away.
“But you knew the place you’d chosen was dangerous, didn’t you? How did you know that?”
“Yes, I knew. During the orientation to the ship, the staff were taken on a tour. It was hot and sunny and on deck seven, where there’s nothing above, many of us gathered in this corner where there was a little shade from the superstructure. Those of us at the back of the group, leaned against the railing. One of the girls leaned against the gate and it moved. Her neighbors grabbed her before she fell. We giggled quietly for we didn’t want the officer giving the talk to think we weren’t listening. It was nothing. Silliness.”
Maria’s attention once again drifted away to the times before and she seemed lost to her present danger.
“And then?” Pauline asked sharply, to bring Maria out of her trance.
“When he said meet on deck seven, it came back to me. I knew that God, or maybe just natural justice, had created this chance for me to make him pay for his crimes.”
“Go on. What happened when he fell?”
“I looked over the rail when I heard him hit the deck below. He was lying still but I didn’t know if he was just unconscious or really dead. I ran quickly down the steps to where he lay. He was dead. I’d been terrified of him when he was alive and now I found I was equally terrified of him dead. Everything would come out and they would say I murdered him. No one was about. I heard no one coming. I ran back to my room and threw the knife overboard on the way.”
“How did you know he was dead?” Freda asked.
Maria stared at her as if she were mad. “I saw so many dead people on the day he and his friends mutilated me. He was dead. I was only sorry I had killed him, for it put my own life, so recently regained, back in peril. I didn’t think he was dead because I wished it but because I could see it.”
“You may not have killed him directly but you were responsible for his death,” Pauline said. “You told me you had been a believer once, does your conscience not give you pain?”
“When he grabbed me that first day on the ship, my faith had been returning slowly and then he was standing in front of me, laughing at my terror. I thought, why would any just God do this to a follower who had suffered as I had? I don’t know the answer to that. A priest would say the answer might lie beyond this life. But I know in this life I have suffered beyond what anyone should have to and I wanted my life back. You perhaps think I should suffer more. Well, I have told you the truth. I place myself, and my future, in your hands, Señorita Riddell. Choose wisely.”
Maria turned abruptly and walked away, leaving Pauline and Freda to gaze after her.
“Pauline,” Freda said, at last, “you can’t.”
“I believe in the law, Freda. Without it, we return to a world where the strong prey on the weak and might is always right. Sometimes, as we struggle to maintain our laws, things will be other than what we wish. This is one of those times.”
“I will not give evidence against Maria,” Freda said.
“Have you heard Jose’s side of the story?”
“No, but—”
“Then how do you know what we heard is true or, if essentially true, doesn’t have a different explanation?”
“I could ask to see her wounds,” Freda said.
“Do only the innocent have wounds?”
“No, but—”
“It’s not for us to decide. It’s for a court.”
“I’m going to bed,” Freda said icily, and stalked away.
20
Ecuador and Toronto
Captain Ferguson held the cabin door as Pauline walked into his room.
“Good morning,” she said to Ferguson and Somerville. “Did you start without me?”
Ferguson shook his head. “Not at all, Miss Riddell, we couldn’t. You were the one who wanted more time,” he said. “We’ve been discussing nothing more than the cruise and the islands. But, now you’re here, and you both have very little time before disembarking, perhaps you, Miss Riddell and you, Detective Somerville, can give me any
last minute, or final, thoughts. Can I tell the owners that all is well?”
Somerville looked at Pauline sternly before saying, “Miss Riddell rightly drew our attention to an injury on the dead man’s chin and suggested that this event was a murder and not an accident. I’ve looked at all the evidence, interviewed dozens of people. We’ve had information radioed and faxed in from the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Police departments and I can see no evidence of any wrongdoing. I have to conclude the scratch under the dead man’s chin has no bearing on his fall and death, however it might look to Miss Riddell. The Ecuadorian Police examined the scene the morning after the incident. They saw no reason to call it murder either.”
Captain Ferguson turned his attention to Pauline.
Pauline waited a moment to get a grip on herself before she said, “And I have no hard evidence to dispute Detective Somerville’s or the Ecuadorian Police’s conclusion, Captain. The company should not be concerned about this incident, beyond replacing that loose gate and I know you’ve already done that.”
“Thank you, both of you. You’ve taken a load off my mind. The thought we had a murderer on board who might strike again at any moment has been a concern to me throughout the voyage, as you may imagine.”
“There never was a murderer,” Somerville said. For a moment it seemed he would go on but he left it at that.
“I think you can be sure there will not be another incident of this kind on the ship,” Pauline said. “Now, I will take your leave for I’ve still some final packing to finish before I put my bags out. Thank you for a wonderful cruise, Captain, and for taking my concerns seriously.” She held out her hand. They shook hands briefly and Pauline turned to detective Somerville.
“Mr. Somerville,” she held out her hand, “it was nice to meet you. I do hope you have a good trip home.”
With that, she left the cabin and strode quickly down the corridor to her room. She stopped. Her mind made up, she headed back toward the lounge where snacks had been laid out for those waiting to leave the ship.