by Giles Blunt
“No, no. You must stay for dinner.”
“You’re very kind. But it’s better that I go.” He started down the stairs. As he did so, the door was thrown open and Lorca Viera stood in the opening with black accusatory eyes. It was the first time he had seen her eyes.
“Where is this Mr. Perez?” She glared at him as if she would spit. The black eyes looked him over, taking in his cheap jacket, his wrinkled pants. “You were at the little school?” Escualito. She had unnerved him further by speaking in Spanish, though English was the language of this household.
“Yes,” he answered in English. “I was at the little school. We never spoke. We were in different cells.”
“There was a Perez there,” she said in English. “They shot him.”
Victor looked at his feet. “I heard the same about you.”
“How could you even know my name?”
“Later I shared a cell with others. They told me your name. But they said you were shot.”
“Unfortunately, I did not die.”
“In my case, they shot the wrong man.”
“Bravo. So what do you want from me? You want to fuck me or something?”
“Lorca ….” her brother put in, but she went on bitterly.
“I got news for you, Mr. Perez. I was not raped in the little school, you know? So if you imagine maybe the guards fucked me so often I got a taste for it, you’re wrong, okay?” She had begun to shake from head to foot. The claw-like hand was white and trembling where it gripped the edge of the door.
“Lorca, please,” said her brother. “Mr. Perez only came to say hello. I asked him to come here. I thought you might talk to him. You don’t talk to anyone else.”
“But I did, Michael. I did talk, didn’t I? I talked too much, if you recall. And because I talked, our little sister is dead.” Once more she turned the black, excoriating eyes on Victor. “You some kind of vulture, is that it? You come to feed on what the guards left behind? Well, I’m not dead yet, Mr. Perez. Maybe when I am, my brother here will give you a call and you can come by and fuck the corpse.”
She slammed the door in her brother’s face. He looked down at the floor, shaking his head. “I have no words,” he said. “No words to tell you how ashamed I am.”
“It’s all right,” Victor said softly. “Your sister suffered a lot. She just wants to forget.”
“I am deeply ashamed.”
“Please, Mr. Viera. She just wants to forget.”
Viera said nothing more until they were downstairs. “But that’s the point,” he said. “Lorca does not forget. She cannot forget. She stays in that room all day long and all she can think about is that terrible place you were in. She has to talk to someone about it. It’s the only way she will ever truly forget.”
“Did she even come out to say hello?” Helen Viera stood in the kitchen doorway clutching a salad bowl in one hand, a wooden fork in the other.
“It’s okay,” Viera said. “Lorca is not having a good day, that’s all.”
“Lorca’s been having a bad day for going on two years, Michael. She was rude to you, wasn’t she.” The doughy, expectant face turned to Victor.
“It’s all right. She suffered a lot.”
“Yes. And doesn’t she let us know it. Are you sure you won’t stay for supper?”
“I am sure. Thank you very much, though.”
Viera opened the door. “You understand, my sister didn’t talk like this before the jail. This is anger, a reaction-well, it’s true she was always angry, but not like this, not in this pointless way. Most days she won’t even speak. She eats in her room. If you could have known her as a girl-she was so happy, so lively ….”
“She has a lot of spirit. I am sure she was delightful.”
“Mr. Perez, I don’t know what to do. This is so hard on everyone.” He tilted his head slightly toward the kitchen. “She has her good days, sometimes. Why don’t you give me a phone number, and I will call you when she is feeling a little more-”
“But she doesn’t want to know me. She said so very clearly.”
“Sick people are often not interested in their cures. Please, will you let me call you? In return, I will refund your consultation fee.” He pulled some bills from his pockets.
Victor tried to refuse the money, but the lawyer would not hear of it, pressing the bills into his hand. When Viera asked for his phone number, Victor gave him the number of the restaurant’s pay phone.
SEVENTEEN
A week after they had disposed of Lorca Viera, Captain Pena had taken Victor into the kitchen for what he called a cup of tea, although Victor had never seen his uncle drink tea. The Captain opened a pint of chocolate milk, which he gulped down with audible pleasure. Victor drank a Coke.
“Victor,” Captain Pena had announced sonorously, as if from a pulpit. “Victor. They can say what they want of me when I am dead. They can say that Pena was an ugly bas tard, they can say that Pena was a fool, they can say that Pena was too hard, too soft, too mediocre. I don’t care.”
“I’m sure no one will say those things, sir.”
His uncle raised one hand to forestall contradiction and with the other wiped chocolate milk from his moustache. “The press, the army, the bureaucrats, they can say what they want-and they will, too, I know them. But one thing they cannot deny. What they cannot ever deny is that Captain Eduardo Vargas Pena-no matter what the situation-Captain Eduardo Vargas Pena stood by his family. Always he was loyal to his own.”
A scream like tearing metal came from the interrogation room, where Tito was at work.
The Captain continued. “And as a man who always comes to the assistance of his family, I have-yet again, my underachieving nephew-I have yet again come to your rescue.”
“How, Captain?”
“The United States of America is offering to train five hundred troops at Fort Benning, Georgia. Fort Benning, my boy! The School of the Americas! All of our best warriors have gone there, all of our toughest officers. Believe me, a course at the School of the Americas is a sure ladder to success in this army. And I-by pulling more strings than you can ever hope to count-I have managed to get your miserable carcass into it.”
“You have? But that’s wonderful, sir!”
“Ah, you are excited, I see.”
Excited? Victor could barely suppress tears of joy.
“You have no idea,” his uncle went on, “how difficult it was to secure this opportunity, given your sorry record. I had to call in every possible favour-some of them imaginary. I owe a lot of people now, on your account. You understand me? A lot of people. Well? You have nothing to say?”
“I’m overwhelmed, Captain. Truly. I don’t know what to say.”
“Let me down again, and I will man the firing squad myself.”
“Oh, yes, Captain. Don’t worry. I promise I will live up to the family name.”
Another shriek from the interrogation room. A cheer went up from the tormentors, as if they had scored a goal.
Captain Pena drank the last of his chocolate milk and belched luxuriously. “You leave in two weeks. Make sure your papers are in order.”
“I’ll be ready, Captain. I promise.”
The Captain stared at him in frank assessment. “Forget what I said about the firing squad. Tarnish the name of Pena, soldier, and I will personally hand you over to Sergeant Tito, you understand? I will tell the sergeant to be sure and take his time. I think Sergeant Tito would enjoy that.” Captain Pena stepped out into the hall and, as if on cue, Tito tore from his victim’s throat another scream.
Victor’s transfer came in due time. But before he travelled to the United States, he removed from his uncle’s files the identity papers of Ignacio Perez. The first night the visiting soldiers were allowed off the Fort Benning base, he caught a bus, and then a train, and then another bus, to New York City.
He had not planned to work in a restaurant, but he knew no one, and no other job was available. Le Parisien was located on East
Fiftieth Street among a row of much better restaurants. Except for a trio of unpleasant waiters-all with identical moustaches-no one connected with the place was French. The owner was a shy, silent Greek who sat at his corner table sipping anxiously at a chain of espressos while his business sank inexorably into decline.
Victor worked a split shift, arriving at ten-thirty each morning and working through lunch, preparing salads and desserts until three. Then, after a two-hour break that he would spend sitting in a nearby branch of the New York Public Library, he would return to his station, little more than a stall really, and begin the dinner shift.
The French waiters said little to him, except to call him silly names when placing their orders. (Two profiteroles, Potassio. Three Caesar salads, Ignoracio.) They weren’t hostile, exactly, they just assumed he was an idiot because he was Hispanic, and because a chef’s helper compared to a professional waiter was a lowly thing.
The day after his trip to Queens, Victor took off his apron, raised the hinged countertop of his station, and walked out into the bright sunshine of Fiftieth Street. It was a cool spring afternoon.
Despite the chill, there were many people-clerks and secretaries, they looked like-seated on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. They looked carefree, Victor thought as he ascended toward the great bronze doors. He had seen grand cathedrals in picture books and movies, of course, but St. Patrick’s perfect neo-Gothic arches and beautifully carved saints were in stark contrast to San Salvador’s national cathedral, with its facade of bullet holes. There the Guardia had fired into a crowd of protesters, killing thirty. No one took their ease on those steps.
The vast interior was dark and cool. Smells of candle wax and incense brought back childhood memories.
As a boy, Victor had revered priests as God’s representatives on earth. But then the war came, and the army had taught him that priests were the enemy. The army hated the Church for many reasons. The teaching of history, with its catalogue of revolutions, they saw as subversive. And what need was there to learn of political systems less repressive than El Salvador’s? But the priests ignored all warnings.
Archbishop Romero had written a letter to the President of the United States asking him not to send any more military aid. He told the President that military aid was used to slaughter civilians. Then he had preached a sermon telling soldiers they should disobey orders that were against the law-orders to abduct, orders to torture. The archbishop was shot the next day while saying Mass.
Such courage, Victor reflected, and I haven’t even the courage to go to confession. He looked at the row of confessionals against the wall, where several penitents were lined up. He wanted to ask for forgiveness, he wanted to ask for advice, but he did not know American priests. He feared they might tell him to turn himself in.
He knelt in the back row and prayed for courage. If courage came, he would tell the priest about Labredo, about the boy. He would confess what he had done to Lorca Viera, and how he had intended to kill her, and how she had slipped at the crucial moment. If the courage came, he would tell everything, and maybe the priest would forgive him.
The courage didn’t come. Victor went back to work with a leaden heart.
All through the dinner shift, the waiters called him ridiculous names. Then suddenly there was a panic when a party of eight all ordered Caesar salads at once. Nick, the lugubrious owner, had cheered up considerably and came into the kitchen to help. Later, there was shouting across the stoves as Fidel the chef threatened to kill a waiter who cancelled an order for filet mignon he had already prepared.
Fidel’s Spanish curses echoing among the pots and pans were like an audio replay of the little school, and loathing swelled in Victor’s chest at the sound. English was the language of sanctuary, of rebirth, of anonymity. In English, no one knew who and what he really was.
By ten o’clock, the orders stopped coming. By eleven, the place was empty. Victor put plastic wrap over the mousse and threw out the whipped cream. He washed his chopping block and the half-dozen knives he had used. Nick told him morosely that he could go home.
Fiftieth Street was quiet at this hour. The air smelt fresh after the kitchen smells of frying meat and hot oil. Maybe tonight there would be no nightmares. Victor stood at the top of the restaurant stairs, struggling with the zipper of his jacket. It was a cheaply made thing of fake leather he had found in a Salvation Army store, and the zipper always stuck.
“Just leaving, I see!” Mike Viera was grinning up at him from the sidewalk. “I was just passing through the neighbourhood, Ignacio. I’m so glad I caught you!”
EIGHTEEN
Viera stood with hands in pockets like a boy who is uncomfortable with his adult errand. “I thought I’d missed you.”
“But you could have telephoned. I gave you the number the other day.”
“A sudden inspiration. I was working late. Yes, very late. And then I was heading toward the bridge and I saw your restaurant and I thought, why not stop and say hello?” For a lawyer, Victor thought, Viera was a poor liar. “Tell me, Ignacio,” he went on, “are you working on Sunday or are you free?”
“I’m free. The chef has a nephew who does my job on weekends.”
“Ah, good. I was wondering, you see, if you would be so kind as to accompany my wife and myself on a picnic in Central Park. We go to the park often on Sundays-it’s almost as good as going to the country. My sister Lorca will be there too. She is enjoying one of her happier periods, it seems.”
Far beneath his feet, deep in the white-hot caverns of the earth, Victor sensed a colossal grinding of gears. It was not over. “Your sister,” he said, and coughed to cover the catch in his voice. “She is expecting me to come?”
“She knows I am asking you,” Viera said, forgetting his tale of sudden inspiration.
“I don’t know …. After the other day ….”
“Don’t worry. She is in a much better mood, I promise you. Almost cheerful! You don’t have to talk about the little school, you can talk about anything you like. It is just a picnic. Just good food and good company. We have every reason to expect a pleasant afternoon.”
Victor looked up Fiftieth Street toward the traffic of Lexington Avenue. A taxi was blaring its horn at a bus stalled in the intersection. An ambulance went by, lights flashing. “All right,” he said finally. “Should I bring anything? Some food? Something to drink?”
Viera beamed. “You will be our guest. Your presence alone will honour us.”
Sunday broke fair-a crisp, clear day with fleets of white clouds chasing each other over the trees, a sharp wind gusting out of the north. Victor was glad of his windbreaker.
“Have more potato salad,” Helen Viera urged him.
“Oh, no, thank you. It was wonderful, but I assure you I am quite stuffed.”
“Nonsense.” She dropped a large dollop onto his paper plate. “We’ll just have to lug it home anyway.”
“You’re very kind. I seem to be eating everything in sight.”
They were sitting on a blanket spread out on the bank of a small pond. Behind them, the newly seeded Great Lawn was an oval of pale emerald. A hill across the pond was guarded by a miniature castle topped with a fairytale turret. A spot for lovers, Victor thought.
“Another ham roll?”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t.”
“Men. You always say no when you mean yes.”
“Don’t force him to eat, Helen.” Lorca was sitting under a tree, peeling bark from a stick. She didn’t look at them when she spoke. She bent over the stick, shoulders hunched, her hair falling over her face.
“I’m hardly forcing him,” Helen said.
“Believe me,” Victor put in, “I don’t have to be forced. This is the best meal I’ve had since I came to New York.”
“See? He likes it.” Mrs. Viera, who looked a tired thirty, spoke in the hyper-dramatic tones of a twelve-year-old.
Lorca stood up, brushing twigs from her jeans. She walked down to the edge of the
water. Victor was still afraid that she would recognize him-some catch in his voice, perhaps even his smell-and suddenly know with certainty what he had done to her. She had barely glanced at him for the past hour, but he was still afraid.
“Finishing off the food, I see.” Mike Viera was coming toward them from the washrooms.
“I gave him the last of the potato salad,” his wife said, snapping a Tupperware lid shut. “Lorca didn’t like it.”
Viera was wearing jeans and a green striped polo shirt, and looked ten years younger than he did in his lawyer suit. He snatched up a Frisbee and yelled to his sister, “Lorca! Catch!”
She turned from the pond just in time for the Frisbee to catch her in the chest. Victor expected an angry outburst, but she just retrieved it from the mud and tossed it back without a word. The Frisbee cruised toward her brother in a perfect arc. Viera threw it back. “We used to play for hours when we were kids,” he said to Victor. “Flying saucers, she used to call it. Never wanted to stop.” The Frisbee sailed over a low-hanging branch into his hand. “Let’s move away from the water. Come on, Ignacio.”
Victor had not played at anything since he was a boy. The game of catch seemed foolish. And he had a faint sense of rudeness that Helen Viera was not invited to join in. She sat alone on the plaid blanket, reading a novel by Danielle Steel.
He was completely uncoordinated at first. He threw the plastic disc too hard; it soared over Lorca’s head and she had to run after it. Then, in a single motion, she swung around and sent it curving toward her brother. Viera was businesslike, dispatching the toy toward Victor’s grasp with the neatness of a fact.
As the game progressed, Victor became more skilful. It even became easy. If only speech were this easy, he thought. If only trust and friendship could be so natural.
“This was a good idea,” he called to Viera. “To bring this thing along.”
“For a picnic, a Frisbee is essential. You didn’t know this?”